Curiouser

My blog-related reading is taking a back seat to finishing my other reading goals for the year, so no book this week.  Instead, I’m thinking about the connection between curiosity and movement.

I have two tendencies (at least!) that make me want to explore this.  One is that I am almost always in a rush.  Faster is almost always better, in my idiom, in the Monty Python sense of the word.  The other is that I’m almost always self-critical.  Clearly, I am doing it wrong, whatever it is.

But I have managed to notice something.  When I am compelled to slow down, as in yoga or Pilates, the constant criticism doesn’t help.  I’m not saying I’m not bad at lots of things in yoga and Pilates.  I am.  But when I approach whatever movement or balance or pose or exercise it is with a sense of curiosity rather than censure, I learn stuff.  What exactly is happening when I fall out of my own personal Tree (pose)?  How is one side different from the other?  What happens if I shift my hip or ankle or knee?  What if I think about baseball instead?  Some of those things help.  Some not so much, but even laughing is an improvement over the constant I-suck-at-this message.

Maybe everyone else is not like me.  But maybe some people are and could use a change from high-speed negativity.  Maybe we can learn.