have fun
“When we really care about something, as many of us care about our yoga practice, we tend to take it too seriously. When we take it too seriously, it loses its lightness, the sense of exploration, the joy. So rather than turning the practice into a life sentence, keep it fun. The Ashtanga police will not come knocking on your door at midnight because you missed a day of practice. You want to cultivate a sense of balance between discipline and openness. You want to listen to your body; not push through injury or excessive fatigue. Seek camaraderie rather than competition in group practice.” (David Swenson)
I stumbled upon this quote by David Swenson earlier today. It struck a chord with me as I have been struggling with injury and fatigue lately and have been coming along to practice with some new ache to work around each time, until deciding just to take a break… but also the “camaraderie” idea struck a note with the recent potluck gathering. So I guess the basic idea is to have fun when practicing and to have fun when not practicing, sounds good to me!….
July 9th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Hey Laura,
This is a great topic. I know how it feels working through obstacles in practice. The last few months have been really challenging for me on many levels. For about 6 months I was exhausted every time I practiced. It got to the point that I was only doing vinyasas between each asana rather than each side and practicing twice a week.
I think one of the things that has really helped me is the regular coffees after practice with Sarah and Shari. Without encouragement I may have given up completely. More recently the pot lucks have given me a chance to spend some time actually talking and getting to know other Ashtangis. It’s been a rather interesting and good fun!
There’s this great quote by Guruji “Practice and all is coming”. When I first heard it I rather thought either – “I’m going to get everything I want and there’ll be no limits.” or “His English is so bad it doesn’t make sense.” The last 6 months of practice has really taught me about the “all” – the good and the bad, the peace and the war within. I wasn’t bargaining on that one : )
The other thing that has kept me going is I know things will always change (although I spend a lot of time clinging to my ideas hoping things won’t change). When I had my back injury I was in so much pain all the time for about a month I didn’t think it would ever go away and now it’s much better – but still not perfect.
The Ashtanga Brighton website is here to help us connect off the mat because we create this amazing silent community when we practice with so much energy and so few words.