Bending In a New Direction ~ Yoga

A common word yoga instructors use while guiding the class through a difficult pose, is “eventually” -- “eventually,” and “someday.” Eventually, your ear will rest on the floor. Someday your leg will be perpendicular to the mat. Eventually you’ll be able to reach for the other hand. When I started practicing three years ago, everything was an “eventually.” First and foremost: eventually you won’t feel like dying after 90 minutes of class. Eventually that was true, but it was a long road. I came to yoga because I was injured. Injured again. From running. It seems all I have to do is sign up for a marathon and my IT Band creates a pain so ridiculous and debilitating it makes running all but impossible. If my body had access to language it would say something along the lines of: “So you think you’ll train for a marathon, eh? Try running through this pain, shithead…” The first time it happened I tried to run through it, thinking pain and struggle are but a natural part of running. I ended up sidelined for over three months, all the while visiting physical therapy twice a week. That is precisely what happened three years ago after I signed up for the Rock-n-Roll marathon in Seattle. My training began ramping up, and in short order my IT Band reacquainted me with the pain it is capable of inflicting. I tried stretching, foam rolling, shoe inserts, extremely technical shoes a team of the world’s finest scientists engineered (one would imagine anyway, from the price alone) and as I mentioned – physical therapy. In utter frustration, I went on the Runners World website for advice. I wanted answers, and moreover, solutions. And there it was all over the forums – runners doing yoga for injury prevention… A long term solution. I was in. I won’t say I thought yoga would be easy. But I certainly didn’t think it would be hard. I had passed studios while an entire class held what looked to be a peaceful pose, eyes transfixed on something seemingly far off in the distance. It all looked very calm, and graceful. Okay, I’ll admit it. I kinda thought it would be easy. I arrived on my first day to 90 minute hot power yoga in old running pants and a tech shirt. The door flew open as I stood hesitantly before it, and a woman in a tiny tank top and tight capri pants emerged fanning herself. “Whoa! It’s a hot one in there today,” she said. And yes, sure enough a gust of dry, hot air followed her. Very hot air. Coming in from the 50 degree morning, it felt good for exactly 4 seconds before it began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. I found a spot I hoped would be inconspicuous to lay my mat down. I had purchased this mat 7 years earlier when I did prenatal yoga videos (my only yoga experience to date) while pregnant with Peyton. The air began to quickly remind me of Lake Havasu – the desert lake we would go waterskiing in as kids. The weather was such that we wouldn’t dare stay out for longer than five minutes without submerging ourselves in the water. The room was filling up quickly. I had to shuffle over a few times to make room for newcomers until all of our mats were less than 10 inches apart. The woman who ended up on my left regarded me for a moment. “This your first time?” she asked, looking at my shirt and pants. She was wearing a tiny tank like the first woman, which was beginning to make sense given the intense heat. I nodded. Then she asked, “Where’s your towel?” I held up the towel I brought – a washcloth-size square. Her eyebrows shot up at this. “That,” she told me ominously, “won’t be enough.” As I was seriously considering marching my already perspiring, over-dressed, under-prepared self right back out the door into fresh 50 degree air, the door breezed open and a vision of core muscles, blonde hair, lovely smiles, and tiny yoga shorts entered the room. It was the instructor, and probably fittest woman I’d ever seen in real life. She sat cross legged in front of the group and chatted for a moment. When class was ready to begin she asked if it was anybody’s first time to her class. I raised my hand and explained that I had done, you know, like… lots of prenatal videos, er, like 6 or 7 years ago –? Yes, 7 years ago… She nodded kindly and suggested I keep an eye on the woman to my left – the one who had already essentially told me I was screwed due to my towel choice. I’m a runner, I told myself. I can do this… But as the class went down into child’s pose, I was more than a little bit unsure. By the time we hit the first downward dog I knew I was in for it. My shoulders burned explosively and I shook under the pressure of my own body weight as the instructor informed the class, “This… is your resting pose.” The sweat that had started accumulating before class started was flowing in earnest now, dripping into little pools on my mat. I had 85 more minutes of class to survive. We did crow. We did bird of paradise. We did eagle, and we did pigeon. All the major birds were covered. We did one-legged balancing poses, and planks and an abdominal portion that would make any normal human weep… I tried my hardest to keep up but I’m sure I must have spent a significant part of the class standing there with my mouth gaping. It’s lucky they don’t have mirrors in the yoga studio. If I had caught a glimpse of myself at any point I may have never come back. But I did come back. Because, even though after class I felt very much like dying, and barfing, and/or passing out, I was intrigued. During those early months practicing, I approached yoga very much like a difficult run in which the goal is simply to complete it, and not die. Each pose was a challenging obstacle I wanted to conquer. It wasn’t until many classes later, when I had adjusted to the heat and could do many of the poses without fear of keeling over that I heard the instructor speaking to