Sarah Court

First, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FtSP-tkSug

(Contains cadavers. You have been warned! Also contains Gil Hedley, my new geek crush.*)

What keeps me constantly engaged as a teacher and practitioner of yoga is the endless stream of proof that the body and the mind are not unrelated. As much we tend to walk around as what I like to call “a brain on a stick,” sending messages from the brain to control the body, without considering what the body might need (like sitting in front of a computer for hours on end), it is an unavoidable fact that our mental, emotional, psychological content (which manifests as electrical signals inside the brain and spinal column) directly impacts our bodies, our behaviors, our habits, even the way we walk down the street. I think Gil demonstrates this beautifully when he describes how he used to be a very still person until he realized the negative impact it was having on his body.

The mind-body relationship runs not only from brain to body (“I am a still person, therefore I will not move my limbs”) but from body back to brain as well – as the ‘fuzz’ builds, and our mobility is compromised, so do our attitudes stiffen and our interactions with the world around us decrease in flexibility. The grumpy old man stereotype exists for a reason!

More often than not, when I meet someone and tell them I’m a yoga teacher, their immediate response is “Oh, I’m not flexible at all!” This oddly confessional outburst usually makes me smile – after all, I’m not there to judge someone if they can’t touch their toes – but I think it overlies a deeper held belief. It is fuzzy logic to decide we are something, when that something we decide that we are can change. Obviously there are certain things that are immutable about us – even if I were to dye my hair black, it would continue to grow out red (more and more white, actually), but our ability to find movement and space in our joints is not one of them. Yoga practices remind us of this again and again by returning us to that spaciousness within using a variety of techniques for both body and mind. Our job is to hold on to that spaciousness, keep room within ourselves, so that we continue to reside in a state not of being any one inflexible thing, but simply of being.

“Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

*geek crush: when you have a crush on someone’s skills, talent, brains.