Who has that irritating inner voice critic that’s trash-talking everything you do, that keeps talking about all the things you SHOULD be doing, or not doing, or be able to do! Super annoying right? And in our yoga practice – utterly unhelpful!

In yoga class, we get to practice stepping out of being in the middle of the inner-voice-trash-talking dramatics and instead observe with an eyebrow cocked, our arms folded and a look of “ahhhh…. That ‘should’ thought again, eh? Well, actually, sorry to disappoint you but today I’m filing you under ‘fake news’ and listening to the expert – my body.” That’s right, we try to step out of those thoughts about what we should or should not be able to do. Ignore the comparisons with that person over there and the wondering of why we don’t look like that when we do the posture. We roll our eyes at the inner criticism about our right leg ‘not being able to’ do something the exact same as the left leg. We rest awareness on the breath, and on how movements and postures feel in the body.

Because our yoga practice is about developing the confidence and ability to empower ourselves to make good decisions about how to practice our yoga, based on how we feel, while practising, on that particular day. We are developing self-acceptance and … self-love.

We are in this moment imagining a particular song, O Re Piya from the movie Aaja Nachale, that would be a perfect example of this. Here the song itself can be interpreted as being about the pangs of being in love and of separation but somehow also talks of a woman and her intense love for dancing itself. These songs often become threads that bind the fabric of the story. Here we see the characters dancing to really a catchy songs, but they are inherently telling us stories of what can only be expressed through these representations of music and dance, bringing the emotions to life in their rendering.

Our online Bollywood dance classes are trying to bring this experience to everyone at their home. Let's, for some time, become a part of a new tale, let our bodies move to express and let's give in to our love for dance.