Yoga isn't a One Night Stand

Yoga Isn’t a One-Night Stand.

In a world that expects instant results, it’s worth remembering this: Yoga isn’t a one-night stand. It’s a relationship. A slow unfolding. More like falling deeply in love than ticking something off a to-do list. You don’t force it. You simply keep showing up, trusting that something is quietly changing.

In June I spent six days on retreat in London with my teacher, Jason Crandell. I came home feeling lighter. Inspired. Re-energised. Quite frankly, more than anything, it was a relief. For once, I wasn’t the teacher. I didn’t have the responsibility of needing to know; of having the answers. No expectation to perform, no being judged or assessed. I could simply breathe, move, rest and listen. That is perhaps uniquely yogic. There is no game to play, no points to score, no winning and no spectators. Just you.

Your mat doesn’t ask you to be better than anyone else. It simply invites you to be present with who you already are. To learn to be yourself. Not to play a role in life that others have carved out for you, but to be authentically you.

It is a journey I unknowingly started nine years ago in Florence when I nervously walked into my first Rocket Yoga class. Within minutes I was hooked. The practice was joyful, dynamic and exhilarating. I left floating. I had no idea my body—or my mind—could feel that alive. I’d been an obsessive marathon runner and an avid tennis player - pushed myself beyond reasonable limits with an ego that burned to achieve. Until I was broken by both. Yoga was different. It challenged me physically without punishing my joints. It demanded focus without the pressure to win. As my teacher, Max Becker, used to say, “Playing, not Pushing.” Six months later I enrolled on my first teacher training at that Rocket school. A decision which changed the course of my life.

Nine years on, I look back with a smile. I’m embarrassed by how little I knew about yoga then and amazed at poses I could do with ease that are now impossible. But as Max loved to say:

“Yoga isn’t about the poses… and yet it’s all about the poses.”

At the time I had no idea what he meant, but it intrigued me.

Now I understand what initially sounded like a contradiction. The poses are simply the vehicle. They create sensations strong enough to capture our attention. When we’re fully absorbed in sensation, the constant chatter of the mind softens. With practice we develop a heightened awareness of what’s happening in the inside. We remember to breathe. Our nervous system settles. We become present. Not because we’ve escaped ourselves. Because we’ve finally arrived.

For years I wondered why the poses mattered so much. I even travelled to India searching for an answer. The Swamis and monks spoke about spirituality and our connection to the divine. They had given up the postural poses practised in their youth. Their answers didn’t always satisfy me, mostly they deepened the question. If yoga isn't about the poses, why do we do the physical practice at all?

Then, during Jason’s retreat, something clicked. The poses aren’t the destination: they’re the invitation. They create the physical sensations that grab our attention. They build the awareness that enables us to really notice life. To be in a dance with life, not simply sleepwalking through our days. They lead us back to ourselves.

The ancient yogic teachings tell us something both simple and radical: we are already whole. We don’t have to earn peace. We don’t have to become worthy of love. There is nothing fundamentally broken that needs fixing. We don’t start from a negative but from completeness. We have simply forgotten that. And Yoga is a practice of remembering.

Perhaps that’s why we keep coming back. It feels like returning home. At first, like the excitement of a new romance, we’re drawn in by how good the practice makes us feel:

• The strength.
• The flexibility.
• The exhilaration.

But if we stay with it, something quieter begins to emerge:

• We notice ourselves becoming calmer. Kinder. Less reactive. More content.
• We begin to enjoy the company of the person we meet on the mat.

The infatuation gives way to something deeper:

• Love.
• Not love of yoga.
• Love of simply 'being'.
• Presence.

That is liberation.

And that is why yoga isn’t a one-night stand. It’s a lifelong relationship with yourself. A lifelong journey to feel and become love. To know grace.

And all your mat asks in return... is that you keep showing up.