Learning to "Practice"
I’m a 45-year-old man, who grew up in the small Australian town of Tumut, New South Wales. Life was straightforward there - and a grown man admitting to even being interested in yoga might have you labelled things like: weird, fruity, new-age or worse. I’m not even sure I heard the word ‘yoga’ until I was in high school, and it might have been something that maybe Buddhists or people in sex cults did.
I am now living in the UK, and am far enough away from the bullies of my youth, although still slightly worried that if any of them have learned to read by now, I could still get bashed for what I am writing. Yet here I am, recounting my first experience with yoga, something I did not on my own, or for myself initially, but for my daughter.
It was my 20-year-old daughter who expressed her interest in yoga. She was eager to attend classes, but was hesitant to go alone. This was another opportunity for me to support her while stepping outside my own comfort zone, so I agreed to join her. As someone who has historically only leant into things I am naturally good at, and things that I have proficiency in, flexibility of thought can be challenging - actual flexibility is beyond me. I am not even sure I could ever touch my toes when I was five, and am not sure I ever really thought to try. It could have been physical limitations or mental rigidity - even back then.
The yoga studio wasn’t a space for candles and serene eastern influences, it was in our gym. I didn’t have a mat, so borrowed an exercise mat when I got there. I felt anxious and out of place as a big fat, hairy dude with stiff joints and skeptical mind. That said, I wanted to give it a go and not let my cynicism and lack of ability to even comprehend what it would actually be to stop me from showing up and being there for my daughter.
As the class progressed, I grappled with each pose, constantly battling with my mind and body’s reluctance to bend and stretch in ways it never had. It was both a physical and mental challenge, wrestling with my physical hopelessness and lack of co-ordination and my mental discomfort and feeling it wasn’t for me and I didn’t belong there.
But surprisingly, because it took so much of my mental and physical focus, the time flew by and then came the pose that changed everything: I believe it is called “Happy Baby.”
I was lying on my back, knees drawn towards my chest, and hands gripping my feet, I was instructed to rock gently side to side. It felt completely ridiculous at first, but as I settled into the motion, something unexpected happened.
In that vulnerable position, a wave of emotions surged through me. I had a thought during the pose that I may not have been a happy baby, or that maybe I had been, but that those feelings may have been short lived as most of my childhood wasn’t happy.
I know my Mum lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) before I was born, and I know I have the same name as that child. I know it was hard for my Mum to connect with me when I was a baby, because she had gone through that. As I got older, life was harder for a variety of different reasons - but my life growing up was defined by stress, tension and anxiety on multiple fronts.
The idea of lying on the floor, holding my own feet rolling around on the floor as a 45-year-old caused a flood of thoughts and feelings. Part of it was sadness that rolling around on the floor like a baby was not something that I had ever even considered allowed myself to do and enjoy, and might I might never have done it before, even as a baby.
I was suddenly struck by how much I had closed myself off from different potential experiences over the years, I was flattened by how rigid I had become not just physically but in my outlook on life.
Before I knew it, there were tears forming as these all thoughts dawned on me. I was confronting truths about myself that I had buried under layers of stubborn self-preservation and resilience. It was as though the pose, as part of the physical release, had caused a flood of thoughts and an emotional release. All of these thoughts and feelings were simultaneous, instanteous and profound.
I thought of all the people I’d ever known as an adult who had done yoga. I felt conflicted that they made it seem like such an important, serious, deep, spiritual endeavour linked to Eastern philosophy, requiring a very specific fashion, attitude and space. Not once had anyone said: “I think you really should be open to the idea of lying on the floor, doing ridiculous things and rolling around on the floor like a happy baby.”
During the cool down it took me a while to re-group, it might have been the emotive music of Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” and Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful”. By the time they ended and we were ready to get up and leave the studio, I had resolved myself with all the emotions and thoughts I had experienced and left with a newfound appreciation for the ways that leaning in to new experiences can help us unlock different parts of ourselves.
I went to yoga to support my daughter, but I left with a serene comfort - I’d had a glimpse into my own mental barricades, intrusive ideas and restrictive thoughts. I knew as it was happening that it potentially wasn’t even an historically accurate reality, but was just stored up emotions and thoughts, that might have connected up subconsciously as a narrative if I’d let it. It’s not as if I had sat around thinking I was an unhappy baby who had never had a chance to roll around on a floor. I’m sure I spent as much time on the floor as anyone - but the experience had led to a realisation that breaking down some of these ideas and thoughts I had not even really allowed myself to think could lead to some profound breakthroughs. The learning journey for this year, in stepping out, trying something I would have traditionally categorised was ‘not for me,’ had again turned into a moment of unexpected insight, vulnerability, reflection and self-acceptance. And my hope is that it is a lesson worth sharing.
Since this first experience, I have bought a yoga mat, and I now try and go every week. I like that I’m hopeless at it, and it doesn’t bother me that I am, but I am hopeful that I will slowly improve. The teacher is a very calming presence, skilled, knowledgeable and explains things well - and I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting to do yoga.
At a certain time each Wednesday night, I will turn to my daughter and say that I think it is time for us to go and ‘embrace my practice’. I’m trying to be Dad funny about it, but the joke lessens with each passing week - because it really is practice.
I am practicing doing something I am literally the worst at, I have no natural ability, less skill, I suck at it and part of what I am practicing is enjoying that experience, relaxing into my incompetence and imperfection. I am unco-ordinated and get lost in the moves, often face the wrong way. Most of the moves still feel wacky and like an extreme sport to me, and how any person could easily remember the moves, let alone bend and twist into those positions baffles me. I sweat and strain, even during the easy parts - but if I keep practicing - you never know.
But with each passing week, I know I am getting more awesome at being a happy baby, and am definitely getting more practice at being a happier adult.