why I love yoga

I love yoga for many reasons. 

First and foremost, it helps me maintain balance in my life. By that I mean it gives me permission to take time for me! It brings me closer to the connection between my mental health, my emotional well being, strengthening my body and connecting with spirit.

Another great reason I love Yoga is that it makes me feel beautiful.  When I get into dancers pose, I imagine myself as free, transformed with grace and poise.  Yoga can take you to anywhere you want to go. All you have to do is be. 

Yoga takes on many different versions from meditation, relaxation, to steady movements of flow. Any day of the week you can take a class or even practice at home and it will be your choice of which practice you choose for the day.  I base my practice on how I feel that day or more importantly how I want to feel when I’m finished.  

Yoga has made me more conscious of my daily decisions and how I interact with others. There have been many times in my life where I have reacted to a situation instead of responding. Now I think about how my actions will not only affect how I feel about myself but also how others see me. There is a rippling effect to all of our interactions with others.

 Every person you meet, converse with, even those you pass on the street. Yoga has brought me closer to the profound impact we all have on one another.

Yoga is not only yoga, it’s so much more! You will find what you’re looking for if you are open to it. We all need something of our own to bring us closer to our true selves, for me its yoga.

Michelle Greenslade

Why I Love Yoga !!!

I have always enjoyed being an active person; swimming, cycling, gymnastics,
coaching, teaching, learning. But once upon a time, I got caught in an office job
and I found myself in front of a computer for long hours dealing with stressful
situations. I fell out of activity. I got lost in gyms. Machines and weights are
terrible conversationalists. I didn’t like being yelled at in robotic aerobics classes.
Spin class are not my jam. I worked as a lifeguard so long, I developed an
allergy to chlorine.

What to do, what to do? !!

I missed my body. We didn’t know each other any more. I never seemed to move except from place to place, my car to my office chair. Thebody needs to move! Yoga seemed like a way to do that. I signed up for classes and had the good fortune to be introduced to yoga, and reacquainted with my body (especially my toes),with Hart Lazer. The attention to detail was painstaking. What a foundation. I loved every minute and have tried to make yoga a part of my life since then.

The Yoga Centre Winnipeg IS my jam!!!!

Yoga is a lovely way to do my own lovely thing with a group of lovely people doing their own lovely thing while guided by lovely caring attentive instructors that invite me to explore.

I am not told so much what to do, but rather asked to feel my way through a series of poses that open my body, mind and soul. It can be energizing or restorative. It is always inspiring. Best for me, yoga makes me happy! Yoga is by far the best way I have found to stretch and move and enjoy being alive. Bonus lovely are the associated paths yoga has led me to: meditation, spiritual practices, consciousness literature. And yoga stretches itself off the mat and into my enriched daily life:
   
          Awareness. Presence. Gratitude. Positivity. Kindness. Humour.

It even influenced my career move of getting out of an office and into being a massage therapist. Woot! And best of all, I know it is something I can do til I’m 80. Or older!

Namaste ~ Pat!!!

Finding Space

My yoga mat is a very busy place.  When I roll it out on the studio floor and stand back to admire its colour (purple, my favorite), it looks like an empty mat.  An open space, reserved just for me.  There to support me, encourage me, hold and heal me.  And it is.  An open and empty place; until I step onto it. 

I think of caged water, pushing hard against its limits and the intensity of the release when its allowed to flow.   That’s what happens when I step on my mat only its not rushing water, its all of the other things.  Past experiences, failures, and embarrassments.  My distorted perception of myself, my mental illness, my fears and all of my broken pieces.   They are on that mat with me and sometimes for me, the greatest challenge on my mat is not the practice of yoga at all, but the practice of sitting with all of those judgments, that fear, that illness, those broken pieces.  

It was only a few years ago that yoga found me.

We had been introduced years before that but I wasn’t ready for it.  It wasn’t time.  I say that because the practice, for me, is more than movement and growth of my body but truly a movement of everything I am. My spirit and mind are holding that Plank and feel sensation right along with my thighs.  When I started the practice, I was deep in a depression and one of the hardest parts of my being in a deep dive is that my eyes don’t look the same.   They are flat, there is no spark, I can’t feel the essence of who I know I am.   Reduced to a pilot light, knowing I am a blazing inferno at my best.  Looking in the mirror, facing that darkness, was too big.  

The studio where I began to practice had mirrors along the walls and one day I came to class and the only places left in the room were at the front, face to face with the mirror.  The place I had been avoiding. 

