You know you're a writer when...

Every now and then I become very unpleasant to be around, as if I'm chewing on something that I just can NOT swallow, and need to be put in a quiet room to continue chewing on it until it is done. I realize--and have before, but do now again--that this is the urge to finally "secrete," if you will, a piece of writing, a concept, a history; it varies but it is always about finally "bringing to the light" some story that needs telling or re-telling. It isn't about the "dark and hidden," most of the time it's stories that I have already told and to which is attached no specific "dark" baggage that hypnosis would be required to undo.

Recent off-blog email, I realized today, set one of these off. Here it is.

In 1991 I was a junior in college. I met a number of new freshpeople (it was still polite to call them freshmen in 1991, but now it's not, I hear) and adventures began. At that time in my existence I was chewing on a bunch of different issues, the majority of which were linked to my over-thinking a generalization put in my head by Catholic laity when I was a kid (I was raised what you might call "lazy Catholic"). The generalization was something like "it is right to confess impure thoughts when they arise." The overthinking was something like this: "Dude, I'm 14 (in 1984). My ENTIRE LIFE is an impure thought. What gives?" And more than that, it was this: if I experience "impure thoughts" in my head, and those impure thoughts correspond to the hormonal chemistry I feel in my bloodstream, where does my body fit into the confession of impurity? As a matter of fact, what IS impurity? Is the body impure, wholesale? How then am I to overcome that? Or is it only impure SOMETIMES? Or is only acting on that chemistry impure, and if that's true, what about when that chemistry acts on me? Is there some Puppetmaster of Impurity in charge of things? How much of this voodoo do you really want me to buy?

I am given to overthinking of that kind, and what eventually happened is that my ability to conceptualize FAR EXCEEDED the ability of my lazy-Catholic generalizations to contain it. And there was no further advice coming (other than euphemisms) from anyone who could be considered to be "raising" me, so I had to handle all of that business by myself. So, 1991.

I had a lot of convoluted, complicated, paradoxical body-love-hate-identity-agency stuff in my head when I was 21. I had retained the "impure" tag, but had thrown out any respect for it. As you'll hear from many lapsed Catholics, the respect disappears but the guilt remains. Well, these freshpeople and I were to band together and to, as the Surrealists put it, attempt to "change life."

As a group, we were "punk hippies." We listened to Minor Threat, Fugazi, Ministry, Sex Pistols, Moody Blues, Santana, Zeppelin, Joy Division, the Smiths, Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and all of grunge, all that stuff. We wore tie-dye and black and Doc Maartens and Birkenstocks, all of that good private college kid stuff. I was the most hippie of the bunch, the Armenian Nietzsche scholar the most punk, the French guy the most anarchist (personally and politically) and the Korean kid from Buffalo NY, the most goth. Our membership also included a metalhead and a goth chick who dated the Nietzsche scholar. We really painted the identity target in the early 1990s. And from 1991 to 1994, we bonded, fought, lived and died together, we took all the right chemicals and a few of the wrong ones, we survived bad trips, we drank like fish, we climbed rooftops, we saw sunrises, we drew all over my walls, broke my first acoustic guitar, stayed up all night regularly, and somehow pulled a heck of a lot of A's while we did it. We were smart, largely angry and dissatisfied, largely sexually frustrated, and very, very bad people.

But we were NOT actually on the darkside. We acted out on a private campus, and sure, a few of us (not me) took or were put on medication (remember how popular Lithium used to be?), and one had tried suicide six times and failed, and another tried it just because he was curious (he really was; he wanted to see if God was real), but really, we were basically very smart suburban kids with very, very loose boundaries. We played hard. But we weren't ever TRULY dangerous to ourselves or others, we never played with weapons, and most of our conversations were about French Symbolist poetry, Kierkegaard and religion and Nietzsche.

I graduated in 1993 and was able to eek out many visits for 1994. But then I had to grow up and get temp jobs which were so evilly boring and reprehensible that they chased me to graduate school, far, far away in Indiana. And suddenly it's 2007.

There is more to the story than this, but for those three years (91-94) this is where it was at. I'll almost certainly write more episodes like this (as said off-blog correspondence continues), but that's been itching to get out for a few days.

In other corners of the world, I went to that "power and endurance" class and had an absolutely MARVELOUS practice.

Multitasking.

To do many things at once. This morning it's all about the following:

1) Find images of what has been called "body art" from the 1960s. Google, of course, presents a hundred thousand images of what is NOW called body art (the, as a friend used to put it before moving to Boulder, CO: "pierced and painted"). Body art in the 1960s and 1970s means art made with the bodies: a guy who intentionally sunburns a square on his belly. Bodies as bridges. Performance art (and not the 1980s Karen Findley covered with chocolate variety).

Why? Because

2) I am showing a wonderful short films called "Fuses" today in my academic class. Go here and hunt around in "Film and Video." It'll be good for your head.

3) Shouldn't I be practicing today? Yes, later. Time demands that it be so. BUT I'm also free tonight (no movie screening for my classes) and so I will be at a 5:45 "Yoga for Strength and Endurance" vinyasa class which I LOVE. The room is often full (and I mean FULL: 12 people, 18 people, 20-something sometimes!) and the energy is good and the long standing series often ends with some really fun advanced poses (arm balance series, full splits, backbend adventures, that sorta thing).

Ashtanga? I may tuck some in before my 1:30 class or else after, at 3. BUT

4) I still have job application letters to write; yes, I did send off the first 10 which are due on Thursday, but there are 3 more for the 5th, 2 more for the 9th, and six more for the 15th.

Much of November will be like this. Luckily there are fabulous Mysore-style practices being posted about here and also there .

"That is So Metal!" or, How to Headbang

Yes, this is a departure. A number of odd snowballing things have been in my head lately, and so I present the following:

First, let me say that my biography goes like this, where "metal" is concerned:

1985 or 86: suburban teenager discovers Led Zeppelin and is converted. INSTANTLY. You would have been too, if "Thriller" had been your early teen anthem (1984).

1988: college, rooming with "real" metalheads. You name it, we had it: Metallica, Poison, Venom, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Bloodfeast, Cinderella, Def Leppard, all of it. We didn't draw lines between pop metal and death metal or any of the micro-categories.

1989: burn out on metal, and turn to the Stones, the Beatles, later the Dead and Pink Floyd, but...

1991: still college. Nirvana happens. Jane's Addiction appears on the radar. The Smashing Pumpkins creep into the light. First Lollapalooza festival: Henry Rollins, Butthole Surfers, NIN, Living Colour, Jane's.

What really set this post off was the moment of "high living" or what you might call "loud living" or "awareness," some sort of blip on the Graphic Equalizer of Life, which is represented by the years from 1991-1993.

So now, We Proudly Present, THAT IS SO METAL!!

Head-banging.

There are many varieties of head-banging, some more metal than others. Some are downright suburban and reserved solely for "metal posers" and "metal wannabe's." Please witness the following categories:

1) The Suburban Commuter. This is headbanging which can safely be done while negotiating highway traffic. You've seen it. It's that polite little bop along with the beat. This is "non-metal" because it doesn't cause lingering neck-aches the next day as well as because it is strictly "on-beat" and thus lacks a certain aesthetic decoration.

2) The Mike Myers. This is headbanging done without music, or even if it's done with music, it has no real relationship to the music, and so therefore is immediately "poser" unless done by Mike Myers in his guise as "Wayne," in which case it is a clever parody of poser-metal, and thus can be said to be "so metal"!

Wayne is, like, SO metal.

3) The Metallica I. Also known as The Maiden. A lot of heavy metal music relies on distortion, but with palm-muting and rapid strumming, which creates a rapid-fire, relatively clean "machine gun" line of notes, often doubled by a bass line. At the start of a song, this cues the metalheads to start banging. Later in a song, it often serves as the backdrop for a solo or (ye gods!) a double-bass drum break (Neal Peart's work with Rush, while largely debatable as "metal" in most cases, is TOTALLY metal when it comes to drum solos).

