Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I have been practicing yoga for the last two months. I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube to get started:

• Yoga With Adriene – YouTube

I have been doing the same few poses every day for two months and I’m getting pretty good at them. Today, I was feeling a little bored, so I decided to try Eagle pose and I was SHOCKED.

Image via: Eagle Pose – We Are Yoga

I suck at it.

Every time I try a new pose, I am a rank amateur. I am a beginner. Just because I have been able to hold Downward Facing Dog without my arms shaking and losing my balance, doesn’t mean I am good at Eagle Pose. Every pose is a beginning.

Honestly, that’s how life is. Every new thing we try is a beginning and we are rank amateurs.

The funny thing is, I didn’t get frustrated like I did when I was first starting yoga. I got excited. I had gotten a little bored with the poses that I had worked on lately, but this Eagle pose thing was HARD, and somehow, that was a GOOD thing. When I first started yoga, I was VERY frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t hold most poses for more than five seconds. I had to keep starting over to get my full 20 seconds of hold. Today, however, I had a tiny jolt of adrenaline from it. Here was something that I couldn’t do and I knew that if I kept trying for a couple of months, I COULD do it. I just needed to keep trying. It was beautiful.

The next time I realize that I am a rank amateur at something in the “real” world, I’m going to remember this. I’m going to recall that jolt of excitement that says, “This is HARD! And that’s a GOOD thing!”