How I Think About Yoga

Even though I was drawn to Yoga as a logical next step after ballet, I’ve never really been able to fully embrace it. The last few years especially I’ve felt burned out and kind of “icky” about the more popular and trendy aspects of yoga as more and more pseudoscience BS and individualistic practices seem to become the norm.

The physical aspects of yoga (the asana, flow etc.) also leave some pretty big gaps in terms of fitness. No pulling motions, only body weight, insufficient cardio. Of course there are plenty of benefits. I tend to be a pretty gentle movement practitioner myself, which is one of the reasons I was drawn to yoga. The focus on introspection, and really listening to your body, train you to live in the moment and be brutally honest with yourself.

For me, the aspects the make yoga beneficial are not limited to commonly taught asana, or hot yoga studios. I find them in so many other things as well as: strength training, playing with the dogs, connecting with my partner and loved ones, knitting, being outside, cooking fun food, making the choice to eat vegetables, really enjoying ruffles potato chips with jalapeno cheddar cheese dip. Sometimes these things are really easy, and sometimes its really hard. Because life is messy and annoying some times (a lot of the times).