Lately I have been interested in how a flow yoga class gives us an opportunity to play around with being an adult, with gaining maturity. And it comes because of inherent contradictions:

Contradictions between doing what the instructor asks us to do, and what we feel we are able to do. Between the perfect pose, and the pose our bodies can do that day. Between what the world seems to be asking of us, and what we want to do. Between the ideal and the practical.

We get tired, our bodies ache, we wonder if this move is healthy, whether our shoulder or knee will hold up. Is this the move that bothers my back? Should I ease back now so I'll have the energy to make it through to the end?

These contradictions lead to a choice: do we give up being an adult and instead blame the instructor, get mad at ourselves, pay more attention to the people around us, give up completely, or power on through while paying no more attention to what we feel? Or do we instead negotiate between the contradictions. Do we play around with what is possible and incorporate what is workable. Do we use our capacities to nurture, to choose wisely--maybe re-choose when necessary--and to understand that there is no perfect solution? Because on our road to being a fully mature and self-realized adult we need to learn to negotiate between those two realms.

Sometimes I visualize this dilemma as being caught between the ocean and the shore. The ocean is a vast area of possibility, teeming with energy. It is the pose as it appears on the cover of yoga journal, or on the person next to you, or as the instructor asks for. The shore is our unyielding body or mind. Flawed, tired, injured, firm, not yet ready. The vision of perfection pushes up against our unyielding body or mind, like the ocean crashing into shore. The result is an area of meeting--the surf.

Now, we could get all crazy with the analogy and say that over time the surf reworks the shoreline, just as yoga restructures our bodies, or that when the difference between what we are asked to do and what we can is large, the surf is violent and pounds against us. Etc.

But for now, how about this. Can we play around in the surf? Have you ever stood in the surf and tried to be firm, unyielding? It doesn't work well, you get knocked over. But what if you leap, and dance ,and float, and dive? This area of intense energy and potential danger becomes fun, exciting and brings joyful exultation. We test our strength and our capabilities, not by opposing or resolving, but by working within and being playful. And to learn to do this may just be part of what it means to be an adult.