Why Do Yoga?

Recently we asked our local Yosemite area yoga teachers to answer this question--why do you do yoga? The answers were as diverse and deep as our teachers. Here are just a few of the responses.

I practice yoga to bust through the crust of practiced faces and protective layers.

I practice yoga to remember what I already know.

I practice yoga to rinse life's dusty road off my spirit.

I practice yoga to quench my heart's thirst.

I practice yoga to sweat.

Yoga and meditation as part of my daily routine grounds me, reminds me of who I am, what my challenges are, what my gifts are. Yoga reminds me of beauty, every moment, even in the stormiest of times. Who I am in my practice is who I am in my life. There is not a separation.
Yoga is one of the greatest gifts and tools I am a learner of this lifetime.

I do yoga to accept myself as I am, each day, in all my glorious and absurd imperfections

I do yoga to smooth the rough edges my breath and body

I do yoga because it is cheaper and probably more healthy than Ritalin for the hyperactive little boy that still lives inside me

I do yoga because my mom watched “Lilias, Yoga, and You” on PBS in 1976

I do yoga because I really dislike jogging, and yet sometimes I still need to release energy

I do yoga as an act of non-violent revolution

I do yoga to accelerate our collective human evolution

I do yoga because it just feels so good

sometimes I have no idea why I do yoga
sometimes I do yoga just because

most of the time I do yoga because it inspires me love the world many times I do yoga because through yoga, I learn to love myself

My yoga is the birdsong of shared voices, the quickening of collective power

it is vast and great, where I obsess and obscure

it is refined and empowering, when I am opinionated and personal

it shines without limit, as long as I'm in that focus

and focusing on you, me and all we will be.

And you? Why do you do yoga?