"Yoga attempts to create a state in which we are always present -- really present -- in every action, in every moment...When we are attentive to our actions we are not prisoners to our habits..."  

--  "The Heart of Yoga," Desikachar

When I was in high school, the teacher asked us to write a paragraph about where we wanted to be in five years. Most of my classmates rolled their eyes in displeasure. Not me. I was excited and my hand shot up like a rocket.

"Can we do ten years?!?"

My teacher was a little baffled and eventually sputtered out something like, "Yeah." In hindsight, I can see that this moment may have been an indicator that I was a Type-A-Workaholic-in-Training (but that's a story for another Yoga Bits). At the time, all I knew was that I was thrilled to be putting my 10-year-vision on paper. I had dreams -- or as I liked to refer to them back then, "plans" since I had no intention of not making them come to fruition. Ah, youth.

That's why it's called "the present."

As a yoga teacher, these days I spend the majority of my time refining my awareness of the here and now. But let's dissolve the myth that being "really present" is only something that occurs when we are sitting in a cross-legged position chanting a mantra. Quite the contrary.

Every moment contains in it the opportunity to be present, a phenomenon that we have probably experienced but perhaps not cultivated. One of the advantages of a regular yoga practice is that it develops the ability to respond to the present moment, on or off the mat, so that "we are not prisoners to our habits."