Grace Off the Mat

Last week during yoga practice, our instructor was coaching us on transitioning between poses.  She emphasized the importance of moving through the poses gracefully. My yoga practice is so very layered, and this quality of it becomes more apparent to me each time I practice. What started with learning the names of the poses and remembering to breathe only through my nose, evolved into focusing on working my poses for maximum benefit and gaining more balance, and now I'm thinking more about each practice as a whole entity- am I moving into my poses slowly enough? am I truly still while I'm holding the pose? am I already anticipating the next move? am I practicing too loudly (yes, really)?could I transition to my next pose with less movement, more deliberation and, ultimately, more grace?

Putting aside that I need to tell my mind to hush with all these questions (...and my mind needs to listen), what I'm trying to say is that transitioning between poses holds equal importance to nailing the poses themselves. Our instructor even said that mastering getting from one place to another smoothly and with grace will allow us to transfer the skill off the mat and into our non-yoga lives. My downward-dog-facing head perked up at this idea, because it seems so relevant to my life.

Related story: on Tuesday, I attended a spring training game with my team at work. After handing over my ticket to be scanned, I tried to pass it off to a co-worker, stating, "I don't want this anymore." He gave me a look that was half patient-half condescending and said, "Now, do you know where you're sitting?" Common sense would indicate that my seat number is on that very ticket I was trying to get rid of, but common sense is not something that I usually bother with. I played it off by saying, "C'mon, you know I just wander through life." His reply of "I know" really stuck with me, because I thought I'd been doing a much better job of faking my competence.

Wandering through life may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's not too far off. My issue isn't aimlessness or lack purpose (though, neither of those are too off the mark), but let's just say that learning to transition gracefully? Well, that lesson wouldn't be wasted on me.

My yoga instructor went on to tell us that the times in life that are the most trying, the most difficult times, are the transitions and the changes. This is, of course, true.

Anyway, that's what I'm working on and thinking about.

Did I mention that I am in love with yoga?