The tree pose is not one that I find easy at the best of times. It is a balance pose that requires you to exert energy in directions counter to your intuition. You plant one foot on the ground, and gradually raise your other leg, pushing your foot, with bent leg, towards the standing leg, against which it rests. There must be better ways to describe this, but the complexity mirrors the concentration required to balance, pushing and lifting in different directions.
Last Sunday I had the pleasure of doing this pose on the beach, in a morning yoga class. It was a beautiful day, with bright clear skies and the sounds of the sea lapping against the shore in accompaniment to the gentle accented voice of the instructor. Most people in the class had huge square towels laid out like a giant patchwork of people, whilst my friend and I, new to beach yoga, stood on yoga mats that did not contain us, nor resist the sand!
There are usually a few balance poses in a yoga class towards the end when the body is well warmed up, but when the surface beneath your feet gives, almost any pose requires balance and your full attention. This gives beach yoga a different type of challenge. Being outside to do yoga is something I have rarely done, and never in such warm conditions. We started at 8, and by 8:45 the heat on the side of my face, turned up towards the sun in a twisting pose, reminded me that I had left the house without putting on the factor 50 face cream. This was the first class I had done for a while, and luckily it was Hatha, where poses are held for longer, rather that a hot and fast Ashtanga sequence. Although my muscles did not feel the burn by the end of the class, my face certainly did. With limbs leaving the protection of the mat, in the final stretching poses before Shavasana, my sweaty body was covered in a layer of sand, like a chicken breast rolled in egg and breadcrumbs reading for frying.
It was of course worth every grain of sand stuck to my body, and I’m keeping my eyes out for those giant towels.
After yoga I went for a chai latte and had the company of this bird with the most piercing eyes. I think it’s a Greater Antillean grackle (Quiscalus niger)- what an amazing name! Wikipedia says ‘it is a rather large gregarious bird’, it was certainly very chatty!
Seeking praise
Talking of firsts, this week saw another for me- trying out the game of Ultimate Frisbee. I have vague recollections that a friend of a friend played it at university, but at the time it was something I had zero interest in. Yet when a new friend mentioned that they were going to frisbee last Wednesday, I was curious, and this week I asked if they minded if I came along.
I did not know if Ultimate frisbee requires a special frisbee, but I was pretty sure it required special skills that I did not yet possess. I did not want to look and feel like and idiot, so I went to the sports ground with a dark and light t-shirt, as advised, and a bottle of water, to see what the craic was. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to watch or join in.
I arrived to a brightly lit field with footballers warming up, and beside it, a dark field full of wading birds and chickens. Was I in the wrong place, I wondered? Then a tall man in a white t-shirt walked through the gap in the fencing, and suddenly the second field was flooded in light. A flurry of white and black wings lifted themselves from the grass, and flew to the other end of the pitch. They knew the drill, and it was time to move aside. The chickens, as chickens do here, continued doing what they were doing, wandering wherever they fancied.
Another man arrived, and the two started throwing a frisbee between them. The older man introduced himself, shook my hand and invited me to join them. Nervously I introduced myself, and said I didn’t really know what I was doing as I hadn’t played before. I proceeded to spend 15 minutes throwing the frisbee back and forth with these two men. They told me that the most important part of the throw was the flick as you release it, as this creates the spin that makes it fast, flat, and straight. Some of my throws achieved this, but most of them (if I was lucky) just had one at a time, with a little wobble before it settled into its trajectory.
‘Sorry’. As it goes off to the left
‘Sorry’. As it flies over his head.
‘Sorry’. As it drops to the floor.
‘Oh!’ As my hands clap together and the frisbee flies beyond them.
‘Oh'!’ As I jump and miss it.
Feeling a bit of a wally, I keep throwing, and resist the desire to collect my things and go home!
The two guys keep throwing to me, and one of them shows me a range of throws including the backhand, scuba, the hammer, and another couple that I don’t recall. I couldn't get my head, or my fingers, around the different grips and hand angles. Trying to replicate something when the instructor is facing the opposite direction makes it difficult to make sense of the visual spatial information. Him coming up and showing me helped, but made me feel more self-conscious of my dextral failings. I decided to stick to the ordinary forehand, and focus on improving the distance and direction!
Then, the unexpected sound from the receiver of-
‘Great throw!’
Wonderful words of encouragement when I got the technique just right! An extra glow of hope that kept me on the pitch, and kept me throwing. The praise came from another person, but frisbee is like learning tennis and golf- you know the feel and sound of getting it right. Having someone acknowledge it keeps you pushing through the self consciousness. It is very different to be a learner in a group of learners, where there is usually laughter and fun in the failures. We all feel nervous and self conscious, and this often connects and sustains us. But being the only new person, it matters how other people respond to your ineptitude! These guys were patient, and it was mostly my own discomfort that I had to battle.
Getting and staying in the game
The game started- two teams of seven stood at opposite ends of the pitch, within the scoring zone, pointing out who on the other side they were marking. Neither team has a fixed end, and if I remember, this swaps each time play starts. The frisbee is thrown by the defending side, and the attacking team catch it and start play. Like netball, once a player has caught the ball they have to stay still, and (I don’t recall if this is also like netball) then they have ten seconds to throw it on. A defender will stand in front of them and generally try to get in the way and make it hard to get the frisbee away. They might count loudly, trying to put the player off even more.
