You know how life goes. One step forward, two steps back. I hate those two steps, but life is not linear and nor is progress in it vertical. We move, but it is not always in a forward direction. Those two steps show up every time you add, subtract, multiply, or divide something. Every time you change something, those two steps backward are going to show up somewhere. They can show up in your job, health, relationships, or if you're very lucky, they'll show up on your exercise routine that was progressing nicely.
I was lucky. My two steps backward are showing up in my Bikram yoga. Adding the regular exercise routine to my life completely tore down my yoga practice. Last week I had two very hard classes and another one today. I do understand though, how you can do something well for two years, change something, and you revert to being a beginner again. When I had been teaching for 32 years, we drastically changed our curriculum and my first year using it I remember the amount of work and long hours that were added to my life due to the change. I do remember saying that I felt like a first year teacher all over again. So it is with my yoga practice. I feel like that beginning yogi 24 months ago, that not only fought panic trying to stay in the room, but my poses have rapidly deteriorated back to, or even worse than, beginner status.
My cardio and weight training are working on my muscles. You know, those very muscles that took months to rework in yoga – that practice that changes you from the inside out, bones to skin? I think the yoga is mad that my muscles are being otherwise messed with. Today certainly was original. I actually had chills in that hot room. Really. I was laying on a hot towel, shivering. That threw me. I made it through the standing series, taking a knee for half a pose, but now it's the floor series – where I never had problem before, that is killing me. I did only 1 of each pose and in bow I just held my feet up and simply could not kick up. Standing head to knee was ridiculously hard for me as a beginner. It used to zap all I had right in the beginning of class. It took a year to be able to get the grip and kick out. Now, I'm back to square one. I can't get the grip for the life of me. I can't kick out at all. I stand bent over holding my foot for half the pose, then I have to stand up and just hold my knee up in the air. Back when I was a beginner I was never even that inept at this pose. Yoga has become hard again. I'm beginning to anticipate bad classes. No expectations is something you master in your first six months and here I am on its doorstep again.
Then, if a bad class wasn't enough, I left with yoga brain. I barely drove home, got out of the car only to realize I left my mat at the studio. Back I drove to get my mat. Upon arriving home again, I retrieved the mail and went into the house, only to see the paper lying on the driveway. I went back out get the paper, got back in the house again only to realize I have sunglasses on. Back out to the car to change glasses. Yup. True yoga brain.
Progress in anything in life is not exclusively forward moving. The hardest part is not returning to beginner status, but to accept that you absolutely have to in order for forward progress to eventually resume. Be aware of that. If you feel you've stumbled, don't be fooled. It's all part of your forward progress. Be kind to yourself, realize it for what it is, then watch yourself get built back up better than ever.
And so, as another day goes by, change and acceptance have taken over my life this fall, the hot room is full of big, new lessons to learn this winter, I recognize it, I will accept it, but I probably won't like it, and …..I have written.
Someday……again….
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