Lately I've been thinking about what I
call rock n' roll yoga. I was in a rock n' roll yoga class in a dream
this weekend. Picture this: I was a student in the back of a class
filled with beautiful people clad in expensive yoga clothes (I was in
a pair of running shorts and a tattered t-shirt). All of them were
young and insanely fit, the teacher looked something like Adam
Levine, and Led Zepplin's Whole Lotta Love was blaring on the sound
system. I was flowing with the other students, yet I was wildly
distracted. We were going really fast and the student in front of me
looked like she had never taken a class before. I was distracted by
her form and I kept telling myself to stay on my mat, stay with my
own practice, it was “Adam Levine's” job to make sure she was
safe, not mine. I woke up thinking about...you guessed it...yoga! I'm
seeing a new trend among my students at the college. They come to
class on the first day raising their hands asking questions like,
“Are we going to do handstands?” or “Will we be learning crow
pose?” The first time this happened I thought, “Oh, this girl
must be a seasoned yogi.” Then I saw her moving through a flow
series...not so much. I think I've figured it out though; it's rock
n' roll yoga. Fit young people want the “cool” that comes with
yoga and dive in head first; they want to master an ancient practice
in ninety minutes. Hmmm, what's wrong with this picture?
During teacher training I was
taught that we place our bodies “just so” in each pose so that
the energy flows through the nadis (a network of subtle energy
channels) in order to awaken the kundalini energy which yogis believe
leads to samahdi (a non-dualistic state of consciousness). In order
to release blocks from our chakras, if you believe in this sort of
thing, you need to place your body correctly in the poses so that you
can free the energy flow. Regardless of whether you are into chakras
or not, by putting yourself into a pose incorrectly one of two things
can happen. First, you run a higher risk of injury, and secondly, you
don't get the full stretching/strengthening benefits of the pose.
This makes me sad, sincerely sad, because I can look at my own
physical and mental health and see the long term benefits I have
received through a slow build up to these more advanced poses. Had I
started at a run, my suspicion is I would have burned out really
quickly, whether through injury or just moving on to the next fad
exercise trend. Don't get me wrong, I love a rock n' roll yoga class
now and then, I just think it's something one graduates to. After
all, you have to learn to walk before you can run.
Howdy Lisa! Bro-in-law Tom here. Sorry if I take your yoga too far off the mat here, but I think about this issue a lot as it relates to our human desire for instant gratification.
ReplyDeleteIf we can't do something great on the second or third try, we get frustrated and want to quit and move on to the next thing.
Guilty as charged!
How many times have I tried to teach myself to play guitar, only to quit after two months when I can't play like Stevie Ray Vaughn? Or swearing that today is the day that I will start my major diet and lose those pesky 50 pounds, only to come home after work two days later and fix a big Manhattan and gorge on a bag of Cheetos?
In Malcom Gladwell's book, Outliers, he puts forth the proposition that to truly become an expert in anything -- music, athletics, yoga, writing, etc -- a person has to invest at least 10,000 hours of practice into that activity. No exceptions, even if you were born genetically gifted. For those of us who might get to do something we love for an hour a day, that adds up to over 27 years to become an expert at it!
Most of us aren't patient enough to put in that kind of time. The masters we so want to emulate make it look so easy. We only see their performance, but we don't see the thousands and thousands of hours of practice that they invested to get to that point. We think that if we buy the same shoes, the same same yoga outfit, the same guitar, or the same camera as our heros, then all we have to do is read the Dummies Guide to Doing What They Do and we will be able to short-cut that 10,000 hours.
Much to my dismay, it just doesn't work that way. The small stuff matters.
While a small step each day does not seem like much, in reality it is the only thing that does matter. If we really want to be good at anything, we need to look at the long term. The really long term. Like the 10,000 hour long term. And realize that every small step, even if it is too small too measure, is a step forward, and is necessary to get to where we want to go. The big-leap approach will not get us there, and will only result in frustration and discontent. We need to find fulfillment in achieving just a small step taken every day, then look backward every 10 years or so and see how far we've come.
I know, easier said than done! However, I am going to try in my own life to not concentrate so much on how far I have to go, but find contentment and fulfillment in consistently taking the tiny forward steps that ultimately matter, each and every day.