This Body, This Breath

I've been practicing yoga on and off for over 7 years.  After softball and fencing, I've stuck with yoga longer than anything else in my life.  Like anything else I've had ups and downs, periods of time where I wasn't practicing, or when I was but something just wasn't right.

About 3 months ago I noticed a change.  It's not that I was all of a sudden stronger or more flexible (in fact as of late it's been quite the opposite).  But all of a sudden the pieces have come together.  

I'm finally, after all this time, feeling connected to my breath.  

It's finally clicked.  I've finally gotten to the point where I don't think about it (so much) anymore.  I can finally exhale and just let my muscles relax around my bones in down-dog.  I can finally feel the inhale pull me into up-dog.  I finally feel the rise and fall of my breath carry me through sun salutation.  I think it's finally given me a piece of the peace that yoga promises.

I'm not sure how this will change my relationship to yoga in the future.  I've wanted to teach for a while now, but I wanted to teach yoga without it having the hippie, new-agey, crystals and candles feel.  Yoga has always made me feel powerful and I want other people to experience that same strength.  I've never thought of yoga as anything more than an opportunity for a focused, dedicated workout.  To me, my meditation practice complimented my yoga practice, but they weren't different means to the same end.  I turned to yoga for balance, strength, flexibility, poise, and grace, but I was never really looking for peace.  

Maybe it's not really peace, but that purest of focuses.  That kind of single pointedness where everything has just come together. Maybe this is really what I've been striving for all along as an athlete.  

It's the click.