What If We Tried Something Different?

I have a little confession. As a yoga student, I too have definitely had teachers I absolutely loved…and teachers who weren’t “my style.”

Maybe their class moved differently than I was used to. Maybe the music wasn’t my thing. Maybe their personality was completely different from what I normally gravitate toward. Maybe I walked out thinking, Well…that wasn’t really my jam.

Despite this, fortunately I’ve NEVER left a yoga class without receiving something I needed or felt worse leaving than arriving. We all have preferences and we certainly are entitled to choose how we spend our hard-earned money with what classes we want to attend.

We know there is no perfect yoga class and no perfect yoga teacher. Every teacher brings something different to the mat. One may challenge you in a way you didn’t expect. Another may help you understand stillness. One may make you laugh. Another may offer a perspective that stays with you long after the class ends. And one may simply not be for you-and that’s alright too.

Early in my yoga days, I practiced with the same teacher for months. I loved her classes. Then one day she announced she was moving out of state and this would be her last class. I was devastated. And when I say devastated, I mean I walked outside the studio after class, saw her, and promptly burst into tears in front of her. Like…full-on sobbing.

Looking back, I know there was probably much more wrapped up in those tears than simply losing my yoga teacher. But at the time, I remember thinking:

What am I going to do now?

Well…I kept going to yoga at the same time, and a new teacher took that class.

And you know what?

It was different. But it was also wonderful.

Just in a completely different way.

That experience has stayed with me because I think it says something important about our practice—and maybe about life in general:

We can love what we have without assuming that what comes next won’t be just as meaningful.

This has been on my mind recently because we’ve had a beloved teacher take a break from the studio as well as changes with some teacher schedules/teachers out for various life situations/etc.

It is understandable how change (there’s that word again-aargh?) can create a lot of emotions and feelings. I must say I love how passionate we all are - it shows how important both our yoga practice and Saha are to us!

But I also wonder what happens when we give ourselves the opportunity to experience something before deciding what it means.

This is where yoga gets really interesting.

One of the niyamas, or personal practices in yoga, is svadhyaya—self-study.

Sometimes self-study simply looks like noticing ourselves in real time.

Why am I resistant to this?
What am I attached to?
Why does something being different make me uncomfortable?

And then there is aparigraha—non-attachment.

We can become attached to a particular teacher, a particular style, a particular pace, a particular spot where we always set up our yoga mat, or even the feeling we associate with a certain class.

But, can we love our favorite teacher and still try someone new?

Can have a preferred style and still be curious about another?

And perhaps most importantly, there’s ahimsa—kindness.

We don’t have to love every class, every teacher, every style of yoga. But, we can notice:

Hmm. This is different.

And we can try to stay open. To stay curious. Because different doesn’t necessarily mean worse.

Sometimes different is just…different.

Sometimes something wonderful can come from different. Like having some very incredible teachers join our community. Or to think that if the teacher who I sobbed over hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have had another teacher who encouraged me to do my yoga teacher training!

But, as it turns out, I’m still learning this lesson too. When my friend and mentor, Jen—our previous studio owner—reached out to me and said:
“Things are changing in my life. I’m moving to Missouri. Will you take the studio over?”

How different this has been for all of us, right? Those shoes are big ones to fill.

But I have learned I don’t have to fill them. My shoes are different. And they are beautiful, too.

Not the same.

Just different.

And that’s alright.

To me, that is yoga.

On the mat.

And off.

With kindness,

LEANNE