Foundations

May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift  ~ Forever Young, Bob Dylan 

I’ve been taking Rocket yoga for more than a year now. 

Three times a week, I go to the same class with the same teacher. She mixes it up, and we fly and invert and lock and lift. I rarely miss a class, so I figure I’ve practiced Rocket more than 100 times. 

How is it, then, that I’ve only recently realized that at every practice, we move through a foundational sequence before we take off?  

Am I the only one who didn’t know we were putting on the undergarments of our practice before getting dressed for the rest? 

Like most young girls, I was taught my first foundation lesson at an early age: to always wear nice underwear in case I’m in an accident and wind up in the hospital. 

Foundations can last a lifetime, and that’s why every day, I’ve got on pretty underwear under there. And I think that’s also why we are working on a foundation at Rocket. It’s not just for that day’s practice, but for the rest of our practicing days. 

How is it that I’m just catching on to this? 

We do each pose for five breaths in a particular order, building one on the other, each new posture getting another five breaths and only adding the whistles and bells after completing both sides. 

Maybe it’s taken me this long to realize what’s going on at the beginning because I’m so busy focusing on the middle. I’m waiting for what I think are the fun parts, like the handstands and the arm balances and the rest. 

But here, at Rocket, and seemingly unbeknownst to me until now, we’ve apparently been threading together the foundation of a practice with patience and persistence. 

It’s as if the practice is one long Home Economics project, with the instructor the head seamstress, putting down the pattern and laying out the big pieces first, teaching us to stitch together the larger parts before adding on the beautiful buttons, the fancy pockets, the sparkling sequins. 

It’s methodical. It’s challenging. And like with the creation of any lasting foundation, I think it’s making me stronger. 

I remember being in a sewing class in seventh grade, and let’s just say it wasn’t a place I excelled. There really was never any kind of foundation laid out in the class, nothing to build upon. We were just given a pattern and sent out to sea without a captain. I gave a shirt and a skirt my best efforts. 

The instructor would walk around, looking down on those of us seated and sewing. Those around me seemed to do fine, but I’d be adrift, jamming the machine and ripping out the seams I’d just sewn. My mother rescued me, finishing my projects on the sly at home. 

There is a foundation very specific to Ashtanga, the instructor says each time. We’ll do each pose, and when we add a new one, we’ll hold it for five breaths. Then, we’ll add the binds and the balances. 

Maybe she announced this on Day One, I’m not sure. But, it seems that for several days a week and for most weeks this year, I’ve been getting dressed layer by layer without knowing it. 

It’s only now that I see there’s even been a pattern every week at every practice, each pose like a piece of fabric, each movement the placement of the pieces, with all the effort and sweat securing the seams in place. 

We thread together the Sun As and Sun Bs and the Warrior Is and IIs. We reach into Triangles and Reverse Triangles and Extended Side Angles, and seamlessly move into High Lunges and Reverse Extended Side Angles. We make sure the right and left sides match by repeating the same sequence on each. 

And when we have completed this basic foundation, we reinforce its stitching, moving through it again, this time adding the trappings like Bound Half Moon, Bird of Paradise and Reverse Bird and more. 

The other night, the practice room was packed, and it was hot. The instructor climbed up on the windowsill and braced herself inside its frame, looking down on us like Spiderman. 

Think of me up here as your captain so I can help guide you! she exclaimed. Let’s double dip, she announced, referring to our yoga push ups. Be honest. This is your chance to get stronger. 

This all struck me as perfectly normal, with her in the window as captain and me at sea among the other yogis. 

I’m here to build my foundation, so I listen to the captain and double dip as best I can. 

And I think it’s working. My dips are feeling stronger. 

Of course, it could just be the new underwear I bought to practice yoga. A fellow yogi had pointed them out in the store. 

I picked up a pair and said, If you see me flying in class, you’ll know they’re working.

After that, I returned to buy some more. And, of course, I got some pretty colors, because any foundation is worth maintaining, especially if it helps me fly.

Muscles

Yoga is like a long car ride, and I feel like the kid in the back seat asking, "When are we gonna get there?"

I’m thinking I need some more muscles.

Not necessarily big ones, just more than I’ve got.

I remember when I started yoga, I stood in a studio with a group of women who had probably been working out most of their days.

It was day one for me.

Needless to say, it was pretty intimidating to keep coming back, but I did and it was a good thing. The practice has redefined me, literally.

Now I’ve got some muscles, and they've appeared in much the same way as with most things in yoga -- they kind of crept up on me. Seems like suddenly, there they were. One day, the mirror showed me muscles in my arms, my stomach, my legs, my back.

But the more I try to advance, the more I feel my limits. In one class in particular, I spend lots of time thinking if only I was stronger, I would get this.

This being the arm balances, the handstands, the staying on one side with the weight in one leg while doing all sorts of things before moving to the other side.

I mentioned lifting some weights to the instructor after class one day. I’m thinking I’m not strong enough, I said.

You can if you want, she replied, telling me that she did, too. But you are strong!

Then I admitted to feeling scrawny, and she suggested I email her to get rid of the crazies. But it’s the crazies that make me keep coming back. They are what make me want to go upside down, to lift myself up on my hands with my legs here and there.

I am learning that, as with most things in life, the strength has to come from the core.

The instructor talks about zipping it up and putting the belly button to the spine. She calls to us about our upward flying locks when we lift and balance and hang.

Still, in this class, I feel my edge -- the place where I know I need to add something to what I’m doing, so I can do more.

The other day, we were in Navasana, or Boat pose. Sitting on our tail bones, our bodies are in a V shape with our legs and backs straight and our feet in line with our noses. Our hands reach up.

We hold for a count of five.

Then, we cross, lock and lift – placing our hands down on either side, crossing our legs and lifting ourselves off the mat, swinging our feet underneath us. Ultimately, we are supposed to land in Handstand, swinging ourselves under and through and unfolding into the inversion.

We’re heading to Handstand here, the instructor says. It doesn’t matter if you’re there yet. Some of us will take another day or another month or another 10 years.

Huh?

No one really calls out in this class but, on hearing this, I stood up.

What? I blurted out. Do you know how old I’ll be in 10 years?!?

It doesn’t matter how old you are, the instructor replied. It matters how strong you are.

I have these little purple weights at home. They are eight pounds each. And I have some metal ones that are five pounds each. And some little red three pounders. Surely something can be done with them.

This yoga is called The Rocket. It’s from a branch of yoga called Ashtanga, a style where the student is given a sequence of poses, the progression through which has to be done in order. The student cannot move to the next pose unless the previous one is accomplished.

Rocket yoga came about in the 1980s, and it teaches some of these poses without having to satisfy any prerequisites. Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead dubbed it The Rocket because, in his words, You get there faster.

So, in this class, it often feels like day one again.

I am in there with those who have been there awhile. And like when I first started yoga, it can be quite intimidating but, like before, I keep coming back. And the progress is slow.

So my plan is to lift those purple weights, even though I think the key to my progression lies more in the strength of my core.

I am being instructed, like with anything else, to look inside to my very center.

Still, I kind of want to rocket through that part, too. I keep waiting to hear some kind of hint about how to better lift up. Surely, I might be missing some kind of clue.

But the only way to fly is to lock and lift. And there’s no shortcut to doing that. The strength in my core has to build in its own time.

So I keep practicing my lock and practicing my patience.

And hopefully, if I’m locked and lucky, I’ll be able to go back and through and upside down before the 10 year mark.

Anne is the author of  Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself​ and is published on Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. Connect with Anne on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.​​