Consider Chair Pose, one of my most beloved and be-hated postures.
I’ve been practicing yoga poses for decades, and never cease learning from them. Chair Pose (Utkatanasana) confirms yet again the power of yoga, on the mat and off.
Practicing anything is easy when it’s easy, and it's beneficial and fun. But the real work happens when it’s hard. When it’s hard, interesting things happen. When you practice practicing, you are ready when the skills can be applied in real life circumstances.
I’ve been forcing myself to practice Chair Pose for decades. I always approach that pose with full on resistance. I can’t help it. If it is possible to hate a pose--and it is very possible for the confused human to hate anything--I do. When I’m in a class and realize the teacher is setting us up for chair pose, there’s instant dread. But I choose to practice the posture. And if I’m choosing to go along with it, I practice releasing my resistance. And while I’m at it, I figure I may as well pay attention to what’s going on in my body, mind, emotions, and experience. I turn my attention inward. What do I need to engage to support this pose? What do I need to soften to allow the pose to "flow" in a lovely stretch? Can I breathe deeply into my discomfort?
While I’m in the pose, practicing non-resistance and focusing attention on making adjustments (physical, mental, emotional), the experience shifts. Suddenly, the pose is doing me. I am fully open to the experience of doing this God-forsaken pose and embrace the opportunity to practice something challenging. The effort involved draws me into the perfection of the moment, and my full-on participation in it. It’s a powerful experience of self-mastery.
Turns out, I can execute the pose as well as anyone who has been practicing it for decades. I have progressed, regardless of my personal feelings, preferences, aversions. My personal feelings, preferences, aversions turn out to be insignificant in relation to my capability. I take this lesson with me, as I practice navigating life on this planet.
As with poses, there are plenty of opportunities to resist a moment. There are endless reasons to complain, judge, and rush through a moment. There are endless ways to distract and avoid a moment. But each moment brings choices—in fact, the only time to make choices and act is in the moment. Even and especially if all the choices stink, there’s always the choice to practice non-resistance and focused awareness. While you may want to “flow” (which makes more sense than the alternative obstruction), you must practice. And the best opportunity to practice happens to be during the harder “chair pose” moments of life. The challenges are the perfect occasions to look within and see how you are doing. You can focus your attention inward, see if there are mental, emotional, or physical adjustments (breathe, rest, hydrate, stretch, etc) you can make to ease your discomfort or suffering. You can assess if there's anything you can engage to support you in a moment (courage, perhaps) or anything you can soften to allow it to flow (resistance, most likely). And when you simply can’t adjust or practice non-resistance, it is a perfect opportunity to accept the fact of your resistance. That is a perfectly valid choice. "The acceptable and the unacceptable are both acceptable," Lao Tzu supposedly said.
The most important thing is to recognize what’s happening, so you aren’t sleepwalking in ignorance. Observe how you are functioning. You are practicing practicing, and the results will vary with each trial. If you learned to walk, you had to practice falling.
Life brings challenges. Embrace them as an opportunity to practice your ability and power.
Practice makes perfect.
"Be master of yourself everywhere. All you do proves true." Zen saying
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