Laughter on the Mat


Wherein Our Heroine Posts about Yoga Yet Again.
My fabulous five are, well... fabulous.

I don't know how I got so lucky, but this first class of mine is full of people who are really exciting. They work hard, they approach everything thoughtfully, and this weekend they allowed themselves to laugh. The last is probably the most important of all to me as a teacher.

This is not the laughter of derision: there are those who look sideways at Yoga, seeing something pretentious or precious - mysticism combined with acrobatics. They scoff not just because they don't understand, but because they don't want to understand. They see something that makes them uncomfortable, and jeering laughter distances them from the object of their discomfort. I used to get angry at people like that. Now I just shrug. They don't sully the thing I love with their deliberate misunderstanding, and I am not here to "convert" people.

This laughter I speak of is the laughter of intimacy, of comfort. These are people who now know enough about Yoga to know that it isn't something self-important and pompous. It is not something "out there." Through their practice, they are understanding that Yoga is like life: it is joyful, serious, frustrating, silly, and worth doing. It is both mysterious and mundane. They have stopped watching with wary eyes, thinking that perhaps I am going to ask something impossible of them: they know they can do this, and they embrace it.

It is glorious.
Posted: Wednesday - February 09, 2005 at 07:43 AM         | |

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