The Imitation Game

I was running errands in my neighborhood the other day, when I recognized a friend and student from afar.  As I stopped her in her tracks,  we both laughed at how after being neighbors for so many years, we finally ran into each other outside of the Yoga School.  I mentioned to her how when I first caught a glimpse of her walking down the street, I thought to myself, “Wait, I know that fierce haircut!!”

Which is when she started to share,  “Yes but now I have been having my doubts about my new haircut.”   “Yes of course you have.  I know those doubts.”  I said.  She continued,  "No but I saw a picture of myself from before when I had long hair.”  I nodded, “Yes I have a lifetime of those pictures as well.”    “And I am just wondering if I looked better then with longer hair...”,  she reflected out loud.   Again I said, “Yes, this is what it is. This is what we do to ourselves!”   I recognized each of those emotions as my very own being played back to me.

Which is when I started to consider how so much of our life is an imitation.  Imitation is in part how we learn to be in the world.  Through imitation we learn how to be proper. Through imitation we learn how to be professional, funny, fashionable, etc.  Through imitation we even learn how to be a Yogi.

One aspect of it is imitating others.  Another aspect which perhaps arises later in life,  is how we start imitating ourselves.  An attempt to imitate who we were in that picture with longer hair or with hair.  Who we were when when we were happy in that job, in that relationship, in that city.  Who we were before our injury when we could get our leg behind our head.  Imitating who we were with the body of a 22 year old rather than this body of a 42 year old (that imitation game can land us some interesting places indeed).

So now really who has time to be like others, when we are trying so very hard to be our selves – our many selves – our past, present & future selves!

Further:

- "Normally, when people say they are just ‘‘expressing themselves,’’ what they are actually doing is expressing some tiny fraction of themselves that they allow through—because it fits with their existing model of themselves..." David Life

- Often we enter into a Yoga Posture entering into an idea, an image of what we are supposed to be in the asana.  We try to replicate a picture we have of ourselves from the last time we were in that posture.  Once we have met that idea of ourselves from the past, we stop actively participating in the asana.  We feel like we "Got It!" and with that getting it, reaching our destination, we Stop. We ride out the breath count drafting emails and grocery lists.

- Yoga and Meditation try to open us to the experience of "Let it" rather than "Get it", an Entering Into an Asana that also involves a Letting In of where we find ourselves without matching it to imagery or the imaginary.

- Which is why we enter into a posture by letting in the breath, by letting in our contact with the earth through our hands and feet, letting in how that contact is informing our range of movement now and today.  In the uncovering that there is no getting "It", no final destination, we continuously explore & expand through the space of infinite potential.