Sitting…hardest thing ever

I could do the power poses, like chataranga to plank and back, no problem, but sitting, that was the hardest thing ever.” -Boof

A long discussion about the culture of working out, what workouts we feel geared toward (it was mostly a rant against the Crossfit obsession from Boof’s perspective) led me to say that yoga is really where I feel at home. I’ve been running, but yeah, yoga feels right. And when I do it consistently I see amazing strength and flexibility in body AND mind. And Boof encouraged me, because he said, “Yoga is the hardest workout I’ve ever done, and you’re built for it. It  comes naturally to you…the flexibility and balance. I could do power poses all day, like chataranga and plank and back, no problem, but sitting, that was the hardest thing ever.”

We were getting ready for bed, and so I let the conversation dwindle, after laughing about how right he was about the sitting part. Though he was talking about the physical. With years of playing intense sports like football and running on the treadmill without stretching, his body is strong, but also tight. He cannot sit “criss cross applesauce” on the floor on a normal afternoon, though after 9 months of yoga with me, he was able to. But it got me thinking about the other aspect of sitting, the mental, emotional and even spiritual act of…just sitting…that is, in fact, the hardest part of yoga.

Sitting.

Sitting.

Not doing anything.

Not faceboooking, or blogging, or thinking of facebooking, or thinking of blogging. Not getting up to clean the living room or giving in to the urge to watch the latest DVR’d episode of The Voice. Just sitting.

My husband thinks I’m good at it, that it comes naturally to me, and maybe he’s right in the physical sense, that my legs are flexible, but he’s wrong in so many ways. Sitting is hard, and I struggle with it, probably more than he realizes. My mind is like a manic hamster on redbull.

Because sitting is the hardest thing ever.