Come Rain, Come Shine

By Vedran

All too often, when the Sun is shining bright and the weather is all nice and summery and I step into a yoga class, I think to myself "Naw, I don`t think that many people are coming today!". And all too often, it actually turns out to be true. It is very human and not at all strange to think that "On a beautiful day like today, why not skip my practice?". But what about those days when it rains and it`s too dreary and we skip our yoga classes? Or it snows and "it`s too cold to go to a class". Or something or other happens and we chose to do something other than our yoga practice? There is always and there will always be a reason to skip yoga practice. Observing things like these is a good opportunity to try to find out what your yoga is all about. Is it just about lifting your bottom a notch or three, streching your hamstrings or looking like your trendiest self as you strut through the streets carrying your yoga mat? Or is it about changing much more than your muscle tone? Yoga is a demanding lover. You get a lot but you have to put in a whole lot yourself. Yoga practice is not merely an excercise system. It is a spiritual, devotional practice that accidentaly (or not) includes amazing physical benefits. Our yoga practice mirrors the rest of our lives, like it or not. The physical part of it is there to remove physical obstacles form your path toward self-realization. If you skip practice in order to go get some suntan, it does say something about your priorities.
Yogananth of Pure Yoga, Hong Kong, quoted one of his teachers who said that doing one hour of yoga a day keeps the doctor away. And if you are a yoga practicioner and you think that you don`t have time to do half an hour of yoga practice daily, you might want to consider what this says about how much you value your life. You don`t have HALF an hour? Exactly what did you spend those thirty minutes doing? How much tv have you seen? How much time do you spend blindly surfing the internet? Or on mindless chatter about nothing and everything? So, you don`t have time to do your yoga?
Far from me fanatically propagating yogic asceticism, I think it is important truthfully reflecting on what you practice yoga for. We should all practice yoga because we LOVE it. We love it when it`s a breaze and we should love it when it`s hard. In his fabulous book "Light On Life", B.K.S. Iyengar says that there is so much focus on the negative in yoga because that is exactly the stuff we are working on. Those are the things we are working our way out of, be it physical weakness or rigidity or their mental and emotional counterparts. That is why we talk so much about the negatives. Our apparent helplessness in face of all things that stop us from being all the amazing stuff that we can be. In all respects. So, you want more strength, flexibility, you want to develop wholesome discipline and focus, you want to free your mind? You want to be the master of your mind? You want to get that vinyasa or your headstand right? And you don`t want to practice because it`s sunny or raining or snowing or because your favourite talk show host has announced a "shocking surprise" on television? Well, maybe you should reconsider. Nothing comes without a cost. The Sun will be there when you get off your mat.
Having said all this and having ranted about how we should practice relentlessly, I do firmly believe that not practicing is sometimes the best practice. Yoga practice should never be your bondage. It doesn`t always have to be pleasant, because often it isn`t, but fundamentally you should always love it. Yogis can sometimes slip into a kind of obsessive compulssion that torments them when they don`t get to practice. There will be times when you sleep in and you don`t get to do yoga. Or you`re somewhere where you just can`t roll out your mat. Or you`re exausted. There will be times when you in all honesty know that you just can`t practice. Well, rest, I say. Your yoga shouldn`t drive you nuts. At these times, we have yet another chance to remember that yoga practice is not just what you do on the mat. It`s also everything else! It`s being present where you are. It`s about honouring every breath and every moment. It`s about being your best self given the circumstances. It`s about seeing yourself mirrored in everything, knowing that awareness can take you through anything, being ancored in your breath and the feeling of your feet on the ground (or off). THAT is what makes you a yogi! And that is exactly the attitude that will get you on the mat when you actually both can and should practice, come rain, come shine.