20 Years: I Don't Commit To Shit... Usually.

I believe 8am to be an ideal time in which to teach a yoga class on Sundays. It's rare that I get brought in to teach a 60 minute class these days - as I am know as the go-to 90 minute teacher. 

Today, though, I was scheduled for the 60 minute at 8am. And I was very happy about it. It meant I would be done and on my way to Trader Joe's by 9:30am at the latest. (I have my routine... Teach or take, then Joe's.)

Most of the students in th 8am do not know me. They typically don't come to the 90 minute classes. So it was fresh faces for me. One student hung out in the lobby while waiting for class time to begin. 

"How long have you been practicing?" I asked them.

They said they had been off and on for a few years.

"I keep coming back because I really like the Bikram sequence."

I agreed.

"Same," I said. "I've tried practicing other sequences, but this is the only one that has stuck. Before I started Bikram, I thought yoga was stupid. I was too Type A for it. But this is the perfect yoga type for the anal retentive types."

They agreed and asked how long I had taught.

"I went to training 14 years ago. And began practicing about 6 years before that."

Then I realized, this past Friday was my 20th anniversary of practicing.

Wow.

Not a shock that I made it 20 years of practicing this yoga. More a surprise that time has flown. I don't know if you had told me 20 years ago that I would still be practicing the yoga that I would have believed you. 

I'm not sure what I would have thought I was doing for health and exercise. 

But the simple fact that I committed to something for so long is a huge deal in my maturity. Because I don't commit to shit.

I've thrived on change for so long. Always uprooting and seeking new things. New jobs. New cities. New physical spaces and tangible styles. 

Oddly enough, not new people.

The energy and presence of others around me all the time in a consistent way still exhausts me.

So my commitment to that has also remained.

And of course George...

I am deeply committed to her, even though she wasn't even originally mine.