You Don't Do Yoga - Yoga Does You

I have been practicing yoga for 16 years. Any number of times in those years I have used the expression "I do yoga" or have referred to myself as "doing" a yoga pose or practice. But I am not "doing" the yoga. Yoga is doing me.

I teach yoga. It is my profession. I practice yoga. It is a passion for me. But it is not really correct to say that I "do" yoga. The verb "do" is not accurately applied to the experience of participating in yoga practice.

When I played rugby, I did not say "I do rugby". Nor cricket. "I do cricket" was not part of my description of my activity. To now say "I do yoga" is not on an equal footing with those other activities. When I am hungry, I do not say "I do eating". The only place where I have heard the use of the verb "do" in the context of a sport is when Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear presenters were mocking the game of golf and decided to "do" some golf themselves. They described themselves as "doing golf". But it was for comic effect.

You don't do yoga - yoga does you. What do I mean by that? I say that from my experience of being in yoga practices and feeling things that I have not felt before and observing shifts and changes in myself over time that are only explicable due to the effect that the yoga practice has had on me. The practice of yoga has done things to me. It is correct, I believe, to say yoga does me, rather than to say I do yoga.

Physical Experience:

The physical is one level. I align myself in a yoga posture. I link that pose to another pose. And then to another pose. And so on and on. By placing my body in the position of those poses, the pose is going to work on me. Each demands a certain degree of stability so I must contract my muscles to my bones to stabilise myself and I must align my skeleton to be as stable and free of strain as possible. By doing those actions, the yoga pose is doing me. It imbues me with strength and a postural awareness that takes me ahead of where I was without the yoga practice.

In addition to the stability element, each pose has an element of mobility, extension, space, stretch, freedom. You can use whatever adjective you prefer. When I take a long base in the pose or when I move my limbs away from my centre line or outward from my core and when I move two parts of my body further away from one another then is normal, then, in those expressions of yoga poses, the yoga pose is doing its work upon me. The yoga pose is training me to have enhanced ranges of motion. The yoga pose is making me more mobile, more supple and more receptive to stretch.

Mental Experience:

When a pose becomes challenging, my mental limitations kick in. I notice in yoga poses where I start to complain mentally, blame, criticise myself or others, get impatient and otherwise show mental resistance. The pose is doing me in those moments. The pose is acting as a provocation. In order to stay in the pose, I need to me more than the sum total of my resistance and reactions. In addition to the pose provoking me, it simultaneously demands that I not be provoked. My experience in the pose is enhanced by staying and relaxing, rather than struggling, fighting, complaining or leaving the pose and getting out.

My time in each yoga pose tempers the steel of my being, making me more equanimous, more relaxed in challenging situations, and more aware of the negative effect that my mental resistance has and the beneficial effects of being more dispassionate, grounded and non-reactive.

When the pose messes with me, it teaches me at the same time how not to be messed with. This is not an effect that I was seeking in any way when I started practicing yoga. It is an effect and experience that I have observed from practicing yoga. It is an element of yoga doing me.

Sleep:

I sleep well. Even when I have things to be concerned about, I still get a good night's sleep. I do not have periods where I wake in the night and cannot return to sleep. I do not struggle to fall asleep when I go to bed. Some degree of disturbed or truncated sleep is common among people. Many students say that, after yoga class, they notice they have a good sleep. For many students this is the first thing they notice as an effect of having practiced yoga. This is a tremendous example to demonstrate that you do not do yoga - yoga does you.

The yoga practice balances your energy, relaxes tension from your body, calms your nervous system and focuses your mind in a peaceful way. The outcome is often that, in such a calmly focused and relaxed way, the yoga practitioner is able to sleep well. The yoga practitioner does not control this. They are not able to decide they will sleep well unless the physical, energetic, hormonal and mind states are conducive. The experience of good sleep following yoga practice is due to the effect yoga has upon the practitioner. Yoga does you.

Emotional Experience:

On a very great many occasions I have had yoga students share with me emotional experiences that they have had in practices. They have not gone into the practice or the pose with the intention that they feel emotionally upset, or sad, or that they experience grief or loss. And yet, in the class, they have felt emotion welling up in them, they may have sobbed and shed tears, and the pose has done something to their emotional state that has moved old feelings.

People often hold themselves in a very contained, zipped up way. They may present as cool, calm and collected but they are in an emotional straitjacket. In the context of the yoga class, their usual outward defences are relaxed and they discover that, rather than being cool, calm and collected, they are hot, stirred up and coming apart. This is a healing experience, but it is not one that the student does for themself. This is a consequence of the yoga doing them!

Conclusion:

I trust the effects that yoga has upon me. I practice daily so as to feel the impact that practice has upon me. I am confident that, whatever come s my way in class, the expected and the unexpected, will all be to my benefit. I know there will be occasional unexpected things, those that I had not tried to create, and which have come out of the blue. I am open to that because, from sixteen years of yoga practice, I have learned to relax with the experience of yoga doing me.

When you step on your mat, do the actions of the poses but be open to what yoga happens to deliver to you moment by moment. You do not do yoga - yoga does you.