The Health Odyssey Continues: Dailey Method Lessons Learned

You’d be proud of me. I’m still participating in the Dailey Method 60-Day Challenge, but am less spazzy about it. Meaning, my alignment is better and I’m really and truly sitting up straighter in my normal and everyday life. I’m also holding planks for much longer (just not the full time because what am I, bionic?) and I see a muscle curve in my biceps. I’ve been working (off and on) to keep consistently exercising, which isn’t always easy given my freelance schedule (my last email? “Can you have this 300-page presentation edited in three hours?”) and although I’m well over school-age, I’ve learned a few lessons through my Dailey Method experience I thought I’d share because I like to publicly catalog when my brain works beyond its normal barely functioning capacity.

Lesson #1: Your first experience with something isn’t always the truth.

I disliked my first Dailey Method class. I felt like the movements were too small, the exercises too hard, and the hurt too hurty. I’d never taken a class like it, and so discreetly shared my thoughts with another TDMer who told me she forced herself to classes in the beginning.

So that’s exactly what I did. It took about five classes, but I learned to look forward to the routines and the muscle shakes and the stretched-out feeling afterward. Now, I wonder why I ever gave it a bum rap in my head.

Which brings me to: you never know. You *think* you know, but you don’t. This applies to people and moves and books and sushi. Try it once. Try it again and wait. Then do it one more time and see if it grows on you. I’m not about instant dismissal of anything, except spiders. Keep going. And if it’s not for you, you’ll know when you know.

Lesson #2: Your body and spirit sometimes do things without you.

I suppose I could rephrase this as “give yourself over.” This is about preconceived notions of what you can and can’t do. In class, they say, “you’re stronger than you think” and I’ve found that to be true. Right when I think I can’t lift my leg any higher or sink any lower, I do – just an inch or less – and I’m able to make it through. Just barely. In a life scenario, when you think, “I could never deal with that” or “I’d crumble” you’ll probably find you do anyway because that’s what cells and energy do.

Lesson #3:  It’s not about them, it’s about you.

At first, I glanced around the TDM studio and decided my t-shirts weren’t yoga-y enough and everyone knew where their sacrum was but me. I focused my energy outward and looked to my left and then to my right to back up my belief that I was the biggest spaz attack in class. Then, the instructor said, “you’re not in competition with anyone but yourself” and I closed my eyes and breathed a little deeper. It probably dates back to when I tried out for cheerleading again and again only to discover years later I was me and I did things the me way. I’d never be a cheerleader, but I could NOT be a cheerleader as only I could not be a cheerleader. WHY GOD WHY?

That’s not the point.

The gist is if you’re always looking to the left and to the right, you’re not looking inside and get over yourself already. Do what you do how you do it. You can only bloom from a me-bud, not from a them-bud.

Rah rah!

Also, always worrying what other people are doing distracts you from being you.

So that’s where I am right now. The challenge ends in two weeks and I hope to make 30 classes in 60 days. I’m sure I’ll have more life lessons to share at that point. Like, when your Lululemons spring a hole in the crotch, repair it immediately. Especially when everyone but you saw it first.

The Dailey Method Rancho Bernardo/Poway invited me to join the 60-Day Challenge in exchange for writing my experiences with it.