“spikes” by devi laskar

I just started going to a local yoga class. I’ve done yoga here and there over the years, but I am no one you could call a yogi. But I’ve been learning some things in this class that have translated to my writing practice, and I wanted to share those with you.

First, my teacher, Ann Austin, said (and she was quoting her teacher, I think) that people who are less flexible have a shorter commute to yoga. In other words, yoga happens (she said this, too) not when you are doing something that is super easy for you, but when you are up against the edge of your comfort. Right? So the fact that I can get uncomfortable really fast, just by, say, bending over, means I can get right to my yoga practice. Someone pretzelled in half no problem? That person isn’t even doing yoga.

So, how does this apply to writing? It’s back to that old complaint about how hard writing is. That’s the yoga of writing. You’re up against the edge of your comfort. You are stretching something that hasn’t been stretched that way. Sure, you can keep it easy, boring, blah blah blah, but the yoga of writing is to lean into it, to breath into the places that are tight, to find your own edge and stay there.

Fact it, if you went to the gym and worked out with a personal trainer and you didn’t break a sweat, weren’t sore the next day and basically couldn’t even tell you worked out—would you be happy? Maybe for a day, maybe if you could tell yourself you were just so in shape and flexible you didn’t need to breath heavily to exercise. But sooner or later, you’d have to stop fooling yourself and stop wasting your time. You have to break a sweat. Olympic athletes don’t count an easy, sweat-free day as a good day, and neither should writers.

Remember, you are getting strong when you lift those psychological weights, hold those challenging poses. You are getting more flexible, more powerful, more centered. You are doing the yoga of writing.