It’s a good idea to join a class this week.
An excellent one.
Why? Here are 11 reasons. We could give you many hundred more.
1. To build community.
When very many yoga teachers and practitioners moved onto Zoom at the start of last year it was a massive leap of faith, one that saw very many of us, from all over the world, logging into yoga classes from home for the first time ever.
And we have been coming together ever since.
We are huge fans of the communities that Kundalini Global teachers build online, because we have seen and felt how coming together in these times has brought resilience, transformation and solace to each and every person who comes to class on a regular basis.
Kundalini Global teachers encourage community by starting classes early, so we all have a chance to chat before we begin. If someone new joins it’s always lovely to make introductions and see connections being made.
Being part of a community, practising together, takes us to places it is unlikely we would go to when practising alone, too. We support each other in this.
2. For your brain.
We live in a period in history where the invitation is to be endlessly offended, oppressed and horrified.
To keep us in these specific states of being we are manipulated into a cycle of behaviour involving an awful lot of checking: checking your phone, your Instagram account, your group chats, your emails, the news, Twitter, Netflix, tracking deliveries of whatever it is we’ve pressed a button for, to send quickly to our door … what is it that we are looking for?
Many are not even consciously aware, but whilst we await any awareness of that to land we have to keep going back to check.
Our brains, in this, shoot endlessly down neural pathways that tell us we have to keep up with the checking, fuelling the cycle, telling ourselves again and again that we cannot, ever, be still. Be gentle. Be present. Because how then will we check?
When we step onto the mat we release contractions in the body, we use stretching and breath to soften, we move and breathe mindfully and we tell our mind that it is safe enough, just for the moment, to be still.
In class, we mark that moment. That perhaps there is no mind. Perhaps there is no need to move. No need to breathe. Perhaps we are safe enough.
This creates a new neural pathway. One that allows for us to choose to step out of being offended, oppressed and horrified, one that can be in the moment and accept and allow, gently, softly, presently.
In a class, on your mat, you do that again and again and, over time, that new neural pathway becomes one you choose to travel down more and more often.
3. To remember to breathe.
Consciously taking over the breath is the fastest way to tell your body and mind that you are ok. Safe enough. That you will be fine. The diaphragm is one of the major muscles in our stress system and, when we come together in class to breathe, we continuously work to take over the system and soothe ourselves.
The more we practise conscious breathing the more we notice our breath, and from there we open up the possibility of being able to change how we feel by taking control of it.
This is a life-changing awareness to build and it starts, for very many of us, when we join a class.
4. To land in your body.
Kundalini Global is an embodied form of yoga. We work, from the very first stretch of each class, to land in the body.
By changing hormonal flow within the body we allow for a kinder, gentler, softer experience of being present in our bodies. We encourage the noticing of physical sensations, we invite slow, meditative movements, flexing and massaging the internal organs, stretching the spine, releasing the fascia… all of this helps, after you’ve landed at the opening of a class, for you to stay present to your body and not to be lost in your mind.
5. To choose you.
In choosing to take the time to get on your mat and join a class you are making a commitment to yourself.
It is not always an easy thing to do. But if you can jump over your resistance then you can expect huge change… not only to your day, to your life, but also…
6. …To support others.
Stepping off your mat and back out into your day after class will make change in how the rest of that day transpires.
When you can hold yourself, when you know you have the tools at your disposal to step out of the pain of the past and the fear of the future, your state of being has a profound effect on those around you.
It is such a magical thing, that we come together online from all over the world to practise together, and then each member of the community goes back out into their own lives a little (or very) different than before the class began.
The butterfly effect of this is something we love to consider. We create change far beyond what comes directly to the individuals within each class… to their families, friends, colleagues… people they encounter on social media…
7. To hold yourself.
This can mean literally – in how some of our posture work aids in improving our posture and to counteract our propensity for hunching over screens – but also energetically.
Yoga, and coming to class, allows you to better move through the world holding yourself with purpose, grit…
8. To slow down.
Our thoughts are so often moving as fast as our news feeds. Faster, even. We make all kinds of excuses, relative to time, for not being able to make a class, or fit in time on the mat.
Slowly. It’s one of our favourite words at Kundalini Global. Choosing to slow down is something you may find tricky to begin with. But slowly is magical. Slowly will take you to new experiences of yourself so much faster than you could ever imagine.
9. To experience stillness.
Stillness. Can you bear it?
Many cannot. And no judgment on that! Were it not for our own histories with experiencing an inability to bear ourselves in a state of presence it is unlikely any Kundalini Global teachers would exist!
Stillness is not the state-of-being-du-jour for the modern day human but when you experience the work we do in a Kundalini Global class, which continually works you toward feeling safe enough to be still, you may just find that it’s a place you’ll want to spend more time.
10. To find your own way.
One of the wonderful things about attending class regularly is that you can find your own tools: your favourite postures, breaths, meditations, prayers… and you can take them away with you to use off the mat or in your own practise.
11. To laugh and have fun.
All of this can sound quite serious and important, and it can be those things.
Kundalini Global is a fan of sense-of-humour-activation.
When we come together in community, and when we practise Kundalini Global, it’s incredibly rare that we make it through a class without without playfulness. Without fun.
Indeed, their are so many different ways we can land in presence. That we can change how we feel. Laugher is certainly one of our favourites and when Carolyn invites us in class to smile like a saint, put on our stilettos, or become a spear that is hurtling through the universe toward our own specific landing place of choice, it can be very hard not to smile. We always do. And it completely changes our day.
Come to a class! It’s an amazing gift. To you. To those around you. To the universe.
