Coming home to the body

I am an amateur surfer. I am more frightened than I perhaps should be of ocean waves — especially waves that pitch with a steepness that threatens to send me head over heels. Recently, I fell off a breaking wave and got dragged under the water and along the shoreline for what seemed like forever. Later, as I stood under a hot shower, this experience seemed so startling: the way my body was tossed around and thrown about as I tried to push myself up towards the sky and crisp air above. It was also enlivening.

Being inside the body

As a yoga teacher, I help people build proprioception, which is a sense of the body in space. It’s the part of us that understands and responds when