After eight years of yoga practice, I’m finally getting the hang of balancing.
I’m talking about standing up and taking one foot off the floor. Nothing too fancy. Something, in fact, that most of us do all the time.
And yet, for eight years, I’ve tipped over. Strained to stay upright. Wobbled and bobbled and capsized.
I have looked, I’m willing to bet, a whole lot like Lily just learning to walk as she undulates, bow-legged and drunken-sailor-like, across the floor.
Who knew we had this too in common?
Ever since Lily began figuring out this whole bipedal motion thing, I’ve been seeing her world through my yoga-practicing eyes.
“I’m realizing how scary it must be for her to let go when she’s standing — like asking me to do a handstand without a wall,” I said to Mike one night in a massive act of self-justification for my own continuing and trenchant inability. “It’s a miracle any baby ever figures it out.”
“Except that babies bounce,” Mike pointed out. “And adults doing handstands don’t.”
Plus, when I think about it, the miracle would be me doing a handstand without a wall. Ever. In this lifetime.
Which got me thinking that there is a difference between turning upside down and walking right side up. Namely, we are meant to walk on our feet. We are not meant to stand on our hands. This is why most people walk on their feet and very few do so on their hands.
So, really, the analogy between my progress in this world and Lily’s does not rest on whether I can turn upside down without the comfort of a wall right behind me, or at least the steady arm of a person I know I can trust.
It’s much more basic. It’s as simple as standing up and taking one foot off the floor.
I am aware that this is not making me look good. My thirteen-month-old will shortly be doing what, after eight years and approximately two thousand yoga practices, I can’t do any better than I could when I was thirteen months old. Okay, a little better, since I don’t think I walked until I was fourteen months. But there’s been remarkably little progress since then.
And here’s the reason: I’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about how bad my balance is. Thinking about what my body should do to balance better. Thinking about the moment I will fall even if I haven’t reached it yet.
You can see how this sort of thinking can spill over into life.
And so, during my last few practices, I’ve taken a new approach to balance. I’ve thought, “What’s the big deal?”
In other words, why think about it? We spend so much time overthinking what we’re doing at any given moment — or, worse, thinking about something we’re not doing — that we miss the fullness of the moment. We — get ready for it — lose our balance.
So, in the same way I’m going to stop thinking about when Lily will finally let go and walk so I can just enjoy the moment when she does, I’m going to stop thinking about whether I’m balancing or not. And maybe, just maybe, that calming of my mind, that focus on being in the now, will translate to my life off the mat. Which, after all, is the point of an asana practice and the reason I think it’s worth mentioning even to people who don’t practice yoga in that way.
In other words, I’m still working on balance in much the same way Lily is. And maybe one day it will be as natural to me as walking will shortly be to her.