Our last in-person classes at the studio were on March 15, 2020. I expected we would take a two or three week break and then resume classes as if nothing had happened.  Clearly, I cannot predict the future.

Instead, we began living in a world where time seemed to pass slowly, but, without events to connect to our days, time also flew by. Suddenly, and yet not so suddenly, a year has passed. Many yoga studios around the country have closed, and that we have remained open is due to support from our community of teachers, students, and staff.

Last March while I was figuring out how to close the studio, Pat Pao began exploring ways to move classes online. Within days, she had created two short videos, and on March 20, she taught our first online class.

Over the next few months, more of our instructors began to teach virtual classes. Most had never considered teaching online, and it was a leap to go from the constant interaction with a class to the silence of muted Zoom streaming. Over time, our teachers became more comfortable in front of the camera as they learned how to explain and demonstrate, and also what to watch for during their classes.

Moving online was also a leap for our students, most of whom had never participated in online classes before. Finding a place to practice, learning how to use Zoom and Vimeo, plus the difficulty of learning two registration systems were all hurdles that were overcome. Now that the Zoom environment is familiar, there is chatting before classes as people meet and get to know each other.

Behind the scenes, our office staff has worked hard to keep everyone informed and the studio running. They have been at the studio for office hours, answered phone calls and emails, and delivered purchases to people’s cars.

Kathy Joyner has ghost written every weekly mass email. There have been 52 so far, and impressively, she has come up with new ideas every week. Kathy also handled closing out our interrupted Winter 2020 session and helped smooth the launch of our new registration system.

Marina Matthes has worked closely with Kathy in the office, kept our mailing list and database current, and has helped with the day-to-day bookkeeping. Plus, she designed and sewed all of the cute yoga masks.

Joanne Doolittle has written all of our Facebook posts, creatively publishing our schedule, news, interesting articles, and yoga tidbits several times a week. Additionally, she has kept our boutique supplied and is always on the lookout for new, helpful props.

The Health Advantage Yoga Center would not exist at this point without everyone’s work and participation. I am extremely grateful to all who stayed with us though the bumps of this past year. Thank you.

I am beginning to get questions about when we will reopen for in-person classes. Unfortunately, I can’t predict the future any better than I could a year ago. I hope, as our teachers and students become fully vaccinated, that we can reopen in the late spring or early summer.

When I began taking yoga classes in 1989, I was looking for an exercise class which engaged my mind as well as my body. I was a computer programmer, and I needed a way to take my mind off of my program when I left work. At that time, yoga was viewed as being a little odd, possibly cultish, but I thought it was fun, and I always came home feeling good.

I took my first class at The Health Advantage Yoga Center (HAYC) in 1994. Betsey Downing, Ph.D., the founder of HAYC, had begun teaching classes at Brown’s Chapel in Reston several years before. As her classes grew, she moved to our space in what is now half of the Purple Room. By 1994, the studio had grown to two yoga rooms and a meditation room, covering the area from the current Purple Room to half of the Green Room.

My first class at HAYC changed my view of yoga. The previous classes I had taken were mixed-level and not alignment-based, so the classes were either too easy or too challenging, and there were no consistent explanations for positioning various body parts. Often the level of difficulty changed drastically from week to week, and the instructions in one class would completely contradict the instructions of the class the week before.

In my first class with Betsey, she said, “Turn your left foot in to protect your knee.” A simple instruction, but for me, it was a lightbulb moment. There was a reason for each action! As I took more classes at HAYC, I saw that instead of just coming to class and moving, we were being taught. The instruction and poses fit the level of the class, and by the end of each session, I understood more than I had at the beginning.

I continued to take classes at HAYC and after a particularly difficult computer project during which I worked over 96 hours a week for several months, I recognized that though I enjoyed programming, this was not how I wanted to live my life. I switched to another programming job with more manageable hours, started practicing yoga at home, and began to look at other career options. I soon realized that yoga was what I truly enjoyed, so I took the HAYC Teacher Training Program and began teaching at HAYC in 1997.

Over the next few years, classes continued to grow, and Betsey expanded into the Blue Room. In 1999, Betsey moved to Florida. She opened another studio there and continued to run HAYC, coming back for a weekend or week each month to manage the studio and lead the teacher training program. I approached her about buying the studio in the summer of 2000, and we completed the sale in January 2001.

