I risked failure and actually fell.

Photo: Kadri Kurgun

My intention one morning was to finally make friends with Adho Mukha Vrksasana.

This asana is like taking a risk for me, the risk of falling and failing simultaneously. I came to a realization that there is no other way but to fail forward. There was no other way I could accomplish this asana if I didn’t take any chances at all. A wise man once said,

”Risk must be evaluated neither by the fear that it generates nor by the probability of success but by the value of the goal. If at first you do succeed, try something harder.”

There are no safe places and avoiding danger is not any safer. The more you risk failure and actually fail, the greater the chances for success.

I find myself falling into a lot of traps during this asana.

The embarrassment trap.

Who cares if I fall on my face, no one is watching me anyway.

The rationalization trap.

When I second guess everything I do and then decide “I’ll skip that asana.”

The unrealistic expectation trap.

Success takes hard work.

The fairness trap.

We all know life is not fair, I can deal with it.

The timing trap.

There is no perfect time to do anything. I’m tired of waiting for all the lights to be green to unroll my mat and kick up.

The inspiration trap.

I don’t have to be great to start but I do have to start to be great.

Do you ever stop to find the benefit in every bad experience? Do you grasp the positive effects of negative incidents? I’m certainly working on it. The only way we yogis can get ahead is to fail early, fail often and fail forward. Every dream that we achieve comes from attention to a process. The process of success comes from repeated failure.

As I took my place, ready for handstand I could feel my imperfect balance. My arms and my hands were wobbly, my body was not as tight as it should have been and as soon as I managed to kick up, the sound of the rationalization trap started to kick in.

My eyes were looking for my Drishti, I failed. The only sound I heard there after was a huge thump. I sat there for a brief moment in the most awkward pose I could imagine, disappointed in myself for failing, and angry at my bones for not being strong enough. As I lay there listening to my teacher’s toe-ring click so gracefully on the hardwood floors, approaching closer and closer to me, it finally came to a stop. She bent down to me and said,

“Bee, smile. You just fell into fantastic.”

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