Nobody and nothing is perfect, alright, you caught me. But sometimes, somethings come pretty close. I’m am grateful to be at the point of my yoga teaching journey, when I can lead a class based on the energy in the room. I can feel which asanas are needed, emotionally. It’s a different way of teaching: going in to a class without a plan, but with the intention to best serve my students.
Before each class starts, I ask my students to set an intention for their practice today. Whether it is to heal their bodies or their hearts, to send energy to a loved one, or to feel gratitude for their health and strength. We take a moment of pause to silently set our individual intentions, and then we begin.
Today I set my own intention of best serving my students. I don’t always set my own intention, but I silently sent out my own energy: seeking to serve. Of course, it could have been a mix of a variety of conditions, such as the extra loud crashes of the ocean waves after a stormy night or the sleepiness of my students from a night of rain, but throughout the next hour of asanas everything felt perfect. I could hear the quietness of my students breath. I could see their eyes gently close in contentment. I felt connected to them as each asana presented itself to me, almost as a flower unfolds petal by petal.
As the hour came to an end, after shavasana and our closing namaste, each student closed their eyes and stayed silent as minutes passed. It was almost ten minutes later when they rose from the mat. That is perfection. Feeling so grounded, that there is no rush to go anywhere, no driving force pushing you off the mat, no pressure to move — just the call to be still and present with yourself. That is perfection.
