Yoga came into my life as a family heirloom. Everything started when my grandmother went to a gym and was introduced to a discipline that she had never heard before because it wasn’t as popular back then: yoga. She then decided to recommend it to my father as a way to exercise and relax from the stress of his job.
Around ten years ago when I was only eight, my father found a studio near our house which was one of the firsts studios in our city and completely fell in love with it. For years, he practiced once or twice a week religiously. It was a very important part of his life and it made a huge impact on his mood and behavior.
My first contact with yoga came in the form of a colorful book full of animals chanting OM and performing different asanas, and as I grew older, I started joining my dad at the studio every once in a while. At the time, yoga for me was a fun activity that I was able to share with my father, but it wasn’t a regular practice.
I was always the youngest in the class, but I was amazed by the strength, flexibility, and balance of the people who had been practicing for years. One of our teachers was a lady in her late sixties that was stronger and more flexible than everyone in the class.
Almost a decade later, we moved to Singapore and I decided to dust off my mat, wear the yoga pants in the family and challenge myself with this 200h YTT. I am still quite young but the more I practice, the more I realize that in yoga and in life, it’s more about discipline than given qualities and that everyone has their own pace.
