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| Crow |
"Courage man, the hurt cannot be much..."
I’m not sure exactly why this is the line that sticks in my
mind over the past few days. It’s not
really appropriate at all considering that the line is from Romeo and Juliet and the ‘hurt’ is
Mercutio’s fatal stab wound. But courage
has been on my mind lately.
Today is my last day of my 40 Days of Yoga. I’ve loved it for the most part—there was one
day where I did not want to be
there. I wasn’t just sort of annoyed—I actively
wanted to leave. I’m not sure if I wasn’t
hydrated enough or very well rested. I
don’t know if I was just having an off day.
All I know is, I couldn’t force
my legs into the deep squat of chair pose for the 42nd time that
class, and I struggling to hold wheel for the ten breaths that Churck wanted.
In a lot of ways, my 40 days of yoga (and by the way,
today will be my 33rd class in 40 days) has been about things that
didn’t really happen. I didn’t go to the
coaching sessions after the first two times.
I haven’t done the increasing time of meditation each day. I haven’t lost a ton of weight—actually if my
scale is to be believed I’ve gained two pounds in the past 40 days (I’m going
to say it’s muscle). I also haven’t had
to think nearly as hard lately about making sure I’m drinking enough water—it’s
become a pretty solid habit especially since I was already drinking a decent
amount of water to begin with. I haven’t
become a totally solid yogi who can do ridiculous arm balances at the drop of a
hat.
I
have also lost my perspective of what’s normal for a person’s body to be able
to do. I feel like a slacker because I
can’t do a headstand or side crow, which are totally ridiculous expectations
for about 99% of people in general in the world. But I have this perception because more than
half the people in a lot of my classes can do these things, that I should be
doing them too. So yoga, for me, might
be about letting go of that idea of what “should be” and just being impressed
with what is.
I’m going
to miss belonging to this studio, but I’m also excited to not feel so chained
to the classes. It’s been one of the
first things I’ve had to plan around when I’m trying to figure out what I’m
doing in the evening, and there isn’t really a way to do it from home (at least
not really as effectively) if I can’t or don’t want to head over to Dancing
Mind. I’m also sort of glad I didn’t
lose a ton of weight. If I had totally
changed my body into a lean, mean, yoga machine I would probably be trying
harder to make myself find this affordable.
So as it is, I’m walking away from Dancing Mind for the next little
while.
If
there’s something I am disappointed about, it’s about that fact that I still
can’t do crow. I understand better how
to, know what I was doing wrong before, but I still can’t do it. And as Maggie, the hardest instructor I’ve
had for any athletic class anywhere, ever, told me, it’s fear that holds me
back. And she’s right. The moments I’ve been just about there are
when I can feel that I might actually do a total face plant into the ground and
that has made me come out of the pose early. It’s totally fear.
The
interesting thing about being in pretty warm yoga is that, even now, there’s a
small element of fear—will I get too hot, will I be able to make it through
this class, will I fall flat on my face—much more so than any other exercise
program. And not to sound too much like
a cliché quote with a pretty background that you find on Pinterest—I sometimes
wonder how much I would be able to do if I wasn’t afraid.
Fear
doesn’t rule my life—it doesn’t have nearly as much control as it did at other
parts in my life—what if I don’t do well in this class, what if this person
doesn’t like me, what if I let this person down—but there are still things I
shy away from because I’m afraid. Yoga
has taught me something about what I can do—and also what I’m not doing, but
maybe could. If I tried crow, really
tried, I would probably fall the first time or first few times. But it wouldn’t hurt that much. Certainly not as
much as Mercutio’s wound.
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