This Is Yoga
Posted October 30, 2014by Orin Kurtz
I’m supposed to write a yoga teacher blog. But I have nothing to say today. I think I may be at a plateau, and that’s just fine. You don’t have to have something to say all the time.
So, here are a few stories I was *going to* contribute for this blog, before I realized they are no longer about the present. These are stories about great things I learned that are now integrated in my life, and I don’t have to think about them anymore but they’re still with me.
The day I realized I’ve got the yoga bug: It was a 7-degree January day and our hot water was out. So I took a cold shower. My wife asked if I was annoyed. I said maybe I would be if I had some expectation of what a “shower” should be.
The day I learned of teacher training (TT), I immediately said “I’m doing that.” Then I found out that TT was 8 weekends in a row, Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday. I thought, how can I balance that with a life that is already full between career, wife, dog, exercise, music, etc? So I decided I just wouldn’t think about it. Law school was three years and I survived; this is only 8 weeks.
During the first weekend of TT, some people got really emotional. But not me, I was just fine (so I thought). Until I started having amazing, life changing dreams after weekends of TT. Then I realized that everybody processes things differently.
Fast forward to the day, halfway through TT, when I realized I was no longer “engaged” with small things like people’s complaints and other minutae. I realized that my tank was full, there was no space for things that were not along my path. And I was also calm enough to observe things without being attached, just letting them do their thing and pass on by.
Now forward to last week, when a bunch of stuff came up at work and I realized that the next few weeks would be really busy and would require a trip to California for an expert deposition the day before our TT “finals weekend.” I was up all night, stressed out and having trouble sleeping as I sorted through everything in my head. Until I thought, what’s the worst that can happen?
And then come to today, right now, as I’m writing this blog. My wife’s interns are showing up at our apartment, it’s 9:00 am on a Tuesday and I should have left for work a half hour ago, the dog is barking, the music (that I put on) is blasting, and I’m here writing this blog without being distracted by any of it. The noise fades and I’m letting the words flow. That’s yoga.