5.2: Habits of Mind and Body- Persistence and Sustained Interest

Persistence, as defined by the Framework, entails commitment and attention. It requires students to try on new ways of thinking about the writing process and new methods of managing their composing sessions and to follow through with these tasks over the course of the semester. The first lesson of persistence students learn when using yoga for their writing is that they must frequently practice both processes together for noticeable gains. After completing our first “yoga for writers” practice, blogs requesting their initial responses (some of which I share above) and subsequent class discussions, students begin using asana in their daily writing sessions. (See my appendix for a sample handout given to students outlining poses and connecting them to the writing process). We also start our practice of in-class pranayama and meditation, which I detail in my next interchapter. It is important that students practice this integration during class time and that they also approach themselves as writing yogis outside of class, for it is during these times that they execute a great deal of their composing.

Since I ask students to complete a weekly writing blog, wherein they document their process for our class (and, if they desire, for other classes as well), I also request students use this blog as a space to keep themselves accountable to incorporating yoga into their routines, before, during and after their writing sessions. Again, it is important that students see our yoga practices not as deviations from our class work but rather as connected. When students opt out of our yoga practice, I give them the option of using some other sustained physical practice like running or regular walking to take its place. Allowing students the autonomy of choice is a lesson in responsibility and also gives them nothing to react or rebel against, since our practice remains a suggestion rather than an inflexible requirement. Perhaps because of this flexibility, most of my students do choose to use yoga; I’ve only ever had a small handful of students who used another physical practice in place of it. And, even those students still typically joined in for our classroom-based yoga, even if they infrequently practiced on their own.

If most continue to practice yoga willingly, all typically rise to the challenge of thinking about the movement of their bodies as an integral part of the composing process. And they benefit. Zach is a student who stands out because of his motivation. A type “A” myself, I recognize this quality in my students almost instantly. He was one of those students who brought all the course texts to class on the first day “just in case” he’d need them. Zach’s organization and question-asking secured his success in my class but was driven by his perfectionism, which caused him a great deal of undue stress. Zach was won over by our practice of yoga because he found great relief from writing frustration in his practice—and therein a greater commitment to the growth of his papers. He states, “When I’m stuck, I can stop to breathe or [to do a] pose instead of staring desperately at the computer screen. Through the break I can relax and write longer and better without the added frustration.” Zach is successful as a writer because he exchanges desperation over the long-term nature of the writing process with short-term productivity guaranteed by yoga “breaks.” These breaks, he claims, become a part of the writing process because they help him reengage his attention rather than disengaging it, so much so that he believes the break and his process are continuous: “In fact, it is not so much a ‘break’ as it is part of the physical writing process. I can honestly say yoga has helped me develop as a writer.” Part of the way yoga has “helped” Zach is by developing his persistence, entailing the kind of commitment to an ongoing writing task that my student here demonstrates. The sustenance Zach finds in his yoga-writing practice is well-supported: research completed at the University of Kentucky found that students who engaged in contemplative practices like meditation when taking a break from their studies showed enhanced brain functioning superior to those who napped, watched television or talked with friends (Grace, 2011, p. 113).

Commitment can also be attributed to student writers’ abilities to trust that persistence will pay off in the end. Contemplative acts build that trust as they increase the strength of executive control processes. Students who engage in them are more likely to appreciate delayed gratification (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 129), such as the benefits of rewriting a paper many times, which may reap rewards including more confidence in writing abilities and a higher grade. These delayed rewards begin to seem more attractive rather than the instant gratification of procrastination. Research has shown that with continued focus on contemplative awareness this self-regulatory “capacity to inhibit the dominant response tendency is associated with both social-emotional (e.g., better stress management) and academic (e.g., higher SAT scores) benefits” (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 129). Take Sasha, a gifted artist, as a case in point.

