I’m tying myself in knots again. It’s fun.

After my yoga retreat, I tried to practice yoga daily, then lost focus–I forgot the moves.  So, I started watching yoga videos. I started with Claudia’s video. Claudia gives such good instructions for beginners, and if anyone asks who my yoga instructor is, I will say “Claudia Altucher” because I really only took a couple yoga classes in person, and they were with Claudia. She wins by default. She may ask me to stop crediting her after doing quality control appraising my routines. I still feel my sun salutation caused all this snow. I need better technique. But I don’t think Claudia will disown me. She is kind–she is a good yogi.

Next, I moved on to some other videos. There are no shortage of people on YouTube wanting to show me stuff I can’t do. I watched this video, because I liked the rhythm. Esther is a good yogi, too. Then, I remembered Dashama Gordon, whose material I worked with on Learnist a couple months before I could spell “yoga” correctly. Now that I have approximately one month of yoga experience, making me nearly a beginner, I felt qualified to watch her again. I put her on my list–I’m making a collection of my favorite yoga videos as we speak. I’ll learn from all these yogis. Apparently you can do that in yoga.

Good Yogi

I tried this series under the guidance of Dashama–“Yoga Balance Poses for Beginners.” I’m not really sure what a beginner is in yoga–I wouldn’t have suspected it was someone who could invert their body while twisting it in directions previously reserved only for NASA flight simulators, but she couldn’t reach through the computer and tell me not to try. In fairness, she did say, “You should consider stopping right there if you feel your spine.” My spine is fine. My balance and coordination are not. But she didn’t issue any prohibitions in those categories. I like the way Dashama makes me feel–her voice is soothing, and she makes me want to try stuff I know could easily drop me on my head.

But she’s beautiful and elegant and graceful. So I try anyway. She is a good yogi.

And you know what happens when you try your hardest–when you put your entire heart and soul into something, and really, truly, believe in yourself–believe you can accomplish anything?

Bad Yogi

Well, you drop yourself on your head. Sometimes it’s good to be realistic, too. But the moral is that you get up and try it again. Or, realizing that trying the same thing several times and expecting different results is insanity, you try something a little more reasonable and do not get dropped on your head, reserving the head drop for another day, when maybe–just maybe–your soul is in better balance, and the universe decides to cooperate.

I’m not ready to call myself a yogi yet.  If I had to, I’d be the “bad yogi.”

Maybe not. I’m trying my hardest. Yoga seems to be about transformation from the inside out–about patience, love, and letting the inner light shine. That’s what I see in these “good yogis”–a glowing beauty that projects from the soul…light that is contagious, that makes me want to be a better human being.

If I’m trying all that, then perhaps I can, in honestly, say, “Good yogi.”

[images: tvtropes via Warner Bros, learni.st via prweb.com]