To do the Metallica I, stand. Bend the knees slightly. Hang the hands low, as if holding a heavy guitar on a long strap slung around the shoulders. Inhale and lengthen the spine, and then exhale and commence banging the head, with the spine otherwise erect. This is quick, short, fast headbanging. It is "Metal 101." If you can't pass this class, you can't go on to graduate work in metal.

4) The Metallica II. If you've got a sufficient morning neck-ache from doing the Metallica I, you're ready for the slightly riskier Metallica II. Here the spine is more engaged in the headbang. One option is to assume the position of the Metallica I, round the spine over about halfway, and then bang not just the head but the whole thoracic spine. These can be long, slower, curvier headbangs, and are especially metal when done by those with long, tossable hair. Another option is to round the spine as above, and with spine rounded, simply toss the head up and back, to its full range of forward and backward motion. This will result in greater neck aches the following day for all but the HARDEST metalheads, but anyone who sees you ripping off the Metallica II will say, "Dude, that guy/chick is SO METAL!!"

5) Aesthetic options: here we must discuss rhythm. It is easiest to bang one's head along with the beat, and most heavy metal is luckily inconsistent in its rhythmic structure, giving ample opportunities for metalheads to develop multiple head-banging talents. HOWEVER, it is not TRULY metal to stick strictly to the beat. True metalheads change up and elaborate around, between and sometimes regardless of the beat. Some of the things you will see (and do! be METAL!) are:

a) the head-roll: you can swing your head in circles rather than the classical forward-back. This, again, is more metal with long hair.
b) the head-pop: again, instead of classical forward-back, the head pop is a half-headbang, as if you've just been punched under the chin. It is often accompanied by an open-mouthed expression, again duplicating the "I've just been socked" gesture, and indicates a metalhead entering the head-banging "metal trance."
c) throwing the goat: this is a hand gesture, popularized at Ozzy concerts. Classically, the index and little fingers point, with the thumb wrapped around the middle two fingers. The hand then "bangs" like a head. This is throwing the goat.

For a demonstration of many of the above techinques, see this tune.

6) Metal goes 1990s. Metal's heyday, as we all know, was the 1980s. But the news is good, my friends! Metal lives on! Sure, Nirvana isn't REALLY metal, but if you've ever been in a Nirvana or a Nine Inch Nails or a Jane's Addiction mosh pit, you know the spirit (and the bruising) lives! And this is to say nothing of gigs like Ministry. Now there is both good and bad news for Old School Metalheads here: first, stuff like Ministry is totally suited to the Metallica I. Hurrah! However, tolerance for various non-metal types like goth kids and punks has to be developed by metalheads at these shows, and certain Old School Metalheads are going to be challenged there (come on boys, you can mellow out without becoming hippies, I know you can...).

The other good news is that "psychedelic metal" actually inherits certain elements from Dead-trance-dances. Yes, it's true, even hippies can be metal! Shocker! Will marvels never cease? It's a postmodern world, metalheads, and you've gotta become material girls if you want to live in it. So put on your tie-dye and throw the goat! At the new mix of gothish-punkish-industrial-metal-psychedelia shows, you'll see some headbanging variants such as:

a) Viparita Headbang. This is like the Metallica II, but done by very flexible people. With feet planted, they "tic-toc" back and forth, head banging virtually from the ground behind them to the ground in front. Sometimes you'll also see:

b) Viparita with a Twist: This is the Metallica II (or the Viparita) done with a spinal twist, so that the headbanger rotates not just up and back but also outward side to side (ex.: down left front, up right back, swing to up left back, bang forward to down right, repeat). This is very challenging stuff and can result in aching from the lower back to the top of the head. These people can and will also bang their heads INTO YOU, so look out!

c) The Psychedelic. This is a hippie-ish headbang, but my sources tell me that in New School Metal, it counts! Slower than the Metallicas, this is basically slow-motion headbanging, again, ideally done with long hair. For the psychedelic set, the slow drifting of hair strands helps to create interesting visuals. For the ahimsa set, this is very unlikely to cause morning neck aches. You will also see the headroll added here, and you may see goat-throwing or even some quick moments of the Metallica I or II. That's one of the best benefits of hippie metallists: they generally embrace everyone!

Now go and bang your head! You know you wanna!

Practice.

Considering my usual "morning practice" means a practice which begins between about 8:30 am and 11:30 am, today I got to it early: 8 am straight up. Some hamstring "hello" tightness in the A's, better B's, hands flat (and I find that I can really just "rollerskate," as David Swenson put it, my feet back from standing forward bend to chaturanga, when my hands are flat).

Solid--not "full expressions" necessarily, but solid--standing poses. Head to ground in all four wide-angle forward bends (prasarita padottanasana). Good balance in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana . And, in the realm of IMPORTANT ASANA NEWS FOR PATRICK'S UNIVERSE, the current headline is this:

My right hip permits half-lotus, at will! Both standing and seated, I can bring the foot up and bind the toe, and there is no awkward pain in the ankle or the knee. That may not seem like gigantic news, but for ALL of these three years, I've been whining to anyone who'll listen to me about my "tight right hip," and sure, it's probably still not got the mobility of my left, but lotus at will, WOW. That's a serious self-image challenger. The whole practice is.

Not that I can make lotus (or even half-) without my hands.

Scrapy, scattershot jumps back and through, but that's expected; it always takes a while for my morning jumps to develop smoothness when I "turn winter." Wrist binds in all Marichyasanas except D, which I still bound on both sides.

Flubbed the exit from Bhujapidasana but got the pose, which is probably more important. Legs were not straight out in Kurmasana and I had to release the ankle clasp on the exit from Supta but I had a nice deep Baddha Konasana after that; I even got my chin BEYOND my feet, which shows that I am bringing the feet closer (very cool!). The whole practice was really pretty pleasant, and it's my first Full Primary all damn week; I FINALLY got some job applications mailed, and while that changes the stress more than eliminates it, it really cracks open the pressure cooker.

I did up to the first pose of Second and then took backbends; 3 tentative bent-armers and then 15 breaths to chill out and then a 4th one, arms longer, straighter, but still bent. The lesson I wanted to teach myself was that I would NOT DIE if I did a fourth backbend; more specifically, that the fear and anxiety would not swallow me whole. So it was more about "proof" than it was about "getting the pose."

Ah, another VERY important lesson: The Breath!

In both the backbends and the headstand (where I'm trying now to press a bit off the floor; not like four-six inches like Sharath does, but a bit), it is KEY to breathe long and peacefully as if no effort is being expended. Harder rougher breathing makes the pose harder. Easier breathing, even if it seems "not right," makes the pose easier. That is NOT just "yoga b.s." that you hear from teachers during your moments of high challenge.

Finally, I did all of the appropriate chakrasanas (what's a chakrasana? Look down toward the end of Primary on this page ). It felt good. Right on.

Who's with me?

How many of you no-doubt-dozens-of-readers out there are going to hit up this crazy Ashtanga party in July in Minnesota with me?

So far I'm signed up for the week of Mysore-style, but not the opening weekend. Must see if money permits.

Flashes.

Once upon a time--summer, fall and into winter of 2003/04, to be specific, I had a night job, working 11pm-7am six days a week, from about late July into January 2004. I worked at a bed and breakfast, and my job was to man the front desk; take no reservations, but do check people in. Do not sleep. 6.75 per hour. It was all very Victorian and cozy, but also with a really perverse, truly postmodern sense of "Victorian decorum," which was to be enacted on the phone and in person. Drunk students used to walk in about 2-3 am some mornings, and I remember talking to two women about Nietzsche and existentialism on one of those occasions.


Some time in 2000, in email correspondence, a woman named Jill told me that, should I ever leave the unhappy, emotionally harmful marriage I was in at that point, I would, and I quote, "find more toxic shit than you can possibly imagine."


When I woke up from anesthesia in April 2004 after knee ligament reconstruction, I had a blazing headache; to my more than slight horror, I remembered that I'd not laid off my desperate coffee consumption for a few weeks before the surgery, and so the order not to eat or drink, the morning of the surgery, had resulted in hardcore caffeine desperation...this panic accelerated my blood pressure and they weren't going to let me go...and I don't like hospitals any more than anyone else does...so I started doing ujjayi breathing and dropped my b.p. by 20 points in about 40 seconds...and sipping mountain dew really helped...didn't keep me from tossing it all up a few hours later in my room, but it got me out of the hospital...


