A year of practice

“A year of practice. Give yourself a year of regular practice!”, I remember Medha saying, after a sadhana class. A year seemed like a long time. Today, as I stand on the brink of a year of sadhana,  I feel like this last year was shorter than I imagined.

My sadhana began early summer last year. In the first few weeks, I wondered what I yearned for. Did I want to shed some weight, soften the voices in my mind, use class to wake up early, find friends or train to be a teacher? I couldn’t find definite answers to that question, but I knew that I simply wanted to go back every morning: summer sadhana was energising, peppy and infused with movement. 

As the practice progressed, the seasons did too and the question lay lurking in the background, unanswered. I was enjoying the process of discovering the practice more.

One fall morning, we were taught that we practice yoga to give to the world, not to take for ourselves.

This idea flipped my perspective. I did not have to answer the question, “What do I want from class?” anymore, I could simply use my yoga sadhana to give. I’d known that every yoga practice gave me something - energy, laughter, pain, joy. All of this changed me, and as I carried this change throughout the day, the people I spoke to, family and friends, could feel this shift too. I soon learnt that the practice was not about me, and definitely not entirely for me. Fall taught me to shed some of myself.

Yoga through the seasons

Late fall, I could see that my life began to revolve around sadhana. I slept early, ate food that felt light, and packed the weighing scale away. Me, my body and mind had settled into a habit. Half a year in, I felt confident to  deepen my practice through teacher’s training. I had imagined that my love for classes would only grow in  leaps and bounds, but I was wrong. 

With deeper practice, I hit my first set of resistances. I began to notice how difficult it was to show up in class and  on the mat. I cried, squirmed, flinched and simply just lay down, feeling defeated. Mornings were harder, nights were longer, and meals became irregular. I felt guilty and ashamed for being unable to carry on. I did not want to go back to class simply because my body felt tighter, slower, and unwilling. I had to practice in a way that supported it, to meet my body where it was. But, I didn’t want to. I pushed myself until I couldn’t  anymore. Thus, practice became erratic.The oppressive winter of my practice had begun. 

With this came the need for rest, which I struggled and wrestled with. The anxious mind doesn’t take to slowing down easily. When the lows arrived, I learnt that I could no longer fight this fight. Slowly I began to realise that all seasons need to be experienced as they are. I began to drop onto my mat and it was only then that I learnt what it meant to truly practice shavasana. For the first time, I experienced what it is like to let the body drift into a soft slumber. Winter, too, finally came to an end.

I began to see the grace that my mat carried - I had cried on it and I could come back to laugh on it.

Spring was ushered in with a more steady practice, a blossoming back to rhythm. Mornings began to feel warmer, inside and out. I could feel the returning vitality of practice as sweat dripped down onto the mat. 

It is early summer now, if you were to ask me why I go to class (almost) everyday, I do not have an answer. I go back to my mat to just be, which is the hardest thing I’ve had to do - to rest, watch, observe, notice and wait. There is something new I discover about my body, breath and mind in every class. These lessons teach me how to live a fuller, sillier, lighter life. It helps that this life is shared with the wonderful teachers, friends and community at the shala, all of us nourish each other with a love that is life-changing. All in a year, you might wonder. Yes, all in a year. 

“Give it a year”, I repeat Medha’s words to everyone I meet. I am met with sighs, disbelief, smirks, and some curiosity. “A year?!”, and I nod. A year is a long time, but it is also a short measure to the life that you will come to live. A lot changes in a year, and I can only earnestly hope that you discover this for yourself, too.