New to Yoga / Bodily Intelligence

Maybe you want to try some yoga because of all the good press it's been getting. You think, "yeah, I need a good stretch", because that's what most people are missing out of their workout routine. There are only so many hours in the day so you need to do your cardio to burn the calories, you need to do your weights to stoke your metabolism but then...damn, out of time..you have to get on with the day.

So then you finally make it to a yoga class, and it's a lot harder than you expected, or easier than you expected. You feel like you can't do it because your not flexible, or your wasting time and could have burned off that extra handful of trail mix if you had only gone to the TRX class instead. Just keep going, you'll get it eventually!

I'm sure you've heard of the theory of multiple intelligences. I've met a few people in my life that could shred a guitar to pieces but couldn't balance a check book (and they say music and math go hand in hand). What about the nerdy wordsmith who quotes things you're totally clueless about but pretend to get anyway! And behold, the Great American Hero...the overpaid athlete. What does that guy have that I don't? Bodily-Kinesthetic Intellegence, that's what!

Bodily intelligence is the greatest gift an asana practice has to give. Being new to yoga is like being immersed into a new culture with a foreign language. I'm not talking about the sanskrit, I don't even use it, except for "Chaturanga" (love that word). It's a language you think you know until you've been doing it for years and look back to see how your practice has grown. It's subtle, nuanced yet profound!

For example, when I first started my asana practice (the physical limb of yoga), I would lie on my back in happy baby pose rocking side to side to feel the "gentle back massage" cued by the instructor. When I rolled to the right it was like rolling up onto a hill, and rolling to the left was like dropping off a curb. What was wrong with me? I was imbalanced, much like you might be, but I didn't know it at the time. Practicing yoga has given me the platform to teach myself about myself, to be embodied, and mindful, to seek out weaknesses and rebalance myself, to develop bodily-kinestetic intelligence.

This brings me to my final point. You know the gym with the purple gears, the "no judgement zone", it's full of people just judging themselves. Your mat is a sacred space, it's like an invisibility cloak, no one is judging you because it's just you and your breath. You can't even think because you're too focused on flointing (pointing the foot whilst flaring out the toes) in your headstand or else you'll crash onto some other invisible yogis sacred space! Your proprioception is popping! Your senses are sensing! It's beyond analysis, it's that feel! So yoga like there's no one looking!