Absolutely Free
By Mehtab, Founder of YOGA YOGA
September 2009

Next Monday is the 10th anniversary of Austin's Free Day of Yoga. Yoga teachers throughout Austin offer free yoga classes every Labor Day to the community in the spirit of service and sharing.

Yoga Yoga helped organize the event when it first began and has participated every year. People who may never do yoga otherwise get to try it out, usually at the urging of their friends.

And you just never know what may happen from a "free yoga class." I got stories to tell you.

There is the yoga teacher who has taught for us for years, inspiring her students to begin their own yoga practice. Her life changed radically over the time I knew her and her husband joined her in a shared yogic lifestyle and became a yoga teacher himself. She loves teaching on the Free Day of Yoga. Why? It was how she took her very first yoga class. That one class set a series of events into motion that was life-changing and, she would say, life-saving.

On another Free Day of Yoga, a woman came up to me after class. She had been crying during the relaxation but was smiling now. "This was my first yoga class in 20 years," she confessed. "I don't know why I ever stopped but I am not stopping now." Years later I still see her in yoga class.

We all know that a single yoga class can be the most important step we may ever take. It does not take years and years of yoga to make a change. It only takes one class, one teacher, one word, one insight, one gift of divine grace, and a life is changed forever. And that is why people who do yoga often become "yoga missionaries," seeking to convert friends and family members with a zeal that mystifies the rest of the non-yoga population.

Why doesn't every one just do this "yoga thing"? If they would only try it, we know they would soon become one of Us.

The most common excuses people give are: I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. What they are really saying is: I don't know if yoga is worth my time and money. When people know something has real value in their lives, they make the time and they will find the money. They do that every day in so many other areas of their lives.

So on the Free Day of Yoga we make it easy for friends and family and co-workers to do yoga. It's on Labor Day, a holiday, and you got an extra hour or two to spare. It's free, no cost. It's a No Excuses Yoga Day!

So come celebrate with us this Labor Day. Bring someone you care about. The first one is free and the rest will pay you back for the rest of your life!