I was raised on a coast, and like most (all?) coastal children, I think that sitting in front of the ocean (any ocean, not just my "original" one) is about as close to seeing God as it gets. In May 2007, I walked the length of Golden Gate Park on a Saturday (day off, my butt) and sat in front of the Pacific Ocean on my striped Mysore rug, but there was such ferocious wind coming off the waves that within minutes I couldn't feel my cheeks. But I watched the guy on a skateboard, attached by flexible cables to a massive kite of sorts, roll to and fro, easily, over the cold, hard sand. Wind-powered human.


In probably 2004, I was sitting across the street from a club in Bloomington called the Bluebird; it's on Walnut and you can Mapquest it. It was night time and a Dead cover band had been playing that place. I had my guitar with me (I still own it; big ole Guild jazz guitar, from 1975, full hollow body, with f-holes and a floating bridge, if you want guitar-geek details) and I was riffing all the Dead songs I knew any part of. I'd start in "Eyes of the World" and disappear into a scale-running wanna-be-Jerry solo, and end up in "Fire on the Mountain" and then jam my way down quietly into "Uncle John's Band" or "Dark Star" or the quiet but always recognizable intro to "St. Stephen." My guitar case had 27 dollars in it later that night.


When I look in the mirror, I'm not sure whom I'm looking at. See those shoulders? They didn't look like that for the first more than 30 years of my life. See all that musculature in the back and those "teeth" of the serratus anterior? Not familiar, not yet part of my self-image, my sense of myself. Yes, I put the big 8 pointed star tattoo between the shoulder blades. I had that put there in a place called New Breed, again in Bloomington, at College and 6th. I drew it during my night job, measured it just so, and did the shading, so that all of the lines cross over and under like that. Technically it is one line, it's a circle, but bent into those marvelous, pointy lines. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently it is the symbol of Inanna, one of the ancient (Sumerian?) goddesses of the harvest, of the "cycle." I nipped that design, I think, out of an old Dungeons and Dragons manual, where I read that it signified "regeneration." It has always hung around in me; it's on my guitar case, penned in Liquid Paper (tm). It's been drawn on all of my notebooks throughout school. I haven't drawn it on anything since it appeared on my back, 4 and 1/2 inches on a side. I paid for it with money that I'd made donating plasma in the early mornings after my night gigs and before I would go to the gym and climb walls for hours at a time. My climbing in those days sucked; I wonder if it was the coffee or the insomnia or the stress of having a dissertation to write or the plasma donations or something else. But I liked the idea of turning my bodily fluids, by means of money, into permanent ink in my skin. Regeneration.


While I was in San Francisco, my cat died, a thousand miles away, here in Indiana. This happened on a Monday night and I found out about it, by email from the hired-student cat sitter, Tuesday night. Wednesday morning I went to Larry's studio and did the Intermediate series, all of it, with modifications, but all of it. I was going on my way through the series, and after the Peacock arm balance, was about to do a standing vinyasa in half-lotus. Larry, without breaking stride from his morning practice, across the room, said, to no one in particular, "Nakrasana." Thanks, Larry. I met that cat when I moved to an apartment up on 17th street in Bloomington, after I walked out of my marriage in 2002. I left one morning and moved into that place directly. The cat latched onto me and she lived with me in four more locations, until my dissertation was done, and then, her job of comfort committed, she moved on.

Job Search Update: I may be coming to a state near you.

Jobs to which I am applying are in the following states (there is no guarantee, of course, that I will land in ANY of these, but here's the list nonetheless--and a parenthetical number indicates more than one gig being applied for):

Maine
Massachusetts (3)
Connecticut
Maryland
Pennsylvania
New York
Iowa (2)
Missouri
Kentucky
Minnesota (2)
Virginia
Tennessee (3)
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Texas (2)
Colorado
Oregon

and, for the heck of it,

Manitoba (that's Canada, y'all).

Alright alright alright, Karen, Ashtanga meme it is.

Courtesy of Karen , we present:

THE ASHTANGA MEME ABOUT LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES.

Ashtanga Liberals:

*Practice during ladies holidays
Um, not relevant, that I know of.

*Have more than one teacher whom they may or may not listen to
I have one teacher, who allows me to experiment as I please, but last time I had two teachers (in SF, one conservative, one liberal) I did as they said.

*Give themselves poses
Yep. I have to.

*Mix up one or more series together in the same practice
If I do Larry Schultz' "crim" Rocket series, we mix poses from 1st-4th series, yes.

*Skip poses they can't 'do'
Nope. I'll modify or adapt, but I won't skip.

*Add poses they can 'do'
You betcha. Not every practice, but when I want to put my leg behind my head, I'll add it to Kapotasana (which should probably be my "official" stop pose).

*Mess with the number of sun salutations
Nope. Five and five.

*Practice on saturday
If I'm having a messed up life week, you damn betcha.

*Practice on moondays and don't even know when moon days are
I don't usually practice on a moonday, but I have. I DO, however, know when they are and I can spot one coming with freakish precision.

*Drink water during practice
Nope, was told not to early on and it stuck.

*Quote Tim Miller
Well, it's more apt to say that I quote people who've quoted Tim Miller. Maybe I'm like a second generation ashtanga liberal or something.

*May drink, smoke pot, shoot heroin occasionally or often
Booze, yes. Nothing else.

*Eat cheeseburgers and donuts
Blah. Although I've eaten a donut or two in the past three years, yeah.

*Do Madonna's version of vande gurunam
Nope. Do you know how much frickin effort that is?

*Skip vinyasas in the seated poses
Nope, well, unless I'm injured or rushed for time. I LOVE my jumpbacks.



Ashtanga Conservatives:


*Always listen to their teacher
When I have one, yes.

*Practice between five and six days a week
Yep, even if it's just sun salutations.

*NEVER practice on ladies holidays or on Saturdays
No to ladies' holidays; occasionally, to Saturdays.

*Take an almond oil bath on Saturday
Not currently, no.

*Eat ghee
Never have touched the stuff. Well, except at Indian restaurants.

*Get a set of contact lenses, even though they hate them, so that they can have a sharp driste, just like their teacher told them
Can't wear contacts. I like my driste fuzzy.

*Never use props
Nope, I don't. Don't use em, that is.

*Never skip poses
Nope, I'll modify or do a pose half-assed, but never skip it, unless I'm doing a short form practice or something, or an injury precludes doing it.

*Never add poses
Yeah, I'm a pose-adder. But not when I have a teacher to listen to.

*Contact their teacher when they are going to be absent to explain the absence
Nope.

*Contact their teacher after the absence to explain the absence
I've done this, but it's not regular. But neither is my having a teacher.

*Do primary series when they are sick, unless they have a fever
I've done primary when sick, but not EVERY time I'm sick. Depends on the sick.

*Do the proper, droning version of vande gurunam
Yep.

*Get to bed real early, skipping opportunities for fun/company/sex so as not to miss practice
I'll miss some opportunities, but others, no, I won't. I've practiced on four hours of sleep, in the past, because of this. But I've also never practiced hung over. Do I get bonus points?

*Are vegetarian
Unless I'm at my parents' house, yes.

*Never eat or drink before practice
Just like Karen said: COFFEE! Come on, even Guruji apparently said that "one cup dark coffee, even lazy man is coming, full energy!"

*Would never think of drinking water during practice and openly scorn those foolish enough to bring a water bottle
I'm usually way too involved in my dristi and whatnot (to say nothing of desperate nearsightedness) to see what people are doing or not, but no, no water drinking during practice.

*Want to throttle people who come in and do that bloody sing-song version of vande gurunam
Have never heard anyone except Madonna do said version. And no, she wasn't leading my class at that point.

*Quote guruji
Hah, I just did this above. I'm SO conservative. Or something.

