Red Room Where the Writers Are

Yoga with the Yees

I recently attended a Yoga retreat and took two classes from Rodney and Colleen Yee, one focusing on balance and the other ended with a quote by Picasso on the benefit of reserves.  Well, I can read a balance sheet like the best of them, find the elegant columns that if managed well (at least for a non-profit) balance each other out.  I have espoused the benefit of having reserves, a rainy day fund, for those just-in-case moments in life.  Think of reserves as a type of savings account that can kick in when your bank balance is on life support.

So how hard could it be to apply these concepts physically? Balance starts with infrastructure.  Think of the skeleton not as a dead, inanimate object that supports our body and self, but rather as an integral part of our body that makes important things like balance and stability possible.  If the bones represent strength, the muscles represent balance.  We contract and relax our muscles to find that point of balance, of suspension, of extension.  I can hear Rodney Yee chastise us: balance is not a static state, it’s a dialogue.  Stop playing is safe. Don’t be afraid to fall. Test your limits and quit striking beautiful poses. 

Nestled between professional yoga practitioners, it was easy to become the star student.  There was nothing posed or beautiful about my “proud warrior.”  I felt precarious at every transition, feeling right at home as I balanced on the precipice of humility.  Safety and comfort has never been my style.  My body was definitely having a dialogue with itself. By the end of the day, with muscles that had been conversing with my bones, dialoguing to the point of exhaustion, I listened to the words of Pablo Picasso:

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

It was all I could do to stifle a belly laugh.  My credo is to work well beyond my means.  If I can handle three elements, add two.  If I can handle ten, then run a marathon.  In that way I build strength, mastery and leave nothing in reserve.  It was then that it hit me, I was empty, overdrawn and with nothing to add to the balance sheet.  As I exhaled it was all I could do to whisper the words, “Namaste.”