I teach several yoga classes at a local gym. The classes are one hour long and they are all intended as all-level classes. As instructors we've been given certain limits about what we're allowed to teach.
A couple of weeks ago I had a new student approach me before class wondering if I would be the regular instructor. What exactly was I planning to teach? he wondered. We chatted a bit and he expressed his frustration with being unable to progress in his practice by taking classes at the gym. He wanted to do other poses–harder poses–but the teachers wouldn't teach them. Would I be willing, if I saw the same people showing up week after week, to progress the class? Could I maybe give him extra pointers?
I offered my sympathy and had a few suggestions of my own: Maybe he could take some extra classes outside the gym? Or if not classes, perhaps a workshop here and there or private lesson? If he knew the poses he could use extra knowledge from books or videos or online instruction to try some other things while in class. The problem, I explained, was that these classes are intended to be all-level. While I can certainly adapt my class to the people I see attending, I have been hired to do a particular job and I need to honor that.
Each suggestion I made he responded to in the negative. He didn't want to spend extra money on classes, his other gym had an instructor who was willing to teach more advanced poses, he didn't have enough knowledge on his own to experiment.
He was a nice enough guy but I was really struck by something in our conversation: his problem-solving was doomed to be unsuccessful because it was based on changing reality, rather than on working within real constraints. And I thought about how often I do that as well–rather than looking at an actual situation, I try to make the situation change around me and my desires. Problem-solving HAS to be based in reality or it's not problem-solving.
So, you know, this guy? He taught me a lot, it turns out.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perspective. Show all posts
Friday, April 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Making Up My Mind
You know how it feels when there’s that one yoga pose that feels like it’s so close you can taste it, but you just can’t quite make it there? Maybe it’s a difficult pose that you’ve had as your goal for years, working up to it but never quite managing it completely. Or maybe it’s a pose you do every day in class, watching everyone else flop into it effortlessly while you continue to struggle. It just doesn’t seem fair, either that you’ve worked so hard for so long without making it to that final pose, or that a pose that seems like the most basic pose in the world just won’t work for you.
It’s easy to get fixated on the things that don’t come easily, that everyone else seems to do well, and then feel like a failure. When I talk with students I try not to use language that indicates one variation of a pose as being better than another, or harder than another, or more advanced than another. I don’t ever want people to feel like they’ve failed at anything, or that they are somehow less than anyone else, or that they can’t access the experience of yoga if they can’t get into a particular pose. But I suppose it is human nature to want what we don’t have and to believe that somehow there are landmarks we are supposed to achieve at certain times or fall behind the pack.
Recently I was having sex with someone and, as part of our play, he tried to insert his whole hand into me. Not shoving it in, but working me up to it gradually. However, when he reached the level of the last set of knuckles, I tensed up. I could feel my body working against him, trying to keep him out, and I finally had to say “enough, I can’t do it.”
I felt frustrated, but I also knew my body had had enough and simply wasn’t going to cooperate. The frustration comes because over and over I have reached the point of almost being able to take in a whole hand. And then right when I can feel that it’s close, and that one more push will do it, I just…can’t. I just can’t. This is something I have wanted to do, first just as curiosity, more recently with desire and intention. I have begun to believe that I am missing out on something and I want very much to experience it. I try not to let my desire get in the way of my connection with my partner, or in the way of the fun we have together. After our date I wrote him an email and in it I said, “I want this, but it’s like my body hasn’t completely made up its mind about it.”
When I wrote that I realized immediately the truth of it. My body hasn’t made up its mind. I have, but my body hasn’t, and my body definitely gets a vote on this decision. With that realization, something relaxed inside. This isn’t about me trying and failing, which is how I had been feeling. It’s that my body hasn’t fully committed to the idea.
I also immediately realized that I could use the same insight to think about yoga poses that feel out of reach. When there are poses I can’t do, it’s not that I have failed at them. My body simply hasn’t made up its mind to do it. All I can really do is keep my desire focused but playful, without force, and continue to keep my body in preparation for what I want to do with it. In the meantime, I can enjoy the things I am able to do, the things my body has made up its mind to do, and know that the final decision is not entirely up to me.
