But fast-forward a decade while I grew a few inches taller, my hamstrings decided to crescendo into a taut group of widening muscles. At some point I enrolled myself into ballet classes paid with my work-study money at the Penn gym. After all, wasn’t this what liberal arts college was supposed to be like — a time to explore all my interests and live out my cut-too-short dreams? I felt excited in my American Apparel unitard. But I also distinctly remember feeling too broad in my shoulders and heavy in the legs. My butt clenched too quickly and I easily got charlie’s horse when I tried to point.
It’s about finding your way.
Our fears and our egos show up in different ways and one thing the practice offers is time, space and flexibility to explore that. My stuff comes up through the giant sensation in my hips and my mental obstacles to tackling handstands. My shoulders are probably strong enough now but I’m admittedly scared of flopping over, slapping my back on the floor and cracking my neck (well, when I describe it that way it doesn’t help). I would do these in the pool growing up, and now that I’m grown up, I’ll inch up a little at a time to get there one day to that feeling of weightlessness. The point is to just show up and see what happens.
Originally published at konakafe.com