Strength and Flexibility

I was at my kick ass yoga class tonight (literally, this class is a killer, but oh so good for the weary back), and the instructor always opens with a parable about what yoga can do for us.  Now, this isn't some new-agey, crunchy granola blog post, but the theme tonight resonated with me.

Our instructor talked about how yoga isn't just about becoming more flexible, but that it was also about building strength and musculature.  Taking it further, he talked about how the best way to deal with everything in life--the good, the bad, the ugly--is all about being strong, while being flexible at the same time.

It may seem like strength and flexibility are two opposing forces--after all, shouldn't something strong be rigid and unyielding?


I don't know if it's the lousy sudden winter weather, but lately, I've been feeling a bit down about being a woman in my field.  I went to our society's meeting a couple weeks ago, and was surrounded by a sea of male colleagues.  As I watched the blatant schmoozing, I wondered briefly about the sanity of my choices (heck, I'm sure every woman in a male-dominated field does every now and then).  As you know from previous blog posts, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want my professional life to look like once I'm done with this endless training, and the whole strength and flexibility aspect really comes into play.

As a woman in a male-dominated field, we have to be strong enough to accept that, even if it seems like it at times, we're never going to be one of the guys.  However, we also have a unique opportunity to enjoy the flexibility to think about things from a different perspective, and do things our own way.  Even in the way we interact on a daily basis, I think we ladies have to be very strong internally to be flexible enough to survive in the world we live and work in. 

My yoga instructor said tonight that we can't be flexible if we aren't strong.  We each have to build our core to be flexible enough to make our way through this maze.