I was initially kind of excited when I sat down to breakfast this morning and discovered an article in the New York Times Style section about a yoga class I attended a few times.
It felt like a brush with celebrity, an acknowledgment of a past life maybe not steeped in but occasionally brushing up against glamour. “I know uber-teacher Vinnie Marino,” I pictured myself saying to someone who cared. “And that’s the waiting area at the Main Street YogaWorks,” I smiled knowingly as I scanned the accompanying photo for a familiar face.
There were no familiar faces. Perhaps because it’s been at least four years since I attended a class at the Main Street studio. And I’m pretty certain Heather Graham was not in it with me, even though the article reports that she is now a regular.
In fact, the more I read, the longer ago it all seemed. And the longer ago it all seemed, the sadder I felt. It’s not that I was ever a regular in that class or that I wasn’t a regular in a local class right up until the day before I gave birth. Rather, as I read the article’s description of the mad rush for a spot, the mats placed perilously close to each other, the intimidating poses, I knew that if I were to show up for the class now I would be kind of frightened.
Four years ago I wouldn’t have been frightened.
Four years ago I would have confidently spread out my mat. I would have had at least a bit of a grasp on any pose Vinnie threw my way and a healthy sense of confidence if it was one still beyond me. I wouldn’t have been the tiniest bit intimidated by the other practitioners. I would, in short, have belonged.
Where Did It Go?
Okay, first of all, I am well aware that I gave birth just ten weeks ago, and that just one day before that I performed a perfectly respectable vasisthasana (side plank). So I would be completely justified in telling myself that I rock, flabby postpartum belly and all.
I also understand that I no longer have two hours a day six days a week to devote to a sweaty mysore practice. I dream of the day I can join the mysore group in town, but I know that, realistically, it won’t be for eighteen years or so. And, let’s face it, by then age will have taken care of what motherhood is wreaking right now. In other words, I will never achieve the glory of my old, intense practice.
In theory, I am okay with this. But I can’t ignore the fact that my stomach turned a little bit around the blueberry cereal bar I was eating while I read about the class that, for a brief period of time, did not intimidate me.
Much of what I think I was feeling was a sense of loss. A sense that I worked hard to be the sort of person who takes Vinnie’s class and that all that hard work has been frittered away chasing after small children.
The first time I attended one of Vinnie’s classes, it was a bit of a mistake in the sense that I didn’t know what I was getting into and wouldn’t have tried if I had known. It was probably 2001, during the days of my still nascent yoga practice. My recollection is that I was meeting a friend on the west side of L.A., near the studio and far — in L.A. traffic terms — from my parents’ house, where I was staying for a few weeks. The plan was to find a suitable yoga class from which I could pull a top over my stretchy clothes and have lunch looking tres L.A. yoga-chic.
I arrived early by accident, having factored in a large buffer against freeway traffic, locating the studio in a part of town with which I was not familiar, and parking. Another class was still in session, but a couple of other people were lined up outside. They, it turns out, were not early by accident.
“When you get in there, you need to put your mat about an inch from the mat next to you,” they advised once they learned that I was not a Vinnie Marino regular.
I wasn’t sure whether to take them seriously. An inch? I was still at the point where I was likely to whack a neighbor a good two feet away with an errant limb when attempting some basic pose.
“Some of the people in here are kind of competitive,” they further advised, perhaps surmising me as a bit of a novice. “Just ignore them.”
This seemed like a dubious possibility, given that these people would be practicing an inch away from me, but I promised to try.
By this time, the line snaked behind us quite a distance. And as the class before us let out, the snake started to bunch up restlessly, thickening perceptibly like a python that has just swallowed a baby deer.
And then the way was clear and it was as if the python suddenly upchucked the baby deer, sending it flying into the surprisingly small studio space. I desperately threw my mat next to one of my new friends’, only to have an experienced groupie place hers between us with a not-unfriendly request that I make way. Sure enough, I was bumping up against the person next to me.
Trying not to hyperventilate before class began, I grabbed a few props and placed them in a corner of my mat where I hoped I wouldn’t kick them into someone else’s practice. I took note of the fact that I was the only person who stooped to props and started to sweat a bit.
And then class began. I don’t remember a whole lot about Vinnie, other than that he was tough and likable. Any specific memories have been drowned out by my main recollection of everything being very, very slippery. And of Vinnie reminding people on more than one occasion to keep their eyes on their own mats. He didn’t have to tell me. I was terrified that I’d catch the eye of someone laughing skeptically at me.
The first thing I did when I emerged from class gasping and feeling for all the world like I’d just taken a shower in sweat, was call my friend to cancel lunch. “I am drenched,” I said, disgusted yet exhilarated. “If I had known I would have brought a towel.”
