Have you ever tried to force someone you know to be more flexible? Have you ever tried to force yourself to be more flexible?

It doesn’t work so well, does it?

This holds the same whether you walk into a meeting and try to force everyone to go your way, or you go to war with your tight muscles. Force is typically met with equally forceful resistance.

No matter how strong you are, there is always something that will push back. You might win occasionally, likely by accident. More often, you’ll break something, in your relating with other people, or in yourself. Then you’ll have not much left to work with.

Tara and I get to see this around the yoga studio sometimes. It’s normal in the traditional yoga world to think that getting a pose is winning. So when we get visitors from that old world, we sometimes see a lot of pushing, forcing and struggling for the win.

The thing is, I’ve never seen it work. Sometimes, by accident, I’ve seen people force themselves into things. They get the pose. They crash out of the pose. They hurt themselves. All this time, they’ve practiced struggle, frustration, and force. It’s not a win.

Around Strala, winning is happening all the time. People aren’t pushing or forcing into pose goals. People are getting into themselves, and working easily with everything they’ve got. Which is everything they need. It’s a good winning formula, for yoga and for life. Strala people are really inspiring.

You can keep winning occasionally by accident, but it’s nice to improve on those odds. Drop the struggle. Try moving into what you want with ease. When your mind is easy and peaceful, rather than struggling and aggressive, your body responds by relaxing and becoming more movable. This happens on a chemical level.

When your mind is easy and peaceful, rather than struggling and aggressive, people also respond by relaxing and becoming more movable. This also happens on a chemical level.

This doesn’t mean you dissolve into a quivering mound of jello without goals or a desire to win. It means you learn to navigate through your life in a way that’s not injurious to yourself and others, and likely to create something good, often better than what you can predict.

Practice this in your yoga, and you’ll get it in your life.

-Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training