I had no idea what I was getting into, and I was very fortunate that Liz Wright, Betsey’s office manager, stayed on and remains our office manager. I was also fortunate that the teachers stayed, several of whom still teach at HAYC fifteen years later: Kelly Cleveland, Doug Keller, Kelly Kessler, Janet Kim, and Pat Pao. There are also a number of students who started taking classes with Betsey at Brown’s Chapel who continue to take classes with us today.

Our classes continued to grow, and in 2006 we expanded to fill the entire top floor of our building. Since then, we have weathered the recession and changed a Virginia law which would have made yoga teacher trainings too costly to hold.

In the 27 years that I have practiced yoga, the perception of it has changed. When I bought the studio in 2001, the view was starting to shift from offbeat to mainstream: yoga instructors began to appear on segments on TV morning shows and talk shows, and reputable magazines like Time published articles praising the benefits of yoga. Over the next few years, gyms and recreation centers went from holding a yoga class or two a week to scheduling several a day, yoga pants became popular, and stores and websites dedicated to selling yoga clothing emerged. Now there are yoga studios and classes everywhere, and new types of yoga arise as people blend different styles of yoga or add yoga to other exercise forms.

Over the years, I have changed too. Though I am still type A, I am more balanced and less stressed with yoga and meditation as part of my daily routine. Each week I look forward to going to the studio and to my classes. I have been and remain grateful to everyone connected to HAYC: the students, the teachers, and the staff. I have met so many interesting people and watched friendships form and grow. Thank you to everyone for making HAYC what it is today. HAYC has become a true community, and I cannot imagine what my life would have been without you.

When I was in college, courses were divided into three areas of study:

Area 1: Arts and Humanities: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Dance, English, Fine Arts, Modern Languages, Music, Philosophy, Religion, Theater and Speech

Area 2: Social Sciences: Anthropology, Economics, Government, History, Psychology, and Sociology

Area 3: Hard Sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics, and Physics

Each student chose a major in one area, but was required to take classes in the two other areas. With my computer science major, I was a solid Area 3 student.

Throughout college, I tutored students in computer science. Some students asked a question or two, and then could complete programs on their own. Other students required a lot of help. After a while, I saw a pattern in those asking for assistance.

In general, the Area 3 students understood basic programming fairly quickly, while many Area 1 students struggled. Instead of thinking in a step-by-step way like a computer, the Area 1 students tended to make huge leaps in logic. Though their thought processes were correct, we would spend hours working through the project sequentially.

When I took a college English class, I saw this difference in thinking from the other side.  After I turned in my first paper, the professor called me in and asked about my intended area of study. When I replied Area 3, he nodded and said I should stay there because I would never make it as an English major. My paper was too direct and lacked all the niceties of decent writing. I took that as a sign I should not take any more English classes and happily stayed in the sciences after that semester.

I did not write much besides technical papers until I bought this yoga studio. The previous studio owner wrote articles as the first page of our quarterly brochure, and I decided to continue her tradition.

It was a painful process, and I am grateful to Liz Wright, our office manager, who patiently explained transitions, linking sentences together, and how to make words and sentences flow. Writing fifty articles over thirteen years forced me to learn what I had not in school.

In yoga classes now I have noticed similar differences in natural skills. I see a wide range of people each week, and there are a variety of body structures and lifestyles, and different levels of strength and flexibility. Additionally, some people naturally bend forward well, while other peoples’ spines naturally move easily into a backbend or twist.

How someone is built can affect the ease with which they do various poses. For example, some of the advanced backbends require you to reach back over your head to hold a foot that you are lifting behind you.

This pose, Natarajasana, though never easy, is usually more accessible to someone who naturally backbends and has long arms and legs. People with other body proportions can do this pose, but it often requires more effort and practice, since people with shorter limbs need to reach back farther and backbend more.

It would be simple to do as I did in college and just avoid areas of difficulty. Since yoga is voluntary, there is no pressure to attempt poses that are challenging; you can just decide that you do not want to do a pose or a category of poses and move on.

However, like my ability to write, areas we avoid can come back to haunt us. For example, in yoga poses, if you consistently do forward bends and avoid all backbends because you cannot do them well, at a minimum you miss stretching the front of your body and strengthening the back of your body which over time can create imbalances.

It can be interesting to look at the reasons why you do not want to do something. Is there a good reason or is it just too challenging? What is the cost of not doing it? Is it worthwhile to make an attempt?

