Winning at Yoga

Is feeling competitive a good thing?

I used to think “Hell, no.” I used to avoid it in all things, at all costs.

I was the uncoordinated kid who was always picked last for teams. I wasn’t competitive as a kid in gym and sports, I came to loathe them, because I didn’t have a chance of “winning.”

Being forced into competitive situations then, when it didn’t fit, did harm.

I think this happens to a lot of people. How else do you explain why over 80% of all American adults don’t exercise?

So often, people have such bad memories that it leads to a lifelong aversion to any exercise, which is sad.

Who is at fault? The adults – gym teachers, coaches and parents – who get so caught up in vicarious competition that they forget the point. Shouldn’t we be teaching and encouraging all children about physical fitness?

I was lucky. I eventually discovered exercise can be fun.

Because my college had a PE requirement, I signed up for a student-taught dancercise class. (Hush, that was all the rage in the ‘80s.) The teacher, apparently a dancer, was just a good teacher, a nice person.

I wish I could remember her name. That class was life-changing, no exaggeration.

I have to laugh.  Recently, I asked a trainer at the local Y for advice.  I told him I wanted to be able to do the yoga poses that the most advanced students in my classes can do. You know, stuff like this. Which I am, incidentally, nowhere near doing.

“Wants to win at yoga,” wrote the trainer in his notes.

Yup, I’m finally good enough at a physical endeavor, which doesn’t even have to be that good, to experience feeling competitive as motivation.

Yay!