The usual microwave stew of everything, quick-time!

I haven't practiced a lot in November.

Partial Primary today; experiments with Kapotasana on Wednesday (press up, walk in, repeat).

Seventh series takes MORE time as it proceeds, NOT less. One starts to GIVE time to it, rather than respond to its sheer DEMANDS.

Almost six months now since C was born; first airplane flight due on Wednesday afternoon. Family visit, meet his cousin, who is my nephew, and all grandparents (J's are going to drive down from visiting in Maine, to Massachusetts, where my tribe is from).

Eyes, hands, vocalizations, sitting up, laughter. Reaching for stuff. EVERYTHING goes in the mouth.

Semester NOT cooking me alive yet, but damn close. Ten graduate students (MFA) to essentially advise for the semester, nearly 150 undergrads at survey level.

I did not get sick two days ago, but post-nasal drip made it seem that something was coming on. Outstanding!

COULD NOT sustain the Chicago energy, any more than a tiger can be stuffed into a jewelry box. It sits and waits for me to have time and space to open the curtain on the inner kingdom.

I'm actively applying for art history jobs. Four of them are near here, relatively speaking (that is, a state or two away). No chance in hell, maybe, that I'll get one (as my degrees aren't in AH and I only have five years teaching experience in it) but if a department wants more interdisciplinarity than research depth in-field, maybe I can slip in...

Film jobs are a catastrophe. There are few, and almost all of them want production. Fuck that. It's all such rhetoric-du-jour, about "transnational media" and "research emphasis in the global South" and such. Furthermore, I think that the national film conference (to the degree that it is one; does it know that a literature conference held three months earlier does more film interviews than it does?) is just a bunch of tenured people getting together to share their new obsessions. I mean, check it: they wanted to hold the 2009 conference in TOKYO (who the fuck can afford THAT as a grad student??? or new faculty???) and because of H1N1 panic, had to cancel the WHOLE SHEBANG. So in 2010 it's due to be LA (again, maybe it's not TOKYO, but WhoTF can afford THAT???).

Anyway, job searching is depressing. Whatever. I write the letters, I send the documents. Then I think about something else.

November is the low power month on my calendar. I notice that I AVIDLY look forward to December.

I will be some big stupid age, in 2010 (40). I can't decide if I'll either blow it off completely in a spirit of "fuck you, American age stereotypes" or if I will have a bunch of KILLER asana pics taken that day, in exactly the same spirit.

Recently J and I finally had a conversation about all of the post-divorce stuff that I'm anxious about and which kicked into HIGH GEAR when we got pregnant. Long-held relationship anxieties, priority anxieties, past bad scenes rebirthing as threats, and so on. If you were to read all of my posts about that past relationship, you'd be able to see how they re-seed. I don't feel like rewriting that novel right now (although it'd be compelling reading), but I'm beginning to believe that all of that REALLY IS just anxiety, just ghosts. Only took 15 months to begin to put it down. That was HARD work, carrying all that around for the past year and some. I'm still carrying some of it around.

But that relationship's end (and it was my walkout), is about to hit its seven-year anniversary in mid-December. Maybe it will ALL drop off at that point.

I am about to get more than 100 undergrad papers, and then go on vacation, then come back, give a test, guide my grads into coherent theory papers, and call it a semester. I will be PSYCHED if I don't have to do family travel in late December, and I'll be on the look out to do CONFERENCE travel at that time, if I get any interviews. Ahh the regular insecurity; always in motion is the future, blah blah.

That's it! Happy rest of 2009!

Quick summary of the Kino Chicago weekend: Two thumbs up.

Yes, everyone, apologies that I don't post much anymore; when you're doing seventh series, you'll understand :) Anyway, the world's quickest weekend summary!

1. I got the Kino Intermediate DVD last week, and it inspired a week of practices. It's GREAT. I actually got more out of the practice disc than I did out of the "how to work" disc, and the major poses it changed for me were Pasasana, Supta Vajrasana and those of the FBH section.

2. Having Kino in person, directly after that, was a freakin' gift. Marvelousness.

3. I stayed in a hostel right downtown. Public transportation in Chicago, at any hour of day or night, is marvelous and easy.

4. At Friday morning's Mysore, with over 50 people, Kino said, "If you have a long practice, begin now; if you have a short practice, begin in about 15 minutes." That's how it was split.

5. At the FIRST Chakrasana (after Supta Padangusthasana), I re-activated a HOT nerve pinch in my left trapezius. That HURT. And it made the backbends of Intermediate, well, let's just say a LITTLE challenging. But I did up to Dwi Pada anyway because I was having fantastic energy.

6. Kino's assisted backbends go like this: 2-3 drops back with arms crossed, and then back to hands and WALK in, even with HEAD DOWN, walk in as FAR as possible, and then when maxed out, PUSH UP, LEGS STRAIGHT, ARMS STRAIGHT. Holy COW, is that hard. But it's SO cool. Tightest wheel I've EVER done, and I don't even want to know how close to my feet, my hands were. I took a HUGE walk-and-crawl-and-creep-in. Kino said, "Good, you found the strength!" It was nuts, but I loved it.

7. The adjustment 4-hour session was geared toward Marichyasana D; we did twists, shoulders, spine lengtheners. Kino likes to put a foot on practitioners, more than Matthew Sweeney does. Great adjustments were learned.

8. The strength session was very much about slow movement and stability. We "walked" jumpbacks and throughs, but holding the pose, picking up one foot, arms STRAIGHT, just holding the moment of "through" (no matter what direction). It was fabulous. I was POURING sweat. We also got all about the shoulders in headstand; the idea is always to DEACTIVATE the traps and to ACTIVATE the lats, and just from teaching people how to jump and how to invert, I knew that, but it was so, so good to have the reminder.

9. The next morning's Mysore saw me get up to Kapotasana, with an adjustment but not even Kino could get me to my toes. Too much collapse, energy weak by that point. I was bummed about that but the final backbend (which again was an epic walk-in and push-up) made it better. Just can NOT turn down that amazing energy, that opening, both strength and flexibility. Also, my dropbacks and standups FINALLY returned, after about a week off, in this class.

10. The Intro to Intermediate was a selection of poses that we took apart in great anatomical, energetic detail. Pasasana, all backbends except Parsva Dhanurasana, Eka Pada Sirsasana, Pincha and Karanda, Nakrasana. As the "Pasasana" model, I was able to take a wrist. That was a first, and super cool. We did a Kapo adjustment where the maximum asked was just to touch the floor. It was very informative. Set up the stability, the strength, in the lats, ribs, hips, and THEN bend.

10a. Kino said for us to ask questions after, so I did: pretty much a straightup "What's up with my Kapo?" I'd been waiting for EVER to ask that, because it's been FOURTEEN MONTHS since my last Mysore room. She said, "You have the flexibility for it, based on your final backbend, it's just a matter of using the STRENGTH to keep your head off the floor. Do not walk in unless your head is up."

11. Before the final Primary on Sunday, there was open practice, and I wanted to learn some of the stuff we'd talked about, in my body, so I decided to do a full Intermediate. Yeah, I know that sounds dumb before a 150-minute Primary, but I wasn't thinking about the Primary, I was thinking about learning, about embodying the knowledge. I used to double-practice a LOT; I still do now and then. Moksha's Mysore guy was leading some students through a partial Primary, and he gave me a GREAT Supta V assist.

11a. Notes: Pasasana, bound both sides. Shalabhasana: LONG, not HIGH. Better that way, builds the body awareness for the harder backbends. Dhanurasana: high, shoulders, not low back. Kino told us, pull with the arms, it's NOT just in the legs. Ustrasana: looking down, chin to chest, builds a better, steadier bend, than looking back right away. SEE the belly suck in. Kapo: did it twice. Hands down, PUSH, and then walk, PUSH, then walk, hands WIDE, OUTSIDE the feet. Both times, tension appeared not in the back, but in the SHOULDERS. I have no idea how far in I walked, but my back was FINE; it was the shoulders that were staring to burn, and I've NEVER had that before in Kapo, so it's completely interesting.

11b. More notes: Big twists. Right glutes did not complain in Ardha Matsyendrasana, and they usually do. FBH was good, solid, but righty is still tighter than lefty. Could not balance in Dwi Pada (as usual) but could lift up. Pincha only took the tiniest, the MOST MINUTE, of hops, to get into. I'm learning to do it with pure strength and body alignment, no jump needed. Same entry to Karanda; did Karanda four times, made and lowered the lotus once with head up. Needs work, but that's cool. Mayurasana, fun. Nakrasana, fun. Vatayanasana, proves that left hip is more open than right (knew that). Parighasana, fun. Gomukhasana (now understood as a balance pose, not a hip opener, from the DVD), fun. SUPV, STILL cannot keep bound half-lotus toe in the roll. Eh, that's fine. Headstands, did all and timbered all, except the third one, where I couldn't keep the balance. Three backbends, three drops and stands, full closing. GREAT practice. Later, however, I would be SMOKED in the Primary poses that are quad-intensive: UHP floating the leg, Navasana. The counts, as expected, were long. The Sirsasana was FIFTY TWO of my regular breaths. FIFTY. TWO.

12. My ride and I ducked out of the final session, so that he could meet his new relationship and build it a bit more; I can respect that. Now I am back grading and writing a test and so forth and so on. But practice, mmmm, yummy practice. I'm totally geared for it now (yes, I know it's a moon today, but I mean in general). Very inspiring stuff over the weekend.

13. I saw Lars von Trier's new thing ANTICHRIST. Do NOT put that film in your head unless you want some SERIOUSLY traumatic imagery in your consciousness. I mean, it was chewy and has an interesting concept and a lot of BEAUTIFUL photography, but hot DAMN, you'll never un-see some of those images.

Real Fast: Kino's "How to Work" on the Intermediate DVD

I haven't seen the first disc yet; no time. But, seeing as how I'll be doing Mysore something-or-other under Kino's eye in two weeks, I thought this was a required purchase.

"How to Work" covers the majority of poses in Intermediate: no Shalabhasana, no Bakasana A, no twists, (perhaps oddly) no Tittibhasana walk (although we do get all other parts), no Parighasana, no Gomukhasana, no Baddha Hasta headstands.

This is not introductory; it's NOT for people who want a Pasasana lesson. It's for practitioners who variously cannot achieve full expressions and want modifications that will productively develop those expressions.

There are delicious goodies on Supta Vajrasana, on Karandavasana. What you get from this disc depends on where you struggle and how much AND how much you've been told (or not) by whoever teaches you.

In general, I learned something from this disc; definitely. Sure, I knew that Bhekasana modification, but I didn't necessarily ALSO have Kino telling me what to emphasize and what the purpose of the pose is. "How to Work" is being billed as "how to achieve the shape," but it's also about "how to think about the shape" and "what the shape is for."

Sometimes the voiceover comes with anatomy info; sometimes with personal narrative; sometimes with advice about how to practice by yourself.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Enjoy!

8 Hours Kid Care, Lead a Primary

And that's my Monday. Wake up at 6:30, make sure J has tea and consciousness and clothing enough to leave the house and get to work. As its some kind of daycare in-service day, begin kid care. The kid can reach and grab things, but doesn't have any kind of fine motor control of the hands. He's as likely to put a hand in my eye or grab a big handful of my throat as he is to wave.

8:30, first fussiness. Food solves it. Yay for checklist running!

10:10, more sophisticated fussiness. Food, nay. Diaper, nay. Hmm. At about 11:00 am, I find out that sticking him into the shoulder sling and going for a garden walk will then create sleep. Check! He and I stand up and hip-sway and watch 40 minutes of Eddie Izzard.

12:50, high-powered fussiness. No food, no sleep, no diaper. OK, it's on. Fussy baby hour. This has certain repeating characteristics:
1. You cannot put me down. If you sit or lay me out, I cry, on contact.
2. You cannot stop moving. If you cease to walk or heavily hip-sway, crying.

I dealt with fussy baby hour for FOUR HOURS until J came home at 5 and put him to sleep with great ease. It wasn't easy; I'll be polite and only say that about it.

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Then I led a Primary, with Carol (who usually teaches) in attendance. Five students in all, good times, some laughter, some stories told (I always tell stories when teaching, when teaching ANYTHING), many poses done, adjustments given, et cetera.

Good, good energy. Mmmmhmm. Love that stuff.

Then I read through yoga blogs. I still am shocked that people think Nakrasana is difficult. Then I remember that I've seen DOZENS of students who can't hold a single chaturanga for longer than about 1.5 seconds.

For my money, Nakrasana is difficult because of WHERE it comes, not WHAT it is.

I remember over the summer, doing a week of Intermediate only (the whole thing) and seeing my FBH capacity RADICALLY increase.

Kapotasana, however, responds best to a Primary-and-up-to treatment.

I aim--even though I have meetings and course prep and money anxiety--to try to practice tomorrow, between, say, 1 and 4 pm. I have two noon student meetings and I won't have food between 8 and 1, and I have the metabolism of a COMET--it's going to be HARD not to chow a burrito or something, but I will have my pre-fab raisin/walnut trail mix that I made, and that'll back it off. That's what that is for.

Tomorrow, we practice! This week was a TOTAL loss on practice. Massively overwhelming obligations: fevery kid, 11 students worth of grad advising, test grading, total chaos.

The intention is set. Kino on Halloween weekend. I want to be able to bring my big game.

Eight days is too long.

I NEVER stop posting for eight days, not even when I TRY not to write here.

Quick updates on everything:

Yesterday I walked hands to feet in Kapo and was able to press head up, clearly off the floor, but not to walk the hands further in. It would have been beyond toes. That's cool.

Seventh series has progressed past four months now. More smiles, more friendliness, more predictable, readable crying (diaper is wet is one cry, hunger is another one). Very good. But WTF is this 3 o'clock in the morning "I'm awake and ready to play!"???? Noises, hands that work, tons of eye contact, grins on sight, on and on like that. Very good. First air travel is to be Thanksgiving weekend. He'll be six months old then. Crawling, we think.

J and I see each other rarely; she has a combined academic/administrative gig that requires five days of 8-5. I teach yoga 2 nights a week, often, and a night class for school; we often crash by 9 pm. Weekends are all baby time; five days of daycare besides. A lot of driving, occasional parking lot handoffs and then we're onto the next task. It's good that we built up six years of "savings" in this relationship, because we're living on that time now.

I am managing practice on every day but Tuesday and Sunday. Sunday there's simply no 90 minutes away from baby and J. It's not fair to ask for it. Tuesday, I teach double sessions of art history at the intro level, from 9am-noon, have office hours and meetings, have to pick kid up at 3:30-4pm, and teach at 6:30-9 pm. I can't pull 90 minutes in the middle of that unless my afternoon meetings are TOTALLY CLEAR. So I count those as my days off.

Home practice has returned to 68 degrees. Standups, predictably, retreated for a while, but seem to be creeping back. I wear a polar fleece top and shorts and only take the top off when doing Garbha Pindasana/Kukkutasana.

I am teaching a course in art theory for MFA students (12 of them) and it's becoming evident that as working artists, they're not totally clear on their "theoretical" reasons for making things. So I am starting to do studio visits and mini-critiques (in which I'm not trained) in order to sort of co-brainstorm with these people and connect hands to minds to thesis writing to theory. It's a lot like yoga teaching. There is a weird cognitive "hands-on" (maybe "minds-on"?) quality in the interaction; I THINK about what they MAKE and ask them questions that convey the thinking and they answer me and facilitate my further theorizations. It's part watching and part "adjusting," not that I adjust their concept, but I look around at it, invite them to move things, try things, ask how things "feel." It's much more similar than I'd expected it to be. Makes one wonder what kind of relationships would obtain between practicing asana and making art.

When I read yoga blogs now, I get jealous of travels, retreats, training, the ability people have, to have free time. You do NOT know what "busy" is until you're a parent.

