DOLPHIN POSEThe first few years out of a PhD and into a teaching
job are hectic, because you’re learning to teach
and putting together your courses. In addition to
that, I am also organizing a symposium, and then
there’s my biggest preoccupation: getting my
book together. Publishing a book is the only way
I will be able to keep my job. To become a tenured
professor you have pull out all of the stops.
I have been practicing yoga since I was nine-
teen and in college. I grew up skiing, which
brought on some lower-back pain, and yoga
helped me with that. The practice also helped
me cultivate a space separate from all of the
striving and intellectual focus of the rest of my
life. I need yoga to feel good physically, and I
need it to maintain my equilibrium, psychologi-
cally and emotionally.
Part of the real lesson for me in a yoga class
is learning to benefit from the collective group
energy in the room, to resist the urge to com-
pete, and to shed the conventional idea of
achievement. You have to be competitive to suc-
ceed at a competitive job. But yoga reminds us
to be less focused on ourselves as individuals.