We cannot excel at everything, but that does not mean that we have to limit ourselves. In many cases, we can take small steps, learning as we go. Who knows, we may surprise ourselves with what we can accomplish.

When I was in junior high school, my mother volunteered to be a part of Meridian House’s orientation program for visitors to the United States. The visitors were mid-level government officials from a variety of countries and were here for school or for work. The purpose of the orientation program was to teach them the basics about the U.S., like our denominations of money. At the end of the week, each person or pair would go to an American’s house for dinner. My mother offered to host a few of these dinners.

One of the most memorable visitors was a kale farmer from Kenya. On the way to our house, he asked to see a grocery store. He walked into what by today’s standards was a very small Giant and stopped in his tracks. He had never seen so much food in one place. He was stunned when my mother showed him that we had fresh kale, canned kale, and frozen kale. This was so far beyond anything he had seen or imagined that he kept talking about it during dinner. My younger brother and I could not understand what he thought was so interesting since it was just our normal grocery store.

In May I went to India to visit my college roommate. She and her family have lived in southeast India for the past two years. For six days of the trip, I went by myself on a tour of the Golden Triangle: Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. I had a driver and we met a guide in each city. I had expected that the hours spent driving between cities would be dull, but I had not anticipated Indian traffic. Lanes are no more than suggestions, and any two lane road becomes five lanes: the two shoulders, the two lanes themselves, and the section in the middle of the two lanes. There are motorcycles with one to five riders and small motorized rickshaws called tuk-tuks, both of which zip in and out of traffic, plus cars, buses and trucks. In addition to motor vehicles there are handcarts, bike carts, bullock carts, and people walking on the shoulders and crossing in the middle of the street. Usually standing placidly in the middle of the swirling traffic is a random cow or two. Nobody drives very fast, and there are surprisingly few accidents.

Tuk-tuks

In the five hour trip between Delhi and Jaipur, I watched traffic stream by. After an hour or so, I began to see the logic of how everybody wove in and out. Suddenly, I spotted a camel cart coming down the road towards us. I pointed and said, “That’s a camel.” My driver, Subhash, agreed that yes, that was a camel. I had not expected to see any camels in India, so I pointed again and said, “There is a camel in the road.” Subhash agreed. I said, “We don’t have that,” which Subhash thought was very funny.

An hour or so later, a monkey ran across the road in front of us. I pointed out the monkey because I had not anticipated seeing monkeys on the roads either. Once again, Subhash agreed, and thought it was funny when I said we did not have monkeys on our roads.

Monkeys by the side of the road

Later that evening, while we were returning to Jaipur after a short tour, I spotted white circles about a foot in diameter appearing and disappearing just above the road a little way in front of us. As we drew closer, I saw a reflective bar several feet above us and realized we were approaching an elephant. The white circles were the bottoms of the elephant’s feet and the reflective bar was on the back of the driver’s saddle. I pointed out the elephant to Subhash and explained we did not have elephants on our roads. Subhash commented that our roads must be really boring.

Elephant in the road

I had never thought of our traffic that way, but I had to admit, he was right. A few days later we returned to Delhi from Agra on a new superhighway that was restricted to cars and a few trucks and motorcycles. It was similar to a U.S highway and in comparison to the Indian roads I had seen, it was dull.

I spent most of my time in India in a state of astonishment. Everything was so different than my normal life here. There were bright colors, crowded bazaars, ancient temples, and amazing forts and palaces. Every time I thought I had become acclimated, I would be startled by something new. Every day was a new adventure.

I hope to retain some of the sense of wonder in the world around me that I found on this trip. There is so much around us that is remarkable that we do not notice because we see it everyday. If we look at the world around us with new eyes, there is much to be seen and enjoyed.

I live in a townhouse that backs onto woods with a stream. Usually every winter a mouse or two finds its way into my house. I decided long ago I could not handle snap traps, so I use live traps that hold mice until I can set them free.

I bought a few expensive traps/cages from a pest control company, and though in theory they should catch and hold a number of mice, I have not been able to catch a single mouse with them. Now I use cheap plastic traps which have been surprisingly effective. Unfortunately, the less expensive traps are so small that the mice cannot survive in them for very long, which completely defeats the purpose of having live traps.

