April 29 was, for the record, the first day of teacher training in my 2007 adventure, and is the anniversary of my very first trip to a Mysore-style room run by an authorized teacher (also 2007, same trip). Huzzah!
In ironic news, I STILL do not comfortably drop back and stand up, HAH! But it is coming! I wall-dropback to knee-height, regularly. Now if I can just translate that to a drop-and-spring to the FLOOR...it is close. I can tell.
Practice has taught me that the most beneficial way for me to integrate Intermediate into my Primary is to do what Vanessa and so many others have done: combine them until you split. Intermediate tends to operate hardcore on my outer hips (I'm not quite sure what it does to them) and when I do Intermediate instead of Primary, this develops to the point where my twists suffer (oddly, my Intermediate twists do not).
When I do only Primary, I tend to lose my Intermediate endurance, to say nothing of all of that backbending buildup.
The answer, then, is to (shocker!) do what the tradition says, and add Intermediate to the end of Primary--ye gods! Numerous of you have seen, or at least read records of, what a struggle that can be.
Here is how and why that will be interesting:
1) It takes me roughly 75 minutes to do an "on" Primary. It should take maybe an additional hour to do what I often do in Intermediate (up to Eka Pada Sirsasana; if I pass the LBH poses, I often do up to Pincha Mayurasana) and closing. Thus, I can expect to dedicate two hours to practice, if I can find them.
2) I'm starting a month of temp work, 8:30-4:30, on May 12, which will end somewhere around June 5. This will mean morning practice: wake up at 5 or 5:30 am. What a flashback to the old days! I haven't woken for 5:30 yoga since LAST SUMMER.
3) I will need SOME source of income after that, until August, when new gigs will begin. This likely will be some 40-hours-a-week something, which will have me in 5 am yoga ALL SUMMER LONG.
4) I have been unofficially offered a SPRING 2008 TO FALL 2009 visiting gig, sabbatical replacement, at the art school where I currently work. Unless some university is willing to pick me up, this means I will be in Indianapolis until 2010. 2010!!!! But it's with a livable salary, benefits and such, a real live visiting faculty position, with office and everything! Plus, I get to continue living with my partner and we can team up incomes, without me having to pay for my own life in some faraway city, which is a good thing. Therefore: moneywise, if I can get to September, I can PROBABLY pay my loans through 2009, which would RULE. I will become a downright sexy job candidate for the (oy!) 2009-2010 job search. So, as of Spring 2009, I might be able to practice LATER than 5 am if I want to, hurrah!
5) Fall 2008: this is a bit of a money puzzle. I am adjuncting a gig on Monday afternoons and evenings (film thing). I am grading a course I've taught before, so that I don't have to attend lectures. If I can pull one more adjunct gig somewhere, doing anything (composition, film, art, anything), I can call it a financed four months and be ready for my (ahem) REAL JOB to begin in January. This, also, will allow me to practice later than 5 am, if I want to.
Goals for life up to 2010:
1) Pay loans; pay off one in particular.
2) Master the academy: publications, teaching evaluations, letters, contacts, conferences, the whole nine yards. Grants, even. TAKE. OVER. BECOME. IRRESISTIBLE.
3) Do a flowing, pretty Intermediate series. This is coming. Get there.
4) Go to Lisa and Bill's Mysore program in Chicago. When you can.
5) More meditation, more chanting; a full yoga practice.
6) Set eyes on any of the three continental states which touch the Pacific. LIVE THERE.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Doin' it old school.
I've heard that in the seventies, Swenson and Williams and the gang would do Primary in the morning and Intermediate in the afternoon.
Primary at 9:30 in the studio, because I was out in town all day, and hey, I had a spare two hours, so, you know...the obvious choice...
SIXTY FIVE minutes. And that's five breaths in everything! With svasana, 75 minutes.
It was pretty marvelous; not my best practice, particularly in the Bhuja-to-Garbha jewel, but quick, powerful, totally pleasant enough.
My backbends' straight-armedness seems to be retreating, but that's from the asana vacation I've been taking. It's fine.
Intermediate, as it is Monday, at 7 pm.
