Since I've already gone through all of the reasons the class is incredible, I'll skip repeating them here. Instead I'll tell you what I thought about in class. Discipline. It's an interesting, amazing thing.
I'll admit that the last four or five days, I've kind of been bored of the challenge. Not physically tired, not sore. Just... bored. Part of the reason is because of my teaching/work schedule, the last week I have been "stuck" doing the various set sequence classes - Hot 60A, Hot 60B, Hot 75. I'm craving some variety -- Warrior Yoga, Yin Yoga, Restorative, Slow Flow. But they don't work right now. I'm also, frankly, sick of always having a pile of sweat soaked laundry to do. So I'm bored with the set sequences and I'm bored with laundry. Now, those reasons aren't going to stop me from finishing the challenge, but I was kind of bummed out by feeling this way.
Scott and I were talking about it on Thursday night, and he commented, "Ah, so you've hit your wall!" I scoffed a bit, saying, "Boredom isn't a wall! It's just boredom!" He disagreed, saying that my mental mindstuff was creating a roadblock to enjoyment. And this roadblock is something that could potentially create justification for walking away from the challenge. He knows I wouldn't actually do that. (Public shaming for my failure is a big deterrent.) But he knows the feeling.
I have probably mentioned that Scott is a passionate, avid hiker. His goal in 2012 is to hike 1000 miles. We're not even five months in, and he's already well past the half way mark. (Check out his incredible blog here... seriously a must read.) He certainly understands that, some days, boredom is the biggest obstacle to completing a 12 mile hike he's already done ten times. But powering through, going through the motions, is it's own reward. This discipline is helping him move closer and closer to his goal. And he still learns something, sees something, experiences something in each and every hike.
Hmm... food for thought.
Then to drive the point home, after Ashton Szabo's class on Friday night, we were talking about the challenge and boredom and discipline. Ashton said that people often don't follow through on things because they want to be free to do whatever they want. I want cake, I'll eat cake. I don't want to practice, well, I'm not gonna! But always following your whims doesn't make you free... it just makes you a slave to your impulses. True growth and happiness comes from being disciplined. For moving past your errant knee-jerk reactions or moments of doubt or boredom or whatever.
The discipline of practicing even if I'm bored of the same sequence is important. Because once I'm the class, I'm still learning. Even doing a sequence I've done 100 times, I'm creating muscle memory, building strength, and stamina, and focus. I'm learning ways to teach, I'm shutting out the outside world for an hour. And I'm following through on the internal promise I made to complete this challenge, and being true to that will ultimately make me a woman of my word... a stronger person.
Thanks to Scott and Ashton for helping me see my obstacles clearly, and understand why they're important to understand and move through.
Day 19
Classes Completed: 1
Hot 60 A Espanol - 8am - Trevor Hawkins
Progress Towards Goal: 21/31
It's interesting to think about what boredom really is. With all the stuff that happens in life, there's no reason that anybody should ever get bored. The stimuli are too omnipresent to create a situation in which there is nothing interesting to note, do, contemplate, or create.
ReplyDeleteBoredom, therefore, is a refusal. It's a cranky kid saying, "But I don't wanna do my homework, you can't make me." It's also a refusal to be in the moment, since that cranky voice drowns out what is actually happening at any given time.
That's not to say we shouldn't relax when we need it. We just need to be able to distinguish between exhaustion and boredom.