I learned through a few regrettable experiments that the best way to save the mice is to transfer them from the cheap traps to the bigger, more expensive cages where they can live for a day or so. The problem is getting the mice to move from one to the other. Even though they will die in the small traps, the mice struggle to stay in them; I have to tap or lightly shake the small traps to get the mice out. Later, when I open the cage to release the mice in the woods, they refuse to leave, though the world is open to them. I usually need to upend the cage, though once I waited for fifteen minutes to see how long it would take a mouse to leave on its own.

The mice, of course, are attempting to protect themselves. They do not know the traps are unhealthy and at least for that moment they are safe. They struggle to stay in the security of a known place rather than move into the potentially dangerous unknown.

Just like the mice, it is easy to become accustomed to our circumstances and comfortable in the safety of our routines. Even if we are not in an ideal situation, we know what to expect, and it is often simpler to stay where we are rather than to make a change. Sometimes however, the world around us shifts and a change is forced upon us, whether we like it or not.

The unknown can be scary, but a little exciting too. With each step in a new direction there is the possibility of other new steps and more fresh opportunities. We just have to take or be pushed into making that first move.

With a new year beginning, is there something you have always wanted to try but have hesitated to take the first step? That step may be as simple as changing a hairstyle or signing up for a class. It also may be as challenging as changing jobs or moving. Taking that first step requires courage, but the entire world is out there waiting for you.

In early February, a website went up that contained damaging information about John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga. The website disclosed how John had illegally stopped his company’s pension plan, had marijuana delivered to the Anusara corporate office, and had slept with a female employee and some Anusara teachers. Though the website was taken down in less than 48 hours, the damage was done. In a few days, after the initial shock wore off, Anusara teachers began to resign.

Though the press has covered John’s sexual liaisons, very little has been written about his abuse of power. The Anusara system was structured in such a way as to give John an enormous amount of power over his teachers and he lived up to the phrase “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

When I received my Anusara certification in 2000, the system was new and the requirements, though demanding compared to many other yoga styles, were not as rigorous as they became in later years. Many more-recently certified teachers spent two or more years and tens of thousands of dollars to obtain their certificates which enabled them to become licensed Anusara teachers. Unfortunately, when they obtained their licenses, they became trapped. Many based their livelihoods and reputations on being Anusara teachers. If they angered John, he could take away their licenses; they could still teach yoga, but not use the name Anusara. If a teacher taught at an Anusara studio and lost her license, she could also lose her job. In addition, people who lost their Anusara licenses were often shunned by other Anusara teachers, so a person who lost her license also lost friends and connections.

More troubling were Anusara’s philosophical changes over the years. When I was certified, the philosophy was tied to an ancient set of teachings. Several years ago John decided to change the philosophical backbone of the system and cobbled together pieces from several schools to form a new Anusara philosophy that focused on the positive aspects of life. With this change he removed all constraints that acted as checks to his power. His newly created philosophy lacked the depth and sophistication of the older teachings and promoted catch phrases like “Look for the Good” and “Align with the Good.”

These phrases are very nice on the surface, but they became a means of control. Anyone who disagreed with John was not aligning with the good. If someone spoke badly about Anusara or John’s actions, they were not looking for the good.

In the last few years, as John’s behavior became more problematic, people did not object. If John treated a student poorly at a workshop, many assumed he had a bad moment or a bad day and let it go. They did not talk with others or question, because that would not have been looking for the good. Now as people compare stories, they see patterns of behavior that were not apparent when they attended a workshop or two a year.

This is not as cheery as most of my articles, but the idea of positive thinking versus reality is a point I have been pondering since before I left Anusara in 2007. Though I have my glass half empty days, I am happier when I see the glass as half full. Yet positive thinking can be taken too far and used to mask or ignore an unpleasant reality. Where is the line? What can be disregarded as trivial and when do we need to take off our rose-colored glasses?

I was once told that a purpose of yoga is to polish our lens, to remove obstacles and veils so we can see reality more clearly. As many Anusara teachers discovered, looking only for the good may be pleasurable, but life is much more nuanced with a broad range of emotions and experiences. Just as a negative attitude can mask the small joys in life, a falsely positive attitude can hide problems better faced than ignored. In the end, reality will be what it will be and one of the challenges and joys of a full life is to view it clearly.

