How Yoga Changed My Life. Story Of Grumpy Gym Rat.

Yoga is not a sport. Yoga is way of life, it's an ancient wisdom that stayed alive over millenia like no other teaching. Yoga changed my life in so many ways. I took my first yoga class in 2011 and I was hooked since day one. Today I decided to share a few shards of grace it bestowed upon me.

Kuyshu, Japan

1 Yoga made me more flexible.
Seriously, I could not touch my thumbs 6 years ago. It's not only body that flexes though. Benefits of being flexible in your body go way beyond physical realm. Everything is connected with everything else. When your body opens, your mind opens too. Fear patterns are just unreleased (unresolved) energy loops stored in your body. Especially modern men carry so much stress in their hips. Hips take the longest time to open, but it's also the most rewarding part that will make you feel like a new human. For me it took no less than 6 years to be able to sit comfortable in semi-lotus, and it's still work in progress.

2 Yoga made me more accepting
I used to be a super judgemental and opinionated man. Yes my mind still judges and has an opinion just about anything, but yoga enabled me to disassociate my real me from the noise in my head, that runs on auto mode. I learned not to take it too seriously. Yoga is not about the physical poses that much (asanas) as it is about your state of being. If you can stay in a painful pose for few minutes and breathe through the pain until it fades away, then you can do the same with any life situation, without reaction.

On a rooftop in Kathmandu (Nepal).

3 Yoga made me stronger, leaner and more fit
I used to lift weights. A regular gym rat. Not only that- I also ran, swimmed and biked pretty much every day. I considered myself very strong, but the truth is that I had too many muscle cells to feed with oxygen. Now I weight 30 pounds less of muscle than what I used to in my twenties, yet I lift my body, run it, swim it, bike it with greater power and endurance then before.

4 Yoga makes me look and feel younger
I'm pushing 40, but I feel better (and probably look better too), then when I was 25. The fact that I stopped eating meat definitely helped too. Everything is energy. Yoga unclogs the energy channels (meridians) in your body. It connects you to your breath, which is THE key (google Pranayama). Anyone who does yoga knows very well how it feels before and after yoga class. Even 3 rounds of namaskaras (sun salutations, usually an opening sequence of vinyasa yoga) you feel different, and that takes only 5 minutes to do.

5 Yoga makes me paint better
Crazy, but true. In my line of job, it's all about the level of relaxation I can achieve. I am a fire sign in many ways. Always been the go-getter and achiever, the crazy stubborn adventurous Aries. Relaxation was a foreign concept for me the whole life. Yoga gave me the ability to slow down. That, in return, made me paint with less expectations, just for the joy. And anything you do for joy is better than anything you do with vision of success.

Be playful!

6 Yoga made me love my solitude
I don't to yoga in the commercial studios anymore. That was my first 3 years in Vancouver. They serve their purpose, but most are filled with people who just want to look good and get into poses they're not ready for, cause the person on the next mat can do it. My old self called them Lulu Lemon crowd :) Nothing wrong about that, it's fun too. But when I met my yoga teacher (Waylon Belding), and took one class with him in the park, I cancelled my yoga membership right after the class. Since that day, I only practice yoga alone (90% of time) or with my teacher, who is a yogi in each of his actions, not only on the yoga mat. I love my lonely practice. If you can't be happy alone- how can you make anyone happy?

Maui

7 Yoga brought amazing people into my life
Although I practice alone mostly, the times when my teacher happens to be in the same location as me (he teaches worldwide and I'm a chronic traveler too), I meet amazing people from his circle who became my friends. People who don't care as much about look, but about heart. That moment, when we finish a class on a summer day, sun is setting, and we're sharing fruits that we all brought. You can feel the group energy. It's a synergetic field that I just never felt in any commercial studio class. Everybody is just beaming, nobody wants to go home.

My amazing teacher Waylong Belding. Check him out at http://www.zuddhalotus.com/

With my teacher in Hawaii.

Our outdoor class. That "topless" beautiful man between my teacher and me is my beautiful brother Tomas, who became yoga teacher under Waylon's supervision!

8 Yoga made me more loving and grateful
I was not always aware of how much I have to be grateful for. I went through rough times in my childhood, teen and twenties, and that kept me stuck in victim identity. Now I know that all that was an immense blessing from Universe. It was just a lesson I was meant to learn in order to become a better human. And besides, all the suffering was self-created, it always is. Yoga made me love myself and others more. It taught me to touch the peaceful core of my being, that was so hard to access before. On a good day after a good practice, I can literally sit in bliss alone with a candle and feel like the luckiest guy in the world, although nothing “special” happened. Time stops and I just melt into gratitude.

I know I'm lucky!

9 Yoga connects me to nature even more
I don't think that this needs any more explanation. Pictures are enough ;)

Everywhere you go, you take your yoga with you. It doesn't weight anything.

Yakushima. One of the most magical places I've been to.

I could go on and on and on...list is so long.
I hope this is enough to motivate you to start practicing.
My advice: focus on finding the best possible teacher, a real Yogi, not the fanciest or most convenient yoga studio.

Thank you for reading!

Much Yogi Love!

Jan
@jankasparec

This was one class that I could not miss- in a sound club. The DJ took us to nirvana, beyond words!