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One Small Change
The Verdict on Aging, Performance and Birthdays
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For the last month in this blog I’ve been trying to come to grips with a milestone birthday – my 50th – and what it means to performance and life. You’ve probably done the same when you turned 30, 40 or just marked the passage of another year. It’s human to assess and wonder.
To mark my half-century and attempt to gain some further insight and perspective, I spent five days at Kripalu in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. A former Jesuit seminary, Kripalu is an eclectic mix of college (schools of yoga, massage and ayurveda), commune (dorm living and lots of women without make-up), fitness facility (yoga, yoga and more yoga), retreat (silent breakfasts and a secluded wooded campus) and colon-cleansing center (fiber, fiber and more fiber). In many ways, it’s the perfect setting for digestion of all kinds.
I signed up for an intensive yoga seminar taught by a diminutive Indian fellow named Manju. He promptly proceeded to kick my ass for five hours every day. Manju’s motto is “99% practice, 1% theory,” which means he would enter the studio each morning and afternoon and promptly announce, “Okay everyone, let’s come to the front of our mats and start.”
Supplying only a minimum of instruction, he then commenced to pace the room with arms folded observing as we struggled through the dozens of choreographed postures that make up his traditional style of yoga. Occasionally, he would grab a limb or other body part and crank you farther into a pose than you had ever believed possible. He also enjoyed closing all the windows and turning off the ceiling fans about halfway through each session, causing little beads of sweat to actually pop out of my ankles and the entire room to take on the aroma of spoiled yogurt. Along the way there were lots of oms, chanting, and something called alternate nostril breathing.
Now I should say up front that I am not a New Age kind of guy, and my only previous experience with alternate nostril breathing was when I had to expel some snot on the fly while mountain biking. So this was all fairly new (and strange) to me. But I have to admit that by the end of five days, I felt a level of body awareness and strength, along with a measure of peace (except in my colon) that I had never experienced in my 50 years. One morning while sitting outside sipping coffee I fell into watching a chipmunk collect almond slivers for a good 20 minutes.
And somewhere in the midst of this delicious calm I realized that we have this birthday thing all wrong. We shouldn’t be celebrating the passage of another year in which the featured number (30, 40, 50) is given center-stage on cards and cakes. Rather we should be celebrating life. I know that sounds obvious, but for most of my birthdays I haven’t really done that. I’ve either become preoccupied with looking back or ahead. A birthday is the day we were given life and on that day each year at least, we should dip our hands fully into the joy of it, lick its frosting off our lips, and smile at its sweetness. That’s what I did at Kripalu, and that’s what I suggest you do the next time the passage of another year taunts you with its depressive potential. Exercise your body hard, turn off the fans and sweat, do something really weird, get lost in the woods, watch a chipmunk, forego the makeup…and just be grateful for the opportunity to experience, move, feel, and live. It is such a small change, but it feels so good.
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About The Author
Joe Kita – Joe Kita is a noted writer, editor, motivational speaker and teacher. He authors the blog "One Small Change" for CorePerformance.com.
