Practice makes much less than perfect

“I don’t want you to be good at this, I want you to practise being really bad at something.”

My teacher has given me a new chant to practise this week. She’s going to give me a new chant to practise every week for six weeks. I’m not supposed to get good at them in this time, I’m just supposed to practise for 5 minutes every day. That’s the only requirement.

It’s uncomfortable to say the least. When we meet I have to let go of the feeling that I’ve let myself down or let her down by not yet being word perfect, pronunciation perfect, tonally perfect. And that’s just the basic articulation of the chant. What about my intellectual understanding? What about the depth of my devotion or the colour of my heart?

On another day in the week my personal trainer is giving me a new weights circuit every fortnight. I’m not supposed to be able to do the full thing the first time, maybe not the second time, or even…. who knows? I don’t really understand the rules here. It sure isn’t Yoga! But I do know I’m supposed to show up and do this twice a week and that much feels familiar, the discipline whether you feel like it or not — that’s how yoga sādhana works. But yoga work is never this intense: this training is supposed to be (impossibly) hard.

Earlier in my life I wasn’t allowed to be anything less than excellent. Failure just didn’t exist. And just enough wasn’t actually ever enough. Aiming high can be inspirational and exciting. Who wouldn’t enjoy the accolades from success or at least the satisfaction of something well done? But it’s not necessarily the recipe for long term contentment. It’s just not realistic, unless you operate within a really narrow range of activities and give them your whole focus. Hmmm… 😦

Now I’m relearning. And teachers and trainers are helping me create new, more flexible boundaries and ways to engage. I guess I am getting more comfortable with failing. I see this more neutrally now, not the final judgment it used to seem. And the strength I must find in confronting my own inability or vulnerability and then getting on with it anyway is curiously satisfying in its own way.

And now with and gentle persuasion and repeated insistence not to give up or turn away… I think I’m finding a way between making my best effort and then letting go of the results. Over and over again. A Sanskrit syllable here, a muscular rep there. It feels awkward not to be obviously competent, let alone excellent. But the shortfall is becoming familiar. And nothing happens. I don’t die of failure. Instead I get encouragement; there’s time for another try, there’s the patience of repetition or a helping hand.

And maybe beyond the awkwardness, the fear, and the frustration there’s a strange liberation. An unimagined wild and freeing possibility of simply trying and knowing that is enough. It’s not bland rhetoric that taking part is the most important thing, it’s a real heartfelt attitude from my teacher and my trainer. Showing up is all that’s required, that’s all they expect from me. We both know when I’m doing that whole heartedly or when I’m not.

And they’re still urging me on. They pick me up, set me back on my feet and we continue.

“You have the rest of your life to get perfect.”