Another Word for Stubborn Tapas Maybe

by Nina

Leaf in a Grid by Melina Meza

Baxter and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about what “yoga for healthy aging” means. He said that he felt that essentially it was an attitude, you know, the combination of acceptance and active engagement we’ve been talking about since the early days of the blog (see What We Need to Practice  and Acceptance, Active Engagement, and the Bhagavad Gita). Then our conversation—as so often happens—wandered off track and we started talking about various older yoga teachers we know, how some of them were still very physically capable while others had lost a lot of abilities due to injuries and other physical problems. 

In reference to one particular teacher we knew, Baxter said he thought her injuries and physical problems were due to over-practicing asana over the years. 

I shook my head and said, “I think that some people are just more physically robust than others.” And then I mentioned another older teacher who was a very dedicated practitioner of asana who still seemed to be very good physical condition. 

“That’s also true,” Baxter said.

“Like me,” I sighed. “I not very physically robust.” 

“Yes, you are, Nina!” he said. “You’re very robust! Look at you, you recovered completely from two different bouts of frozen shoulder.”

I laughed. “I’m not robust. I’m just very stubborn. I remember once when someone was commenting on how I was practicing during class even while I had a frozen shoulder, Donald said, “Nina never gives up!”

Baxter laughed, too. “Maybe you should write about that—being stubborn.” 

“Good idea! I always need more topics....” 

“But the thing about you,” Baxter went on, “is that even while you’re being stubborn, you also know when to stop practicing poses that aren’t working for you.”

“Yes,” I said. “You need to practice only what is serving you.”

So this morning I’m sitting down to write the blog post on “stubbornness” that Baxter requested, and I’m thinking that “stubbornness” doesn’t really sound very yogic, if you know what I mean. But, really isn’t the term “stubborn” was just my humorous way of describing tapas, the niyama that Ram defined in his post The Second Branch of Yoga: Niyamas as “a burning desire or a disciplinary approach to achieve one’s aims and aspirations.” Yes, a “disciplinary approach” is a much nicer way of saying that when I was recovering from my frozen shoulders than I practiced stretching them every single day, even though it was quite painful, because, yes, I was stubbornly committed to trying to recover as much as could (see Living Proof). And I've actually already written about tapas as an important aspect of healthy aging in my post Tapas: Working with Dedication, where I used my mother’s determination to recover from a broken hip as an example of tapas and healthy aging. (Thank you, Mom, for setting me such a good example!)

Thinking about it now, I decided that the “active engagement” part of our yoga for healthy aging attitude really is tapas, which means practicing for physical, emotional, and spiritual health with dedication and persistence. What do you think, Baxter?

I’m also thinking that when Baxter said that I was good at practicing only what served me and giving up what didn’t, he was referring to the other side of the coin, acceptance. I used to believe—and even teach—that acceptance was primarily about santosha, or, as Desikachar put it, “the ability to be comfortable with what we have and what we do not have.” But this morning I’m wondering whether another big part of acceptance isn’t satya, or truthfulness (see Satya: The Truth About Lies and Healthy Aging). Perhaps I’m focused on truthfulness because I’m still mulling over what I wrote about Tama and how she faced her death with honesty (see The Death of a Friend). But it seems to me that to practice the yoga that serves you, you need to be able to look honestly at the aging process and how it is affecting you. Rather than practicing for the body you wish you had—or used to have—when you step on your mat, you need to meet yourself as you are at this moment, on this day. And adjust accordingly. Hmmm, I think I found a topic for my next blog post!

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