I rolled out my mat, that optimistic space that quickly became so very busy as I stepped onto it.  Moving into Tadasana, grounding my feet and feeling the rooting and strength grow through my legs, exhaling and allowing my shoulders to relax back and open my chest.  Arms passively at my side, submitting to the fear of the impossible task ahead of me.  Slowly, my gaze moved up the mirror and there they were.  Those empty eyes staring back at me and the sting of tears rolling down my cheeks.  I just stood there, the rest of the class passive in Svasana, I stood there.  Fighting a silent battle, waging war on an invisible illness and beginning to see the utter lack of compassion that I feel for my illness, my fears, my broken pieces.

  The hardest work I did in that class, that day, wasn’t the practice of yoga. It was the practice letting go, the practice of learning to make space for all of the things about me, whether I like them or not.  Whether I have control over them walking on that mat with me, or not.  Learning compassion for ones’ self, making room for all of the pieces is hard.  It burns like the deep lunge of Warrior II, it takes your breath like sun salutations, challenges your balance like Tree.  Learning compassion for yourself, all of yourself, is sometimes the deepest stretch. 

The fact is, like so many others, I have fears, I have mental illness, I have broken pieces.   They are part of me, they walk with me. We can’t always control the things we are given but we can control how we walk with them. Hating them, resenting them, is hating me, wishing away me, my parts, my pieces. 

The greatest practice on and off the mat is finding balance with them all and learning to smile at the darkness.  To find softness in the hard places. To push through the long holds and be strong knowing you always have the power to make space, to find a place, for all of the pieces.   

Namaste

Jennifer Forzley

Loving Yoga

The Bhagavad Gita defines yoga as, “the practice of tolerating the consequences of being yourself”. As soon as I read that phrase I adopted it as my definition of yoga, namely, as a practice which has come to both guide me and inform me of who I am and what I do. But what does tolerating the consequences of being yourself mean to me? It means being authentic or being true to myself, being honest with myself and accepting the consequences of that. Inherent in the phrase is the suggestion that one needs to know oneself  in order to be authentic. But the funny thing with yoga is that I am learning something about myself every time I get on the mat and as often, when off, living my life. (Sometimes I feel what I learn is profound, while other times it’s just mundane bits and pieces that make sense to me). So, for me, being authentic is an evolving process. I start out thinking I know myself fairly well, and am then surprised and sometimes disheartened by the depth of knowing that happens on the mat when I am still and can listen, instead of when I am trying to get somewhere or be someone.   Yoga reminds me to pay attention. It reminds me to be patient. It reminds me to be compassionate.,  and it reminds me it is an ongoing practice.

Tolerating the consequences of being myself also means truly accepting who I am and where I am in the moment, understanding that this moment is all that I have, is all that is. For me, it means that yoga is an active, alive and vibrant experience or entity or journey,  forever shifting and changing. Kind of like the ocean or a dance. It means that I have to surrender to being myself, warts and all, as well as jewels and all.  It means that no matter what I might want from a pose or practice, the pose or practice may well have something else to teach me. I am slowly learning to listen to this voice.

I love yoga. I love it when I feel great and I love it when I don’t. I love it when I can “master” an asana and even when I can’t, which I now understand as the constant.  I love the walls that are there for me to take down. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I have tackled something hard and have found success. I love the feeling of quiet and stillness I experience some days and alternatively, the excitement and energy I experience on other days. I love the feeling of fellowship in the studio. I love what each teacher has to offer. Through yoga I am becoming the person I want to be. For this and for all it’s gifts, I am grateful.

Ruth

There is no room for more than this.

No space for past and future

And

What I really am,

Who I really am.

The house is too small

For all that has been

And all that will be

And all the distractions of now.

The inhale catches and holds.

The exhale like a sigh.

What is a sigh except resignation?

What is a hold except fear of what’s to come?

There is something inside

Too painful to touch,

Too beautiful to see

The breath inside the breath

Do I know this to be true?

Do I think I know this to be true?

How will I know what is true?

Open the door

Open the door

Open.

Kathy

Roundabout Reflections

8 years old:

Sitting in my grandmother’s living room on the beige carpet …

A news blip on the TV in which a woman celebrates her 100^th birthday. She folds like a pretzel, putting her feet behind her head with a big grin on her face. She’s been practicing yoga for 60 years and here she is, as vibrant and as flexible as I was with my as yet un-fused sacrum. Maybe she’s on to something.