*Keep Yoga Mala by their bed
Not by the bed, but currently on the shelf over the fireplace.

*Know the vinyasa count
Nope, well, not formally...I know my vinyasa count, which is probably close but not spot-on. Too much home practice, I guess!

*Know all the sanskrit names for the poses
You damn betcha. And spelling.

*Never EVER experiment with a pose they have not been 'given' by their teacher.
Ok ok, you got me, I'm crim. Kidding. Come on, it's fun to experiment with what's coming up. Especially if you do home practice for 11 and 3/4 months of the year.

Ashtanga "liberal and conservative."

Over here there's a lot of chitchat about ashtanga "liberals" (more fluid, perhaps "outside the system" in many ways) and ashtanga "conservatives" (by the book, all the time).

It's a tongue-in-cheek post, but if you do a lot of ashtanga, you know that not far under the comedy is a real question. Do I adhere to "the system" or do I change it up, change the sequences, and so on? Do I practice 6/week at dawn, or do I practice now and then when it feels good? And a hundred questions like that.

For me it all comes down to having a, if you will, "ashtanga conservative" teacher or not. When I do, I'm more ashtanga-conservative. When not, I'm more ashtanga-liberal.

In SF, I got up at 5:30 and hit a morning Mysore class several times a week at 6 am, and I did all of Primary up to dropbacks, and then didn't drop back and stand up, so the next time I went, I repeated that practice. And my dropbacks got deeper but never "arrived," so I guess the next time I'm with an "ashtanga conservative," if the dropbacks have still not arrived, THAT is where my "ashtanga conservative" practice will be. And that'll be fine.

But my "ashtanga liberal" practice does things I've already posted about: Intermediate up to about ten poses in, and I know I can do numerous poses from that sequence beyond that, and I can also manage, I think it is, TWO poses from Advanced A (third series), at least in terms of proper entrance and exit and so forth.

But it's also not all just asana: for example, drinking water during class or "sing songing" the opening chant. I haven't consumed water DURING practice for most of the time (and I mean 2 years and many months) that I've been doing ashtanga, so I don't even count that as "ashtanga conservative," it's just how I was told to do things. And in Indy, I think I'm one of maybe 3 people in the WHOLE CITY who even know what the opening chant IS, so no, I don't sing-song it like Madonna (but I've heard her version...here, let me find a link)... there .

I also don't use props in my ashtanga practice, but again, that's how I was told to do things, so I don't count that as "ashtanga conservative" either. That's where the whole "liberal/conservative" thing starts to fall apart, and is better left alone as something funny.

2nd post today: Climbing+Yoga. The new Peanut Butter+Chocolate? Or not?

Yesterday I did this, approximately:

7.00 am: wake up.

8.30 am: drive 40 minutes west to teach my two back to back yoga classes.

9.30 am: begin first class (3 students, regulars all)

11.40 am: pack into car and drive to bloomington (1 hr 15 minutes, approx.)

1.00 pm: begin meeting with my academic advisor from grad school and current dissertation writers (something i did when i had one to write, and which i continue to attend, to "keep hip" on films, articles, etc).

3.30 pm: conclude meeting.

4.00 pm: arrive at climbing gym and, for the first time in four months, rope up and haul up a wall. substantial hand pain does NOT, finally, result.

4.15 pm: resume my once-colorful career as route setter. this gym should start advertising in this regard: between me and the cognitive psychology guy who is the main routesetter, their routes are set by TWO PhD's. they probably have the smartest (in terms of degrees) setters in the midwest.

7.00 pm: having set three routes and still without swollen knuckles or any of my other ills from the past four months, i surrender the afternoon. for those of you who climb or "speak ratings," i set an easy 8, an easy 9 and a low 11 (say 11 a/b).

Here I want to digress onto my main topic.

After I set, I usually do a few yoga moves, but not in any sense a "full practice." Climbing tends to tighten the hamstrings, lengthen the adductors (the inner thighs), and to strengthen but tighten the core and front body (armpits, pecs, rectus abdominus).

So when I do a few post-climbing/setting yoga moves, it's to get the spine mobile and to approach backbends. Usually I move from updog to downdog, then jump through and back a few times, maybe take a forward bend and the press-up counterpose, a little baddha konasana, sometimes i get fancy and do kurmasana/supta kurmasana and the arm balance exit, sometimes when i have more reliable wrists i do a little arm balance surfing (staying on my hands while my body and legs move from one pose to another).

Eventually I make my way to the wheel (pressing up from the floor) and usually I have good rounds of the wheel after some time on the wall. This was no exception: I got my arms straight, for the FIRST TIME ALL MONTH. The hands were well "in front of" my head (that is, I made a long, oval arc, not that, tight, tall one you see on the cover of Yoga Journal (tm)) but the arms were straight. Then I did progressive dropback hangs, moving my hands from the heart center to the chin and then to the third eye (and that really does intensify the hang and the front body stretch). It was all good.

AND THEN i got up this morning to practice.

As I wrote in the post just prior to this one, about energy and stiffness, I had some substantial "intensity" in the outer hips. Not pain, not stiffness, really, more like big, bright energy that needed to be slowly worked into. Big sensation. I'm not sure if it was from the climbing or the post-climbing yoga or from driving a little over 2 hours yesterday or if it was not related to any of that.

I took a short practice, and even now, hours later, having taught my 12:30 Mysore class, I can still feel big intensity in the outer hips. Hmm. I "asked" about this in my svasana and didn't get anything beyond: "Not all sensation and resistance is tightness." Wisdom for sure, but not too specific about the cause and effects here.

Certainly climbing and yoga go together: all kinds of yoga practitioners climb, and Chris Sharma, who is the current climbing god, is a big yoga guy as well. The inner thigh muscle lengthening that comes from "stemming" is priceless in undoing typical western "guy hips." "High-stepping" can build Marichyasana A. Climbing's development of the shoulders and back muscles, to say nothing of core strength, brings jumpbacks miles closer than they would be without it. All of that pulling-down with the hand/wrist is a great cure for too much chaturanga and arm balances.

But climbing is totally front-body intensive. The abs get tight; I remember a keenly ferocious ripping sensation throughout the armpits and ribs when I finally did press up, with TWO assistants, into my first wheel ever. I imagine that the hip flexors also get short from being almost always in a flexed position. For setting, one is almost always (unless pulling a move) either with feet close together on the wall and knees bent, or with feet spread wide apart, while cranking down a hold with a big allen wrench.

Perhaps big twists would undo some of those climbing movements. I did both the Marichyasana twist as well as a Pasasana yesterday, and my best guess about the sensation in my outer hips is that they got an uncommon workout from the time on the wall, not necessarily that I "undid" my backbend or anything like that.

And in any case, I won't (unless injury demands it) surrender setting in order to have bigger, prettier poses. Setting gives me a feeling of serving humanity that my yoga practice (or even teaching it) does not. Plus, setting gives me a feelings of warm, fuzzy love, all over. Not to be cheezy, but it does.

In any case, practice Monday morning. I look forward to it. Let's see what happens THIS TIME.

First: stiffness and energy.

I'm going to throw down two posts about yesterday and this morning: one is more about energy (this one) and one more about climbing walls and yoga (that one). Here goes:

This morning found me with a lot of sensation in the lateral hips (anatomically speaking: gluteus medius, tensor fasciae latae, perhaps very upper rectus femoris). The usual tight and energy-balled-up spots. The first things I feel post-practice, as far as "return to average tightness" is concerned.

So: practice was 5 A's, 5 B's, standing sequence. When I jumped through to seated, I didn't want to do a single forward bend. In my head all I could see was baby backbends like bow and camel. So I decided to take a shot at leaping into Intermediate. Pasasana was doable but REALLY intense in the outside hips. Not painful like "ow ow make it stop" and not tight like "ooooff can't bind hands..." but more like the "energy hangover" you can get from a big adjustment. For example, if you've ever been pressed flat in Baddha Konasana (cobbler's pose, bound angle, butterfly pose, and a hundred other names), you might have felt the intense rotation in the hip sockets that can accompany a huge forward bend in that position.

