Years ago, long before I started teaching yoga and when I was quite new to the practice, there were many poses I cannot do. Just the same, I knew it felt good to practice. I didn't know the reason why but I knew that after taking a class, my skin glowed, I felt happier, and my walk home would feel like I was skipping instead of walking. One day, after one of those classes, I saw two maya birds by the street, and I thought to stop and observe. I wasn't in a hurry and I wanted to see what they were up to. And there they were: one bird would take a few steps forward, the other would follow; one would perch up to higher ground, the other would follow. They did this for some time, like a courtship dance, and it was quite a pleasure to watch. It made me see the beauty of what is otherwise the ordinariness of life.
I feel that it is only during this month when the focus is "Why Asana" that I go back to this memory and I understand what went on there. Asana, the physical practice of yoga, trained me to pay more attention to what had been there all along. I saw things I didn't previously notice. And when we pay attention, we will come to realize that there is no such thing as a coincidence, and no such thing as ordinary, because everyday we live amongst tiny miracles, amongst beauty, amongst goodness. This life itself is a courtship dance. Even asana is a courtship dance where we learn to fall in love with ourselves. Asana has the power to make us feel more alive and more connected because we learn to be in the present moment. We learn to see things as they are; not as we are. We unmask, layer by layer, our defenses, our armors, our preoccupation with the past and the future. And so it does not matter what our physical body can "achieve" in the poses, because the movement of the body in itself is a miracle.
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