BABY STEPS

I recently saw a video of my cousin's new baby.  In the video, the baby looks at the camera, smiles, waves her hands, puts her hands in her mouth, makes gurgly noises, waves her feet, and makes more gurgly noises.  I could not get enough of this video.  When she blinked her eyes, I smiled.  Each sound was like music.  Every movement, a celebration.

I also recently captured a video of a 27 year old friend of mine when I accidentally hit "record" on my phone.  In it, she sits in a chair, moves her hand to her face, makes a sighing noise and then I don't know, because it was so boring that I deleted it.

We coo over babies.  Every movement and sound they produce is beautiful. We celebrate each accomplishment: first time they sit up, first time they stand, first word, first steps.  But as we grow up, the celebrations become less frequent and often loftier: college graduation, competing in an ironman, winning a game of jenga.  The small accomplishments don't hold our attention the way they once did.  And so we also forget to honor ourselves for our own humble achievements.

In Ashtanga class, we practice the same positions each day.  And since you cannot move beyond what you cannot do, Ashtanga is designed to slow you down so that your body can adapt.  So, after 30 years of life, I find myself returning to baby steps.  Much like crawling before walking, I must work on binding before bending or breathing deeper to sink deeper into a pose.  And like a baby, I often find myself practicing the same simple movements over and over again; allowing my body to become acustomed to moving in this new way.

Last week I finally put the palms of my hands together behind my back in parshvottanasana, after repeating this same posture for months.  Tiny accomplishment though it was, like a baby, I could not help but be overjoyed.