Usually after Baddha K I feel a sort of ember-glowing "energy ball" in the hips, and it's difficult to just jump back and set up the next pose. Perhaps that's part of the challenge.

And that got me thinking about energy and stiffness, and this all hooks up to a comment from Bindi on my prior post. Yes, stiffness is productive. It not only sets your limits, it sets your challenges. I know very flexy people who are literally falling apart in the joints from being overflexible. And so yes, it is not a matter of "waiting for later in the day to develop flexibility." There's definitely something to practicing at the level of challenge rather than at the level of achievement. Sure, achievement feels better for the ego ("Hey look at me, I'm doing pose Q!") and challenge is often less physically comfortable (my morning dropbacks, for example), but as I learned last year in dawn practices, whatever you can do at dawn, you can really do. For me it's all a matter of choosing the challenge, and it is harder, SO much harder, to choose challenge than to choose achievement, particularly with that San Francisco legacy of "second is usually given when the student can drop back and stand up." That continues to bug me, but I've already written pages and pages about that.

But I'm now thinking, after this morning's somewhat bizarre (energy?? stiffness??) practice, that maybe this "glowing ember" sensation in the hips is the beginning of an opening, a process that's going on there. It was NOT just "oh I'm tight in the hips." I KNOW what that feels like. This was more like "Man, I did some SERIOUS hip work yesterday." And maybe I did--a return to climbing walls after four months off. But that is where the second post begins.

Onward!

Ye Olde Rushed for Time Yoga

Both today and yesterday I have found myself ripping off a partial practice rather than have no practice. Yesterday I attempted my first early am practice (7 am) and found every single movement in Sun Salutation A to be really uncomfortable, and further, not to improve with repetition. I wound up doing 5 A's and 1 B and then lying down in a cobra position, then sitting and concentrating/building meditation (the Sutras say that "concentration"/dharana, holding the mind on one object or concept, is the royal road to meditation/dhyana).

But later that afternoon I did a modified Rocket practice (read: sun salutations, variation of Classical standing poses (4 with right leg forward, then forearm stand, then 4 with left forward, forearm stand), variations of hip openers (the 4 Prasaritas followed by front splits, followed by a "pressup" (mula bandha checkup!!) from Upavistha Konasana to chaturanga/pushup), and then the "baby backbends" of the Intermediate series, adding up to the wheel and dropbacks, and then a quick closing series) and all was well with the world. My wall-dropbacks are still bigger, taller and tighter than my press-up wheel.

Similarly:

this morning (admittedly, late, starting 10 am) I did a partial Primary (well, most of it, actually) in order to make an 11:45 meeting. I cut five poses in total, and did 3 wheel press-ups, 3 dropbacks with the wall, and closing, with half-vinyasa (that is, vinyasa only after both sides of a seated pose). It took an hour and was a really nice practice. But I find that the LATER in the day I do a dropback practice, the more willing and open my front-body is to allow them. This is typical; it's why vinyasa classes often happen in heated rooms, and it's why people find it challenging to practice at dawn.

But it begs this question: should I do my dropbacks later, in order to make them less painful/more pleasant, perhaps more productive? Or should I, because I know this is true, do the more challenging and possibly painful at-dawn versions, because really, dawn practice produces better, deeper results? I KNOW, from experience, that whatever I can do at dawn, I can REALLY do. I can see going either way; morning dropbacks are REALLY unpleasant right now. That front body opening is all "AHHHHH!!! NO!! WE DON'T WANNA!!" and I'd really like it to chill out. After, say, 4 pm, dropbacks are more like, "Hmm, this isn't really ideal, but sure, we're willing to bend this way. No no, no walking hands in. Well, maybe on the third one."

Anyway: I was wondering, toward svasana, how a householder is to deal with the nonstop-chatter, run-hither-and-yon, never-quick-enough, shuttle-running, rat-racing pace of "everyday life." HOW is one to fit a yoga practice in? This of course is the answer; you fit it in BECAUSE life is like that, not DESPITE it.

For some months now, I "receive" answers to questions, when I'm lying down in svasana. It's brilliant: I don't even have to ask questions. Answers to whatever it is that I'm really cranked up about, simply come. I get off the floor and I have some wisdom. Not always practical or "what I want to hear," but always there.

Body flexible, mind stiff.

These four words were, and perhaps still are, a regular to hear from K. Pattabhi Jois. Alan Little, over here , in his first trip to Mysore, describes hearing them with his own ears for the first time.

There is maybe a certain militant flavor to this, as if it means "do the pose anyway, your lack of flexibility is all in your head." And perhaps you read that and think, well obviously that's why all you crazy ashtangis have all those overstretched muscles and injuries and so forth.

But I was thinking about this after yesterday's double practice: first, I did what I called a "70 percent" practice in the morning, and didn't bother with binding anything that didn't feel good, or stretching "all the way" for a wrist-bind in forward bends, or any of that. I left my upper body off the floor in Kurmasana and didn't cross feet in the Supta version of that pose. And sure, I have a more familiar practice, in which I lie out flat in Kurmasana and can bind my hands and feet in the Supta version, something like this .

Yesterday morning felt to me like my "base practice" for the fall, with all of its emotional challenges: the job market, money, debt, blah blah blah, all of that. And last fall/winter in my pre-dawn practices, poses did develop. The whole marvelous world of practice-at-dawn, which is TOTALLY different psychologically, emotionally, energetically (specifically the last one) from a led class in the late afternoon, with people and a dedicated "leave the world behind" space. So my 70 percent practice seemed, yesterday morning, to be the "start peg" for my fall practices to come.

And I felt that later, in the Intro to Second class that happens on Monday night, maybe I would have a different practice, first because it's later in the day (and we're all more flexible then; also less attuned, perhaps, to our limits, but more flexible, after moving around all day), second because the space is dedicated in a way that my house is not (less emotional wandering, less panic, better overall focus) and third because there have been more people (and for an extrovert like moi, more people is more power, more energy).

And so it was. Last night we had seven, SEVEN!! people in class. That may be a small number if you practice in Chicago or Encinitas, but in Indy for an ashtanga class? That is HUGE!!

And because some of those folks are our returning brave souls from IUPUI (the near university where I teach art history classes), we decided to do Primary rather than Intermediate (although I did my bit of Intermediate, about which see below). I broke a nice big sweat by the end of the Surya Namaskara A's and I knew the energy would be good. Took the toes in Trikonasana , head to floor in all four Prasaritas , nearly touchless jumpbacks throughout the seated series, same with jump throughs, bound both sides of Marichyasana D , did handstands after each round of Navasana , did the Tittibhasana-Bakasana "showy" exit from Supta Kurmasana, stuck Kukkutasana after the rolls in Garbha Pindasana, and then went to Intermediate after Baddha Konasana .

Pasasana was par for the course: feet flat turning right, on toes turning left. I was tired for the backbends, including Dhanurasana (the bow), Ustrasana (the camel) and the two more intense ones that follow. I did the dropback into Kapotasana but then just walked my hands in once and took five breaths and came out. Twists were good (including right foot up in half-lotus with no pain, hurrah!) and I jumped into Bakasana with no trouble and then stuck Eka Pada Sirsasana A (foot behind head), B (forward bend) and C (sit upright, press up with hands) on the right side, but lost C on the left side (last time, the left stuck and I lost the right).

From there I went to closing, and did 3 tentative pressups into the wheel from the floor, and then three wall-assisted dropbacks. Here is where we return to "body flexible, mind stiff": The floor pressups were all arms-bent; less bent with each pressup, but bent all the same. And that was fine, my lower back was feeling tentative so I went with it. BUT, the dropbacks, once I did some "finger-tap" half-descents down the wall, allowed me to walk my hands down to the floor moulding, and almost with my chest and armpits against the wall; that is a TIGHT wheel! And it felt fine, which, given my recent backbends, is totally inexplicable.

And so there it is: my mind was less focused that morning, more anxious about life stuff, and that, combined with the solitude and my own limited ability to "dedicate" my living room as a yoga space, brings "stiffer" energy.

