The thing I am most happy about at the moment is my 45-day yoga streak.
Yep, today was Day 45.
The last time I completed a long, everyday yoga streak was in 2019. I did Travis Elliot’s 108 Day Yoga Challenge.
That program was so hard for me. I remember thinking every single day: When is this going to get easier?? And also: When is my body going to start looking different??
I don’t remember a time when I was completely OK with my body. There may have been a short window in my late 40s, early 50s, when I was happy when I looked at myself in the mirror. But that window closed shortly after then, and it’s been closed ever since.
I am struggling now because even though I think not much has changed in the way I eat and the amount of exercise I get, suddenly I have, for the first time in my life, a belly. A fricken belly that sticks out, and no amount of abdominal contraction, sucking it in, and trying to do nauli will make it go away.
I am not at all reconciled to the fact that this is a natural part of aging.
But if I am honest, even though I say my lifestyle hasn’t changed, it probably has. I have become more sedentary. I don’t run anymore, for instance. I don’t do nearly as much cardio as I used to.
Yoga took over. Especially the teaching, which sadly, crowded out my personal practice, and that’s when I decided to do that 108 Day Yoga Challenge in 2019. To get my practice back.
I remember so vividly back then, around Day 46, when I was despairing that nothing was happening and I was on the verge of quitting, that there was a sudden shift.
On Day 46 I began to feel better and to look better. I recognized then that I just had to stay with the struggle and not give up.
46 days is just over 6 weeks. When I started this current Ashtanga streak, I said to myself:
Just get to Day 46. After Day 46, things will get better. You’ll feel better. You’ll start to see results.
Tomorrow is Day 46. I am not going to have my breakthrough day tomorrow, and that’s ok.
This Ashtanga thing I’m doing isn’t about changing my body but about changing my mind. I want to come to grips with change, time, and aging.
This practice involves doing the same poses every day. Some of them I can do, but I can only approximate most.
I use a strap for the binds. I use my wheel for half shoulderstand. I can’t grab my big toe in Triangle. I can’t rest my hand on the floor in lateral angle. Headstand used to be one of my favorite poses; now I skip it.
There’s a spot on my right knee that needs protection and could probably use a little Arnica Gel if I remember to bring it into the room.
I’m older. I’m wiser. I’m stiffer. I’m not pushing that right knee the way I might have a few years ago. I’m propping it with a bolster instead.
The “win” is that I’m doing it every day. The win is cultivating patience. Today, instead of bemoaning the lack of progress, I told myself: It hasn’t even been 2 months yet!
The other day, I saw one of those Before-and-After body transformation photos on Instagram, and the woman’s body was unrecognizable in the After picture. From fat and lumpy, she transformed into lean and muscular. In her video voiceover, she said:
A lot of these Instagram transformations will tell you that you can go from THIS (fat and lumpy) to THIS (lean and muscular) in 6 months, but I’m here to tell you it took me 4 YEARS!!
I yelled at my phone, “Preach, woman! YES!!”
This was the most encouraging transformation story I had ever heard.
Change takes time, and everyone in the social media landscape lies about this. They tell you you can transform yourself in 6 months, and that is complete and utter bullshit. Real, lasting, and meaningful transformation takes 4 years. Maybe longer. And if you buy into the 6-month lie, you buy into misery.
I see this in the yoga practice room sometimes. People will come faithfully every week for a few months (8 classes total), and then they’ll disappear.
I don’t know why, but I’ll bet they came with some expectation of transformation—at least a little—and when it doesn’t happen after 8 tries, they give up.
But this truth that transformation takes time is especially hard to swallow when you’re no longer young. So, let’s say this Ashtanga streak of mine extends 4 years. I will be 77 then.
Geez.
But if I’m going to be 77 anyway, I might as well enjoy nailing that stupid bind in Ardha Baddha Padma Pascimotanasana, right?
But seriously, the bind isn’t the point. The posture is never the point. The point of the practice is going into the room, closing the door, putting on the music, changing into the clothes, tying up the hair, and spending an hour connecting to the breath, and then getting to encounter the reality and the marvel of the human body.
And encouraging it, and tending it, and testing its limits. Then, at the very end, exhausted mentally and physically, lying in a heap on the floor, feeling the body ripple, ripple, ripple, until eventually the ripples subside, and there is only…
What?
Inspiration Location 