Artistic director: Flatfoot Dance Company
I turned to yoga after a dance-related lower back injury almost 20 years ago. I was told that yoga would help heal and strengthen years of impacted dance-related weakening.
I remember being in so much pain that I was willing to try anything – even yoga! I am embarrassed to say that I hated my first class – I was frustrated with all the still sitting and standing after years of high energy dance and movement. My will, however, had me hang on in the classes and so, in a gradual way that I now recognise as divine intent, I started to shift my relationship to hatha yoga practice and it has become one of the most fundamental and life sustaining things in my life – it was a reminder that we are actually never still; that in the silence and outward stillness of a held asana, blood flows, digestion happens, the heart opens and the mind begins to listen to the inner self. Beginning hatha yoga many years ago, also began a deeper and more inward journey into self. Hatha yoga is primarily a system of physical exercises and postures (asanas) designed to instill a sense of tranquility and well-being in the practitioner.
The exact origins of yoga are unclear, but the first written yoga system is the yoga Sutras of India’s Patanjali written around 200 to 400 BC. Written in Sanskrit, Patanjali’s text is the earliest collation of an ancient knowledge that was previously handed down in an oral tradition. According to Patanjali, Yoga practice brings about the suspension of the mind’s waves (vrittis), resulting in mindfulness, which means the ability to pay attention or listen to your life. Patanjali speak about yoga as way of learning about what is happening around and within you, rather than being consumed by internal mental struggles. In our time of Covid-19 restriction, of often being shut inside the home, of sometimes feeling the weariness of fear, this beautiful practice not only has allowed me to keep physically strong and healthy with a daily practice that helps get blood flowing through the body but has also helped me to face the anxiety of these times.
Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means to ‘yoke or harness’ – the practice of yoga seeks to harness the energy of the body and mind and use it more beneficially. Yoga also means ‘union’ referring to the union of the body and the mind that practice seeks to achieve. By uniting the mind and the body, yoga seeks to assist the mind to work with, rather than against the body. The yogic belief is that the mind, body and spirit cannot be separated and that the practice of Yoga is a way to increase an awareness of this fundamental connection. In our world where so much is disconnected and our relationships often detached, doing Hatha Yoga every day, has helped me keep connected to a more truthful self and thus, I believe, a more honest connection to family and an outside world. As Patanjali says, “as within, so without”. I have had the enormous privilege of learning from B. K.S. Iyengar and a few very memorable journeys to India which completely changed my life. I so look forward to a time when I can return safely to this motherland, but until then I continue to run Flatfoot Dance Company (now in its 23rd year) and continue to deepen my daily relationship with Hatha Yoga – all of it is part of the great dance of life! I hope that June – Yoga Month – sees you too open your heart to this ancient practice that teaches deep inner courage and that offers renewed physical and mental health. Now is the time!
