Dear Jett,
I have never enjoyed yoga, but I keep trying. It’s supposed to be so good for you. But those teachers are always correcting your posture – a quarter inch here and a tiny fraction there – and telling you to hold a position longer than you want to, and making the whole experience uncomfortable. It’s never fun. Maybe yoga’s not supposed to be fun. But I keep trying – I take a class for a while, then get frustrated and stop, then I take another class in a few months or a few years.
Then came last week’s Tenacity Notes, and your suggestion that we feel in our bodies the difference between remaining tight in the bud and blossoming. Blessings on you Jett! In my daily life I paid attention as you suggested, and it was very interesting. Then I went to my yoga class. And because I’d been paying attention all week, I automatically paid attention during yoga – was I tight in the bud or was I blossoming? I realized that yoga has always been a tight in the bud experience! Is “tight in the bud” the nature of yoga? Or is that just the way I’d learned to do it?
So I stopped paying attention to the teacher and her irritating corrections, and tried to allow myself to feel like I was blossoming into the poses. What a difference! And I gave myself permission to hold the pose only as long as it felt good to me. When I felt like I was tightening into a bud, I released the pose, no matter what the teacher said. For the first time ever, yoga felt good! I am becoming a yoga blossom! Thank you.
Interesting. I also heard from a reader who used the same concept with dancing. Before and during a dance she’d say to herself, “I am blossoming.” She reports that her dancing has improved by several degrees.
Try it this week with your physical activities. Do you swim, work out at the gym, hike, bike, do tai chi, play football, basketball, soccer? Are you tight in the bud? Or are you blossoming? Let me know.