Challenge yourself!

We should challenge our self, sometimes this can be hard as its quit nice to stay in our comfort zone. This is with everything, yoga, sport, everyday life, this is how we grow and feel satisfaction, well at least one of them. My challenge at the moment is to have yoga classes in Swedish, you might think this would be easy as I’m a native swede. I have lived abroad for 15 years, during this time I have spoken more English then Swedish, I’m getting more and more comfortable speaking English, I’m dreaming and thinking in English most of the time, or it might even be the whole time, my shopping list is mostly in English with a bit of Swedish thrown in. I’m starting to forget small words or everyday words but off course when I’m home they all get back to be, so deciding to have a yoga class in Swedish is a challenge but a fun one.

Every single yoga class I have went to have been in English, I trained in English and so on. But as the day came closer and I brushed up on my Swedish and I looked in Swedish yoga books to get the terminology right. When the big day came I was quit nervous, like that day I taught my first yoga class, but this time it wasn’t about the teaching aspect, but to be able to speak in my native language and saying it right. Oh my, it was harder than I thought, but I got thru it and it was great to face this challenge. I’m glad I did it, so in the future I’ll be able to travel back and forth having yoga classes/workshops. Luckily I had my step mother in the class so when I felt totally lost and couldn’t find the word I looked over at her for help, second time around I felt more at ease and some English words slipped in here and there.

This is the same in yoga, if we always working where we are comfortable we never get any further and we miss out on such great things. When you practice yoga go a bit wider with your legs in the standing poses, and press that outer edge of the back foot more into the floor and feel what happen in your body, or hold the postures longer, really work those legs in downward dog, as B.K.S Iyengar said “be cautious, be bold!”,take care of your body and listen to it, but keep on challenge yourself.

The good thing about challenge yourself is that its very humbling, in my case I was back at a place I felt loss and really had to but my nervousness aside, and its also good as you become a beginner again and in teaching yoga and practice on a different level, sometimes  its easy to forget the way you felt the first day on your yoga mat, when you looked around the room wondering will you be the only one stiff as plank or never done yoga before etc. I remember my first Utthita trikonasana (triangle pose) how my whole chest collapsed towards the floor and am thinking how am I ever getting my shoulder’s back, and these things are very hard for beginners. I love these humbling moments as it brings me closer to my students and especially the beginner ones.

So keep challenge yourself, big or small doesn’t matter just go for it!!!