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I wear my Lock the Knee necklace a lot.

In the world outside of my Bikram yoga studio, people have questions about this.

What does it say? I don’t get it.

I respond, “Oh, it’s a yoga thing” and they go away. And they think I’m rather odd.

In Bikram, you need to lock out your knee. This means you push your knee all the way back and engage the quad. Locking it protects the knee from injury by taking the pressure off the joint and placing it on the stronger muscles that can handle it.

Locking the knee out is harder than it sounds because it always comes unlocked. I have to be steadfast and do it over and over again. All my hard work can come undone in a second, because sometimes life is like that. I have to embrace the impermanence and start over, yet again.

It’s hard but I’m going to do it anyway.

In locking the knee, I am both protecting myself and becoming even stronger. I’m willing to put all my focus, concentration and energy into something as simple and challenging as keeping my standing leg solid, concrete, one piece, lamp-post, unbroken.

I’m willing to be right here, right now. I’m going to lock it out 500 times in the next 60 seconds. It won’t be easy. It’ll make me sweat. But I’ll come back tomorrow and do it again.

My necklace helps me remember that I am strong and dedicated and not scared of something, just because it hurts like hell for a minute. Either on the mat, or off.

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