Need Inspiration to Get on Your Yoga Mat?

Transcript

hi my name is Meredith and this is Jack and we're right outside Yoga Pod here in Boulder Colorado Jack you just finished up an awesome class this morning tell us about how long you've been practicing yoga and what keeps you coming back to your mat I've been practicing for about 3 years now and what keeps me coming back there's just always more to learn you know I'm uh I get really really excited about just getting the opportunity on a day-by-day basis you know I wake up this morning I woke up and I felt horrible and used to be that when I would wake up and I would feel horrible I had nothing that I could do about it it would be like oh great you know here we go I'm feeling horrible today today I'm like oh this is perfect I'm going to Livia's class and the first five minutes will be horrible and then I'll feel great and I'll have the opportunity to you know to work it out I don't know it's something that uh that's been that's been just a really empowering thing for me you know yeah now Jack you have a pretty advanced practice so a lot of times when people are in the room with you they might say oh my body will never do that or wow you're used as a demo sometimes so for the people who might have some of those experiences like whoa that's out of my reach can you talk a little bit about your journey into some of the higher level ASAS and and where you started and how you've gotten to where you are in your practice sure um well first of all um I came to yoga out of desperation and feeling pretty crippled actually I was living in Vermont I had had some back injuries and some knee injuries and they told me that I should have knee surgery and I should have back surgery and I got the knee surgery first because uh there's a higher sort of you know people were more confident about knee surgery and it didn't go well at all it actually went horribly um they there a bunch of things went wrong I was in worse pain than I had been before the surgery and everything and I just I wasn't willing to go in for anything else I was very I was afraid I was upset set and I went to a bunch of physical therapists nothing helped so finally I I stumbled into this yoga studio it was the only studio in town this tiny little Vermont town and it was a uh a certified Ashtanga teacher who was extremely hardcore and she would only she the the easiest thing she taught was full primary and so I went in there but she was the first person who said to me without any qualifications she could just listen to me and look at me and say this can help you and so I just Dove head first into it I showed every day I did everything that she told me to do I had to have faith in something and uh the first class I couldn't do anything like I just kind of you know I watched I tried little things she gave me a lot of attention but I just kept coming back um and I guess what I would say in terms of advancing practice and moving into some of these postures is that in my experience it can happen for pretty much you know I I think that you know there are obviously going to be physical and structural limitations with everyone but I think that people are cap a lot of people are capable of a lot more than they think they are um that's really what it comes down to and it really has to do for me it had to do with relaxing a little bit more I used to practice every day like I said and I made a lot of progress I needed that I needed that structure I need that discipline but as I move forward I found that sometimes I needed to practice less and some S I needed to come to class and really pay attention but pay attention in a completely different way than I was used to so that's kind of my if I were giving advice or anything like that it would be kind of just like you know chill out and um play just play and the more you play the more things will happen I love that one of the things that uh I've heard from one of my teachers a lot is that as he goes into the really tough poses instead of thinking the result of the pose he's actually just looking for the window of opening where the breath and the opening in the body meet without the goal of the end goal of being the actual form of the ASA absolutely I agree with that completely um one of the things you know like I think a perfect example of that is you know a press handstand people see the size of my shoulders and go that's why he can do that um and I don't think that that's true at all I think that it's entirely because I'm not worried about it as much I'm just I'm thinking oh t end of my exhale I just feel this rise and it feels like a wave and we were talking about this earlier it feels like a wave that just you just spiral up and if I don't go up or if I go right over the top that's okay that's fine you know it's that feeling that lifts you I like that and so do you feel that Yoga Pod serves you as a um practitioner that has a higher level of practice oh absolutely um I mean it's number one the greatest thing for me me is with three rooms and with this commitment that Jerry and Nicole have to having a whole variety of different classes um I'm really one of the things that really works really well about it for me is that no matter what how crazy my schedule is no matter what I have to do for my job and you know trying to you know really work on my relationships and things like that when I have some time to squeeze in or when I carve out time for myself there's always going to be something here um so that helps me a lot with that uh consist um and there are some just some fabulous teachers here um and there's also this laidback atmosphere here where I feel as though I'm free when I want to uplevel when I'm really feeling something I oftentimes many of the teachers here are just you know and the students as well leave me feeling free to do that not as though I'm being judged or as though I shouldn't be doing that or as though I'm I'm I'm bothering other people you know if I can just be humble and work on my practice everyone here feels really cool with that and that's important to me and what would you say are some of the earmarks of this community well I mean here I am I come out of the classroom and Jerry's like hey you know we're doing interviews outside and I always you know I always hang out in the room out front just because there's always a group there there are people on the couches and everything it's not like get your shoes and go um I really find I'm always the person who's like the last person out of the room cuz I'm just hanging out in there doing whatever um but I just find that people hang around here it's it doesn't feel as though we're here to do something and then we go back to our lives and it's completely separate and I don't know that's important to me because I would really like to have more and more in my life and in my community have things mesh together I think that that's that's very very important and I see people here trying to do that I like that real sense of community so before we go today I'd love you to share just a little bit um with our viewers some inspiration to help them get on the mat today inspiration to help you get on the mat today you'll feel better afterwards um and it really takes I guess the number one thing that I could say is when you make make that choice every time you make that choice it gets easier you know and once you build that as a habit once you build it as something that is you know is part of your structure and The Yoga Pod really has allowed me to do this once again because there's always something here I know that I can come and be a part of something once I build that in there's no more struggling at all and uh it becomes you know uh Pabi Joyce said practice and all is coming um you can really fall into that when you have that routine so it's only you know if it feels hard it's only hard at first and then it becomes hard to do things that maybe you don't want to do and that sounds good to me yeah you know thank you so much what I really hear you saying is that consistency through time equals results and those results can be being a part of a community those results can be found on your mat or anything that you create for yourself in your life that you'd like sound good sure awesome well Jack thank you so much my name is Meredith and we're here at the yoga pond in Boulder Colorado we'd love for you to join us if you'd like to find out more information you can visit us on the web at the yoga pod.com [Music]