This is the fourth chapter from Lene’s journal about her experience during the Yoga Teacher Training (The Foundation of Yoga). Other chapters are:

• Part 1: I will become a Yoga Teacher
• Part 2: Silent Observation
• Part 3: The Alien Glasses

Anatomy and I, Really?

I’m sitting in bed, my yoga manual on my lap, the phone with the translation app out, and I’m really learning the English names of all sorts of bones. Who would have thought that one day I would find myself here again: Learning voluntarily, with an open curiosity, the fear of failure has been moved far away in the back for a moment.

“I’m almost 38 years old and for the first time in my life I have a real thirst for knowledge.”

For the first time in my life I am faced with a complicated task and I just start to solve it rather than giving up of it because I think I cannot.

Meanwhile, when I hear myself saying such words as “I cannot deal with numbers” or “I cannot count”, “I’m not that analytical type” or “That’s not for me”. I remember the time just before graduation, when it was time to decide on what you wanted to study and I convinced myself that I simply would not be able to do certain things. My big dream was: psychology. But I believed those who told me I would not be able to deal with the statistics, I was intimidated by the NC and the waiting semesters. So I left the field to the others.

Learning what is happening now is different than it was then. Above all, this means that I can trust myself to tackle a task without bias, not to be scared away by the resistance, but to face it. I just pretend that I can learn it and become more and more confident that I can do it. I pretend to be a skilled yoga teacher and – it’s me! And this sense of security that grows in me gives me so much stability for all areas in my life that everything, really everything, gets better.

The fourth part of our yoga education was exactly this learning experience for me:

Anatomy is a science that can help us in such a pragmatic way. Yes, it is true, someday somebody has given the bones and the muscles incredibly complicated and hard-to-remember names, but: The human body is a miracle, incredibly complex, and tempting to understand it will take time. We can start to explore our own bodies, the bones, the muscles, the movements and their effects beyond any lecture halls. We can observe – also our resistances and our fear.

I can view anatomy as a key to the perception of my own body and for the observation of others, e.g., in relation to my students and their very individual characteristics. Their physical complaints, their postures, their body language can be seen as a mirror of their souls. People with back problems often carry a special burden, people like me, who tend to think a lot and try to compensate their stress, deal mainly with headaches. People with low self-esteem often sink into themselves and have hanging shoulders.

It’s no coincidence that mental issues manifest themselves in our body. And this is exactly where we can start to treat and heal them. Our skin, the largest organ of the body, is a receptor that is incredibly sensitive to touch. This touch can be very effective and healing, in a very simple, unspectacular way. And there’s nothing esoteric about it: Through touch hormones of happiness spread through our body, that simple.

For me, this learning process is a continuous awakening.

It is a walk that brings me, again and again, beyond my limits, whether physically or in terms of things that you did not believe you were capable of doing before. And that opens up the whole wide world to me, every day is new. A childlike curiosity and impartiality, the playful, even in the challenge, the lightness: Everything changes my view of things. It even changes the things I see.

Yoga is nothing but a path to yourself. And what you find there is amazing and beautiful. That’s why I keep coming back. And even though some realizations trigger effort and pain, you always know that you’re on the right path.

“Now, I would like to thank our incredible, wonderful anatomy teacher Ann McNabb, who introduced us to this very complicated subject in the funniest, most entertaining, upbeat, and graphical way. To experience you, Anne, was a great gift and I will always be grateful for it!”