As I was attempting to stretch my ependages in opposite directions while touching my finger to my navel by route of wrapping my arm around my back, I got to thinking - sssstttrrrreeecccchhh - about how yoga and learning a language are kind of the same.
While seeming quite different - yoga being more physical and langauge learning being more about communication - they're both kind of the same. Yoga is a meditation of mind, body and soul. Learning a language broadens one's horizons culturally and linguistically. Both yoga and language learning can expand and deepen one's thinking, set one on the path to a more fulfilling and richer life, and maybe even give a soul inner peace.
But first you have to get over yourself, your own feeling of being exposed to a bunch of strangers in your skin tight spandex leotard that you're cursing yourself for ever buying.
You have to get over feeling so utterly odd to be trying to move your mouth in a different way and say these funny sounding words that just don't seem right, seem so contrary with how you were brought up to think, speak, talk and listen.
You're having to bend yourself into a pretzel, doing what for men might feel like effeminate poses, while women are overwhelmed with feelings of body self-consciousness.
Your spare tire is hanging out. Your accent sucks.
Your bottom is facing the ceiling for all to see. You can't read a childish, simple phrase to save your life.
You can barely balance yourself on one foot without toppling over. You strain to put two words together without it sounding like a car wreck, an American car wreck.
You're falling down in a heap on your hiddeous purple, sweat covered yoga mat that you just blew $10 bucks on. You just made a complete and total fool of yourself to the entire class by saying that you are horny when you were trying to say that the temperature in the room feels uncomforably warm.
Persperation is dripping down your brow like a crazed lunatic. You are unaware of the pained expression on your face like someone possessed by demons. As you attempt to fake a smile, all your face muscles can muster up is a demented scowel.
Oh, it seemed like such a harmless idea. I'll try yoga! It will improve my overall health! I'll learn a new language! It will broaden my horizons!
It's like being a baby again, yet far more embarrasing because at least babies haven't had a life time of experiences to inform their inhibited minds that what they are doing is just flat out wrong and it's not worth trying.
Adult are fighting something in themselves, fighting the urge to learn a new language cause you already know a langauge. When you're a kid, you don't fight that feeling. There's nothing to fight. You just accept stuff and take it in as is. As an adult, it's only natural to use what you know to help you to learn the second language. But it can also mess you up cause you're trying to apply what you know in the L1 (first language) to the L2 (second language), and you get stuck cause you can't let go of that old way of doing it. Sometimes it gets like really annoying and frustrating like, "What does English have such messed up spelling?" or "Why does SPanish have weird verb tenses that we don't have in English?", etc.
The yoga comparison is good also cause if you can't do some of the poses, there are modified poses in which you have like a foam block or a rope that helps you to do the pose even though it's in a modified way. The same goes for ESL. You want students to read a tough text but the vocab is too high for them, so you could either simplify the vocab or give the vocab to the students to learn before hand with plenty of exercises to learn the vocab and then have them read it. Or there's this idea of scaffolding in which like the scaffolding on a building, you go from where you are a little higher and a little higher, or rather you use what you know and go a bit farther. Stephen Krashen, this linguistic theorist said that it's this i + 1 thing. "I" being you plus one, being a little new bit of knowledge. Stretching to the new bit of knowledge.
We are all in search of balance in our lives physically, mentally and spiritually. We want to be healthy, wealthy and wise, to live the richest, most fruitful life possible. Many search far and wide for whatever method of diet, exercise and stress management will help them to fulfill their dreams of wellness and happiness, while meanwhile, our toxic culture tempts us all to stray from the path of righteousness into the valley of doubt, disease and despair. We look to the latest exercise or diet fad, or we look to our own culture or other cultures for tried and true ways of staying healthy. Some find what works for them and others search on endlessly.
It's not much of a stretch (nuk, nuk, nuk) to think of the 4 parts of language - reading, writing, speaking, and listening - as being similar to the 3 parts of ourselves - mind, body and soul - in that all are interrelated, or better still, as different muscle groups.
Think about this. No seriously, think about this! When you're learning a new language (you're probably not learning a new language but if you were!), your mind is working overtime thinking about the new language and thinking about whatever else it is that you're doing, whether it be in a classroom or out in the real world. If you're able to "think in the Spanish" or whatever the second language is your learning, you're mind does not have to work as hard as if you are constantly taking in information, translating, understanding, translating your respond and then saying it while trying to not sound like a dope because your accent doesn't even sound like a cheap immitation of the real thing.
So, in a sheltered immersion English math class, you're left there trying to first figure out what the hell a "denominator" is in while meanwhile, you're left scratching your head as to why in your first language you were able to do trigonometry and calculus, and now you're stuck in remedial algebra.
You, yes you, are trying to stretch to the next level a bit beyond what you were able to do before. Stretching your body and stretching your mind. The end result though of yoga is that you feel so at peace because when you are doing yoga poses and particularly when you finish, your mind is totally at peace. The thought that I always have is to not beat up myself and to just accept stuff the way it is. Some how my mind just opens up and I just accept stuff the way it is. You just kind of feel the pain and sadness, and don't try to fight it off. Then afterwards you feel happy and at peace.
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