My mom’s fingerprints are literally all over my life.  Her extremely exacting standards of housekeeping (you’ve never seen a linen closet as orderly and organized as hers) are often the measuring stick I use to judge the state of my own home.  The tiny, (apparently calorie-less) second piece of cake that she has at every birthday dinner is called “The Connie Slice” even among my in-laws!  She taught me everything I know about gardening.  She coached me in tennis as a kid.  She was the one who suggested I try yoga as an adult.  When someone has played such a formative role in your development, it can take you by surprise to get a glimpse of a new dimension of that person.  It can literally stop you in your tracks.

 

In early June, my mother invited my kids and me to come watch the tennis team she coaches compete in the New Jersey Special Olympics.  She has been coaching some of these athletes for almost 20 years!  Over the years, we’ve heard so much about these people, that the chance to watch them play in the actual Olympics was not something we wanted to miss.  So, instead of sleeping in and lazing about on the first day of summer vacation, my kids and I got up early, piled in the car and headed to Trenton.

 

The athletes on my mom’s tennis team vary widely in ability.  Some needed a great deal of coaching from my mother to keep score, to remember where to stand on the court, even to figure out whose serve it was.  Other were completely self-sufficient and could probably have trounced me in a match.  Watching the genteel way each of them approached their matches was an inspiration in sportsmanship.  All were gracious.  No rackets were thrown, no balls smashed over the fence in frustration.  Winners and losers alike left the court with smiles on their faces.  Each and every one of these athletes appeared to love playing the game.  And they were equally enthusiastic cheerleaders when they were watching their teammates play.

 

As I watched and marveled at the overwhelmingly positive vibe among this group of athletes on and off the court, I realized this too had my mother’s fingerprints all over it.  She has trained her athletes not only in the mechanics of tennis.  She has taught them what it means to be a team.  She has taught them that being the cheerleader is as meaningful as being the one playing.  She has taught them to support one another, to pay attention to each other and to take care of one another.  She has also helped them develop appreciation for themselves.  She has taught them that, win or lose, there is always something to love and celebrate about who they are and what they’ve done.

 

I’d always thought I’d learned these lessons from studying yoga.   After all, yoga teaches that acceptance and appreciation for our bodies as they are is the first (and most important) step in the transformative journey of the practice.  Yoga teaches us to notice and to celebrate each milestone we reach – the subtle ones like the day our fingertips finally brush our toes in a forward bend, and the more outlandish ones like when we kick up into our very first handstand.  Yoga teaches us to be caring and supportive of ourselves.  We discover on our mats that our inner cheerleader is much more effective than our inner judge.  And one day, after we’ve practiced for a while, we notice ourselves treating others the way we’ve learned to treat ourselves on our yoga mat.  We find that we’re living our yoga.

 

Watching my mother and her athletes, I began to wonder if the reason yoga spoke to me so powerfully from my very first class was that it echoed lessons I’d absorbed through the years from my mom.  Certainly this is possible.  As I said before, her fingerprints cover my life.  In any case, that morning in June I found myself powerfully grateful for the opportunity to watch her express so fully the ideals I identify with my yoga practice.  The fact that her athletes seem to have taken these lessons to heart leaves me profoundly hopeful for the ripple effect each of us can have when we begin to live into the practice that touches our bodies, minds and spirits so deeply.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

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