Perhaps you have heard this before… the path of progress/success is not a straight line.It is so true.
So often students begin yoga and at first they have major progress. They start sleeping better, they get stronger, they become more flexible. When things are going smoothly like this, they are motivated and you see them regularly at class.
Thing is, there will be tough times ahead. If you don’t do the mental work to go with your new physical abilities, then when those rough days come… you will fall into old habits of thinking and tend to quit and make excuses.
When this happens all the rubbish stories we tell about ourselves come to the surface and we sadly end up believing them. “I am just too weak, I will never be flexible, I am too old, I am too heavy, I am too tired, I might get injured, one time a snot flew out of my nose and I have never been the same since…”
The mind is endlessly creative this way.
You will train, developing strength and flexibility and all of a sudden you will hit a plateau. When this happens, the mind tends to go straight to: I’m going backward. I’ll never be able to do it.
No! You are not going backward, this is not the end of all you are capable of. You have entered a consolidation plateau. The body (and the mind) can only make so much progress before all of the new strength, flexibility and skill you have been developing needs to be deeply integrated. Without consolidation the very real risk of burnout and injury looms.
It’s like a puzzle, you have all these pieces and the mind needs to sort out what goes where. It needs time to smooth and strengthen the neural pathways. Rest assured, you will come out the other side of a consolidation period with increased understanding and super charged ready to make dramatic progress. You will be stronger and more skilful for that seeming lull.
If you have been doing work on your mind in tandem and in parallel to your physical work you will recognise this for what it is and be grateful and happy for it. If you could already do everything perfectly you certainly wouldn’t need to practice.
Consolidation is one of the very powerful keys that unlocks mastery. Be very grateful for the times when you struggle to do something and you can’t quite get there. It is through that time that you will truly develop deep deep deep understanding of how and what it takes to achieve.
So often, students despair when the plateau of consolidation comes and they start to believe all of the negative stories they tell themselves as to why they just can’t do it. This leads to one of two things: they start making excuses not to come to yoga and continue working, or they just quit altogether. They will say things like: Yoga just isn’t for me… or That style of yoga is too hard… or I’m too tired, maybe next week. Of course that then becomes a few months… and they lose all their gains completely. Or this gem: I just want to relax… umm why not get strong and flexible and relax? Just saying…
You are meant to have plateaus and consolidation periods. But beware, if you slack off or fall into despair during this time, then the plateau becomes prolonged and you may actually fall into stagnation. Any student who has spent years at one level and is feeling that it is “still too hard” has fallen into this trap. The greatest danger is that of acceptance. I will be posting soon about acceptance (sneak preview: it’s not what most yoga teachers will lead you to believe).
What’s the solution to a prolonged plateau that has become stagnation? Challenge yourself. Stay in poses longer, practice more regularly (once a week is certainly not enough after the initial beginners phase) or attend a higher level class. Increase either the intensity and frequency or start doing new things. There are so many levels and so many poses to practice in Knoff Yoga that variety should never be an issue. Move out of your comfort zone.
No one is saying you have to live at the higher level, simply use it once or twice every two weeks/month to get that line of success and progress moving upward again. Understand, when you attend a higher level, of course you won’t be able to do everything straight away. Nor should you expect to. For some people the discomfort of not being able to do things instantly is worse than the physical discomfort and struggle. It’s called perfectionism and setting your bar too high. More ways in which we set ourselves up for failure and then blame “I’m too old” etc.
Friends, I speak from experience here, recently I have been working very hard to achieve a very high goal. It’s going to take time and work. At first there were dramatic gains and I was feeling on top of the world. Then the consolidation hit. Everything seemed harder… it seemed like I would never reach my goal. Fortunately I had been doing the mindset work at the same time and the realisation dawned on me… omg this, this isn’t going backward, this is consolidation. All of a sudden I was deeply grateful. I was able to recognise that I am still making progress but that progress is now deep in the background. I will come out the other side with deeper understanding and greater skill.
If I believed all the negative stuff that came up in my mind for the first few days on consolidation, I would have definitely quit. I would have believed all the stories for why “I can’t do it”. Friends, don’t become a yoga statistic.
Look at my funky graph below… this is sort of what progress looks like. A sudden lul into seeming no progress. After a while as you continue to work, or even up the amount or intensity of practice you begin a curve back up to the “progress” part. At first that curve into renewed progress will be very subtle and you might miss it.
Always remember: The moment you most want to quit is the moment you are about to make the biggest breakthrough.
If you quit or mentally give up, then that line of plateau becomes permanent. Again, don’t become a yoga statistic. Understand what’s happening.
Most importantly, keep doing your mental work, keep logging all the times you have success no matter how trivial. Keep listing all the reasons why you are awesome. Remember yoga is not about the body. It is about the mind. We simply use the physical to access the mental. What we do mentally will affect the physical.
All success and failure start in the mind. Happy practicing.