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Beyond the Barre: Finding the Ease Within the Effort
Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author, journalist, and director of the graduate program in multimedia studies at the University of Oregon. Needless to say, we were thrilled when Lauren graciously offered to share her experience as a barre3 Eugene client. Read on to discover what she’s learned at the barre and how it’s helping her live a more engaged, vibrant life.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “finding the ease in the effort.” This is what my supremely talented barre3 instructor, Summer Spinner, (yes, her real name) says as we are holding the most challenging pose of the morning. Finding the ease in the effort. It’s one of those potentially life-altering mantras I’ve now come to expect from my increasingly frequent time in the barre3 studio. Who knew that an exercise regimen I adopted purely for the purpose of getting out of my running-every-day rut would offer important life lessons.
The pose we’re holding this morning requires every muscle – including those you never knew you had – to fire. There’s a way of achieving this by tensing everything, from inner thigh to outer glute, from multiple layers of abdominals to the entire back body. When I first find my way to this pose, here’s what happens: My neck tenses, my shoulders lift and my face scrunches up. Then I hear Summer say, “now find the ease in the effort,” and the entire posture changes for me. I release my neck and slide my shoulders down. I untense my face. I close my eyes. I take that breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. And everything goes deeper. “Ease” is not what I’d call it because all those muscles are still very busy. It’s more a place of stability, almost peace — “the calm within the chaos,” which is another thing Summer says.
This is important stuff. I’m not just talking about what happens in my body during an hour-long barre3 class. I’m talking about the bigger lessons I am taking away from that hour about how to live a truly engaged, vibrant life. I call this counterclockwise living — a constellation of attitudes and actions that maintains what we should prize about “youth.” No, not the absence of wrinkles. Rather the presence (in abundance) of energy, creativity and resilience.
Finding the ease in the effort is a way to change that severe, nose-to-the-grindstone self-talk (I am going to eat 8 cups of veggies and 4 ounces of lean protein and nothing white ever — except cauliflower — or scold myself unmercifully) to a calmer, saner, happier I am going to enjoy and delight in healthy, mindful eating. It’s a way to change I am going to drag myself to the gym or the studio 5 days a week because I know I should to I am going to live in my body and enjoy and delight in physical activity.
Because when you try so hard, the trying takes over. It becomes all about trying, and what you are doing and how you are experiencing what you are doing is lost in the effort and the sweat and the scrunched up face. Believe me. I know. This is one of most challenging lessons I am trying to learn. (But trying to not try so hard!) I am deeply surprised that finding the ease in the effort is so much harder than finding the effort.
This is the challenge that keeps me coming back to barre3. I know that finding the ease is a path to a more balanced, healthier, happier life.
Lauren Kessler, the author of seven books of narrative nonfiction, teaches writing at the University of Oregon.
Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author, journalist, and director of the graduate program in multimedia studies at the University of Oregon. Needless to say, we were thrilled when Lauren graciously offered to share her experience as a barre3 Eugene client. Read on to discover what she’s learned at the barre and how it’s helping her live a more engaged, vibrant life.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “finding the ease in the effort.” This is what my supremely talented barre3 instructor, Summer Spinner, (yes, her real name) says as we are holding the most challenging pose of the morning. Finding the ease in the effort. It’s one of those potentially life-altering mantras I’ve now come to expect from my increasingly frequent time in the barre3 studio. Who knew that an exercise regimen I adopted purely for the purpose of getting out of my running-every-day rut would offer important life lessons.
The pose we’re holding this morning requires every muscle – including those you never knew you had – to fire. There’s a way of achieving this by tensing everything, from inner thigh to outer glute, from multiple layers of abdominals to the entire back body. When I first find my way to this pose, here’s what happens: My neck tenses, my shoulders lift and my face scrunches up. Then I hear Summer say, “now find the ease in the effort,” and the entire posture changes for me. I release my neck and slide my shoulders down. I untense my face. I close my eyes. I take that breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. And everything goes deeper. “Ease” is not what I’d call it because all those muscles are still very busy. It’s more a place of stability, almost peace — “the calm within the chaos,” which is another thing Summer says.
This is important stuff. I’m not just talking about what happens in my body during an hour-long barre3 class. I’m talking about the bigger lessons I am taking away from that hour about how to live a truly engaged, vibrant life. I call this counterclockwise living — a constellation of attitudes and actions that maintains what we should prize about “youth.” No, not the absence of wrinkles. Rather the presence (in abundance) of energy, creativity and resilience.
Finding the ease in the effort is a way to change that severe, nose-to-the-grindstone self-talk (I am going to eat 8 cups of veggies and 4 ounces of lean protein and nothing white ever — except cauliflower — or scold myself unmercifully) to a calmer, saner, happier I am going to enjoy and delight in healthy, mindful eating. It’s a way to change I am going to drag myself to the gym or the studio 5 days a week because I know I should to I am going to live in my body and enjoy and delight in physical activity.
Because when you try so hard, the trying takes over. It becomes all about trying, and what you are doing and how you are experiencing what you are doing is lost in the effort and the sweat and the scrunched up face. Believe me. I know. This is one of most challenging lessons I am trying to learn. (But trying to not try so hard!) I am deeply surprised that finding the ease in the effort is so much harder than finding the effort.
This is the challenge that keeps me coming back to barre3. I know that finding the ease is a path to a more balanced, healthier, happier life.
Lauren Kessler, the author of seven books of narrative nonfiction, teaches writing at the University of Oregon.
