When I started my sessions with Sathish, who runs Fit O Crazy..I don't know what I expected but it certainly was not a deeper understanding of what my life lessons have been and how it was time for me to cast away some of the protective mechanisms that were not needed.
The other thing was - I had always thought I was a playful person. What I didn't realise was that while I knew when to be playful and when to be serious, I hadn't yet managed to use the transition from serious to playful to my advantage.
Sounds confusing yes? let me elaborate.
It was a simple exercise on balancing on the swiss ball. I had done it years ago and naturally, while I struggled with it due to lack of practice, I was not demotivated because if I had done it before I knew I would figure out a way to do it again.
I kept trying and the more I failed the more determined I became. Sathish suggested I use the wall for support to understand about the balance and that is when I got Lesson no:1
My instinctive response was "No I don't want to do that. I am afraid I will hurt myself."
Which was exactly the opposite of what could happen with the wall for support
Sathish calmly said "Why are you afraid?" I said "I will hit myself on the wall. I want to be free". He said "But it is safer there. You learn how to balance using the support and then come back to being free ". I struggled to accept that and I realised why. I was demonising the wall. But it was not the wall that I was afraid of.
Life had taught me not to rely on support. Many times, it had been taken away when I needed it most and I had had to learn to manage on my own. And instead of saying let me make my life easy and take the support safe in the knowledge that my past has taught me to manage on my own, I was willing to make life harder and reject support. I had picked the wrong lesson to learn.
Our past lessons of managing when our support is taken away has to be that we are able to continue without support. The smart thing to do is to make life easier by taking the support when it exists confident in the knowledge that we can manage even if it is taken from us.
My next lesson came from the way I took cues from Sathish.
I tried multiple times to get the balance on the ball after I came back from the wall assist. I failed.
Sathish had assessed that I work well under pressure .And so he said you have 20 seconds to find your balance on the ball. And after that I am going to throw a tennis ball for you to catch, You will do that five times.
The moment he put the pressure of time, within a short while I was up on the ball balancing myself. Wibbly wobbly but balancing. And just as I was about to lose balance Sathish called out "Just play" and that transitioned me from determined warrior to playful child and I started bouncing about on the ball, doing hip shakes laughing all the time. The focus had shifted from making it a challenge that I HAD to conquer to exploring a playful opportunity.
Lesson no 2 : Don't wait for perfection to find your opportunity to play. Once you have an acceptable level, shifting your focus to play relaxes you enough to trust your instincts better.
And the final lesson was exactly how joyous a challenge can be the moment we make it play. I was back to fierce warrior mode because now I had gotten the balance. I still had one more challenge - the 5 catches. Sathish said "Ok you have 20 seconds to find your balance " I found it in 5 -and I had this fierce glower on my face as I was trying to find the perfect posture that would allow me to execute the next challenge.
And that is when Sathish called out "PLAY..P.L.A.Y." as he spelt those letters, my face changed from fierce focus to a happy smile and I indicated I was ready to catch the ball - EVEN though I was not in the perfect position to do that.
When you look back at the video, I can see the transition on my face, and after that I can see my body automatically compensating while I light heartedly focused on catching and throwing the ball. And I did all five catch and throws. From an inherently unstable position.
You can choose whatever lesson you want and whatever warnings you want. You can add the disclaimer that this may not work all the time. But i chose to take away this. The fact that this worked this time is enough for me to loosen up a bit when it comes to challenges.
I may be comfortable with failure but I take a long time to give up. I still have to learn when to give myself a break before trying again. I also need to stop fighting for the perfect situation in one step. For sometimes the imperfect situation is good enough to achieve the next step. And after all it is progress that matters :)
I am sure there are many more lessons in store for me - just as I am sure that I will remember that the fierce warrior is as much a friend to my progress as is the playful child.