Sasha claims that while she always knew procrastination wasn’t what you were “supposed” to do, there was previously something practical about waiting for the surge of energy she got when writing a paper at the last minute; even if it was confused and disorganized, the paper would get done. Plus, procrastination provides more time for her to “do the other stuff [she] enjoy[s].” But developing a corporeal orientation to the writing process with yoga shifts her understanding of the effectiveness of this method so that a paper “done well” begins to mean more than simply “done.” Instead of being quickly written the night before, she notes that a recent paper for our class “took many different writing and brainstorming sessions to complete as well as two conferences and peer review.” For this student, becoming a writing yogi means slowing down and listening to her writing body—an impulse opposite from her typical tendency to procrastinate, which places unreasonable demands on her body and mind. Overriding her habitual responses by listening to her body not only makes the writing process more enjoyable, less stressful and therefore more accessible on a day-to-day basis, but it also helps my student write more imaginatively and carefully, factors that will make her drafts more persuasive which could (and did) lead to earning higher grades.¹⁸ Extending the amount of time she works to draft her essays also increases her ability to entertain new ideas as her drafts grow and incorporate her peers’ ideas and challenges to her thinking brought on by conferences, as her remarks indicate. This impulse of mindfulness, of slowing down and paying attention, is characteristic of a pedagogy that fosters contemplative awareness.

My students not only exhibit newfound persistence when completing their writing projects, but they also demonstrate corresponding changes to their thinking about writing. Noting his personal goals in using yoga for writing, Kevin states in a blog that growing in his abilities as a writer is equally important to committing himself to the idea that such growth takes time. Slow persistence is a remarkable insight for this particular student, a highly motivated second-language learner who desired a native speaker’s fluency from the moment he entered my class as a first-semester international student. Yoga gives Kevin a new model for progressive growth:

All I need to do to get better at a particular pose or my flexibility in general is that I need to at least try my best. My pose will be the closest to the one that instructor demonstrated in my best ability. I think it is same in writing. There always will be better writers than me or anyone in the classroom. There will be the best example on particular writing style or the way to write well in general. I am not saying it is impossible for anyone to get that level, but it will be pretty darn difficult. However, if I try my best … I can say that is a great achievement.

Kevin recognizes that persistent effort, trying his “best,” may not make his writing process perfect or help him flawlessly execute yoga poses but that perfection need not always be the goal. Rather than encouraging students to be dismissive of their efforts, learning limits helps students set realistic goals that keep them motivated to write and learn.

When students like Kevin see writing in terms of yoga, they keep in mind how they must notice gradual improvement in writing as in asanas and that flexibility—of body and mind—is hard won and slow to develop. Such acceptance may be attributable to the ways that contemplative practices like yoga have been shown to help students develop “motivational mindsets” (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 129) that give them both concepts and scripts to use when navigating their abilities and any setbacks to their goals. That is, because “contemplative practices require the mastery of challenging mental and physical skills (e.g. sitting silently and watching the in-coming and out-going breath or maintaining a particular physical pose) (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 129). It follows that “engagement in these practices … provides numerous ways of understanding oneself and one’s attempts to learn and be resilient during the process of learning” (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 129).

Native speaker, Abby, who shared Kevin’s introspective nature, certainly expands her self-understanding by engaging in yoga, and this appreciably benefits her writing. She states that with yoga, she is able better recognize when her body and mind need more time to grapple with difficult ideas. Abby notes that yoga teaches her to slow down since always pushing herself to her limits leaves her burned out and ready to quit:

When writing does not go well, I will stop and do some yoga to relax my body and mind, rather than forc[ing] myself to go forward. Not only does yoga make the body feel more focused, it relaxes the mind more than anything I’ve ever done outside of running …. [Yoga also promotes] self reflection which helps me put things in perspective and can yield clarity and bring the body and mind closer …. I feel that the most important thing that yoga shows us is that slowing things down and having alone time can really clear the mind and body.

If the Framework suggests that persistence is about learning to “follow through, over time, to complete tasks, processes, or projects” and “grapple with challenging ideas, texts, processes or projects” (2011, p. 5), both Kevin’s and Abby’s testimonies reiterate the ways healthy persistence can be supported by engaging students in contemplative writing processes. Yoga, in particular, teaches them that persistence is sustained by learning how to best keep the fires of energy burning long and slow over a period of time. Indeed, their comments exhibit persistence with a contemplative edge of self-compassion. Putting things “into perspective” is both a means of treating oneself compassionately and of placing a writer’s perspective in the body.

