It's the little things
In yoga, there’s a practice of making micro adjustments. It means that within a held “still” pose, the yogi makes tiny adjustments, naked to the eye, intended to strengthen the pose from the inside out. These adjustments can be physical, energetic, or mental but they all serve the goal of refining one’s place in space.
In NYC, where I live and work as a freelance dance artist, the energy of the city ebbs and flows outside of your control all the time. As a freelancer, work comes and goes, is a lot then a little, and the schedule is consistent approximately…never.
In yoga, we look to achieve quiet in the mind and quiet in the body, despite the difficult postures we ask of them both. Making the micro-adjustment of elongating the breath by 1 second can slow the heart a tiny bit and result in more calm and more strength.
In NYC, micro-adjustments also have a huge impact, compounded over time. Recently, I learned from a long time New Yorker that taking the subway when you only have to go one stop will definitely save you a few minutes. Sure, it’s only a few minutes but over many times a day, over the week, the month, the year - the times adds up.
In yoga, after long struggling with stability in my handstand, the adjustment of a few centimeters forward with my shoulders over my hands resulted in everything lining up to allow for sustained balance.
In NYC, curiously pursuing that which can streamline your day, offers the most precious of commodities - time. Once I learned where to stand in a given train station to await the train that dropped me off closest to my more efficient exit, I could use those 2-5 minutes of waiting to position myself better once I got off. In this city, more time equals a better chance of sustained balance.
Both in yoga and in life, the value of micro-adjustments have outsized impact on the quality of whatever your effort is. While I deeply believe in the power of habit, reassessing the details from time to time is worth the practice. There’s usually no need to scrap the habit entirely, merely refine it to be more efficient using micro-adjustments.
If you’re not certain how to start, take a simple daily habit and mess around with it to see if it stills works for you as best as possible! Account for your growth over time, and adjust as necessary.
