YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #6: "SURRENDER"
BY DELL FRANKLIN
The studio is so packed this morning I’m afraid to splay my arms or legs out too far without touching the woman beside me. Samantha always has the biggest turnouts and is easily the most spiritual and psychological of all instructors, emphasizing the elimination of stress and anxiety or in some cases depression and “finding your heart.” I am still quiet and talk to no one and like it that way because I don’t wish to disclose myself to these peers as a person who so far does not buy in completely to the ritual spiritual aspects of yoga, but is here strictly for stretching and easing ongoing pain in joints, and who also bears the burden of a past troublemaker and perhaps pariah ousted from his gym after 22 years for writing so-called disparaging articles about members, and especially women.
Samantha starts us off with breathing exercises as we squat in solemn Indian-style. We begin twist to our right and lift our arms and hands as if they are “floating” and I guess not attached. Okay. I will try to imagine my arms floating, but they do not feel like they are floating, they feel heavy, which leads me to believe I am doing everything wrong, and if I think just because this is a huge class of over 20 people and Samantha will not notice, well, I am wrong, she notices everything and is here to help, for these yoga instructors are like point guards in basketball and see everything in their realm.
When Samantha begins the “pigeon,” which I cannot do, she understands, and I “modify,” which pleases her as I lay on my back and run my feet up the wall and then cross my ankle over my knee and achieve a much more comfortable though effective pose. While we are in this pose, Samantha says to feel the “resonance” filter down and “surrender.”
Surrender? Surrender is a word forbidden in my vocabulary. I was raised by a warrior in a rowdy working-class blue-collar sports-oriented town to never surrender. Surrender was for pussies, sissies on our block who hid when the tough guys walked by and were walked to school by mothers. When you walked down the street, from little on, you sized everybody up as a potential threat to be conquered, and if you couldn’t you hung with people who could.
I’m thinking about this when Samantha breaks my spell by reminding us not to get into or out of our poses too quickly, for the process demands that every very slow and deliberate little tiny subtle movement has a purpose, a good purpose to help you, and I suppose “feeling the resonance and surrendering” is part of this over-all concept.
Surrendering means you are needy and need help. Surrendering means exhaling all troublesome emotions, and here I am, a life-long knucklehead contrarian refusing to yield, which means I am not a good and willing yoga person, but an undisciplined cheater cheating himself, and not fooling anybody, not Samantha, not any of the concerned and dedicated instructors, and this reminds me that my personality for over seven decades has been ruled ruthlessly and brainlessly by a refusal to surrender to my most tender and sensitive feelings and emotions in a great fear of seeming soft, and has infected me in relationships and in social settings, and this is not good, I have been and am possibly a troubled and suspect and threatening person because of my refusal to surrender, which means I am never wrong and always in charge and never ever under any circumstances ask for help--except in the area of health care and fixing things with tools, at which I am helpless and a menace to everything and everybody around me, and especially myself.
I’m sure anybody associated with yoga for any amount of time can sense immediately what a non-surrendering spiritual bankrupt I am and how badly I am in need of yoga for my own self preservation. Yes, yoga has opened me up further in old age to see how badly I’ve behaved by my refusal to surrender. In sports, I am a bad sport and in some cases over the years bred hatred in my opponents. I have always stoked my pleasure by administering caustic trash talk while mocking my associates and fellow competitors. I have reveled in the folly and failure of human endeavor and behavior in others as a writer. I have patted myself on the back for being so clever and witty and biting in my satirical critique of fellow humans. I have, worst of all, tried purposely to humiliate people exactly like myself on the battlefield of competition out of a sheer sadistic rage to dominate and win, loved myself with a kind of narcissistic ecstasy when conquering, hated myself when conquered—surely the mindless whim of an overgrown child.
Does this litany of monstrousness have any place in yoga? Certainly not! I must begin to contemplate surrendering not just in yoga, but in other situations over which I loom so heavily with my innate refusal to surrender on any front. No wonder I’ve gone through life dealing with standoffishness among humans every bit the equal of my own.
Yet, at this point, is it too late? Possibly. Anyway, as the class moves on, and I finish by going out of my way to hold my cupped hands to my chin in solemn observance and oooommmm, and bow appropriately in devout thankfulness at the final Indian prayer, I consider this a start, at least some small microscopic shred of surrender.
Later, as I try to sneak out by the office, Samantha, at her desk, says, “Dell, you’re doing great. Keep it up.” She is smiling at me.
