As both a teacher and a student of yoga, I frequently encounter the same questions: “How long have you been practicing yoga? And why did you start?”
My personal journey into the world of yoga began about ten years ago when a good friend and I decided to try the yoga class offered at our gym in Calgary. It was a period of major transition in my life. I had just finished law school and was starting the career I had worked so hard for. Although I was still in my mid-20s, unhealthy habits were already becoming ingrained in me. Long, sedentary days at the office were followed by evenings at home in front of the TV, or meeting up with friends at a pub for drinks and nachos. So I joined a gym, in the hopes of losing the weight I’d accumulated and having an outlet for the stress of my job.
I enjoyed working up a sweat on the cardio machines, building muscle and willpower with weights, honing my rhythm and coordination in step aerobics classes, and kicking butt in Tae Bo (yes, it was back in the Tae Bo days). But after several adrenaline-charged classes of too many side kicks, I injured myself. It was time for a new approach.
My first few yoga classes were instructed by a lovely woman named Maureen - ironically, also a lawyer-turned-yoga instructor. Maureen had a quiet, calm, welcoming presence unlike anyone I’d ever met. As her soft voice led us through a series of gentle postures, I wondered what had taken me so long to try this ancient practice. It truly felt like I was coming home.
I continued attending classes at the gym and also invested in a few yoga videos to use at home. My practice was sporadic but I always seemed to return to it. I enjoyed the physical aspects of yoga, and the improvements in my flexibility and body awareness. But the mental, emotional, philosophical and spiritual aspects of yoga were becoming even more compelling. It was amazing to learn how over thousands of years, yoga practitioners have grappled with the fundamental questions of humanity: How should we live our lives? What are the causes of human suffering and how can we free ourselves from suffering? How do my body and mind relate to each other?
For the first few years of my yoga practice I often felt emotionally overwhelmed when I lay in savasana (corpse pose, or final relaxation) at the end of class. As I would lie on my back in stillness, eyes closed, waves of emotion would wash over me. Sometimes tears would stream down my face - not tears of sadness or joy, but simply of release. I realized that these rare moments of inwardly-focused stillness were allowing me to connect with something deep inside myself that I was either unable or unwilling to experience before. Yoga taught me to stop “doing” and to simply start “being”.
I recently read an interview with Neal Pollack, whose book Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude chronicles his journey into yoga after setbacks in his professional life. When asked why people are drawn to yoga during difficult times, Pollack answered:
Well first of all, people start doing it because it’s offered for free at their gym and some people start doing it because they have a bad back or some other injury. But if you’re one of these people who starts it for some mental or emotional reason, I think you just reach a point where nothing else works and nothing else seems to make sense, so you just throw caution to the wind and say, All right. I’ll give this a try, too. That’s kind of what it came down to.
Since that first class at my gym, yoga has helped me survive many major life transitions, from career upheaval to moving to a new city to being diagnosed with major depression. It was also instrumental in re-establishing a positive relationship with my body after unsuccessful infertility treatment. I felt called to share these benefits with my fellow human beings and so I decided to become a teacher.
Today there are few things in my life that bring me more joy than teaching. In one of my favorite yoga books, Meditations From The Mat, author and teacher Rolf Gates explains that the word "educator has its origins in the Latin word educere, which means to lead forth or draw out. As a yoga teacher, I don’t believe that I’m creating anything that doesn’t already exist within the student. I’m simply drawing forth what’s already there, using movement and breath as a guide. Every time I teach, I am both honoured and humbled to be present for moments of physical and mental transformation, whether it’s a student being able to touch her toes for the first time in years or finding some relief from stress and anxiety.
Will yoga make all of your problems go away? Probably not. Is it a cure for all diseases or a replacement for other types of exercise? I don’t believe so. But if you’re looking to improve the relationship between your mind and your body, I can’t think of a better place to start - especially when nothing else seems to be working.
By Erin Westman (J'Adore Dance Yoga Instructor)