Day 21 - Letting Go

We talk a lot in yoga classes about the concept of "letting go", but what do we actually mean?

On a purely physical level we are talking about letting go of tension and tiredness in the muscles. I always start my classes by getting my students to scan their bodies, looking for areas of tension and tightness and breathing into those areas, releasing on an exhalation. Then continuing with the idea of letting go on each exhalation I get them to release any fatigue, worry, stress or fear that they are holding on to -- let it go, allow the exhalation to take it away.

By letting go in this way we are preparing the body and centreing the mind for our yoga practice.

But we can let go on a much deeper level than this. As yogis we also need to let go of all the habitual behaviours that hold us back. We need to cut away the layers or koshas to find our true selves and relate properly with others. We need to let go of anxieties and fears that stop us looking at the world properly and at our true potential. We need to let go of all the unnecessary taks we do every day that we use as an excuse not to explore the new. Basically we need to let go of complexity to allow simplicity in.

I'm not pretending it's easy. Personally I'm not sure it's something I will achieve in this lifetime. But these things are worth bearing in mind, and when we spend time centreing and letting go of tension before our practice we should think about letting go on a deeper level. One little step at a time!

Choices

I had to make a decision this year. I had to decide which of my classes to cut back on.

During the last 6 months of 2008 I was teaching 2 regular flow classes a week, 1 gentle yoga class, 2 pregnancy yoga classes, 1 mum and baby class and a voluntary class at a cancer centre. It was too much. I was so drained that I wasn't giving any of the classes my best shot and I was bringing the wrong sort of energy to my students.

So I decided to merge the two pregnancy classes and run a booking system - first come first served - and to give up one other class.

I ummed and ahhhed about giving up the voluntary work, but it gives me so much happiness to know I am putting something back (no such thing as a selfless good deed after all) that I couldn't do that. So I had to look at my least lucrative class.

Mum and baby yoga. Not so much that I don't have a lot of interest, but more because of the nature of being a new mum it is very hard to commit to a weekly class and whilst 6 or 7 people would sign up for the class only 2 or 3 would turn up each week. So much as it breaks my heart to do it and much as I love the little ones, I have decided for now to put my mum and baby classes on hold.

My yoga teaching is going in a completely different direction to the way I thought it would. I thought I wanted to teach children, but I am finding myself going further and further down the yoga therapy route and I must follow my heart here. I've enjoyed teaching the babies but I have to give it up to put the right sort of energy back into my other classes.

Going to class...or not...

I haven't been to a yoga class this year!

When I first began my teacher training the first thing that suffered was my own home practice. I went to classes two or three times a week, but what with the studying and the lesson planning and working full time I often found I had no time for self-practice and when I did, I never really got into it as I was always thinking about how I would teach each posture, each krama, each vinyasa.

Now things have changed. I'm fully qualified, teaching four nights a week and maintaining a gentle self-practice and meditation each evening. But I have no time to attend class. This disappoints me somewhat. Yoga is a lifelong journey, I may have the piece of paper that tells me I'm a teacher but in my eyes I am still a student, still learning off those more experienced than me, still desperately wanting to be inspired by my two teachers. Yet here I am again, writing of "enough"; not having enough time.

Evening classes are out due to my own teaching, and as I'm working full time for another two weeks so are daytime classes. Now yoga may be my passion, my chosen career path and my life but I really really don't much fancy a 9.30 Saturday morning class either! So for now I must reluctantly continue with my self-practice, knowing that "enough" (and that lovely Monday morning flow class) is just around the corner.

My inability to make it to class recently has also made me think about my own students. The ones who pay for class passes and then don't turn up again, the ones who don't come for weeks at a time. I don't know what is going on in their lives and I have no reason to know, it is their life and their privacy. But I mustn't let my ego get in my way and think they are not coming because of anything I've done wrong. I must allow them to live their lives how they see fit, knowing they will return to yoga when the time is right for them.

I have to say though, I'm really looking forward to being able to go back to class.