Question

How can you say yoga isn’t about posing when all the teachers I see are always talking with each other about getting into the poses?

Answer

It’s an easy habit to form, filling all our time with tasks. Always busy, always doing, not much feeling.

Have you heard the chatter around the yoga community? “Hey did you see her rajakhapatapuzzi? … I need to work on my parvritichandrabakhananda tonight … I don’t think I’ll ever master the ardhamukhazippitydoodada.”

Yoga community, cut it out! You’re scaring people!!

I’m pretty sure the original language for medicine wasn’t English.  I’m also pretty sure the state of medical care would not improve if doctors started communicating with us, or with each other, in Latin.

Kidding on choice of dead languages aside (unfortunately I studied two of them in school) – all this focus on getting into poses, step by step, task by task – what do you think that will do for you?

Practicing tasks is very good, for things like line jobs and middle management.  This is really useful.  It’s good to be able to do tasks.

But you don’t want to be a middle manager of your own life.  You’re the CEO!  So be it.

If you head into your yoga doing the same old thing – more tasks to complete! – that’s what you’ll get.  More tasks, less feeling, and less you.

Focusing on poses is a pretty efficient way to avoid focusing on you.  You can avoid that quiet task-less time when all that feeling – even the unwelcome ones – bubbles into your mind.  But that feeling is you.  It’s your base for intuition, for creativity, and for being the director of your own life.

Stop getting into poses. Start getting into you. If all you practice is the first, you’ll have some poses to show for it. If what you practice is feeling into you, the funny thing is you’ll be better at poses than the posers! More importantly, you’ll be the inspiring originator of your own happy great 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.

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