Raising a kid is so hard that it makes writing a dissertation look like a pillowfight.

I have successfully put away two and a half thousand bucks, regarding my "get out of Indy someday" fund.

The ashtanga series-class that I began at the end of September is regularly seeing about a half-dozen people, and I teach it workshop style. Seated series, coming up this Sunday. Every pose. Lotus builders. Vinyasa. Everything. If it's in there, I cover it.

Potential plans to be in Seattle for a week or two over the summer.

Job market approaching. Gigs that sound ok, in Wisconsin, in Ohio. Good gig in DC, but too high-powered for me to get.

Writing an article and racing the clock before sending out the apps. MUST get submitted for publication before sending the CV, so it looks like I'm getting my publication history in order. Phallic power, gaze theory, French art cinema, emotional affect, et cetera.

Busy. Very busy. But not stressy worry-about-future busy. Present tense, one-thing-after-another busy. Like an asana sequence. Daycare, school, householding. Daycare, school, householding. Repeat.

Primary and the answer is, Six.

With rain-threatening skies which turned to sunshine, baby inside, and company, I was still able to manage an outdoor Primary, 3 dropbacks and standups and a full closing (25-10). Getting in Sunday practice is HARD.

The answer to my "will there be crowds" question is, SIX. Six students on the first day, but all of them signed up for the whole 8-week program, so the studio just made a little under six hundred bucks. You're welcome.

Drop-ins are possible for that class, so I'll be trying to build that up all week. I think that after the series, some people will drop off. Maybe not; they seem to be in for the workshoppish format and then on their way.

Predictable non-attenders: people who at one time saw me and asked when it was, saying they'd "try to make it." Yep, seen that before. A student whom I did get to the studio, but did not get interested in my own series. Yep, saw that coming. People whom I know are out of town some Sundays and thus didn't sign for the whole program (this will be a rich source of drop-ins). Past regulars that I've not seen in weeks (there's no telling what those people are up to).

Attenders: current students (yay you guys!), past students who were regular for this same class, people who've seen me pull stuents in vinyasa classes. A good mix. Real live exposure to me seems to be the key. That's typical here; it's a very "I know that teacher" or "I've seen his/her practice" town, very unwilling to go just on a class description or a reputation long-distance (unless a master teacher comes to town).

Still, I bet if this series goes over well, I could pitch it AGAIN in the winter.

Standups remain even after time away.

I discovered the title line today: three days without a full Primary, and a lot of hip-tightening sitting at this computer and elsewhere, and yet even with tighter, more ballistic dropbacks, standing up remains.

It's done the same way I described it a few posts ago: drop back, walk hands in. Rearrange feet so they're wide-hip distance (but not mat corners) and pointed front. Throw self upward. Hands leave floor. On the first throw, they inevitably return to the floor. But on the 2nd-3rd throw, up I come, as if the rib cage moves horizontally until it "hooks into" the navel, and KAPOW, I'm standing.

There is quite literally a "line of power" from at least the solar plexus to the pubic bone. Probably from the chin, but I can't track it past solar plex. I think that I like my feet closer when standing, than when dropping back, because the hip flexors help to PULL in standing, whereas they need to RELEASE when dropping, so I expect soon to discover that dropping back is actually, in a way, HARDER than standing up.

This is true in Kapo too, though: it's easier for me to pop up kneeling than it is for me to get my heels. Let's parallel (in a way that might be erroneous) taking the heels to dropping back without ballistics. I don't unballistically drop back. But I do pop up, and thus, I pop up. That's all theory. Sounds good so far.

I want to start dropping back, and spending five breaths down there before coming up. Curious to see what that makes visible.

The ten-breath wheel has been very good. Gets deep into, and then past, the tight glute mechanism of the right hip.

Tomorrow, company and baby or no company and baby, the plan is to PRACTICE before I teach. I want to be on to the GILLS before this first class.

Dave Stringer

has just been in town and that kirtan was some good stuff. Check it: "Kirtan is like punk rock, except with ecstasy instead of anger." I love that.

Do-it-yourself ecstasy. Sure, the rhetoric about brain chemistry is going to send many people back to "What the &*&%^%#%$# do We Know?" (and many people either love or hate that film), but it sounds too good to simply pass off without a try.

DS told us that recorded music put an end to "everyone being a musician" in cultures and traditions where music was taught by practicing it (singing, instrumentation, whatever you've got). J has said similar things to me, about the ways that in the UK, people will sing or play (J was speaking specifically about Irish dance and the musical culture which accompanied when it was a tradition, way before it became RIVERDANCE (oy!!!)) but in the States, our "music" has become in large part whatever pop tunes we listen to. We listen rather than participate. I wondered if singing along with the Stones in the stadium counted.

I got my voice into a few chants and it felt good, and I thought of a thousand things that are FAR too complicated and deeply narrative to get into here; I'm not in the mood for one of my novels right now.

People are apparently curious and asking, about my two-month Ashtanga thing at the studio. That begins on SUNDAY. I've missed the hell out of teaching on Sunday, and the cool bit is that I'm subbing the big 20-person vinyasa class on Saturday morning, so I'm gonna sell it there, and then I'm also subbing the Monday night ashtanga show, which I will ALSO sell to both Saturday and Sunday crowds (if I get crowds). It could be good.

.02 on "vinyasa yoga," both locally and conceptually.

Most of the studios here teach "vinyasa." I think, actually, that in the US, probably MOST studios teach or at least offer "vinyasa." What IS that, exactly?

This isn't going to be one of those "ashtanga vs. vinyasa" posts or even one which tries to isolate a clear difference between the two (my current thoughts on that are that ashtanga is more dynamic (jumpier) and vinyasa tends to be more static (series of poses held one after another) but even that's a generalization)).

Locally, "vinyasa" means a heated room (heat is the new gimmick here) and a series of poses that tend to be held in sets (i.e., 2-4, maybe more, poses in one standing or seated go). I think that's the standard definition nationwide, probably, of course with a thousand variations. There often aren't inversions, but again, that's variable.

What has chronically irked me about the local "vinyasa" scene, and thanks to recent posting elsewhere, I also now know that THIS can be national, too, is the rhetoric on TEACHER BIO's. A LOT of ex-dancers. A LOT of ballet backgrounds. That's fine. But the rhetoric about the yoga is completely obtuse, general to the point of downright misinformation. You already know some of the nuggets: "Alignment and breath are key in his/her classes" or "S/he believes in a heat-inspiring flow" or "Yoga had been looking for her/him for years" or "Breath will be linked to movement in this flow class" or "Come and stretch and exert at the same time" or "S/he was at first attracted to the physical benefits, but later discovered the more emotional benefits as well" or "A daily practice of yoga allows us to leave one undesired thought per day, on the mat." On and on like that.

What is one to come away with? Well, let me address some realities first.

1) This obviously promotes an experiential preference either for the teacher, the environment or the specific poses and/or class setup (or gimmick).

2) This generalized rhetoric about "breath" and "benefits" suits ALL yoga practices. Hell, you could be talking about Kundalini or Rusty Wells, there's no damn way to tell the difference.

3) Generalizing or not, this is actually a good way to get people who are brand new yoga practitioners, into a room. "What am I in for?" "Well, it's a physical exercise that stretches you and provides emotional benefits over time, and relaxation." See? Imagine you're a truck driver or someone who works 40/week typing in an office. Couldn't you use some stretching and relaxation?

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When I go to a different studio (and I've been to five different competing studios) I more often than not see a COMPLETELY different gang of yoga practitioners, even in vinyasa rooms. There is BARELY any crossover. On the one hand, this says, "WOW, Indy has a HAPPENING vinyasa scene" because that's FIVE DIFFERENT vinyasa rooms with over ten people in them (ten people is a big class in this town).

Each studio tends to have its regulars, and then there are the portable yogis like me and like a few people I know, who go over HERE, then over THERE, and why not try THIS out, and so on.

All I could tell about any of the classes in advance (ANY of them) was gimmickery: one has loud rock music, another has a famously hot 95 degree room, another has a famous instructor with an Integral yoga background, and so on. Well, it's impolite to call it gimmickery. ONE salient feature appears and sometimes, that salient feature is really nothing more than, "You'll love this class!" Sometimes it's nothing more than the level: "This class is an introduction to yoga." And that's it! Huh? YOGA? Which yoga, what yoga, are we talking limbs here? Wha'???

Instructor lines here are sometimes unobvious or simply not mentioned. Sure, there are a lot of Jonny Kest's people here, because of his big studio in Michigan. You see Kripalu sometimes on people's bios, or Yogaworks (because one studio in town has a long-distance YW training program). But in other cases (and MANY other cases), you see NOTHING about training other than "s/he is certified in hatha yoga" or something like that. Huh? Are you ALLOWED to NOT say that? Certified WHERE, certified in WHAT, from WHOM? People, this MATTERS.

No wait, maybe it doesn't. To people off the street, who don't speak yoga teacher-ese, the training SCHOOL doesn't matter. Neither, maybe, does the training TYPE. See how weird and yet fine this is? All you need is to say some of the key nuggets: "His/her classes link breath to movement, promoting stretching and relaxation." That's all you need. TA-DA!!! You're now a yoga teacher.

And the appeal of this kind of anti-information in teacher bios is that classes become dependent on the teacher; yoga styles turn into "Billy Yoga" and "Julie Yoga." There's no other way to make sense of the scene. Nobody has a history, nobody has a lineage.

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But now, let's be nice. There's an upside (a few of them) to vinyasa yoga. For one, there are teachers with clearly defined senses of the vinyasa they teach. Rusty Wells. Larry Schultz. Moses and the Kests (in the Michigan scene; I don't mean to be San-Francentric, hahaha!). There are clearly defined teachers HERE too. Hell even the formulaic YogaWorks class format, which is apparently taught in their teacher training, has a pattern, has a sort of bodymind map.

But whereas Rusty Wells sometimes offers specific poses in his workshop descriptions (for example, we know that "Crumble" is full of splits and inversions) and even has a poster of his standard "Bhakti flow," in local vinyasa flow here, we're still likely to get the fuzzy nuggets: "You'll breathe and be led through a set of vinyasas; be ready to sweat!" Huh? SET of vinyasas? WTF are those?

And sure, Rusty Wells has dedicated followers, you bet. So does Larry. So do the Kest brothers. It's not bad to have followers; what I'm criticizing above is a type of yoga marketing which is SO GENERAL that it's the TEACHER him/herself who becomes the yoga distributor. It's DEPENDENT following, not INSPIRED following.

Put another way (and I'm taking this from somewhere, I forget where), some yoga studios teach students to LEAN, and others teach them to STAND.

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A good thing about vinyasa yogas generally--no matter how general the teacher bio--is that it promotes experience, perhaps at worst out of curiosity about the nearly total lack of information that we see in many cases.

Because "yoga" here and I think throughout the US, means physical movement (asana), vinyasa yoga becomes the mainstream. Sometimes there's a split between "hatha" and "vinyasa" which in actual yoga vocabulary is impossible and nonsensical, but which in Western usage means, respectively, "gentle" and "more adventurous." But that's tending to be replaced here by the actual levels themselves, so you get "beginners" then "intermediate" and then "int/advanced" (I've never seen a class here strictly labeled "advanced"). Or you get "Yoga for Condition X" or "Yoga for Quality Y" which again is great for marketing but bad for specificity.

In a way this generalization syndrome in descriptions of teachers and styles, fits an audience which "wants to become more flexible." The demand is as general and fuzzy as the supply. It fits. More flexible WHERE, more flexible HOW? And FOR WHAT? For walking downstairs comfortably? For putting your foot behind your head? See? I shouldn't even get started on the desire to "get in shape." That's the most vile and general of all of them. "IN SHAPE?" By what standards? Does that mean physical condition? Looking good naked? Eating well? Cardiovascular fitness? Something else? A combination? Again, some marketings are more specific about this, and some are terribly, TERRIBLY general.

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Nonetheless, generalizations sell, or at least, they create curiosity. Then you get the teacher, you get the room, you get the gimmick or not, and if your friends also go, you get community. People like that. Then it's largely interpersonal dynamics, same as picking a personal trainer.

Admittedly, some people do NOT, for example, want to invert. This sets some limits on classes they'll go to or not. But other students are never going to be INTRODUCED to an inversion, and that is something I would want fixed (if it were up to me). I would want things more specific; I'd say that in the experience of a class, this would happen, but I know from experience that it's not always going to.

Sometimes the class is just the gimmick; it's the loud music or it's how hard the "sets of vinyasas" are on the core. That's just gym-exercise-ball routines in a yoga studio. Other times it's breathing, and so you learn how to do shining skull or some other mode, but not necessarily what that's FOR. Same as with many asana; you do some standing, you do some seated, but without any sense of WHAT those poses DO. HOW they build on each other or how they counterpose each other, or WHY they're put together like that.

And so reviews of classes come down to like generalizations: "That kicked my butt" or "That really chilled me out" or "Omg I feel so different now" or "I love how it's different every time" or "S/he gives really great adjustments" or "The poses were too hard" or "His/her class is really tough" and so on. Add a sprinkling of "I'm not flexible" and you've got it. Here, it's totally a sell by teacher and flavor of practice. It's exactly like personal training: a mix of interpersonal relations and preference for or aversion to the given tasks.

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For a practice which is so dedicated to self-knowledge (or at least the pursuit of it), we end up demonstrating our self-ignorance in many cases. This is true of much of life, and maybe it's required, to a degree, in a yoga studio. Maybe it MUST happen this way.

A yoga practice (of whatever or however many limbs) should make yogis of us.

Its job, to my thinking, is to turn us on to self-knowledge. It should be noted, of course, that I think the job of EVERYTHING is to do that. Returning to topic, then: the yoga should turn us on to self-knowledge, should make yogis of us. For me, that means turning toward home practice. Turning toward changes in life practices outside of the yoga studio. Not being those "Sunday only" churchgoers. But it also means being able to STAND, both IN and OUT of the yoga studio. To KNOW what to DO, outside of those spaces. Not just "to know a sequence of poses," but to know WHO ONE IS, outside of the yoga studio. To not be one person within and someone else without. To "recharge" from the practice, or, as Larry once put it, to "go to church."

I'm gonna get judgmental: when I read an ambiguous, generalized teacher bio or studio description, I feel like I'm going to get ambiguous, generalized instruction on ambiguous, generalized "yoga." I feel like I'm going to always need to go to that teacher--to become ADDICTED to that person--because I will NOT be able to "do the yoga" without that room and that person. This isn't because I need the person's presence, but because I don't have any idea WHAT THE YOGA IS.

The yoga MUST give us a standing place, NOT be a swamp.

If the yoga keeps or makes us stupid, then it's not the yoga we need.

In the end of it, those two sentences are really my criteria for "the yoga." It's not about "vinyasa" versus Kundalini or anything like that. It's not the type at all, it's about whether or not any given class or practice gives us access to "the yoga." If we come out feeling good or feeling relaxed, great, but one can feel relaxed in a swamp. One can feel good and healthy and have learned NOTHING.

I recently traded in the Krisna Das for a homemade pop album, with stuff like Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie on it. The yoga, if it is the yoga, can be done to ANYTHING. Jazz too, YogaDawg, you know it.

We must be able to stand up, look around, learn, understand, feel; turn each of those in and around to the others. We must leave the studio with these SKILLS.

Back on target, Breathing, Backbends

I took all of last week off, except for Tuesday. Too much life, too much work, too much article writing, et cetera. I returned to practice yesterday, doing the usual Primary and to Supta Vajrasana.

Often I imagine myself somewhere else; it's not a willed thing, it just happens during practice: old Mysore rooms, even Youtube videos. I imagine company, audience (depending). The effect of this begins as extra energy (remember I'm a big extrovert) but it always ends with tension, performance anxiety. It starts within me and it ends outside me, distracting.

