My first yoga class was about three years ago. The women next to me had their eyes closed, and flowed fluidly from one motion to the next. Nothing popped or cracked, and they didn’t groan or roll their eyes when the instructor guided their breathing. Then there was me. With my legs twisted and my arms sprawled across the corners of my mat, I inched my head up just high enough to stare at the clock hanging from the wall. Falling asleep during meditations and complaining during long stretches, I cursed my track coach for forcing me to waste an hour of my time with something so boring and lifeless.
But then someone farted. It happens, especially when the vegan yogis show up with pounds of organic grass in their digestive system. But my face loosened, and like a 12-year-old boy, I broke into hysterics, nodding to the women next to me with a “Did you hear that?!” expression bubbling from my face. To my befuddlement, nobody else in the room did so much as lift a head to acknowledge it. The vinyasa continued on without a hiccup, so I chuckled to myself every time we flowed back to Downward Dog, and made sure to let my Twitter followers in on the joke as soon as class ended.
Buddha said, “When you’re in peace, it’s a position of power.” I never thought I’d be writing about yoga, let alone quoting Buddha. As someone who has grown up in a game of fast paced sports and heated competition, I have always worked in reverse; whether it was pounding on my shins for one extra mile or fatiguing my muscles with rusty iron, I sought physical power as my main source of peace.
When college sports ended for my friend and I, she suckered me into buying a week pass as The Hot Yoga Spot, to where she showed up with a long sleeve shirt and thick, durable leggings. With a vindictive smile, she put out our mats next to the heaters and said, “I like to sweat.” The hot air stifling my lungs, I kept trying to accidentally kick her for putting me into a 105-degree room without a clock on the wall, but she was too zenned out to notice my pants for oxygen and stinging glares. Nonetheless, I got through the class, and whether it was to get my money’s worth or not, I went to a class after that, and one after that, and another after that.
One evening as I stood there in “Tree” pose with my foot slipping off the sweat on my thigh, the instructor told us to change our perspective; instead of noticing the pressure of our feet on our thighs, she told us to experience the feeling of our thighs from our feet. Take a minute to let that sit. She told us to use that focus to breathe into a balanced stance, to allow our breath to distract us from the sweat dripping into our vision, and to use the energy boiling in the room to fuel our own inner peace. She taught us how to turn peace into power.
To the basketball all-star, the football powerhouse and the weightlifting dynamo, this sounds like a load of hippie nonsense. I thought so, too. But once I was able to understand that perspective shift, I understood that the connection between body and mind that transcends a yoga studio in which it begins. It allows you to bring yourself with you, and find a rhythm of breath that will fuel a run, empower lift, and even digest a cheeseburger with awareness, tranquility and satisfaction. It invites you to notice yourself, to be present, not to judge, compare, or critique, but to appreciate, build and blossom without nuance. In that state of serenely, one can get through a yoga flow by the sounds around her; one can handle a crowd with a distinguished focus.
My yoga instructor once said, “An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside of you.”
Yoga creates an internal force field against a world spinning at 1,040 mph. It creates a piece of peace. In finding that piece of yourself, and thus finding that peace within yourself, you will find power -- even if someone farts.
