I love Les Brown. I first heard of him as a kid from my Dad. Over the years I’ve read a few of his books, but didn’t really appreciate what he was saying until recently. Brown talks a lot about how we handle adversity.
It’s yoga. Not a matter of looking for things to be smooth sailing, but riding out the the rough patches with inner stability.
Last Saturday, I talked to my teacher about pincha mayurasana (forearm stand). I’ve been working on it for almost a year and have days that I can hold it for a bit, and then I can’t seem to hold it at all and topple over. She told me that there is an understanding of my center of gravity that has to happen. When my legs are up in the air and I’m pushing down on my forearms I have to also lift with my legs and find balance in my core. Once I find it she said, it’ll feel so easy and I’ll wonder why I hadn’t found it all along. ‘Try a strapping your arms,’ she suggested.
She’s said this before and it used to frustrate me. Progress seemed so far away. But last week I went home and strapped my forearms and practiced. I still fell, but I felt more centered.
In typical Oneika fashion I’m now doing it daily. I’ve realized that I do this quite a bit. When I’m passionate about learning I dig in and open myself up, but my real progress comes when I handle the journey with purpose. Because in the end, the pose isn’t a big deal.
It’s how I got there.
Namaste y’all.