Yesterday I imagined teaching students, in the spirit of demonstration, and eventually this faded "into" just practicing, and it got really breath intensive (which was not willed either). Just bigger inhales, exhales; longer ones. Probably inspired by Grim's experiments with Vinyasa Krama and its emphasis on bandhas.

Longer breaths make panicky or tight poses easier. Sure, we've heard that nugget before, but to PUT IT IN YOUR BODY is a whole different animal; seriously, it has nothing in common with the cute little yoga statement. Experience does NOT devolve into language, not without losing something that is ESSENTIAL.

I made myself lengthen breaths in hard places like Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Marichyasana D, particularly on the second side, Navasana (that takes some WILLPOWER, folks--to hold that fifth one for long breaths???!!!), Supta Kurmasana, the rolls of Garbha Pindasana, the pull of the shins toward the face in Urdhva Mukha Paschimottanasana. Longer makes calmer. I wasn't out of breath after Supta K, for the first time in I don't remember how long. I was never rushed anywhere, there was a deep and residing calm in the whole thing IN MY BODY, but the mind was rushing around, panicking about balance or about intense stretching or about endurance, always doubting me/itself in hard poses. But I forced myself to extend breaths in those places and no disaster occurred (none does anyway; so you come out of Navasana; what do you lose?).

I can't seem to settle on a backbends strategy. Over and over I write what I'm going to do, and then I do something different. So be it.

Yesterday, and extending into today, I decided to hold each Urdhva Dhanurasana for ten breaths, no matter what it took. I don't yet have the endurance to do this and come down to my head between. But I did four yesterday, with a full come-down between and some recovery breaths. But that's 40 breaths of backbends, and in the longer holds, tight spots begin to dissolve. It's broader rather than a set of sharp peaks in intensity, if that makes sense. Today I did all five, so 50 breaths with recovery breaths in between. I LOVE holding UD for ten breaths. It's not hard. But of course, coming down halfway between, and then pressing up, sustaining the backbend, THAT's hard. I'll build it.

How does this affect my dropbacks-standups? The effects are good.

I notice that with each backbend, my hands move closer to my feet (again, my rug is striped and so I can see this progress). I still drop back feet wide, and I feel them turn out a bit as I drop, then I turn them back in when I land. I'm at the point now where I can hang back and see myself reflected in the TV screen behind me, which is about 14 inches off the floor and five feet, maybe, behind me (this is indoor practice, of course, no longer by the garage). It's definitely a 90 degree bend and then some, and I can feel the spine get long as I bend, the bend is really happening in the low abs, right in the hip flexors. Good good stuff. Hands over is hard now; turns up the stretch to the point of discomfort, fairly easily. But I extend my arms fully, inhale, exhale drop. I land semi-softly; it's ballistic but not TOO far.

Yesterday I did not make it to standing; to knees, three times. Today I made it to standing what I will call two-and-a-half times. I land, walk in, and inhale, pop the hands off the rug, then they land again. Inhale again, pop the hands up, and mostly they land, although in the latter two standups today, I sprung to standing on the second throw. The first time, I came up, but lifted my head BEFORE my chest, and lost the balance. NEARLY standing, but lost it and crashed onto hands and butt. That hurt the right wrist, but not for more than about a minute. The next two times, I came up springy, had to step to fix it in space (which would have cost me points if I'd been an Olympic gymnast), but DEFINITELY two springy standups; no wall necessary.

Very cranked about that when it happened, but mellower about it now. Kapo was still a mess, but I think of my UD practice as building resources for it. Maybe with a single adjustment (the way Clayton changed my Baddha K forever), Kino can set my Kapo on the good path at the end of October.

So, so quickly: seventh series, Indy ashtanga scene.

Three months and some now: all smiles, some sounds, constant movement, ongoing sleep battles with the crib (this one even wiggles in his sleep!). It is far, far improved. Sure, there's still crying, particularly this wacko intense "I'm on fire" style crying, before sleeping. When the hell does THAT end? But all around it, things are good. More pleased, more interactive, the raw beginnings of phonetics, random noises, babble, but still, good. One can SEE that brain develop. The kid still looks mostly like me. It's weird giving yourself a bottle.

Tonight I taught my first Primary at the new place, my first in more than a month, since my Sunday gig was cancelled. EIGHT students and one teacher, who had cool poses. A guy got into his first full Lotus. I assisted people in Chakrasana. And so forth. A good time, but the new place wants us either to close at 8:30 (and we don't start until about 7:25, with classes letting out and intro and such) or sneak out the side entrance so that the counter staff can go home to kids and so on. Everyone has committed time, but my time, for example, is committed on the second Monday of the month to teaching Indy's ONLY full led Primary, and I had to cut most of closing for time. I'll admit I'm annoyed about this, but it's stupid, can't ask people to sacrifice their babysitter to a bunch of yogis Primary series.

It's going to be impossible to build an "ashtanga community" here if we don't let people HAVE THE PRACTICE. Because the classes that are partial Primary (aka 75 minutes, in which only a few people can even DO Primary much less teach it) don't link to and aren't connected to a class which then does FULL Primary, nobody sees the difference and students continue to just randomly go to whatever time slot or teacher personality suits them. OY! Here, let me roll my eyes for like half a fucking hour. This is what my "series class" is meant to repair, but the thing is, I can't recruit from any kind of base, I just have this scattershot exposure to random students on off days, and I have to pull them into a practice they've never heard of. Practically the only appeal I have (and it's a questionable one) is my SICK pose library (which I demonstrate on Saturdays for the early morning vinyasa crowd). This is a sickness which is, of course, relative. In the Kino Chicago sessions, it won't be THAT sick. But in Indy's vinyasa scene, I have MAD poses. Eh. Whatever.

Anyway, seventh is much more pleasurable now (although with work it's hard) and the ashtanga scene is still problematic. Yep! Still Indianapolis!

Totally enjoyable half Intermediate.

The day almost ran me out of time: I knew from yesterday that this might happen. So in the marvelous space of Indy's Peace Learning Center, where my Thursday night class happens, I did 5-and-3 salutations and Intermediate through Yoganidrasana, three wheels, four dropbacks and attempts-to-stand, and a 15-8 close.

Great practice. Rushed for time, I did the whole thing through backbends in 45 minutes. Intermediate in this fraction is fantastic, really good: a twist, a giant forward bend, seven backbends, two hand balances, two twists, and three ways to put a foot/feet behind your head. It's marvelous, what a great sequence.

No time to screw around or divert or get into tangents: I even left out the Hanumanasana in the Prasaritas. Breathe and move. Breathe and move. No feet in Kapo but who cares! Vinyasa!

I have been worried since last week about my ability to foot-behind-head. That's even tweakier in the outer knee than lotus is. But in Eka Pada I took the knee well back behind the shoulder, spent five breaths twisted slightly away from it (which is a nice stretch for the outer hip of the opposite thigh and also something in the low back area) and then just took it over. And it stuck, even the right foot, which is connected to the tighter hip. Five breaths seated, to get used to it, five folded, and then five pressed up, leg extended (no Chakorasana exit today). Endurance. Stretching into the hip. Great stuff.

I hooked the feet in Dwi Pada but they were, as usual, loosely hooked and sort of poking over the top of my head (yes, my legs are that long; Liz, I STILL owe you a photo). But I hung out there for fifteen breaths, at least, (yes I realize that this goes against my "no tangents" rule stated above, but mostly I was talking about Kapo there), trying to balance, wondering if I should reach up and adjust the feet to get the pose more fully. If I can ponder something in a pose, that pose isn't THAT hard. An adjustment could have put me in a full Dwi Pada.

Therefore, my Dwi Pada is easier than my Kapo.

Then Yoganidrasana was great, and I slipped on my fourth wheel (on the Manduka black) and so went right to dropbacks.

I'll try to reconstruct my backbending experience. It basically validates yesterday's theory:

My feet turn out when I drop back with feet flat; I can feel them do it. But I turn them back in when I land, and it seems to be ok. I note it each time and ask myself not to do it.

I walk the hands in at least once; I know that if I feel the rock forward happen in my KNEES, then I can't stand. Time to tighten the wheel and walk in again. I want to feel the rock forward happen in my NAVEL. That's where standing comes from.

I dropped back out of panic, heels up, on the third one of the four dropbacks, and could NOT find the proper hand-to-foot distance for a rock up to standing. So NO HEELS UP.

I didn't get a full stand out of any of the four today, but I did have some interesting balance-point gravity-defying moments in rocking up and taking the hands off the mat. The key DOES seem to be, hands closer to feet. The closer they are (but not so close that the hip flexors panic out of over stretch and force me to take my heels up or spread my knees apart), the easier it is to rock up into the NAVEL, which again, is key.

So on the second and fourth ones particularly, I noticed that I'd rock up, to fingertips, then again, and hands would come up, and then I'd land the hands CLOSER to the feet, as if the "throw" to stand up increased the opening of the hip flexors a bit. Rocking up from this closer landing felt even HIGHER in the center of gravity, and it felt like a stand up would be easier.

On the fourth (and last) dropback, I rocked up and just for a second, HUNG in the air, hands suspended over the mat. Then they dropped down again. THIS is what I want more of; that's the beginning of control, a crack in the ballistics of dropping back and standing up.

It's like when you're coming out of your early, unsteady headstands in closing sequence, and you finally HOLD the Urdhva Dandasana for a second.

So the new plan is this: drop back, rock up and land the hands CLOSER. EACH TIME. RAISE the center of gravity, and then CONTROL the launch, HANG it, and then eventually, STAND.

I'm actually ready for Kapotasana to take a few more years. That sounds insane, given that it's already kicked my ass for two years, but this, I'm certain, is the royal road. Hands closer to feet, control the hip flexors stretching and then contracting, in order to take the ballistics out of the backbends. Put that in Kapo terms, and you get, exactly, hands closer to feet, increased flexibility, then increased strength, and control throughout. Drop back, Kapo A. Stand up, Kapo B.

Three Days of the Long Program.

Each day has been easier than the last, particularly given the week off which preceded them. Monday, I felt like I'd throw up in Kapotasana. Tuesday, I was trapped, hands under my head, in Kapotasana, hands not to feet, but I added hangbacks. Today, I was first not-to-feet, then did four formal to-the-wall Kapo dropbacks (my "catpaw" innovations as Karen has referred to them and as they are now known) and then Kapo'ed again, fingers firmly to toes, about a knuckle deep.

These three Kapos represent MONTHS of practice. It means that my "actual" Kapo is probably larger than any of them.

Standups did not happen on Monday; they happened to the knees on Tuesday; today they happened, but a wall was necessary to "support" the pubic bone and let me complete the un-arching to standing. Again, this is a buildup, a recovery of skills rusted over the stressy week off.

Lotuses were what I was looking out for; those and Supta Kurmasana. Would the right side of both knees permit the poses? Monday, I had to modify, loosen all my lotuses, and really wish the stretch in Supta K from the knee into the hip. It was tough, but no poses were lost. Tuesday I was deeper in standing half-lotus, easier in Marichyasana lotuses, no worries in Garbha Pindasana. Today, again, easier all around. Supta Kurmasana included. I might be able to put that foot behind my head tomorrow.

Primary really IS a healing practice; when I have physical issues with/from ashtanga practice, a return to Primary is always advised.

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Backbending recipe: I believe, right now, that the key is hands closer to feet in Urdhva Dhanurasana. The hip flexors are the tight point in the Kapo arch.

Work toward ENDURANCE in the wheel. I moved to 8 breaths once upon a time, over the winter. Do it again.

Keep placing head down CLOSER to feet each time. Each wheel is tighter than the last.

Drop back CLOSER. Feet flat helps this. Sure, the drop with heels up is closer but that's because it takes the hip flexors out of the equation. That's cheating.

WALK IN before standing up. See about walking in TWICE. Work toward springy standups, the ones that will come when the hip flexors and abs aren't maximally straining from the bend and the drop. NOTE: walking in sufficiently far will increase the stretch and technically make standing up HARDER, at first. It might do well to walk in only once and then look for the springy stand.

Intermediate tomorrow--the whole thing--is the plan.

Quick rant on the city's ashtanga scene.

The studio that I call my base studio, is moving today. I'm beginning a probably 8-week series on Ashtanga there, in about a month. In that time, my regular Sunday class seems to be cancelled until the series begins. This is news to me.

A student, in fact, found me on an errand at the art school and pointed the new schedule error (??) out to me. I said, "Well, if there's a slot, I'm teaching in it," and left it at that, but at home, checking the studio's site leads me to believe that I've been cancelled for a month until I "re-start."

Now this makes good studio sense, good financial sense. They've just moved, have overhead to handle, and need classes to cross a half-dozen people in attendance, for the income. My Sunday class in the 2 years that it has been there, has crossed a half-dozen students, maybe 10 times. MAYBE.

However:

The other ashtanga teacher retains both of her classes. Admittedly, I've been to both of those classes several times in the last month and they both crossed the half-dozen students line. Not every time, but a couple times, and I'm sure the studio has noted this.

This situation speaks quite clearly to the city's ashtanga scene.

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Here's the deal: There is me and there is Carol. Carol is still my main ashtanga teacher, and she's totally and undeniably fantastic. However, Carol teaches to the levels that come in, and she cuts and modifies whatever is necessary. She has a massive following, because she's fabulous and nurturing and doesn't sort of "stiff-arm" people with the stouter poses in Ashtanga yoga. The way that I learned hard stuff (like jumpbacks) from Carol is that she saw my ability to do them and my enthusiasm for them and basically led me through it, in a one-on-one within a group class, just giving me a piece at a time to work through. Same with the Kurmasanas and with developing Lotus.

So often, Carol ends up "teaching down" to the level people fear crossing, but now and then (as in my case) she "teaches up" to what the practitioner can do. Sure, there are egomaniacs once in a while and I've seen Carol intentionally "down-teach" those people, and that, it seems to me, is typical of Ashtanga. Even Sharath will "not see you," right?

But when I'm teaching, I really don't want to play the "teacher cult of personality." I have what people have told me is a vibrant personality, and I know that I love to perform, but in an Ashtanga room, I really stick hard to a "the practice is the teacher" mode. I like to challenge people, and so I have EVERYONE "take it up" between seated poses. EVERYONE. Especially the people who "can't do it." I might make jokes or make light of how hard it is, but we DO NOT SKIP IT.

Similarly, EVERYONE does Kurmasana if I lead it. I might have people modify or I might have someone back off for whatever injury (if I'm aware of it), but if you can, YOU DO.

This is not to say that I take a strict line of forcing people to suit the yoga. I teach with substantial enthusiasm and I'll openly tell people that there are going to be poses that are beyond them, but I also say that I can teach them to do those poses, no matter what. I can also read people's enthusiasm as early as sun salutations, and so I know who to push where, and how hard. I'll intentionally pitch the more challenged and/or less interested, an easy mod now and then. My classes are full of questions like "Where do you feel that?" and "Where did that pose fall apart?" so that I can learn how those bodyminds work. Every class is a bit of a workshop.

So our modes are somewhat different: Carol comes across as more chill than I do. I come across, I think, as teaching a more challenging class--a tighter clothesline, if you will. There's less slack in my classroom.

I know that I come across as "more advanced" in my poses; the vinyasa students who see me in class and the people who have seen me in Carol's Intro to Intermediate session, know that I bring the juju to the yoga mat. I also talk quite a bit about "the tradition" (it probably wouldn't be incorrect to say that I know traditional ashtanga better than anyone in the city, and perhaps even the state; gotta take into account the northwest near Chicago and the southeast near Louisville, however), and so I probably, and especially to newbies, sound kind of esoteric and "extreme sports" and such.

I know that students somehow believe that in my class you "have to" pull the advanced moves, and what's refreshing when I'm teaching is that I don't have people do that. Or, if we do "advance" something like the jumps in sun salutations, I put it in concrete language. How the hands work, how the hips move, where the weight goes. An advanced pose isn't magic anymore when it becomes PHYSICS.

