Land on the Green

My friend, Hal, recently posted on Facebook that he often thinks about Target Fixation, an attentional phenomenon he learned about in motorcycle safety class. The term basically means that if you focus too much on a target, you might end up colliding with it. For example, a motorcycle rider sees a pothole or a cow while riding down the road, but instead of steering away from the danger, he pays such fixed attention to it that his brain’s feedback mechanism steers him toward it. In other words, the fear the rider experiences at the moment draws him toward the object of his fear instead of where it should be steering him: the road ahead. 

“The way they teach you to avoid colliding with the object,” wrote Hal, “is to take note of it, but also to look past it to where you want to go, to not let the obstacle become the endpoint of your journey, but rather something to be steered around.”

In yoga, that might mean attempting a pose you’ve been hesitant to try because you think you’ll look bad or might fail, or it might mean letting go of a pose that’s currently not working for your body in order to be able to practice for years to come. Off the mat, it might mean clearly observing without judgement fears you’re currently facing (aging, illness, money, masks, bad guys…), but navigating around them in order to enjoy the precious life you have.

A journalist once asked Tiger Woods, “How do you miss sand traps so often?” Woods responded, “I don’t think to myself, ‘miss the trap, miss the trap.’ I think to myself, ‘land on the green, land on the green.’”

Happy New Year, yogis! May 2021 bring you fewer sand traps and more time on the green!