“The key to success is the basics. A lot of times, the basics get overlooked because they’re not fancy or flashy, but mastery is built on repetition of the fundamentals.” John Wooden
We all start out as beginners. Usually reluctant to be new and to make mistakes. Eventually after showing up for a bit we want to move past the beginner stage and into a more “advanced” practice. Whether its practicing yoga, teaching yoga or any other type of discipline.
To be advanced we to need to master the basics. Mastery takes time. Years. The mundane of the routine and repetition is where the breakthroughs happen.
In yoga it starts at our foundation. Anything that is touching the mat. We can’t grow the poses if we aren’t building on a strong base. With teaching it starts with mastering the sequence. At Reach Power Yoga in Buffalo, NY we teach Journey Into Power. The same 53 poses.
When new students finish their first class I try to encourage them that it gets easier. There’s some truth to that. You may get used to the heat anyways.
The reality is that the practice actually gets harder the more you come. You start to learn how to integrate properly. How to use your breath to deepen the pose. How to master the basics.
That mastery? It takes time. It takes reps. Lots of them. More than we think.
In a world constantly looking for the new shiny thing it’s hard for many people to stay consistent. To show up when they feel stuck in their practice. When they get bored.
On the opposite side of that repetition is mastery.
As a yoga teacher who’s working on mastering Journey Into Power sometimes I can feel stuck in my teaching. Maybe I need to add a big variation to keep the students engaged. Usually those variations are more self fulfilling than they are to helping the students.
And the sequence of poses? There’s so many ways to teach them.
You can move the students fast or take them through the practice at a snails pace. You can cue throughout the class or provide silence and space by just calling the poses. There are so many ways to teach the same sequence.
There’s no shortcut to mastery—in yoga, business, or life.
Master the fundamentals. Lay the foundation.
Then keep showing up.