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Nonetheless, I am apparently cancelled for a week. This is obviously because the studio does not know how ashtangis work. REGULAR PRACTICE makes you an ashtangi (well, that and ujjayi/bandhas/dristi; I'm not willing to "discount" someone as an ashtangi simply because they cut a pose here and there; Cody, for example, always counted as an ashtangi to me).

The point of this series that I will teach, as the studio sees it, is money. The point of it, as I see it, is an ashtanga soak for my lucky students. They are going to get ALL the teaching I can possibly put into 90 minutes. They're going to get freakin' WORKSHOP quality.

So the studio sees it as a wise move to cut my poorly-attended class, in the name of money coming in from the series. I see it as ironic, that I can't offer teasers to my mini-crew of ashtangis, before the real action begins.

Also, the classes in this relocation have all taken on names like "Yoga For X and Y." I also have to name my class "Yoga for X and Y." Strength and Endurance? Flexibility and Balance? Breath and Gaze? So many choices, none quite right. It's HARD to market ashtanga yoga here.

Because no one knows what it is (and this also goes for Iyengar and Anusara classes), students here find it "clearer" to take a class in vinyasa than they do a class in Ashtanga. The "name" yogas are somehow esoteric, hard to explain, while the nameless, faceless endlessly variable "vinyasa" yogas are somehow easier to handle. What the FUCK is up with THAT????

So as little as I care to relabel ashtanga "Yoga for Strength and Flexibility," it might well make it an EASIER sell here than telling people what it REALLY is.

The studio does not seem to realize that ashtanga is NOT something you do one day a week for 75 minutes "to feel good after." Oh sure, the various yoga's for x and y will go on about how they bring inner peace and such and how the teachers have "discovered yoga" at age whatever, and so forth, but this city is so full of "yoga shopping" that nobody actually builds a home practice. If they want there to be ashtanga students, they need to GIVE SPACE FOR THAT PRACTICE.

It's fucking ironic that the point of my series is, as the studio said to me, to BUILD an ashtanga community. People trickle out of the woodwork to classes as it is; the community I'll "build" will likely be people that I know are IN THAT COMMUNITY already. It's hard to build a community out of a larger group that still only trickles in. The best thing that can happen city-wise from this series is that WORD OF MOUTH gets out. THAT's how you build an ashtanga community here. The more people who hear, "omg I went to this class and it was just awesome, omg omg" the more students I'm likely to see. And that experience needs to be EXPERIENTIAL, not just postering, flyering, advertising.

Again, THAT's the problem of doing ashtanga HERE. In a city full of yoga shopping where the simple "vinyasa or hatha" (which is of course a ridiculous dichotomy which only in the WEST means "hard or easy") is somehow a clearer description than "Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyengar," people are going to drop in to an ashtanga class AS IF it were a vinyasa class, and they'll one-time it. "Oh I didn't like that sequence" or "Oh it was too hard." OF COURSE an ashtanga class is too hard; it's too hard for EVERYONE the first time.

Because it's an "I'll try it once, oh that was for me/not for me" town, it's nearly impossible to BUILD a community of repeat students. These are the same students who appreciate variability, who think that "well roundedness" in yoga means varying the sequence each week.

So maybe the series classes that I'm planning will solve this.
1) People will buy all eight at once.
2) It's the same sequence each week, with changes of focus that I determine.
3) It's the same group of people, which promotes at least in-class community.
4) I will be offering my BEST teaching.

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I'm thinking about emailing several of my regulars and just telling them to meet me at the park out behind the art school, on Sundays at 12:30. I'll bring sunblock and we can get it on for FREE out there. Group ashtanga practice. I'll lead as I practice. The hell with money, with doing it for income.

Re-intending the long asana program.

The last time I set this intention (last week), it blew up. So I'm intending again: the LONG program this week. Primary and to Kapotasana (and/or Supta Vajrasana; we'll see how my right knee likes lotus at that point).

On April 21, I had probably a breakthrough Kapotasana (I checked; this post answered my own question from last week). It came from the long program. I was not standing up at that point.

I took all week off, to let the overstretch in the right side of both knees, heal. Three days, it hurt. Now it does not. Vinyasa class this morning, which included Bharadvajasana, did not reinjure. This is good.

The plan is this:

Primary and to Kapo/SV. 5 wheels, minimum, 3 drops back and stands therefrom.

Thursday, I do Intermediate to keep it in shape, and because Sweeney said so (right Karen?).

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The system--referring obliquely to comments Sharath made in London this past week--seems to be teaching me, BY PRACTICE ALONE, to master standing up before Kapo, AS WELL AS to add poses one at a time.

Intention set! Onward!

Seventh Series, Hips and Knees

This is three months, any way you cut it. Sunday was 12 weeks, and by next Sunday it'll be 91 days. There you have it, "fourth trimester" is now over.

And right on time, there are all kinds of happy developments. Avid gazing, hand control (sloppy, but it's totally a type of control), concentration, ability to attend to things that are definitely external (my hat, the ceiling lamp, the crib mobile, etc), the ability to become distracted AND not cry, the ability to "hang out" and be a happy baby. To just chill and be.

I waited HARD for this.

Eyes are big and blue. Hair looks to be red, probably. Plumping up from extra formula (nursing has been a mess that I don't want to get into; let's just say that medical personnel have advised us to let it go slowly). Face very like mine. Noises that aren't cries, but aren't the regular "coos" either. Some kind of attempt at dialogue. Big, frequent, goofy, shameless smiles. Interaction with the external world RAPIDLY increasing.

Independence and interactivity. As predicted (at least I know myself THIS well), the more of both there are, the more my affection increases.

I see now how the early days are going to go. This is also a new discovery. They sit. Just still, and aging, and getting dusty. Eventually they will be covered over, and become part of the geological record. They are like the umbilicus node that falls out of the navel, with time.

I think that healing and perhaps even pleasure are on the way. Just in time, of course, for the fall semester to crash like a tsunami.

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Did I forget that backbending developments make my outer hips get crazy tight? I must have.

The week that I stood up, I also very slightly tweaked the lateral side of the right knee, doing foot-behind-head. In a couple poses, I forgot about it. I also noticed that the medial side of the left knee, with practice after practice, got a little tweaky in Padmasanas (all of them). But that happens now and again. No biggie.

But with time, those get bigger, as I didn't lay back on the backbending AT ALL. The backbending itself, never hurt. It didn't always feel good, and it was sometimes pretty ballistic, but it always worked. Even standing-to-knees and the occasional crash landing I had in the back yard. I kept my attention on it.

Should have kept more attention on the knees, as the hips tightened up, because the lateral right knee and medial left knee ache slightly, like ligaments are bruised. So I'm taking a break from all hip openers, for a while. The "stacked" nature of the knee ache is actually fortunate for icing: I lay on one side, put one ice pack between the knees and the other one on top. Sit for ten minutes and ta-da!

Nothing palpates swollen; it's all internal sensation. Nothing is clearly disabled either, although I notice that I don't like to squat and stairs are VERY difficult; all the sensation goes right to the appropriate side of each knee (just like after knee surgery, actually; similar sensations).

So today, no asana. I'll see how it feels tomorrow and build it all from sun salutations (they're pretty straight-legged all the way through). I'm recalling my pre- and post-surgery physical therapy: a lot of work with making circles on a stationary bike (range of motion), quad strength, step-ups and downs, and eventually one-legged weight-bearing and dynamic lateral motions ("cariocas" are what they were called, like side-stepping down a hallway, each foot alternating in front and then in back).

So we'll see. The big lesson in backbending from this, is that I should probably expect tighter hips with each big development: dropping back brought it. Kapo to toes brought it. Standing up brought it. As I get closer to the feet in each backbend, I think I can expect more action in the hips. If I ever get to grab an ankle (or higher!!??), again, I can expect to get some action in the hips. Let us remember this. Last time, my hips got so tight, so much of the time, that it was keeping me from sleeping comfortably, so I backed off a bit on the backbends and it all got better. This time, I had more endurance for hip tightness, and marched onward. It never felt like any kind of ahimsa; more like tapas, focus. Unfortunately, gotta see the WHOLE picture. Look at one thing, to see everything. Tunnel vision's not the same.

Ok then: onward!

What Did/Does Kapo Feel Like As It Progresses?

To anyone at all:

What, if you remember them, did your degrees of progress in Kapo feel like? There's a post on the green board about "ripping in the pecs and triceps" but many other people refer to "years" spent in the hip flexors. I don't care if you're adjusted into it or not, doing it only Mysore-style or not. I want some verbiage about what the march from "omg I'll never do that" to "hey, are those my heels?" feels like.

Tonight's adjusted Kapo saw me drop over and then be TOTALLY UNABLE to move my hands. It was as if someone capped my shoulders with steel epaulets or something. Immobile. But the teacher was able to pick my hands up and slide them onto my toes, and I even got a sort of weak but effective hip-press-up-and-forward into it.

After I came up, I felt like I'd been hit in the low abs with a MEDICINE BALL. And I mean LOW abs, I mean like pubic-bone-to-iliac-crest abs.

"Am I from Outer Space?"--W. Reich

I have the ODDEST feeling--and not just now, but regularly--that I'm not here, but somewhere else. Almost as if I could walk outside to go to the...the....wait, where the fuck am I?

There is a "slice" of me, if you will--I don't want to invoke anything specific by calling it an alter-ego or an inner child or an inner teacher, any of that--that doesn't live here. And it's not the past either. It's never that I'm "back in such and such." Never.

I feel that if I trusted the inner inertia of this thing, that I would walk right out "into my life," in a fashion. I would wake up ALL the way.

Let us speak of asana, instead.

Now, as soon as I write that, I realize that I'm also speaking about several other limbs of the famous eight. Asana without pranayama? Would be either gymnastics or asana without oxygen. Asana without pratyahara? Is asana without concentration. Asana without tapas, without aparigraha? Also would be asana without concentration.

So basically I've euphemized, in the title, to indicate a switch of topic.

I did barely any asana practice yesterday, which again is due to evil mood and low energy (that's all it's ever due to). Tomorrow I am scheduled early and late, and teach in the middle. I won't be able to practice until maybe 6 pm and then that's baby time, and I'm willing to give it. Tomorrow, I know in advance, will be an asana mess.

So I doubled today instead. Yes, I know it's a day off in the ashtangaworld. But my ashtangaworld here is untraditional, and so I usually practice vinyasa in an 8 am class and recently I've also been hitting the 11 am led some-of-Primary, in which I cannot seem to "turn off the remote control," which means I end up doing the whole thing.

I was thinking of bandhas, today.

Often in the vinyasa class we come up to Utkatasana and then right back down and vinyasa down. So I started wondering, if instead of half-Uttanasana and then jumping back, could I do the liftoff, the sort of half-Bakasana or as the exercise guys would call it, a "planche" of sorts? And it turns out that I can.

I put the hands down in front of the feet, while in a deep squat, and then I lean in, bend the arms, take the feet up, and HANG it. I even took a breath in that evil thing today, twice. I think I did 3 or 4 of them in the first class.

This seemed to guide my practice with ease and power. I hung half-moons with prayer hands, Dighasanas (Warrior 3's), Utthita Hasta variations (including a squat in the pose and the return to standing, which Tatsouline calls a "pistol"), and did a handful of backbends and a heels-up dropback. Very good practice for getting the sitting out of the glutes, out of the outer hips. I felt pretty worked out of yesterday's tightness and frustration.

Then I went to the car for about 75 minutes and read about art methodologies, for the grad level theory course I'll be teaching, and then I went to Carol's some-of-Primary, intending just to advertise my "series on the series," but there were 8 people in class and the extrovert in me, who is always starved for human activity in this freakin DESERT of a city, said, "YOU DO!" So I did.

Sun salutations and standing were very sweaty; I had to rug the Manduka after the Prasaritas. I cut my usual Hanumanasana/Samakonasana; no need to be showy for the beginners. But then seated had some of my best, highest, easiest, smoothest vinyasa EVER, and I mean in my entire yoga-doing life of five years. Absolute ease, back and through. I think it was the bandha rehearsals with the "lift-ups" in the prior class.

I wrist-bound all 8 Marichyasanas, which is still not a regular thing, and the five Navasanas were easier than they'd been last week. I still land feet-flat and then float them, in the entries to Bhuja and Kurmasana. That was OK in C's room and it was OK in Matthew's room and K's room too. So I'm not TOO tempted to work on the clean jump-in. When I do it, I often land low, which leads to flubbing my exit, particularly from Bhuja.

Maybe if this bandhas-revving continues, however, I'll work on building it again.

No flubbing in Kukkutasana, threw the lotus back nice and high, got face to feet in Baddha Konasana, which had been difficult of late with this tight right hip that doesn't like to Eka Pada much anymore, had easy Chakrasanas, had big nicely balanced Setu Bandhasana, with four wheels, three heels-up dropbacks and three messy but successful standups. It took multiple throws for each one, and I usually "folded up the wall" from the pubic bone to the sternum, but standing up is standing up. It's raw and I know it.

I'm thinking, actually, that I don't need a wall. It's not that my knees collapse, it's that I THINK they will. It's a shift of attention. Instead of "weight over knees, collapse, rise," I'm more and more thinking, "hands up, feel it in the navel." When I can't feel the bend "RISE" to the navel, I know the hands will drop. When I do feel the bend rise to the navel, I come up.

Trust the hands and the navel, and do away with the prop. STOP thinking with your knees. Hands; Navel; You have no Knees. Make it your mantra.

I saw this morning that someone said at Linda's place that Christopher likes his students to have a "no-hands" lotus. I'm going to make that a project. It'll take for EVER, but still, I want it.

There; asana. No bitterness, no resentment, no dreaming. No bullshit about life. Bending, present tense, nothing else.

Perfect. May all of my time on the planet be like this.

End Vacation, Incipit Labors

That first week of daycare saw magically intense asana practice, because work hadn't really begun, and vacation, since May, had never happened. In a way, that was my first week of vacation all year since LAST SUMMER.

Our pregnancy was a vile, life-killing curse. We asked for it, of course, but we had no idea how thoroughly it would negate and kill the happy people we'd been. So from September to May, there was no vacation and no happiness.

From May on, of course, you have my record. Insomnia, bottomless pain, someone screaming all the time. It was like living in hell for six weeks, before it got better. I taught both summer sessions, and class times were the only times of the day when I forgot about my newly acquired seventh series. I taught pretty much solid until August 5th, when classes ended, and then it took me an additional week to get my grades in.

So suddenly, there was this post-hell, pre-semester blip of fair happiness, with blazing summer sunshine to boot. The kid went to daycare, J went to work, and I was totally by myself for at least six hours a day. So I did a week of Intermediate and then did it again on the Monday night following, with a crowd of nine people in the yoga room (9 is of course unheard of numbers here).

And it was marvelous. It was like a slice of someone else's life, stuck into my filmstrip. Someone got creative in God's editing room.

And that's the week that I stood up, for the first time. Figures.

Then, this week, school suddenly appeared out of nowhere, like a black obsidian tower built with impossible time-lapse speed. I will be teaching two auditorium-sized sections of a 100-level course, six days from now. So I began hurriedly putting syllabi together, trying to clean my office, trying to get my act together. Stress radically increased. This isn't a life I want, and I have to quickly force myself into a tiny little box again, directly after a week of nice oceanic expansion. EVERYTHING in me resists this.

Predictably, my hips tighten up. They've been sore and achy all day, every day this week, either from the backbending or from the stress, or from the combination. Wednesday I did Primary and a Pasasana that I thought would rip me open in the outer hips, they resisted it so. Monday night, they barely resisted. Today, I just did up to Parivrtta Parsvakonasana and got so much agony in the outer hips that I called it a practice right there, 20 minutes in.

