In the Yoga of Patanjali, who is credited with authoring the Yoga Sutras, that seminal yoga text, much is made of the idea of doing your practice (be it yoga, creative, whatever) FOR THE SAKE OF THE PRACTICE, rather than for a specific outcome.
Seems so simple, right?
Ha.
Simple, maybe.
Easy, forget about it.
The process of making my DVD was a case in point. I swear, so much went wrong, it nearly finished me off. In fact, if I hadn’t told everyone I was doing it, I would have quietly slunk away from the project.
Things started going wrong from that first plane delay, which left me sitting in an airport, wondering when, if ever, I was going to get to Ubud. My video shoot was scheduled for 9am the next morning, and I’d thought I would scout locations when I arrived in the afternoon. Nope, I eventually arrived after midnight, just in time to collapse into bed. Without dinner.
So the locations? I had a quick wander around at 6am, and those were the spots we used. Good thing Bali is so ridiculously beautiful.
Then there was the small matter of the film crew. I’d chosen the company because their portfolio was AMAZING, and they’d promised me the earth – editing, voiceover, the lot.
They didn’t tell me the film crew weren’t going to be able to to speak English, making communication really hard. Also, they didn’t tell me that the film quality they were going to provide wasn’t going to be quite what I signed up for. Or that they had…stretched the truth…about their ability to do a voiceover & edit.
After a gruelling day doing the voiceover in five minute segments, when I got the final edit of the DVD? The sound was out of sync. On account of nobody spoke English so they had no idea what I was saying or whether it matched the visual.
At that point, I got close to my head exploding. But I was left with half a product, which I’d spent SIGNIFICANT money on producing, and told people about.
I had to carry on, right? No matter what.
And I did, and eventually, after many hours of voiceover recordings, editing, yadda yadda, the DVD came together.
To make sure I got it finished, a keep-me-honest strategy, I put the DVD on pre-release sale. That worked a charm, because then I had people I didn’t want to let down.
By the end, I was so over that DVD, I would have been happy never to see it again.
I’d lost sight of the process, bumps and all, being like a yoga practice. A practice of surrendering to, or softening into, whatever shows up.
Bless, I think I need more practice.
It’s only been since people started telling me how much they are enjoying the DVD that the process of making it has begun to seem worthwhile. Clearly, I am waaaaay too attached to the fruits of my efforts. Oh well. Good thing yoga is a practice, and I have the rest of my life to, well, practice.
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So good things can come out of chaos. Speaking of which, these DVD things….do you have an AVI/MP4 or some such version available to buy? I’m trying to migrate away from CDs/discs but would love to purchase a digital copy!
Bah, you are forcing me to do something a whole bunch of people have been asking for…OkAAYYY, I will sort downloads in the next few weeks
Oooh… downloads?
Bah. This thing, the downloads thing? Is my metaphorical headstand…Oh well, needs must be brave. I shall start with the yogAttitude DVD & see from there…
You have a Mac, yeah? Download a program like Handbrake and the conversion should be easy from DVD format!! Let me know if you want a hand!
That’s not the problem. It’s the hosting. I need to put it on Amazon, but I have a little bit of stage fright about doing that
Well I have no idea what that involves, but if its tricky, what about a low-tech solution using a combo of PayPal and Dropbox in the meantime? Easy peasy!!
I — for one — am quite glad that you didn’t walk away from it. I’m enjoying my copy immensely!