Why Yoga

This is an interesting question and the answer for every person who tries yoga will be different. I think this is because yoga is such a vast subject, in the west many people think of yoga as a type of exercise, and that is part of it. Moving your body to maintain your physical health is exercise. However it is a very small part of what makes up Yoga. So each person you ask this question will give different answer and this is mine.

This is my why. 

When I was growing up in Scotland my mum was unfortunately diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and someone, I am not sure who, recommended yoga might help. We happened to live just down the road from a yoga teacher. In the nineteen eighties, in Scotland I can’t tell you how rare that would have been! My mum started going to classes of Asana and Meditation. She found it all beneficial so my dad got her a VHS (for anyone born after 2000 this was what we watched recordings on before Streaming and even before DVDs) the VHS was called Yoga moves, by Alan Finger. My mum would follow the movements and we as young kids would copy what she was doing. My sister and I both enjoyed it and it got to the point where we would quite often put the video on and do the asanas without my mum. There was a little pranayama and a little meditation, which we would sometimes do as well. At this point for us there was no difference between the different elements of the practice, they were all just yoga.

As I grew up and I tried different hobbies, my interests changed, there was one thing that I would come back to again and again, yoga. My practice was never very advanced. But whether I was using a Sun Salutation to warm up before a run or as a cool down after the gym. Even just sitting quietly in my bedroom trying to meditate, Yoga was something that was always there.

Then as a young adult I started exploring career options, it surprises me to this day that I didn’t think of yoga, but the lady my mum had visited when I was a child had passed away and knowing no other yoga practitioners let alone teachers, it just never crossed my mind. I began an apprenticeship for hairdressing, and loved it. It was long hours and commuting into the city, which meant my practice all but disappeared.  However hairdressing is a very physical career, lots of standing quite often in awkward positions, it can put a lot of strain on the back, neck and shoulders. Because of this I found myself coming back to yoga to keep my neck, back and shoulders healthy. Coming home from work and practicing Surya Namaskar, child pose, eagle arms, and camel, trying to relieve sore, swollen feet and ankles in shoulder stands.

I was looking at yoga as a physical fix, I was definitely reaping the rewards of it physically and without me realising, it helped me to calm my mind.

By my 30s I was falling out of love with the beauty industry. Despite the good yoga was doing, I was physically tired. I had varicose veins, my cervical spine was giving me issues, aggravated by a whiplash injury from a car accident. 

Around that time we decided to move to India for a couple of years. This for me was a lightbulb moment, this practice that had been a part of my life for so long, could be just the answer I was looking for.

Until moving to India my practice had been mostly physical. Once starting classes there, I began to learn the power of the other limbs of yoga. 

Just how much you can strengthen your lungs through pranayama. 

How much more calm the mind will be with regular meditation practice. 

How energised you can feel after 30minutes of Yoga Nidra.

The vibration of energy that travels through your entire body after a mantra chanting practice. 

And just how strong the body can become when you connect mind, breath and body. 

These elements I have listed above are not by any means the be all and end all of yoga, as I said the start. This is a practice with thousands of years of history, has many limbs and variations. It has changed and grown, down the centuries, it continues to evolve to this day. 

But these are my why.

If you would like to know more about yoga, please send me a message or subscribe to get access to my classes. 

Breathe, Flow, Relax 

Kate x