Worldwide Web

OK, I am sure I don’t have to say it again, but The Yoga Place is now teaching classes live and online. I think I keep restating this more from my own wonder of it than anything else! Yes, it has been an inkling, a thought, an idea to venture into at some point – especially since I have moved so many times and have students in different places – but, it was always something “extra” to do. What I could never have envisioned is the amount of joy and connection online classes have brought not just to me, but to my peers and students throughout the world and within our Iyengar Yoga Community!

I am one who can absolutely shun technology. It can be a black hole of distraction and absorption into completely unnecessary wastes of time. You can ask anyone I know and they will also tell you that I am very much a computer idiot. I would love to fight with all my might the overarching role that technology is now playing in our lives. However, the last week has given me a different view and a reminder as to why it might have been called the “worldwide web” in the first place.

I truly was brought to tears this morning seeing faces from all over the world coming together to practice. And yes, it is not exactly a perfect class, though surprisingly the teacher can still see things to help and to guide (as long as the student has their camera set well). Being online is this strange middle space between having the teacher there for guidance, but also finding ways to guide your own practice within your own space. It is still a group coming together to learn, building the community and support that a yoga studio and space can so often build, but it also allows each individual their own space of reflection and ingenuity that may not be possible when in a studio class.

This time may be odd and uncertain in so many ways, but one way it is not uncertain is the fact that yoga is a powerful tool to find connection to Self and to the world around you. Each link in a web is an important connection to the whole. Though we are forced to be physically separate, we can still be woven back into our Self and connected in to our communities through yoga.

The truth is that we all come from the same thread that makes up the web of the world. As we practice yoga we generate an awareness and energy of that thread that then connects us to each other. I thank you all for weaving this web of yoga with me. From wherever your center is, building outward to the space around you, and out onto the internet and beyond…may this worldwide web of yoga keep you happy, healthy, and peaceful during this time of change and chaos.