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I approached my birthday this year from a few thousand miles removed – taking some time off from a van-building project with my Granny in Michigan.

Dear friends and record breaking temperatures have kept me company along the #outlawyogatour in some familiar haunts like Cedar Rapids and Kansas City; and some cool, new stops like Alton, Illinois and North Platte… 

Last year, the pandemic invited me to take a year off from celebrating my birthday, which was fine by me – I figure I can turn 40 one more time…once at least, my ‘colleagues’ tell me.

As I circled back into town by way of Goodland, Kansas (record setting 108 that day), I listened to an excellent article on Vanity Fair about the Wuhan Lab Leek Theory, and started to reflect on what it means to mark an anniversary such as one’s day of birth…

…to contemplate aging…

…mortality…

…and death.

I’ve been close to death in many ways and in many roles – once as an EMT I pressed on the chest of someone unsuccessfully as they passed in the ER, and brought one back with a successful intubation in the same shift.

I’m no neophyte, but then again when it comes to aging… I am.

“Forty is the old age of youth,” Victor Hugo is said to have said.

And I must say, at least one reason for marking this particular anniversary is an invitation to compassionately evaluate what I do a bit more closely…

(These days I do watch what I eat a bit more closely, especially if I’m vanning it – you are much more mindful of what you eat and when, when your closest place to go number 2 sleeps within 2 feet of you.)

I found myself contemplating the practice and what it means for me now… it occurred to me the many ways that yoga has grown with me, the way that it evolves with us as we change, age, degrade, upgrade, etc.

Determining what we need as we change can seem  tricky, but it’s really as simple as this – a careful examination of what you do, will fluidly determine what you need.

All things being equal – the ego included – I am kinder to my body in the practice, demanding a bit less in terms of physical and fancy poses…I tend to stay longer in stretches, and still try to remember to meditate and do my breathwork.

If I can let go of my egoic need to have a body-building style chest, I will free up time to be kinder to my wrists, for example…

If what you do is stare hunched over a screen, then what you need is upper back bends, neck rolls and shoulder mobility work, and what we refer to in yoga as ‘heart openers’.

If what you do off the mat is hoard, then what you might need to do is purge… if what you do is hold your tongue too often, then maybe what you need to do is speak up, etc.

For the last 10 years or so, what I do is drink and smoke and eat a little too much.

Know what I did for the 10 years before that?

Worked a little too hard, and took things a little too seriously…

There’s a calibration to be had, and maybe that’s the point of marking an anniversary such as a birthday, or a New Year in any celebratory sense of the word?

To force a reflection – positive, productive, or otherwise – to stop for a moment, and look back with purpose and calibrate, even slightly, a new way forward.

If, in looking back, you find that you’ve gone too far, it suggests you turn back proportionally – minus a little bit – in the opposite direction…

I don’t intend to stop eating too much and drinking too much and smoking too much all at once – in fact, it’d be shocking to my system to – like those aged rockers who stop doing drugs and die the next day, my body has developed a wonderful homeostasis with my meatloaf, whiskey and cannabis diet.

I’m using the date to calibrate…not to turn back.

Turns out you can’t do that.

It suggests that I should do drinking and smoking and eating a little less.

If, on the other hand, what you do is not smoke or eat or drink enough…then what you might consider doing is eating and smoking and drinking more.

In whatever relative ‘realm’ that means for you.

The middle path… 

Wu Wei doesn’t mean peaceful, it means non-resistance. ‘This’ is happening, meet it without resistance…

Simple enough, but seldom easy.

Humans seem to need to hit the relative edges of existence in order to navigate it’s middles – calibrating their approach a little bit at a time over a long period of time…to touch the extremes in order to determine the right, moderate middle path for themselves.

Navigation involves plotting a course by comparing two points in order to determine a third, using dead reckoning, or the careful observation of landmarks to determine where you’re at compared to where you’ve been in order to accurately plot the way forward.

Without this moment of critical reflection one might just as consciously rush off in the wrong direction, working hard at gaining ground only to notice – when they reach the top – that they weren’t on the right path for them in the first place…

Lately, yoga for me is more comprised of stretching, moderation and self-care. Remembering to juice, to breathe deep, to move slow…at least, when I can.

Off the mat, I’m listening to the Alan Watts podcast on Spotify and remembering, when the pain reminds me, to super glue my toe-cracks.

Whatever it means to you, consider taking a moment to consider what you do by exploring your  habitual motions, thoughts, and activities…

Consider journaling your explorations…

Now that you’ve carefully reflected on what you do (and made it this far), take a moment to explore what it suggests you need…considering off-setting and/or complimentary movements and practices…

Take some time to contemplate and reflect in your journal…

That will most likely mean something different to you than it does to me…

I’ve put my body through a lot in the 40 (nay, 41!) trips around the sun that it’s been fortunate enough to enjoy – I’m trying to be kinder and more accepting of my knees and their limitations, for example.

This year I was thrilled to eat an excess of birthday food with an abundance of my favorite people, humbled to teach class with LIVE music from my dear friend Seth Larson at the Hudson Gardens event center to the biggest, most wonderful group of yogis that any of us had seen in some time, and filled-up from the opportunity to reconnect with this wonderful Outlaw Yoga community…

To reflect a bit…to plan a calibration…at least after I wake up, have some hair of the dog and do it all over again through the weekend.

Eat your heart out, rockers everywhere…

Need some motivation, Yogis? The days last long, but the years go fast…

I’m not the first to say it and I damn sure won’t be the last…no matter how long the years last.

Good luck out there, Yogis…may you one day mark this day, as the day you seized the day!

Best,

JK

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Justin “Jud” Kaliszewski is the best-selling yoga teacher and renowned creator of Outlaw Yoga. Author. Artist. Adventurer. Take his class NOW at outlawyogaclub.com and www.youtube.com/outlawyoga. Find his writing and art at www.justinkaliszewski.com and his presence all over the internet – for an outlaw, he’s shockingly easy to get ahold of.