prAna: Sustainable Clothing

Movement has long been my companion, my main companion. (Well, that and my dog). For over ten years I never stayed in one place, or with one idea, for more than six months. You see, when in constant motion, you never have to ‘sit’ with yourself, or with your thoughts, or with anything really. I grew adept at packing up the little Ford Focus and moving, sometimes all the way across the country, on a whim. Furniture was not in my vocabulary. It was too heavy. Things that didn’t fit in the car were left behind, donated or given away in haste. Sometimes my ‘move’ only lasted a few short weeks, or in one instance, two weeks.

When I moved to Boulder, I made a commitment to stay in one place for a year. A full year. And as winter set in, and feelings of heaviness and inertia descended, I started looking for a way out. I had been drawn to yoga for a while, more as a way to counter-act the muscular imbalances of climbing than anything, but now suddenly I was drawn to it for other reasons. I needed sanity or I was going to get in my car and drive away from yet another goal.

As I dove into the practice of yoga, I started thinking about climbing as it relates to yoga, and yoga as it relates to climbing. Climbing, you see, is all about getting away, getting off the ground; in essence, an act of escapism. You don’t have to worry about what’s going on in your head, because once you’re off the ground, all focus is on the external. On the next move, the next pitch, the next piece of gear. The rock in front of you and under your feet. If you’re scared on a route, you stuff it down, maintain composure, and keep going, up and away from that scary spot.

Yoga, on the other hand, is grounding. Literally, your sit bones root to the earth, and then you sit there, facing whatever comes up. It’s about a focus and practice that goes inward, and in turn, it has the power to bring up all sorts of things. If you confront something within yourself, there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to run. In meditation my thoughts would run rampant, and I was taught to just see whatever wayward or difficult thought came up, acknowledge it, and then let it go. And I discovered that acknowledging those thoughts was precisely what I didn’t want to do. I wanted to move on to the next one or find some way not to have them at all. I can’t tell you how many yoga classes I’ve wanted to get up and walk out of, just to get away from whatever I was feeling. In turn, though, the experience has taught me so much about the strength of stillness. The strength of letting life just wash over you, instead of piercing you, and feeling the peace of knowing that it really is all okay.

I’ve been in Boulder for over a year and a half now, and the ‘journey’ of staying has taught me so much. As spring rounds the corner, I can feel myself pulled toward movement. The urge to pack up my belongings and drive, maybe north, to some mountain town littered with rock, is upon me, but maybe this time it will not be an act of running. High up on a route, maybe I will be able to still stay rooted in the center of my being, not trying to flee from a difficult spot, but acknowledging it, and then letting it go. Finding stillness within the movement. That’s the key. Because after all, wherever you go, there you are.

~Katie Brown, prAna Ambassador

Breath, life, vitality of the spirit.

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