Sports & Adventure: Fitness

Why do you want to do this?

Yoga has become a passion for me. As far as I can remember, I have not known this kind of passion before, and I think it would be silly not to explore this. I have already noticed some of the physical and emotional benefits of my practice, and I would love to embrace every aspect of it in order to benefit my whole self as much as possible. I see this as a potentially lifelong part of my life.

What three things will you need to make this happen?

Practice yoga regularly, particularly this summer. A minimum of three or four times a week, I should go to yoga classes in order to help myself along.

Develop a private mindfulness practice. At least once a week to begin, I should practice being mindful, meditating, and practicing yoga on my own time. While classes are wonderful, it would be beneficial to find my 'inner teacher' as well, as they say. Mindfulness is a very challenging aspect of yoga for me, and I should take an hour every week, to meditate, read on mindfulness, etc.

Let go of the competitive aspect of practice. Yoga is not about being better than anyone else, and I need to learn to remember to be on the mat to honour myself, and others, not to push myself to show off or to be better, but to challenge myself to grow.

What is the biggest barrier to your achieving this?

Patience, ego, and time. Money could be challenging, but these days, I have been able to gather the money to attend public yoga classes. I am worried that come fall, I will have trouble fitting my yoga practice into my busy student schedule, especially with finding enough classes that I can realistically get to on a regular basis. Besides that, the mindfulness aspect of my yoga practice will demand a lot of patience from me, and detatching myself from the competitive aspect of yoga will be difficult, just based on my ego. BUT, I CAN DO IT!