Enjoying a Yoga Practice

Hello my lovely readers!  It's so nice of you to drop by this humble blog as much as you do, and I am so grateful for you.

Before we jump right in to the enjoyment part of a yoga practice (wait...that is the whole practice!!), I want to quickly break down the two words of "yoga" and "practice" in my own way.

Yoga:  "to yoke"  It is the uniting of the body and mind.  How beautiful does that sound?  In my opinion the vision of union is amazing and so gorgeous, no matter what type.  Yoga is a process.  By this I mean that you will probably not feel this great union of body and mind during your first yoga class.  It takes years of dedication and practice to really feel a difference, but then again, unless you reflect on your life you may not notice the sensation (but your friends and family might...)!  If you have never practiced yoga before, or have tried it once, I encourage you to give it a shot.  You may find that one teacher does not connect with you and that's ok, try another.  You may also feel that one practice is too slow, fast, hard, easy, or any other adjective you can come up with to describe this one practice.  But, remember that.  Remember that it is one practice, not your entire yoga life.  Try and try again until you find your groove in yoga.  For some that may be finding good yoga DVDs at the local library to practice at home, other's it's a gym, maybe becoming a teacher...who knows.  There are so many beautiful aspects to yoga and it is up to you to find which suits you the best.

Practice:  In my own opinion, a practice is something we do as often as we can and improve on it each time we do it.  To put it more simply...doing.  You can't practice anything by ignoring that part of your life.  Do professional athletes practice?  Do professional business people pracice?  Do people of all sorts practice something every day?  The answer to all of those questions is an astounding YES.  In order to succeed/get better at/excel in any part of life you must practice.  After establishing the type of yoga you like or a teacher you like, stick with it.  There are no boundaries in a yoga practice.  No matter how may times you practice downward dog or even savasana, you learn and get better.  A funny saying is "practice makes perfect".  Well, although there is no "perfect" in yoga, there are plenty of goals and aspirations you can look forward to exploring.

I know, I told you it would be quick, but this topic is very near and dear to me and I tend to ramble a bit when I talk/write about topics I love.  So on to the enjoyment part!

Anything that you put your heart and soul into, you can not help but feel joy about that thing.  If yoga is not for you, that is perfectly ok.  No one will judge you.  But, for those of you who do enjoy yoga or are willing to give it a try, let me tell you this...there is nothing more joyful than finding a piece of yourself that you may have lost in a posture, or breaking through and doing a posture for the first time.  It is so thrilling!  With regular practice, you might find that you feel lost when you skip yoga for a day.  It becomes like a drug, a healthy drug of course!  You might start finding yourself standing in tree pose while your brush your teeth, or going in to down dog randomly throughout the day...not that I do any of these things...ok I do both of them and many more "crazy" things relating to yoga.  Ooh, like Ujjayi breathing when I start to get stressed!

Anyways, the ultimate goal of this post is to bring the joy of yoga to your attention.  It can bring so much happiness into your life.  I hope you give it a try.

As always, I would love to hear what you think/your opinions on all of these posts.  I am doing this for you so we can live more healthy and happy lives together.  I would love to answer any questions you might have.

Luana ola!