I can touch my toes.
That statement might seem like a small accomplishment, but based on where I started, it’s the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest.
Back in March, KB gave me a gift pass to Yoga Soul so I would be forced to go to class with her or lose a couple hundred bucks. She’s a smart woman, while I might not be cheap, just giving away money isn’t within my MO either. Toward the end of the month, I finally relented and I went to yoga.
The first class was interesting to say the least. To say the most, about half way through one of the instructors had my legs held in the air as I tried to keep the weight of my body vertical and inverted. I did a lot of giggling and had you been there, you would have heard multiple utterances of, “Yea, my body isn’t going to do that.” Needless to say I did a lot of chuckling and scratching my head that first class but I was hooked. I’m not sure how she does it but Rachel tends to introduce you to a pose or move that you think is impossible, not just for yourself but based on physics. And then she does this sneaky little thing where she takes you into it one step at a time and pretty soon you have one leg wrapped around your shoulder and she’s telling you to next, if you have the space, lift that back leg off the ground and balance.
Yea, right.
As some of you may know and most of you clearly don’t care, I sold my road bike a few months ago. I just never rode it. In fact, when I did the math I had ridden it less than the last downhill bike that I owned and sold in 2009 and couldn’t justify having in my shed because it never got pedaled coasted.
Riding bikes for me has always been about the challenge. It’s not out of the ordinary for me to see something that I think is possible and then spend the next 20-30 minutes determining if it is in fact possible for me. The first move I conquered was the track stand in high school. I’ve always been a bit anti-social so I had a lot of time alone, to ride bikes. I spent countless hours practicing and practicing that one move until I could somewhat do it consistently. And then I moved onto the hop.
If bikes were about exercising and hitting that anaerobic threshold for a certain amount of time and then resting only to do it again, I would never ride bikes. That’s just not who I am. Which is why I sold my road bike, I prefer the challenge of the obstacle, of the move, not trying to rip my riding partner’s legs off on the next hill.
It’s about progression.
After attending classes somewhat consistently for a month or two, I was finally able to identify and describe the sensation I feel when I tried to touch my toes.
It starts as I feel a tightness in the back side of my legs in the hamstrings. Then it extends up as I feel it begin to pull on my hips. At this point, I’m maybe half way to my shins. As I start to push against that pull, an almost electric current begins in my lower back and flows through my legs, behind my knees and shoots into my feet. As I continue to reach, pushing against the pull coming from the back side of my legs, the sensation intensifies until my feet go numb.
It least that’s where I started. After six months of being pulled, prodded and twisted in ways that according to the Geneva Convention would be considered torture, I can in fact touch my toes. It’s not until I start wrapping my hands around my feet that the sensation shoots down the back of my leg and I know that I am almost as deep as I can go.
Sunday found the Church of the Holy Alliance of Mooseknucklers on Guacamole Mesa. We were there to do what we do, challenge ourselves by repeating what we’ve done before and hoping to find new lines, new obstacles, new moves that will challenge us from where we are and to take us to where we want to go.
Truth be told the only way to get there, to that place of bicycle nirvana, is to repeat the moves. To take the line that you know is going to buck you off and try it again. Think it out in your mind and then slowly trick yourself into doing what your brain, and maybe your body, is telling you you cannot. It’s akin to studying scripture, over and over again you read that mantra that says nothing to you, until you are in the place and ready to hear it. At that point, it makes more sense than anything else you’ve ever uttered and it is perfect.
It may take you a few months of trying, or a few attempts, but when your brain and body finally wrap around the idea that physics are on your side and you can launch your bike onto the rock, stop in your tracts, turn and make the drop off by lifting your front wheel with a quarter crank on the pedals, it all makes sense.
I’ll go ahead an warn you that I am about to use a cliché, but life is full of them and life is all about the yin and yang. The push and pull of our muscles or the difference between traction and momentum, the darkness being awakened by the pink hues of the morning. It’s the small celebrations that make life worth living.
Did I mention I can touch my toes?
P. L. and R.
