How Flipping A Coin Made Me Perfect At Yoga

Guy jumping in yoga poseI’m failing at yoga.
I mean totally blowing it.

My warrior two looks like warrior one. And my warrior one looks like someone broke off the top a bowling trophy.

An Endless Path
The other day a classmate observed that the path of Yoga is endless. We are always working towards greater subtlety and clarity. When he said this, I felt a lump in my throat.

In Yoga school, I am a neophyte extraordinaire. I’ve only practiced with a well-trained teacher for a few months.

Before this, I did mostly guerilla Yoga. It was fun and loose, and my teacher had studied at Youtube academy. I loved Yoga, but I didn’t have a lengthy, formal education.

They’re Pros
Most of my classmates have been practicing for years if not decades. I find their knowledge, skill, and flexibility to be humbling. I often feel like Bambi caught in a forest fire.

Still, Yoga’s not a competition right? Well I’m an American male so everything can be a competition. So there, I was in class thinking about how bad I was at this infinite art.

Then it struck me. There is another side to this coin. The side that sees my yoga as perfect.

Two Sides
There are two sides to every situation: the side that takes an ideal and compares us to it and the side that always sees wholeness. The first side we see all the time. The second side is hardly looked at.

No one can do my Yoga except for me. No one can face my body’s challenges except for me.

My whole life; karma, dharma, and everything else has brought me here.

Every step I make is a step on the path. I may stumble and fall, but I must walk.

There is no me some place else that’s doing it better. There is only the me that practices here and now. There is no moment other than this one and this moment is perfect.

MindFitMove Practice
Reflect on these three questions.
What if everything I do is perfect as it is?
What if everything everyone else does is perfect in this same way?
What if I could see this perfection in every moment?
How would it change my life and how I live?

 

What’s one thing you’ll never hear a personal trainer admit?

Ok I can’t believe I’m saying this, but working out is no fun at all. Am I right here people?

Sometimes when I go to work out I just don’t feel like it. Then my muscles start burning, I’m breathing really heavily, and everything kind of aches. It feels a little bit like I’m dying and not in the Sylvia Plath sense.

People who are “into fitness” don’t like to admit they feel like this, but we do. We like to act like it’s fun and enjoyable which it is, but it also sucks.  We don’t tell other people this because it’s hard to explain to anyone why we would do something so arduous. If we admitted this they would ask why we encourage others to do the same thing? Are you guys like sadists or something?

There is this idea in the fitness world and in society that everything should be fun light and easy. When you see work out commercials on TV those people are having a blast doing puncherobics or taicyling or whatever. When you see people working out for real often they have this look like someone just stole their milk money and shoved them in a locker.

So why do I work out? Because I know that it makes me feel better. Counter intuitive right?
When I work out my brain works better, my moods are less extreme, food tastes better, sex is better, and I just feel better day-to-day.

Even after a hard workout that kicked my booty I feel much better than I did before. There is something thoroughly satisfying about being completely used by my efforts. Discomfort and fatigue force me to be in my body to be in this moment to get out of my head and into THIS INTENSE EXPERIENCE!

That’s why I love to exercise even when I can’t stand it. So go ahead and admit that working out is hard. It’s supposed to be that way. That’s why it’s called working out instead of hanging out. It’s work.

Once you’ve done that then get out there and run, swim, bike, skate until you feel exhausted. We all have to do unpleasant things sometimes, but exercising mindfully is one occasionally unpleasant thing that actually makes almost everything else a little better.