At the beginning of the year, one of our longtime students, Sue Bowman, approached me about doing a survey at HAYC. As Sue explained how the survey would work, it sounded like a fantastic way to get feedback about our studio and classes. The survey was emailed in early March and we received more and better responses than either of us had anticipated.

First, thank you to everyone who took time to fill out the survey. Over half of our current students and about ten percent of our former students answered; a remarkable number of responses. Sue tells me that an average response for an electronic survey is somewhere around 15%! Additionally, of the current students, almost 100% said they would recommend HAYC and 95% said they already had recommended us to others. Of the former students, 98% said they would recommend us. I am extremely grateful for your trust, confidence, and loyalty to our studio. Thank you.

The final question in the survey asked for additional comments. The responses were overwhelmingly positive or offered constructive comments or suggestions. What follows is an explanation of some of the more common issues.

More bolsters and longer belts: Got it. At the beginning of the Spring session we put more bolsters and more eight and ten foot belts in each of the rooms.

Rooms are too crowded: I have a friend who owns a yoga studio in Arizona. He puts little sticky dots on the floor that are just a few inches wider and longer than a sticky mat on all sides. Students are expected to put their mats inside of these dots, and usually there is less than a foot of empty space between each person. Fitting as many students as possible into a room is a common practice in many studios.

We limit classes by room size so there will be enough space in a room for those registered for the class and for those making up. For example, we limit classes in our largest room, the Green Room, to thirty people. For weekend workshops in the Green Room we set the limit at forty people because no one will be making up. If we followed the dot system like my friend in Arizona, we could easily fit over sixty-five people in that room.

Smell in the lobby: Several people commented about the smell in the lobby. Replacing the lobby carpeting was a step in the right direction and our cleaning service now scatters baking soda throughout the studio before vacuuming to help keep the entire studio smelling fresh. We also have the carpets steam cleaned regularly. However, everyone leaves their shoes in the lobby and summer is approaching, so this may still be an issue. Since many people have scent allergies, we are limited in which air fresheners we can use. We are testing some baking soda brands now and will continue to experiment if they are not effective.

Scheduling a class with a certain instructor on a particular time and day: Though we are one of the largest studios in the area, we are still limited to four rooms of classes at any one time, and our schedule, especially in the evenings, is full. Many people have been taking classes for years and have found an instructor, day, and time that suits them and they return to that class session after session. If we replace one class on the schedule with another, the people in the original course will lose their weekly class.

Additionally, we try to balance the schedule in an attempt to provide make up classes and a variety of choices in each day and timeslot. We cannot have two Yoga 1-2 classes at the same time on any day or five Yoga 2 classes at 7:30 on weeknights. Also, instructors are not always available to teach in other timeslots; many have family or work obligations. When there is an imbalance, we try to correct it as we are in the Summer session by adding a Yoga 2-3 on Tuesday at 5:45 p.m.

Breaks between sessions: Though this did not appear in the survey, we regularly receive comments about the breaks between sessions. Since I bought HAYC in 2001, we have always had the same number of weeks each session every year. For example, the Summer session is always eight weeks and the Fall session is always thirteen weeks. There are the same number of days off each year.

The breaks serve two purposes. First, they give us time to schedule major repairs and upgrades to the studio. In the past year we replaced the carpet in half of the studio and had the entire studio repainted. Second, and more importantly, the breaks provide time off for the teachers. Yoga instructors who teach continuously tend to burn out after just a few years, yet over half of our instructors have taught at HAYC for more than ten years. In the survey, 65% of the people currently taking classes responded that what they enjoy most is the quality of the instructors. The breaks allow our teachers to rest and come back refreshed to their classes each session.

Friday and weekend classes: A number of people suggested we hold more classes on Fridays and in the afternoon on the weekends. Right now on Fridays we have a Yin Yoga class in the morning and children’s classes in the afternoon. When I added Friday evening and Sunday afternoon classes to the schedule in the past, very few people signed up, and we need at least five people to register for a class to keep the class going. Since so many people requested these classes I will ask you: What classes would you like to see on Fridays and at other times on weekends? I will have a box near the front desk where you can drop in your suggestions for times and classes. If there is enough consensus, I will add a class at the time and day suggested.

Finally, thank you again for filling out the survey. If you have other comments or thoughts, you are always welcome to email me or leave me an anonymous note. It may not always be possible to fulfill your request, but I value your thoughts and input.