Studies on the merits of contemplative education show that students who develop self-compassion are more likely to approach setbacks with a positive mindset and less likely to correlate academic failures with their sense of selfworth. Self-compassion is specifically linked to students’ understanding of moment-to-moment fluctuations in perception. And, monitoring of these fluctuations is taught by balancing poses, as detailed above. With my students in mind, we can see how yoga helps writers develop an increasing acuity becoming aware of habitual responses. Learning to redirect these automatic responses can play a key role in fostering informed and self-endorsed behavioral regulation, which has long been associated with well-being enhancement (Brown & Ryan, 2003, p. 823). Self-compassion inspires greater feelings of confidence and competence among student writers and an increased, intrinsic desire for growth and improvement. Students who exhibit self-compassion are more likely to focus on their learning and improvement as opposed to their performance in comparison to others—key for the transfer of learning.

In contemplative pedagogy, compassion is developed by tuning into the body, which strengthens the areas of the brain that stimulate caregiving behavior (Tirch, 2010, p. 118). “Being aware of my body helped during the writing process because when I felt tired and sore from working and writing, I knew to take a break,” says Sasha, echoing Zach’s earlier comments. Because Sasha spent a great deal of time drawing (her favorite pastime), she notes that she also used these moments of learned awareness to monitor her art sessions as well. Even though Zach’s worries stemmed from his ability to produce a successful paper and Sasha’s from concerns for her waning creativity and tired body, both students benefitted deeply from yoga. Breaks, instead of becoming a waste of time, become a necessary part of rather than deviation from the writing process when my students attend to their writing bodies. And breaks embody the compassion these writers are learning to feel for themselves. Neither recognition is trivial. Sasha continues, “[i]f I try and overpower my body and complete too much in one session, I end up with poorly written paper that looks like it was written in a hurry. I am also a lot less creative when my mind and body are tired and need a break.” With such attention comes a healthy dose of respect for how the body shapes the results of our writing sessions and our writing products themselves.

Mindfulness doesn’t just encourage focused attention on the experience of writing at any given moment; it also helps writers find peace within themselves when they feel weary or worn out. Whether we practice mindful breathing as we move through yoga poses or as we sit quietly and solely focused on our breath, “[o]ur resentments, angers, regrets, desires, envies, frustrations, and feelings of superiority and inadequacy” fall away …. Of course they return, but the remembered experience of peace acts as proof that these obstacles are not insurmountable; they can be detached and disposed of (Iyengar, 2005, p. 97). And when they are disposed of, we can refocus on our goals. Yoga teaches students that embodying their imaginings of focus and peace helps them to reenter them. Holly and I stress to students the importance of remembering the peace and balance they create during practice; for, if they can remember this, they will be assured that place is never too far away. But, if they can’t recapture this peace, they can just as easily re-create it. This is why another student, weary and about to completely lose focus, practices yoga in the library, where she happens to be writing her paper:

I was working a long period of time with no breaks on an assortment of assignments, not because I was in a rush just because I had the time. I studied to the point that I couldn’t concentrate and my body just felt like I needed to walk around. Since it was a crammed library day I did not want to lose my spot and I was still leery of leaving my stuff around, I went in an aisle of books and started doing [asanas].

That my student is willing to risk being seen doing yoga in the stacks loudly speaks of her belief in its efficacy for her ability to sustain focus. The need for her mid-library practice can be summed up by one of her classmates’ responses: “The yoga rituals bring in a focused, calming energy that allows me to expand upon and spread out my writing. I find I can actually write for longer periods of time if I incorporate different exercises throughout the writing process.” With such comments, my students demonstrate that they are learning how a united and calm body and mind are necessary for awareness and that yoga can aid them in cultivating such calm attentiveness.

Because yoga helps students develop mindfulness, it can increase the quality of their attention, which has a direct impact on their success as writers. Just ask my students. Their experiences with a yoga-writing practice show that “the practice of focusing awareness on a single object (e.g. a physical pose, the breath) promotes sensory inhibition and a ‘relaxation response’ … and can cultivate nondirective, open, vigilant, and receptive forms of awareness” (Roeser & Peck, 2009, p. 128). My students respond to these gains because they often combat debilitating stress and mental anguish over the writing process that interferes with their ability to focus on the task at hand. Practices that enhance their mindfulness develop “a greater ability or willingness to allow and be present with negative emotions rather than attempt to suppress or avoid them” (Robins, Keng, Ekblad, & Brantley, 2010, p. 119).