Welcome to the Floor, Let's Stay There

Hey there,

My son was in town visiting from LA recently and he left me with a challenge.

Core work. Twice a day. 4.5 minutes each time.

That's it. Sounds manageable, right? It is not manageable. It is sneaky and humbling and I have opinions about it.

But here's the part that stopped me.

I was doing my reps the way I do most things, trying to get through them. Head down, moving fast, checking the box, done. And he watched me for about thirty seconds and said: slow down. Let each rep actually land. Stop trying to finish and start trying to feel it. So I slowed down.

It got harder immediately. Like, significantly harder. But here's the thing,  I also needed less time. The work was actually working because I stopped rushing past it. I keep thinking about that on the mat this week.

How often are we just trying to get through the pose? Get through the hold. Get through the wobble. Get through Bird Dog so we can move on to the next thing.

What Patanjali called sukha - the ease, the comfort, the spaciousness inside effort, it doesn't show up when you're rushing. It shows up when you slow down enough to actually be in the thing you're doing.

Sthira gets you grounded. Sukha is what happens when you stop trying to be done.

This week in class, we slowed it down. Longer holds. More breath. Less rushing past the hard part to get to the other side. Because the other side isn't where the practice lives. Right here is where the practice lives.

All levels welcome. Bring a mat. We'll handle the rest.

See you on the floor, Annie