A challenge about nothing

I love a good fitness goal. Nary a month goes by that a sticker sheet doesn't grace my refrigerator, because Lord knows nothing motivates movement like the promise of a gold star. My past sticker sheets have helped me train for a 5K, spurred me to ride my bike to work as often as possible, and motivated me to get on my mat every day for months at a time. So, as I approach a little down time in my life as some obligations have fallen away, I began thinking about my next challenge. I'm all set to recreate one of last year's fitness challenges, Baron Baptiste's 40 Days to Personal Revolution, in which I follow his assigned yoga sequences, building week to week until I'm practicing for an hour and a half each day. Commence the Revolution, right?

Not quite. I began my 40 days today by heading over to my favorite studio, Main Street Yoga, for a refreshing hatha flow class taught by my favorite instructor, Jim. The class was going well, until Jim talked me into Tree pose. Now, I rock at Tree. No, really, I usually can hop up and down and do flag  semaphore without falling out of Tree. But today, I was all over the place. Jim said, "A quiet mind is all that is needed for a strong, silent tree." And it struck me. My brain's a wreck. Here I am, teaching yoga and meditation and leading others into stillness, and I can't even balance on one leg because my mind is sprouting out all over the place.

This year, my 40 Days will actually include Baron's meditation portion, which builds from just five minutes a day (which I do most days anyway), to 30 minutes a day, on top of the asana sequences. Because I have no trouble getting motivated to move, but moving toward stillness is another matter altogether.

So here goes ... nothing.