I find asana practice to be more about energy and less about sheer anatomical muscle flexibility. Sure, my flexibility has developed. Strength and endurance too. But to account for differences between yesterday's two practices takes more than simply "I'm flexier later in the day." The whole psychology and energetics were different, and energy is where it's at for asana practice, eventually, once you get strong and flexy enough to handle Primary. Arturo has a great post about energetics, written yesterday. Check it out.

So now, and for the fall, asana practice will be for the mind: that's where flexibility must be achieved. In a very literal way, THAT is what I need to stretch right now.

Job-catching: the real yoga.

This is everything I know, currently, about how one gets a job teaching at a college or university:

1) the job market begins roughly in September. Gigs are posted in various print and online organizations. Some disciplines have specific "hiring conferences," which require you to become a member, and membership can be expensive. You then get to (or must, depending on how you see it) go to the annual conference, where you can listen to papers, give papers, network, perhaps be interviewed.

2) a truly fearsome amount of paperwork goes into these job applications. They include, often, a cover letter, CV, sometimes course evaluations from courses you've taught, recommendation letters from faculty who've taught you (if you're doing this, as I am, from a graduate student career), a writing sample (of something you've published, ideally, which is a whole different can of worms) and sometimes additional material. It's quite a bit of work to assemble, say, 25 of these (there are 25 gigs I will apply for this year, and that's just so far).

3) at or before the hiring conferences, you may be interviewed. If you are interviewed, things like "how do I dress" and "which room of the hotel is this happening in" and so forth come up. If not, things like "why am I not getting any interviews, what am I going to do for money next year, I'm a bad academic" and so forth come up. I have not yet had an academic interview so I can't comment on the process, but it seems like a stressful little thing either way it goes.

4) It's possible that you are phone-interviewed, either before, after, separately from or in addition to a face-to-face interview. So as of, say, November, start listening for your phone to ring. Be ready all the time.

5) Search committees at universities rank applicants in a very mysterious set of ways. I have heard stories of high-powered universities tossing the applications into a mass on the floor and picking the ranked choices at random. I have heard of applications being tossed out because of a spelling error in the cover letter. Many times, as an applicant, you'll sell yourself to a university, attempting to "round peg in square hole" yourself into a position which is KIND of close to what you study or research but not REALLY what you do. And your ranking then depends on how specifically and precisely (or not) the university has phrased its own desires when the position was typed up in the first place. It is ALSO possible that a given position is intended for someone specific (who is already in the system) and that the university is only doing a national search because they have to, to "cover up" (essentially) the fact that their decision is pre-made. BUT sometimes this backfires, and they will interview someone (you?) who is better than their own pre-chosen candidate. The true randomness and unpredictability of the whole system begins with how the search committee ranks and sorts the applications it receives.

6) If a given college or university has the money to do so, they will invite a number of candidates for campus visits. Only the top few candidates--say, the top 3 at most--will get these, for financial reasons. If you go on a campus visit, you are GAME ON for 48-72 hours, with everyone you meet, all the time, and that includes the people who pick you up from and drive you to the airport. If you don't get a campus visit (but you will have been interviewed before this, a campus visit is very much a 2nd-or-3rd-or-more interview situation), you might wonder if you didn't fit in, or if you said something wrong in the earlier interview, or a thousand different things. Maybe you're just candidate #5 and they can't afford to bring you in (well, until they have to move down their list, which happens in yet another set of random and unpredictable ways, see below).

7) A job offer is made after all of these different interviews and perhaps an on-campus visit, during which time you will have to give a "job talk," which is a lecture-length presentation (say 40 minutes; sometimes you teach a mock class to undergraduates, other times you give a sort of symposium lecture on your research, and yes, this is YET ONE MORE paper you have to write). You may see a job offer made early (January is early). Or late (July is late, but still very much a possibility). If you are not a top-ranking candidate (say you're #5, above), you may STILL be interviewed and even get a campus visit, but that will only happen ONCE THE TOP CANDIDATES MAKE THEIR CHOICES ABOUT GIGS. Here's how that goes: let's say 6 universities choose the same top candidate. That person can only choose one job for the next year. That means that, once that choice is made (and what if it's not made until April?), 5 universities have to go down their lists and see who else is available. Did their second candidate already accept somewhere else? Do they have the money to invite their fourth candidate to campus? Or will it all be phone interviews? It is also possible that a university might find you or another candidate to be OVER qualified, and so, while you are perfectly fine for the job, they think that you'll choose some OTHER school, and so they INTENTIONALLY won't "waste money" interviewing you. This is how you go from being, say, candidate #8 to being candidate #1, which is something you never hear about until you get a phone interview in May, having believed all the months prior to that, that you're "not worthy" for a job at university XYZ.

8) So because various candidates choose positions and universities try to conserve money on searches, it's entirely possible that you get 10 interviews in December and don't get hired, OR that you get NO interviews and get hired in July. Any permutation between those two extremes is also possible. It is an utter, total, and unpredictable crap shoot.

Why have I put you through this essay about job searches? Well for one, this is what I'm doing this year. For two, I KNOW that I have about 13,000 dollars a year in loan debt repayments from graduate school. That's above and beyond rent and food. Thirteen THOUSAND dollars. PER YEAR. Until I am, count it, SIXTY SEVEN.

So it's important to me, that I get some kind of job next year. But the procedure by which I get said job (and I want to teach people at the college level) is the above stressy, unpredictable bounty of randomness and coincidence.

So when you see me describing the emotional baggage that gets stored in my glutes and which makes my backbends difficult, this is that baggage. Hard day with the wheel? More like hard ten months with the wheel.

This morning I did Primary and Pasasana at about 70%. Back heel up a bit in standing twists, jumpbacks only to knees, no bind in Marichyasana D on the second side. One wheel with crown of head on ground, one wheel with head about six inches off the ground. That was enough. It didn't hurt and it didn't release all kinds of traumatic emotional terror. That, right now, is what I ask of my backbends. The wrist still feels good; this is the first time I've borne weight on it in a backbend in about 10 days.

Later today I will teach an academic class for which I'm not prepared yet, and then perhaps hit that "intro to Second" class tonight. And then I will prepare about a dozen cover letters for applications which are due on November 1.

It is ON, the real yoga begins.

Bandhas workshop, coming up.

Just now I sent a studio a flyer for a bandhas workshop, to happen at the crack of December. As soon as I see that the thing is a go, I'll post the flyer here.

Larry had a whole lot to say on bandhas, some of the goodies were these: "Bandhas are your best friends." "First thing in the morning, you wake up and you say, 'Good morning, mula bandha!' and then when you go to sleep, 'Good night, mula bandha!'" and of course this, "You are sitting on your power."

And for myself, when I learned to grokk uddiyana bandha, and really made it my own, and became uddiyana bandha, my practice opened up a mile. A pack of miles.

Tomorrow if I have frustrating practice doing Primary, I'm switching over directly to Rocket II. I need the energy infusion any way I can get it.

Let it heal.

5 sun salutation A's. Sunday practice early in the fall. Each updog feels like the wheel in the thoracic spine and the lower abs and the psoas. Each exhale in downdog takes about 7 seconds, at least. The wrist sensations are bruise pain, a dull ache that extends from the first thumb knuckle about four inches up the forearm, but not white pain, not electric at all; an old purple-brown blood blister pain, more ugliness than pain at all. On the way out. Healing.

These are cocoon practices, slower, deeper, more attentive, longer breaths, fewer poses, but no less intense, when added together. Typical of the move from summer to fall. Heat and energy and lightness move toward dilated time, expanded seconds, expanded sensitivity, heightened awareness instead of heightened flexibility. All of the jumps were still light, but now time is more like maple syrup instead of lightning and sunshine. Everything is browner, thicker, slower.

These more passive and attentive practices are also the mourning of the passing of my high holy season. Power and sweat still await, but in an ever-mysterious introversion which is so totally unlike my waking personality that I can never summon it; it has to well up from some invisible interior during the fall and winter.

These seasons are when the practice most tellingly "does me" instead of the other way around.

Autumn practice.

