7 minute read
The Yogi Way
by Carolina Covelli
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The yogi way! A pretentious title, don´t you think?
The truth is that there is not such a thing as “the way” in yoga, this spiritual discipline that aims to bring harmony between mind and body has been part of humanity since the very dawn of civilization, long before the first religions or belief systems were born. A lot of times it is understood as a therapy or exercise for health and fitness but it’s main purpose goes further than that.
So in order to honor the different paths that connect us with yoga, I want to share with you three stories of very unlikely people that found themselves dragged into this practice for distinct motivations.
Let’s start this journey with Laurynas:
Laurynas is 24 years old and was born in Lithuania. Currently he´s a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps in Thessaloniki Greece.
Yoga to me started as a very personal journey. It allowed me to really fall in love with yoga and not the teacher if that makes sense because a lot of the times we can get introduced to things that we really like or we enjoy because of people, but to me was more the yoga itself, like doing it and experimenting and trying different things and treating it like a game in a way. Treating it like when you’re a child and you’re exploring something new and you’re not fully sure what it is but you’re trying anyway and you fail and you do it again and you fail and you get up so that’s been yoga for me. I think it’s a fun and amazing thing because even to this day, I discover new things or I challenge myself or I practice something that I´m not fully capable of yet.
And It would now be around a year that I’ve been doing it sort of consistently and I think I don’t notice the changes in me as fast, for example, as when I was going to the gym, but I think I´ll grow up and change as a person from inside out more, and then physical changes will come along as well, but they are not the motivator for me if that makes sense, it’s having a clear mind and loving myself that I really cherish and that’s basically what yoga does to me.
As we established before, there are several reasons that can pull someone into practicing yoga. Sometimes it grows like a curiosity for the corporality, the movement, a necessity to connect and explore with our bodies either alone or in company. That’s how this journey started for Miriam.
Miriam was born in Germany. Currently she's a volunteer at the project management department of United Society of Balkans in Thessaloniki Greece.
My story with yoga basically started with acro yoga. I´m more an acro yoga practitioner than an actual yoga practitioner although it motivates me to do sometimes, even daily, some small exercise in the morning. I’ve studied theater education and there we had acrobatic workshops that I really enjoyed. I really like “flying” which is the word in acro yoga, and other movements related to acrobatics, at one point I found out that there was something called acro yoga and I was really excited to try. There was a really nice class in my hometown, and the teacher was really good in combining elements of yoga as a warm up, and partner exercises with support from other people as main dish, with a cool down massage. I was really loving these classes.
From there I got motivated to buy myself a yoga mat and afterwards I traveled to South America to visit my sister who used to live in Bolivia. I took the yoga mat with me, and started to do yoga exercises since it is something that you can perfectly do during travels. Every other sport activity is really hard to conduct in a trip, so I started doing yoga in the morning on the hostel’s rooftop or anywhere where there was space and I started to go as well more into acroyoga because, as a theater educator, I learn to conduct my own classes. I also practiced some dance classes so it was not to farfetched to introduce acro yoga elements or rather even going to some free classes that I could find during my travels through South America. In my last city, I used to live in Germany, and I didn’t do much because there was a group but they were not really well guided, and the good thing about acro yoga is to have like a guided session which is super beautiful when you can have those elements together, the warm up, acroyoga and then massage. The group there was just more like a jam session and I think I really enjoyed the process more. Now here in Thessaloniki I’m pretty happy that we managed to continue with our acro yoga classes.
And the last part of our story is my own journey. For some of us, yoga started more as another kind of physical training, focused only on the progress of the body rather than a practice connected to self reflection, but I guess you have to start somewhere and Hatha yoga can be the preparatory path. First body, then breathing, after mind and finally inner self.
My journey with yoga began when I was 15, it grew from the admiration and probably attraction that I felt for a yoga teacher in my gym. I was going every morning to train, watching him doing all his classes and admiring the strength, flexibility and capacity of his body. One day he invited me to a trial class, I´ve never been a strong person but I´m very flexible and I realized that my body was capable of doing almost all the poses, not holding them for too long, but I could actually do it and I felt very powerful and proud of my ability. After that I started to go regularly to his yoga studio and slowly I started to improve, my body became stronger and I replaced any other physical training with yoga. But my practice was very linked to only that person, to the way he was teaching, to the environment of that school and outside of that place I never practiced it. After some time, I started experiencing some uncomfortable situations with that teacher and when the situation became heavy for me I decided to quit the school and cut off all my strings with yoga.
With the passing of the years I had different periods of my life where I came back to yoga for different reasons, sometimes it was a friend that invited me to spontaneous clases, other times some medical problems that found relief in that practice. Yoga has been for me that constant company that comes and goes, helping me to reconnect with my body and make peace with any situation that I’m facing, but the self reflection part for me is always the most difficult to find. Recently I rediscovered my practice some months ago once again with the help of a friend, and this time I’m trying to focus my attention into finding a harmony between my mind and my body but also a connection with the environment around me and that has been taking me to explore outdoor yoga in places where I can feel connected with nature.
So I guess the reflection now is that it doesn’t matter where your motivation to practice comes from, as long as the kind of practice you choose to follow helps you to reach a state of wellness and self awareness. The word yoga was derived from the Sanskrit word yuj which means “to join” or “to unite” referring to the connection of mind and body, humanity and nature and the link between our individual consciousness with the collective recognition that we are all somehow connected.
Sources : https://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?25096/Yoga+Its+Origin+History+and+Development
