Well hello there

I’ve been thinking for awhile now that I might start a blog….I’ll see how well it lands… if anyone is interested in my musings and I can commit to it. First things first though, most of you know me quite well, but I thought a good place to start is with a question that I have been asked fairly often over the years - ‘What first drew me to yoga?’. I was recently asked this again in our Philosophy book club meet-up, and upon reflection thought this would be a good starting point for the blog. I mean who am I to share my musings after all?

Yoga is this delightful process of turning inwards and essentially coming home. It’s quiet, subtle and intimate. It’s not easy though… Patanjali’s yoga sutra 1.2 tells us that ‘Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind’

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥२॥
yogaś-citta-vr̥tti-nirodhaḥ

These vritts, he goes on, can be useful or not… I hope to share some of my more useful ones. Keep me on track with your comments please!

Anyway, back to the question - ‘What first drew me to yoga?’ - well that was my Mom. I was a 21 year old starting my corporate career in IT and she decided that I needed to go to yoga. Now, in my young mind yoga was something middle aged women did, whilst sitting around in circles chanting. She asked, I said no, repeatedly. Eventually I realised that I was not going to win and the only way out of this was to agree to go to ONE class - so I did. It turned out to be EXACTLY what I feared - yes you got it - I was the youngest by a few decades and ahem… much sitting around in circles chanting. But, I had been; job done. No, she concurred that perhaps it wasn't the best suited class and I somehow agreed to ONE more…. Now I remember that class vividly, a counted primary series, and I was wishing it to be over about 5 minutes in! My limbs were trembling in downward facing dog, whilst my Mom and her friend looked utterly serene next to me. I also recall seeing Kerry, my first yoga teacher, for the first time and just thinking ‘I want some of what she has’. That was that, I kept going, my Mom and her friend didn’t, my corporate career flourished until I wanted less… or really more. And now, here I am, a middle aged women who rather enjoys sitting with others chanting ;-)

The photo… the oldest photo I could find of myself doing yoga - there was no social media back then! There is an older one hanging in Kerry’s shala back in SA, but we aren’t allowed to travel at the moment, so musing will have to do!