“Yoga is a balance of effort and ease. ” ~ Stacey Sperling, my yoga teacher
“It takes 7 years to get to enlightenment. 9 if you really try.” ~ Will Duprey, my yoga teacher
3 weekends of yoga teacher training down, 4 to go. We’re now 1/3 of the way through the course. I can feel the change in my body and in my mind. I’m finding ease in my effort, and it seems that the more effort I place into my practice, the more ease I feel. On the mat and off the mat.
Yoga in the west is about asanas, poses. In the west, we are always running, striving, reaching. We are afraid of never having enough, of losing what we have, of what people will think if we can’t keep up. That’s a lot of effort, and there’s no ease anywhere in there.
I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to have fruitful effort without a sense of ease. Perhaps this is just another way of saying that we should be on the path of least resistance. It doesn’t mean that path is easy; on the contrary, a good deal of effort is required to get on and stay on the path we’re meant for, our dharma. I’m suggesting that if we find ourselves heading down a road where we find no ease, where it seems that no matter how hard we try, everything just gets harder, then maybe we need to go another way. Yoga’s teaching me that effort and ease are not opponents, but rather partners.
Christa Avampato 