Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to be born with grace and style? Some people can wear anything and look elegant and refined. Whatever they say sounds astute and perceptive; whatever they do looks competent and natural.
Then you have people like me. I inherited this unfortunate quality from my father. My uncle once commented that my father could wear the most expensive suit and you'd think it had come off the rack at K-Mart. Cruelly, I laughed at the time -- my uncle was right! -- but somewhere deep inside me a tiny voice whispered that I was just the same. And really, I am. Good clothes are wasted on me; in no time at all I've got ketchup on the collar and coffee spilled down the front. Buttons pop off my shirts and get lost, my cuffs become stained and frayed, and my shoes acquire scuff marks no matter how careful I am. But mainly, I just don't wear fine clothes with the natural confidence of the born-graceful. Which is okay, really, as I vastly prefer to buy my clothes at The Salvation Army Thrift Shop, my favorite boutique. But that doesn't mean I don't envy those graceful people just the same. I'd like to walk down the street in my secondhand clothes and enjoy the awe and admiration that the born-graceful inspire whatever they wear, wherever they go.
Natural grace has everything to do with personality and manner, and next to nothing to do with looks. It is inspired by a certain confidence which might be possible to acquire, but I suspect is largely innate. I like to imagine that it is possible to gain this over the years, because I've been trying to achieve it for a couple of decades and I want to think that I am getting somewhere.
The only reason I even decided to try is largely to do with my first yoga teacher, Kakizawa-san, who once commented that she had felt ungainly as a child. Kakizawa-san was in her early fifties, slender and tall. She wore her hair long and it never got messy, and throughout every yoga class, she maintained a calm, gracious manner that was seemingly effortless.
This can't be easy to do in a yoga class, where you are constantly changing position and adopting awkward or embarrassing postures. But Kakizawa-san managed it, all the same. She just had a knack. She herself was convinced that yoga had given her more grace and confidence. This gave me hope.
One day, in class, she was showing us a shoulder stand. "Now please don't be embarrassed if you pass wind when you try this," she said gravely. The entire class -- mainly women in the forties and fifties -- tittered. Kakizawa-san smiled, but assured us that it was perfectly natural to fart, absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. As it turned out, all of us managed our shoulder stands without even a hint of a fart. But it would have been okay if any of us hadn't: Kakizawa-san had said so.
During cold season, one of my fellow students brought up the subject of jalneti, or saline nasal irrigation. This is the yoga practice of passing warm salt water through the nostrils, which is said to have enormous benefits in cleaning the throat and sinuses. Kakizawa-san assured us that she did this and found it immensely helpful. Everyone expressed interest in precisely how it was done, and she offered to give us a demonstration.
Leading us all into the ladies' room, Kakizawa-san produced a small clay pot filled with warm salt water. She tied her long hair back and gracefully leaned over the sink, collapsing one nostril with a finger and holding the pot up to her nose. "Now you gently breathe in the water" she intoned, doing this, "and release it through your mouth." Again, she demonstrated, allowing the water to flow out of her mouth. It looked so easy the way she did it and -- I swear to God! -- so stylish. I couldn't wait to try it myself.
Now, I won't give you the gory details. Just go try it yourself. You don't need a clay pot, just some boiled water cooled to body temperature with a pinch of salt added. Stand in front of a mirror and see how cool you look doing this. See if you can make it look graceful and stylish. If you can, good for you: you are one of the born-gracefuls of this world and you ought to be proud.
Me, I do it without the mirror.
