by kaibara87

Recently, I’ve started doing yoga on a regular basis. It’s a surprisingly good workout considering it’s a whole lot of staying still and moving very slowly into different positions. It gets the blood pumping, a light sweat going, and (at least for me) some serious shaking in my arms and legs.

All good things.

Since we can’t always see the instructor (your head can end up in some interesting places), we have to listen to the words being spoken and move our bodies accordingly. So the language the instructor uses becomes very important. That’s why the language you’ll hear some very rich and very precise language during a yoga class.

You can’t simply say “put your left leg here” or “push down with your foot.” These explanations fall flat because Yoga is about more than simply getting into the right position. It’s about controlling your breathing and your body.

You’ll hear very elaborate phrases like “breathe into those spaces,” “think of your thigh as if it were a snake,” and a whole bunch of other colorful stuff. The whole point of the language is to get you to “feel” what you’re supposed to be doing with the body.

Which is exactly what I try to do when I write—get others to feel what I’m feeling.

It isn’t easy, and oftentimes you’ll see an instructor get frustrated with his/her choice of words because they realize they’ve described something wrong and that’s why people didn’t do the move correctly.

Using Yoga to in Your Writing

This got me thinking about how freely we use words and how often we waste them. We talk a lot but say very little. In yoga, the instructors aren’t saying much, but each phrase is packed with a ton of meaning. So let’s learn from the yogi and take heed their example:

• Be precise: If a sentence is rambling and doesn’t say exactly what you’re trying to say, chuck it and start over. Attack it until you’ve got it just right.
• Use color: If a yoga instructor can describe a breathing exercise by talking about an elaborate snake with jewels all over it, then you can make anything you’re writing about sound interesting.
• Be accessible: Not everyone responds to the same language, so instructors need to make sure they use several analogies so that every student can relate and understand what he/she’s trying to say. So try to make your writing accessible to as many people as possible.
• Get feedback: Ask other people if you’re writing is coming out the way you want it to. Instructors can simply watch students to see if the words have been understood by the way they move. Bloggers don’t have such an immediate response. But ask your readers and they’ll be able to give you some feedback.

I’m liking yoga for its stress relief and the way it makes me feel afterwards. So the fact that it can help make us all better writers is an added bonus. But I really believe that yoga, like writing, can make your life better.

So my advice is to take one class and pay attention to the language. You might get hooked on the moves, and you’ll see why yoga instructors make great writing teachers.

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