More Survey Results:

These statistics are based on the responses of the people who answered the survey in April 2012.

Statistics About Respondents:

52%     Current students who responded

10%     Former students who responded

Of the current students who responded:

90%     are female

84%     are over 40 years old

99.8 % would recommend HAYC to a friend. Only one person said they would not.

95%     have recommended HAYC to a friend

Of the former students who responded:

91%     are female

84%     are over 40 years old

98%     would recommend HAYC to a friend

81%     would return to HAYC if their circumstances changed.

Responses from Current Students

Percentages of current students in each class level:

34%     Yoga 2 or Yoga 2-3

26%     Yoga 3 or Yoga 4

20%     Yoga 1 or Yoga 1-2

12%     Gentle Yoga (This number may be slightly low because it was left off the survey for the first 12 hours.)

4%       Specialty classes such as Yin Yoga or Yoga for Scoliosis

3%       Vinyasa Yoga

1%       Kids and Teen Yoga

Most important reason you first came to study at HAYC? We only allowed one response to this question which generated a number of comments from people who wanted to make multiple selections. We limited the number of responses because multiple selections would have not provided much useable information. The top answers were:

30 %    Increase flexibility

17 %    Get physical exercise

16 %    Health or medical reasons

16%     To reduce stress.

13%     Curious about yoga

Most important reason you continue to study at HAYC? Only one selection was allowed for this question also.

57%     I feel better doing yoga

15%     Increase flexibility

7%       Health or medical reasons

What do you enjoy most about HAYC?

65%     Quality of the instructor

12%     Variety of what is available

10%     Studio’s ability to accommodate individuals’ different physical capacities

There was no major interest in a Pranayama (breathing class), an early morning class or a 4:00 p.m. class. Interest in meditation was neutral.

Many thanks to Sue Bowman for suggesting this survey, compiling the questions, and tabulating the results. I greatly appreciate her time, effort, and expertise.

At a weekend workshop at our studio a few years ago, the teacher asked everyone who felt as if they should be doing more in any aspect of their life to raise their hand. This could be doing more yoga, spending more time with family, reading, working, doing yard work, more of anything at all. There were forty people at the workshop and every hand in the room went up. The workshop leader was illustrating how we each feel we should or could be doing more than we are doing now.

When I bought HAYC eleven years ago, I was teaching yoga classes here in Herndon and also in Columbia, Maryland. I also had a part-time computer programming job in Columbia. Adding management of the studio to an already busy schedule completely overwhelmed me. One morning I woke up and wrote down everything I expected to do that day and that week.  I discovered I needed thirty-two hour days or a few extra days in the week if I planned to sleep six hours each night.  Clearly this was not going to work, though I felt better knowing I had a reason to feel stressed.

Recognizing the irony of a stressed-out yoga teacher, I decided to set priorities and become comfortable with allowing the non-priorities to slide.  For a year and a half, until I left my jobs in Columbia, my meals were very simple, shopping was only for essentials, and my house was pretty messy. If something was not necessary for one of my jobs or interacting in polite society, it did not get done unless I found a spare hour. The benefit was that I could usually do all that was required and I learned not to get upset about all that I could not do.

For most of us, it is impossible to accomplish all that we think we should, could, or want. Even if we happen to accomplish everything, we can probably find more to fill our time.  I was talking with a friend who retired awhile ago and he said that he does not know how he ever worked; his schedule is so full that he is having trouble fitting in all of his activities.  My life is much simpler now that I can just focus on the yoga center, but there are days I feel just as busy as I did years ago.

If we recognize that there will never be enough hours in the day, the question changes from: “How will I do everything?” to “What is worthy of my time?”  I learned from my busy year that quality of life is important and making time for activities I enjoy must be part of my schedule. There are a few essentials like eating and sleeping that we have to do to survive, but beyond those, we each have our own opinions about what is indispensible.  How we choose to spend our time greatly affects both how we feel and our overall well-being.

The first class I took at The Health Advantage Yoga Center was Yoga 1. I had been doing yoga for five years as a way to balance my body and mind after long daily hours in front of a computer, but the style of yoga taught at HAYC was different than those I had taken before and I felt I needed to start again at the beginning to learn the alignment and terminology.

