In the month of July we had our annual summer yoga challenge. My studio does a “Choose Your Own Challenge,” where, rather than the standard 30-day challenge, you pick the number of times per week you want to challenge yourself to come in and take class. I think this is perfect because it allows all students to participate, regardless of schedule or level of fitness. There are a lot of reasons that folks simply cannot do a thirty day challenge, but they still deserve the opportunity to challenge themselves and put their names on the challenge board (AND get stickers!). People sign up with challenges ranging from 2-7 days a week with numbers like 3ish and 4+, which is both optimistic and realistic. The beauty is that everyone talks about how different they feel from doing the challenge, even if they are trying to do 2-3 classes a week, which is exactly the point!
Since I haven’t done a challenge since teacher training, I decided to set my bar high, but realistically at 6 classes a week. I average 4/5 a week, so 6 was a good number. I made it about 2.5 weeks through with no problems, able to squeeze in the yoga, although I did have to do several classes on my own in the hot room, but that’s okay – it still counts! Halfway through the third week Husband and I started on some major home renovations that did not go smoothly. Here’s the kicker: I was losing the last 2 days of the challenge due to vacation AND company was coming up immediately following vacation so the bulk of the renovations had to be finished (i.e. we needed to have floors in and railings and banisters in place). Since renovations rarely go as planned I quickly got sucked into doing a lot more than I planned on, thus not getting the opportunity take that last class.
Initially, I was really bothered by not completing my challenge, and went through a lot of mental wrestling. I like to finish what I start, do everything all the way and meet a challenge. Plus, part of me feels that as a teacher, I should be setting a good example and meeting my goal. The debate in my head came to a head (ha!) Friday afternoon before I got off of work at the library. I could cram things in and try to make the evening 6:30 class, driving a little over an hour total. I would get home at 8:30sih, have dinner, pack for my trip, clean up all of the sawdust, put all the furniture and decorations in place, put clean linens out for the company, do laundry, etc., basically stay up late only to get up at 6am and drive for 7 hours. Or, I could swing by the gym, do a quick workout and be home by 6:30 get all of that work done and be able to go to bed at a semi-decent hour. Naturally, I caved. And it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable. Life happens. As I was telling myself this, I had my epiphany or light-bulb moment: doing Bikram Yoga gives me a life, it is not my life, nor does it run it. The reason I love to do the yoga is that it helps me mentally and physically to get out and live my life, including the things I don’t want to do, like the dreaded home renovation clean up.
I have a tendency to get too caught up in things and become a little too obsessive. If I’m not careful, everything but me runs my life. Learning to take a step back and be okay with not doing everything is my biggest challenge. So, in my case, I’m saying challenge successful.
Backbends and Bookends 