When I talk with my students I try to use the same type of verbiage, saying things like, “If your body doesn’t like this…” or “Check with your knee to see how it feels about this,” or “Your lower back gets the veto on this one.” My reasoning for using that language is that I don’t want my students thinking things like, “I can’t,” or feeling like they’ve failed somehow. If we can talk about the body as having its own intelligence, then we can be participants in more of a committee decision about the things we do or don’t do.
There are some pitfalls to thinking this way though. Frequently we manage to separate from the body only to make it into an enemy, somehow out to get us, or into a stupid imbecile, incapable of doing anything right. If instead we can imagine being part of a team tasked with accomplishing something we can simply see each piece of the team as having individual strengths and weaknesses. The accomplishment will need all of us working together, and if one isn’t ready, then we simply can’t go forward.
There are a couple of other key ideas around working toward these goals. One is to remember to have fun on the way there. My example of having sex is true for this. So I couldn’t get someone’s hand inside me—so what? I was having an incredible time with him and it would be idiotic for me to decide the entire experience was a failure due to that one thing. Same thing in a yoga class; no one can get through an entire class without doing anything well. I’ve never seen a student without strengths in various areas. I recently read a quote from a yoga student who had struggled with obesity but in yoga class was able to recognize “the magnificence of the body” which I thought was a lovely way to think about it. “The magnificence of the body.” Even the things a body can keep doing to sustain life and health when treated badly is miraculous; how much more so as part of a healthy well-oiled team.
If you can find a place to have fun or enjoy your situation, even around the places that are hard, even better. I recently read a lovely book about a guy’s yoga experience called Stretch by Neal Pollack. At one point he quotes Swami Sivananda: “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.” And it seems to me this is still true. If you’ve ever achieved something you’ve wanted, has that made you stop wanting anything else? Craving and desire are part of the human condition. Frankly it seems to me that without them, we might as well follow the example of one of my relatives and just sit on the couch, smoke and do crossword puzzles until we dry up and die. We need desire to get us moving, but once we’re moving we need to figure out how to enjoy the movement without the goal. Because for one thing there’s always another goal out there. And for another thing, the achieving of the goal is a split second and then it’s gone. When my students get frustrated because they can’t touch their toes in a forward bend, I tell them, there’s nothing down on their toes except maybe dirt. The actual touching of the toes isn’t special enough to skip what it takes to get there correctly with good form.
Later in the book, the author quotes one of his teachers as saying, “Blessed are the stiff. The flexible are cursed. People are very disappointed when they get their chin to their shin. It’s all still breath and the spaces in between. There’s nothing else.” If we can get interested enough in the movement without the goal, treat our bodies like treasured allies that protect and defend us as we protect and defend them, and remember that goals only lead to other goals, then maybe we can have fun, loosen up and surprise ourselves by getting down to those toes after all.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
It’s easy to get fixated on the things that don’t come easily, that everyone else seems to do well, and then feel like a failure. When I talk with students I try not to use language that indicates one variation of a pose as being better than another, or harder than another, or more advanced than another. I don’t ever want people to feel like they’ve failed at anything, or that they are somehow less than anyone else, or that they can’t access the experience of yoga if they can’t get into a particular pose. But I suppose it is human nature to want what we don’t have and to believe that somehow there are landmarks we are supposed to achieve at certain times or fall behind the pack.
Recently I was having sex with someone and, as part of our play, he tried to insert his whole hand into me. Not shoving it in, but working me up to it gradually. However, when he reached the level of the last set of knuckles, I tensed up. I could feel my body working against him, trying to keep him out, and I finally had to say “enough, I can’t do it.”
I felt frustrated, but I also knew my body had had enough and simply wasn’t going to cooperate. The frustration comes because over and over I have reached the point of almost being able to take in a whole hand. And then right when I can feel that it’s close, and that one more push will do it, I just…can’t. I just can’t. This is something I have wanted to do, first just as curiosity, more recently with desire and intention. I have begun to believe that I am missing out on something and I want very much to experience it. I try not to let my desire get in the way of my connection with my partner, or in the way of the fun we have together. After our date I wrote him an email and in it I said, “I want this, but it’s like my body hasn’t completely made up its mind about it.”
