As you know the challenge has involved some squeezing in this week, for me at least. But over the past seven days, I've come to see this squeezing more as taking advantage of moments of opportunity.
Por ejemplo:
"Hey, we have a few minutes before going to do (thing we need to go do) Margot, do you want to do an exercise with me?"
Or, "Is my pompi dentro?" I've found myself asking myself while washing a dish.
And you already know about teeth brushing.
Stuff like that ...
So many moments of opportunity ~
This past week was mostly about family.
Luckily for me, the little ones in my family wanted to be doing flamenco, and luckily for me, the people in my family who didn't were still interested in and curious about what was going on with this mysterious challenge.
Still, the challenge was just a thing on the side.
Hence all of the squeezing in.
But I realized something,
The idea of squeezing it in can create stress in my mind. And stress in my body. Stress I neither want nor need.
Which is why I started seeing the small bits of "challenge" flamenco as moments of opportunity instead.
Because something happened.
Things like doing some flamenco on my own or with Margot here or there actually took me to a place of less stress.
Like the other night
when I was doing some exercises in the bathroom before bed. My first thought was, "Uh-oh, I need to hurry up and get in some exercises before I go to sleep,"
So I began the arms-out-straight-hands exercise,
And then I heard her, Mercedes, in my head (thank goodness I made that part of the challenge),
'Respiiiiiiiiira.'
Over and over I heard it.
I guess I had kind of stopped breathing.
'Despaaaaaaaaacio,'
I could also hear her saying. Which took me out of rushing to get through it so that I could go to bed and into grounding and relaxing into my body, into myself, and into the moment.
You see, minutes before this something had happened, something that had caused me stress. And I hadn't even realized it. All I knew was that quite suddenly it was late, and I neeeded to brush my teeth, and get to bed.
But I wanted to squeeze some exercises in. The idea of which perhaps gave me even more stress, this idea that I still had an obligation before I was allowed to go to bed.
But as it turns out, the reminders that I heard destressed me, and the doing of the exercises did too.
This was good.
And unexpected.
All of these squeezing-ins were really just moments of opportunity.
Bunches and bunches of them all week long.
Qué bueno.
The challenge is officially over,
Although unofficially it's not.
More on that next time.
Happy New Year to you.
¡Felíz año nuevo!
I'd love to know what you think
Have you noticed the ability of a quick bit of flamenco to calm you down? To bring you back into your body? Back into yourself? Or has the idea of the challenge just stressed you out? Let me know in the comments below.