My daily yoga practice is absolutely ordinary. It is as ordinary and common place as brushing my teeth.
I pull my mat out from its cabinet and lay it out between my sofa and dining room table. Usually there are delaying tactics of coffee-making, water-drinking, do-I-or-do-I-not-need-to-pee-before-I-start waffling. Most likely I am styled in my finest pyjamas and bed-head and further lacking a shave and a shower.
It’s not all good or joyful. Some days it’s absolutely clunky and boring and I just want to get it over with. Other days I flow and feel incredibly vibrant and alive. I always feel better afterwards.
There are no sunsets or crashing waves. Usually, there aren’t that many complicated postures. I begin with figuring out what my body needs to feel its best and the type of energy I need to generate to ground my mind and claw my way out of my neuroses. Postures, speed, intensity all flow from these fundamental questions.
Sometimes I quit half way through because I’m hungry or realise that the curry from the night before didn’t agree with me. Sometimes I work in silence. Sometimes I chat freely with my partner or jam to lite-FM on the radio.
There are glimpses of open space, of deep feeling. There are risings of energy beyond easy explanation. But fundamentally it is a necessary 30-90 minutes a day that prevents me from being an irritable, overly-emotional and irrational, annoying fuckhead.
As the days of my practice become months and years the extraordinary develops. But that’s another conversation.
