Practice

Crazy Yoga Guy says that change comes while we’re practicing.

He told me this personally…through the magic of flat screen television…one day when I was practicing sitting on the couch…frowning and tilting my head back and forth…and he was practicing death-defying speed yoga.

Speed yoga is not my yoga.   Obviously.

But…it caught my attention:  Change comes while I’m practicing?

Not before?

Not after?

While?

Aside from an unfortunate 6-month association with a chain-smoking piano teacher, I’ve never given a lot of thought to the merits or challenges of practice.  Practice sounds hard…mostly boring…and more than a little daunting to my gotta-have-it-now-drive-through mentality.  The beginning of almost any practice is more about sucking at something and less about achieving something. Those teensy bits of progress in practice can be hard to appreciate or even notice.

But now…I’m starting to like the concept of practice, because it assumes that I can keep getting better at something – and that it’s ok if I suck at it and don’t look like Hollywood while I’m doing it.

There are few stories I hate worse than some marathoner story that starts with… “I was in horrible shape.   When I started running, I could barely run 2 miles without stopping.  It was humiliating!”

Really?  Because running 2 miles would be a miracle for me…and I’ve been working out pretty regularly for over 4 months and running a mile still sounds…painful…and probably more than a little dangerous.

We’re sort of trained to appreciate the finish line…the goal…the happy ending.  We can’t seem to wrap our mind, body, and spirit around the greater benefit of the process.

To succeed, we may have to be willing to change.  No headline there.  BUT…change…for most of us…may only come during the process…not after…and not before.

So many times I’ve tried to start some new and “healthy” life thing…and I’m so uncomfortable…it’s like I’m holding my breath until I think I’ve achieved something…some number…some date…some something…that will make all the pain worthwhile.  Well, I can’t hold my breath that long.  And, usually when I let the air out…a bag o’ chips comes back in.

Maybe it’s better to relax and breathe in between those growing pains.

So…what are we practicing?

We eat.  We drink.  We sleep.  And, if we’re lucky, we poop.

But…what do we want to improve?

Work?  Exercise?  Sitting on our backsides?

To be a better parent or wife or husband?

I practice writing.

I practice exercise and food control.

I practice breathing when I’m stressed.

Prayer.

Money management.

Organizational stuff.

Lots of practicing going on.

None of this is perfect…or maybe even excellent.

Time zips along…but we can defy the odds…and keep getting better…if we keep practicing.

It’s a fact of nature for those of us of a certain age.  Muscles are either getting stronger or weaker.  Things are either flapping more or tightening up.  Stuff falls.  We pick it up and try to stuff it in somewhere inconspicuous…it falls back out…we stuff it back in.

There comes a point for all of us when there is no status quo for muscles.  We either use them and they get a little stronger or we don’t and they stick out their tongues at us and ask for another Snickers bar.

We think the change comes before – so that some magic day we will wake up and want to exercise.

Not this girl.

For about 90% of us, the deal is that we just have to exercise until (maybe) we want to.

That other 10%?

Pretty sure I’m not writing for them.

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