Finding Balance, Limb By Limb

I engaged in the age-old art of yoga last Friday, when I took a class that a friend offered in her home. For over an hour, as the instructor led us, we stretched and posed and took deep relaxing breaths to the accompaniment of Zen music. We centered on God as our breath of life, as the instructor spoke to us of us of gently honoring the body our Maker created for us. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and spiritual experience from start to finish, and I plan on signing up for the 8-week class.

I had been formerly been intimidated by yoga, having taken an advanced class at my health club a decade ago. The 20-something uber limber instructor would yell out names like, “Eagle!” and morph her body into a convoluted pose that I was no way in Hades able to imitate. I felt limber-challenged and uncoordinated and kept getting sharp, shooting pains throughout my back. I took that as a sign that God was not calling me to be Gumby, so I happily quit the class.

But this yoga instruction at my friend’s house was fun and safe, and I left feeling deeply relaxed and more confident in my body. Except for one thing: I have almost completely lost my sense of balance. I have no idea where it went or when I left it. But it’s gone. I found this out when I could barely do The Tree without knocking my classmates into a domino effect. Even the 70-year-old woman, who had to keep stopping to take hits from her oxygen tank, was able to assume The Tree pose for longer than I. It was embarrassing.

This distresses me greatly, because I used to have an amazing sense of balance. I was able to jump 2,100 times in a row on the pogo stick when I was 10. If it had been an Olympic sport, I would have won the gold. I was also able to balance for eternity on the bongo board. As God is my witness, I could have stood without falling on the bongo board from my middle school years straight through college without stopping once, except to break for nature calls. I was a Stellar Balancer, back in the day. So what the heck happened?!

I am bound and determined to get my balance back! Wherever it went, I shall hunt it down and make it return. And I’ll become super bendy like the lady in the pic above, stretching my limbs into positions they haven’t reached since the womb. That shall be me in a year, doing The Bridge on a beach in the warmth of the sun. (I’m especially juiced up about the beach part.)