Take a deep breath in and sigh it out through your mouth, in through the nose and sigh it out. Once last time deep breath in through the nose, gently closing the eyes as you sigh it out. Yoga cloud, feel how it rolls off the tongue. Yip this is so a legit asana (pose).
And just before you think that I just made all of that up: Cloud pose is a real thing that is found especially in children’s yoga and is great for settling tantrums and providing a healthy metaphor for eliminating problems or clearing the mind. Although it looks slightly different from what we just did – it is still connected to breath. Inhale pick up the clouds (problems) and as you exhale you release and let the cloud go generally by raising the hands above the head.
If only life or running a business can be this simple and straightforward. By exhaling your issues up to the sky turning it into a cloud and letting it go – not your problem anymore. Perhaps this seems like a far stretch – no pun intended – but there are definitely some overlapping benefits/similarities between yoga and the Cloud.
The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’ which means ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’. So how does yoga relate to Cloud today? I could start by waxing lyrically about how the Covid-19 pandemic brought about an awareness of how important it became to be connected; not just to others via the internet but also to yourself and the benefits that brings. There is, however, more to both yoga and the Cloud than just being connected.
Now before the yogis get all excited about yoga being available in the cloud with it being on the internet and not just in yoga studios, it has become convenient, easily accessible, more affordable and flexible.
As a yoga teacher, but also someone who is involved in the software development side of ERP software, please join me in this exercise to yoke yoga and the Cloud together. Whenever you introduce yoga or invite someone to a class you are generally met with the following statements, which are used as counterarguments as to why they don’t or can’t consider it as a solution not necessarily to a problem but as a path to growth.
I’m not flexible enough
There is this notion that in order to go to a yoga class you must be flexible and I’m talking about those full extension of the pose kind of level of flexibility. As if flexibility is not a sliding scale but either on or off. The truth though is that in order to get to the full extension of the pose you have to realize and accept that it is a journey and very few people have that natural kind of flexibility so it is going to take work. It isn’t always just about flexibility, with it you require strength.
One of the strongest selling features of Cloud is the flexibility it offers businesses by not only taking care of the hosting and infrastructure but also that you have a dedicated resource whose sole purpose is to allow you to run your business without having to worry about increasing bandwidth or scaling infrastructure. The headache of having to go through the whole complex, sometimes painful and definitely costly exercise to expand on premise resources is a problem you can release into the Cloud, allowing you more freedom in your business journey to grow into the full extension of what makes your business excel. You can focus on your real strength – running your business, rather than having to manage your technology.
Mobility
In a physical context, mobility means range of available movement that pertains to not only how you move in your body but which yoga studios or style are available to you. For me personally I find that yoga is a very personal thing – if you can find the right style and instructor with which you can truly connect the magic of what yoga can bring to your life is in the palm of your hand. However, that perfect fit does fall under the limited access umbrella as well, being able to access this resource is where mobility truly lends itself to its own mention.
With the Cloud the limited access to information or services becomes a fleeting thought as the use of smart devices make it almost impossible to leave anyone out. No more is there a discrimination of where the office is, availability in busy diaries, what device (pc, smartphone, tablet) is used, the operating system or service provider. If you can connect to the internet, you have access to the Cloud where your business is now hosted, looked after and accessed, allowing you to move to the corners of the earth all in the palm of your hand again.
Insight
Yoga has the ability of bleeding into the rest of your life which brings a level of being connected and knowledge that you will find applicable in more and more aspects of your life. You acquire a level of information that is not only versatile but applicable outside of the yoga studio or where your mat is. And with knowledge comes power.
Knowledge however is obtained/derived from data and we have come to know that in today’s day and age data is money. The problem, however, is to mine the data that is captured during everyday transacting and then identifying which of this information is of sufficient value to mine it and maximize its use for your business. The process of not only mining but also analyzing said data is a costly exercise which in all fairness most of us can agree is not always as high on the priority list as we would like it to be. With many cloud-based storage solutions the integrated cloud analytics offers this bird’s eye view that can assist your business to really flourish.
Speaking as a yoga instructor I have not only seen but experienced that the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. And the comfort zone is that with which we are familiar. Let’s take a leaf out of the children’s yoga guide and try the yoga cloud asana: we may just find that the weather forecast for today is Cloudy with sunshine.
