
What makes you get up and get to a (fill in the blank) class? For me, it’s the un-responsible movement and flow of someone else’s guidance. The not having to think about anything other than what that person is trying to create through my body = pure bliss. But this act of abandonment, of letting go of control, of just being in the moment requires one of the most hardest things a human can do,
Listen.
Listening requires you to slow down, to wait for instruction, and to trust said instruction that is offered. What a beautiful gift of exploration, someone else taking the reigns as you dance through the moment, connecting more and more to core of yourself.
Whilst teaching a Budokon Yoga class to beginners, I was astounded at 1 persons ability to not only not listen, but to completely ignore what I was saying. Instructions of “watch whilst I show you” and slowing my cues down to a point I was nearly going backwards were like water off a ducks back. And then having to completely kill their own flow and stop to watch myself and others because they didn’t know what they were doing.
Why do you go to a yoga class if you don’t want to listen?
And I remembered, back when my yoga initiation began, how I would be impatient for the next cue and would move out of frustration to try and hurry the teacher along (because it was obviously all about me), how I was only half listening at times as I thought of all the stuff I had to do or ponder upon what was agitating me in my life at the time. I was disconnected, reactive and obnoxious. I was emotionally addictive. I knew best and I knew how MY yoga class should go. The soft words of the yoga teacher literally fell on death ears.
But when you don’t listen and rush through, you miss something magic. You miss someone offering you a part of their heart and soul. They have created something for you which no Youtube video or Facebook post can ever compare – for that 1 hour that person absolutely loves you and wants you to feel that love through your body. Love is what brings them there, and passion. A passion to share with you an experience that may have changed their life.
And if you don’t listen, you won’t hear that story.
So next time you get impatient, agitated and reactive in your class, go a little deeper and see if it isn’t something getting reflected through that moment that you may not be dealing with. Are you, in that moment, emotionally addicted to the control you know so well?
Just a thought.
Abi Adams
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