Totally meant to be
Yoga interests me. It shows me a different dimension of life.
Underneath the functional dimension of daily life with all its pleasures and problems, (work related) activities and social relationships, lays a layer where functionality and identity do not have a place. It is an unfocused, meditative dimension yoga brings me in. It feels blissful, soft, spacious and totally meant to be.
Dynamic yoga as taught at Yogashala is a sublime gateway to this dimension. Not because it is dynamic in the sense of active or powerful. Not because we simply let go and dive inwards.
Exploring the structural nature
Having attended the Dynamic yoga teacher training myself, I was somewhat dazzled at the beginning when I realized that the key to it was of a structural nature: in yoga posture practice we lengthen what can be lengthened and broaden what can be broadened to ground what can be grounded, mainly in order to protect the joints.
Practicing yoga dynamically makes me experience the truth of this. My body even proofs it, moreover, through another one of my favorite practices: simply lying down and wait for the body. It simply means that the body will eventually open up to completely spontaneous, un-patterned movement. I am amazed to discover that the body applies the very same actions of lengthening, broadening and grounding. It performs the very same shapes of backbending, forward bending, rotating and twisting as we do in posture practice. I can feel that it is completely and totally meant to be.
Being that voice
Sharing this, i.e. by teaching it, is something amazingly huge and extremely precarious. I admire those who have the energy to make it their life purpose. I for myself need to keep the teaching part small and humble. Knowing that the structural is teachable as a method. I wouldn’t be interested in teaching anything else, as far as yoga is concerned. I am grateful for having the opportunity of also being that voice when I teach at Yogashala, adding a small bit to the sharing of this honest yoga method. Needing to then fully return to my own ‘dive’, in order to make it the primary source of any other life ingredient, amongst which that small bit of teaching.
This blog post is a contribution by Carolien Steenbergen. She has been practicing yoga for many years and discovered the power, nature and benefits of Dynamic yoga at Yogashala. Carolien developed a deeply rooted passion for it which led her to learning the teaching basics of the Dynamic yoga Training Method as taught by its founder Godfrey Devereux. You can find her at Yogashala on Sunday mornings regularly, teaching classes from the heart and as an expression of her dedication to sharing this wonderful gift.