I have a “No Fucking Way” list.
Still, during a moment of childlike, how-far-can-I-push-the-limits-ness approximating Drumpfian proportions, I made a delightful mistake: I innocently inquired about “Tic-Tocs” (aka jump into handstand, land in a backbend and then jump back over as if you are a 14-year-old gymnast in the f-%$ing olympics).
Talk about “No fucking way.”
Here’s my experience with the ashtanga intermediate series: It’s fun (backbends— my favorite!), it’s hard (legs behind the head, forearm stand pretzel shapes and so on, etc. . . ), it’s scary (a total of seven “don’t try this at home kids” headstands, mere mentions of which are likely banned at certain yoga studios and which probably play a starring role in the nightmares of a certain William J. Broad) and then once all that fun, hard and scary stuff is . . . adequate? Passable? Passably adequate? Then you get tic-tocs? Well, consult the Ashtanga police or try your own teacher if you want the correct answer, but for what it’s worth that’s the gospel I heard down in the grapevine. A moment later, I had my answer: The teacher would give me tic-tocs, but he probably shouldn’t, because you’re not supposed to get poses if you chase them. Duh.
Ruh-roh. Tic -Tocs. The it-girl of my No Fucking Way list.
Perhaps I should back up. Forgive me, I’m floating Instahigh in a sea of Periscope-dope, snapchatastic, youtube-loopy, repost-a-rific wet dreams. You been there? I scroll through the reel of “yoga videos” highlighted by the IG App’s undoubtedly expert yoga interns and see cliff’s-edge handstands, cirque-de-soleil backbends and dogs/cats/ferrets/exotic birds/human children/perfect beach hair accessorizing arm balances. I see feats, beauty, and who am I kidding, WTF! I see yoga friends— mere fucking mortals— doing stuff that still seems as out of reach for me as a close friendship with Rihanna.
No matter where you look, you can see a whole lot of shit to add to your very own “No Way, No-How Fucking Way I’m Ever Doing That” list.
Remember those “Tic Tocs“? For me they are “No Fucking Way“— squared!
(1) I’m never ever gonna do a handstand without a wall in striking distance (duh).
(2) I’m never ever going to fall over from a handstand into a scorpion pose and hold it without help (I mean, duh).
(3) I’m never ever going to fall over from handstand/scorpion into a backbend (As if).
(4) I’m never ever going to jump back over into a downward dog from that backbend (I literally can’t even).
If you’re reading this and calling bullshit on my forearm stand-happy ass ever thinking it could not do this: First, let me say thank you for thinking this way about me, all three of you. Second, let me say, really. I have fear; I roll around with it every fucking day, every fucking second series headstand, every word I write, every time I touch the top of the bouldering wall and freak out. Even my teacher, when I told him I was afraid of handstand, disbelieves: “But I have seen you do it.” And I say yeah, with a wall!!!!
Then one Sunday I met up with ashtanga comrades for a group practice and one took a video of me doing tic tocs (well, just the tics, but who’s counting?) with assistance.
The girl in the video was ME.
With assistance, sure, a “No” and perhaps an expletive, but man, that was Me in that video and boy was it clear: I Am Totally Going To Fu#@ing Do This!
It may take 10,000 hours of practice but I. Am. Totally. Going. To. Do. This.
Well, kind of.
l kind of feel I’m going to do this. I still harbor disbelief. I still default to “No fucking Way.” I still think, really, could that be me one day, doing that all by myself, like I’m a member of the US Gymnastics team? But after the initial slide into the well-worn pattern of self-doubt, the hours logged on my mat refute it. Practice, regular practice, leaves in its wake a trail of hard evidence, evidence that counters all this self doubt, all those fears, all those imagined no fucking ways. Now it is the “no fucking way” reverberating in the brain that takes on a false, “in my head only” imaginary glow (thanks to Ashtanga).
The “no fucking ways” are my imaginary friends without benefits. It is possibility, today, that stands on reason.
Because just about everything on my current “I Can Fucking Do This” (with expletives, and ok this stuff still needs work) list was once, not long ago, on my “Never No Fucking Way” list: Headstand, handstands (even with a wall), crow pose, drop backs, just about every other thing in the primary series, forearm stand, jump backs, karandavasana, supra kurmasana. My Instagram feed of oh-so important music video clips of my home practice is like a slap in the face to my four-years-ago “No Fucking Way” list; indeed, my daily practice is a living, breathing, sweating retort to any assertion of anything “never fucking” happening. And it isn’t just on the mat: I ski moguls through trees. I climb. I say and believe things that once were crazypants. I practice in bikini tops and ripped t-shirts. I love my body.
I’m not the girl I thought I was. I’ve practiced myself into someone different— Goddammit, you practice ashtanga long enough and suddenly, “Never say never” sounds right.
The fantasy is that I am incapable. The reality is that I am nothing but.
So yeah I’m going to do those tic-tocs; hell I’m going to do everything else I said I would never do. I’m going to get out there, on my mat, on my laptop, on the mountain and I am going to start. I am going to do the work if I want it. I’m going to write words, goddammit. I’m going to make this fantastic damn yoga retreat happen and I’m going to figure a way out of the mess inside my head.
Well, I’m going to try. (You come too?)
So I really don’t have a “No Fucking Way” list anymore. I have an “Anything Could Happen” (I hope, maybe, with practice) list. Or, as Sri K. Pattabhi Jois put it,
“Practice and all is coming.”
Except perhaps, for cliff’s-edge handstands— I’m not going to inquire about those.