08/19/2025
I have been lucky enough to have a few really wonderful yoga teachers. I am grateful to all of the teachers I have learned from, they have all changed my life in some way and have helped me to grow in my own practice and how I teach it.
I would have to say that Hatha Yoga had one of the most profound effects on me. One of the concepts I taught this week was the act of resistance. I notice that this comes up for me a lot in my life. Probably because I am stubborn 😏 but also because I resist change when I know it will alter who I am a person.
So, this week as I taught students how to recognize the resistance they have for particular yoga postures (or maybe the entire practice), I shared my own resistance and how I grew from it.
When I learned how to practice yoga, I would always resist Ustrasana (camel pose). For obvious reasons like I could barely breathe and my back hurt but also because it opened my heart and throat chakras. I didn’t realize at the time how much resistance I had to those chakras because I always thought I was fine. My teacher would have us hold this posture for what felt like 12 years (probably only a min or 2) and I would get in my head about not being able to breathe or swallow and I would get tired and just want to quit.
At some point I would just kind of stop resisting and I would go to a blank space as I relaxed and shifted deeper into the posture. I was fully aware of my body because my mind was no longer in the way.
Yoga taught me to breathe through resistance in order to cultivate resilience. I saw how my mental fears were blocking my ability to embrace the posture and become more flexible, not just in my body but also in my mind.