I just read a lovely post from Anna Pulley about her Ashtanga practice. I know Anna a little bit through her ex-girlfriend, Ellie; Ellie is a good friend from high school who is now a yoga teacher, and when I’m home in Minneapolis I make it a point to take her Ashtanga class, a yoga practice that is far and away one of the most challenging forms of exercise I’ve ever undertaken. (Weirdly, the fact that I only attend once a year has not helped me improve at ALL. What kind of BS is THAT?)
One of the interesting things about Ashtanga practice – for me, at least – is that it is intended to be daily. Most people scoff at that and consider it ridiculous, which I get – who among us has time to include 5 days a week of intense yoga practice? – but is it, really? When I was Ironman training I trained seven days a week, and five days a week at Crossfit is something I do without even thinking. Why should an intense yoga practice be any different?
I’ve been thinking about this today because Anna’s post about quitting Ashtanga really resonated with me — the words she uses to describe why she practices daily, and why she wanted to quit, are all things I’ve felt before about the sports that I have been devoted to, the running and the triathloning and the crossfitting. And while I lack any sort of religious vocabulary for my day to day life, when I read posts like hers, I’m not sure I see a difference in a strong religious faith and that type of daily practice.
What has stuck with me though, long after my relationship with the yoga teacher ended and I was forced to make my own damn coffee in the morning, was the subtle, yet insurmountable joy I felt from the practice. When people would call me crazy or ask what on earth compelled me to get up at stupid o’clock and sweat and grunt and cry in public for two hours a day, six days a week, I would tell them, in all earnestness: “Because it makes me happy.”
…
It’s not easy for me most days. But I show up. I do the work. I do it even though somedays it feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I do it because it’s the only way I know to live.