I hear it all the time. So and so has a "good" practice. So and so has a "strong" practice. What does that really mean? What is a "good" practice? What does a good practice mean to you? Sharath has said many times that every time you get to practice it's a good practice. In this video excerpt from the Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver Documentary Fiona talks about what a good practice means to her. I've practiced at AYV for 5 years and I know first hand that what Fiona values in a student is exactly what she says in this interview. - Clint
"This is about showing up every day and just being aware. It's not an accumulation. It's a moment and it's an awareness.
So for me, the practice was really about cultivating patience, and through that patience, cultivating awareness, and through that awareness, just moving deeper into the self." - Fiona Stang, Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver
In western life, there's this thought of progression and constantly accumulating and constantly climbing. Ashtanga yoga for me is like finding that place in the middle and then eventually oscillating back and forth from that still point in the middle.
When I started Ashtanga yoga, I wanted to know, here's the posture. How do you do it? What's the right way? What's the wrong way? How do you get another posture? It's this idea of accumulation, like getting a degree almost. And I learned through time, through practice and more practice and more practice and having children and being a householder and running a yoga studio, I learned that this is about showing up. This is about showing up every day and just being aware.
It's not an accumulation. It's a moment and it's an awareness. And through those moments of having good practice and a bad practice, you eventually learn that any practice, any time you get on your mat is a good practice, whether the form is there or the form is not there. It's more about your mindset. And the postures are just metaphors for how you live your life.
So for me, the practice was really about cultivating patience, and through that patience, cultivating awareness, and through that awareness, just moving deeper into the self.
FIONA STANG first journeyed to Mysore in 1999 where she met her teacher Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois and his grandson, Sharath Rangaswamy. Fiona continued to study with Guruji to receive his teachings of devotion, grace, faith, compassion, patience, and yoga. In 2000, Fiona was authorized to teach by Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois, and in July 2009, she was in the first group of 40 students worldwide to receive Level 2 Authorization. Fiona is the director and teacher at Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver. Visit their website at Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver
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