There are many inch pebbles that lead to the destination.
Hansel and Gretel
Their evil step mother is leading Hansel and Gretel deeper and deeper into the forest. Hansel heard her plan to abandon them in the forest the night before and he is prepared with pockets full of shiny white pebbles.
As they go deeper into the woods, Hansel keeps dropping the pebbles every few inches. His goal is to return him and his sister to their cottage. They are so far into the woods that he can no longer see their cottage, but he can see the trail of shiny white pebbles.
After their evil step mother leaves them in the woods Hansel and Gretel follow the trail of white pebbles one at a time back to their cottage.
They can’t see their cottage until they are almost home but they can see the next couple of pebbles.
Following the pebbles one after the other led them to their major goal of getting home.
Working on a yoga pose is much the same as following the trail of inch pebbles.
What is Hansel’s inch pebbles
Hansel’s ploy of using inch pebbles to find their way home will work in your yoga practice.
Hansel’s cottage is his major goal. In your yoga practice achieving a certain level of flexibility in a yoga pose is your major long term goal.
You need some intermediate goals along the way. Hansel used inch pebbles as a series of intermediate goals on the way to his cottage.
You can use inch pebbles in your yoga practice to show you the way to your major goal.
Why use the Hansel’s inch pebbles
Using inch pebbles has several benefits to you and your yoga practice.
- You set many intermediate goals
- You stay on the path
- You keep motivated
Let’s start with many intermediate goals.
Use inch pebbles to
- Set many intermediate goals
- Stay on the path
- Keep motivated
Many intermediate goals
Using the inch pebble approach to goal setting you set a large number of intermediate goals. The next inch pebble is not that far away and will be easy to achieve given a little time and effort.
Stay on the path
It is easy to stay of the path to your long term goal when your next goal, the next inch pebble is so near you can almost touch it.
As you get a little more flexible and your hands move closer together you are moving from one inch pebble to the next.
Keep motivated
The trail of inch pebbles keeps you motivated. As you achieve one inch pebble you feel a sense of success and progress.
You have reached the goal. You have reached your inch pebble. Now it is time to move on to the next inch pebble and then the one after that and so on and so on.
How to use Hansel’s inch pebbles
Talk to your yoga teacher about the major goal that you want to achieve. Your teacher will lay out a path that will take you from where you are now to the that major goal.
Your teacher will show you the first couple of inch pebbles along the path to your goal.
As you achieve these small incremental goals your teacher will show you where the next inch pebbles are and help you to move down the path towards them.
Eventually there are no more inch pebbles and you have reached your goal.
At this point your teacher will talk to you about possible next goals in the pose and lay out another trail of inch pebbles for you to follow one and at time.
How do you figure out how many inch pebbles you need
To get the right number of inch pebbles talk to your yoga teacher about your goal for a yoga pose.
Your teacher will observe you as you demonstrate the yoga pose. Now the teacher knows what stages you need to go through to get to your goal.
Rather than lay out all of the inch pebbles on the path to your goal they will show you the next couple of inch pebbles only. They are taking you down the path towards your goal one inch pebble at a time.
When you reach an inch pebble your teacher will introduce you to the next inch pebble. One inch pebble at a time you are moving towards your goal.
Summary
Setting a major goal of achieving a certain level in a particular pose is excellent. This goal can be a long way away and will take a long to achieve.
Setting a large number of intermediate inch pebble goals keeps you on track towards your goal and keeps you motivated as you achieve one inch pebble goal after another.
Next Step
Talk to your yoga teacher about your major goal for the yoga pose that you working on. Together you can map out a trail of inch pebbles that will take you to your goal.
Additional Reading
You can read the complete Grimm’s Fairy Tale “Hansel and Gretel” on the web.
The article How to develop a concrete goal for your yoga practice shows you more about setting and reaching your goals.
For another example in goal setting listen to the crow in the article Why embracing the crow will improve your yoga practice.
Hansel and Gretel could only see some of their inch pebbles at any one time. The article Follow the GPS method to reach your next yoga milestone talks about the benefit of only seeing a few of your inch pebbles.
