Posted by I’ve been a fan of yoga for many years, but it wasn’t until recently that I heard of using yoga as a writer’s tool. I really wanted to see how those two things go together, so I picked up the book Writing the Fire by Gail Sher, which promised to reveal how yoga can nourish your writing and how your yoga practice can benefit from writing.
The Yoga Lounge in Toronto
The book lost me in quite a few places. I just didn’t get the connection between yoga and writing in the way that I think I was supposed to. It felt forced at times, such as the suggestion that I get into Cat Pose and then write down what I felt as though I actually was a cat. Or the part that named all the yoga accessories like mats, blocks, and straps, and then it threw in a pencil & paper to jot ideas down during your practice.
It felt more like a book about yoga with a few writing related things thrown in to make it a book about writing.
The one thing that I will take away from reading this book was the idea of practice. Doing something every day without focusing on the finish line. Both yoga and writing require that commitment and both benefit from practice.
I usually feel pretty good after doing yoga, either at home in my living room or in a swanky studio like The Yoga Lounge. If that feeling can somehow make me have a better day of writing or repair some of the damage caused by my sitting hunched over at my desk, then that’s a good enough reason for yoga to become a part of my writing life from now on.
Namaste.