One of the hardest developments in my home practice--and it's annual--is the turn from summer to fall. May is a power month: my birthday is there, it's when the whole world turns green and extroverted, it's when heat increases notably, it's a very "up" month. The prepositions are all in the ascent, if you will.

October, in particular, and especially now that our Indian Summer of 87 degrees has ended, tends to sink into the 60s and 50s here, and that means the official end of summer outdoor practice. True, the ground is uneven, and so trying to do headstands is always a challenge (to say nothing about rolling to and fro with my hands through a lotus), but I love taking the mysore rug outside and practicing with next to nothing on. It's got a certain purity to it.

Last year in December I decided to go 6/week with my home practice, and so today when I rolled out the mat in the 65 degree house, there was a definite reminiscence to the dark am's and candlelight and finishing-before-dawn practice. I haven't gone back to dawn yet, but I probably will as this era of polar fleece and UnderArmor(tm) begins.

Up to Marichyasana D today, then 3 rounds of the bridge, 3 hanging-backs, closing series. A nice little practice. I did (and scraped/slid) all of the jumpbacks and the wrist is ok.

Photos from 2005.

Let's see if the rumors are true: is Blogger as photo friendly as it says it is?

These are old photos, taken after led Primary Series classes in November and December 2005. My practice was about a year and a half old at this point.

Note that I'm doing all of the bent-leg poses with the left leg in half-lotus or toes-on-the-floor. That's because the right leg would not permit such movement, for at least another year (not consistently, anyway).

And even back then, I was an experimenter. The EP Galavasana might look hardcore, but I didn't get into it the traditional way, from a jump into tripod headstand from down dog. Hah!

Climb on.

In my internet cruising today, I found out something by accident. Here's the way it flowed, the "vinyasa" of it, if you will:

A couple days ago DonutsZenMom left a comment on my "destination" post. She's got a great big blog over here . So from there, I saw a link to "Dave's Ashtanga Yoga," which of course is clickable, so I clicked it.

Like many studios, Dave's Ashtanga Yoga moves around. Its newest location is inside this climbing gym .

And that called for a tangent.
Tangent: NO WAY!! You get to do Ashtanga in a CLIMBING GYM? You LUCKY DOG!!

No really, it's all in good humor. Here's the backstory, probably more backstory than any of you need, but I've not posted any of it yet, so harness up and check your belays (muah-hah-hah-haha!!!!)...

In December 2002 I left a very bad relationship that I'd been in for almost 7 years. Much bad emotional business was involved (while very little legal badness was involved, which was really quite nice of it). In January 2003 an important friend recommended that I go to the local climbing gym and get some of that energy out. I was reluctant, but I went, and actually I liked it. Lots of energy expenditure, pulling down hard, big sweaty business, massive toxin release.

And then I got addicted to it, big time. By that summer I was down 2-3 times a week for 4-5 hours a shot, if possible. A year later in January 2004 I was pulling 5.10 (which is a respectable grade) and thinking about 5.11, and then on February 10th I fell off a boulder problem in the gym and tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of my left knee. I had reconstructive surgery on April 5 and was climbing 5.10 again by mid-May. During the months off, as soon as I could walk again, that is, I'd go down there and hang on a ligament-strengthening thing called a hangboard; basically you suspend your weight from your hands, like doing a variety of finger "pull-ups." This earned me 5.11 hands, and so my climbing actually improved a great deal from the injury and the time off.

July 2004, approximately, is the start of my Ashtanga practice.

I started setting routes in that gym (which means hanging on a harness from a loop of rope attached to the ceiling, while a big heavy bag of metal bolts and plastic holds hangs from my harness) in May 2005 and continued to do that all the way to April 2007, when I went to San Francisco (and came back with the first of my still-continuing wrist injuries). And I miss setting and gym climbs.

So, long story now told, I click on this site for AZontheRocks and not only is it huge and beautiful and full of taped holds and overhangs and delicious features on the wall for choreographing fabulous body movements, but they are looking to hire route setters--oh the pain, the envy! Echoes of what remains a perhaps unreachable dream job--to combine a climbing gym (in some capacity) with an ashtanga practice, yarrrr mateys, I can feel it in my bones!

But the desire to immediately price flights to Scottsdale AZ is mediated by the quite indisputable fact that I need to deal with my loan debt from this long stay in academia. I need a serious full-time job to do that. So my drive to be a big woolly bohemian must remain a night job, side gig thing. Practice in the morning, climb when possible (and when you heal, wrist, you should know that it is ON).

Larry said that we should set dreams and ways to realize them. I see now, again, that I know what certain of those dreams are. I teach things that are very cool, like literature-to-film adaptation (Fight Club, anyone?) and modern art (Dali, anyone? Man Ray? Willem de Kooning?) and I bend myself into funny shapes, like this one and, when I'm healthy and able, I climb walls and set patterns for other climbers to follow, and people do jargonish things like "high step to the undercling gaston and match!"

I have a serious inner bohemian; he coexists with a six-figure loan debt. But I'm applying for full-time college faculty gigs right now. And if I get one in a location with, say, a climbing gym and an ashtanga community, much less one where those two things happen in the same place, I can be an arty bohemian professorial type with a cotton Mysore rug slung over one shoulder, and a bolt wrench in the opposite hand, with a chalk bag on my belt and a briefcase in the one free hand. Yes, my friends, this is the stuff dreams are made of.

How to practice without your hands.

My left wrist has been sore, on and off, for about two weeks. First, after May's arm-balance-and-vinyasa-extravaganza (morning Primary series followed by afternoon Rocket, for four weeks), there was some soft tissue tenderness around the pisiform bone and when I finally got done with that, I had full-on practices for a while until, about two weeks ago, I felt a tendon (I think it's a tendon) overstretch during a Baddha Padmasana , so then there was soreness over between the forearm bones and the scaphoid (see site above).

That soreness went away with attention to vinyasa and weight-bearing and I was able, for a while, to do a whole Primary worth of vinyasa without wrist soreness, but then in a class I was teaching, I modeled vinyasa and chaturanga and the lower-down to chaturanga (the low push-up position which appears in all vinyasa) and then someone got me on a tangent about how to do this arm balance and so enthusiasm ruled over ahimsa (non-wounding) and now I've got a big messed-up wrist. I can jump back from standing forward bend to chaturanga, but can't hold the weight, so I go right down in a heap.

Thus, the title question: how do you do an Ashtanga Vinyasa practice without your hands? This means no vinyasa, no standard sun salutations, perhaps no taking the big toe in forward bends, triangle pose, balance poses, and so forth.

Yesterday afternoon I used "fake vinyasa," by which I mean the freakish 87 degree heat we're having right now, and did a sun-salutationless practice of poses from the Primary series, cutting the hand-to-big-toe balances and modifying any standing pose which called for a hand flat on the floor. Outer heat used as inner heat. It worked; mostly the practice was about attention and modification; no poses were as deep as they so-called "usually" are (what is one's "usual" practice, anyway?), but I found that I was still able to touch 3-4 fingers in binding 7 of the 8 Marichyasana poses, even with no formal warm-up. That was pretty cool. The Kurmasanas however were totally out of the question. For vinyasa I did 5 breaths of Navasana/the boat between poses, and then did a pack of Bridge Pose backbends at the end.

This morning, cooler, was more challenging. Still no weight on the hands allowed. This practice was more exploratory, a very "scratch the itch" practice. Often the tightest part of my body is here on the right side, particularly the psoas, tensor fasciae latae and perhaps rectus femoris. I went into this practice craving twists and backbends, but gentle ones at first, so I did the world's gentlest incarnations of Dhanurasana and Ustrasana , coupled with twists in a low-lunge position, all in the name of getting into the hip, so that I could perhaps sit comfortably and do some pranayama. Eventually I found that a long stay in Parsva Dhanurasana (that's just the same pose tipped over onto the side, in this case the right side) began to stretch into just the fibers that I wanted.

