Life as Practice

Last night, I finally managed to do a modified headstand in yoga, a position known well as tripod. You place the crown of your head on the mat, followed by the palm of your hands, and prop your knees onto your elbows, balancing on your palms and head. I've never been successful before. But after years... and years... of effort and practice I was finally able to prop up properly. And it felt like levitation. Glorious.

So much of my athletic life feels this way lately. Years of toil and effort are slowly paying off. My yoga practice is becoming more honed and mature. I'm beginning to clumsily attempt much more challenging postures, forms of meditation, and breathing practices. I do my best to go into each class with an awareness of who I am on that day, and practice gently from that place. And I'm growing as a cyclist, getting faster and stronger. But there is no perfect, no jump-off point in either yoga or on the bike where I could say I had attained my best. My best is always just over the edge of the earth, riding on the sun and moon around and around.

In a special session yoga class I attended over the weekend (or maybe in a Yoga Journal email? The source of information is fuzzy...) the instructor reminded us that yoga is, and will always be, a practice. Yoga is more fun when you think about it that way. I didn't wake up one morning able to touch my toes or do backbends. I started doing yoga as home practice in high school as a way to lose weight, much like running. At this point, there's a good chance I've been doing yoga in some form for more than half my life... it's no wonder I'm handy on the mat.

My success last night, and the doors it opens to future success through practice sent my free flowing, meditative mind spinning and gyrating. I always relate life to my singular experiences on the bike and on the mat, but it goes without saying that our day-to-day lives are much like my yoga practice.

We have to wake up each morning and make the choice to be gentle and flexible with ourselves. It's imperative that we get rid of this idea that "Life is not a dress rehearsal" and that perfection exists. Each day is a practiced dress rehearsal for the following twenty four hours. Mistakes will be made. Success will be seen. But the sun and the moon take their turns just the same, and bring with them new opportunities to learn and renew, no matter where you are.

And with that, I'll leave you with this tidbit. I'm still muddling my way through For Whom the Bell Tolls. I'm at the point where Robert Jordan realizes he may have only one or two days to be with the girl he's fallen for, before they die. He mulls over the misfortune, but in so doing finds an indelible truth:

"But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope), he thought and so you better take what time there is and be very thankful for it." For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway