I practice yoga. And it occurred to me recently that yoga really influences how I work with clients.

Your post-Enlightenment self has probably put yoga in a box with running, weight training, pilates, and aerobics. And I suspect some yoga classes are like that.

I’ve been fortunate to have taken yoga classes with folks who don’t really see it that way — Karen Smereka at Yoga Connection, Havi Brooks at The Fluent Self (unless I’m mistaken, pretty well everything Havi does is yoga), Louise who taught an ante-natal yoga and active birth class in Birmingham back when I was pregnant (forgive me for forgetting her full name, that was 1997).

Here’s some of what I’ve learned

• Meet yourself where you are.
• Your aim is [fill in the blank]. You probably won’t get there but it’s good to have that in mind.
• Asana – you might be working hard but you should be comfortable.
• If it hurts come out of the pose.
• It’s up to you to make the modifications and use the props that you need.
• What you resist, persists.
• Remember to breathe.
• Even just thinking about your body doing the pose is beneficial.
• Advanced practice is not being able to get into some complicated pose; it’s about how you stand in line at the post-office.

That probably makes no sense to you at all.

Don’t worry. I’m going to post about each of those things and ramble on a bit about how they make a difference.

I’ve even created a category for these posts: Learned in Yoga Class.

Edited May 30, 2016.