Measuring Success in Yoga with Vicky Tomsky

Many of us entered the world of Yoga through the door marked ‘physical’. In measuring our success, it is too easy to make direct correlations between our physical adeptness, or lack of it, and the state of our souls.

The outward indicators of so-called achievement can be very deceptive, and some of the most remarkable changes can go unnoticed and unacknowledged.

How do we measure a movement toward greater kindness and respect for others? How do we measure the strengthening of presence and awareness?

We must begin to re-evaluate our measuring devices so that our sense of satisfaction with ourselves and others is not identified with physical form. 

If we measure ourselves on the ruler of the back bends we can do, the arm balances we have mastered, and the flexibility of our hips, we will find ourselves cast adrift the moment any of these attributes are taken from us.

Life gives and life takes. Through injuries, aging, life changes, and cultural/universal reality, we may find that what we could do yesterday we cannot do today. Will we then pronounce ourselves failures? 

The purpose of Yoga practice is very simple: To open the heart.  

Can we measure our success in our postures not by how far we went but by how aware we were in each moment?

Can we judge the correctness of our positions not by what they look like but by what makes them feel most alive, most present, most whole? 

Instead of, “How many hours did I spend on the mat today?” we can ask, “How did I live my practice in every moment of the day?” 

Our society tells us that success has to do with how much money we earn, what kind of car we drive, and how we look. 

We would be foolish to think that just because we practice Yoga we are immune to the dangers of such superficial criteria. 

Three people show up to our class and we feel like a failure. 

Thirty people pack the studio and we pronounce that we’ve made it. As long as we measure success using society’s devices, we will be as fraught with fear of failure as any executive scrambling up the corporate ladder.

When we do touch our toes, when we finally accomplish that deep backbend, anyone who has been there could tell you: nothing happens. It hasn’t brought us one iota closer to ourselves or others unless somewhere along the way it helped us to open our hearts.

This workshop will include in-depth discussions on selected asana, each followed by Insights gained from 15 years of teaching.

Our Active practice will focus on moving, strengthening, and warming with awareness and fun. 

Then, a quiet practice will focus on opening, and breathing, and we shall finish with a juicy relaxation pose, Savasana.

This workshop is inspired by the teaching of my teacher, Donna Farhi.

All levels are welcome.

Cost: 300 INS

For registration please email me at: vicktomsky@gmail.com