WHY I ‘WRITE’

Dear Yogi, I’ve been writing my Yoga essays since about 2 months after we started working with You lovely Yogis! When we were planning to open it never dawned on me that I would feel the need to share Yoga thoughts online; i.e. it wasn’t part of the Yoga school dream.  My first ever blog “How to be a Yoga Student and get the most out of the Student/Teacher Relationship” triggered by a couple that rocked up to YM expecting us to ‘be’ the same experience they had with their previous instructor and not liking us because of the way we did things ‘differently’ and we weren’t a ‘spa’ (they did not get that we are a Yoga School so we don’t do fluffy towels 😉 ).  Around that time I also got an anonymous abusive phone call which startled me; a lady who wouldn’t say her name when I asked but spewed she had done a yoga ttc at Highlands and ‘what is bikram/who is bikram/what are your qualifications/ who do you think you are/ you are not qualified/that’s not Yoga’; the message was delivered with much venom, I got it an hour before a class due to start (a lot of ‘odd’ stuff has happened over the years that would make a head spin sometimes less than a minute before due to walk in and start instructing – honestly! You wouldn’t believe!).  I digress. So. We didn’t fit in some peoples rigid box of what they thought Yoga is/should be.  Never once did I consider not getting out of bed because of this but I DID THINK! Whoa! we really need to put some more work in and rectify misconceptions and start sharing more information with students of Yoga about what we do ‘Asana wise’ AND the broader Bikram Yoga experience that is to be had and show some HOW to take the experience by letting go of preconceived ideas and unhelpful cognitive bias that may have been nurtured elsewhere BUT WE ALSO THOUGHT if we SHARE MORE we can maybe help those beginning their Yoga journey too.

You walked through our doors so when you are with us YOU ARE OUR PEOPLE and we want to help you see the VAST Yogic opportunities to be had in our hot room besides body nourishing.  We wanted to weave philosophy into class and online to help you weigh up how to deal with the struggles of life.  We wanted to tell you where we have been and where we think we are going to help you decide if we are Your people. We wanted to tell people stories, studio stories, news, history, answer questions, confess our flaws to let you know ‘yup, we get it terribly wrong sometimes’ in this sometimes crazy world (but this makes our Yoga practice even more important as a tool for ‘letting stuff go’ because if you don’t have one of those you may not want to get out of bed in the morning when it all gets a bit heavy).  PRIMARILY ‘THO, WE WANTED TO HELP ‘AMPLIFY’ (FOR WANT OF A BETTER WORD) THE SPIRITUAL AWAKENING, THE NEW LIFE PERSPECTIVE, A WHOLE NEW WAY OF ‘BEING’ THAT AWAITS THOSE WILLING TO TRY BIKRAM’S 90 MINUTES SO THAT PEOPLE COULD GO “OH YEAH! I GET IT” AND SHOUT FOR JOY WITH US ABOUT IT.

I searched to find suitable material to share with our students and here is what I found: that what was written at that point was not comprehensive or good enough quality for you and that nothing had been written about what was relevant to our small school’s experience! (these days I am bombarded with junkmail offerings to write/sell me generic Yoga related articles ‘for your Yoga business’).  I felt it was not authentic and not good enough to share random badly written / little substance material (by someone on the other side of the planet) with our practitioners just because it had a picture of a posture on the front of it; I felt that was careless and would be like ‘littering’.   So I started writing and one day I said out loud to Darren “I wrote a blog, can I run it by you?”! and that was it. I owned it (good or bad).  Every single one of those compositions since then has been inspired by you or our own personal experience in teaching or practice that I think worthy of sharing with you; they might help one person.  I stopped calling them blogs when I learned a few months ago that apparently the rest of the world views the word ‘blog’ in a negative way (who knew! It seems, (like the bizarre x-factor contestants that really believe they’ve got it but can’t sing a note (a terrible disservice having been done to them by those close to them)), there are more ‘bloggers’ who shouldn’t be blogging than should! Hence the bad rep the word has. OBVIOUSLY 😉 I don’t believe I fall into THAT category. 🙂 I am not trendy or up to date on ‘the latest techy speak’ so I have renamed the blog on our website ‘LIVEYOURYOGA’.  I pour my heart and hopes and dreams for our practitioners out all over our website AND in ‘LIVEYOURYOGA’ so that our practitioners can learn in a ‘relevant to them’ way.  I carry a notebook with me to write down my mini epiphanies because I have forgotten more than I have ever written down on paper (being a person of tiny memory); if I haven’t got my notebook, any scrap of paper will do.  I have written nearly 200 that I have shared with you; I have dozens more written/started that never made it ‘online’ (not good enough).  I don’t think I am going to run dry of ‘Yoga topic’ any time soon. (I haven’t written much this year ~  I am sure you understand when I say my writing is so personal as to have to have certain conditions in place first which conditions have been a little short on supply this year.)

“… I’ll recite my gloss, for which I don’t expect any prize at all; I’ve written it only to exercise my wits.” {Don Lorenzo to Don Quixote Ch xviii 2^nd part}

There is no money exchange in any of what I write; it is an urge that must just get its ultimate expression. Ideally I would like it to be received by a person, a someone, but probably sometimes it is just the Universe that receives it 🙂 . Either way after the creative process posting it online is the end of the process for me.   I don’t get huge feedback on my essays locally but weirdly have been contacted by people from overseas who have complimented particular blogs and that is very gratifying THANK YOU VERY MUCH. The CLASSIC scenario is that some blogs inspired by a few are not read by that few that so need them.  HOWEVER, a few people locally have kindly taken time to verbally express an appreciation of my collection of words (one recently telling me she reads every single one and is a fan! THANK YOU SO MUCH) and to those I am eternally grateful BECAUSE they move me to continue writing (see! I don’t need much to keep me going!).  I have stopped doing the silly ‘bulk’ writing like I did for years when I would write and post a fresh huge essay every single day of a studio group Bikram challenge; realizing that people were just clicking ‘like’ on the pictures and the Challengers were not actually reading them LOL!! I am a slow learner indeed. Still there is a good back catalogue on the website for newer people to trawl through and my website analytics tells me all the ‘essays’ get lots of hits all the time now even if I am not getting feedback.

YES the reading experience can broaden the beginning Yoga experience.  They are written to add to your Bikram Yoga practice experience but are relevant to all Yoga practices. They are written to help you clarify/recognize where you are at in your practice.  They are written to give you confidence about that place you are currently at in your practice (what you are experiencing is normal) and to help you make your next Yoga step. They are written from a place of Caring and Love.

Om Om Om I AM WRITING TO TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Love Trisha

Oct19