When I wrote that I realized immediately the truth of it. My body hasn’t made up its mind. I have, but my body hasn’t, and my body definitely gets a vote on this decision. With that realization, something relaxed inside. This isn’t about me trying and failing, which is how I had been feeling. It’s that my body hasn’t fully committed to the idea.
I also immediately realized that I could use the same insight to think about yoga poses that feel out of reach. When there are poses I can’t do, it’s not that I have failed at them. My body simply hasn’t made up its mind to do it. All I can really do is keep my desire focused but playful, without force, and continue to keep my body in preparation for what I want to do with it. In the meantime, I can enjoy the things I am able to do, the things my body has made up its mind to do, and know that the final decision is not entirely up to me.
When I talk with my students I try to use the same type of verbiage, saying things like, “If your body doesn’t like this…” or “Check with your knee to see how it feels about this,” or “Your lower back gets the veto on this one.” My reasoning for using that language is that I don’t want my students thinking things like, “I can’t,” or feeling like they’ve failed somehow. If we can talk about the body as having its own intelligence, then we can be participants in more of a committee decision about the things we do or don’t do.
There are some pitfalls to thinking this way though. Frequently we manage to separate from the body only to make it into an enemy, somehow out to get us, or into a stupid imbecile, incapable of doing anything right. If instead we can imagine being part of a team tasked with accomplishing something we can simply see each piece of the team as having individual strengths and weaknesses. The accomplishment will need all of us working together, and if one isn’t ready, then we simply can’t go forward.
There are a couple of other key ideas around working toward these goals. One is to remember to have fun on the way there. My example of having sex is true for this. So I couldn’t get someone’s hand inside me—so what? I was having an incredible time with him and it would be idiotic for me to decide the entire experience was a failure due to that one thing. Same thing in a yoga class; no one can get through an entire class without doing anything well. I’ve never seen a student without strengths in various areas. I recently read a quote from a yoga student who had struggled with obesity but in yoga class was able to recognize “the magnificence of the body” which I thought was a lovely way to think about it. “The magnificence of the body.” Even the things a body can keep doing to sustain life and health when treated badly is miraculous; how much more so as part of a healthy well-oiled team.
If you can find a place to have fun or enjoy your situation, even around the places that are hard, even better. I recently read a lovely book about a guy’s yoga experience called Stretch by Neal Pollack. At one point he quotes Swami Sivananda: “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.” And it seems to me this is still true. If you’ve ever achieved something you’ve wanted, has that made you stop wanting anything else? Craving and desire are part of the human condition. Frankly it seems to me that without them, we might as well follow the example of one of my relatives and just sit on the couch, smoke and do crossword puzzles until we dry up and die. We need desire to get us moving, but once we’re moving we need to figure out how to enjoy the movement without the goal. Because for one thing there’s always another goal out there. And for another thing, the achieving of the goal is a split second and then it’s gone. When my students get frustrated because they can’t touch their toes in a forward bend, I tell them, there’s nothing down on their toes except maybe dirt. The actual touching of the toes isn’t special enough to skip what it takes to get there correctly with good form.
Later in the book, the author quotes one of his teachers as saying, “Blessed are the stiff. The flexible are cursed. People are very disappointed when they get their chin to their shin. It’s all still breath and the spaces in between. There’s nothing else.” If we can get interested enough in the movement without the goal, treat our bodies like treasured allies that protect and defend us as we protect and defend them, and remember that goals only lead to other goals, then maybe we can have fun, loosen up and surprise ourselves by getting down to those toes after all.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Rites of Passage
A friend of mine on a social site posted a quote recently that made her angry. It was something along the lines of defining four particular rites of passage required to become an adult. The four listed were: leaving home, becoming financially independent, getting married and having children. Her anger was due to the fact that not everyone is allowed to get married and not everyone is able to have children and she felt that having those requirements for adulthood left a large chunk of our population out of the loop. I agree with her and I have felt how ingrained those particular rites are in my own experience and how I am frequently judged for missing two of them.