us. The first thing I heard, which she had probably been saying all along, was “let it go.” Such a simple invitation, and yet when I really heard it, processed it, and made a concerted effort to “let it go” it was quite incredible. Then there was the breathing. All along the instructor had been encouraging one breath per movement. Deep Inhale… Long Exhale… I began practicing that as well. And for quite some time -- months and months, that is where I was with yoga… Letting it go, breathing, and trying to keep up. Somewhere in there, the poses started to become more accessible to me, and what’s more, instead of making me want to curl up and go fetal on my mat, the challenging poses started to feel good. And that’s when it happened: yoga became invaluable to me – just as, if not more enjoyable at times than running. I will never give up running. It is a love of mine I am committed to – even though I am aware of our sometimes dysfunctional relationship. Yoga is a different experience all together, and more of a mystery to me. Yoga gives back in ways I could have never imagined. Every now and again, during a particularly twisty or challenging pose – one that causes the mind to roam in a thousand different directions that all seem pinpointed toward a very specific concept: “this sucks and I want it to end”… Something sinks in… or peels away… or both. It is an incredibly vulnerable state to put the body in, but also strangely powerful. It has also allowed me to see that yoga, in many ways, is a metaphor for life. Doing something challenging and uncomfortable in class with composure and strength is very much like riding out a difficult situation in life. And to prove this point, life has dealt me some pretty serious upheavals this last year. I have never been more eager to get to my mat. I am still so very new to yoga. There are years of learning and practicing ahead of me, and that is one of the things I love. There are many, many “eventually's” and “somedays” I am looking forward to meeting on the other side.

Most likely you’d expect a lot of ballet going on this house, wouldn’t you? – what with three girls and all? Ballet… and maybe tap… some jazz perhaps, and so forth. To be honest, having three girls, I thought we’d be up to our eyeballs in dance at this point in our lives. I, for one, loved dance when I was young. I would practice my leaps, turns and kicks in front of a full length mirror in the garage to a classical radio station I found on the AM dial. When asked what “I wanted to be” when I grew up, A Dancer was always on the short list. I just assumed my daughters would be the same. Silly me. Both Peyton and Quincy did start off in dance class. It was the same in-town dance studio most of the grade school girls belonged. The ballet teacher, though she made an earnest effort to come off as “warm and fun” to the parents, was stern -- her lips sealed into what seemed a perpetual fine line of disapproval or irritation… her penciled eyebrows were arched high on her forehead. She wore black jazz shoes, walked with a significant turn-out and tolerated zero horseplay. The moms watched from a waiting room with glass windows that spanned the hardwood dance floors as their little girls learned how to shuffle step and sashay to an array of music selections from various musicals, and 1950’s hits. There was a big production at the end of the year in which all of the little girls dressed up like sparkly butterflies, ballerina princesses, glittering angel fairies, or a combination therein. My proud Mommy moment came when Quincy, dressed in a sequined, purple polka-dotted, flare skirted number, inadvertently kicked off her tap shoe while performing an over-zealous kick ball change. The tap shoe (in what felt like slow motion) flew through the air, hurtling to a stop directly center stage. Quin, without so much as changing her facial expression, and at what really seemed to be light speed, retrieved the shoe, popped it back into action and finished the dance routine without a glimmer of hesitation, so that if you weren’t watching closely, you would have never known it happened. My heart swelled with pride. Peyton plie’d and jete’d with the best of them, too, looking quite lovely in her ballerina bun with the dainty little pink slippers on her feet. When it came time to enroll the two girls for the following year of dance classes, I was surprised when they both confronted me. “No more dance classes,” they said firmly. This is a crossroads all of us moms face when the ideas our kids have of their futures do not match our own. “You love dance class,” I offered, but that was a losing position to take, akin to telling them they “love” broccoli. “If not dance, then what?” I wanted to know. And evidently they had already thought this through because they both agreed they wanted to do Martial Arts. I will admit, I in no way took this seriously… I put gymnastics on the table a few days later, but still they persisted. Martial Arts, they said, was the ticket. So I did what any mother would do when she realizes her two daughters would rather learn flying front kicks instead of pas de bourrees. I shoved their teensy feet into point shoes and told them it was my way or the highway… No, I really didn’t. I got on the computer and googled Martial Arts classes in our neighborhood. If they wanted to wax on/wax off, I would get behind it. After doing some research, I signed both girls up for a trial class at a Taekwondo studio up the street. And do you know what I realized? I was actually excited. The more I thought about it, the more I was down with the girls learning a Martial Art. Note: this was of no consequence to the girls, who had already decided they were doing martial arts whether I liked it or not. The entire car ride to the Trial Class I quoted as many lines from Karate Kid I as I could remember (my