The image of the yogi as a granola-eating, birkenstock-and-sock wearing, tree-hugging vegetarian is quickly being replaced, by the more accessible image of youth (both men and women) sporting brightly colored Lululemon garb, carrying equally bright yoga mats. But despite that there is a contingent of our community (and you know who you are!) who think that we are still chasing after Nirvana.
In reality we are all not so young and we have the same foibles and problems as you mortals. We have bad backs and blown knees, we have hernias and hemorrhoids, we have plantar fasciatis and lateral epicondylitis. We have turned to yoga, not necessarily as a path to enlightenment, but as a path to easier movement without pain. Perhaps, we have turned to yoga because we have driven down the conventional medicine road with little to show for it, but a numb butt.
I often try to convince, the uninitiated that I need my morning cup of joe, just like them; that I love a good steak (the pinker the better), just like them; and that sometimes, my kids make me so crazy I want to sell them into slavery, just like them. But then I remember that I am a member of a still, elite group. An informal, yet still very REAL, club of REAL people that roll out their mats every week, feel the floor with the corners of their feet and allow the breath to enter the deepest part of their diaphragm. I realize that membership deserves a little respect.
Whatever our reasons for coming to the mat: practical or transcendental we need to be proud of what we do. We know that talk of yoga makes some of our more mainstream friends and family members a little uncomfortable. We might have been in their shoes, once a long time ago. So patience, dear friends. Rest assured they will come around in their own time, for their own reasons. Or not.
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