However I've long since passed the stage of angry indignation and I can't seem to work up much of a head of steam over it any more. I recognize that people look for particular mileposts, not so much out of a desire to judge them or belittle them, but to find common ground on which to meet. It just doesn't seem like such a terrible thing to desire, even if some of that common ground is marked off limits to me.
I did have a couple of experiences recently though that got me thinking about how to mark off some new territory. Last weekend my partner and I went out to my car, turned it on and started off down the street. Almost immediately we noticed an odd thumping sound. I pulled over and she jumped out of the car to look. One of the front tires was completely flat. From there I could go on into the rest of the day's adventure in getting to my yoga class in time to teach it, getting home and taking care of the tire before all the shops closed for the weekend. And I do have a really good story about it that I've been telling everyone with great delight!
The story though isn't really the point. The point is that even in the midst of the stress of taking care of a flat tire, something in me was sitting up and taking notice because it was my very first flat tire in my whole life. That took it out of the category of annoying things that happen in life and put it into the special category of "Rites of Passage". Even while taking care of the situation I felt myself moving into a deeper understanding of what it is to be an adult and an owner of a car. It's something that connects me to other adults who own cars.
Then last night I made quinoa and I was able to rinse it easily because we finally bought a real sieve, one that a grown up would use, solid, made of metal with a fine mesh. And again I thought, I've made it now–I am a for real adult person with a sieve!
What I find interesting in both these cases is that they illustrate in some ways how I define adulthood to myself. You would think that a 43-year-old woman would feel her inherent grown-up-ness quite strongly, but, in fact, I still look for these signs of moving from one stage to another. For many people, these particular two events would have happened significantly earlier in life. Others may live out their entire lives without a real sieve and never feel anything amiss.
Sometimes it's tempting to look at the stages of life sort of like one of those video games where you do certain things, accomplish certain goals, and the music plays, you get points, and your character moves on to the next level. Life, though, is significantly more convoluted that that and the accomplishments of different stages may not be quite so simply defined. Where do you find your common ground and what are your particular rites of passage to get there? Maybe we can all find a little space to stand.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
However I've long since passed the stage of angry indignation and I can't seem to work up much of a head of steam over it any more. I recognize that people look for particular mileposts, not so much out of a desire to judge them or belittle them, but to find common ground on which to meet. It just doesn't seem like such a terrible thing to desire, even if some of that common ground is marked off limits to me.
I did have a couple of experiences recently though that got me thinking about how to mark off some new territory. Last weekend my partner and I went out to my car, turned it on and started off down the street. Almost immediately we noticed an odd thumping sound. I pulled over and she jumped out of the car to look. One of the front tires was completely flat. From there I could go on into the rest of the day's adventure in getting to my yoga class in time to teach it, getting home and taking care of the tire before all the shops closed for the weekend. And I do have a really good story about it that I've been telling everyone with great delight!
The story though isn't really the point. The point is that even in the midst of the stress of taking care of a flat tire, something in me was sitting up and taking notice because it was my very first flat tire in my whole life. That took it out of the category of annoying things that happen in life and put it into the special category of "Rites of Passage". Even while taking care of the situation I felt myself moving into a deeper understanding of what it is to be an adult and an owner of a car. It's something that connects me to other adults who own cars.
Then last night I made quinoa and I was able to rinse it easily because we finally bought a real sieve, one that a grown up would use, solid, made of metal with a fine mesh. And again I thought, I've made it now–I am a for real adult person with a sieve!
What I find interesting in both these cases is that they illustrate in some ways how I define adulthood to myself. You would think that a 43-year-old woman would feel her inherent grown-up-ness quite strongly, but, in fact, I still look for these signs of moving from one stage to another. For many people, these particular two events would have happened significantly earlier in life. Others may live out their entire lives without a real sieve and never feel anything amiss.
Sometimes it's tempting to look at the stages of life sort of like one of those video games where you do certain things, accomplish certain goals, and the music plays, you get points, and your character moves on to the next level. Life, though, is significantly more convoluted that that and the accomplishments of different stages may not be quite so simply defined. Where do you find your common ground and what are your particular rites of passage to get there? Maybe we can all find a little space to stand.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
There Goes the Sun
I don't really have time for this post. I am busy with other things. But this post has to do with Solstice so writing it now is timely. Sometimes, the time determines itself regardless of what you have planned for it.
