Why practice

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.”    

Thich Nhat Hanh

The first time I read this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh, it made me think about Ashtanga—the moment when I’m practicing and it feels like I truly am there, not absorbed by anything else but just aware. That’s the magic of the Mysore practice; that’s what enchanted me the first time I entered a Mysore room. Everyone was there, deeply present—the look on everyone’s faces, the sweat, the discipline, the sound of one gigantic collective breath, growing, amplifying. There isn’t one time that I left a Mysore room without feeling incredibly inspired. Every time, I am born again.

“So whenever we practice yoga we take another look. We look again for the first time at our breath, and we feel it flow through the nostrils. We examine our thumbs, our fingers and hands, our arms, feet, and our legs. We feel the mouth, we sense that skin is all over the body. We look once again at each other, at the world, and at the mind — all anew and fresh, without the preconceptions that come from past experience. Looking into the mirror of yoga we see there is something deep, completely mysterious, extraordinarily joyous, and most of all very familiar.” 

The mirror of Yoga, Richard Freeman

Ashtanga is now an integral part of my life; it keeps me grounded. Even if most of the time I practice alone, there’s something authentic in this style, something that brings me back home even when I’m miles away. I feel truly blessed to have it in my life, as it is such an incredible tool for the mind and body. It is curious because I always felt like I was looking for something and didn’t know what in particular, and then I just ran across a YouTube video of a group of students practicing the first series. I knew that was it.