This always happens when the life I want vanishes into the life I have. It happens every November when weather chases me inside. It happens at the start of every semester. It happens for a week when I get bad financial news. It chased me around at the start of seventh series.

***************************

So let the syllabi and householding and seventh series, begin. The kid had a bout of diarrhea/vomiting yesterday afternoon, but was fine both last night and this morning, so he's back in daycare for about another 90 minutes. He and I went on a sling walk (he's in a sling around my shoulder) four times this morning, in the backyard. We got along ok. Usually if J leaves us alone, he cries for hours and I try not to go insane. Today he cried on demand, and I could answer those demands (in order: I'm wet, feed me, I'm wet, feed me, I'm tired and need a nap, feed me).

We get along much better when he does what I call "make sense" and when I am more receptive to reading his pre-linguistic signals (hand in mouth...aha! that means feed me!). I'm stil not certain that I'm glad we did this, but glad or not, it makes no fucking difference.

One week of inspiring vacation. That'll have to do me until, probably, summertime next year. Thanksgiving and/or December break will be family tours. I don't think I'm going to like those. Take a six month old on an airplane? For three hours? Have everyone "understand" me as father, when I barely understand myself as "masculine" to begin with? Have no one speak my language, have J continue to be too busy with kid and with householding, to reprioritize us, to put us (and I don't care how shameless this sounds) where we BELONG in the order of priorities?

Only once, one time, have I been in a relationship where personal contentment outranked house cleaning. We cleaned--sure--but we made certain that our routine house maintenance never outranked our personal satisfaction with the relationship. That, to me, is right thinking. The HUMANS come first and the DOMICILE comes second. My ex-wife used to use householding as an excuse to avoid an uncomfortable conversation about our anti-relationship. J and I used to hold a fair balance between time with ourselves and time with the house, but as with all things, that balance has been completely destroyed by seventh series. I said in a phone conversation earlier that I had done and was doing some householding and she said that over the weekend we'd do a whole lot of it anyway, no matter what I did, because that's how householding is, you never finish it.

We used to do OTHER things on weekends.

James Joyce famously said, a long time ago, that one must deploy "silence, exile and cunning." I can and do work hard; I've handled this whole fucking place in four hours before. I know what the life I want has in it. I had many of those elements a year ago. Our exile from the easy days is on and will be until we die, because that is how seventh series works, but we will not ALWAYS be dead to each other from this. Not always. We shall return.

But for now, I have householding to do. Checklists to eliminate. Free time to create. Suggestions to make. The older you get, seventh series, the less time you take, the less dominant you become. I WILL SEE DAYLIGHT AROUND YOU.

Let us set an intention for summer 2010.

In spring/summer 2008 I had brief classes with Kino, Matthew Sweeney and then four Mysore-style days in Boston. Very good stuff. Lots of backbending developments. The spring/summer of Kapo to toes.

Naturally, summer 2009 has been dominated by seventh series. As I've said a hundred times, seventh does not negotiate. What did you THINK you were doing? Nope, you're doing this instead.

I find myself wanting some serious exposure to some high-level training for summer 2010. Why not during the year? I can't spare anything more than a weekend during the school year. When there's a break, family OBLIGES me and J to go on tour. No freakin' way can I take a yoga training vacation.

Two things come to mind, right off. Sweeney is doing a month-long program (August into September) in Durham, NC. Two weeks is an option. It's heavier on Chandra and Simha Kramas than it is on traditional Ashtanga, but should be pretty deep nonetheless.

Tim usually runs a summer Primary series training, for two weeks; this summer it was late June to early July. That comes with access to the center's regular classes.

Much less expensively, if I were to take a hunk of time in Boston next summer, with access to family (this would probably be a family tour), I could revisit the 2008 room. Likewise, a tour of SF (say, two weeks) would be delicious (and there's Mysore-style all OVER that city), but it's hella expensive.

What do I want from summer 2010? Mysore-style. I want a traditional room, or if not strictly traditional, a room that has OK'd its own deviations (i.e., see Craig's reviews of Tim's place).

What do I want, specifically? I want an end to the Kapo struggle. I want it OVER. This has everything to do with my psychology and not much to do with my pose. I am willing to practice regularly all year if I can just get a SOLID, STRAIGHT-UP assessment of that pose. I want expert hands, expert eyes, on it. Tell me what it is, what I can do with it, what I cannot do with it. To quote someone else about something different not long ago, "WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN."

The Long Program, Fitness, Whitwell

I may be petty in the upcoming paragraphs. Just to say it up front. Today I wanted to return to the long Primary-and-up-to-Kapo-or-thereabouts program, and only made it to Pasasana. The outer hips were too full of white electricity, as you've read about in these pages before.

I've not lost endurance--not really--to the week of Intermediate. Sure, Navasana's harder than I remember it being in May, but Navasana is never easy for some reason. I've lost the jump-ins to Bhuja and Kurmasana, but those never seem to stay around anyway. Probably the biggest disappointment was lame backbends, and no dropbacks (therefore no standing up either). Big, big frustrated, mourning tightness in the front hips. Hanging back was PLENTY. Eh. So be it.

I'm not sure if I will stick to the long program idea tomorrow or not. Roll out the mat and see: wait, both East and West coasts finally agree that it's a new moon tomorrow (so be it).

Just doing Primary is not responsible for this hip tightness; it's more mood, loneliness, things I will now proceed to be ranting and petty about :)

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The following has annoyed me for a LONG and DEEP time:

What the FUCK is up with yoga being advertised as "fitness" in this town? Now, fitness itself is quite fine. Yes, nationally the US is massively overweight. Anything that says, "get in shape" (well, anything that MEANS it and isn't just advertising some new trend that may or may not have any actual life-changing effect) is probably good for someone.

What I properly mean is, what is up with yoga being advertised as MERELY about fitness, about body-carving? It's hard for me to indict this without also seeming to indict a class in town that I quite like, so let me pick some specific examples that I don't like:

1. There's talk about "bring the thunder" and "only one person hurled!" in one corner of this city's yoga scene. ONLY one person tossed cookies? Uh, great; remind me where the YOGA in that is? Bring the THUNDER?

2. Teachers at another place are all about multiple certifications in things like spinning and have a history with triathlons. OR, they are just "increasing their flexibility and peace of mind," with yoga. I see; so it's either "I'm a hardcore" OR "I'm euphemistically so 'yoga.'" THESE are our choices?

3. "I lose myself in the sweat on my yoga mat." This is what passes for Vedanta here. It would be more noble to do that on a BIKE or in freakin' RUNNING shoes.

Admittedly, as a runner (in high school), I understand GETTING IN THE ZONE, and as a climber (in my mid 30s), I understand the focus and present-tenseness of the hard move. But the binary that tends to underlie so much (not ALL but so, SO MUCH) yoga here is of the most tired POSSIBLE variety:

a) we will do ass-kicking moves;
OR
b) we will achieve inner peace.

In the very notion of "kicking" is a kicker and a kicked. Unless we wax metaphysical and assume (heh) that the ego is the kicked, that's nothing more than aerobics, pure and simple. There's no yoga in that.

Inner peace? You really think so? How are we gonna KNOW when we achieve it? I don't even know what people who claim this will happen in their classes, are possibly thinking.

This is a big vinyasa town, and there is a lot of "beginners' flow" and "advanced flow" and of course the new trends, "heated flow" and such. Or the numbering system that you even see in cities like Chicago: Yoga 1, Yoga 2/3, and so on.

"Heated Flow"? "Yoga 2/3"? How the FUCK do I know what I'm getting into? No wonder people just surf class to class here until they find TEACHERS that they like. I know a handful of people who go to different studios (like, multiple ones, like three different places) each week, just to go to different teachers' classes.

There's even a high-powered vinyasa teacher coming to town soon, whose classes are advertised as "faith flow" and "alignment flow." FAITH? ALIGNMENT? What the fucking fuck should I expect to find in THERE? I mean, QUITE LITERALLY, a flow called "faith" gives me NO FUCKING CLUE what I'm getting into, aside from the "nationally-ranked teacher" PRICE TAG. Is it fast, is it slow? Is it hot? Is it going to involve inversions? I have NO FUCKING IDEA. This is probably the single thing that I despise MOST about the various "vinyasa" yogas.

Conversely, I am trying to recruit for an Ashtanga series class, right? To run six or eight weeks?

My advertising suffers in reverse. If I say that I come to yoga from rock climbing, it makes me sound "extreme," which, combined with poses that people have seen me pull in classes, makes my class sound like its only for those "flexible white women" that Whitwell talks about, when that's not it at all.

BUT

if I say that in five years I've gone from not being able to touch my toes to being able to do quite advanced poses, then it makes it sound like I'm a magician or have some inexplicable native talent.

People here want me to BE one of those fitness gurus who has taught spinning and who is working on my next triathlon or something. That is the only way that I can make SENSE here. If that were true of me, then people would immediately be able to grok my "teaching persona"; the moves that I pull would "make sense."

I am, of course, not that. None of it. I didn't do any regular exercise besides walking around campus and occasionally running long distances while out of my head on various intoxicants, between the ages of approximately 20 and 34.

I weighed 195 pounds in December 2002. I weighed 160, maybe, in March 2003. Mostly, that was lack of appetite from the MASSIVE detox after the divorce. But the climbing also figured in. I climbed a 5.7 in January 2003, on my first day, and was climbing 5.10 regularly by summer 2004 when I first began an ashtanga practice.

I was 34 when I began ashtanga, and it took until I was 37 to get the right hip to allow half lotus. It took until I was nearly 39 to drop back into a backbend.

People tell me all the time that five years is a "short time to have such advanced poses." That's funny to me, given how massively impatient I've been to advance in certain poses. I've said before that the secret is not native giftedness, but regular practice. That seems to bounce right off people; I hear a LOT of, "I could never do that." It makes me want to just shout, "HAVE YOU TRIED IT TEN THOUSAND TIMES?"

All of this frustration makes me want to teach people even more, even though that's where I can't seem to get any interest going. If I could just HAVE these people IN MY ROOM, I'd strip all that negativity bullshit straight out of there. "I can't do that." Oh yeah? Modifications for less pose; adjustments for more pose. "Don't think." "Well that's just beyond me; my arms are too short, etc etc." NO. Breathe; DO.

There's a self-possession, a clinging, here. Fear in some cases, arrogance in others. I've had both, probably still have both. The formula is breath-bandhas-dristi, as we know. That could even be taught in vinyasa classes, and true to life, in the class I DO like, there are always multiple reminders about breath and bandhas.

Fear surrenders to breath, gets overwhelmed by it; arrogance dissolves in dristi; the concentration needed on "self" is replaced, turned inside out. FIND the hand; FIND the foot. FIND the third eye. I always give physical directions in hard poses. BRING ME THAT FOOT. SWING EM BACK! CHATURANGA! And so on....it's all very "move, don't think."

Fitness has nothing to do with it; fitness is a self-assessment made later in front of the mirror. You know what? If it will bring you people in, then sure, hell, why not. Bring me your less fit and I'll give you back more fit. So be it.

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I mis-spoke in a comment about Whitwell, before. There's a link to an audio file that you can get from his site; it's August 13. He talks a lot about "the yoga" not coming from text, from authority, but from the "ordinary state," and how pain is healing and how life is experiential, how it is immanent, how it is now, not later, not elsewhere. It's a far-out talk; you should check it.

Anyway: I found that it echoed through many, many things that I have read seen and been. Echoes galore, all over the place. It touched on things that I still have pain about, reached right in there and patted those things on the head. Let me try to lay out some of the echoes.

Wilhelm Reich wrote about "body armor" back in the thirties. One becomes armored by a civilization which privatizes sex, body experience. Whitwell uses suprisingly similar vocabulary and about suprisingly similar things. When I said that I mis-spoke, what I mean is that I don't AT ALL mean to say that Whitwell is "doing" Reich or that Reich is "right" or in any way to establish a textual authority here. ECHOES. All I am doing is seeking out the echoes that I heard, looking for the lights that went off.

I have to write a book review for a thing called TERROR AND JOY: the films of Dusan Makavejev. Makavejev is one of my seventies guys; I wrote a dissertation chapter on him. In 1971 Makavejev made a film loosely about Reich, where the Stalinists are criticized on the one side for being asexual fascists (one of Reich's big themes: "fascists are sexual cripples") and various sexual libertines in the US are criticized for turning the sexual drives into commodities and fetishes (Whitwell also basically says that: we only understand sex as perversion).

This book that I'm reviewing, briefly takes up Makavejev's films as stories of humanity amidst massive social changes: Nazism, Communism, Stalinism, capitalism. Huge movements that have overt potential to crush human lives in their gears. Against this, Makavejev's films put contradictory, marvelous humans. It would take the book itself to describe any of Makavejev's films, but they are essentially films of human experience amidst massive political-social machines, and not strictly in opposition, but simply in the middle. Some for good, some for bad, some self-destructive, some hopeful, some magic.

Human life, for my money, still works like that; there's something universal there, in the "humanity amidst massive once-created-and-now-virtually-autonomous habits, morals, nation-states, apocalypses."

From there, I heard echoes coming from the current vogue of "affect studies" in media studies. How does viewership FEEL? One is not just a disembodied eye; one is a body that REACTS, a part of a cosmic sensorium. Theory, basically, is rediscovering what Laura Marks has called "the sensorium," and going, in some writings, back to basics, back to what is called "primitivist" film theory, before we were all just "eyes" floating around, analyzing semiotics and saying that THIS signifier is feminist/Marxist/whatever and THAT one is not.

This return to the body has really nothing to do with Whitwell other than that I heard a "ping!" from it, while listening to his talk. Nonetheless.

My favorites--Nietzsche and Deleuze and Guattari--of course also do "return to the body," but to get into this, to translate the experience of listening to Whitwell INTO these texts, really WOULD ruin the very experiential nature of the memories and the associations. Let us simply state that a "ping" was heard here as well.

There are so many delicious moments in Whitwell's talk--and I mean on a PERSONAL level, on the level of my OWN bodily sensorium, memory cache, as a listener--that it's hard to record them here either in toto or in isolation.

"You want intimacy with your life." Yes, of course, since for ever, since puberty, when I found out that I was a body, not a M/mind.

"You do the yoga for your family." To model joy, to be experience, presentness? This line alone, which I think I've misquoted and paraphrased, totally redefined seventh series. Washing bottles OR doing Karandavasana, it is presence and joy. Be it, model it, convey it, it is.

"Re-generation, a new generation; your mother wants this for you." YES. The feminine forces in my life had been given too much to old tradition, to fear, to a patriarchy that they could not see, precisely the one Whitwell talks about: know what renunciates want? SOME GOOD SEX. That's a marvelous quote from MW. The body has a femininity, in sweat, in fluid, in BEING. Only perhaps because masculinity has somehow come down to me as ever evasive, distant, fleeting. Masculinity hides in idealism, which FORCES femininity to incarnate in bodies. Of course my body isn't feminine, but in these gendered metaphysics that MW uses, which have nothing to do WITH GENDER ROLES, of course I'm feminine.

"Pain is healing; you feel it, you release it." Again, paraphrasing, but again, yes, completely. Let us not FEAR to feel pain. As Erich Schiffmann puts it, differently about something different: "What do I do with my sore throat? ENJOY IT!" Pain is not suffering INFLICTED; it is suffering EXPRESSED. "Old pain," somewhere is brought up. YES. I carried old pain with me from 1993 to 2003. It was the first to express, and then it was gone.

Body armor; undefended; sensorium. Affect; generativity; healing.

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To return to--and close on--fitness again, and teaching: this kind of MAGIC is what the "bring the thunder" yoga and the "sit in your inner peace" yoga miss. Neither grabs the handle of the caboose of the Transformation Locomotive.