13 years old:

My friend’s yoga teacher mother invites our whole soccer team to a series of 3 classes. We learn about ‘monkey mind’, about ‘corpse pose’ and that if we do inversions before exams we’ll think more clearly. We giggle and show off our youthful flexibility and levity, floating into headstands and flinging into handstands. We get tucked in for savasana, with tiny sandbags over our eyes. It is so comforting.

19 years old:

How am I already not as flexible as I used to be? In my first class since that fleeting introduction, a yoga teacher frowns at my downdog and pulls my hips back, trying to force my convex back into a more acceptable shape. My hamstrings scream.

23 years old:

I’ve been hitchhiking and camping all over western Canada, sleeping on uneven surfaces and living rough. I’ve also been sitting in stiff plastic chairs through interminable university classes and paper-writing sessions with slumpy posture. As a result I’ve been saddled with chronic back pain. It even hurts to lie flat on my back sometimes. Something’s pinching. I get an x-ray and a CT scan. I see a physiotherapist to correct the bulging disc in my lumbar. We set a goal together. I would like to practice yoga. I don’t know where this comes from but I know it’s what I need. I do the exercises until my muscles strengthen and my back pain lessens. I sign up for Iyengar-style classes with the same friend’s yoga teacher mother from the junior high days. I diligently attend a class a week over the next two winters. I feel taller, stronger and lighter. I stand in tadasana while waiting for the bus.

29 years old:

I have a dedicated yoga spot in my apartment. I feel it when I miss my practice. I work in male-dominated, physically demanding jobs and apply yogic forms while hauling gear. My 5’3” 130lb body can somehow keep up with their 6’3” 230lb ones. I love the dynamic strength that yoga allows me to build. I love the feeling of euphoria and clarity after a transformative practice. I love picking apart the anatomy and mechanics of a pose. I love delving into the yogic philosophy of the human mind and body; it keeps me grounded, it sends me higher, it brings peace. 

How Has Yoga Changed My life

My first yoga class was a community centre yoga class that I took with both of my parents when I was a teenager. It was taught by the mom of a boy that I went to school with. I remember even then thinking that she had the best job and that I also wanted to teach yoga when I grew up. From that point on I never stopped doing yoga or learning about yoga.

Yoga for me is applied practical spirituality. I spent many years deeply involved in Goenkakji's Vipassana Meditation but it was so much sitting and not enough moving for me. I have always loved to move my body from the time I was 5 years old when I insisted on taking dance classes, to my teens and adult life when spiritual intuitive dancing took over as my number one blissful renewing activity.

To have yoga in my life as a firm foundation for learning and practicing the art of keeping my body, mind, and spirit healthy is the greatest blessing. It makes me wonder how I became so deserving as to come across such a great gift so early in my life. My yoga practice has brought me through many trials and tribulations in this life. From the time after my daughter was born and the majority of my body was covered in a rash from head to toe for over 5 months and I courageous continued to attend yoga classes despite my appearance, to the many days when life was overwhelmingly difficult and my greatest accomplishment was to invest in my future by committing to my daily yoga practice, to this current time in my life when I am courageously stepping into the unknown as a single mother in the world. Yoga is and always has been from the first moment I discovered it been my number one go healing practice.

I may love dancing more but there are days I cannot dance and there will never be a day that I cannot practice yoga even if it is simply lying flat on my back observing my breath.

Yoga is my foundation. Yoga is my support. Yoga is my medicine. Yoga is my refuge. Yoga is my celebration.

Yoga is my devotion.
Yoga continues to teach and guide me.

- Michelle Louise Marie (embodiedwisdom.ca)

Yoga Changed My Life

Breathing in. Breathing out. Arms up over my head. And then that moment when I feel like I can't hold it any longer. The relief of moving my arms down. Feeling the blood rushing back to my hands as they come down to the ground. Making the connection between the mind, the body, the soul. Facing challenges in everyday life the same way that we face these physical challenges - with perseverance, patience, understanding, forgiveness, kindness.

And then the celebration of the success when we've finally accomplished that goal. Or maybe even more learned yet, the failure of not being able to succeed the way we wanted to. The everyday life challenges, work challenges, those goals that can sometimes seem unreachable. Just like how we deal with our physical challenges. Those toes that we cannot yet touch. That pose that we cannot yet quite master the way we think we should be able to do. It all takes time and effort.

Making that connection between how we deal with life to how we deal with our yoga practice. Its an amazing way to get to know yourself. This yoga path. To be able to recognize your own patterns that maybe you never even knew you had. The good, the bad, the whatever they may be but trying to accept them. Accept yourself. Accept others.