Time has been on my mind lately. I took a walk on Solstice to let myself feel what Solstice is out there. What's happening around me on the day that both celebrates the strength of the sun, while seeing it into its decline?
Oddly (or not) I've been very aware of my own strength lately while seeing ahead to my own decline. I feel physically/mentally/emotionally better and stronger and more full of juice than ever before in my life. At the same time, I have never before been so aware of my age and of the passage of time, feeling a kind of frantic need to pack in as much as possible all at once. The heightened awareness has been kind of annoying to me actually and I suspect maybe to my friends and loved ones as well. (No need to chime in! Really!)
As I walked I realized suddenly that not only is the planet in Solstice, but I am in my own Solstice as well. That realization brought me quite a bit of peace. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, but oh, we enjoy it so much when it's at its height! There's no point in worrying about the fall because we know it will come but it's not here yet. Solstice is what it is, for me, for the sun, for the planet. We don't get a do over for the springtime, and the fall will come when it comes.
I found another happy note in my ponderings on the seasons: My name is Autumn for a reason. As much as I fear the end of summer, I have an inkling the best is yet to come. But for now, I will revel in the sunshine.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
Time has been on my mind lately. I took a walk on Solstice to let myself feel what Solstice is out there. What's happening around me on the day that both celebrates the strength of the sun, while seeing it into its decline?
Oddly (or not) I've been very aware of my own strength lately while seeing ahead to my own decline. I feel physically/mentally/emotionally better and stronger and more full of juice than ever before in my life. At the same time, I have never before been so aware of my age and of the passage of time, feeling a kind of frantic need to pack in as much as possible all at once. The heightened awareness has been kind of annoying to me actually and I suspect maybe to my friends and loved ones as well. (No need to chime in! Really!)
As I walked I realized suddenly that not only is the planet in Solstice, but I am in my own Solstice as well. That realization brought me quite a bit of peace. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, but oh, we enjoy it so much when it's at its height! There's no point in worrying about the fall because we know it will come but it's not here yet. Solstice is what it is, for me, for the sun, for the planet. We don't get a do over for the springtime, and the fall will come when it comes.
I found another happy note in my ponderings on the seasons: My name is Autumn for a reason. As much as I fear the end of summer, I have an inkling the best is yet to come. But for now, I will revel in the sunshine.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wandering Alone in the Woods
I had the odd experience not too long ago of watching myself walk into a room. The off-centered feel of it reminded me a little of an exhibit that's up at our local museum. At this exhibit, you walk up stairs and there, on one landing to either side of you, is what looks like a random collection of tall wooden slats standing propped in cement holders and painted with colors and vague tree-ish shapes. You could walk right through it and continue up the stairs. You could wander through the slats looking at them more closely. Or maybe something could catch your eye, a movement a flicker of something up to the left there. When you look to see what's caught your attention, you see yourself wandering through a forest. Through a clever placement of cameras, the artist has created the illusion that you are off having an adventure you don't know anything about in some forest primeval. It takes you by surprise, when you see it, if you see it.
That feeling of stepping through the looking glass is very much how I felt at this cocktail party, chatting and laughing with family and strangers, looking up to see 2 young women walking towards us, and one of them was me. Only of course she wasn't; she was (and is) a close relative, more than 20 years younger than me and taller when I looked more closely. I hadn't seen her for years, and the last time she was still a child. We could all see the obvious similarities back then (red curly hair is hard to miss) but she was too much younger for us to see that she was actually going to become me.
My first feeling was envy, a strong stab of it, looking at this beautiful vibrant young woman striding confidently towards us, smiling. Almost as though she was me, but the improved version, what I wish I could have been then. Self-pity was bitter in my throat; why couldn't I have been strong and confident and happy when I was 18?
