“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

Weekend Shenanigans

This weekend takes me on a train to Brighton with one of my dearest girlfriends I’ve known for over thirty years. Just because. Because, well, we’re planning to have fun. With the length and depth of our friendship, we’ve seen each other through our highest peaks and lowest lows. A good friend is often described as someone you can rely on when the chips are down. But what about having fun together? These days, so much time seems spent talking doom and gloom - is there any time left for fun?

I’ve realised recently that I feel serious a lot of the time. Do you ever feel like that? The weight of responsibility feels as though it’s gotten heavier over the years. In all the roles I choose to adopt, I seem to get more serious as time passes, trying in some way to control my corner of the world. Even yoga, which I once did for pure enjoyment, has become an occupation I now take very seriously!

In Serious Danger

My friend Cathy, who’s done yoga for years, wins the award for the most obsessed person I’ve ever met who does yoga (but hasn’t yet become a yoga teacher, the sensible woman she is). She takes her yoga seriously, attends the most experienced teachers and always sending me information about retreats, workshops and intensives. We talk yoga from the moment we meet until we embrace goodbye.

Cathy’s the sort of person whose youthful playfulness radiates from under her skin and belies her seventy-plus years. She often says, “I like that teacher ‘cos she doesn’t take herself too seriously, and we can still have a laugh.” She makes me think (as I sit here massaging my deepening frown lines) - am I getting too serious for my own good? In danger of taking myself, and yoga, all too seriously?

Serious Subject Matter

If you’ve ever heard someone say, “Yoga changed my life”, “Yoga is my therapy”, or even “Yoga saved my life”, you could presume that yoga could be a subject not to be scoffed at. Yoga is an incredible technology that can smooth the edges of our suffering and transform from the grossest physical structures to the highest spiritual planes, depending on how you choose to use it.

Furthermore, I suppose yoga asks us regular practitioners to be rather serious people. To live the best we can in a non-attached way and practise helpful things like gratitude, compassion, collectivism and service. It asks us to do the work consistently, diligently, and with radical responsibility - demands that might not appeal to an infrequent tourist looking for a great time.

All Work and No Play?

Is yoga fun - can it be, should it be? Is it wrong to turn my nose up at people having a blast at goat yoga, party yoga and naked yoga? Many people come to yoga to move, be together and do precisely this - have ridiculous fun. I somehow lost the essence of joy in my practice when I became a teacher - when the call of responsibility overtook the need for enjoyment. When the strength of belief in the subject matter started to bolster my conviction to share it with the gravity and respect it deserves.

Light-heartedness is an essential quality to nurture, especially in times of woe - I have to keep remembering that. For all the jewels this practice contains to help and inspire us, fun is a precious nugget that helps us keep coming back, uplifted and ready for the harder stuff. Perhaps I can have fun while considering myself a serious yogi, after all.

Child’s Play

Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, defines fun as a time when you can embody a mix of playfulness, connection and flow. I’d add presence, exploration and unbridled joy to this definition.

Young children have a way of having a marvellous time, knowing and showing it. They dig out the fun in any opportunity, no matter how small or silly. Is there anything more genuine than the broad grin of a delighted child? Happy when happy, sad when sad, they seem incapable of taking themselves seriously.

As we grow up, we lose the freedom to have fun for the sake of it, any silliness or playfulness stifled by the slow creep of self-consciousness, embedding into our bones as they set hard in adulthood. Nevertheless, I’m sure playful innocence still lives within us somewhere; it just needs rediscovery occasionally.

Girls (and Boys) Just Wanna Have Fun

Enjoying oneself seems almost taboo right now. Despite this, I’m going to let myself play and feel free - an act of rediscovering the child. Tomorrow, I’ll dress up to the nines, embrace the night’s excitement and gawp at Johannes Radebe and Co. dancing at the Theatre Royal - I’ll sparkle in sequin, excessively beautify myself and pretend I’m as fabulous as he is. And invite unadulterated fun - to play, connect and flow - with my friend. I’ll insist on it.

I do hope you’re also doing something fun this weekend. And find sources always to reconnect with play.

Whether you take your yoga seriously or join in for fun (or both)...

Let’s practise.