What Yoga Taught Me About Writing, Part IIa

During Saturday's yoga class, our teacher J mentioned something that has me thinking again about the parallels between yoga and writing.

The "difference between a beginning yoga student and a more advanced one," she said, is the ability to enter a position so fully that all other distractions fall away. The advanced student isn't worried about deadlines or kids or finishing the class in order to cross it off his or her to-do list. The end all is attaining the poses and becoming one with them.

As I breathed into my spinal twist, I wondered about what J had just said. And made a connection. Isn't this our goal as writers? Don't we strive to enter our story so fully that we are truly one with our characters? Of course, now I was doing the opposite of J's advice by thinking outside myself.

Rather than curse the digression, I thanked it. Not only did it provide insight into my creative process, it was proof that for a time I'd been fully yoga, immersed in the pose and the present.

Hmmm. Writing. Yoga. More later as I consider the parallels between the two.