It wasn’t love at first sight. 

I have a fuzzy childhood memory of you.  My mother, in nursing school, was required to meet gym credits.  She chose yoga, and for some reason the teacher allowed her to bring me.  This was seventies yoga.  Bodysuits were worn over tights.  I was probably 5.  Noodle-like, I easily flung my feet overhead to the floor behind me, into my very first Halasana, and then an undoubtedly messy interpretation of Shoulderstand.

I was delighted. 

Then I abandoned you for years and years of ballet, for coveted solos in the recital, and for the allure of satin slippers, and ribbons that crossed at the ankle. 

The second time we met, in my twenties, I wasn’t interested. You eluded me and I didn’t care.  I wasn’t playing hard to get.  You weren’t my type.  No matter how many blankets I piled up for support, you hurt my neck, and made me claustrophobic.  You took my breath away and not in the good way.

For no amount of effort or surrender could I lift my body vertical.  Always, was the telltale pike of inadequacy.  I gritted my teeth.  I came to the wall.  I belted my elbows.  I attempted to spice things up between us on a chair.  You sneered at me.  Secretly, I thought you were stupid.  I resented you. 

Once, just once, in a workshop, Jim Bernaert noticed me struggling and casually lifted me up by the legs, right onto my shoulders.  I caught a glimpse of you then, a glimmer of possibility that soon fizzled out.

In the classes I taught, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why, at the end, students insisted on flinging themselves into an unauthorized, half-assed semblance of this most advanced of inversions, invariably with no blanket at all.  “What the fuck?  Who said to do that?  Certainly not me,” I inwardly huffed.  I got that the general public could pull off something resembling you.  What I didn’t get was why they would want to.  What could possibly be the allure?

Next, I heard a seasoned, highly respected teacher in the community use the term “Shoulderstand Body.”  Aha!  This shed light upon the matter.  Shoulderstand Bodies!  Some people had them, and some people did not.  Clearly, I did not.  I gleefully took this as my cue to abandon all further dealings with you.  Adios, sucker.  Nice knowing you. 

Years passed. 

When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto Disease, I reluctantly trotted you out.  Shoulderstand is good for the thyroid.  I would repair the relationship, I thought.  I would develop a daily practice. I should do you every day.  I would do you every day.   

I didn’t.

Then everything changed.  On a whim, practicing home alone–although I had long since disavowed you–I lingered in Bridge, which I hadn’t practiced as anything more than a pit stop on the way up to Urdhva Dhanurasana in years.  I marveled at the exquisite stretch of neck and shoulders. Oh my God! 

I wondered what would happen if…

Curious, hands at my back, one leg at a time, I lifted into you.  I was straight up and down, more or less.  The bunchy muscles at the back of my neck, and tops of my shoulders, were elongating.  You felt so good! 

I started seeing you regularly. We spent more and more time together.  I began timing you.  I wanted to see you all the time.  I craved you.  It was visceral.  No day felt complete without you. 

Yesterday, the unthinkable happened.  I removed one hand from my back, and then the other.  Externally unsupported yet inwardly entirely supported, together we soared.  It was easy!  It felt like flying. 

In the throes, I whispered those three little words in your ear.

It wasn’t love at first sight, Shoulderstand, but it is love.  It’s the kind of love that lasts.   You were worth the wait.