Learning is one of those things I just can't seem to get enough of.  In fact, if I could be a professional student, I would.  Seriously…there is something I find so energizing about learning – I like the challenge of learning something new, I like expanding my knowledge, I like the way my brain feels when I’m trying to understand something, and I love being in community with other learners. It’s so invigorating!!!

One of the many things I love about the yoga practice is there is always something to learn.  The yoga practice is so vast – there are the asanas or poses, along with anatomy and kinesiology, the philosophies and teachings that take the practice off the mat and into our lives, the pranayama or breathing practices, subtle energy centers like chakras and nadis, the language of Sanskrit, not to mention meditation, mudras, mantras…oh my! The list is endless. 

To be truthful one of my favorite things to study and learn more about is the body – I can’t seem to get enough of learning how the body moves.  It’s endlessly fascinating to me.  This fall I’m exploring strength training, which I’m sure doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with yoga, but for me it does.  As someone in an aging, female body, I know it’s important for me to challenge myself with external weights to continue to build bone density and muscle strength.

Now, I will be perfectly honest...just lifting weights is not something I'm always excited to do. But, I’ve been exploring ways to weave together yoga asana with weight training, and it’s been quite fun. Think plank pose while “rowing” dumbbells, or shifting in and out of Warrior III with a weight in my hand.  Now these are not things that I’ve come up with – these are exercises that live outside of the yoga world, but when I link them with my breath and bring my attention to how I feel on the other side of the movement, then it becomes Yoga to me – not just an exercise.

I was in a webinar with Judith Lasater recently and she said that the Yoga isn’t the asana, but the residue that’s left. And it’s with this thought, that I consider much of my movement practice as Yoga, even when it doesn’t look like traditional asana. When I bring in the teachings, like ahimsa (non-harming), svadhyaya (self-study), satya (truthfulness) to my movement practices, and when I bring my attention fully to what I’m doing and the experience/effect of the movements on my body, mind, and heart after I’m done moving, then it feels like Yoga and not merely exercise.

Of course, learning can be anything you are curious about not just movement or yoga asana. And in my opinion, our Yoga need not be limited to asana, or meditation, or mantra.  You can bring the Yoga into anything you learn, from a new task for your job, to a new skill or hobby, to learning a parenting or partnering technique.  I think the Yoga shows up in how we approach what we are learning.

Some things to observe might be:

- Where is your attention when you are learning?
 - Are you breathing as you learn? 
 - Are you rushing just to learn the basics and do the task?
 - Can you feel your hands, for example, and what they are doing during the task? 
 - What is your posture like?

These are all things we can bring our attention to, and when we do, we start to practice Yoga.

I love this quote by Swami Chetananda.  It speaks to me as I look at everything I learn – from a new movement skill to a teaching technique to a new way to parent Maddie  - as a chance to grow myself as a human being:

“Growing is the most important and essential endeavor that a human being can undertake. You can make and lose money; you can be promoted and demoted in the world. Never, at any stage, is there any certainty about what will happen to you in this life. However, there is one thing that nobody can ever take away from you – the growth you attain through your own search for Self-knowledge. Furthermore, this growth and understanding become the foundation that sustains you through any and all worldly difficulties, and that allows you – whatever the form of your physical experience – to find in life a continuously unbroken flow of total well-being.”  Swami Chetanananda. From Yoga Gems, edited by Georg Feuerstein.

What are you curious about learning? How do you want to grow?

Check out my schedule of classes and videos for more movement practices!