YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #24 "PRECISION & DISCIPLINE"
Sometimes, as a struggling yoga knucklehead, I grow weary of and disgusted with being a yoga knucklehead. As I gaze around while crunched up and attempting to regulate my panting breath, serious yoga participants on all sides try their utmost to perfect their poses so as to extract ultimate results, and they appear to take pride in holding these poses with precision and discipline, unwilling to waver, even as their breath increases and the room is filled with sighs as they fight off the pain. Meanwhile, I struggle just to achieve some semblance of the poses, and by this time, after nearly a year and a half, there is no reason why I shouldn't have conquered at least most of the poses and streamlined them so that I no longer resemble an unbalanced off kilter drooling panting yoga knucklehead, but instead an accomplished yogi who could visit any yoga studio in America, save hot yoga ashrams for fanatics, and exhibit before my new peers the grace and balance of an accomplished and dedicated practitioner of yoga.
Well, the other day, about a week or so ago, while peering around at my peers in hatha yoga, as Reggie led the way in a difficult pose, I began to feel genuine shame as a faltering inept cheating embarrassing yoga knucklehead, and for the first time ever became troubled and depressed about my progress, knowing I was, as my father had accused me of being as a thirteen year old, a “half-assed person always coming up a little short and leaving loose ends.”
For instance, when, as a kid, I mowed the lawn, which I hated doing, there was always a tiny patch missed. When I clipped the hedges, there was always a small area that was uneven. When I raked leaves, there was always a few left over, which infuriated him. When I washed the dishes with my sister, I sometimes left a minute crust on a dish before storing it in a cupboard. When I washed dad's car, there was always a patch of filmy dust left on a window. Dad, a perfectionist who was brought up in the great Depression and claimed if you didn't finish your job completely and faster than the other guy you'd be fired and left homeless starving in the streets.
About the only time I wasn't a sloppy half-assed person leaving “things undone” was on the athletic field, for I was a lax student also, making C's and B's when I should have studied more and gotten A's instead of being “satisfied with mediocrity.”
This background is kind of ingrained in me, and is no doubt why I am still a yoga knucklehead after a year and a half of yoga. So, the other morning, I resolved, with strong emotion and steely conviction, to cease being a pathetic yoga knucklehead and begin an all out crusade to perfect my yoga poses with precision and discipline, so I can be like my peers and possibly engender an improved image of myself to myself and cease having to experience incompetence and humiliation during each and every yoga class.
First off, one of the poses I can perfect and present myself as a yogi who can go anywhere and have peers observe as having a “strong practice,” (which I don't have) is the warrior series. Although the warrior series has painful parts, I can withstand them, but my problem throughout the warrior series has been making excuses for myself, telling myself I can't straighten my left knee, or plant my right foot too solidly or it will hurt my hip, or hold my left arm out straight or it will cause agony on my shoulder.
I deemed these as excuses forged from a lifetime of shirking and embedded so strongly in my psyche I could not shed them. Well, I was ready to turn the corner. As I gazed around during peaceful warrior, I bent my front knee just right, straightened my back knee just right, held my feet in perfect position and aligned myself straight as an arrow, held my arms out in a straight line, and, although both shoulders began to grind, I regulated my breath and held on until Reggie released us.
As we transitioned into warrior two, I felt, for the first time, I had turned a corner, that I was buying in and truly wishing to shed the skin of a yoga knucklehead, and hoped Reggie, who, though nonjudgmental, and probably knows I'm a yoga knucklehead, was observing me and pleased with my new attempt at being precise and disciplined, and perfect, therefore making him proud of me.
I was hoping he watched as we did triangle, which is very hard for me and involves bursts of panting, as I straightened my bad front leg and lifted my off arm while placing the back of my straightened other hand against my ankle and indeed resembled a triangle, possibly my nearest to perfect triangle yet.
Of course, I fell down in the next phase, warrior three on the left side, because I cannot stand on my left foot while leaning forward and holding up my arms and lifting my right leg back and up, though I tried, and repeatedly bumped against the wall to my right to keep me from careening. But hell, Reggie knows I cannot “push” this knee to the point of injury, and implores us to “be careful,” though I did not use this as an excuse to shirk and instead, on my right foot, when I did warrior 3, I actually balanced myself and leaned forward, concentrating on a spot on the wall beyond Reggie, and, when we transitioned into “half moon” I bent down and held onto a block with my right hand and hung tough and motionless, grunting a bit, and panting, for over a minute without wavering, even though my right hip was grinding and I was panting badly, until Reggie released us.
