My Practice

We went for a 21.5-miler yesterday morning.  It was the first time out on a ride since my bike fitting, and boy, could I tell the difference.  Everything was easier.  Every time we start out and climb 3900 South up to Wasatch Boulevard, it’s easier.  There was no speed wobble.  The big hill just past the entrance to Big Cottonwood Canyon was easier.  I’m learning.  Good rides like this give me hope that I really can do this Corsica thing.

I scheduled a 5:30 class for Introduction to Yoga, thinking that the class would give me more background in fundamentals, more “theory.”  In this, I was a bit disappointed.  I found the class every bit as challenging as the Power Yoga class I took on Friday, and I didn’t really get any “theory.”  The instructor did talk about the importance of breathing, how this is the foundation of yoga.  But for the life of me, I couldn’t really focus that much on breathing when I was trying to do and maintain the various poses.  

I was really stiff and sore yesterday and didn’t feel the slightest bit flexible.  This may have been due in part to the fact that I had gone directly to class from the gym, where I had just done a weight workout, followed by 30 minutes on the elliptical.  It was during the class that I realized that I had overdone it:  a ride followed by weights, followed by cardio, followed by yoga was a bit too much for one day. 

It was thus during this class that I asked myself, “Why are you doing this?”  Why, at age 53, am I taking up so many new things?  

I had been chatting a bit before the class with the instructor, a young woman around 20 years old, and her mother.  In the course of the conversation, they asked how many yoga classes I had attended.  I replied that this was my third at this studio, my fourth overall.  The mother mentioned a class that had been held that morning that she highly recommended.  I commented that I had been out on a ride that morning.

“Are you a cyclist?” asked the teacher?  I laughed.  “No,” I replied, “but I ride a bike.  I’ve been for about as many rides as I’ve been to yoga classes at this point.”

The instructor and her mother then talked about yoga, and how, when it comes right down to it, they consider themselves “practitioners” of yoga.    They “practice” yoga.

I really like this term.  Practice.  Buddhists use it with reference to meditation and an individual’s spiritual journey.  They recognize that one’s journey toward enlightenment is just that – a journey – and that it requires practice.  One works away at it, day by day, moment by moment.  There are no tests.  Everything is individual.  

So, returning to the question I had posed to myself, i.e., “Why am I doing this?”  In one sense, I think I am trying to make up for lost time in my life.  There is so much I want to do, so many books I want to read, so much I want to learn, so many experiences I want to experience.  But I know I have to respect my body, as well as my psyche.  I can only do so much.

Thus I return to the concept of “practice.”  My practice.  Balance.  Perspective.  Purpose.  Treating my life like a garden that must be nurtured, cared for, tended, weeded, watered and fertilized.  An on-going project that will, in due time and season, yield its fruit, but the tending of which has its own purpose and rewards.

"Worrying is praying for something you don't want."

~ Bhagavan Das