Little does she know.
The studio is so packed this morning I’m afraid to splay my arms or legs out too far without touching the woman beside me. Samantha always has the biggest turnouts and is easily the most spiritual and psychological of all instructors, emphasizing the elimination of stress and anxiety or in some cases depression and “finding your heart.” I am still quiet and talk to no one and like it that way because I don’t wish to disclose myself to these peers as a person who so far does not buy in completely to the ritual spiritual aspects of yoga, but is here strictly for stretching and easing ongoing pain in joints, and who also bears the burden of a past troublemaker and perhaps pariah ousted from his gym after 22 years for writing so-called disparaging articles about members, and especially women.
Samantha starts us off with breathing exercises as we squat in solemn Indian-style. We begin twist to our right and lift our arms and hands as if they are “floating” and I guess not attached. Okay. I will try to imagine my arms floating, but they do not feel like they are floating, they feel heavy, which leads me to believe I am doing everything wrong, and if I think just because this is a huge class of over 20 people and Samantha will not notice, well, I am wrong, she notices everything and is here to help, for these yoga instructors are like point guards in basketball and see everything in their realm.
When Samantha begins the “pigeon,” which I cannot do, she understands, and I “modify,” which pleases her as I lay on my back and run my feet up the wall and then cross my ankle over my knee and achieve a much more comfortable though effective pose. While we are in this pose, Samantha says to feel the “resonance” filter down and “surrender.”
Surrender? Surrender is a word forbidden in my vocabulary. I was raised by a warrior in a rowdy working-class blue-collar sports-oriented town to never surrender. Surrender was for pussies, sissies on our block who hid when the tough guys walked by and were walked to school by mothers. When you walked down the street, from little on, you sized everybody up as a potential threat to be conquered, and if you couldn’t you hung with people who could.
I’m thinking about this when Samantha breaks my spell by reminding us not to get into or out of our poses too quickly, for the process demands that every very slow and deliberate little tiny subtle movement has a purpose, a good purpose to help you, and I suppose “feeling the resonance and surrendering” is part of this over-all concept.
Surrendering means you are needy and need help. Surrendering means exhaling all troublesome emotions, and here I am, a life-long knucklehead contrarian refusing to yield, which means I am not a good and willing yoga person, but an undisciplined cheater cheating himself, and not fooling anybody, not Samantha, not any of the concerned and dedicated instructors, and this reminds me that my personality for over seven decades has been ruled ruthlessly and brainlessly by a refusal to surrender to my most tender and sensitive feelings and emotions in a great fear of seeming soft, and has infected me in relationships and in social settings, and this is not good, I have been and am possibly a troubled and suspect and threatening person because of my refusal to surrender, which means I am never wrong and always in charge and never ever under any circumstances ask for help--except in the area of health care and fixing things with tools, at which I am helpless and a menace to everything and everybody around me, and especially myself.
I’m sure anybody associated with yoga for any amount of time can sense immediately what a non-surrendering spiritual bankrupt I am and how badly I am in need of yoga for my own self preservation. Yes, yoga has opened me up further in old age to see how badly I’ve behaved by my refusal to surrender. In sports, I am a bad sport and in some cases over the years bred hatred in my opponents. I have always stoked my pleasure by administering caustic trash talk while mocking my associates and fellow competitors. I have reveled in the folly and failure of human endeavor and behavior in others as a writer. I have patted myself on the back for being so clever and witty and biting in my satirical critique of fellow humans. I have, worst of all, tried purposely to humiliate people exactly like myself on the battlefield of competition out of a sheer sadistic rage to dominate and win, loved myself with a kind of narcissistic ecstasy when conquering, hated myself when conquered—surely the mindless whim of an overgrown child.
Does this litany of monstrousness have any place in yoga? Certainly not! I must begin to contemplate surrendering not just in yoga, but in other situations over which I loom so heavily with my innate refusal to surrender on any front. No wonder I’ve gone through life dealing with standoffishness among humans every bit the equal of my own.
Yet, at this point, is it too late? Possibly. Anyway, as the class moves on, and I finish by going out of my way to hold my cupped hands to my chin in solemn observance and oooommmm, and bow appropriately in devout thankfulness at the final Indian prayer, I consider this a start, at least some small microscopic shred of surrender.
Later, as I try to sneak out by the office, Samantha, at her desk, says, “Dell, you’re doing great. Keep it up.” She is smiling at me.
Little does she know.
