Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Doing Without Doing

After my practice last night with Baron Baptiste and his Core Power session (which I scored yesterday at Ross for $3.99), there are two concepts which I am trying to wrap my brain around this morning.

The first is the recommendation that you never go beyond where you are comfortable in yoga. In this sense yoga is about accepting yourself where you are. It is not a competitive activity. Even when taking a class you are never to compare yourself with others in the class, but to do what you can do. This keeps you from injuring yourself.

However, at the same time yoga is about challenging yourself. Pushing yourself to go beyond your what you believe you are capable of.

I think that difference lies in the two realms of your "self" which yoga is aimed at uniting: the body and the mind. In yoga you are often encouraged to listen to your body but to quiet the mind. As physical beings our bodies have limitations. Sometimes our hamstrings are tight or our backs are sore or our abdominals are weak.

Our minds also have limitations. Fear, insecurity, anger, impatience, etc. In some poses our minds limit us more than our bodies. Mine often says "I can't." But when pushed I find that physically I can.

1 comment:

RC said...

That picture is hillarious...now doing w/ out doing...

hum? gotta think about that one.

--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com