#7: Practice makes practice
During my first yoga class in the multi-purpose room at the Williamsburg Rec Center in 1997, I fell out of tree pose. Tree pose is one of the first standing balances taught to beginners. I immediately yanked my foot up on my leg and attempted it again. My feet were covered in glitter from the after-school program we shared the room with, and now my black pants were streaked with it as well.
The teacher smiled at me and said, “Good, it’s good you fell out of the pose.”
At the end of class, I walked out embarrassed that I kept falling out of tree pose and annoyed at the glitter on my pants. The teacher stopped me and said, “I look forward to falling with you again in the next class.” And now I was also confused because I was being encouraged to fall — wasn’t the point of anything, everything to get “good” at it?
That was my first introduction to the concept of practice.
Hundreds of thousands of falls later — on the yoga mat & off — I don’t know much more about having a practice than I did that day back in 1997. One thing I have learned, though: In order to truly practice, we need to be a mess — at least occasionally. Not a performative, transactional mess that social media has toxically imprinted into our reptilian brains as what being vulnerable looks like. I’m talking about a legit mess. All the feelings, all the tears, all the thoughts, all the mishaps, getting sick, getting depressed, getting stuck — all the happenings that happen when trying to get out the door every day for a run or trying to get to that goal start line. Because we are human, we are prone to being a mess. What helps us work with all that messiness as it shows up in our running? Developing a practice.
Having a practice transformed my whole life. Yes, the concept was — and still is! — esoteric to me. When I first started practicing yoga, I scoffed in my mind about the value of process and practice. I was brought up in a traditional Italian Catholic family with immigrant roots: my life’s path was to do better than the generation before me; college and a career that looked nothing like what my grandparents or parents did. That was decided for me in the womb. My brain had been exposed to a linear — aka a ladder — way of thinking. At 27 years old, faced with a (mis) diagnosis of asthma, I reluctantly showed up at yoga to keep running, because I loved running. I loved how there were miles and splits and you could Get! Better! At! It! I didn’t understand how to get better at yoga.
And then I got hurt in a yoga class. About two years into my yoga practice, I fell out of a pose at Go Yoga in Williamsburg. The pose was way beyond my physical ability at the time, but my ego was strong. A loud snap of my hamstring permeated the whole room as I fell to the ground. I limped home up Bedford Avenue, angry and confused. Now I couldn’t run OR do yoga, forget about getting better at either of them.
In the months that followed, I decided to entertain this concept of practice.
24 years later, here’s where I’ve landed on practice.
Do the thing
Do it a lot*
Do it poorly
Find the joy as best I can in every moment of the thing
Be a goldfish (Thanks, Coach Lasso — it’s a better metaphor than “let go”)
Repeat the next day
Let’s start with #s 1-2 today. (And asterisks here: “a lot” is in relation to YOU as you are NOW, not anyone else. So, if I'm a recreational walk/runner, why in the world would I compare myself to my friend who is an ultra runner? Or if you’re running for fun now, but you used to run marathons, do you devalue your work now because it feels "lesser?" Let your "a lot"s be very different. That is GOOD. Please read this through your own filter, and drop all the garbage of should or feeling lesser than.)
Numbers 1 and 2 go together like peanut butter and jelly. When we run a lot, the theory is we “get good at running.” This is a ladder approach — the rungs stack neatly on top of each other. When, in fact, the more we run, the more confusing running can be because some runs are amazing! Some runs suck! Why is this? A practice-based approach encourages us to approach running as a lattice versus a ladder. A lattice-based approach helps make sense of the non-linear nature of the human body, the human heart, and the human mind. Because, the human you are goes out for a run, not some mythical creature without all the stress and ups and downs you experience in your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies.
I like to think about this lattice as forming a brightly colored patchwork quilt. The thread that holds the quilt together is my consistent act of running, and each square on the quilt is different races, different seasons, different runs — each encapsulates a different story. The beauty is in the variety of the experience, as what emerges in this beauty is our humanity. We learn and grow our running toolbox when we skillfully work with the variations that appear in our runs… thanks to our bodies being and doing their own thing! It’s also exhausting to be at war with your body if you run a lot. At some point - I hate to break it to you - someone’s got to call uncle, your body will win over your mind.
My last training cycle in the spring of this year was a lattice, for sure. It was the first “successful” training cycle I’ve been able to string together since finishing menopause in 2019. I have spent the past four years managing chronic hot flashes and night sweats, HRT that worked — then didn’t — and random injuries (thanks to tripping on a trail — it happens!). What used to work for my training and my running was outdated. In a lot of ways, the act of running challenged my running practice because I was running based on what I was versus what I am.
The weather on my race day was beautifully messy — cold and pouring for most of the race, then bright skies and rays of sunshine for the last 2 miles. I shocked myself and eked out a 36-second marathon PR — taking down a PR that was 8 years old. Yes, the PR is great. What’s also great? Settling into what my running is — and can be — at this stage of my life. My 6th marathon happened thanks to the most basic of training approaches — run a lot of easy miles — but was successful because I committed to being a beginner all over again — like I did in that yoga room back in 1997.