I hope Reggie noticed my new dedication. I hope some of my peers noticed my new dedication, because, although yoga is a personal exercise, and people are not supposed to be observing others, I'm sick of being looked upon as a yoga knucklehead. So, for the last week I have worked harder, concentrated harder, tried to be perfect, and I noticed that new muscles have become sorer afterwards from increased exertion and precision, garnering immediate results, as I plunge ahead in my attempt to cease being a yoga knucklehead and achieve a “strong practice.”
PS. (Three weeks later Reggie joyfully commented that he'd never seen my “arms as straight and properly aligned” as he'd ever seen them during Warrior 2!)
Well, the other day, about a week or so ago, while peering around at my peers in hatha yoga, as Reggie led the way in a difficult pose, I began to feel genuine shame as a faltering inept cheating embarrassing yoga knucklehead, and for the first time ever became troubled and depressed about my progress, knowing I was, as my father had accused me of being as a thirteen year old, a “half-assed person always coming up a little short and leaving loose ends.”
For instance, when, as a kid, I mowed the lawn, which I hated doing, there was always a tiny patch missed. When I clipped the hedges, there was always a small area that was uneven. When I raked leaves, there was always a few left over, which infuriated him. When I washed the dishes with my sister, I sometimes left a minute crust on a dish before storing it in a cupboard. When I washed dad's car, there was always a patch of filmy dust left on a window. Dad, a perfectionist who was brought up in the great Depression and claimed if you didn't finish your job completely and faster than the other guy you'd be fired and left homeless starving in the streets.
About the only time I wasn't a sloppy half-assed person leaving “things undone” was on the athletic field, for I was a lax student also, making C's and B's when I should have studied more and gotten A's instead of being “satisfied with mediocrity.”
This background is kind of ingrained in me, and is no doubt why I am still a yoga knucklehead after a year and a half of yoga. So, the other morning, I resolved, with strong emotion and steely conviction, to cease being a pathetic yoga knucklehead and begin an all out crusade to perfect my yoga poses with precision and discipline, so I can be like my peers and possibly engender an improved image of myself to myself and cease having to experience incompetence and humiliation during each and every yoga class.
First off, one of the poses I can perfect and present myself as a yogi who can go anywhere and have peers observe as having a “strong practice,” (which I don't have) is the warrior series. Although the warrior series has painful parts, I can withstand them, but my problem throughout the warrior series has been making excuses for myself, telling myself I can't straighten my left knee, or plant my right foot too solidly or it will hurt my hip, or hold my left arm out straight or it will cause agony on my shoulder.
I deemed these as excuses forged from a lifetime of shirking and embedded so strongly in my psyche I could not shed them. Well, I was ready to turn the corner. As I gazed around during peaceful warrior, I bent my front knee just right, straightened my back knee just right, held my feet in perfect position and aligned myself straight as an arrow, held my arms out in a straight line, and, although both shoulders began to grind, I regulated my breath and held on until Reggie released us.
As we transitioned into warrior two, I felt, for the first time, I had turned a corner, that I was buying in and truly wishing to shed the skin of a yoga knucklehead, and hoped Reggie, who, though nonjudgmental, and probably knows I'm a yoga knucklehead, was observing me and pleased with my new attempt at being precise and disciplined, and perfect, therefore making him proud of me.
I was hoping he watched as we did triangle, which is very hard for me and involves bursts of panting, as I straightened my bad front leg and lifted my off arm while placing the back of my straightened other hand against my ankle and indeed resembled a triangle, possibly my nearest to perfect triangle yet.
Of course, I fell down in the next phase, warrior three on the left side, because I cannot stand on my left foot while leaning forward and holding up my arms and lifting my right leg back and up, though I tried, and repeatedly bumped against the wall to my right to keep me from careening. But hell, Reggie knows I cannot “push” this knee to the point of injury, and implores us to “be careful,” though I did not use this as an excuse to shirk and instead, on my right foot, when I did warrior 3, I actually balanced myself and leaned forward, concentrating on a spot on the wall beyond Reggie, and, when we transitioned into “half moon” I bent down and held onto a block with my right hand and hung tough and motionless, grunting a bit, and panting, for over a minute without wavering, even though my right hip was grinding and I was panting badly, until Reggie released us.
I hope Reggie noticed my new dedication. I hope some of my peers noticed my new dedication, because, although yoga is a personal exercise, and people are not supposed to be observing others, I'm sick of being looked upon as a yoga knucklehead. So, for the last week I have worked harder, concentrated harder, tried to be perfect, and I noticed that new muscles have become sorer afterwards from increased exertion and precision, garnering immediate results, as I plunge ahead in my attempt to cease being a yoga knucklehead and achieve a “strong practice.”
PS. (Three weeks later Reggie joyfully commented that he'd never seen my “arms as straight and properly aligned” as he'd ever seen them during Warrior 2!)