Movement

From one day to the next, I look forward to yoga.

It has been more than a year since I first stepped into the studio, and I never tire of it.

I like preparing to go. I like being there. I like the workout.

And, in turn, I like whatever it is I am doing afterwards. 

The after effects of each class stay with me until the next class, and so I go as often as I can. 

It is a good place, and it puts me in a good space. 

I cannot exactly pinpoint what it is about yoga that clicks with me, but something about it definitely does.

And, it is not something new in me to which it connects but rather something seemingly age old.

In yesterday morning’s class, we were in a flow, moving amongst many different poses.

We flowed from Warrior II to High Lunge to Warrior I. We swept our arms down and back and raised them up again. We leaned back and spread our arms open and then swept them down again.

The music played, my body flowed and my mind did, too, back to when I was six or seven or eight years old in ballet class.

We moved into Standing Split and then brought our feet together for a forward fold. We lifted halfway and folded again and then flowed into Warrior II once more. We straightened our front leg and flowed into Triangle pose.

My body reached forward and my mind reached back, and I so vividly remembered myself in my black leotard and pink tights doing The Fun Step.

This happened at the end of ballet class when the teacher would map out a pattern of steps across the room and change up the music.

We would skip and hop, one at a time, traveling from one corner to the next on a diagonal.

I loved it.

I remember always looking down to see my feet but not being able to find them because my little girl’s stomach blocked the view of my toes!

We flowed back to Warrior II and then sailed right into Half Moon. I bent my back leg and grabbed my ankle for a sideways backbend.

As a little girl, I never wanted to go to ballet.

It was scheduled on Saturday mornings when I was allowed to watch TV, and I did not want to do anything but watch H.R. Puff and Stuff.

But, I was always happy at the end of class when the good music played, and we flowed freely with The Fun Step.

After class, I would always hang back to watch the older girls dancing jazz, wishing to be one of them, dancing more freely and always to better music.

Ultimately, my mother caved, and I left the ballet scene only to wish in my teenage years that I had not.

I filled in the gap with other dance classes and dance squads throughout my middle and high school years. In college, I fulfilled my physical education requirement with a dance class, too.

We moved through our Vinyasa and repeated the flow on the other side, moving from one big motion to the next.

There has always been something about movement and music that works for me, and somehow, yoga brings me back to it.

The music and the movement take my body and mind through a moving meditation, and this is what keeps me coming back.

The good music plays, and I sail freely between the poses as I follow the instructions that make up the flows of the first part of the class.

It is like doing The Fun Step all over again, only this time I can see my toes.

Warrior

We were standing in Warrior II, a pose that at one time was my favorite pose.

Arms extend front to back, the legs lunge forward, and the hips open to the side.

At one time, I  had thought this pose was easy.

Now, I beg to differ.

95 degree heat.

Sweat dripping down every part of my body.

The class is an army of warriors, and the instructor is our commander, pointing out minor adjustments to everyone in the room.

Move your front knee towards your pinky toe. Drop a little lower in your hips.

The instructor actually reaches behind my knee and pulls it forward to entice my hips to drop.

It works.

Look past your front hand. Push your shoulders down. Don’t forget to relax your jaw.

Each instruction is so minor, but every incremental shift feels so major to my body.

I am sweating Warrior II!

Once all instructions are followed, we are supposed to just land there, stay there and be still, except, of course, for the breath.

No matter what, we are supposed to breathe.

Just as I am wondering why we are doing this, why we have to remain so still for so long, the instructor issues this command:

Be the bedrock!

She starts to speak about the strength of our foundation, how we are supposed to pull the energy up from our feet, which are pressed down like there is no tomorrow, and into our hips.

Our base is supposed to be strong and steady.

Don’t be the driftwood! she admonishes, before releasing us from the pose with the long awaited instruction to cartwheel it out.

I roll my back arm up and over my shoulder to meet my front arm, and gratefully lower my body on an exhale before pressing upward and through my Vinyasa.

I am the bedrock for many people in my life, and it has not been hard at all.

I have not had to sweat it out, to say the least.

It has been easy to be there for my children, for my sister, my parents, my friends and colleagues.

I am often told by others that I have helped them see their way clear.

The other day, a friend told me that I envelop people.

On a lark, I visited a Vedic astrologer who told me that I am someone to whom others come in order to share their “shadow sides”, or secrets.

But, even a piece of bedrock needs to lean on others sometimes, and this has taken me a long time to learn.

For me, it is not so easy to reach out.

