As we were walking home to the farm recently, for some inexplicable reason, a tune came into my head. My mother loved to sing songs from musicals like South Pacific and West Side Story, and some of my earliest memories are of my mother singing these tunes while making dinner. And suddenly, without reason, I found myself singing For Once in my Life, a Frank Sinatra hit, standing in the middle of a muddy paddock. My partner didn’t know the song, and the lyrics were fuzzy, so I played an iTunes version. We laughed and slow-danced for a while in the mud.

But the point of this story, is that what astounded me, was all the versions of this song that have since been made. From Stevie Wonder to Michael Bublé, to Craig David to Harry Connick Jr. There’s even a country music version sung by Scotty McCreery for his American Idol performance. Each of these vocalists are singing the same melody but each is uniquely different. Because when a song is fundamentally good, it stands the test of time.

I believe this is also true of Yoga practices that offer us something essential. Practices that have good bones and offer us a structure that is sound.

In this way, we can take something old and make it new. Through your individual structure, you find the variation that makes sense and through personal exploration find a unique expression.

This is how we keep Yoga alive, and how we stay alive through Yoga.