Yoga exists in the world because everything is linked -- Desikashar

Most of my life I felt a disconnectedness from my body.  In second grade I overheard my ballet teacher talking to another student's parent about me.  My mom was at first suspicious then outraged when I ran home to ask, "Mama, what's un-quart-nated mean?"  Like many kids who too quickly grow tall and lanky, I didn’t know what to do with my limbs, so they kind of just flopped around loosely wherever I went.  Yes, I was the proverbial last one picked on the P.E. team (oh, how I detested what seemed like every other kid’s favorite class), and I hated being asked to dance at parties.  I was also the class klutz, leaving a wreckage of breakables behind me wherever I went.

My awkwardness quickly became a way to define myself.  I never even bothered to attempt basketball, tennis, or any other sport.  I just told myself those “weren’t my things” and cultivated other hobbies that were more in my comfort zone—reading, writing, music.  Weren’t all those things more valuable anyway? It wasn’t until I was around thirty that I decided to embrace that part of myself that had been ignored—my body. 

I started with a little Pilates.  Someone had described me as “willowy” and suggested that working my core might leave me feeling a little more grounded (physically and emotionally). I enjoyed Pilates, but I quickly found that my real place was on the Yoga mat.  For once, my willowy limbs had a place to stretch, forward-bend, and down dog.  For once, my body had a place in my life—and my mind and spirit followed suit.    

I quickly found myself in back bends, cranes, and headstands, but the balancing poses were the hardest for me.  I had been practicing for over a year before I could move my “tree” away from the wall.  Seeing my frustration, a yoga instructor reminded me, “You’re here to learn balance. Someone else might be here to learn flexibility or core strength, but your lesson is balance.”

My willow tree is fairly strong these days, though a breeze still rustles its leaves a bit.  But I don’t care if I have to touch down and start again—falling out of a balancing pose is not confirmation that I don’t belong in a Yoga studio, that I’m some awkward, bookish kid who is best sitting on the sidelines. Didn’t someone say that we were spiritual beings living a physical existence?  Sure we are. But we can’t reach that spiritual plane without learning the lessons of the body. 

So I find it appropriate that Yoga means “to unite,” or more literally “yoke” (from the Sanskrit yuj).  Yoga has a way of connecting what is disconnected, yoking what is separate. We are practicing the poses of life. Some days we stand strong like warriors, other days we melt into child’s pose. Life is as fluid as the body. And only by connecting with the body can we transcend it.