How are things, are you still feeling summer vibes?
We had a good run of sunshine here in the UK.
I sense corona fatigue out there, or people busy and needing to get on with it and the adaptation to changes. We humans are incredible that way.
Some of you may have had losses. I’m sorry, really sorry, if that’s relevant to you. I can’t do this justice with any words here.
Financial strain is also beginning to show itself. I was in the hairdresser the other day and the woman next to me was telling her stylist that everyone in her company was laid off – via email – with one week notice. She had worked at her firm for 20 years. “And I get an email from HR. Not even a phone call,” she said.
Another woman, to the other side of me, was telling her hairdresser that her contract was terminated, that she couldn’t find a job in her industry and at 44 years old she had no idea what else she could possibly do.
Perhaps there might be ‘back to school’ jitters creeping in? (Never goes away in my experience, the constancy of Autumn and September make sure of that). Most of us love Autumn. It’s a beautiful season of colour and richness. Though also, for us northern hemisphere folk, we know there comes a point when a Sunny September day suddenly turns into a a seemingly-endless wet, cold Tuesday. Then there’s that shadow of… a Winter ‘second’ wave…
But let’s lift and keep up our spirits. What else can we do? Trying times are the key times to dig deep into trusting our core to see us through, and also to go up and be lighter – to free ourselves little by little of what really doesn’t matter. We need to travel through these coming months without unnecessary burdens.
Yoga, as I understood it, was always an ‘inner practice’. (Which is why I find it so odd it’s become an ‘outer practice’. Yes, I put myself on Instagram, but I’m very aware what I’m putting up on there isn’t actually ‘the yoga’). The regularity of getting on the mat has been so grounding, and no more so than this year. Yoga’s physical effects are to impact our body, our physiology and our nervous system is such a way that our spirit keep us lifted. Just like you can’t change your mind or mindset with the same mind that created it, you can’t change how you feel just by wanting or wishing it. Something has to be transmuted and touched – alchemy if you like. Yoga is that something that does the transmutation.
Being an inner practice (that yes, can make our bodies ‘look nice’ – but let that be a side effect to appreciate if it happens but not rely upon), I invite me and you to enjoy a happy by-product of Yoga going live and online:
-that we can, drop the polish.
Be yourself, in your space, as you practice. Have the video on or off. Be comfortable. Forget make-up – let alone having the latest £99 leggings. If you’re a guy – well, we don’t care if you have a 6, 5, or 1 pack – we love it that you turn up and join in.
From my side, as your Teacher: I love that I am ‘with you’ in real-time. It’s live. I’m like you – in my space. We both are relying on tech that could let us down. You might have people or pets around you – and that’s ok. I might have the young neighbours out in the garden playing awful music while I teach to you from my London flat – and that’s ok.
This isn’t you, putting on a 2004 YouTube ‘Beginners 20 minute Yoga sequence’ and pretending to be fully present.
This isn’t me, in a fancy studio, with high-tech equipment and acres of space, telling “someone out there” who’s pressed play or bought a subscription, what to do.
When I’m with you in my live-online classes, I’m with you. And I know, you’re with me – in some respects closer than when were in a studio or Hall together because our faces are watching each other, directly.
Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching in person – and I am already again, with some private clients. I also want to run Retreats – as soon as is possible. And get us together in person for some lovely weekend afternoon practices.
But there is something in this online yoga live teaching that gets us dropping our guard. No longer is ‘what we look like’ the name of the game – curiously, online, it’s the connection that counts.
-pic credit: Claudia Tremblay
