Practice Every Day

When you practice yoga, meditation, or pretty much anything on a daily basis, you develop a relationship to yourself.  Themes and issues arise, to be met and moved through in a stream of continuity and creativity.  My meditation teacher Paul Muller-Ortega has a saying, "Random practice, random results."  

I clearly experienced this on my recent meditation retreat, where I was able to do a little yoga a few times a day before sitting for meditation.  One day I moved fluidly like the bobcats we saw near the meditation hall, and the next day I held wall push for one minute, forearm dog for one minute, and headless headstand for one minute.  A pulsation naturally developed between fluidity and firmness, between following something, and building something.

The structure has to be there in order for the fluidity to have something to dance within, including the structure of dailiness.  When I practiced just a little bit every day, even for 10 minutes, I was still familiar with the me from the day before; I hadn't lost myself yet in the accumulation of experience that happens so quickly in just a few days.  I remembered myself, and my body picked up where I had left off, like a good story that was yearning to tell the next chapter of itself.

If I wait too long between practices, it can feel like I am in a stranger's body, and I forget where and who I am.  I am starting all over, and there is an unfamiliarity with the instrument.  When I practice every day, I start to play this body medium more skillfully and with greater sensitivity.  And even with greater interest, since I haven't lost the thread of the music, the rhythm, and the joy.  I remember the particular twist of a muscle from the day before and the sensing I had about unwinding it, and I follow that spiral of body sensation to the next level of perception, and the next sense of inner instruction.  

In this way, practice becomes a magnetic daily attending to an ongoing storyline instead of any kind of harsh or imposed discipline.  It becomes something that weaves itself through your days like a haunting and compelling melody, filled with meaning.