Collaboration, not competition

The first time I heard the phrase “Collaboration, not Competition” I was listening to a podcast from Dr. Ryan Gray, back then a fellow premed advisor and now my work partner.

To be clear, I’ve thought in terms like this my whole life - and you, dear reader, probably have too. Love your sister or brother. A rising tide lifts all boats. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. These are all phrases or ideas that fit with the idea of collaborating rather than competing.

But Ryan is the person who plugged the particular phrasing of “Collaboration, not Competition” into my head, and I’m grateful for it. I love the applicability of this phrase to so many situations. It works in premed life, and it works in yoga.

In one part of my life, I advise premedical students. In a country where about half of applicants to medical school are not accepted, if you’re a premed, it might be tempting to view your peers as competition. In fact, your fellow premed students are some of the few people who understand what you’re going through; they know how rigorous and complex the premed process is. What’s more your premeds peers are also your future colleagues as physicians. With that in mind, it makes so much more sense to collaborate with your peers than to compete with them. Why not pay forward what you learn and attract people who want to pay forward to you too?

“Why not pay forward what you learn and attract people who want to pay forward to you too?”

And, in another part of my life, I teach yoga. Yoga is an ancient practice that is meant to help connect body, mind, and spirit. Does that sound like something where you’re supposed to be competitive? To me, it seems like an obvious no. And yet, here in the Western hemisphere, many people often mistake yoga to mean asanas. The word “Asana” means pose and refers to the physical shapes you make on your yoga mat. Asanas are a part of yoga, and most people first learn about the poses of yoga before learning about any other part of it. But yoga is so much more than physical shapes. Yoga means yoke; in fact, the word yoke comes from the word yoga. Yoga means union. Yoga is about connection.

Why then, does so much of yoga marketing show people contorting their bodies in shapes that 99% of people could never do? Are they trying to impress you? Are they trying to shame you? Whatever the rationale, it is conflict with the knowledge of yoga and human anatomy. Many of the so-called “advanced” yoga shapes are only available to bodies with certain bone lengths and ratios, and no amount of stretching and strengthening muscles tissue is going to change your bones. If the goal of yoga is union, why create a divide from the outset? Why send the visual message that you have to look a certain way or make a certain shape in order to participate?

To me, regardless of their intention, the result is creating competition. There is no competition in yoga. I would argue that if there is a sense of competition, then it’s not really yoga. If you’re in a class where you feel like you have to “get better” at yoga, then I’d like to offer up that you’ve been placed in a competition with your fellow students and maybe even with your teacher. What if you walked away from that environment and found a place where you were invited to show up just as you are? What if your yoga community was about collaboration, not competition?

I invite you to consider the following:

You do not have to be flexible to practice yoga. You do not have to “work on deepening your poses” or “getting more flexible” in your yoga poses.

We adapt the pose to fit the body. We do NOT try to adapt the body to fit the pose. If the pose feels wrong, the pose is wrong, and your body is right.

What if when you practiced yoga, you were able to think of it as play? What if you noticed that some days your body made the same shapes differently than on other days and you didn’t make a judgment? What if sometimes challenge felt fun and other times rest felt fun? What if you could simply observe what your body was interested in doing on that day? What if whatever version of pose you choose is perfect, and every version is perfect, because you are already perfect? If that last one seems like a lot, that’s okay. Give it time. What if you had a teacher and classmates who wanted to share the tips and tricks they’d learned to make poses feel more comfortable? We’re here, and we’d love to have you collaborate with us.