Jamie in Waves

Seasons change and so do names.

•

I started my Instagram account in early autumn, 2014. I’d recently finished my second YTT, and was feeling overwhelmed by everything I’d learned, and wanted to use this medium as a space to process and practice articulating my experience of “Yoga.”

I purposefully didn’t use my preexisting personal account because I didn’t want to annoy my friends and family with pictures of my practice. (Also, I was VERY self-conscious, and remained always-on-the-verge of completely deleting this account for at least the first two years. The thought still crosses my mind, sometimes.)

Despite, or perhaps because of, the vulnerability of sharing as authentically as I can, my Instagram account has become deeply meaningful to me. It’s small—still less than 900 posts in four years!—but when I scroll down, I see ME, and the twists and turns this practice has led me through. It’s personal and sentimental, and sometimes the photos are grainy and sometimes they’re magnificently shot by @iambigsky. Regardless, each post is a record of a real moment in my life.

I cherish this.

•

Yoga on Instagram has changed dramatically over four years. What’s happening now feels so far from where I am, or where I want to go. I’m not interested in arguing about what “real” yoga is, because I certainly don’t feel confident that I know the answer, so I’m just going to leave it at this: for a long time now, I’ve wanted to set myself free from “Jamie Alcorn Yoga.”

Not the practice, but the label.

There are too many labels, and all they do is contain.

I don’t want to be contained, I want to feel free.

That’s why I came to the yoga practice in the first place.

I want to be free to dive into deep water.

I want to ride whatever wave comes my way.

So for now, you can find me on Instagram as @jamieinwaves.

I wonder, where will the water carry me?