After my knee surgery (this was probably June 2004), I literally RAN up a 5.9+ in the gym. It was taped in bright orange, and I just moved/saw/oriented up the whole thing; my eyes turned, saw hands moving, feet stepped, head reoriented, ALL AT ONCE. This had nothing to do with "pulling the hard bouldering move" and nothing to do with "chilling with the endorphins." There was no sound, nothing but the movement, utter holiness. I had eyes EVERYWHERE. It was DUNE: "he will know your ways as if raised in them." No worry, no thinking, no time. NO TIME.

Earlier, in April, after that knee surgery, I remember my first run, around a track in a school gym. 7 laps to make a mile. I'd been gently hobbling, caring for the ligament rebuilt; torn in February, building quad strength so as to walk, and then surgery in April; rebuilding quad strength. Time to take a running step. I took one and another. And another. I felt air move, quickly, past me, lion mane expanding. Memories collecting, swimming about. Time stopped. Motion did not. Running. Turning. Body angling in for the turns, like on tracks of old. Reborn. Becoming the participle, like when rain dancers understand it thus: I AM RAINING.

I do this unpopular, unsellable kind of yoga here because it brings the MAGIC.

How the fuck should I even TRY putting THAT on a flyer?

Kapotasana, "Progress," a Series on the Series, Chicago?

Last week, starting on Monday, daycare began (that's been the big development of seventh series; that, and more smiles, which rule). I immediately kicked off a week's practice of full Intermediate, inspired largely by Karen.

This practice, for me, includes all poses as well as "Kapo dropbacks" after Kapo (four is my regular number of those), and now, dropbacks WITH attempted standups. Otherwise there's no deviation or fooling around unless I need to catch my breath (hi Tittibhasanas, pre-Pincha) or unless I need to open a hip (hi, compass pose pre-Eka Pada, right side). But as little tangential experimentation as possible.

Kapotasana remains, as always, interesting. I taught the last two Monday nights, so as of tomorrow, it's been three weeks since I got a Kapo adjustment and, counting today's short practice (to Eka Pada, rushed for time), I have only grazed my toes, and only the left one, TWICE. As you know, when adjusted on a Monday night, I can get my toes, and I mean a full toe-grab. I was starting to think that this was my usual Kapo. Last week instructed otherwise.

Facts are hard to come by; I don't even have video of my Kapo. All I have is the internal experience, so my "records" of Kapo are highly subjective. So it's not as simple as saying, "Why is the pose retreating, with MORE practice?"

That already creates a reality and I'm not sure it's an accurate one. The sensations are familiar from February, from March. Weird inexplicable tightness in the right glutes (and I mean straight across the glute max; WTF?) and then I'm all but certain that the thighs tip back too far (come out of vertical, that is) and then I know that I collapse in the pose, and suddenly I'm a big horizontal pile trying to reach my toes.

All three major adjustments that I've had in Kapo (in MN, in Boston, and here) involve the adjuster taking my hips HIGHER, and then bringing the hands CLOSER. I KNOW this, I KNOW that's how to do it. I've even written that here: TRIANGLE TALLER. So WTF gives, then?

Tomorrow (either night or morning, before; I'm not sure which or whether or not it'll be both) I will try new advice from Karen's comment thread, which is to build the bend FIRST and THEN drop.

Now, I usually do Ustrasana with prayer hands, and then bring the hands over. What I've been up to lately is arms extended, then hands in prayer, and then hanging back, looking at the hands, and then inhale, exhale drop. Press toward straight. Walk in. The collapse begins. At this point I can EITHER press toward straight, which really smokes the thighs, or I can walk in, through the collapse, and try to get my feet. Notably, the adjustment takes care of BOTH of these, and the feet, I get.

Here's the plan: arch back, hands over, hang. Hands to floating ribs, increase the overall bend. Listen for WHERE it increases. THEN drop. Hope to land closer, hope that the arch DOES increase the triangle height. In short, hope that the added height from the added bend, eases the collapse. Might be easier to get the height FIRST then to try to press UP to it from the floor.

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Today I missed standups entirely, didn't get a one. I was pretty bummed about that for a minute or two, but then figured I'd breathe through it and now I realize that this "missing it" really takes the pressure off. "What if I can't do them tomorrow or the next day?" Well then, you'll have given them back to the bank early. This is an essential piece of suddenly having a new pose appear; to GIVE IT BACK almost right away, to sort of fight how much I've wanted it to show up. That's ESPECIALLY true with standing up.

So there is a certain acceptance, a "that's right!" to be had in the fact that I can't get my toes by myself and that I haven't yet stood up without a wall in front of me to keep the knee-collapse from coming.

And there is also fight in this, and I'm actually interested in watching "myselves," as it were, figure out this drama. There is a positively GITA like movie to be watched. I'm not kidding. Early on, I chase them, I self-talk it up, I get my intense asana "voodoo chile" on, I do all that. But then when I'm intently backbending, arms extended, it's all BREATHE, no room for anything else. Then down, move the gaze, hands catch floor/ground, and again, there's a cheerleader. STAND! But in the actual standing, it's all space and slow motion. No voices. And when this does NOT come, as today in nine throws, it did not, there is simultaneously a sort of "our team lost the sporting event" defeat and ALSO a sort of "still waters untouched" effect like something out of a Bill Viola video.

All of these voices exist in "progression through the series" and I don't think that the goal is to do without ANY of them. At the same time, if any of them decide not to play this game any longer, that's fine too. I notice that I tend to feed the win/lose players and then later to put it all aside. First the sports, then the Viola.

Physically I retain Kapotasana and standups, by which I mean that my outer hips are all tightened up and cranky again. One day Pasasana will be crazily difficult, but the next day, Marichyasana C and D are as deep as ever. But really, since about Thursday, I've had soreness in the outer hips, every day. What to do? Too much Intermediate? Too much computer-desk sitting? Too little of something else? Puzzles. Hot water (tub, shower, the Y's marvelous sauna) makes it better; sitting still makes it worse. Practice SMARTER? This, intuitively, I believe is the way...

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I may be teaching an 8-week "series" on Ashtanga yoga. I have a syllabus all drawn up for myself (of course I do; I'm an academic). The plan, as I've heard it, is this: my main studio, the one I call home, is moving uptown about 20 blocks. That's out of the college zone and closer to the arts district. I think the move is also part of a gentrification of an old neighborhood that died, but am unsure about that.

Anyway: ashtanga classes get small attendance: 0, 1, 2, 4, maybe 6 on a brilliant day. The studio wants us to get SEVEN people per class so they can be sure of affording the new overhead (apparently they want ALL classes to get this). Now seven people SHOULDN'T be THAT hard. However, ashtanga's so hit-and-miss here that the idea is to get a regular crowd to sign up for WEEKS at a time, to build enthusiasm. It's a good idea.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to the boss if I can find her in-studio, and find out how this would work, who pays how much, how much I get, how long the classes are, what day and time (which I then need to pass by my own classes to see if I can pull any of my regulars into this), and so forth and so on.

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Chicago. Moksha Yoga Center. Halloween Weekend. Kino MacGregor. Two days Mysore, and also "Strength," "Intro to Second" and her INFAMOUS led Primary, with a big workshop on adjustments. The center has workshops 20 percent off if purchases are made in the month of August.

In large part, I am doing all of this Second in prep for THAT, but I've purchased nothing yet. Do I expect to do Second in the Mysores? No, not really. But it's weird: it'll be FOURTEEN MONTHS since my last Mysore-style room, by Halloween. It was to Kapo with MS and in Boston.

As when I went to my first Mysore-style room in 2007, and did morning practice 6/wk (admittedly, with some of those practices being mat naps with the cat), this backbending marathon I'm on, is in a sort of unstated prep for this Chicago weekend.

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That's what set off this whole post, that's what integrates it. Lots of backbending is going on right now; it leaves physical traces on me that I feel all day long. Is this excessive? Is this just hard training for an upcoming Mysore-style session? I train for those rare gems as if they were fucking triathlons. This isn't very "yoga" of me on a certain level, but then, yes it is. The GITA is both a wisdom story and a war story. I don't aim to hurt myself, not at all: but I do aim to practice as hard as I reasonably can. If I'm in a Mysore-style room, knowing how rare that is, I want to come away from there with freakin' DIAMONDS, the way I did in summer 2008.

This psychology will sort itself out; the more regular I can get about "doing" standing up (for success or failure; it's the regular DOING that counts), the new movement, the more settled I will get about it. It is still hot off the boil right now, still if you will, (ahem) newly born in me.

Ashtanga and Art Pedagogy (warning: geeky)

I was reading a late-80s piece by Thierry de Duve, on art pedagogy, which said that the old school ("academic") of art education was "talent, metier" and then the modernist school turned it into "creativity, medium" which has "now" (again, late 80s) become "attitude, deconstruction."

Once upon a time, then, artists were those who had talent, and talent was cultivated by masters whom the apprentices perhaps imitated. One chose a metier; a painter had a career, a place in community. A "painter" meant a social location, a cultural role.

Modernism, according to this argument, substitutes "creativity," which everyone (potentially) has (and de Duve gives a wonderful quote about how, with clockwork timing, we hear, from Rimbaud to Beuys, the clarion call: everyone is an artist!). Now the artist is someone, anyone, you, me, everyone, all of us. And we all work in, with and against, "the medium." Abstract Expressionist painting, for example. Pollock apparently asked Lee Krasner, after painting, I believe it was, what came to be called Autumn Mist (named by Greenberg): IS THIS A PAINTING?

Not a good one, not a bad one, not what do you think, but IS THIS a painting. The existential artwork, the existential artist. THIS definition of artist, while linked by a perhaps Jungian creativity to EVERYONE and to, eventually, the COSMOS, is still existential: creation in the dark. Defenses of one's own project, obligatory insults to the bourgeoisie. Minimalism. Formalism.

Finally, we arrive at what de Duve argues is simply the dark, now self-awaredly pessimistic side of the same coin: artists are those with ATTITUDE, who DECONSTRUCT things. Media, pop culture, body image. Identity politics even (I'm adding that; de Duve never mentions it). Now, there is good work being done in this phase, or at least famous work (big names that I can think of, who do deconstructive art, would include the ever-famous Cindy Sherman and also Adrian Piper). But looking back at metier and talent, de Duve doesn't see much promise here (I wonder what he'd think of citation-laden and yet obviously creative stuff like Matt Barney's CREMASTER).

What does this have to do with ashtanga yoga?

Well, let's see if it has ANYTHING to do with it.

As the very existence of an "ashtanga blogosphere" testifies, ashtanga comes with community. People gather in many, many MANY cities of the world, AT DAWN or before, to do ashtanga in a group.

One does, in some cases, imitate a teacher. Imitation brings mastery; so does repetition. Repetition moreso. And yet, repetition, following of all people Gilles Deleuze, also incarnates difference. The pose never IS the same, even when it, day after day, LOOKS the same. That's because ONE is never the same. "Same river twice" and so forth. How many triangle poses have you done? Well, literally, 2,178. So might a conversation go.

But unlike (post) modern art, ashtanga doesn't do semiotics. Or, if it does, one almost INEVITABLY says, "come back to the breath." 99 percent practice.

Ashtanga does NOT believe in "creativity" in that everyone is potentially a yoga practitioner (in the sense that everyone has "a yoga": from this, we get a thousand varieties, and all of the ashtanga offshoots, even though some of them are cool and interesting; wouldn't it be cool to place ashtanga practice, in America, alongside a history of PEDAGOGICAL strategies, not simply alongside capitalism?).

However, ashtanga DOES believe in creativity in that, to quote the family (hah, that sounds so GODFATHER), "everyone can do yoga, except for lazy people." But does it take TALENT? Well, even as art pedagogy, talent was probably always, in part, cultivated. Let's not turn the Renaissance into a nature-nurture debate. Plus, when it comes to ashtanga vinyasa yoga, who is to say WHAT counts as "talent"? Are dancers more talented than long-term meditators when both come to this practice?

But the historical pedagogical discourse on "talent" wasn't about interiority, the way that "creativity" is. "Talent" is about the CULTIVATION of skill through method. Boy howdy, does THAT sound familiar to anyone?

Metier and medium. Is yoga a "medium"? Is it a "metier" (and yes I know there should be an accent there)? Again we need context: de Duve defines "medium" as something the artist wrestles with, something the artist defies. "Metier" comes down to membership in a learning community, with a hierarchy. What are you? I am a PAINTER. A "medium" answer to that, depending on who you ask (again, Pollock is the poster child here), might be "I paint," or something more metaphysical such as Pollock's wonderful rejoinder to Hans Hofmann:

HH: "You fail because you paint from nature."
JP: "Put up or shut up. I AM NATURE."

The classical strategies (and the very use of the word "classical" gives it away) of ashtanga pedagogy (the "Mysore" style of pedagogy, if you will) are those of metier. "Don't learn this from a DVD or a video; FIND A TEACHER." And furthermore, LOOK, HERE'S A LIST. And what will you do? You will add poses one at a time under said teacher's direction, in some cases having to demonstrate DEVOTION to the PRACTICE before getting more regular instruction.

So ashtanga vinyasa yoga has the potential (I use this "creativity" lingo because we're talking about how it is ACTUALLY conveyed, not strictly about the most classical format) to be taught very much along the lines of talent and metier. de Duve's essay characterizes these as belonging to "academic" art, by which he means art taught in Academies, not art which is (necessarily) intellectual. Academy as a BUILDING, not academy simply as an adjective referring to educated people's discourse.

HOWEVER, as we all know, ashtanga vinyasa can be both taught and practiced as "creativity" and "medium." It can also be done and taught with AND AS "attitude" and of course it can be and has been deconstructed (particularly, the classical method of pedagogy has been so treated).

One could insert what in politics would be called a "partisan view" here about which ashtanga is "truer, better, purer, more superior, better for you, more realistic" and so forth. Note that my selection of comparatives is intended to reflect both the "medium" and "metier" sides.

Bur the chewier question is about mastery. WHAT does one master? One becomes, in painting, a MASTER, after being sufficiently apprenticed. One goes from painting background trees to painting hands, where the real detail is. But in ashtanga vinyasa? What is mastery there; of what does it consist? IF it were comparable to painting, one would see "God in the details." Maybe that means beautifully executed vinyasas, in public. But, like the painter in LA BELLE NOISEUSE, maybe it means never showing the work where perfection was achieved.

Here, our marvelous comparative tour crumbles. Ashtangis, with the exception of Krisnamacharya and his kin being asked to do poses for royalty, are not commissioned to "do work." One profoundly does not "create objects" with ashtanga vinysasa (not like paintings, anyway, and video doesn't count; I'm discounting it).

"The practice is the teacher." Whooo, spooooooky. That sounds awfully, well, POLLOCK, doesn't it? No, actually, it only seems like it does. Pollock wouldn't have accepted even "nature" as a teacher. Remember: I AM nature. Put in a yoga context, that sentiment (I am yoga) sounds weak, like coffee table metaphysics. All of Pollock's self-sacrifice and heroism (the heroism of the New York School generally, myth or otherwise) is emptied from it. It becomes advertising: "You are your own yoga." You see it laser-imprinted carefully on rocks and sold as garden decor.

No, existentialism will not suit us as a metaphysical backdrop for ashtanga vinyasa. The most potent criticism of Friedrich Nietzsche (who is NOT for my money an existentialist) that I've yet seen is that the overman's quest for "mastery" MUST turn on itself, and thus make the master a slave. I don't think this is accurate, but Nietzsche never posited an end point to mastery (that's why he's not a fascist, also), instead founding the whole procedure on the eternal return of the same events, which does not mean the same tests, but the same ACHIEVEMENTS. One does not SUFFER the eternal return like some unending purgatory; one CREATES it. The problem with the criticism is that it needs an endpoint: where does conquest end? and I think that Nietzsche's own philosophy does NOT need an endpoint. It's not a matter of CONQUEST and how broad and far, it's the achievement of a state of mind that is free of ressentiment.