If all goes to plan, players will pass to their own players, and will make a catch in their scoring zone. The opposition will make chase, trying to catch the frisbee themselves, or to get their body in the way. Unlike netball, where the team with possession of the ball takes the next play, in Ultimate Frisbee the opposition team do not need to attempt to get the frisbee. They just need to knock it out of the hand of the attackers for play to turnover. Once overturned, the defenders become the attackers, and have ten seconds to make their own first throw.
Action shot of the dark team chasing down the white frisbee, heading to the score zone.
It’s fast paced, and there is a lot of ground to cover for so few people. The frisbee can be thrown forwards or back, so players can be pulled in every conceivable direction. After just a few minutes of play my heart was racing.
‘Don’t panic!’, was the most helpful instruction called by a teammate. Ten seconds seems like nothing, but is actually quite long if you’ve slowed your breathing and you look up to see where the team mates are. I saw how the different throws were used- an overhead hammer throw thwarting the best efforts of dancing defenders, and long floating passes perfectly timed for the fastest runners to meet in the score zone.
At the end of the evening I was chatting to another player, and she asked-
‘Have you played before?’
‘No. This was my first time.’
‘You did better than a lot of new players. You can tell you’ve played team sports before.’
It’s nice to know you’ve gone and tried something new and not ‘shown yourself up’, as my gran would put it.
I’d been warned before I went that some people at the club might be competitive and critical if I dropped the catches (which increased my apprehension about going). Of course I did drop the frisbee, but the players were all kind to me. I did my best, I got stuck in- showing my willingness to give it a go. I don’t yet know if I’ll go back and play, but I’ve found some links that will help me learn the different skills, and you can look up if you’re curious about the game.
Keep getting out there
‘You’re not afraid of putting yourself out there’, a friend from home commented kindly.
It’s easy to view this kind of thing as something you just have to do when you move overseas, know no-one and have no routine yet, but she’s right. It is brave. It’s not easy to get out of your comfort zone, especially when you know you are not very good at something. And after 20 minutes I was done, so spent the rest of the evening watching from the side-lines. There were the perfect conditions for donating my blood to the mosquitos (I noticed the mangrove swamp next to the stadium as I drove into work the next morning, and imagined the engorged bodies sleeping-in in a blood-drunk stupor!)
When we go out of our comfort zones we grow, and learn, but also we experience discomfort. Self doubt or our ego can keep us from trying, or stop us from persevering. How others respond can feel crucial. The praise, and certainly the encouragement from the two guys, helped me to tolerate my discomfort. But we don’t always receive this kind of reception. Would I have considered returning if they had sighed every time I dropped the frisbee, or told me how rubbish I was? I doubt it. I’d likely have driven home feeling disappointed, creating stories of how terrible I was at throwing a frisbee.
We can forget that how others respond to our vulnerability is not in our control, and we need to find ways to manage the feedback we get. If we love doing something, to some degree the feedback we receive when we are doing it needs to be irrelevant. What matters more is the response, and the story we gift to ourselves.
It can feel wonderful to receive positive feedback from others, but we must not rely on it. I do not need the ‘good throw’, to feel the difference as it leaves my hand and soars through the sky. I can choose to notice it and congratulate myself, developing my internal motivation and sense of worth, rather than feeding any reliance on the judgement of others.
I love writing, and at the end of the day, I write mostly for myself. Having people read and enjoy it is like the feel of the good throw, that keeps me in the game. Writing makes me notice the world differently. I love sitting down at the laptop and seeing how my week comes out on the page. It makes me remember things I’ve done, and find links between bigger themes.
I write with much hope. I hope to convey my enjoyment in the quiet, small things in life, and that it will help bring some balance to all the horror that we see acted out in the world, and bring you back to your anchor.
Many of you I know, and some of you I do not, but I love the idea of you sitting down on a Sunday afternoon, and taking care of the world around you. If we all continue to do this, what might be possible?!
A moth that I rescued from the pool this week. It clung to my finger as I tried to put it on the dry ground, like a frightened child. This, I believe is a Rustic Sphinx Moth. It has different marking to the last Sphynx moth I found, and is slightly smaller.
As a psychologist, I am usually the one listening, and making sense of other people’s experiences. I work hard to hear what is said, and what is not, and to contain the often messy emotional content, so that I can present it back, when the time is right, in a way that the person can see, feel, and maybe understand differently. Last night I sat on the outdoor sofa and the roar of waves seemed to creep closer in the dark. I breathed in the black air, and felt calm.
I have bravely stepped way out of what is normal to me, which brings some discomfort every single day. This week my thoughts have also been on those in Florida and Mexico, with the terror of hurricane Milton. We’ve felt Milton’s shadow here, resulting in powerful waves, closed roads, retreating beaches, and body beading humidity, and it reminds me how connected we all are on this planet. Some days we can manage little more than putting our oxygen masks on, one gentle step in front of the other, taking the breaths that we need to keep going. It is enough!
Leaving the house this week there was a chewiness to the air. Humidity probably, but as I breathed in, I tasted salt in my throat. I had to use the windscreen wipers three times that morning to clear the salt on the way to work. It must have been brought in by the hurricane wilding sea. Then this morning I can smell the thick grass that was cut recently, and the acrid taste of cigarettes. Not everything we experience when we step outside our comfort one will be to our liking, but by focussing internally, we can stay anchored to what we know to be true.
Have a lovely day- and remember, whether you get praise or criticism from the outside world, know your worth, and the challenge and wonder of mastering something new.
Thank you for joining me and reading my article.
If there’s something you liked or that made you think about the things that get out of your comfort zone, please do leave a comment.
I absolutely love reading these, Jo! So evocative, amusing and thought-provoking - an interesting mix!
Loved the chicken breast simile too 😆