100 Club: Joyce
1. What does yoga mean to you?
Yoga came into my life at the age of 13, when I entered Jr. High School. I was assigned this for my gym class. “What the heck is yoga?,” was my first thought. As it happened, I had a fantastic teacher. She was my inspiration to learn & seek out more yoga after her class ended. Yoga is ingraining the physical body with discipline through repetition & the precision of movements, so to free the spirit from the neurotic clutches of the mind.
2. What drew you to the Shala and why did you stick around?
I had moved up from NYC during the pandemic & was looking for a yoga community. I have a preference for traditional yoga, & Shala resonated with the style I initially learned. There’s more to yoga than just the physical exercise: there’s the breath work in Pranayama, the discussions of the scriptures, the rhythmic chanting, etc. It’s an exploration into the Mind-Body-Spirit connection, if you so wish to jump into the rabbit hole.
3. What's one piece of advice you'd give someone new to yoga?
It is not a competition; you are not comparing yourself to your neighbors. Your body will feel different today than it did yesterday, be gentle with your expectations. Yoga is about being in the present moment, being in the present breath. You are neither thinking about the next pose, nor thinking about the last one you just did. Just like your thoughts: they will come, you will give it your full attention, then you will let them go.
Execute each pose with its fullest expression: at full extension, perfect in alignment, with stillness & grace. Life imitates art, as art imitates life.
4. What's a fun random fact about you?
When I started martial arts at age 36, my Sensei secretly doubted I would last. The strength training, breath work, & discipline in movement that I learned in yoga complemented my training in Shotokan Karate. I made it to 3rd kyu Brown belt, one test below level one Black belt. I missed my Black belt test because I was enrolled in my first year of Acupuncture school, & final exams were looming.
I believe it was divine intervention that brought Yoga into my life at age 13 to calm & organize my adolescent chaos. Yoga brought me to Karate to help me work through my mid-life crisis, dealing with personal anger issues & frustrations of life.
And Karate eventually brought me to Acupuncture so I could help others heal, as I simultaneously heal my own wounds.