The Practice Is Still Here

We’ll be closed tomorrow for the incoming snowstorm.

Knowing a storm was coming today — and being a bit under the weather myself — I debated canceling class this morning as well. I assumed no one would show up and let one very dedicated student, who travels over an hour each way to get here, know that it might not be worth the trip. Now I regret that message a little, because another student also drove over an hour each way to practice this morning.

This winter has required more flexibility than I expected. One of our teachers has been away for part of the season, and the steady rhythm of extreme cold, snow, and ice has made it difficult — and sometimes unsafe — for another to make the drive, especially if only one student is likely to show up. There have been more cancellations than I would like.

And yet this morning, one mat rolled out beside mine.

If you’ve been practicing Ashtanga for a while, you know that the tradition emphasizes daily practice — consistency, showing up again and again. I believe in that. When I’m practicing daily — even if it’s just sun salutations and closing — I feel better. Clearer. More even. I make better decisions. There’s a steadiness that builds.

But life has a way of rearranging our plans.

I’ve stepped away from practice more than once. My first major break was when I had to take six months off after shoulder surgery from a snowboarding injury. I took the first trimester of my pregnancy off and also the first 2 months after my daughter was born — periods that are traditionally prescribed breaks in Ashtanga. I’ve also had plenty of days, weeks, and months when practice had to take a back seat for one reason or another.

Those times taught me something important. They showed me what it feels like to step away and return — and to discover that nothing essential has been lost. The well is still there.

My practice hasn’t advanced in the strictly linear way that someone practicing daily for years on end — moving steadily through third or fourth series — might have advanced. I’m human, and sometimes that still disappoints me.

That kind of consistency builds depth and strength, and I respect it deeply. But depth doesn’t only show up as new postures. It also shows up as returning, as staying in relationship with the practice through different seasons of life, as knowing in your bones that you can step away and come back without fear.

When my daughter was teething, I took a full year off. Not because I didn’t try. I would wake up early, quietly creep out of the room to my mat — and without missing a beat she would wake up and need me. And when a small child needs you, that is the practice.

I’ll be honest — during that year, I sometimes felt like a failed Ashtangi. The culture I was raised in was clear about daily practice, consistency, seriousness. Stepping away for that long felt, in some quiet internal way, like falling short. Even though I had already learned from earlier prescribed breaks that the well would still be there, the old messaging lingered.

But when I returned, nothing essential had disappeared. The source doesn’t vanish because you pause. Maybe the ground feels firmer when you come back. Maybe you have to dig a little. But the water is still there.

The daily practice in Ashtanga is often framed as discipline — and it is. In yogic language, we call it tapas — the steady heat that transforms. But tapas isn’t punishment. It isn’t perfection. It isn’t fear-based consistency. And the practice is not meant to be a stick with which you beat yourself. Discipline should build you, not shrink you. Tapas is the quiet willingness to show up again and again — not the voice in your head telling you you’re not doing enough.

Hosting a Mysore program here, I want it to honor that spirit of consistency. Not rigid attendance, but steady relationship. Showing up when you can. Returning when you’ve stepped away. Knowing that the door is here. I also want it to empower people to develop a self practice - one that you can do anywhere with or without the support of a teacher and the energy of other people in the room.

If you ever need a space to practice up until 10 AM, our doors are almost always open. And if we’ve posted that we’re closed, you’re welcome to text and check in to see if the space is still available. Sometimes “closed” simply means we’re adjusting to conditions — not that the practice doors are firmly shut.

Ideally, this is a daily practice. And daily practice will often mean practicing at home — alone, in a hotel room, between a bed and a dresser, or on a snow day when the barn here is unreachable if you don’t live right next to it.

Whether you consider yourself a daily practitioner right now or not, I’ll offer you this: tomorrow, do one sun salutation. Just one. One is infinitely more than zero.

Consistency builds something subtle and strong. But missing a day — or a week, or even a year — does not disqualify you.

You step away. You come back. You keep digging.

The practice and its benefits don’t disappear.