Early on in my yoga teacher training we were taught to welcome the class and invite them to "Let go of competition, judgment and expectation". To this very day, I still pull upon those ideas of coming to the mat with the intention of being fully present and connected to ourselves without comparing ourselves to our neighboring practitioners. People have also commented that they were too self-conscious to come to a class for fear of looking foolish or being unable to keep up. My hope is that everyone can find their way into a yoga practice and it saddens me to hear that people might not feel "good enough" to do so.
I try to encourage people to give it a go because when we get into our own practice very few people (other than the instructor) are paying that much attention to what we're doing. If we are well taught, our focus turns inward not giving us much room to be thinking about someone else's practice.
Yet, as I've been watching the Australian Tennis Open these past few days, I have had immense inspiration from the positive competitive spirit. It has been well demonstrated by the likes of Roger Federer, Li Na, Rafael Nadal and Eugenie Bouchard. They are completely focused on the present moment, of hitting the next shot and moving on to what's next. It is said that great tennis players have very short memories, minimizing their focus on past mistakes and bringing it to what needs to happen now. And times exist when they've had their backs up against the wall, where the fragile next point is the difference between staying in the tournament or going out with a loss. You can see them stay with their ritual, take a deep breath and continue with focused precision.
When I watch high level performance, it re-connects me to my inner competitor. I grew up being a competitive athlete-softball, volleyball, soccer, diving, track and field and gymnastics. Being on the competitive stage was a normal part of my life. I left competitive sports for a while until I started playing competitive tennis in my late 30's which re-ignited my inner competitive athlete. I wanted to do well, improve and win. So how did I come to a happy place between the completely non-competitive yoga paradigm and the highly competitive (somewhat self-imposed) world of tennis?
I don't know if I ever completely did reconcile the two. I'd be on the tennis court and the alter-ego (the out of control, frustrated and angry competitor) would surface. I'd even surprise myself in my outbursts of frustration, thinking, "With all the yoga you do, who IS that person who acts as though you've never heard of such a thing?". On a particular day of frustration during a tennis tournament, my alter ego appeared. My doubles partner asked the same question, "With all the yoga you practice, where does this come from?". I answered, "There's this fire breathing dragon that seems to dwell deep within. When she gets frustrated, she bursts out of control to the surface and roars". So, my wise friend replied, "We all have them. How about we name ours?", which we did.
In doing so I now recognize a yogic practice of pulling something out of the shadow and into the light. By naming my angry dragon, I began to give her less power. It didn't mean that she didn't appear, but as soon as she began to blow smoke out of her nostrils I would greet her and ask her to either back down or give me just a little boost. I made friends with my dragon and she no longer ruled my queendom.
So I am grateful for seeing the beauty of professional athletes who harness their energy in order to benefit rather than defeat their performance. And I am grateful that I can step onto a yoga mat and not give an iota of energy to competing with anyone, including myself.
Just the right dose seems to do the trick in satisfying both ends of the spectrum. Game, set, match.
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