tibetan yoga

As of three weeks ago, I've been enrolled in a yoga course that's like nothing I've practised before. I thought it would be familiar to me, since it's Tibetan-inspired yoga, which conjured images of meditation, deity yoga, and hatha yoga asanas (postures) that I know from years of practice back in Canada. But this is different, and it is wonderful.

Until now, I've been wary and skeptical of anything to do with the wishy-washy notion of chakras, those non-physical energy centres along the body's central channel. I don't like things I don't understand, I can't prove, I can't grasp with my senses. I also don't like things that come with a new-agey froufrou image of middle-aged white women in breezy white clothes and white turbans smiling and talking as if they'd just replenished their stash of weed. That was how I saw the chakras, possibly because they were introduced to me by my mom and her entourage when I was a hypercynical teenager. (My mom isn't anything like the image I've just described, but those adolescent eyes can really tweak things.) Somehow, I have been opening up to the idea of chakras over the past few months, and the chakra work in this course has been - dare I say - convincing.

It's not all about chakras. There is a lot of meditation and visualization, but these are focused on the circulation of energy inside and outside the body rather than on deities and buddhafields as I'm used to. There are also plenty of stretches and asanas that somewhat resemble those of the hatha tradition I know. The main difference here is in the approach to the asanas and in the breath work associated with them.

There are aspects of Tibetan yoga that are brand new to me, and some have even seemed bizarre through the first couple of sessions. But I know for sure that the practice makes my body feel good, and my mind, too, and this kind of purification is the point of yoga (at least for me at this time). I am really grateful to those who create the conditions for me going: my parents, who provided a good dose of oomph by giving me the tuition for my birthday; Marie, for taking Nayeli for a few hours and putting her to bed without nursing (which can be tough); and Nayeli, for saying bye-bye early and going to bed without nursing.