Yoga Girl

How we experience the world is so colored by what goes on in our head. This often obscures what’s truly there.

There is this girl in my yoga class. She is simply amazing. She’s strong, flexible and moves with cat-like grace. She takes yoga seriously and is dedicated. Looking at her, I feel my own practice is rather inadequate. Yes, yes, I know that yoga is all about my own journey and comparison isn’t something that should be brought to the mat. But I’m human. And while I do a good job of keeping my mind on my own practice, this girl still makes me feel like the awkward kid in middle school. 

Ever since I noticed her, I’ve tried to avoid her. Taking place in the room where she wouldn’t distract me with her dancer-like grace. But Saturday morning yoga tends to get crowded quickly and as often happens with that which we try to avoid, I found myself inevitably either next to her or behind her. Either way, unavoidable. I’d do an inward groan and think “of course” before spending the next 90 minutes attempting to do my asanas with my eyes closed. Once or twice when she’d do something incredible, I found myself trying to alter what I was doing to match hers. Then get annoyed at myself for trying to compete…and for failing to get my leg wrapped around my neck. Surely she was sneering at me from her lofty contortionist height. “Silly, foolish, girl.”

This past Saturday was no different. The Nimble One was almost directly in front of me. I was' about to do the sigh-resign thing again, when I caught myself. I was viewing her as a negative in my life when she didn’t have to be. I admired this woman. She made yoga into such an art-form, I could watch her all day. Yes, I had been watching her and trying to emulate her, but why was this a bad thing? I was more aware of form and alternate options just by her proximity. I pushed myself a little harder, tried to be a little more fluid. If I could drop the self-judging, I could take delight in this influence as I had learned a lot from her. How was this a bad thing? It wasn’t. 

The class went more smoothly than any had in the past month. Maybe there was a different energy in the room that day, but as I was rolling up my mat, I saw my unwitting mentor do something I never had seen her do before. Smile. Ah, yoga girl was human after all.