Trying something new

Yoga, around for millennia, is truly amazing and should definitely be practiced by everyone. It's benefits are felt so much more than purely on the physical level. Yoga is helping me to be a more thoughtful, tolerant and positive person. I initially took yoga up as a way to improve flexibility and movement in injured muscles and joints and since I've starting to practice regularly, have noticed a huge improvement in general health & wellbeing. I will surely continue to practice yoga daily to carry through these benefits throughout the rest of my life.

I have to confess, when starting out, I felt very self conscious about my image, uncomfortable with the chanting and being in a room where I was the only guy. When I'd tell my mates about yoga - they'd recoil. Somehow, it's not seen as something 'men' do. It's crazy but apparently, we're meant to be lifting heavy weights as a show of strength/masculinity or maybe playing football. We definitely don't talk of spirituality or being connected to the earth. Thing is, doing the yoga will help with the weight training and very likely lesson the risk of injury in football too. What guys are really missing out on, are the meditative and focussing benefits that you get. Plus, doing yoga has really helped me deal with how I see myself/my ego and how I present myself or engage with others. Ultimately, practicing yoga, has given me the confidence to try new things that I'd have been afraid of doing because of (in the case of yoga) a stupid idea that it's not something guys do!

I'm fortunate right now to have a bit of a small window in the rat race of life - some time to stop & reflect with an opportunity to recharge/strengthen a battered body and soul. I'm trying out new things as a way to continue developing as a human being. It's all too easy to stay in the comfort zone and never grow as a person. Looking inward and around at life can make us feel uncomfortable & vulnerable - especially when the veil of reality is challenged, but it's better to come to terms rather than hold on to a false reality. I've seen it with older people who do not appear to have learned much for their years and I'm conscious of making sure that will never happen to me.

This week, I will be making the most of this small window to try different yoga, Qigong and meditation techniques at The Life Centre in Islington. They are currently offering a deal of £25 for 14 days unlimited classes. So, I will try Jivamukti - a style of yoga started by David Life and Sharon Gannon. Reading up on the pair, I found a couple of amazing videos of Sharon from the 80's practicing yoga to music. She has incredible flexibility and graceful movement. I also discovered a couple more talking abut veganism. She seems like a decent person who cares about the animals. In all the yoga videos I watched, the women again outnumber the men 20-1 which I still find incredible giving the benefits available for all. Will this balance ever change I wonder...

Whatever we make of the people, the beliefs and their low-grade videos - we shouldn't be judgemental of the things we know little about and practice being more open minded. So although I still feel very self-conscious and a little bit uncomfortable about putting myself in a room full of strangers and especially chanting with them - I will go along all the same. The important thing for me is to go and 'try'. Because, I've learned that it is good to deal with those egotistical and cynical aspects of the personality that potentially hold us all back from experiencing things - mainly because of what we've been previously taught to be the right/wrong way of doing things or placing too much importance on what others may think of us.