Prana Pages

The first time I “flipped my dog” was at Baptiste Teacher Training Bootcamp Level 2 in 2006.  I had no idea what Baron meant when he said to drop my upper leg to the floor.  I couldn’t see where it was supposed to go.  I couldn’t control what happened to my hands, and they were my BASE!  And then, one of the many loving assistants decided to “help” me flip my dog right into wheel pose…what the heck was that, cuz it didn’t feel like love at the time!  I fell flat on my back, the assistant laughed, and said “falling is learning.”  I wanted to slap her because I didn’t feel like laughing, and I certainly didn’t feel like I was learning anything.

“If you wobble, smile.  If you fall, laugh,” is a quote from my favorite podcast instructor, Phil Urso.  I hear his voice in my head now everytime I flip my dog.  I may not always turn completely into wheel, and it’s taken a long time to find a place of control in that place between down dog and flip dog. Transition is not easy. Change takes time. And, the process is often messy.  The challenge lies in the ability to find calm in the “in-betweens,” to breathe through the awkwardness, laugh at the fallings, and learn from the failures.

This morning, I crashed out of Peacock Feather Pose.  It was the first time I tried the pose in the middle of the room without the security blanket wall behind my feet.  Ironically, I didn’t go to the wall because I wanted to see if I could manage the pose without it.  Instead, I didn’t go to the wall because I was just too lazy to move my mat!  So, I set up my base, took a deep breath, and kicked my legs up.  For just a moment, I hovered in stillness, until I realized what I was doing, and I laughed BEFORE I came crashing to the floor.  My neck cracked.  My shoulders cracked.  My back cracked.  My hips cracked.  I think I even popped my knees!  When I crawled back to child’s pose and took a deep breath I realized that instead of feeling defeated and weak, I actually felt like I had experienced a 30 minute chiropractic appointment in a matter of seconds.

As I look outside at the first snow dustings of the season and contemplate the changes that have occurred this year, I am in awe. I have fallen a lot in the last year, sometimes with the assistance of some external force, other times at the cause of my own hand. And sometimes I take a little while to laugh, dust myself off, and get back up. The truth is, when I think about change, real change, I always grimace at the thought of the pain that comes with it.  Transition is scary.  And change hurts!  I remember vividly how my back felt the day after my down-dog/flip-dog/wheel crash.  But, as I realize how much I have changed since December 2007, somehow the pain is all worth it.

The bare trees of winter outside mimic to me how I wish I could embrace change.  Every year, they shed their leaves, bare their souls in the dead of winter, expose themselves in the coldest of elements.  When other creatures I crawling into dens to hibernate through the dead season, the trees take off their masks.  I can learn from both the trees and the hibernating creatures each winter. I realize that I can crawl inside myself and from that place, bare the marrow of my bones to the world. Once I find what is inside, no matter how uncomfortable it is to shed the masks, no matter how long it takes to remove the layers, becoming vulnerable and exposed, is promising and profound.