This would not be a poor statement of the goal of the "mastery" we were discussing earlier. To create a state of mind that is free of ressentiment, of "feeling it again." If you follow me this far, then great; there is reading elsewhere about the tripartite formula, ujjayi-bandhas-driste.

The Curse is Ended, Pull the Trigger, Get Over it, and Practice Report.

The curse is over. A teacher in May 2007 said, and I quote, that he'd love to show me some Intermediate, but CAN NOT, until I can drop back and stand up. I could neither drop back nor stand up. So like a good little Taurus, I obsessed about this. Ten thousand angsty blog entries later about which or how or how much Intermediate to do, the curse is lifted.

Three standups out of four dropbacks. The only one I missed was the first one, and the fourth one was the best of the bunch. Second was another "fold to the garage" and third was another "whoa, hands in front, catch me" sort of "Wile E Coyote" show. But the fourth one was a springy standup, no garage contact, and I came up on the second throw. That's ALMOST down and up, the way the cool kids do it.

I described the sensation as this (yes, I talk to myself): "Raise the energy from the knees to the glutes; put it in the hip flexors. When that tension feels like it's gonna SNAP, like you're pulling a TRIGGER, you'll come up." It's like an energy slingshot. In my case, the glutes and low back sort of CONTRACT, like pulling a slingshot back. There's tension in the system. When the energy releases, and shoots OUT THE HIP FLEXORS, forward, up I come.

Now, I can relate to this practice (this specific one) in a couple different ways. Sure, part of me is pumping a fist with a mighty BOO-YAH! Sure, that happens. But another part of me is playing it down, intentionally playing it down.

The curse was like this strange ressentiment version of tapas. It made the whole practice into "Get this! Why am I not getting this??" and insofar as that inspired, great, but it also--as you and I both know--created a ton of resentment and frustration. Why do that? Why make a big toxic relationship out of it? Well, for one, it did have the inadvertent side effect of making me less aware of poses developing elsewhere. When was the last time I talked about something that wasn't hip flexors, for example?

Standing from a backbend is a thrilling motion. It's dynamic, but controlled (ideally), and it feels marvelous. However, it's a motion, it's a pose. It will eventually go back to the bank, like the other poses. This is the wisdom of the curse: an ironic "congratulations, you just spent over TWO YEARS of your life trying to achieve a physical position." And so it's important to drop everything, now that the curse is lifted. Drop the curse, drop the expectations and the desires that backed up the curse, kept it afloat. Drop both failure AND success. Float away from the achievement; the achievement is, on a certain level, DEADLY.

It was a practice of fall-overs, all of which were funny. Practice notes for myself, just in case I ever decide that I want a detailed record. It was a freakin BEAUTIFUL day, about 79 degrees, blue skies:
*Pasasana, tight. Tiptoed both sides, couldn't get heels touching.
*Easier backbends. Grazed a toe in Kapo but did two deeper Kapo hangbacks after.
*Close, again, to holding the feet in Supta Vajrasana.
*Right leg could be convinced (compass pose) to Eka Pada; lefty always agrees.
*Feet hooked overhead, again, in Dwi Pada, but was able to get two breaths seated and balanced. Five breaths lifted up is always easier.
*Nearly fell out of the Titti walk; hilarious. Titti D was a burner in the quads.
*Pincha, very nice.
*Two Karandas; I lowered to the ELBOWS the first time, no bouncing, no impact with ground, butt UP. Does this count as a successful lower? Second one was just make the lotus, unmake it, exit (bellyflop, profoundly; hilarious).
*Shallower Nakrasanas: more FORWARD than up. Easier. Breath able to be kept.
*Fell out of Vatayanasana at the start of the vinyasa in. Howling funny.
*Can't keep the toe with the rolled-over hand, in SUPV. Eh; not worried.
*Six of seven headstand timbers. Oddly it was the seventh that could not be done.

Intermediate, Standing up Continues, Less Caffeine please.

Standing up continues! Took five dropbacks and over a dozen tries (a "try" is a pelvic thrust/toss forward, where the hands come up; maybe they land again, maybe not) before it was smooth, but I got up twice; two days in a row now. Should mean less anxiety about it tomorrow.

Friendlier Intermediate today: heels down in Pasasana, both sides. Easier backbends up to Kapo. I made Kapo itself about moving my right elbow IN and my hand OUT; as it creeps inside toward my head, I lose the backbend, so instead of heading for the feet, I made the whole pose about the elbow/hand. Then did (as I did yesterday) four of my Sweeney-style Kapo dropbacks against the garage. 7 breaths, then 7, then 5, then 5. Getting deeper.

Right leg agreed to Eka Pada today; very excited. Left hip is still distinctly more permissive. Work on balancing this. Dwi Pada was a box of Slinkies(tm) again. Pfft. It'll be back.

Lost the breath all over the place, but this isn't a traditional Intermediate. I don't want to justify it to no end; basically I'm doing all Intermediate this week and maybe for a while, both because my hips love it (it gets into my outer hips more intensely than Primary does and seems to build dropbacks-standups better) and just to get the range of hip motion that Intermediate both demands and builds (I think this is why Karen's teacher recommended that she do it; that's my inspiration also).

Pincha was, again, very nice. Karanda is coming along; most noticeably of all of my Intermediate postures, it's this thing, this very challenging pose, that's marching right along. Up three times, made a big successful lotus each time, and snugged it in, each time. Lowered twice; once came down quick just beyond the arms, second time came down, hit the arms just over the elbows, and bounced off. Third time just made lotus, unmade it, did the exit (bellyflop more than chaturanga, but hey, that happens).

Nakrasana takes SUCH bandhas, and it comes SO LATE. I think that with Kapo, Nakrasana might be my hardest pose in Intermediate. By the time I got to Parighasana, I could feel myself just bleed out into the universe; with the relative (!!) ease of that pose, I felt like Picasso's sugar cube that dissolves in tea. It was freakin' GREAT. I do the "old school" Gomukhasana because I need someone to teach me the new-fangled one. I can't get anything into the hips when I try to fake this leg-under business.

I still find the seven deadlies to be fantastically focusing. Breathe, bandhas, lift, tripod, timber. Repeat. Smooths out everything. I'm glad they're there.

Backbends:

Five wheels, trying to come down to my forehead after each one, walk the hands in a little, and press up again. Repeat. ALL of the sensation is in the pelvic bowl and the quads, low by the knees. SO intense.

Dropbacks facing the garage. FEET FLAT. I let the heels come up on the third one, and I just could NOT get the feet to stay flat, trying to come up. I got confused today with all of the different things to think about:

feet flat, inhale hips forward, hands come up. walk in after the dropback, coordinate the breath. if you miss one, re-set the breath and the hands and try it again. It's a lot to think about, especially if it takes multiple "throws" to get upright, as it does for me right now.

I failed entirely to come up after two of the five dropbacks, came to my knees once because I was too far from the garage, came up sort of "front body flat to garage" once (knees, then navel, then chest, then cheek, just sort of laid flat against the garage; that was funny), and then got an honest to goodness springy standup, FINALLY, after over a dozen "throws."

It's work. I don't know that I should say that "I stand up," but I do, with these efforts and developments of coordination, come to standing. It's nowhere near the pretty back-and-ups of the skilled backbenders, but it never has been, with me.

Finally, note to self: less caffeine, please. I was nervous about all of the "big" postures, which only really laid off, after Dwi Pada. Shucks! Need to chill the jagged "omg, omg" of overconsumption of coffee pre-practice. As SKPJ apparently put it once, "One cup dark coffee, even lazy man, full energy coming!"

Tomorrow we do it all again! Rawr!

Intermediate is Hard, but Standing from Backbend is Worth It.

A humid, outdoor Intermediate, after a week off, full of computer sitting, baby care and course preparation for fall. Hips tight, and I could tell beforehand.

Yes, with all of that, "Body flexible! Mind stiff!" in my head. Poses got easier (well, in the sense of mind-body adjusting to movement, presence, "being there") as the practice went on. We forget that a pose being "hard" or "easy" is not a matter of how able or not one is to put one's X over or in front of or in some other position of relation to one's Y.

Anyway: heels up in both Pasasanas (tighter than usual), Kapo shallower than usual (hands inches from feet; my rug is striped, so I can tell), Dwi Pada sort of hooked over my head (yes Liz, I'll get you a photo). Right hip not willing to Eka Pada, but willing to Yoganidrasana. A lot of modifications, "be carefuls" and "not yets." Far from my most "in the zone" Intermediate.

BUT

Pincha was light and easy; got it in one go, up and down. Even Karanda wanted to play; I took it up, and made the lotus and even SNUGGED IT IN, on the first go. Lowering, however, was kinda ballistic, knees landing RIGHT behind elbows. So I made it again, again made lotus, and then unmade it and exited. One to get in, one to get out. All is coming.

Mayurasana was stable (YES, "Supta K shoulders"), Nakrasana was lower to the ground (and harder, but less cheating), and Vatayanasana was "feet touching," which is SUUUUUUUPER hard on the balance. Hot damn!

Couldn't stick the wide-hands headstand or the bound half-lotus toe in the rollup before them, but all else was good. I even took the Tim's place "showy exit" from the seventh headstand (which as I practice them is the tucked-hands pincha position one), and clapped before tripodding and timbering down.

Backbends.

I'd been imagining, for about four days, doing my dropbacks both near and FACING a wall. What happens when I try to stand up is that my knees bend and the whole stand up becomes a knees-down topple, from which I then basically "Laghuvajrasana" myself upward. It's cool and it gets in my hip flexors, but standing it is not.

I was wondering if facing a wall would make the knees make contact WITHOUT toppling and therefore invite me to come NAVEL up, not KNEES up (figuring that the higher up I imagine myself coming, the higher I will, in fact, come).

So I stood about six inches from the garage, and dropped back. The heat and the intense practice were great for a deeper bend, and I was able to drop with my FEET FLAT, for the first time in probably ten weeks.

I could feel the feet turn out as I dropped, but I turned them back in (Matthew said that last summer: in answer to "Is it ok for the feet to turn out?" he answered something like, "Well, if you turn them out, just turn them back in when you land"). Then basically the formula was this:

1. Walk the hands in (my walk-in was about four inches).
2. Rock forward. Knees touched garage after each dropback, doing this.
3. Rock back. Intensify and repeat. Throw self toward garage.
4. Hands come up, but then gravity wins, and so I was back down. Over and over.

Inhale, come up. The first attempts saw me trying to get the breath pace right. The second attempts saw me doing it on breath, but not being able to beat the pull of gravity (like some kind of early rocket experiments; you flame out and then crash and burn). The third set of rockups saw me doing what I think probably looked a LOT like Grim's first backbend-to-standing.

Here's how it went: Inhale, rock, throw self toward garage. Hands come off rug and do little "jazz hands" movement in air, and then re-catch the ground. Second try: rock, throw, and hands come up HIGHER, like notably higher, and then gravity wins, re-catch the floor. But I FELT IT. I BELIEVED. "It shall be done!" So on the third rock up (which was the ninth, considering I'd done three dropbacks) I repeated: inhale, rock forward, throw self toward garage! And the hands left the ground and they KEPT leaving it. I saw the left one float, and then suddenly I was nose to nose with the garage! Shocker! I had to catch myself from face-planting right into the garage, and then I laughed out of the sheer absurdity of it. Then I cried for a couple minutes. Yes, a couple minutes, I'm not kidding.

Let us see if I repeat it tomorrow. The curse may be lifted. I may be developing a plan that I'll tell you all more about later.

Burst of Positive Energy, Sunshine, Block Party

It's all been very good today, except that the boy will not remain asleep, and no naps usually mean a big super-ugly fit of overtired-boy later at night. Currently he's asleep about seven feet to my north-northwest, in a chair with J.

Very positive vibes today all over. I taught an 8 am vinyasa class, and it was stouter than I'd planned. The deal is that the regular teacher is growing an ultramarathon practice (that's 50 miles, yo) so he's sometimes out of state running courses. Thus the subbing. Numbers tend to drop off when I sub (as all subbing yoga teachers discover) but I still had 15 people (that class is usually somewhere around 19-20; it can cross the 30s when New Years comes around, with resolution-makers joining on and whatnot).

It was great; we did a lot of salutations, a ton of standing flows, with binding everywhere, such as hands-behind-back Warrior III (Dighasana?, I think, in sanskrit, yes?), Utkatasana with Gomukhasana hands, bound Parsvakonasana (side angle), a Dhanurasana variation in Ardha Chandrasana, all sorts of stuff like that. I was thinking, "laps and circles," so if it could be bound, we bound it. People pulled "bird of paradise" (for which I've NEVER known the sanskrit), we did Dhanurasanas and Urdhva Dhanurasanas, Baddha Konasana, and a whole lotta "take it ups" from ashtanga vinyasa yoga. We did Janu Sirsasana A and then a bound, revolved version, we did Compass pose (sometimes called Sundial pose), and I led an ashtanga-ish shoulderstand closer. Two people asked where and when I teach, and a lot of folks just packed up and headed out. Maybe they were fleeing the scene :) or maybe they just always do that. It was a STOUT class.

But the energy of teaching a class of 15--when my usual is 2,3,4--was powerful magic. I went to my office, for school, which is nearby, and graded a handful of papers, and then headed back an hour later to sit in on an ashtanga class, where as usual Carol (who has been teaching me ashtanga for almost my whole five years at it) let me pull a full Primary. I was spotlit for Supta Kurmasana, where she got both my feet behind my head, and also my third dropback, still heels-up, but unassisted and less ballistic. I was thinking, "hands closer to feet!" and they were.

Sure, you're not supposed to practice on Saturdays, but I haven't had any practice outside of demo-ing poses for classes, since MONDAY NIGHT. I was freakin' desperate for some down-home ashtanga vinyasa, and I got some! Booyah!

The sun is out, and a recent Facebook quiz from Sonya has me thinking of tunes that I really like, such as the Doors' "Land Ho!" The lyrics are about a kid listening to his sailor grandfather's stories:

"Singin' songs of shady sisters,
and old time liberty,
songs of love and songs of death,
songs to set men free."

Plus, Krieger's outro solo is freakin' KILLER. Fat 1970 distortion, fingerpicked, slick and legato, quick stacks of pentatonic blues with delicious bends. Did you all know that I've apparently played guitar since 1989? That blows my mind: that's TWENTY YEARS. You'd think I'd be better at it. But I never really lived-and-died for guitar mastery, anyway. I like it, I can riff any guitar hero from the sixties or seventies, at least a little. But the two main problems are that I can't keep any rhythm but my own, and also that I'm an inveterate wanderer from mode to mode and artist to artist, so I'll start off in Hendrix and then detour into Garcia and then wind up doing some major-sevenths-filled Jane's Addiction jazz riff parody.

Anyway, post-practice, I was driving home in sunshine with "Land Ho" on in the car, and it was magnificent. Presence, summer, actually BEING THERE. Once I finish grading my class' final projects for the Dada/Surrealism session that just ended, I get full-on summer vacation, except that I have to read two theory books for the class I'll be teaching in three weeks.

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Block party: about 40 minutes north of here. Just back. Spent about three hours, with a big yard, and probably 30 various grownups and 2 dozen children from ages 3-12. There was a 3-member jam band, a mostly-female drum circle, and neighbors wandering in wondering what the action was all about. Friendliness and badminton net and kids on bikes and scooters and people in the flesh that I'd formerly only seen on Facebook pages. Very cool. Parents can STILL BE RAD. This is the big lesson. We took the kid and went public. All kinds of people met him for the first time. The "nesting in" introversion, which was bad energy for me anyway, is OVER.

So, all good. Really, my favorite day of probably the last four months. There are some runners-up in there, but I taught, practiced, got my extroversion on, the kid was marvelous to everyone and got a thousand compliments on his cuteness, he didn't freak, didn't scream (until he was back in the car, HAH!), and we're back in the house, he's already asleep, and it's 10:30.

