The Handprint of Yoga

Yoga has a way of connecting people through a shared experience that isn't about winning or losing or teamwork or productivity. The magic of yoga happens when practiced in an environment that nurtures curiosity, humor, acceptance, and a sense of belonging.

In "Who Do We Choose To Be? - Facing reality, Claiming leadership, Restoring Sanity", Margaret J. Wheatley says the following.

"Ours is a culture obsessed with the pursuit of happiness. As a consequence of this, we are more lonely, estranged, and lost than at any other time on this planet. The 32,000-year-old cave paintings and Paleolithic sites of paintings, pictographs, and petroglyphs all have handprints on the walls. Handprints, one on top of another, stamped there over tens of thousands of years, images from another time of togetherness.

How do we indicate we're together? Number of followers. Number of likes on a post. Being friended. A long snapchat streak. Nearly at the speed of light, we can tell our popularity. Some are entertained by these counts; others watch them obsessively and manipulate them so that, for a brief moment, they appear as the most popular.

Popularity is not the same as feeling you belong. How sad if there's any confusion about this."

I have been pondering the direction I wish to take as a yoga teacher. (Don't be alarmed. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not quitting, and there are no big changes on the horizon.) But I must admit that the lure of social media, of trying to create something big has crossed my mind.

But then I wondered, what does that mean anyway, something big? For someone like me, the tiniest adjustments we find in practice feel enormous and seeing you show up for class week after week has been a tremendous gift. When I approach this question - what does it mean to do something big - with humility, I am reminded that I wouldn't be a teacher without all of you.

Yoga is not one person, me or you, it is an us experience that includes my teachers and their teachers and innumerable students going back in time more than 5,000 years. Together, we move through space and move space through our bodies. Together we shape how we relate to and practice yoga.

Every time you come to your mat it adds something to the collective wisdom of the practice. It is another handprint on the wall of belonging to something bigger than ourselves.

Sending love from my mat to yours.

Namaste,

Kathryn