Yoga, What is it Good for…

I sit and I wait.

High tempo music playing at volume. A fitness instructor shouts “30 seconds left!”

A dozen or so brave souls have signed up to a week of ‘bootcamp’ in the Algarve (Portugal).

They’ve come to get fit. They’ve come to eat nutritious foods and they’ve come to be told “Do this now”.

Do this now is a mentality I’m very familiar with from my days in the Royal Marines.

Joining the military you sort of agree to hand over your autonomy to something bigger than yourself.

Show up at the right place, at the right time with the right equipment is an unofficial principal of being in the marines.

Too hot, don’t fancy wearing a heavy and sweat-inducing helmet today?

Tough shit.

Thirty miles deep into a loaded carry and you’d quite like to stop…

Guess what? It’s not your choice to make. Get your head down, your arse up and keep following that person in front of you.

Giving yourself totally and utterly over to something far greater than yourself is the work of Saints and I can’t help but think is this what young soldiers are scratching around in the dark for?

A sense of serving the whole and not the ‘I’ Me individual??

Of course this noble aim is quickly and ruthlessly corrupted in the hands and hearts of men.

The music has stopped. There’s laughter. The nerves have worn off and I think they’re enjoying being pushed.

Doing burpees, press ups and squats is a long way from a spiritual enterprise and I wonder what they’ll make of my yoga class.

My yoga class is a long was from a spiritual enterprise as well I’m sure.

I think I’ll open with the question; What are we stretching anyway?

“1 minute gone!” Guns & Roses’ Welcome to the jungle blasts out.

Could I ask you that question?

When sit of stand on our yoga mats, what is it? What are we stretching exactly?

Muscles, tendons, ligaments…connective tissue or fascia if you’re trying to impress.

All of this is true, but it’s also a superficial answer.

What’s driving the holding and the tensions in the first instance?

Stiffness through old age or bent over jobs that we hate?

This was a revelation to me…

Under general anaesthetic we lose consciousness and our bodies go all floppy. In fact, surgeons have to be careful not to dislocate a patient’s shoulder when moving an arm because there is zero resistance.

Contortionist levels of flexibility soon disappear as the general anaesthetic wears off.

So, what is it about our conscious waking state that produces so many limitations in our bodies?

Could we say it’s our personality coursing through our limbs?

Maybe we get all fancy and say when we stretch we’re actually meeting our psyche.

I could google some definitions of what the psyche is or isn’t but I want to say it’s the sum total of what you think about the world and what the world thinks about you.

Maybe less romantic but more useful we could think of it as stretching the brain?

An opportunity to give the brain information so as to reimagine how it organises itself.

There you go my dears. Your yoga mat. A place to reimagine yourself.

I couldn’t be any more pretentious if I tried but I think it’s true what I’m saying and more importantly it’s useful stuff.

I think sticking on a YouTube and having a yoga teacher tell you to do this now is a lovely way to do a yoga class. Enjoy a time out from adulting. Just let someone else take the reins for a while.

But maybe once in awhile sit down on your mat and ask yourself ‘what am I actually stretching here’?

Don’t be surprised to find the answer to be dark, shame filled, grief stricken and all the other flavours of human.

Be the tenderness that you want to see in the world and hold yourself so dearly.

One day you may see the preciousness that you are but for now you’ll have to have faith that what I’m saying is based on truths or a Truth and not just the words of a well meaning yoga instructor hoping to feel useful in the world.

I invite your comments.