Yoga Is

Yoga is a practice that never leads to a performance. There is nothing to it but the act itself. The practice is the performance. The practice has been around for thousands of years, much longer than any of us. It was around long before we were even a thought, and it will be there long after we cease to be a memory. Compare that to countless fads that have come and gone. Yoga has stayed. Perhaps it has stayed because it is not perfect. We are not perfect. But somehow, practicing yoga is perfect. Because it is just a practice. Perhaps that is why it has stayed.

Yoga is downward dog into plank into two chaturanga pushups into upward dog back to downward dog. Yoga is mountain pose, chair pose, warrior one two, and three. Why isn't there a fourth warrior? Is reverse warrior the fourth warrior? Or maybe it's devotional warrior. Side angle, inverted side angle, triangle, standing split, half-moon, full moon, Inverted half-moon, inverted full moon. Shri namaskars one, two, and three. The list goes on and on. Fish pose, child's pose, headstand, shoulder stand, plow pose, bridge pose, wheel pose, that pose where you plant your heels and let your knees fall out to the side. Supdavadkanasa! And who could forget, the cat pose and cow pose. Is yoga a zoo? And every class always ends with the pose most looked forward to: corpse pose. Savasana. Ahhhh. That is yoga.

Yoga is the practice of yoga, but it is also the first step you take when you leave the practice of yoga. When everything feels a touch lighter. When you are 3 inches taller, and your posture is better. Maybe you are three inches taller because your posture is better. When the cold feels a bit warmer, and the sun feels a bit softer. Yoga stays with you the rest of the day. It peaks its head into the conversations that you have, the work that you do, the meals that you eat. Once it is in you, it doesn't leave. It affects you on an almost cellular level, and you don't mind, because somehow you are convinced that you're better off for it. That is yoga.

Yoga is constantly coming back to the breath no matter what the wind of life blows into your face. The breath is the thing that unites all of us, no matter who we are. We are all breathing all the time. We can survive without food for a month, without water for a few days, but without breath? Maybe two minutes. Perhaps we should take some time to focus on appreciating the breath that we have, the beauty of it, the pain of it, the happiness and sadness that comes with it, and the life that it gives us. That too is yoga. All of us breathe but not all of us practice breathing.

"Everybody's different, you don't know how you'll react, till you're in that position, and that's an actual fact." -Nas

Yoga is meditation. It is a visualization, of growth, of harmony, but also of chaos. Yoga is not the fixing of all that ails us, it is the understanding that we must accept the good with the bad, the yin with the yang because they are both yoga. Yoga is both failure and success, joy and despair. It is a practice! Just like life, there is no blueprint, there is no map, there is just a mat and time and the energy that you bring to it. Everything is what you bring to it. Everything is you, just as you are yoga, and yoga is everything. These are just words and you are just you and life is just.... life. And that is just a mat. All that is left to do is…. practice.

That too is yoga.