What’s your yoga? Golf, anyone?

November 12, 6:38 AMPhiladelphia Yoga ExaminerJonathan Bartlett

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Yoga has many faces

Some folks who hear the word ‘yoga’ see images of lean young bodies twisted into shapes that few could ever hope to mold their way into. For others, a picture of an Indian sage springs out, sitting cross-legged before a group of adoring fans, eyes closed in meditation, and just the suggestion of a smile on his or her face, expressing an inward joy in the moment.  Lately, celebrities have served as the face of yoga in the media, so a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow or Madonna or Sting or even Katie Couric might pop into the mind’s eye of those whose understanding of yoga has yet to blossom.

Older than dirt, yoga has spawned more than a few stock portraits that fill in the blank when yoga is mentioned in conversation. But truth is ‘yoga =  ‘ is so much more than what commonly comes after the ‘=’ sign. The contortionist, the swami, the star, all of these are yoga, but so too is that ‘in the moment’ feeling a golfer gets on the golf course, club in hand, readying a shot.

One of my favorite yoga teachers(and more on that in a future post) is fond of  saying, ‘That’s his/her yoga,’ in connection with stories of others’ preoccupations outside of the work that earns them a living. I’m sure that she would say the same thing about Jim, a good friend of mine whose passion is golf.

If you’re a golfer, you know what yoga is: your body is motionless as you steady yourself in preparation for the ‘next great shot’ that you know will come, but you just don’t know when. It’s that feeling of elation you get when it happens that drives you to play your next round, between rounds, but I’m convinced that part of the popularity of golf stems from what occurs inside a golfer as s/he readies a shot.

Think about it. You’re on the fairway. You pull out a five iron from your bag to loft the ball 150 yards away from the pin. You position your body as you have hundreds of times in similar situations. As you ready your next shot, your mind is in your hands, in your arms, in your legs, your neck. You feel your feet on the ground, weight evenly distributed over your heels, across the ball of your foot, your toes are snuggled into the ground, not unlike Downward Dog or Uttasana. You are firmly planted into the earth just like a yogi or yogini in Tadasana as you ready to move.

Meanwhile, your mind is free of the chatter that normally fills your awareness during other waking hours. Worries that you might have had a moment before you put your eye on the ball have evaporated. Anxiety about the future? Not there, because as a golfer you know that such an intrusion would ruin your shot. So focused you are that a monitor of your brainwave function might show the same result as that of a monk whose preoccupation is meditation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html. You are ‘in the moment,’ totally present, not thinking about the past, or the future. You are the ball, observed and observer is one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNVU23knqZw.

During a yoga practice, your mind is engaged the same way. Your teacher will ask you to suspend normal operation of the mind and focus your awareness on your body. S/he will ask you to let thoughts that pass by, to just pass by, uncaptured by your attention, instead place your mind into your hands, your feet, to feel what’s going on inside your body.

Does that sound familiar?

Yoga anyone?