Right now, patience is a valuable practice for me. Yoga helps us see patience differently from how we've been raised; for me, patience was treated as a means to a reward, and as a child, that just meant not being a pain in the butt asking you parents every ten minutes 'are we there yet? or can we open presents yet?'. It was rooted entirely in the passage of time. I apparently was a very patient kid, since I could sit for hours gluing popsicle sticks into towers. But nobody dared get in my way, or else they'd witness an eight-year-old with the temper of a honey-badger. I wasn't patient. I was focused, and often compulsive.

Now, I'm starting to see more dimensions to patience. The beauty of patience is that it has relaxation, dedication, optimism, detachment and discovery all wrapped up in one. I'm not one to coddle myself or my students, but I will make daily reminders to be patient, which at times can bring up frustrating anxiety that we've learned to associate with that word. Patience has baggage; when we're told to be patient, we're being told to invoke something that may not be helpful, or we may see it as a free pass. As adults, we need to learn what patience really means.

I attended the Asia Yoga conference a few weeks back, where yogis from all over the world descend upon the hot stickiness of Hong Kong summer to meet, share practice techniques, buy ohm t-shirts and try to sit straighter than each other for three days. I assisted Master Sudhakar for his sessions, and at the end of the sequence, he said, "let's have a yoga demo!" (another conference perk and oddity). On stage appeared a young indian woman who, at the calls of not just posture names but entire sanskrit phrases, proceeded to twist and fold until her own shadow disappeared. Her hair detached from her scalp and then promptly re-attached. Her eyes moved in opposite directions. Anyway, after head-shaking applause, Master Sudhakar asked if there were questions. A North American boldly asked, "if we're meant to be okay with our own level and respect our limitations, why have we just been shown this?". He calmly and immediately replied, "To humble you. She has been working on this for years." Ah. Instantly, what many had seen as a circus side-show was now a significant, very clearly illustrated point: patience is not about complacency. The woman on stage did not bow after her demo, she did not smile, and in fact she had been told she made mistakes. She is on a long, dedicated journey, and we were given a brief insight into her path. The 'demo' was more than what we had witnessed; it was also an opportunity for us to think about our reaction to what we had seen and to place that into the context of our own journey. We know that transformation and growth are crucial to our health. Yet, We live in a world of before-and-after shots where there is no insight into the patience that is required along the way for anything significant to be accomplished.

A simpler example:

At a dinner party recently, a friend mentioned she had been having trouble sleeping, and asked if yoga could help. Of course! I started to say, and then stopped. Be patient! Find out more! "What do you think is keeping you up?"

"Well," she said, "my head is spinning with thoughts, and I get worried that I won't have enough rest for tomorrow, so I give myself until 2am, then take a valium if I haven't fallen asleep yet. Even then, I'm usually still so tired the next day that I need to take a nap in the afternoon."

"Put the clock away. Stop taking valium. Don't take a nap."

Blank stare. "But I need the sleep so I can function. Isn't there some muscle thing I can do to help me fall asleep?"

"Like a Vulcan sleep-pinch? That's what the valium is doing. It will take a while to fix this, but you'll fix it." That's all I could say. Of course yoga could help, and patience with her own body and mind was how. But I didn't dare say 'be patient' as her yoga solution. That was in such direct opposition to her expectations for a posture answer that I might as well have told her to pray. I myself was in the midst of a vacation from yoga; I wanted to see how my practice would be affected if I didn't do it for a few days. This was also a good way for me to explore patience while managing the compulsion to practice yoga blindly.

I hope she's sleeping better now. I hope the Indian woman catches a glimpse of her nape. I hope to one day build a yoga studio with popsicle sticks.

I was in Tokyo last weekend and went to yoga classes at two different studios. I wanted to know what yoga was like in a foreign place. A japanese friend in Hong Kong had given me a list of studios with classes given in english. As it turns out, an English class is still conducted IN JAPANESE. Both teachers asked, "so you don't speak ANY Japanese at all?" I guess it's unusual for a visitor to spend part of a long weekend trip trudging around doing yoga classes, so they probably assumed I lived there, and like all expats, had no choice but to learn the language. I shook my head sheepishly. They seemed worried, and not for me.

One place was fancy with nice lights and new floors, and the other was…er…vintage. Everyone was welcoming. In one class, EACH STUDENT introduced themself to me. The familiarity of the studio setting was incongruous with the fact that my 'comfort language' did not exist. I have so little understanding of Japanese that I didn't even know when someone was asking me a question or making a statement. But I felt so included that it didn't occur to me that my nod-smile response might not have been to a greeting, but to "you stink".

What I learned: Yoga is not owned by anyone; we all share it and barriers are erased when a class starts. It's one of the few activities that bears a universal language (the actual language, sanskrit, of course, but also the tone and intent of the class) supported by MANY years of history and understanding. When I did the classes in unfamiliar surroundings with new people, I still felt like I was tapping into the same thing. I imagine this happens with soccer players, swimmers, and wrestlers too, but it's really the only one that strikes a balance of individual AND shared familiarity.

On a more superficial level, the experience got me thinking about 'style of yoga' vs teaching style. One of the classes was Jivamukti, which I had never tried before. Apart from having China Gel rubbed on my back and shoulders by the instructor while I was in a posture (which was nice! mind you, I'm such a sucker for any form of attention that she could have rubbed me with manure and I would have felt special) everything was familiar. A fellow student asked me after class what style of yoga I practice. I really wanted to say Hatha because that's the correct answer, but I found myself stumbling to mutter a few varieties that I've tried over the years. I think it's important for teachers and practitioners to remember the distinction between style of yoga and teaching style; Jivamukti, or Anusara, or Vinyasa are not styles of Yoga. They're styles of teaching, and they're all just different ways of getting to the same thing. The fact that I couldn't understand what was being said in the japanese classes made this even more clear, since the opening dialogue and spoken adjustments generally are the things that separate one style from another.

The only down side to yoga in a foreign place: starting within about a minute of one of the classes, I had to pee; the prospect of rudely disappearing OR of trying to announce to what would become the whole, foreign-to-me class that I was not adult enough to go before the session and that I needed to know where the toilet was, if there even was one, encouraged me to stay put. And I was fine. From this I learned yoga takes your mind off peeing, whether you're in Tokyo, Berlin, or possibly even Niagara Falls.