Scorpions or Vanilla Lattes? My struggle with yoga envy
There’s an unspoken rule that’s practiced in just about every yoga class: beginners go to the back of the room, preferably behind a pillar or potted plant that will hide their hideous lack of skill and flexibility from the tender sensibilities of those more advanced.
Sure, it’s hard to see back there, with a jungle of bodies (not to mention the pillar and the potted plant) between you and the teacher. But honestly, the teacher’s talent is wasted on you. At your level, the person in front (or the potted plant) might as well be your teacher.
The reverse also holds true: The closer you’re willing to put your mat to the teacher, the more advanced you are assumed to be. Somewhere in between the potted plant and the teacher’s mat are the rest of us—yoga’s 99%—who secretly covet the talents of those more accomplished than ourselves, who can’t help feeling a twinge of inadequacy when we strike our best Tree Pose and notice that it’s more like a quivering ficus than the mighty oaks standing in front of us.
Maybe the answer is to embrace the competitive instinct—to use others’ achievements as motivation to improve our own abilities. So,in the interest of hitching my yoga wagon to a star, I went looking for the best of the best—people who compete at yoga for a living and win. I thought their wisdom, their drive, their spark could ignite my own rocket trajectory to the upper echelons of yoga proficiency.
This turned out to be a short-lived approach when I read a story about national yoga champ,Joseph Encinia, who was explaining why Scorpion Pose is his favourite:
By stamping the top of my head with my feet, I strive to remove all bad characteristics and qualities of my mind.
‘Well, that’s terrific, Joseph,’ I thought. ‘It really is. But since the top of my head has not and likely will not ever have the pleasure of meeting my feet, my approach will be a little different. It’s going to have to be something like this:‘By lying in Corpse Pose and contemplating the steamy goodness of a vanilla latte, I strive to remove all thoughts of you and your damn scorpion from my mind.’
My dreams of yoga stardom vanquished, I now concentrate on attitude adjustment. I forgive Joseph for being such a show-off. Every time I go to class, I remind myself that I’m not there to prove anything. I comfort myself by remembering that people who are really good at yoga most likely suck at other things, like nuclear physics or air conditioning repair. This is no consolation, really, because I’m also no good at these things. My Corpse Pose, however, is world-class, and even Joseph and his foot-stamping scorpion can’t take that from me.
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