Over the course of the next several days my feelings went through a transformation. First, I realized that in many ways I was strong and confident and happy then; it's just that I was also a lot of other things, too: scared, insecure, exhausted, a perfectionist and therefore hard on myself, uncertain what the future might hold. And I was really really good at hiding all of those things from the people around me and projecting only strength and confidence. Maybe, I thought in a flash of insight, maybe she isn't as strong and confident as she looks either. Maybe she doesn't know how beautiful she is. And that might mean I was beautiful then, too, and just didn't know it.
I worked hard then at letting her know what a shining star she is. I can't send a message in a bottle back to myself in time, but I thought at least I can give her something to carry with her into her future. Probably what it means to her now is that she has some kooky relatives. But that doesn't really matter.
What matters is something I discovered in my thirties returning to ballet after many years away. I loved the dance as a child and it was home to me, until I began looking in the mirror and seeing something that only existed in comparison with something else. It became not the joy of barriers melted away, but a slamming up against lots of walls built up out of nowhere, an isolation, so I left it. When I went back, I found the joy of it again, the connection, and realized that I had built my own walls. Instead of looking in the mirror and at the women around me and seeing myself reflected, and the strength and beauty of all of us together, I saw only what I was up against. Any strength and beauty I saw automatically became not mine, separate from me, only desired. But I wasn't seeing truth.
And when I first looked at my young relative, the irony is that I saw myself, but a self that was not mine, a self that I didn't believe in, a self I couldn't live up to, a self that I wanted to have for my own and I had to protect myself against it. When I was able to soften and let that self back in, I could give her an offer of love and acceptance for who she is. Somehow I think that the message in a bottle may have made it back there after all. Maybe now it will get a little easier to glance up at a stranger, and see myself looking back, not a trick of a camera or of genetics, but truth.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
That feeling of stepping through the looking glass is very much how I felt at this cocktail party, chatting and laughing with family and strangers, looking up to see 2 young women walking towards us, and one of them was me. Only of course she wasn't; she was (and is) a close relative, more than 20 years younger than me and taller when I looked more closely. I hadn't seen her for years, and the last time she was still a child. We could all see the obvious similarities back then (red curly hair is hard to miss) but she was too much younger for us to see that she was actually going to become me.
My first feeling was envy, a strong stab of it, looking at this beautiful vibrant young woman striding confidently towards us, smiling. Almost as though she was me, but the improved version, what I wish I could have been then. Self-pity was bitter in my throat; why couldn't I have been strong and confident and happy when I was 18?
Over the course of the next several days my feelings went through a transformation. First, I realized that in many ways I was strong and confident and happy then; it's just that I was also a lot of other things, too: scared, insecure, exhausted, a perfectionist and therefore hard on myself, uncertain what the future might hold. And I was really really good at hiding all of those things from the people around me and projecting only strength and confidence. Maybe, I thought in a flash of insight, maybe she isn't as strong and confident as she looks either. Maybe she doesn't know how beautiful she is. And that might mean I was beautiful then, too, and just didn't know it.
I worked hard then at letting her know what a shining star she is. I can't send a message in a bottle back to myself in time, but I thought at least I can give her something to carry with her into her future. Probably what it means to her now is that she has some kooky relatives. But that doesn't really matter.
What matters is something I discovered in my thirties returning to ballet after many years away. I loved the dance as a child and it was home to me, until I began looking in the mirror and seeing something that only existed in comparison with something else. It became not the joy of barriers melted away, but a slamming up against lots of walls built up out of nowhere, an isolation, so I left it. When I went back, I found the joy of it again, the connection, and realized that I had built my own walls. Instead of looking in the mirror and at the women around me and seeing myself reflected, and the strength and beauty of all of us together, I saw only what I was up against. Any strength and beauty I saw automatically became not mine, separate from me, only desired. But I wasn't seeing truth.
And when I first looked at my young relative, the irony is that I saw myself, but a self that was not mine, a self that I didn't believe in, a self I couldn't live up to, a self that I wanted to have for my own and I had to protect myself against it. When I was able to soften and let that self back in, I could give her an offer of love and acceptance for who she is. Somehow I think that the message in a bottle may have made it back there after all. Maybe now it will get a little easier to glance up at a stranger, and see myself looking back, not a trick of a camera or of genetics, but truth.
copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles
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