Yoga. I love it, I hate it. I don’t know.

This blog post is a contribution by Joan Smient, one of our regular yoga students. Joan has an outspoken personality and having her in class always adds something to the class. We are grateful for her testimonial and decided to publish it on our blog. We hope you’ll enjoy reading it! 

Me and yoga

Yoga. I love it, I hate it. I don’t know. These are my emotions when asked what yoga means to me, similar to Dutch racing car driver Tom Coronel during the grueling Le Dakar rally!

Coming from a livelong ballet training I hate it because it is too kind, too soft, no discipline, no rigorous training, no telling off when you are not in class.

I love it because it brings me peace and balance. It is escapism for me. The yoga mat is similar to the beach towel: this is my space, my time and – please, leave me alone.

Yoga puts things into perspective

I am a ‘slightly’ nervous emotional person and a notorious bad sleeper, but after yoga class I do sleep better and my mind is quiet(er). At least for a while things are all in perspective. For me it also is a place to go to for distraction. And luckily there is always free parking space in this nice residential area where Yogashala is located. During the lunchtime classes I hear the school children at the playground nearby apparently. And that is surprisingly soothing! Otherwise it is just quiet.

As you can read I have this internal struggle going on. Chris and Anke are so kind, they just let me be or just let me rave on ‘this is all stretching without warming up’. The week after I am back in class and there’s never a bad word from their side!

Being present in yoga

I tried the various yoga styles on offer at the Yogashala. At the moment, since I am also still learning, Yin yoga suits me the best. It also does because I quite often feel tired. But slowly I want to move to YinYang in Synergy classes, that is a challenge again. Eventually I’m aiming for joining the Dynamic yoga classes.

Watch it! I just mentioned what I’m aiming for – this, again, is the ballet drive! Referring to yoga you don’t need to have goals, being present is just enough!