One of the things I love about yoga is how it brings people together in a common struggle. It binds people, much more so that many other forms of exercise. I expect this has something to do with the fact that yoga should not be a competition. It is a battle with yourself–your own limitations, physically and emotionally.
Yoga also brings about some very interesting conversations. One of my duties in my full time, real-life job as a marketing professional is physician recruitment at the hospital in which I work. This week, I had a meeting with a salesman from a high-profile recrtuitment firm. The poor gentleman had had a heck of a morning, locking his keys in his rental car, causing him to be about a half hour late for our appointment. He came to my office a little frazzled, hurried but highly professional, having been a hospital administrator in the past. A tall and stately man, he had done his research on me before darkening my doorstep.
“Do you have something to do with yoga and martial arts?” he asked. I gave him a brief summary of my experience and then asked how he could possible know that. “I googled you!” he stated proudly. He proceeded to ask me a number of questions about yoga. How do you find a good teacher? How do you know when it’s a good facility? Which kind of yoga should I do? Apparently he and his wife had attended one class a while ago, but it was not as successful an experience as he would have hoped.
I gave him some advice on finding the right kind of place to study yoga, my preferences on style, a copy of my lastest yoga newsletter, and wished him a good day. What should have been an hour long meeting about recruitment turned into an abrieviated half hour meeting with 15 of it spent talking about yoga and fitness.
At my work, I don’t generally talk about my yoga lifestyle unless it’s brought up by someone else. Much like my life in martial arts, the longer I do it, the more it becomes a very personal, private thing shared with a select group of people who share the same interests. Still, we never know when something we say can cause others to reshape their lives for the better.
Maybe this man and his wife will never actually dare to attend another yoga class. Maybe the whole conversation was just a way for him, as a salesperson, to lower my guard, but just maybe, this brief but meaningful conversation will lead to a greater level of fitness and wellbeing for him and his loved ones. The important thing is not for me to know if our talk had an impact but to know that I helped give him the opportunity to open doors. The next step is his and his alone.
October 26, 2008 Update on the blog entry above:
I’m happy to say that my best hopes were realized this week, when I heard back from the salesperson I wrote about in the blog entry above. He and his wife have, in fact, been attending classes in a reputable yoga studio in his home state, and he seems extremely excited about this new chapter in their lives. Acutally, the couple committed to not only attending classes but also signed up for private lessons with the head instructor at the yoga studio they have chosen.
Sure enough, the couple asked all the questions I suggested of their prospective instructor, which helped them feel more secure in entering practice with their local “yogi”. I’m so pleased that they took this next big step in their fitness journey and doubly pleased that such a chance encounter turned into a life-changing pathway.
Congratulations Steve! All the best to you and your wife!
And remember, it’s never too late to make a change for the better.
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
– Lao Tzu
