HOME: PART THREE- “THE ‘A’ PARTY LIST”

My yoga studio, Lotus Yoga, is located in the heart of East Dallas and basks in the reflected neon glow of the iconic Lakewood Theater marquee. It is a shanked nine-iron from the Lakewood Country Club and within a good spitter’s range of Whole Food’s Market, the spiritual center of the New East Side. While its property values skyrocket as young professional types flock to the area in search of cheap land and craft beer, the East Side steadfastly maintains its distinct bohemian vibe, a nurturing bosom for scholarly, creative and independent thought.

So falling out of Warrior III or Revolved Triangle would generally entail me crash –landing on some innocent history professor or creative writing instructor from one of the local colleges. I almost suffocated a blogger once falling out of Half Moon and broke three ribs on a poor graphic designer coming out of a headstand. Or I might simply flatten one of the chefs, set designers, Thai masseuses, artists, dancers, interior designers, writers, teachers or lawyers who regularly share their practice there.

The space itself is sparse and utilitarian: a tiny desk to the left of the front door and cubbies for one’s shoes, purse and handgun to the right. Beyond that is the main yoga area. It is carpeted and can comfortably accommodate about twenty–five normal size yogis who haven’t had a big dinner. In the back, there is a small room for private lessons and massage, a bathroom, changing space, water fountain and storage spot for mats and the all-important Navajo blankets.

                But the studio is just a vessel, a safe haven for the broken, the lost, the fearful, the hurt, the nerdy, and the weird.

We are all broken.

If you don’t know that, you’ve never been to a yoga class.

There will be a point in every yoga class where the realization hits you that you simply cannot do a pose because your body or mind will not let you.

There is no “powering through it” or “getting mean” or “showing it who’s boss.”

For some, it is balance poses. For them, it might be inability to focus the gaze on an immoveable object or weak ankles or poor orientation.

For others, it is forward folds, which involve a hell of a lot more than just touching your damn toes. Trust me, it is hard to breathe comfortably in that position without first knowing how to engage one’s core and orient one’s back (flat, not rounded) and align one’s head (top of the head forward, not up- too hard on the neck). Even at that, you might just have tight hamstrings, like most Olympic sprinters.

When you start combining balance poses with flow (the transitioning from one pose to the next using syncopated breathing), the fun really begins. People have been known to move far away from me when this part of the class starts, often as far as Cleveland.

In order to get a feel for what I’m talking about, let’s all try this at home.

Find an open spot away from anything expensive.

Begin in a runner’s lunge with one knee bent over the ankle while the other leg is extended as far behind you as you can comfortably get it with your back knee on the ground. Curl your back toes. Make sure your feet are wide enough apart to support you. Your hands are down flat on the floor and you are looking down.

Now lift your back knee off the ground.

Uh, huh.

Now lift your hands off the floor a bit so only the tips of your fingers are touching. For five counts.

You’re sweating some now.

Now raise both arms over your head with a straight back.

How many of you fell on your ass?

Liars.

This transition is basic but hard as hell. It requires balance between the feet -front and back and side to side. It requires great core strength to stay on ones fingertips with your body rising up. The transition to get the arms overhead seems impossible until you realize that it is harder to stay on your fingertips than to rise up.

All the teetering and sweating and falling is part of your practice. It awaits you every day. In fact, the joy and wonderment of your yoga practice is knowing and accepting that you will fail at something every class.

In the words of this generation, it is often an Epic Fail.

But for those with the stones to accept that challenge every day, there are moments of breakthrough and utter joy. After my first headstand, I was telling perfect strangers about it in line at the cleaners, my wife having vetoed the full–page ad.

There is also a childlike wonder in every class as someone does something really cool. Today, my buddy Damien did this transition from Plow where he pulled his legs over his head and flipped over, landing in a perfect pushup position.

(Alright, smartasses, in case you don’t believe me, look at the video below.)

It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

I am fifty-three years old. I don’t get to feel like I’m eight very often.

I strongly recommend it.

Now Damien is in his mid-twenties and could go bear hunting with a switch. He has a rangy, muscular frame like the soccer player he used to be. But even he has trouble with certain alignments, which produces not Schadenfreude but an even better understanding that we all struggle.

We have the CFO of a huge investment concern who had a heart attack before he was forty and who jokes this “hippie shit” not only has healed him physically but has helped his professional career, as well.

We have former ballerinas who have trouble standing on one foot.

            There are former high school football players who have trouble with pushups.

            We have a high school middle-distance runner who could run to Tibet and back but who forgets to breathe during poses.

But there is also the professional writer–a former rakehell whose demons she routinely revisits in her monthly column-who could hold a plank pose in a typhoon.

We have a high-powered fifty-something corporate litigator who drops his suspenders and contorts his large frame into Mermaid pose, an impossible affair which requires twisting back with his right hand to grasp his right foot while keeping his chest open to the sky.

While balancing on one knee.

We have Damien’s pregnant wife who can do Warrior III with a baby on board, standing on one straight leg with both arms outstretched in front of her and her opposite leg kicked back in line with her arms, like a “T.”

Yep- got a picture of that, too. See below.

I’ve seen seventy- year old women do headstands and stocky rugby players reach back to grab their feet in Bow pose.

This is my new “A-Party List,” the people who I see every day aspiring to make themselves whole again, even if it means staring directly at their own demons.

Through our movements in class, we step forward into our futures without fear and into our pasts without judgment or attachment. New poses are attained through discipline and patience while we learn from the failures of our past.

We all come to the room with different gifts, different inadequacies and different fears, yet we come mostly without ego or pretense or even expectation.

But mainly, we just come. We each decide for ourselves that the journey lasts at least one more day. As the Swami says, the hardest part is getting to your mat, making the decision to confront both the best and worst parts of yourself one more time.

We aren’t just broken.

We are also whole.

NEXT TIME: Breathing is very important.

© (2014) Thomas C. Barron