Let us wish for a good night's sleep for all involved.

Enough Fucking Seriousness.

Let us dream a little:

Nine hundred dollars a month goes into the (let's call it) Portland fund. Anywhere cool will do. What's cool? Coastline, progressive politics. Sorry, but this dream is pretentious.

Time heals all wounds: emotional stressy wounds, physical wounds, and most of all, memories and samskaras (as the yoga would put it).

Interactivity increases. ENGLISH appears. Skills can be shared. Stories told. School begins.

There are local studios. More than one. There's a basement that the local gym guys can move a home wall into.

Teaching continues, even at high schools if need be. Art, film, screenings in the other half of the basement. Uh huh: half 45 degree wall, half projection room. Yes, my friends. Let us dream. Indeed.

A base of education: physical, emotional, intellectual. Discussions and movement. Young people everywhere. Perhaps sponsored band rehearsals in said basement (J would never go for that in a million years, but I would).

Bending, concentration, candles, possession of the space, no room for insecurity, no interruptions. Purity. Asceticism.

Until I get over "doing" and "being" and there is just, as one teacher put it on my copy of one of his books, naught but "Enjoy Life!"

No history, no past, samskaras drying up like pods in desert sand.

Second, Seventh, Euphemism, now with extra Edit!

Karandavasana dreams. Lowering, now that I think I have a good foothold, as it were, on making the lotus upside-down. Dream dristi, inhabiting a gaze that's imaginary but still useful for reality. Good stuff, dreams.

I did Primary with my 2 students (regulars, used to the sequence) on Monday night. It was *fantastic*. Smooth, flowing, over, done, not enervating. The twists were a bit tighter than they've been in the past and the dropbacks more ballistic, but whatever. Everything worked.

But since then, seventh has taken over again, as it always does, as it must, as it cannot but do. J is working, pretty much 8-5, with an extended lunch break she takes here. We have company, but I'm pretty much doing baby care or at least baby observation, for that whole time. Then the kid's cranky hours are 4-8 pm, and then it's time to start putting him down. No practice time; no way to find any.

This is fine, because I have accepted seventh series as the truth. It's not a truth that I enjoy or get any self-realization out of, especially, but it dominates all of my other expressions of everything, and so be it. It is the truth. Newborns are totally selfish and self-centered and they can't help it. They cannot take no for an answer, and they can't negotiate. This one is especially fussy and noisy and still prefers carrying with movement. If you stand still, crying begins. He's a very, very difficult baby. Not easy in any sense of the word.

J once said to me that in Eastern terms, the newborn is the person with the highest suffering, because s/he is the most self-centered that s/he'll ever be in her/his entire life. But in the West, we think that newborns are the most innocent, a sort of tabula rasa, the "as yet unruined by experience" innocent soul.

This child proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Western view is utter bullshit and the Eastern view is completely accurate. It's not that he's not "innocent," it's that he's in what sounds like constant pain, simply from being BORN itself. He's dissatisfied, he's insatiable, he's incomplete, and there's nothing, NOTHING, that can be done to fix any of it. It's unfixable, and THAT is the tabula rasa. Broken agony craving a wholeness that NEVER EXISTED.

Now in Eastern terms, there's no angst to this. The child has maximum self-centeredness and therefore maximum suffering. YES, that is PRECISELY CORRECT.

What behaviors can I LEARN from this? That's not a question I can answer right now, but it's a persistent question.

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While we're at it, let's tear a truck-sized hole in one of my favorite bullshit euphemisms: "You have to stop living for yourself, and live for your child."

I've already covered this: what's implied here is that the PARENT had been selfish and self-absorbed, and NOW, due to the child, has to SUDDENLY turn around and start being altruistic.

Bullshit.

So as a human being, I've always been self-absorbed? That's the start assumption? I've never loved anyone? Never served food in a soup kitchen? Never sacrificed my place in line to anyone else? Never let another driver cut in front? Never sacrificed my ego for any purpose at any time, to anyone or anything? It's all fucking "survival of the fittest" in its purest form? Life itself as LORD OF THE FLIES?

And then wait, it gets better:

ALL OF A FREAKIN' SUDDEN, a Neanderthal personified by selfishness MAGICALLY GROWS compassion and does an UTTER ONE EIGHTY and suddenly is entirely other-directed, right? Same error, different direction:

So now I'm all about the other, and I don't feed myself, don't take time for my personal hygiene, don't keep up my social networks, don't go anywhere; it's all about "living for the child," right?

Know who's selfish all the time, like our Neanderthal? THE NEWBORN is. Know who's incapable of "living for the other"? THE NEWBORN IS. Know who makes this fucking idiotic euphemism swallow its own motherfucking tail until it chokes? Yeah.

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Now, on a mellower note: daycare begins on Monday, coming up. It's an expensive venture per week, but it buys us time to work, write, research, do all that good academic stuff. It's also going to buy me time to practice. We'll see how he adjusts; generally he likes visitors, so I think he'll like having different people around (seems to be extroverted, as I am). He might also learn some scheduling, as they will feed on a schedule and nap on a schedule. This might be very good indeed.


**************EDIT**************

Wait, wait, hold that train for a minute. I thought about this over lunch and saw the following:

I postpone my OWN quest for self-realization SO THAT I can assist the self-centered child in becoming LESS SO.

I reduce his suffering, by means of holding my own development at bay.

This seems true.
Still, I resent it. I resent ANYTHING that pulls me from my beloved warrior quest.
What is there to do?
Well, as I've said above, daycare may be a gift where this is concerned.
This would explain the viciousness of the first two months.
Quest on hold, COMBINED with exposure to pre-linguistic highest suffering.
Yes, this all makes better sense now.

Breathe, Karanda, Students

With five sun A's and 3 B's, Intermediate to Karanda with 5 wheels, 3 drop-backs and knee-stand-ups, and a 15-8 closing, in 65 minutes.

Emphasis on breathing, made this happen. Hangin' out in Pasasana, looking at the back yard grass, and breathing. Lookin' at the bean stalks, hangin' out in Shalabhasana B, breathing. And so on. No toes in Kapotasana, which is fine. No hand bind in Supta Vajrasana, also fine. Feet locked overhead, not behind it, in Dwi Pada. Again, fine. I made three lotuses in five attempts at Karanda, which is a record, but in two lower-downs, no success. One went to pieces and the other landed in the famous butt-"flump!" for which Karanda attempts are famous.

Dropbacks, hard. Hands and head, practically, for all three. Tighter today. But still, who cares? Breathe and you do.

The Tittibhasanas were still delicious; love that sequence. Yoganidrasana, while maybe not legal this way, is VERY much deeper when I hold the left leg back with left hand, and then work righty under the shoulder and hook the feet. Right hip did not permit a full Eka Pada Sirsasana on that side, so I held the foot with the left hand and did the pose that way. Breathe, do not think.

Then I went and taught a most-of-Primary (we cut 10 poses, I think) to five students. Yesterday I also had five students (all different ones). Perhaps there's some ashtanga interest in this town yet. There was a dude who can jump back and a flexible art student who I know can be carved into an ashtangi. There were two women who I only later found out were 50, who had great practices. It's cool to look at people ten years older than I am and still see them breakin' it down.

Tomorrow and the next day I teach a class, one at the studio, one at yet another venue, probably with yet new students, then Thursday my usual yoga gig, where we do Rocket, and then vinyasa on Saturday morning, and my usual Sunday yoga gig, and then a Monday night Intermediate.

There was weird ENERGY, like enthusiasm, not exhaustion, in Pincha and Karanda today, I was somehow very excited about getting vertical after all that back-and-forward of Intermediate. I no longer dread either Kapo or the Pada Sirsasanas; it's just move and breathe. Of course, my Kapo is totally half-assed, but I can breathe in my half-assed Kapo, and so it is NOT as half-assed as it USED to be, even though it LOOKS the same. I think that's a valuable lesson. The change in the pose has NOT been in how it looks.

I hope for more regular practice, so that I can add in the Kapo dropbacks. When I just get to practice twice a week, there's no time for screwing around with those, plus, practice isn't regular enough to make their benefits stick. Consider this my newest intention.

Baby, Yoga, Loan Payment Development, and Why I Call What I Do, Ashtanga

The kid is eight weeks old now, and on his way to nine weeks, when Sunday comes around. He is developing all over the place, multiple fronts. His eyes move together and can focus and show interest and emotional reactions like fright or unhappiness. There's someone IN THERE. He sleeps in chunks during darkness, usually something like 9 pm to 2 am. And he does this in the bedroom bassinet, which is marvelous and did NOT take as much pain and trying, as we feared that it might. J still sleeps in about 75-90 minute segments, with feeding and baby watching (awaking at any substantial noise from him), but she does get at least 3 of those per night, so is probably approaching 5 hours of sleep a night. When work begins for her again on Friday, she'll have a nonsense short-term memory, but I feel certain that she'll be able to speak English and handle situations. The boy is cuter, nicer, when he's quiet for hours. Looking, smiling, approaching laughter. No laughs yet, but a few times, we've heard a sort of short involuntary chirping inhale, which is halfway. Humanity. It is coming.

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I am still asana challenged on days when there is no studio class: Wed, Thurs, Fri. This week, I am doing subbing galore at the studio: Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and both Saturdays after that (different classes). My art history gig comes to an end next Wednesday, and so may provide more time then. But there are classes to prep for, including one at the graduate level, on art theory, and so that'll refill the gap. I WANT my six-a-week back. The practice is growing on me, getting big and green and healthy, and I want MORE of it.

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Recently I got a statement from my big loan lender (I have four different loans that I pay monthly) that my request for INCOME BASED REPAYMENT had gone through. This is a Department of Education program from 2008 (that's right! During the BUSH YEARS!) that says that student loan payments should be GEARED to one's INCOME. Every year, I will send them a couple pages of my tax return, and they'll set my payments for the next year.

I used to pay 1,051.61 EVERY MONTH on that big loan. The financial record of all of my grad school stupidities. The financial record of letting my ex-wife try to buy off her own bottomless insecurities with my student loans. Under IBR, my new payment is 106 bucks. That's right. ONE HUNDRED SIX.

Sure, interest accrues. But if I do this for TWENTY FIVE YEARS, the government will forgive it ALL. It's magnificent. Until and unless I make about seventy thousand dollars, I won't get anywhere near that thousand dollar monthly mark. It's a freakin LIFE SAVER.

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Every now and then something blows up in the ashtanga blogosphere. It has to happen. It's like the way that gypsy moth caterpillars get plague. Someone writes or comments on something and a nerve is hit and BOOM!! It's cool, we've seen it before. I won't provide the sites, out of politeness. Hunt around and you'll find the fireworks.

I also don't have any answers about what one SHOULD do in a Mysore room or how a teacher SHOULD behave. I can say how I would.

In every Mysore room I've been in (all three), the teacher at some point checks my practice, either in advance ("you do Primary your first day when you arrive") or at the point where I would start Intermediate ("what do you usually do?"). A year ago, which was my most recent Mysore style experience, I was doing up to Kapotasana.

I am told--by our buddy Cody, actually--that in one of the rooms I've been in, if a teacher sees someone pull a non-Ashtanga move, the teacher will wander over there and ask, "What're ya doin'?" just in an investigative way, and then apparently explain what the room is and why certain expressions and poses are allowed and others not. Insert description of tradition here, etc.

Personally, I think that if a room calls itself Mysore-style, it has a certain right to adhere to that tradition. As David Swenson once put it, if you do whatever you want, great, enjoy, but just don't call it Ashtanga.

But I know in my own room (I try to imitate Mysore-style rooms that I've personally been in, when I teach in that style), I spend quite a bit of time talking to people about how to modify, what they're used to, how much practice experience they have, and so on. It's really negotiation heavy, especially with new people. Sure, I've told people not to bind side angle poses. Sure, I've let people go past the Marichyasanas they can't do. Indy IS NOT a big Ashtanga town; I have flexy rules in my room because if I run a tight ship the way I know I should, I lose all my students. I serve them first and try to serve the tradition as well as I can, while doing that. It flexes, in my room. As it must.

If someone wants to do rad poses (like lift up to tripod headstand from the first Prasarita, as one of my enthusiastic students does), I usually ask something like, "Hey, that's more like third series; can you put your foot behind your head?" and when that student realizes that no, s/he can't do that, the rest follows. Do what the tradition says, that's why it's a Mysore room.

However, I've never had students in my room--with one exception--who want to mix and match Intermediate into Primary or even to do Intermediate or a more advanced sequence. Everyone does Primary because no one has it memorized or mastered. So that part's easy, but it also means that I never have to confront certain situations and so I also don't know what I'd do if I were confronted with such situations.

My own practice is still a weird animal. I fought for EVER with the question, what pose is your final one? Usually, backbends at the end of Primary. Yes, I STILL do not stand up; I knee-stand. But one thing that seventh series really did do for my asana practice is change it from:

1. "Traditional practice" meaning you stop at the pose you can't do

to

2. "Traditional practice," meaning breath-bandhas-dristi.

For one, I don't have the TIME and the PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL SPACE for Primary and up to Kapo. Sure, I've spent 1:45 on Second before, but something about Primary and up to Kapo kicks my BUTT, sends me into outer space for an HOUR, minimum. I remember those space trips from February, from March, from April.

I can't be in outer space for an hour with an eight-week-old. When I get up from the grass or the mat or the rug, it is GAME ON, straight away. I can be mellow, I can be energized, but I cannot be pulverized in a way that takes me an hour to re-solidify.

Would I do that practice during day care days to come? Yes, probably. It was a hell of a trip to do it for the late winter and springtime before seventh series began. As a matter of fact, I expect to return to it in the wintertime when the Y and I again become friendly.

I do about one Primary a week; there's no led that I can go to, and so I have to do it at home, and time is totally scattershot and unpredictable. Seventh series RULES home practice. But I do get one Intermediate a week, Monday nights. I also throw in a fair amount of Intermediate and advanced postures in the Saturday and Tuesday power yoga classes: usually Pasasana, Eka Pada Sirsasana, occasionally Kapotasana, a lot of Ustrasana, regular Vasisthasana and Viswamitrasna (no matter which one is called which), sometimes the Urdhva Kukkus (various), some of those seven arm balances from Advanced A (with tripod headstand vinyasas), now and then a shot at Purna Matsyendrasana and Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. I also drop back if we do wheels.

I want more settled practices, I want more strict Ashtanga in my week. But seventh series calls the shots and seventh series tells me what where when and how. So be it.

I call my home practice (whether I do Primary, partial Intermediate or the whole thing) Ashtanga because it has the regular sun salutations, standing series and closing series. Whatever it has in the middle, is still Ashtanga sequences, even if it's just Pasasana to Kapo, before closing.

It's ashtanga because I'm focusing, willfully, on breath-bandhas-dristi, and doing poses in certain sequences and with certain transitions which are the ones this practice classically calls for. Sure, if I do full Intermediate, I take some serious catch-your-breath breaks. But I also hit every pose as fully as I'm able and every vinyasa in and out as well as I'm able.

Having no teacher is quite freeing in this fashion, but also restrictive. Freeing in that I can learn and fail whatever transition I want. Freeing in that I'm not told every day "stop at backbends." Restrictive in that it's harder for me to learn those very backbends by myself. Restrictive in that I don't know where I "am" in the system.

But I know how I behave in a Mysore room. Since I can only get to one for probably a week a year (two, if I'm lucky), they are JEWELS. I do whatever the teacher in charge wants me to do. Primary only? Great. Up to whatever I was most recently doing? Great. I know I'm going to get some assisted backbends, and that's marvelous. I suck up knowledge and adjustments (rare as they are, most often being solely Kapo and backbends) like the world's most efficient sponge, because my opportunities are SO limited.

I'm down with this ashtanga yoga business.