Shine With Grace

I have practised Yoga for some years now, a all-time beginner.  There is always a stretch that you have to work on, a pose that you can improve and something deeper to discover…

What I learnt form my Yoga practice is definitely much more than the physical postures, but a lot lessons that can be applied to our lives.

Concentrate or you will fall

In Yoga there is a lot of balancing work and you need to hold a pose for longer than you can expect yourself to.  The secret in keeping the balance and enduring the challenge?  Concentration.  The minute your mind wanders, you fall. 

Isn’t this also true in our daily life?  The minute we lose focus, we fall.

Don’t hold back

This is the bridge posture.  For very long I refrained from doing it as I felt that the simple version (there is always options in Yoga for beginners and more advanced learners) of it was already hard enough and there was no way I could do the full version.

I was wrong.

I remember that in one lesson, while I was struggling with the “simple version” of the bridge posture, I found that all my classmates, many of them double my size and double my age, were performing the perfect bridge, I asked myself what should I do.  I decided to give it a try and stretch from the half-way version to the full version.  Strangely, it felt much more comfortable and not as difficult as I thought.

The lesson learnt?  Don’t hold back.  Sometimes lukewarm is most embarrassing and energy-draining.

Strentch yourself

When I first started (and even now), I kept being fascinated by all the “wried” poses that I have to learn (and that the master have demonstrated…)  Until you practise it you won’t know how much muscle you left idle. 

And BTW, how much of our potential is left idle?

Quiet your mind

Yoga talks about quieting the mind.  And, the most interesting is whenever we try to concentrate and meditate, whenever we try to quiet our mind, there’re thousands of racing thoughts that we discover.  Hm…  My mind is full of all these incoherent and chaotic thoughts? No wonder I feel so unsettled all the time…

Relax!  When we are relaxed, when our mind is quieter and our brain waves slower, we are actually more creative and intuitive.   And, more importantly, we feel better about ourselves. 

A good coach and a clear mirror

It is very important to do it correctly, or otherwise it is very easy to get hurt.  At this juncture, a good coach and a clear mirror come into play.  

Always, we need a good coach to correct and remind us on the fine points that make the difference; and the mirror to check on our accuracy and progress.

Go with the flow

Every person’s muscle strength, flexibility and balancing is different.   What is most important is do what you feel comfortable and not push yourself beyond the limits.  Given practice and time, you will find that you can hold longer in a pose and go deeper in your fold.  Well, the headstand is still on my target list.  When I can finally find the balance standing on my head, I will aim for holding for 5 minutes in the pose.

Go with the flow.  While aiming at advancing, you allow yourself to make progress gradually and comfortably.  

Sweat and shake

Yes you don’t see us move a lot.  We stay in the same posture for minutes but it doesn’t mean that we don’t sweat.  In a very subtle way, Yoga is a pretty demanding “sport” that requires lots of strength, technique and concentration.  Many times, we sweat and shake like crazy just to hold for one more breath (which may mean a very slow 10-count, depending on how slow your master counts…) in that warrior post.

Giving up is always most tempting at the eleventh hour.  It takes much sweat to build up strength, to presist. 

Rest

You know which posture is most important in Yoga?  It is the rest pose at the end of the whole series.  As mentioned above, Yoga is a demand “sport” performed in a “quiet” way.  After 1-2 hours of practice, you have to allow the body to slow down and rest before proceeding to other activities.  So what we do is to lye for 5 to 10 minutes, focus on our breath and meditate.   Again, you will realise how hard it is to remain quiet.  You will find that it is indeed a big challenge to not move for 5 minutes (not even the finger tip), not to mention not to think a single thought apart from concentrating on the breath.

Be quiet and rest.  In the restless world, it is your calm mind that gives you clarity and perspective.    

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• Breathing Space
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