Each day, I acknowledge and respect how difficult it is to be a student of Ashtanga Yoga. There are a few key reasons it is hard for me to show up every day on my mat:
- Early to rise
- Early to bed
- The allure of extra cuddle time in-between
These are baseline struggles, though they sometimes sink in tooth and nail. The real struggle is the difficulty of the practice itself. Of course, there’s profuse sweating, breath management, muscle fatigue, and intense stretching, but what I’m referring to is the mental gymnastics that accompany practice. Just having to listen to my mind run through an endless train of thoughts for an hour and a half is enough to bore me to death. 99.9% of these thoughts are garbage, rooted so deeply in my nature that getting rid of them is seemingly impossible. In particular, I wish I could escape those more familiar thoughts that are completely negative in nature, the ones I’ve held close for so long that the thoughts themselves appear tangibly real. It may be years or it may be never that some of these core thoughts and beliefs disintegrate.
I have been able to shed one negative thought structure, and it’s one that all yoga practitioners have experience with. The thought I’m referring to is comparison. It’s a nagging, depleting internal “practice” — to constantly be in a state of comparison with your fellow yogi/ni. When I first starting practicing yoga seriously, I had a general sense that I wasn’t the type to participate in that level of judgement. It wasn’t until I joined the Ashtanga Yoga shala that these sorts of behavior and thinking truly outed themselves. I’d been comparing myself to others the entire time, and, from that, keeping the yoga lifestyle just out of reach.
In the past, anything I read about Ashtanga just made me think that it was probably the most boring type of yoga out there, but something led me to the shala that first day. That sort of behavior is not entirely “like me.” Showing up at a shala “open house,” alone? Talking about myself to strangers? Never! My desire for a deeper yoga practice overcame those silly concerns, though, and so did the first introduction to the practice with my teacher. The first thing I learned from my teacher was to LET GO. I’m not sure if this is what most people would say, or what my teacher would communicate as her first lesson taught. Most people would probably highlight the lesson on ujjayi breath, or the asana sequence itself. But mine was to LET GO. After having to sit in padmasana in front of my teacher while she listened to my ragged breathing was enough to get the message across. After having to sit in padmasana in front of my teacher while reciting back to her the Ashtanga opening mantra in seriously broken Sanskrit was enough to get the message across as well. LET GO. Of your pride. Of your embarrassment. Of your ego. Of your awkwardness and self-monitoring. I became completely glued to the practice. You get used to being watched by your teacher. You get used to being very close to another yogi/ni while practicing, occasionally (and accidentally) knocking them with a wayward leg or arm. You get used to being touched tenderly, intimately, and without sexualization, but also to be physically and emotionally adjusted by pulling, yanking, and being sat on. You get used to talking to someone (anyone) with sweat slipping into your eyes, with snot clung to your nose like a badge of honor. I no longer care what the person next to me is doing. When I break drishti and lock eyes with anyone else, it’s with a sweaty smile.
The Boredom Diaries 