Keeping an Open Mind

I'm on vacation at our beach house this week and that means a change in my yoga studio. I started practicing yoga at this studio while on vacation, hm-m, six or so years ago? Eventually, my vacation yoga practice turned into a twice a week practice with one of my sisters in her basement studio. Yoga practice dropped to nothing through chemotherapy but I asked my patient navigator for a studio recommendation since I already had lymphedema and needed a place that catered to recovery. 

She recommended yoga studio in Teaneck and when my query email was answered warmly and almost immediately, I knew I was in good hands. After one class, I found a home and began to devote myself to practice 3 - 4 times weekly. By June, I felt strong enough to up my practice to 6 - 7 times weekly and for the past two years, I have maintained a nearly daily yoga practice.

I am also in a different studio. If you had told me that I would eventually stop practicing there, I would've told you that you were nuts. When I read in an article somewhere that it is actually good for your yoga practice to switch teachers and studios regularly, I scoffed. I was so comfortable there I never dreamed of leaving. 

That is not to say that my yoga was automatic or in a rut. But there was a certain comfort level in the space, in the teachers and in the other participants. I added a second studio for the two days a week studio one didn't have a class for me. 

And found a different energy in studio two. This studio was still dedicated to living a yogic life and not at all competitive or demanding - just different. I liked it and was content to split my time between studios one and two. But then, I got stronger and was ready for different challenges. I'd show up at class and be raring to go but most of my classmates were tired or had injuries and wanted/ needed less. I began to look at other classes at studio two and tried them out. Gradually, I found myself going to more classes at studio two and fewer and fewer at studio one. Since January, I have been practicing seven days a week at studio two.

I am happy there. The owner is very flexible and open to trying new things. He added a Yin class, which I tried and loved. He tried a Yoga Nidra workshop that was so well-received that there's going to be one a month for the next five or six months. Even so, thoughts of trying someplace new occasionally flit through my mind.

My vacation studio has a small core of the same teachers but each year, there are always a band of new teachers to try. This morning's gentle yoga class was taught by someone new to me. She said that we were going to practice Kundalini Yoga and we started practice with a long set of Breath of Fire, a prana that I don't do particularly well, nor do I enjoy it. We also held poses for a really long time lending a sort of Yin quality to the class. Then, I had to do 26 Frog poses and started sweating. I was pleasantly surprised by both the vigor and meditative quality of the class. 

I like to think that I am open-minded but am often not. Regular yoga practice has help remind me to try to be open-minded. Regular yoga practice has taught me that the poses and breaths I enjoy least are probably the ones I need most. 

I am very lucky.