Multi-Tasking with Yoga

I know. Not at all the point. Yoga is about focus, about yoking (literally) the physical body to the breath with the ultimate goal of releasing each individual's potential energy (traditionally, prana, or lifeforce) and ultimately, eventually, step-by-step, attaining a higher truth.

It takes abhyasa - sustained practice. It's a concept I had tattooed on my arm after graduating from teacher training. I believe in it. It's hard, and it takes time, but it's so worth working toward.

That said, I also believe that sometimes even a little bit of unfocused yoga is better than none at all.

Take my personal practice today. It's the last day of 2013. This year has been fraught with tragedy and pain for me. Family and yoga and kickboxing and writing have held me up when nothing else would. I honor these things above all, up there with my mother's blessed memory and my belief that each person on this planet has the capacity for positive change. Today's a day when I'm leaving lots of loose ends untied in order to make meaning. I'm no longer tethered to the feeling I always used to have when December rolled around, the feeling of needing to finish all chores and errands and start the new year without anything hanging over my head. It's a near-impossible task, I saw time and again. This year, my mother's last year on this planet, is different.

I was on my mat, sweating it out after an intense kickboxing morning. The cat crawled under my leg as I panted through my evolving Hanuman (full split). She didn't have room to stand up straight, which means I'm getting closer to the full expression of the pose. I worked through other sequences that I'd like to teach in class. I breathed. And then, from the top of my mat, I realized I hadn't dusted my bookshelf in a while. I paused to get 'er done, and then I tried out more yoga shapes.

When you don't have time or energy for complete focus, spurts of focus are okay, I think. Yoga is part of my busy, sometimes fractured life, and I'd rather have it punctuating chores and writing and other pursuits than not present in my day at all. Sometimes those spurts shift my whole day around - I toss myself up into a headstand and come down with a new idea for a section of a paper, or calm my racing thoughts with a few minutes of pranayama (breathing exercises).

Your yoga, as my teachers teach, is yours. It's nobody else's. It should look and feel like you, even when it's changing you from outside to inside and back again.