To be honest, that is what I really sweat!

And this is where I think I disagree with the instructor. 

I have learned that it is okay to be the driftwood at different times in life.

For the first time, I have reached out to others for support, and I have been the recipient of an overwhelming dose of wisdom, love and comfort.

And I admit to a certain relief, even though I sort of felt doing so might be a negative, almost as if for me to flounder could be a bad thing.

It is certainly not an easy thing, but maybe it is how one gets to the other side of something problematic. 

One friend, a fellow warrior, really, sent me a text, almost giving me permission to be a piece of driftwood for a time.

She said: Remember you must take care of yourself and those you love. It’s okay to lose focus once in a while. That’s all part of life, and it’s all good as long as you can get up, brush yourself off and go forward.

I call her a fellow warrior because she, too, has come through some hardships successfully and has seen her way clear to a good, strong place. 

After our Vinyasa, we move into Warrior I, a difficult pose with arms up by the ears, legs in a lunge but hips forward, this time.

Move your hands to your heart, and spread out into Warrior II, the instructor says.

Our army follows its commander who allows us the moment to touch our hearts in the transition between Warrior I and II.

I land again in Warrior II, sweating but feeling strong, moving between poses and excusing my heart its breaks in between.

Chicken Little

When I was little, the mean girl in the neighborhood just terrorized us.

I was five or six years old and hung with my sister, older by a year. I felt safe with her. This girl would sometimes join the other kids from the block when we played outside in our backyard. 

One day, the mean girl pointed to the sky.

We looked up and saw an airplane’s leftover white trail cutting the sky in two.

The sky is falling, she hollered! The sky is falling!

My sister ran, and I followed, convinced the white line had sliced the sky from the air.

We yanked open the screen door to the kitchen and let it slam behind us, considering ourselves safe on the inside while we peered fearfully at the sky outside.

I am afraid to say that I have sort of relived this scenario as an adult.  

Once upon a time, I thrived on change.

Change was exciting, and my 20s were filled with new changes almost every year. Graduation. A job. A marriage. A home.  A dog. A baby.  A new home.  Another baby! Another new home. A growing business.

Life was dynamic, and we sailed along on winds that blew in all directions.

Somewhere along the way, though, I no longer welcomed change. My 30s brought a divorce. Big change! Three more moves but now on my own. More changes.

Raising my children, I encouraged accomplishments, tended accidents, changed schools, signed them up for all sorts of arts and sports. I fostered growth and change in my children, always; but, for me, I took cover. I hunkered down.

And it was yoga that brought me back out.

When I first started yoga, many of the poses felt silly.

It was a new place, and there were few people in the room, so I could not really hide.

It felt weird, and I was self conscious, especially with the mirrors reflecting my body positioned in all sorts of new-fangled ways.

We were instructed in Warrior I, a powerful pose where the arms shoot up alongside the ears with one leg forward and one leg back, feet planted on the mat. A difficult pose if you feel powerful and even more difficult if you do not.

Warrior II was a little better with arms spread front to back and legs in a more comfortable lunge, hips to the side. There was the yoga squat – not so lady like.

And there was Down Dog, the body in an inverted “V” with the bottom sticking up, after which we were supposed to raise one leg.

We were expected to stand on our heads, invert our bodies.

Even my toes were going the wrong way. I found myself always pointing them – a yoga no-no.

Thank goodness for the music and the easy going instruction. It helped take me out of my head and into my body. Out of stuck mode and into something brand new.

Over a period of months, my body changed. And my mind changed, too. I was lighter both physically and mentally, and I began to crave more. More in my yoga practice, and more in my life.

The other day, I attended an advisory board meeting for work. I was the note-taker. Who knew my conscientious student days would pay off in this way? I can take notes with my eyes closed and, just like in college, the result is practically a transcript of what was said.

At the end of the meeting, those on the board provided their thoughts on the subject matter at hand, the impact of the economic landscape over the coming years for the host company.

One by one, the board members spoke up, and I typed. I filled many pages before one of the last comments made me stop.

Just because the world is changing, the board member stated, doesn’t mean the sky is falling.

I quickly pulled out a piece of scrap paper and wrote this down.

This profound statement brought me immediately back to the little girl behind the screen door.

In some respects, I had raced back behind that door 15 years ago, thinking I was in a safe place when, really, I was just in a stuck place.

Stepping into the yoga studio has been like stepping back into the yard, bravely looking up at the sky and realizing it is still in one piece, after all.