One of the first poses we did was the leg stretch where you lie on your back, place a belt around the sole of your foot, and lift your leg up to stretch the muscles at the back of your leg. I knew I should just focus on myself, but I glanced around the room and saw that everyone in class could bring their leg up to ninety degrees. My leg barely reached forty-five degrees. I was discouraged; I was the only person in the class who had done yoga before and everyone in the room was clearly more flexible than I.

Though I had heard repeatedly that yoga is not a competition, this leg stretch pricked my pride. I was determined to get my leg up to ninety degrees too. Since my job at that time required long hours every day including weekends, it was difficult to find time to stretch. I did not want to risk hurting myself by doing strong, advanced stretches, so I decided to do a simple standing forward bend every night for fifty breaths before I brushed my teeth. It was one stretch a day for one to three minutes, nothing more. Surprisingly, I began to see progress in a few weeks: my hands went from knee level to shin level. In four months, my fingertips brushed my feet. This was the first time in my life I had touched my toes while standing.

This was also the first time I practiced anything voluntarily as an adult. I had taken classes ranging from calligraphy to electronics to yoga since leaving school and I had learned from all of them, but I never did much besides attend the classes and complete the homework assignments. I never practiced what I learned in these classes to become more proficient in the subjects.

As children we do a tremendous amount of practicing to learn skills. We spend hours tracing and copying letters while learning to write and do hundreds of math problems to learn basic arithmetic. When learning a musical instrument, we practice scales and the same pieces of music over and over again. In sports there are drills to prepare us for games.

When we become adults, the inclination to practice to learn or become more proficient in a skill seems to fade. There is no one telling us we must practice, it is hard to find time, there are distractions, or it just is not fun. Yet we know there are rewards for practice and experience. We respect experts and people who are accomplished in their fields. Usually they have spent years studying their crafts, doing the same things over and over again, seeing different permutations. Though repetitiveness can be dull at times, with each repetition there are often small differences and lessons to be learned.

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the modern founder of the Ashtanga system of yoga, often said “Practice and all is coming”. Is there a subject you would like to learn or a field in which you would like to feel more accomplished? Is it worth spending a little time to practice?

I began teaching yoga classes at a local fitness club in 1997. I had not spent much time in a gym since high school and the fitness club’s equipment and amenities were far better than I had anticipated. There were rows of gleaming weights, treadmills, exercise bikes and lots of machines. What surprised me was how audibly and visually overwhelmed I felt. On top of the bright lights, clanking weights and whirring treadmills, there was loud music echoing off the walls and rows of televisions hanging from the ceiling. It was a relief to go to the relatively quieter and calmer room where the yoga classes were held.

Since then I have become increasingly aware of how much noise and visual activity we have around us. My car dealership has a huge television in the waiting room. Airports have monitors hanging from the ceilings usually showing CNN. I may be getting older and more sensitive or just cranky, but the music in many of the clothing stores seems to be getting louder. I left one recently because I could feel the floor vibrating beneath my feet and my clothes shook in time with the bass.

This constant and often intrusive stimulation is different than a little background music that sets a mood and can be ignored or using music with a strong beat to accompany an exercise routine. These are sounds and images we do not choose and are hard to block out; they make it difficult to think our own thoughts and to concentrate.

Finding times and places to enjoy peace and quiet seems to be increasingly elusive. We have all seen pictures of people sitting on porches just watching the world go by. In some ways this seems rather quaint in our busy society today. With cell phones, Blackberries and a host of small mobile gadgets, we can be and are often expected to be accessible anywhere at anytime.

Interestingly, when some people are given a few minutes of peace and quiet, they do not know what to do with themselves. Every yoga class at our studio ends with final relaxation which is about five to ten minutes where everyone lies down and relaxes. I often see people in the first few classes fidgeting impatiently and some have admitted they feel uncomfortable being idle. It is so simple to go through an entire day without a moment of silence or time to reflect that unoccupied time can be unsettling. After a few weeks of adjustment, most people look forward to the end of the class where they can just let go.

In the last few years, I have had many requests for more inwardly focused classes. In fact one person suggested more silent classes specifically because there is so much noise in our lives. Her email resulted in the Silent Practice short course. The Learn to Meditate short course and the Movement, Breath, and Meditation classes soon followed. All of these classes allow people to turn away from outside distractions so they have a calm, quiet time for themselves.

Thinking back on the past week, did you have any time to be alone with your thoughts? Is it possible for you to enjoy a little uninterrupted time without distractions? Are you willing to try?