Four years later, I regularly brought a towel to my mysore practice. I purchased an astanga blanket to spread on top of my mat because when you get really, really sweaty the term “sticky mat” is an utter misnomer. I did things I wished I could see because I couldn’t quite believe them. And I was able to walk into any yoga class in town without being intimidated.
Then I had a miscarriage. And another. And I stopped doing mysore because K. Pattabi Jois, its leader, advises against it in pregnancy, especially for women who have had a miscarriage. And then Jake was an infant, and I was lucky to squeeze in twenty minutes of yoga a few times a week. Sure enough, before I knew it, the glory days were so far in the past I didn’t know just how far in the past they were.
The funny thing is, I did build my practice back up again before I had Lily, and I’m in the process of resurrecting it yet again. But it’s changed. I’ve turned down the intensity. Tendons have shortened and ligaments have loosened and those internal organs — I’m still not sure just how two pregnancies have shifted them but I know things are different in there. I can no longer go to a tough 6:30 a.m. class — both because I am trying to sleep at 6:30 a.m. now and because I live 2,500 miles away from that class I used to so enjoy when we lived in West Hollywood and I was showing my yoga friends my new engagement ring.
Mostly, though, what I need from yoga has changed — the whole practice of my life. And moments like this morning as I read about the yoga class to which I no longer belong can sometimes jolt me into a recognition of how far I’ve come. The trick is recognizing that this can be a good thing.
It’s About Where You Are Now, Not Where You Used to Be
There’s a good reason we often compare ourselves to what we were in the past. It’s better than the alternative.
I, for one, think it’s a good thing that I compare myself to myself instead of, say, Jennifer Aniston, even though she is nearly my age and no longer married to Brad Pitt, who was college roommates with the boyfriend of a friend of mine from St. Louis. For some reason, this once seemed to establish a connection between me and Jen.
Much better, I figure, to keep my comparisons to myself, so to speak. To expect only that I live up to what I am capable of achieving. Or, rather, was capable of achieving.
Things happen when we have children, whether we are the biological bearers of them or not. There are the obvious ravages of pregnancy and breastfeeding. The unavoidable results of a severe lack of sleep. The inescapable fact that we simply don’t have the time to ourselves that we used to.
For all of these reasons, I will never again have the yoga practice I used to have.
On the other hand, what’s this whole YogaMamaMe thing, anyhow? Oh, just proof that I am developing a different kind of practice as I navigate my new-ish life of forty-something, postpartum, sleepless devotion to two small beings who can’t take care of themselves. There are those — and I am sure they are many — who would choose my pre-children practice to my life right now, and I don’t blame them. But I’m not one of them.
Look at it this way. It’s a whole lot easier to develop a practice when you’re accountable to no one but yourself. Not easy, by any means. There are precious few sane human beings who — childless or not — would regularly be out of the house at 6:15 each morning to go to yoga class. There’s a reason manufacturers and purveyors of processed food items are so successful and that Americans consume such vast quantities of medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiac ailments. And there are only small pockets of people who practice yoga full time. They are, in fact, so rare that they end up gracing the front page of the New York Times Style section.
Having somehow made my way to the periphery of a fully practicing life, I can look at the challenges of combining a practice with parenthood as a sort of spiritual reward. Like any yoga pose, once it becomes readily attainable, the best thing we can do for ourselves is move to the next level. Make it more difficult. Because the practice is in the practice, not the achievement.
When I could move with confidence through the astanga primary series, what did my teacher do? Start me on the intermediate series, of course.
So, too, when I found my way to a life that allowed me to focus on discovering my heart and my spirit the best thing I could have done for myself was throw a few major distractions in there. Like the hearts and spirits of two beautiful children who need my guidance as they learn to discover their own paths.
It would be tempting, I’ll admit, to abandon my own practice for theirs. It’s the pull of parenthood, to forsake what’s important to you because you think it makes you a good parent.
Yeah, well, I know where that leads me. Read those first few YogaMamaMe essays and you’ll find a very depressed mother of a nine-month-old. Fulfillment does not come from fulfilling the needs of others and neglecting your own.
Instead, the path I am on is to support my children and allow them to flourish without wilting myself.
Is it a practice that leaves me the space to go to Vinnie Marino’s yoga class every morning? I’m afraid not. It is, however, a practice full of grace and wisdom and heart.
A practice that is, in the end, even tougher than anything Vinnie could throw at me.
Vasisthasana (Side Plank) — A Tribute to Intense Practices, Pregnant Bodies, and Moving Where Your Practice Takes You
I offer vasisthasana (side plank) here in part for my own acknowledgment of the health of my practice. But it has larger meaning for others as well, as a pose that offers endless challenge — requiring strength, fleibility, and balance; offering a variety of variations for every level; and therefore always tempting you to make it to the next stage. Or, if it’s just not the day for it, to slip back into something a bit easier.
There is also great beauty and grace in this pose. As you master your sense of alignment and find your balance, see if you can’t open yourself up to grace and let your heart lift you up.