These yoga postures, this yoga practice. its so much more than meets the eye. To me, its a representation of life. A representation of who we are as human beings. Its a representation of how we deal with success, failure, for ourselves and for others. It has brought so much awareness to my life. Sometimes scary, sometimes beautiful. Trying to appreciate the good with the bad because there's a lesson with all of it. It is what it is and will become what you make of it. Forever learning with the help of my yoga practice.

Why I practice Yoga?

Yoga did not change my life overnight.  It has been a gradual change over time.  In my early adult years I witnessed the harmful effects of obesity, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and diabetes in my family.  I made a commitment to not take my health for granted and to make exercise a regular activity throughout my life.  Since then, I participated in a variety of sports and physical activities that helped me stay healthy.  At the same time I was finding that the brief ten minute cool down at the end of a step aerobics class was not nearly enough release for my muscles, joints, as well as my restless mind.  I felt a need for some sort of complement to my aerobic exercise.

                                                     

It was about ten years ago that I started looking for yoga teachers in the small rural Manitoban city that I was living in at the time.  Fortunately, I found two talented teachers who had been trained through Yoga Centre of Winnipeg.  I remember learning poses with strange Sanskrit names.  I remember the challenge of the unfamiliar poses as I stretched and contracted my body.  I remember the infusing flush of warm energy.  I also remember learning awareness of the flow of my breath. 

The physical benefits were soon apparent.  The stiffness in my hips and legs released.  The frequent tension carried in my neck and shoulders melted away.  As flexibility and range of movement increased, my body’s movements became more fluid.  From the practice of both long held poses as well as faster flowing sequences; the additional benefit I did not expect was the strengthening and toning of my body.  My arms, legs and core felt more stable, while the dull recurring ache in my back was no more.  It felt as if my posture had been unfurled and the effort to support my frame had lightened.

Another welcoming development from practicing yoga has been an increased calmness in my everyday life.  The lessons of breath, focus, patience, acceptance, and perseverance practiced on the yoga mat have illuminated my life outside of the studio.  When I realized how beneficial yoga practice was to my body and life, I wanted to learn more about it.  It started as one, two, and then three classes per week.  If I missed a class, my husband could sense my disappointment.  As we moved from city to city over the passing years, I attended yoga classes in community halls where occasionally the whiff of beer from the previous weekend’s social still lingered.  I attended yoga classes at the neighborhood gym where the loud cacophony of hungry summer day camp children waiting outside our glass walled studio/lunchroom tested many of us students ending a session in restful savasana or corpse pose.  Most importantly, I attended yoga classes when life was demanding and stressful, as well when it was quieter.  Since attending classes at Yoga Centre in Winnipeg, I have eagerly pursued a deeper understanding of yoga poses, pranayama (or breath practice), meditation, and philosophy.  Presently as I work on completing my basic yoga teacher training, I see my yoga practice as a wonderful lifelong journey of study, discovery, and reflection.

By Ann

My Relationship with Yoga

I cannot even recall when or how my interest for yoga begun. However, I do remember the day that my parents gifted me my first yoga book and mat, it was Christmas and I was 12 years of age (I still use the mat to this day). Since then I’ve tried going to numerous yoga studios, attempting a home practice and having an on-and-off relationship with yoga. I never lost interest in it; I just simply didn’t make enough time to fully immerse myself in the practice.

About a year ago, I joined a hot yoga studio and went consistently for the entire winter. I was feeling great! My body felt wonderful, my mind was clear and I simply just wanted to learn more. My desire to learn more lead me to enrolling in the teacher training program at the yoga center. I was so nervous; I thought I was going to be out of place since my skills were definitely not on par with experienced teachers, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was not the case; the class was filled with so many different people, at so many different levels. But what I love most about the teacher training is just how much I love attending the workshops and the monthly philosophy classes. In my five years at University I was never really eager to attend a class, so I am exceptionally happy that the story is different this time around. I am delighted that the eager 12 year old girl who just wanted to put her legs over her head (still have not reached that goal) is now a 26 year old woman who still has that same passion she had 14 years ago. Yoga has taught me, and is still teaching me patience, love and self-care. Overall, my journey at the yoga center has been wonderful, the teachers are amazing, the classes are exceptional and I am constantly being challenged… and hopefully improving.

Even though committing to a daily practice is something I still greatly struggle with, yoga is something I think about every day. I have become more in-tune with myself and I have started to deal with things a lot differently than I would have a year ago.

I am truly thankful that yoga is something I have been able to consistently stay in love with after all these years!