"I Used To..."
One sentence I hear often in Bikram Yoga—and why it always makes me pause.
A student stayed back after class recently.
She wasn’t upset.
She wasn’t injured.
She just looked... disappointed.
“I used to get my head to my knee,” she said.
“I don’t know what happened.”
I smiled because I’d heard that sentence many times before.
Not exactly those words.
But always the same beginning.
“I used to...”
Over the years, students have told me all sorts of things.
“I used to never take breaks.”
“I used to balance much longer.”
“I used to be so much more flexible.”
“I used to...”
Every time I hear it, I find myself thinking the same thing.
You’re having a conversation with someone who isn’t even in the room.
The person you’re comparing yourself to isn’t standing on the mat today.
Today’s version of you is.
And that’s the only person this class is asking you to work with.
I don’t think this only happens in yoga.
We all do it.
“I used to run faster.”
“I used to have more time.”
“I used to recover quicker.”
“I used to...”
Sometimes we become so attached to an old version of ourselves that we stop noticing the person we’ve become.
I’ve caught myself doing it too.
Especially after coming back from an injury.
Or after travelling.
Or after missing a few classes.
There’s always that tiny voice.
“You used to...”
But the older I get, the less interested I am in winning an argument against my past.
Because I can’t.
My body today is not the body I had ten years ago.
Nor should it be.
Life has happened in between.
And honestly, I’m grateful for that.
Keep reading with a paid subscription to discover why I no longer measure my practice against my “best ever” class, what I pay attention to instead, and the quiet shift that changed the way I approach Bikram Yoga completely.