knowledge of this movie is extensive). The girls had no idea what I was talking about but I was amusing myself and sometimes that’s what is important. We arrived to a bustling studio filled with kids in their white uniforms with a variety of belt colors. We were instructed to go into a room with kids who had white and yellow belts. We were a bit early so we sat on a bench and watched the kids warm up before the instructors arrived. There was a small boy with a yellow belt in the center of the floor practicing his form, which to me, looked incredibly badass. His hands swept through the air in what looked like knife chops, punches, and other very impressive moves. He kicked in several different directions, and every so often he would pause and shout firmly, “HUT!” The girls watched wide-eyed while they fidgeted in their sweat pants. Soon it was time for class to start. The instructors arrived on the edge of the floor and shouted into the chaotic room filled with kids running, jumping, and kicking at will, “LINE UP!” The room went silent immediately – the only sound being the kid’s footfalls as they quickly formed lines on the mats. I was impressed. Peyton loved the class. Quincy did not. In fact, after class, which included many crunches, push-ups, and an extended horse stance that made my thighs burn just from watching it, Quincy said that she wanted to do gymnastics. After trying to persuade her to give it another try, I realized she wasn’t ready for it, and so she did do gymnastics – for two more years. Meanwhile, Peyton worked her way through the belts, which wasn’t easy. She learned different “forms” which are essentially Taekwondo routines, involving a very precise combination of kicks, punches and blocks. In addition, she learned mental requirements, how to spar, and the art of arnis – which is stick fighting. Was I impressed? Very. Every now and again I’d encourage Quincy to give it another whirl but the more she watched Peyton, the more intimidated she seemed to become. It wasn’t until the school year began this year that Quin reconsidered. Peyton was testing for her advanced green belt, and as it turned out, her test was piggybacked on to the black belt test – which meant we had a rare opportunity to see what was required to become the highest ranking belt. I was entertained – but Quincy was enthralled….transfixed. When we got home she sat down at the kitchen table while I stood at the sink. “I’m ready to try it again,” she told me. And I knew exactly what she meant. That wasn’t the final hurdle, though. When we arrived for her first day of class, she wouldn’t get out of the car. “It’s time,” I told Quin from the front seat. She was quiet and didn’t move. This is where fine-tuned parenting skills really pay off – patience, understanding, calm. I’ve read a great deal of parenting books on this subject – it was time to implement. But I don’t seem to possess these skills when I need them most, and I always end up frustrating myself deeply. “Get out, Quincy,” I told her. She wordlessly shook her head. She was nervous and I knew it, but I also knew that if she would get out and start the class she would love it. So I made her get out. I don’t remember my exact words, but they were firm and not the words I wished I had said – even as I was saying them. But it worked and she reluctantly followed me into the studio. My face was red and I was feeling like #1 a-hole mommy. Quincy’s face was red as well, and though she didn’t say a word I think that she was feeling like I was #1 a-hole mommy, too. When class began, Quincy slowly took her place on the mat. Within 10 minutes she was in to it. The teachers were great with her, and after class she told me she loved it. I have to admit, watching Q in her classes made me extremely proud. She possesses a focus and an accuracy that's impressive to me - her mom. So it was at the School Championships that this all came full circle for me. After having to peel Quincy out of the car again (this seems to be her thing when she’s nervous) we joined the entire Taekwondo studio inside to watch the students compete and show all that they’ve learned over the last year. At one point I looked over at Peyton on the floor, now a blue belt, with her full sparring gear on. And it sunk in... how interesting it is that I had imagined at this point in their lives I would be sitting in an auditorium watching them perform dance numbers in sparkling costumes, when here I was in a gymnasium watching my girls put on their mouth guards and fighting faces. I got that swelling proud feeling as I looked at their little blonde heads capped by their sparring hats. My girls rock.

Running on the fumes of my second cup of coffee on a sunny mid-morning while driving home after all three kids have been successfully dropped off at school, the possibilities seem endless. My ideas for the future, both big and small, seem more than doable. I get like this at these times… Over ambitious. Over zealous. Over caffeinated. I consider things such as: going back to school, writing the books that have been telling themselves in my mind for years. I think of marathon training, triathlon training, a new career, and more... At the very least, I think of my sad little blog that after about a year of neglect has cobwebs dangling from it... I miss writing. So in this state (kid-free for the moment and highly caffeinated) I decide to get cracking on writing. I have ideas! They are interesting and inspiring and fun! I arrive home full of bubbling motivation and the desire to hit the computer. I arrive home… to a house with a floor that desperately needs to be vacuumed… to a dog who is begging to be walked… to a sink full of breakfast dishes… The caffeine is waning. Reality and her b-hole tag-along friend Responsibility burst my mood. And so, the writing will wait. A bit. But I’m coming for it.