Last week, the autumn leaves were peaking where I live. I was dazzled by the variety of color on the hillsides. There were so many shades of green and gold and orange and red. And I found myself thinking about a box of crayons.
I’m not sure how old I was when I got my first box of 64 Crayola crayons (with the built-in sharpener), but I’m fairly sure it changed my life. I marveled at the names of all the colors, like “burnt umber.” “What in the world is burnt umber?” I wondered. My favorite color was “spring green.” So many shades of so many colors! I loved coloring, and this little yellow and green box made it so much more fun.
I feel like my yoga journey has been like going from a basic box of 8 crayons to that big box of 64. When I started practicing yoga in 1996, I had no idea there were so many schools and styles - so many shades of yoga. It wasn’t until I started yoga teacher training in 2015 that I began to understand the breadth and depth of yoga. Some of these styles I embraced off the bat. Others I avoided for a while. But it turns out that the ones I avoided are the ones I turn to more and more often now.
There's something interesting about that. As humans, we tend to gravitate toward what feels familiar or appeals to us immediately. We develop preferences. We decide we're a particular kind of person who likes a particular kind of yoga. There’s nothing wrong with having preferences. But what we might be missing when we limit ourselves to the things we're naturally drawn to?
For years, I thought of myself as someone who liked a challenging, flowing practice. Over time, though, I began to appreciate what happens when we slow down enough to really pay attention to the experience of movement. I try to share this with my students in my “Embodied Slow Flow” class, which draws a lot from viniyoga.
Somatic yoga, too, offers an entirely different way of experiencing the body. The movements are small, slow, and subtle - not at all what I wanted from my yoga ten years ago. But now, especially as my body continues to age, I know it's a practice I’ll keep in my yoga toolbox. And the more I do it, the more I enjoy it.
I suspect there's a lesson in that, not just about yoga, but about how we approach new experiences in general.
Sometimes we dismiss something because we don't understand it yet. Sometimes we mistake unfamiliarity for dislike. And sometimes we're simply not ready for what a particular practice has to offer. The things we need from yoga change as our bodies change, as our lives change, and as we change.
This is one of the things I appreciate most about the breadth of yoga. There isn't one right way to practice, and no single style has everything to offer. Different approaches invite us to explore different aspects of ourselves. Some challenge us to build strength and stamina. Others encourage us to cultivate patience, curiosity, or a deeper awareness of how we move.
We don't have to love every style. But perhaps there's value in being willing to try something that doesn't immediately appeal to us. Not because we need to add another thing to our list of accomplishments, but because we might discover something we didn't know we were missing.
Think of it as expanding your box of crayons. You might still reach for your favorite shade of spring green most of the time. But every now and then, you might find yourself reaching for burnt umber. And you might be surprised by what you can create with it.
Curious about Somatic Yoga? I have two opportunities for you to try it.