Happy New Year everyone! I'm not going to talk about new year's resolutions. We can make resolutions any day, any time, any where. But just as a happy update - my mid-new year resolution back in...the middle of the year was about practicing more ashtanga style and working on my strength in those infamous jump-throughs. Soooo guess what? Since that time I have successfully completed a grand total of TWO, count 'em, TWO jump throughs! The moment the first one happened I flowed right into a seated forward fold and beamed at my shins for a full five minutes. I was so surprised and so proud!
I had did as I said I would, I worked more on upper body and core strength and breaking down the jump through. My upper body work consisted of adding more planks, more dolphins and even developing pincha mayurasana (elbow stand). The core work was various pilates - like exercises and a sprinkling of tolasana (scale pose). And then, finally, one evening practice. As I was in downward dog and about to attempt my broken down version of jump through, a thought popped in my head. In a split second I said to myself, Hey, let's try not making this a big deal. It's only a moment of effort and it probably doesn't even take as huge an effort as I'm making it out to be in my head. I going to do one now. No problem. I pushed off, and before I knew it I was gently lowering myself to the ground with my legs through! I hadn't lost energy (or nerve) at the halfway point where I drop my feet, recollect myself and finish the rest after awkwardly scuffling my feet past my hands. Now it DID take a big effort so much so that I couldn't do anymore after that, but I was absolutely fine with that. I now have in my muscle memory a complete jump through. And it truly is in my muscle memory because I was able to repeat one about a month or more later!
How fitting, too, that I was able to do it when I mentally said "meh, I'm just gonna do it".
I always come back to Baron Baptiste's catch phrases. "Don't try hard. Try easy."
So simple eh?
