Close Your Eyes. Good, Now Walk Slowly Around the Room in a Circle

My friend and fellow aerobics instructor Lucy has started to focus on teaching Yoga. Every few months, she hosts a restorative yoga session: two hours of meditative poses, though not poses like upward facing dog and headstands, but relaxing poses - some people even fall asleep in class.

Last week was the Fall session. This time, we ended class with a yoga walk, a meditative walk. I've never done this before. It's amazing what you can learn about yourself just by walking around a room in a circle for 10 minutes.

Lucy had us all stand up and form a circle. We were to close our eyes and and start walking as slowly as we could, heel to toe. What did I learn?

First of all, I don't know how to walk. Have you ever tried to walk slowly, I mean SLOWLY - allowing your foot to flow from the heel, through the arch, the heel lifting as the toe plants? Friends have often complained that I walk too fast, that they can't keep up. Though I try to slow down, well, I can't do it. Saturday, I had no balance. I kept stumbling and nearly falling. If I were watching myself from the side, yah, I would have been cracking up. But it's so true of my life. I don't know how to slow down. I just go, go, go. When I try to slow down, rest - I crash. And it's not easy to get up and get going again.

Second, I don't like people to slow me down, hold me back. It's no secret that with many things in life I am VERY impatient. Once we formed our circle and started to walk, I quickly realized that I was walking behind the slowest member in the class. I couldn't really keep my eyes closed because I would have run into her. By the end of the walk, we were all lined up closely behind her, the balanced, even spacing of our circle was gone. It was really distracting to me. I didn't feel very relaxed because I was nervous about crashing into her. I was annoyed that I was being held back, that I had to walk so slowly.

Finally, I don't like it when I can't do anything. My parents put us in a lot of classes growing up. We were given the opportunity to discover and develop a whole lot of talents. I wouldn't actually confess to be great at really anything, but I can do many different things. But boy does it bug me when I can't even do something simple, you know, like walking. If I can't do something I try to learn how to at least get the idea of how to do it. But when it's difficult for me to learn, I get very frustrated with myself. Ugh!

So, I don't actual mind the go, go, go life. It leaves me little time to stop and think and worry about stuff. Though I admit, it also means I'm not so good with decision making, since in a way, I just go with the flow and focus on checking off the next item on the list.

Am I ready to slow down? Probably not. But I am willing to learn to pace myself better. But I think it will take some time. After all, I learned to walk around age 1. Apparently I've been doing it wrong for 33 years. Though it's not impossible, it does take time to teach an old dog new tricks**. Just bear with me.

**Per PetPlace.com: :"Whatever they say about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks, it is patently untrue. Old dogs may not learn as quickly as they did when they were young, but with time and patience, most older dogs can be
taught to do anything a young dog can do."

p.s.- I'll be sure to post when I receive Lucy's next class announcement, if you'd like to accompany me.