Why do you actually do yoga? If you’re young, healthy and balanced? What is the need to constantly subject yourself to a regime of watching your body in stillness and movement? You may think you’re doing yoga to be able to take a nice selfie, in impressive poses. Or to get your body ‘bikini ready’. To avert diseases. That may all be true to some extent. But I think the greatest value of continuous practice is that you have a foundation. To be prepared for when you need it. Building up a reserve, putting money in the bank, for more difficult times. If you exercise to maintain your body and mind, to feel it, to be in contact with it, you can also do that if you are under extreme stress. If you’re used to practicing, you can also practice for recovery when you need to. If you are used to facing the restless movements of your mind, and noticing that all those emotions, thoughts, feelings are transient, you can fall back on that knowledge when emotions run high.
Over the past two weeks, I have experienced what it’s like to face the facts. Pain, fear, uncertainty. I am currently admitted to the UMC, with so far an unclear diagnosis. There’s something in my lung, a mass, and they can’t see what it is with scans. But it causes problems. So it has to go, along with a lobe of my lung or maybe my entire lung. That’s the short story. The long story is very long, and nothing is clear, so I’ll leave that for what it is. But this way you know why things at the yoga school are now a bit different than they used to be. Claas does a lot, but also has to take care of me a bit. And fortunately, we have fantastic teachers who all help.
Of course, I feel insecure and anxious. And I can allow that. Because I’ve practiced to see how the emotions rise, increase, engulf me… and then also ebb away again. I can now, before surgery still move well and stay in shape (sometimes to the surprise of the nurses), and my left lung takes over quickly and from the right. So I feel quite good, actually. Thanks to those reserves that I have built up over years. So, guys, keep practicing! You don’t know when you’ll need it.
Now on the website: Below you can read about how to continue your practice with us in the summertime, and about how you can get refreshed and inspired in a delicious Summer Workshop with Tally, or with Garth McLean in a workshop about the Nervous System (or actually, really about just yoga). And you can expect more information about our In-Depth Course soon, and about sessions with Eyal Shifroni later this year.
We keep looking ahead!
-Hiske