Post Author: Nicole Kay, Lila Flow Graduate 2018

The other day I took a yoga class. For warm-up, the teacher instructed us through Surya Namaskar B during which you transition up and down from Warrior I. As we progressed through three rounds of Sun B's, sinking into the movement and breath, she cued for us to look at the people in your row. "Match them, lifting up when they do."

Now, I've been in classrooms where 30 people match their ujjayi pranayama and it is amazing, you feel the connection and energy in the room. But for some reason, last week I was not feeling the magical powers of connecting with those around you. I don't know if it was that the cues were moving too fast for me to flow one breath per movement or the fact that I tend to practice with my eyes closed, or the idea that looking at what others were doing on their mats might start my monkey mind on a tangent of comparison.... Whatever it was, I simply was not having it.

The definition of Yoga is to yoke; to unify. But what exactly are we unifying when we practice yoga? Mind, body, and breath within one's self, then surpassing the Ego, acknowledging the Self within us that is connected to the universe at large.

In yoga there's a lot of imagery regarding the individual finding unity, first within oneself, then externally with the universe. What I struggle with is how and what parts of this journey should be experienced and shared with others; the commUNITY of it, if you will.

There is certainly the shared "guru-student" dynamic, as educating yourself on the path is not something you can, or should, do without guidance. Even if it's removed from person to person contact, if you're downloading this knowledge from a book, podcast, or Youtube video, you're still interacting with someone else's words and interpretations. You certainly don't wake up one morning knowing all the asanas, the breath-work, the meditation and moral precepts... the culmination of 2,000 years worth of history. So there’s at least a shared one-on-one connection between you and your teacher(s).

When I teach yoga, I want to hammer the point across that it is an individual practice. That how you express asana will look different from the person next to you, that everyone has different anatomical constraints, and everyone is coming from varying backgrounds of knowledge of the practice, body awareness, medical history, etc. I seem to spend a great deal of time reassuring friends that just because they can’t touch their toes doesn’t mean they can’t ‘do yoga.’ Here again, an emphasis on the individualness of it all.

For me, I find the community of this practice when I look around the room at the beginning or end of class. Here's a roomful of students, people on their individual paths, working through their own unspoken struggles, whether that be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. But each and every one of them has made the decision to drive to the studio, to roll out his or her mat, to move through a series of postures & recline in stillness for a few minutes before getting up and jumping back into their personal narrative again.

I find the community in knowing that there are others walking this section of the path with me. We might not all be going the same pace, it might look different in every body, but we are all working toward the same goal, to breathe a bit easier, to lift ourselves up, to find peace and meaning among the fractals that make up the universe.