from yoga asana to kettlebell position 1
“Wait, Steven, you’re a personal trainer? What does that even mean?”
“Well, I, um, I teach people. One on one. How to get stronger and more mobile.”
“Wait, like, where? In their apartments?”
“No, no. I have a studio. On the Upper East Side. I mean, sometimes I still go to a few people’s places, but generally, I see everyone at my space.”
“Oh. Um… I want to do that with you.”
Conversations like this have been exceedingly commonplace over the last few months. And every time, I beam with delight and excitement.
It’s exciting because usually, there’s already a kinship there. I’m talking to somebody who already knows me and what I’m about because, like many of you on this list, they’ve been taking my class for a year or longer.
I beam because it’s a big step for nearly every one of the students who walk into my studio. Many of them have never taken this sort of plunge before, to engage with their bodies this closely. I don’t take the honor of helping people dig into their body-mind practice lightly. It can be scary to confront oneself. It *is* a big deal.
Lifting weights can feel impossible, especially when you’ve been told you can’t your whole life. It’s intimidating to walk past the treadmills and stairmasters, and go straight to the kettlebells. My students often find themselves thinking, Are all those people starting at me?
And it might even be scary to be given some agency because now, your body practice is your own responsibility. You don’t need to wait for class to begin: you have a plan, and an understanding, of how to appropriately and mindfully challenge your body to grow on your own.
I’ve thought a lot about the differences between “Yoga” and “Personal Training/Weightlifting” and wrote about it a bit here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv5Z5u8hfd8/
Essentially, these two modalities (that I once thought were diametrically opposed) are one thing.
Last week, Yanti, my first yoga teacher mentor who owns Earth Yoga on the UES, came to my studio to begin her strength journey with me. She was so open, so humble, and so ready to learn, even after years of running a successful studio and training so many teachers who’ve gone on to have great careers.
The way I began to teach Yanti to approach the kettlebell was the same way she once taught me to approach a typical yoga asana: feeling each part of the body as fully as possible, bringing your whole self—psychological and physical—to the task at hand.
This is in stark contrast to how many people are introduced to strength training and kettlebells: little attention to form and detail, lots of attention to pushing past one’s comfort level, martyrdom in the name of the Commercial Beauty Contest, zero safety or awareness around body and mind. You all know that I vehemently reject that style of learning.
It’s not that weightlifting and yoga poses are the same thing. It’s that the way we approach one thing can be the way we approach many things: feeling ourselves fully, loving ourselves deeply, and being relentless in our pursuit for knowledge of Self.