Scratching the Surface

The biggest thing that happened in training today didn't take place in the training room at all. It is only day 4 but already what seems like a lifetime of lessons are coming up. Big Stuff. Like 'who am I?' , 'what do I really want to teach?', What am I here in this life and in this moment to learn?' Can I dare to tune into the darkness and the light as my greatest resource for sharing?' What's this training really all about for me? Its all much bigger than Downward Facing Dog pose, that's for sure.

Kira has been quoting Rilke in her classes and in training. "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." I've been trying to practice that wisdom a lot lately. I placed my questions in my God Box this morning and away to training I went.

An hour or so into training a very official looking policeman appeared at the back door looking for Wilson Addi. He snapped me right out of my focus on our discussion of Surya Namaskar and quite frankly scared the crap out of me. Lesson number One. Breathe when you are freaked out.

Breathing totally helped. Anyway the cause for all the bruhaha was that when parking at the studio this morning I had pulled my car into the bumper or a parked SUV and scratched it. The owner was very upset. Now I'm not much of a 'car person' so at first it was really hard to understand why she was so angry. It was just a little scratch in the surface of the paint, after all.

I was thinking, this is a lot like finding compassion for someone in what I think is an 'easy' pose. I intuitively knew that suggesting that 'with a little buffing I think that scratch will come right out' would be as unhelpful as insisting to a student struggling with tight hamstrings and calf muscles to press their heels into the floor in Down Dog.

Hummmm. Maybe all this has a lot to do with Downward Dog after all. I'm learning that to teach a posture effectively is to do so with compassion. Look at the student and listen. Let them be themselves and let the postures find them. How do you do that? It seems to me that it all starts with being grounded and centered in myself and holding an energetic space to let people express what they need to express. Heels don't touch the floor, no problem. Scratch on your bumper, yeah, that's not cool. It was a lovely SUV. I caught that lady's drift. Listen to her anger, accept responsibility, apologize, and assure her that I would pay for the damage. I did that, I meant it and created that space from my heart.

When I returned home after training that day I took a moment to sit down and breath deeply. Relaxed and centered I picked up the phone and called the lady to apologize again and reassure her I would pay for the damage. For me, I just really needed to reconnect with her.

She met me on the phone with complete calm reconnection too. Indeed, her husband was able to buff the scratch out. "Don't worry about it after all", she said. I could have kissed her! Not so much because she let me off the hook on repainting her bumper, but because she taught me a lot about the beauty of compassion. That was an amazing lesson and I'm learning how to practice it both on and off the mat. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm just scratching the surface on my compassionate journey.