Picture this – you’ve been looking forward to class all day. You got up long before work for a sitting meditation and a little pranayama. Some B.K.S. Iyengar served as your light subway read.
This afternoon when you felt a flash of anger toward your colleague, you took a deep breath, had a good look at the thing, and let it float away. Nailed it! And now it’s time for class with one of the best teachers in town – Nirvana feels within your grasp!
Sounds perfect! What could go wrong?
Class moves along nicely, from the opening Om to several sweaty Surya Namaskars, challenging standing sequences, and plenty of balancing work. Your focus is impeccable, you’re connected to your brothers and sisters on their yoga mats, flowing, and growing, the sound of the ocean right there in your victorious breaths.
“All that,” your teacher says, “should leave us feeling good and ready to give Crow Pose a go!”
“Yes!” you’re thinking. “Totally! Now is my time! Not only do I love practicing Crow, I’m also no longer attached to achieving it, I get it now! Process! I need only be the crow I want to see, etc. etc.” When the woman beside you attains lift-off. Nails it. And lets out a pretty funny yelp. The sweaty folks in the room start to laugh. The Crow-nailer thunks to the floor, giggling herself. A woman in the back shouts out, “She’s having a Crowgasm!” and everyone just dies.
Even your calm, very serious, steeped-in-authentic-tradition yoga teacher is cracking up!
And just like that, you’re furious. This is not what you paid for! You were getting somewhere, damnit, and suddenly no one’s taking this seriously at all! You were about to lift a toe off the ground in perfect harmony with your out-breath, nary a discursive thought in sight, and now you’re supposed to throw it all away for a crummy joke? Everybody’s chatting! The lady next to you is saying how fun that was! Fun! Of all things!
Which is when, of course, it hits you. Somewhere along this path to enlightenment you’ve been loping down lately, you forgot that part of the whole point is balance! You’re allowed to have fun, you’re allowed to laugh, and you’re really, really allowed to be present with others and seek connection even when they veer off the path you thought they should take.
Not to say, of course, that yoga should be all Crowgasms all the time. But when you step back and see what led to that moment of laughter, it was significant hard work and plenty of concentration. The fact that that woman’s success and celebration threw your own off course may serve as a very useful teacher indeed.