The Long Practice - Part 2: Rethinking routines

Three lessons from my 70-year-old dad’s journey with yoga; this is part 2.

My dad loves his routines. Loves them.

I’ve witnessed this throughout my childhood and through today. I can tell you exactly what he eats on Tuesday and Thursdays (steel cut oats, in case you’re interested). On any given weekday, I can probably tell you whereabouts to find him.

When I was younger, he went to the weight room several times a week. During my teen years, he and my mom went through what I call the truly perplexing Pilates phase. Perplexing because I was a teenager and they marched off to class in matching leggings, which I did not find cute… and I’m certainly not going to tell you about the matching winter jackets my husband and I now wear, twenty years later… 

My parents also go for a walk after dinner, rain or shine or snow, without fail. They’ve done this since we had a family dog many decades ago, and the practice remains. When they babysit for us, that routine adapts. They go for their walk one after another instead of together. 

Routines can change shape. They can morph with the needs of the situation. But the core principle? It persists.

My dad’s movement practice has taken many different forms over the years: weight room, Pilates, yoga, walking. Even his yoga practice looks different depending on where he is. At home, he goes to the studio. When he visits us, he moves online. The meditation happens in the morning when it can, and later when it can't. The form changes. The practice remains.

I think we sometimes imagine routine as something rigid: the same thing, at the same time, in the same way, every day. Life is (hopefully) long. So, a lasting routine can actually be the opposite. It ebbs and flows with the realities of life. For my dad, it isn't yoga that he has been practicing for all these years. It's movement. It's making space for his body.

Life can have a funny way of being rather uncooperative with the routines we create for ourselves. Children get sick. Work gets busy. We travel. We move. We age. Our bodies change. Our priorities change. If our routines are too rigid, they break, or they disappear. 

So, my dad's yoga mat is always in his suitcase when he comes to visit. He knows he’ll find the time, despite the chaos of visiting his child and grandchildren, to honour his practice. 

What is the practice underneath your practice, the one that’s truly worth preserving?