The residual effect

I started practicing ashtanga almost thirteen years ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. And it really was the start of a new life. I was born into a world that I had no knowledge of, I truly was an infant. Someone smacked my butt and I started to breathe. That analogy is not that far from the truth.

At seventy I still consider myself as malleable. I can change and I actually love change as it represents food for my brain. It would be a boring life to live if everything stayed the same.

When I started ashtanga I’d had MS for sixteen years. I was at the beginning of a massive life lesson. A lesson I’d been waiting for fifty eight years to happen. I always knew it was going to happen someday and it started then, almost thirteen years ago.

It’s weird to know something is missing and not have a clue what that is. I’d tried different ways to learn what that was but to no avail.

I was a skinny kid growing up and on the back of the comics there was an advertisement for weight lifting. A picture of a skinny kid on the beach getting sand kicked in his face. That was me, the kid getting sand licked in his face. I was tall and skinny – too tall and too skinny.

So I asked my parents if I could sign up for Judo. I learned Judo and took part in competitions, learned the Japanese words for the moves. Much like I’ve learned the Sanskrit words for postures in yoga. Judo is for defence (it’s a sport! my aikido teacher despairingly emphasized to me many years later). Judo wasn’t it. By the way I got the shit kicked out of me by a girl at one of those competitions.

Aikido was next in my search to find what I was searching for. Something elusive and undefinable. His style of teaching in aikido was very old school and easily identifiable to me. I was the oldest person in those classes (older than the teacher also) and could see right through his method. But he still had to teach me his lesson. One day he put me in an arm bar flipped me over and recked my shoulder. I woke up next morning with a massive bruise around my shoulder on my back and chest. He’d taught me his lesson and when I’d healed I returned to class (I was teaching him my lesson). But after several months I determined this also was not what I was looking for.

Next was tai chi (bit of a theme going on) which I learned after being diagnosed with MS while living in Winnipeg. I continued to study and practice when I moved to Victoria. But eventually I determined this also is not what I’m looking for and I still don’t know what that is.

After years of inactivity and weight gain I ended up at Ashtanga Yoga Victoria. After just one class I knew this was it. Even though I did not know what the “it” was I knew deep down this is where I belong and I will find out what “it” is here.

I met like minded people. People also on a journey to find out – even the teachers. Some were just trying to fix something physical like me. Some whom were more aware searching for something much deeper. Some who were attempting to repair themselves.

I started for physical reasons but ended up in the deep end of the pool. I can just float here which is where I belong.

After thirteen years of learning ashtanga. The residual effect is a calmness and confidence (equanimity) in who I am. There’s an ease in how I communicate to others that was not there before. My mind is aware of my bodies inner workings. My nervous system should and can be maintained. My resolve to maintain is constant even though I’ve gone through some tuff spots.

But most of all; I love many more people, without increasing an equivalent amount of new friends.

Couldn’t ask for anything more.

Ahimsa