I started with a basic Vinasa flow DVD. Now I flow freestyle. My Asana varies from day to day depending on my mood. Sometimes its fast, and energetic, and other days its slow and relaxing. I let my body tell me what it needs. I have very little classroom time, so my yoga is not included by any particular style. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Austin, Texas has a very large, and fast growing yoga community. Driving up and down the streets of Austin Texas - "the big city" - one finds a very large variety of yoga studios.
So many studios, so many different forms of yoga, the choices can be overwhelming to somebody who is trying to choose a class for the first time.
We, in the western culture, seem to be obsessed with branding, and putting labels on things. We dwell over making names for ourselves, and strive to prove to those around us that we are unique, or gifted one way or another, but in the end all these efforts at differentiation are essentially meaningless, because deep down we are all the same.
We are all unique, every single one of us is unique by nature. We are all gifted, we have skills that we excel at, and everybody excels at something different, but in the end we all have the potential to be great at one thing or another.
All of the qualities that make us seemingly different, when looked at on a deeper level, actually tie us all together, and at the heart of it all, we are all the same. Everything comes down to perception. No one man, is any better than any other, because we are all, essentially the same, just formed out of different sets of circumstances.
The same is true with yoga. All the studios, all the varieties, how can any one studio claim that their way is better than the studio up the road? Better is the wrong word, in most cases. Different is much more accurate. Different, yet similar.
Generally, yoga is thought to have six main branches. Six is a small number, when you consider that there are more than seven billion people in the world.
I propose that yoga is one thing, a union, that can be achieved in many ways. If you were to invite the entire world to one destination, all seven billion people, not everybody would arrive at the same time. Its also reasonable to believe that they would not all journey through the same path.
I believe that there are many roads to enlightenment, perhaps even as many roads as there are people, and that no one person's road is any better than anybody else's.
My yoga is my road, and its mine alone. Though others may influence the choices that I make along the way, ultimately I am responsible for the journey, and the directions and paths that I take on the way to my final destination.
My Asana practice, is as unique as my journey. It is alive, breathing, moving, growing, and evolving. It changes from day to day, depending on my physical and mental health, and is as undefined as I am. Really, "it" is me. It is an expression of me, it becomes me, and it shapes me. I grow through my practice, and every day I witness my practice growing. There is a union.
