Poise

Poise found the quiet base after a summer of falling off a log.

"When I was little," she says, "there was a fallen log across the creek, and I wanted to walk it — but I'd tense up, hold my breath, stare at my feet, and wobble right off every time. Splash. I decided some creatures were just born graceful and I wasn't one of them." She'd started to believe steadiness was a gift, not a skill.

Then a heron named Auntie Wade showed her something quiet. "Don't look at your feet," Auntie Wade said. "Look at the far bank. Breathe out. Bend your knees a little and let your ankles jiggle." Poise tried it — soft knees, eyes ahead, one long slow breath — and instead of fighting the wobble, she let her ankles make tiny, loose corrections, and she walked the whole log, calm and sure. "I was amazed," Poise says. "I'd been trying to be a statue. But a statue falls. The secret was being a little bit alive — soft and low and always adjusting. Nobody had ever told me the wobble was allowed. The wobble is the balance working." That was the day Poise decided her job would be to teach the quiet base — because steadiness isn't a gift some are born with. It's a low, loose, listening thing every body can learn.

One still morning the cast was crossing the log-bridge over the practice creek, and Roll was frozen halfway across, arms locked stiff out to the sides, breath held, eyes glued to his own feet. "I'm gonna… fall!" he squeaked. He teetered, wobbled harder, and clung to the air. He looked like he might cry.

Poise stepped lightly onto the log behind him, calm and unhurried. "You're staring at your feet and holding your breath," she said gently. "That's what's tipping you."

Roll didn't dare turn around. "Look at the big oak on the far side, not your feet," Poise said, and showed him — she planted her long foot, softened her knee so it bounced just a little, breathed out slow, eyes on the far tree, and stood easy as morning. "Now let your knees go soft, and breathe out," she said. "Let your ankles wobble. The wobble is your body catching you." Roll lifted his eyes to the oak, let out a shaky breath, unlocked his stiff knees — and felt his ankles make a hundred tiny catches he never had to think about. The teetering stopped. He walked the rest of the log, slow and sure, and stepped onto solid ground with a gasp. "I did it! And I wasn't even trying so hard!" "Most kids try too hard," Poise smiled. "They lock up stiff, and stiff things tip over. Soft and low and breathing — that's the base." Coach Echo nodded from the bank: "The quiet base — steadiness that comes from letting go, not clamping down." And it's for every body, Poise made sure to say — every kid has feet full of tiny balancing muscles, so it's never about being born graceful; it's about softening and listening. People everywhere find this base their own way: a yoga tree pose, a surfer riding a wave, a dancer holding a long slow arabesque. All different, all the same quiet.