Trying your best or trying your hardest?

8Jan11, 9am: Hot yoga with Deva Biswas

9Jan11, 9am: Hot yoga with Vikram Karunanidhi (a.k.a. please don't break my arm, teacher)

9Jan11, 1:30pm: 4-hour walk through the Wai Po World Wildlife Federation nature preserve

9Jan11, 2.5 bottles of water

Try your best.

Try your hardest.

Do these statements mean the same thing? I don't think so, but I do thing they can apply to the same situation depending on your state of mind. I often... ok, let me rephrase that... I will, more often, instead of telling myself the above statements, instead ask myself these two questions:

Am I doing the best than I can do in this given situation right now?

Is this the hardest I've ever worked at this task?

I'm going to say "no" is my answer for a lot of the things I'm doing in my life right now. That's pure honesty. And because I am finding so many life parallels with my yoga practice right now, I'll use an example from Sunday's practice.

I had hot yoga with a male teacher called Vikram Karunanidhi. I thought I had one of his classes before, but I now know that I hadn't. I was speaking with friends all weekend about how different all of the teachers I've had for yoga have been, and how I find that through their unique teaching styles, a different part of me is satisfied. Sunday was one of those times. In all honesty, if I hadn't already signed up on my online account for morning yoga, I would have bailed. PURE yoga's policy is that they require a 2 hour cancellation notice, which is impossible if you don't get up 2 hrs. before your class begins and because the website is only operable between 9am and 11pm. Therefore I would have had to cancel the night before, by 11pm. Didn't happen. So, you may be thinking, what's the big deal? Why not just skip? You're an adult! Well, along with their 2 hr. cancellation notice, they also will remove online class booking from your account for one month if you have three no-shows or late cancellations in a months's time. That option is far too convenient for me, and I respect that they have these types of policies (especially in this city) to keep the business running well. It may sound a little extreme, but trust me, it is necessary here.

I digress... anyway, I went to hot yoga. If I look at the class as a whole, I know that I did the best that I could do and tried the hardest I could... on that day at that time in this body. If I break it down into postures, I probably can't say that. However, I found myself knowing for certain in one particular posture that I tried my absolute hardest and possibly a bit beyond that.

Let me back up a bit. I know I am potentially singled out quite often in my yoga classes, as I am usually the only white person. How's that for a change? So, during this particular class, I found myself getting more attention than anyone else in the class of 50 or so Chinese/Hong Kong-ese students. I looked around, and it wasn't necessarily that I was the worst at yoga nor the best. I welcomed the adjustments and suggestions however, until this one asana...

Baddha Utthita Parsvakonasana

By the way, this is not me in this photo because a) I did not have a camera, and b) I never made it this far, and so the photo would have been me laying on the mat in confusion instead. This woman is doing a good job at this binding-twisted-extended-side-angle, which I think is how it translates. I however, could not get my right arm to go under my right knee like that and bend underneath to reach my left arm. It didn't seem like the whole class was getting it either, but this was one of the times that Vikram Karunanidhi singled me out to make an adjustment to help me reach the asana correctly. Fair enough, but he worked on my right shoulder, which is apparently tight, for a full minute trying to get my arm to twist so that my elbow could bend in the proper direction underneath my bent leg. He forced it so much that I swear I was moments from dislocating my shoulder, tearing a rotator cuff, breaking a collar bone, etc. Moments!!! He was sure I could do it, however, which made me feel good.

From him and from Deva Biswas, both more from an Indian background than any of the other teachers, I notice a tough demeanour, but they will give you that subtle nod or say "exactly" when you are doing a good job. However, I reached a point where I was sure I could NOT do this bind. For a moment, this was a failure, but immediately after that moment, I thought to myself,

"Yes! I finally did something where I know I reached a physical limitation (for now)!!!"

I really need to ask myself the above questions more often, in all aspects of my life. Granted, it may be a bit more difficult to quantify if bones aren't moments from snapping, but still... turning apparent failure into success can't be a bad thing!!