Africa Yoga Project - Be the YES in Your LIFE

As I lay in savasana the posture of pure surrender, the few days leading up to this moment finally caught up with me. Lying on my mat I was overcome with emotion, here I was on the floor with nowhere to go or hide. The past few days I had been submerged in an environment of open vulnerability, I was living with over 80 people from various parts of the world. My ideas of what was and how it was were being challenged from every angle. As the words of Jeff Buckley’s song Hallelujah filled the room…I cracked. Around me 300 people, a packed community yoga class at the Africa YogaProject’s Shine Centre all of them yielding to their existence. In the middle of this moment, was me silently trying to control the feelings that were tearing through me. Can I just mention that I simply hate crying in public, I hate it so much that when I was in my teens I took a vow that crying would always be a private affair (Funerals don’t count as public, considering its communal mourning)

It was a series of events that came together to allow me to attend the first Kenyan led Africa Yoga Project Teacher training. I had heard about Africa Yoga Project before and would often visit their website for inspiration for my Ekasi Yoga Classes. I was totally balled over when they told me I had made it through the application process. Yoga training in Kenya the land of tea and the Masai Mara, I could not think of a better setting. I like being part of firsts, there is energy around such historical moments; the sense that something is new and will never be new again. As I lay on my mat, it was the cool, comforting smell of the lemongrass soaked cloth that was placed on my burning eyes that offered me relief from the tears that were flowing down my face.

Warrior of light

Growing up my grandmother always used to say “ it matters not what you look like because your beauty does not come from there, it comes from your heart.” It hit me that what she meant was that our beauty comes from the manner in which we deal with ourselves, our environment and with each other as beings sharing the same world.

At this point it dawned on me that this was not just yoga training, it was a community effort to create a wholesome existence for ourselves and others from all the different communities we stem from. That through seeing the importance of our existence, actions and the light that is inherent in each and everyone of us, we could choose a path of loving kindness in our interactions.

The first place I had the chance to put this way of living into practice was at the training. I didn’t get it right all the time, there were times when I was in my umpteenth back bend and ready to throw in the towel, I would look to my side and see Rachel still holding on and I would think “dammit! Why is there no one in child’s pose already!?! In that moment I would take strength from my community in Rachel’s persistence I would be inspired to continue.

It’s harder to give up when everyone is shining their light because it takes you back home to the question, “Why am I here, right now, in this position?”

This little light of mine…

Here I was 5000km away from home and I was relearning the value of being accountable for my actions, of seeing the person and sharing. I fell in love with the people I met they were lifing (living, doing their best). Some of the highlights for me were watching the sign interpreters do their thing, meeting Kiragu, the guy who believed in me before he met me.

Learning to jump like a Masai warrior from Joseph a Masai Yogi, they have the strongest legs the secret is in the locks they use when jumping.

I met the “first” sign language mother tongue speaker, a young man with sparkling eyes and a smile that can lift the roof.

When I asked him what it felt like being a hearing child with deaf parents, he candidly shared how there was no one to complain about his loud music nor did he have to worry about leaving the room when receiving calls. As with every thing in life there are pro’s and cons.

I found people to share my love for tea with, every night we would gather around sharing tea, ideas and thoughts. There was the talented Jamo dropping profound, life altering one-liners that would have me thinking for hours. It was also through these tea discussions that I stumbled upon a brilliant massage therapist who solved a problem my physio had been struggling to fix for over a year.

When I signed up for this training, I was looking forward to back breaking, barrier crashing yoga. I got that and the murky work of making sense of my emotions and the daily decisions I take in my life. Nothing prepares you for wading through your own physical and emotional barriers, when you get to face your nakedness, your truth and your light. When you get to ask yourself right now and this very moment “who am I being?” This simple question had a huge impact on me, who am I being right now for myself, my community, for my country? When I ask myself that question before I make my decision it goes from being what does Michelle want? To how will Michelle’s want impact her immediate environment and community? It’s a whole different ball game when you stop thinking about yourself as an insular being you start living.

Experiences like this remind me to always strive be the YES in my life.

Thank you Jamo Mweu for the Photography