Transition is defined as movement, passage or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc. to another; change. In the yoga world, a transition is similar; it is the movement of leaving one pose and entering another. It can be done with a light step or by floating through. It can be fun and crazy or smooth and deceptively simple. Usually the transitions are not given much attention, as they are just the stepping stone to the next pose, the next place to be and hold. The place we go to hold and breathe and experience our yoga.

The magic of yoga is finding how the practice can be taken off of the mat and into the world. Into the world of crying babies, aging parents, economic crisis and never ending traffic. From the mundane to the heart wrenching, yoga give us the tools and opportunity to be able to step back. To have that one breath of awareness before the reaction takes over. With practice, it may turn into two breaths and perhaps even more. So how then can transitions help us in our lives? How can the experience of moving from one place or situation to another give us inspiration on what to do when we “get there”?

Those pearls are the moments of your life. Your first day of school, the first time you fell in love, your breakups, the road trip you took with your best friend, your first job, moving away, all of these pearls are what make up the timeline of your life. If you strung out all of these pearls of your life, it would be the pivotal moments of your lifetime. Your memories are the pearls that make you who you are today. Yet, these moments are not separate times in your history. They are not random occurrences dropped on you by fate. There is a string that holds them all together. At the moment, you can’t see it. But “why?!” we ask the universe. Why did that have to happen?! Time passes and the realisation dawns on us...”oh...if that had not happened then I would not have met her and be doing what I am doing now..!” That string is the vinyasa, the movement from one place to another.

That transition is where the life happens. It is where life gets messy or painful or confusing. It is where you can’t stop laughing, or when the sun starts to set on the perfect day or that little chubby hand in yours that will soon be grown up. It is the moments when we are the most unconscious and the moments that are the most precious and can teach us the most. The times that we MUST be mindful. To notice the sweetness of the moment and let it go. We have a choice, to be conscious or unconscious through these times. In both our asana practice and this practice we call life. To notice the string that joins our life together. It doesn’t mean that we will know where we are headed any clearer, but it changes the feeling of it. When we are aware that this is a time of change, we can take it a little less personally. We can just notice that there is also beauty in change and allow ourselves to enjoy that space between our life moments. That pause, that breath, that stillness that comes up while moving on to the next moment. After all, as David Life once said in class:



For me, even though I have no idea what is coming next, today is the perfect place to be.