On your way home? Got time for quick catch up? messaged my colleague.
Got time. Just walking to my handstand workshop, I replied (smugly)
Of course you are, he said (rolled eyeballs implied).
But I was. And I did it. Twice.
Even as a wee girl, I could never do handstands. On wet school days, friends would pile into a shelter and give breathtaking displays of handstands and cartwheels in the wild. No bolsters or mats - just shirts tucked into knickers and hands on dirty ground. They may not have been precisely perfect, but they were gobsmackingly brilliant. And envy inducing.
Even by age eight, I was too self-conscious to try. Certainly not in front of folk. I could not figure out the mechanics of standing on your hands and pointing your legs to the heavens. I secretly tried it a couple of times at home. Tragic. I sat down quickly in the empty living room in case anyone saw.
So umpty tumpty years later, and with at least twenty years of yoga under my belt, a kind couple gave me a handstand workshop voucher for my birthday. There is no doubt that I was the oldest handstander in the room. Take two blocks, a bolster and you can rent a mat if you need it (£2). Our instructor was a cool, South African dude. I'd arrived too early, which gave him a chance to figure out why I was there.
We practiced on our own. We worked in pairs. We worked in threes. Trust is essential.
I worried that my two slender helpers would buckle under the weight of my legs as we moved from plank to giving one leg and then two to each other. I crashed to the floor.
"Oh no, is it something we did wrong?" Of course not. Its all in the head. Then, suddenly, when I had stopped thinking about it, my hands were rooted in the mat. I hopped forward. I gave one leg to my partner then raised the other. Another pair of hands supported my hips, and before I knew it - HANDSTAND. I don't know who was more surprised and delighted - me, the instructor or my new mates. So just to check, we did it again.
Anyway, high fives all round, slightly aching bottom this morning and the biggest smile on my face that you can imagine. Thank you Jim and Su.
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