Get over it!

It doesn’t pay to be afraid of the technology that so totally makes up our environment these days. It would be like being fearful of the air we breathe. If you resist taking a breath, who are you hurting?

I got my first computer in 1995. My husband Daniel, who I often refer to as my technology guru, picked it out for me. We bought it on my advance from Simon & Schuster Publishing for writing Teach Yourself Yoga. What model was it? A Performa, perhaps? That device presented me with a big learning curve, but I couldn’t have written the book without it. Then, along came email technology and suddenly I could be in daily contact with my family (if I wanted to). Before that, Australia Post would take up to two weeks to deliver my missives.

The year two thousand was the birth year of Simply Yoga in Crows Nest and my first website. I did a photoshoot with David Clare of First Light Photography, and the images were very show-offy. But hopefully the website was successful in attracting students to our new school. This was the era before FaceBook marketing and long before Instagram was a gleam in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.

My next technological challenge in 2006 was writing a blog. I was petrified that my posts would reach a global audience–people whom I’d never met. Really, I need not have worried. Perhaps members of my family and a few students followed it. But this current ‘Yoga with Eve Grzybowski’ blog was destined to go up on the shoulders of that earlier one. Of course now I would hope for a worldwide audience. I do hear from people whom I’ve never met in person and that makes my day. I feel connected to this big yoga world.

Where would we be without zoom?

There have been many markers that show I’ve moved with technological advances, but none so compelling as the ones I’ve encountered in lockdown. Where would we be without the video communication apps that seem to have spread almost as rapidly as the Delta variant. 

While we were in last year, 2020, many of us were thinking/hoping that in 2021, we would be free. Back in offices, back in yoga studios, back in theatres, back in airplanes. But no. Here we are in Australia, and for the most part we are sheltering in place.

So, I’ve surrendered. I would like to say that I’ve embraced presenting live zoom classes at this time. But at least I’m not resisting. What I’ve discovered is that my brain is being taxed in ways that doing cryptic crosswords and jig saw puzzles could never touch.

Recently I’ve even had my first go at playing a musical instrument and, in the process, realised that I needed singing, as well as my harp lessons. Then I found out that if I want to do these sessions on zoom that I have to be able to handle google docs and downloading recordings. 

Sometimes my head hurts with the effort of creating all these new neurological pathways, But in fact, now that I’ve stopped resisting, there are aspects of this new learning that are pretty exciting. They fulfil my deep yearning to staying connected and to growing our yoga community.

I think that there are plenty of people who, having discovered that working from home is better than office work, will not likely return. Many have moved away from city environments and are enjoying cleaner air without those long commutes that kept them away from family. 

It’s entirely possible that yoga teachers will not take up their rented yoga spaces again. I have a studio on our property so I don’t have to be concerned about paying a landlord. Call me old-fashioned, but I look forward to the day when I can teach in the warm and intimate atmosphere of face-to-face classes that I’ve enjoyed over the years. But I might just keep the zoom string for my bow in case some students can’t get to Mitchells Island.