Sacred 5

Today I practiced yoga like I was 5 and it was awesome! Yoga, I find, more often than not gets taken WAY to seriously. I make sure in my classes that I try to keep the atmosphere light for my students. I’ll crack a joke now and then, mostly I just stumble over my words and every now and again I’ll fall on my face (on purpose or not). I try to make sure everyone has at least one smile in class but lately I have forgotten to make myself smile. Winter reared its bitter cold head again and threatened to extinguish that flickering hope of spring warmth and I took this very seriously. So seriously I found myself tearing through Vinyasa style sequences trying to build enough heat to distract myself from my anger at the season. And really, who am I kidding? Anger at the weather, that’s like screaming at telephone poles. But I was completely ignorant of my behavior, in fact I didn’t consciously know what I was doing or how badly I was treating my practice until I was teaching a class earlier this week. Like most realizations I have it was born of a question a student posed to me. I found myself telling the class about approaching inversions like a 5 year old would, fearless and without embarrassment. While as I was talking I felt myself falling backwards through years of my life. How many times have I had a conversation about being childlike, or rather maintaining childlike wonder? In a world that places emphasis on the sophisticated I often find myself defending my simplicity. Watching a fuzzy caterpillar inch along a blade of grass, or seeing my dog get so excited she hops like a bunny, or picking fresh raspberries off the vine for breakfast provides as much joy and stimulation as any sophisticate would find in a symphony or the opera. And you know what; I am so OK with that. The same way I’m just as happy admiring my niece’s scribbles as I am my favorite artist, Vincent Van Gogh’s, prints. So for as near and dear as this concept of childlike wonder is to me I was stunned to see how far away from living that concept I have gotten. So today I got it back! I was on my mat and a little soar from my trapeze class last night so I was taking it kind of slow, then as my body warmed I thought “I want to practice this asana,” so I did. Then I wanted to do another asana, so I did that one and I found myself moving freely and creatively, like I was tangoing with my imagination. Or better yet like my inner child was standing my shoes tangoing with me! And we danced and we had a great time and we laughed after nearly face planting out of balancing asana. And for the rest of the day I’ve felt the tug of a 5 year old bursting to show me the next coolest thing ever because really this life, this practice is the coolest thing ever my inner adult just got a little distracted.