With the world at our fingertips 24 hours a day, it is easy to be swamped with beautiful images of what yoga looks like. And it is true – these pictures are truly stunning, creative and a lot of the time come from an authentic place. However, there is also a subtle beauty that at times can be missed when you are deep in your practice or distracted and not present with your movement at all. These moments though are not captured and posted online – they play out understated with intimacy just for the person that experienced them, but on occasion you get lucky enough to witness one of these moments and you see yoga humbly working its magic.
For me, this was my week. I was fortunate enough to witness not one, not two but three of these moments of beauty within the walls of our hot yoga studio. The moments that make me explode on the inside and think – hell yeah! that’s why we yoga. Now, like I said these moments are discrete and subtle and not captured within the pose. The first moment was when a very consistent practitioner came out of a pose that normally she doesn’t enjoy or may even skip out, but not today – she trusted her yoga and went for it. Coming out the other side of the pose I peeked over to her and as she lay on her mat she was beaming such a beautiful proud smile, holding her hand on her heart and was giggling to herself – this outcome from a posture that normally makes her feel ill (cough camel, cough cough) I was ecstatic for her.
My second encounter was seeing a pregnant mumma move through her practice with the confidence and awareness that it was no longer just her practice but a shared practice with her bubba. Her practice was softer and her hand never far from her belly as if communicating with each other about their experience and when it was time for savasana she sealed her practice with a few quite words and eye gaze gently fixed upon her bump.
The trifecta for the week was from a long term student with a solid and continuous practice. This time I was in the role of teacher instead of the student ( well actually even when I’m teaching I still feel like I’m the student). With her palms together in front of her chest and eyes closed she set her intention for her practice, nothing out of the normal there – but when she opened her eyes, she gazed upon herself in the mirrors and smiled. If I had blinked or been looking the other way I would have missed it, but in that moment I caught it. It was not a smile of performance or putting on a brave face – it was a humble smile of acceptance of herself in that moment. Her smile reached all the way to her eyes and she gave herself just the slightest of nods.
I may never know for sure what happened for her in that moment but from my vantage point it looked something changed and most likely for good.
The beauty of someones yoga is most certainly seen outside the pose – but could you argue that they had to find the asana first to let the space appear for these moments of inquiry, acceptance, and connection to arise? Or is it intuitively in us as humans to create the space? hmmmm – I believe I sit in the camp of the former – that I had to find the asana first to get my head and my heart to come together. But I know that is not everyone’s tale.
