When I was in kindergarten, the fire chief came to school one day to teach us "Stop, Drop, and Roll." I remember I was wearing brown corduroys and a yellow t-shirt (it was 1980...) and he picked me (ME!) to be the demonstrator. I did possibly one of the best "stop, drop, and rolls" ever done. I had technique. I had fire in my belly.
I'll never forget that he called me "tiger." And I loved that. From that day forth, I thought of myself as a tiger. It felt like a little tap into all of the qualities that I see in myself and I want to see that I admire.
There have been periods of my life that have been not so tiger-ish. But for the most part, I think I have some kind of incredible inner strength...I always consider that part of myself the tiger. In fact, I think it's located in my abs...in the center of me. When every other thing has gone wrong and I have to return to my very core, I find the tiger there: that same tiger that stopped, dropped, and rolled like a champ. As I got a little older, I started also truly believing I have the heart of a lion. Since then, probably in my early teens, I've got these two magnificent creatures governing the central parts of myself. Sometimes, they're napping. Sometimes I cage them inadvertently. But I think they're always there.
It's nice to know the steadiness of that tiger. It's one of the few things that has proven itself to be essential to me and who I am.
But as I've matured, grown wiser (but perhaps never wise which is as it should be, I think), and evolved through a lot of reflection on what I am and what I hope to be, yoga has given me a wonderful image that pops up every now and then, very clearly, when I'm headed on the right track.
The compassionate warrior.
I met this warrior in yoga practice, as Warrior II pose or Virabhadrasana. It's so easy to write off as a pretty simple pose. The bottom half is in something of a revolved lunge. Front knee forward and bent at a 90-degree angle; back leg straight as possible with toes pointing out to a 45-degree angle from your mid-line. Torso revolved so that your shoulders are in line with your front and back legs leaving you facing the side of your mat. Arms, supported by your mid- and upper-back muscles radiate outward strongly, extending directly from your shoulders in a straight line, also following the line of your legs. Shoulders fully engaged, fingers together and straight, chest open, back straight and not arched. Head facing either to the side (nice) or to the front (at which point you do actually become a badass warrior of life).
As far as poses go, Warrior II is easy to get into and so it's a really basic feature of most every yoga practice. But, it's not simple. Powerful on the bottom, the goal is to sink into your lunge as far as you can to 90-degree knee bend. Powerful up top, the goal is to extend your arms purposefully and with strength to the sides as far as they'll go. If you really want to know what's killer, your pelvis should not tilt in this pose, meaning you're pulling a bit forward with your lower back, strenching your hip flexors like CRAZY while still engaging and opening your outer hip muscles. Powerful in your alignment, your goal in your head it to lift the crown upwards while everything else is going on.
This is not just a lunge with fancy arms.
It was in learning how to really get into this pose that I found the compassionate warrior. Everything about this pose is powerful and fully engaged. But it's designed to fully expose the center of everything. If truly working at it, your heart is completely open as are your hips and pelvis. The core of you is wide, wide open and stretching even futher open. It's as if it's presented to the world who is looking at your from the side. Keeping your head in line with the shoulders is a stare-down with the world: here's what I've got. Turning that head to look forward over your front arm is some bad-assery: here world, here's what I've got, do with it what you will. It is a powerful, active surrender.
What a paradox. Turning that head in such an open pose is compassion. And now that I'm thinking about it, compassion feels like it can be a huge paradox, especially in our 21st century world. It's allowing that open, central core to lead you. It's asking you to powerfully, with vigor, open and interact dynamically with what's there while surrendering that core to the outside. It's a praying to God that someone won't shoot you in the heart with an arrow while at the same time trusting (and knowing) they won't...but if they do, you're down with that too.
That is the work of the compassionate warrior. It requires the heart of a lion and the might of a tiger. Corduroy pants optional.
Reflecting on it now, today, it seems so easy to explain why this pose has spoken to me so intimately for so long. It combines those parts of myself that I feel are really my best qualities and it asks them to do what they love: use their power to effect things. Love with the heart of a lion and tackle it with the might of a tiger. But instead of using it to aggressive ends, use it to compassionate ends. The latter is so much more of a complex challenge.
At this point, today, yesterday, a couple weeks ago, I've felt that building this compassionate warrior is exactly the work I should be doing. It has nothing to do with money or status. I will not reap material rewards, necessarily. It may be a big endeavor. But it will be without fear.
And I do think it's the next major step in my quest that I continue to uncover a little more every time I dare to look further down a road that I, myself, will build brick by brick.