Some description of this is needed: Primary series is called "yoga chikitsa," which means yoga therapy, and is widely understood to be a sort of "body cleansing," a preparation for more subtle, energetic poses and series. Fittingly, Intermediate series is called "nadi shodana," nerve cleansing. There are poses throughout Primary, however, which can have a downright energetic effect. Backbends are usually the candidate here, however Supta Kurmasana is probably the go-to pose where energetics are most obviously "louder" than physical "stretch".

This isn't unique to yoga and I don't have a specific vocabulary for it. It's not the high that runners, bikers and so on talk about and it's not quite the "in the zone" that you'll hear sprinters or rock climbers describe. It's the point at which a physical movement becomes a sort of FLAME of energy; it's when the red of muscles turns into the white of nerve electricity; it's the prana body. It's like experiencing your body as that chakra diagram, with all of the colors and patterns, not as muscle/bone "anatomy." You get a peek at it the first time you float a jump in a vinyasa class, or when you feel your lower back flare into energy highways in Supta Kurmasana or when you feel that rocketship lightning in a backbend, arcing through your body from hands to feet.

Anyway: I sometimes feel an energy block, exactly in the hip flexors of the right side, and I can actually visualize it, in colors and everything. The long stay in Parsva Dhanurasana got it, and when one of those suckers opens, it's HAPPY TIME--there are endorphins and a sort of "floppy" effect sets in, and there are either or both emotional and biochemical "messages" to listen to. It's like the aftereffect of a good cry or, to be honest, a good shag. Yes, he said shag.

Come on, you KNOW Austin Powers does yoga.

Thoughts about what is "real" and so forth.

A couple days ago I got my Amazon.com copy of Gregor Maehle's Ashtanga Yoga Practice and Philosophy . It is roughly half discussion of asana of the Primary Series and half discussion of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

It is also highly traditional: for example, there is no debate in this book as to whether or not Patanjali's yoga (8 limbs, "ashtanga") is the same as Krishnamacharya/Pattabhi Jois' Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. Matthew Sweeney's two cents on the history of the tradition, here under "historical validation" , is much more what some would call "objective."

One of the things that struck me, and continues to, is the date on which the Preface was composed. Here is the preface in toto:

"In the year 3102 BCE, the emperor Yudishthira stepped down and awaited the death of Krishna and the beginning of the dark age (Kali Yuga). Due to the increasing materialism and corruption of that age, the ancient sages (rishis) retreated into the recesses of the Himalayas. However, as Vedic teacher David Frawley has pointed out, the rishis have not disappeared entirely: they are observing mankind from a distance. It depends on us whether it will become possible for them to return and with them much of the knowledge, wisdom and intelligence of mankind. Through our combined efforts we must try to usher in a new Golden Age (Satya Yuga). This book is an attempt to bring about a renaissance of ancient dharma and to play a part in restoring yoga to the glory it once was. May all beings experience that which is auspicious. Gregor Maehle--Perth, Australia--Ninth day of the bright fortnight in the lunar mansion of Phalguni, year 5108 Kali Yuga."

I'm an academic (in part), and while I'm not a historian, to use a different calendar for understanding time is, to me, a very trippy thing to do. For example, the adoption of the 12-month calendar that we use and which is the "normal" way of keeping monthly "time" goes back to the Roman and then British Empires, and adjustments continue to be made. If one pushes that line of thinking, "time" detaches from "calendar" and questions such as "Who is keeping time?" and "Whose time is being kept?" start to show up. "What IS time?" is not far behind them.

And yes, the words "lunar mansion" sound like astrology to me, too, and I'm suspicious of them too. But aside from that, feel this for a minute: what would it be, to measure time in terms of the Age of Kali Yuga? Do you feel how that changes perception of the age, maybe the way people refer to time by president (the Clinton era, the Bush era, etc)? Time and experience take on a different valence: if one takes the Book of Revelation seriously, then time is "running out" before the Second Coming happens. And to LIVE in time like that, THAT time, provides a certain outlook which turns up perhaps in value systems and so forth. And to take the idea of Kali Yuga seriously, in the same way, does the same thing. Kali Yuga is something of a Dark Age, and it can't be fixed by globalization or cell phones or SUV's.

Maybe this only goes for me, but if I understand myself to be living in a Dark Age rather than just "in the 21st century," it becomes more important to me whether or not (and how) my actions, words, etc, are "light" or "dark." Yes, simplifications can be made, and it all becomes a game of Cowboys vs. Indians, or perhaps an incarnation of Lord of the Rings, if you like. But the point is this: much talk about the current age ("postmodernity") deals with the ineffectiveness of politics (either anarchic, individual, or mass-social) to "change anything."

What if "being present" were not just a way to chill out for three minutes, but an actual strategy for changing the world? What if the Yoga Sutras are right, when they say that one's perception is one's reality, and that the body and material things are "not real" but only that Consciousness itself is? Yes, there is a wager being made here, and sure, such questions might be seen as an attempt to "convert readers to Hinduism" or something like that (insert sites and debate about "Christian Yoga" and so on, here).

Anyway: Donna Farhi apparently once said that doing yoga is "the most subversive thing you can do." There is also a related take on related questions over here as of yesterday.

And to have this said aloud, this hasn't been an attempt at conversion, merely a recording of my experience reading the preface of a book. Thoughts about what is real and so forth.

Ganesha

Over here there's been some discussion of Ganesha, who looks spooky at 6:20 am. I'm pretty sure that this is the Ganesha in question. Once upon a time that was my Mysore-style room, too. Ah for the days.

See also this for the room in action.

The lighting in the morning, as I remember it, is about half-light, so the whole room takes on a dusky sort of orange-brown color, and it's really warm in there, about 80 degrees, probably.

There is both excitement and frustration in those memories, and for multiple reasons. San Francisco then, Indianapolis now. Different. Enough of that. But also, the frustrating-yet-productive encounter with dropping back/standing up in order to have some Intermediate. You know, if you read enough of this, that I find the backbend to be a very fickle thing and that recently I found myself believing that I'll probably grab my feet in Kapotasana before I drop back and stand up from a backbend.

Even on days when I'm emotionally wrought, if I do enough practice to reach Kapotasana, it progresses. Slow and steady. But backbends are ALL over the map. Some days they are gigantic and arms-straight and some days they are "head barely off floor" and they seem to vary at will, regardless of how much or little practice I do. They make my cats look consistent by comparison.

Maybe if I had a regular Mysore-style practice with a teacher, the backbends would settle in and eventually "permit" Intermediate (traditionally speaking). The wheel is the only pose, in my whole current collection, both traditional and not, that varies to this degree. Sure, some days my twists aren't as deep or my right hip gets tight and half-lotus is tough, but when I get to the end of a practice and reach the backbends, it's like "Hey come on over and Spin the Wheel! Place your bets!"

Anyway, enough whining about that.

I like to have a destination.

I'm thinking about going to this . The last time that I had a yoga "destination," it was San Francisco for a month, and it revved up my home practice, really gave me a "reason" to practice regularly.

There's something about workshops/teachers/programs that are specifically Ashtanga based that is just a whole different frequency. A vinyasa workshop doesn't "get me there" the same way, no matter how super cool it is, and there are plenty of super cool vinyasa workshops, no putdown at all is intended or should be implied.

Yes, I'm obsessed or hardcore or whatever you'd like to call it.

At least my eyes are healthy.

Today I had an eye exam; my first since at least 2004, and probably since 2003. They have new machinery now: there's a camera (essentially) which photographs the inside of the eye, so they/you can see the optic nerve connection, all of the arteries and veins and so forth.

I have healthy eyes: my optic nerves are all pink and whatnot, like they're supposed to be, and apparently my eyes have a nice big substantial blood supply and interior pressure well within preferred limits. I'm still as nearsighted as the day is long (and have been since about age 12) but in physiological terms, I am top notch in the eye department.

The doctor asked me if I'd been eating my carrots or something, and I am a big fan of carrots (they told me when I was a kid that carrots would make me less nearsighted; this is superstition, so I hear), but I was wondering to what degree yoga inversions have helped out with this. There was praise for the big blood supply my eye tissues are getting; that's one alleged benefit of being upside-down, yes?

Well, whether it's all the carrots or all the headstands, here's to you, eyes!