The ease in the effort

I’ve been thinking lot lately about finding the ease in the effort.  This is what my supremely talented Barre3 instructor, Summer Spinner, (yes, her real name) says as we are holding the most challenging pose of the morning.  It’s that pose that requires every muscle – including those you never knew you had – to fire.  There’s a way of achieving this by tensing everything, from inner thigh to outer glute, from multiple layers of abdominals to the entire back body.  When I first find my way to this pose, here’s what happens:  My neck tenses, my shoulders lift and my face scrunches up.  Then I hear Summer say, “now find the ease in the effort,” and the entire posture changes for me.  I release my neck and slide my shoulders down.  I untense my face.  I close my eyes.  I take that breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.  And everything goes deeper. “Ease” is not what I’d call it because all those muscles are still very busy.  It’s more a place of stability, almost peace —  “the calm within the chaos,” which is another thing Summer says.

I know I know.  You’re reading that and thinking:  Spare me the New Age hoo-ha.  But really, I am here to tell you, this is important stuff.  I’m not just talking about what happens for me in a Barre3 class. I’m talking about the bigger lesson I am learning because of this.  I am talking about an attitude, an approach to counterclockwise living.

Finding the ease in the effort is, for example, a way to change that demanding, insistent, relentless self-talk (I am going to eat an anti-aging diet, damn it, with 8 cups of veggies and 4 ounces of lean protein and nothing white ever — except cauliflower) to a calmer, saner, happier I am going to enjoy and delight in healthy, mindful eating.  It’s a way to change I am going to put in my 3 days a week of cardio and my 3 days a week of weights and remember to stretch at least 15 minutes, damn it to I am going to live in my body and enjoy and delight in physical activity.

When you try so hard, the trying takes over.  It becomes all about trying, and what you are doing and how you are experiencing what you are doing is lost in the effort and the sweat and the scrunched up face. Believe me.  I know.  This is one of most challenging lessons I am trying to learn.  (But trying to not try so hard.) I am so surprised that finding the ease in the effort is so much harder than finding the effort.

Here’s what Mikhail Baryshnikov has to say on this subject:  “It is harder to be relaxed on stage than to produce high powered virtuosity.” Think on that.