I really wasn't in the mood for more, after Vira 2. That was plenty of practice. Eh, I persisted anyway. Krounchasana was as nice as I've ever done it. Dhanurasana was as big as it's ever been. I took FOUR shots at Kapo, one dropback, one dropback with wall (hands to wall, press arms straight), one dropback with wall (forearms flat to wall, press), one more assisted dropback, hands clasped around back of head--my hands are STILL about 3-4 inches from my feet, which means that the troublesome nugget in my Kapo is the SPINAL BEND. I feel it in my front thighs, abs, intercostals. It's coming, but today I got a lesson in how far away it still is.
Lost the exit in Eka Pada on both sides, but hit Bakasana B, no problem.
Tittibhasana, no trouble, but for the first time in I don't know HOW long, I couldn't bind my hands behind my back for the walk! It was bandhas, man, I just, to quote Tim talking to Vanessa, "left them in London" or something. That was where I officially stopped practicing and just workshopped some other poses, like the forearm stand and a couple attempts at Karandavasana.
That's one hell of a long yoga day. Cool, but currently in excess of what my asana endurance can pull.
Primary at 9:30 in the studio, because I was out in town all day, and hey, I had a spare two hours, so, you know...the obvious choice...
SIXTY FIVE minutes. And that's five breaths in everything! With svasana, 75 minutes.
It was pretty marvelous; not my best practice, particularly in the Bhuja-to-Garbha jewel, but quick, powerful, totally pleasant enough.
My backbends' straight-armedness seems to be retreating, but that's from the asana vacation I've been taking. It's fine.
Intermediate, as it is Monday, at 7 pm.
I really wasn't in the mood for more, after Vira 2. That was plenty of practice. Eh, I persisted anyway. Krounchasana was as nice as I've ever done it. Dhanurasana was as big as it's ever been. I took FOUR shots at Kapo, one dropback, one dropback with wall (hands to wall, press arms straight), one dropback with wall (forearms flat to wall, press), one more assisted dropback, hands clasped around back of head--my hands are STILL about 3-4 inches from my feet, which means that the troublesome nugget in my Kapo is the SPINAL BEND. I feel it in my front thighs, abs, intercostals. It's coming, but today I got a lesson in how far away it still is.
Lost the exit in Eka Pada on both sides, but hit Bakasana B, no problem.
Tittibhasana, no trouble, but for the first time in I don't know HOW long, I couldn't bind my hands behind my back for the walk! It was bandhas, man, I just, to quote Tim talking to Vanessa, "left them in London" or something. That was where I officially stopped practicing and just workshopped some other poses, like the forearm stand and a couple attempts at Karandavasana.
That's one hell of a long yoga day. Cool, but currently in excess of what my asana endurance can pull.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Makin' friends with Intermediate.
Today in the regular Saturday led-most-of-Primary, the teacher asked if I'd teach about the last half hour, and I agreed, so in class, I did a modified Intermediate (basically, I Mysored whatever I wanted to do, and that's what I wanted) and then sat and chilled and watched class for about twenty minutes then led a closing series, and it was cool and mellow.
What's interesting is that I made up, essentially, an Intermediate short form (leaving out everything after Pincha Mayurasana, which is the part of the series I rarely do anyway, even on Monday nights, due to time constraints; I want to be sure I understand those poses before I add them in).
Here was the short Intermediate practice:
Sun salutations Ax3, Bx2
Padangusthasana
Trikonasana
Parivrtta Trik
Parsvakonasana
Parivrtta Parsva
Prasarita A and C
Parsvottanasana
Pasasana (didn't bind)
Shalabhasana A and B
Dhanurasana
Parsva Dhanurasana
Ustrasana
Bakasana A
Bharadvajasana
Ardha Matsyendrasana
Eka Pada Sirsasana A (seated upright)
Pincha Mayurasana (couldn't stick it)
Urdhva Dhanurasana
Paschimottanasana
Sarvangasana
Halasana
Karnapidasana
Mathsyasana
Uttana Padasana
Sirsasana
Padmasana
That was it, and it was marvelous; it never occurred to me that I could MODIFY Intermediate like that, I (apparently used to) believe that Intermediate and I weren't on "good enough terms" to do that. Not so!
I'm still not doing a lot of asana regularly: I'm sore in the low left back, the left wrist, and the right trapezius, and with job stress not quite resolved and emotions still strained, it's not always safe to even do a Sun A. In a class environment, this clears up appreciably and it's downright nice.
There is a good chance (whisper amongst yourselves, this is still pretty top secret) that I will be doing a sabbatical-replacement here next year, from Spring 08 to Fall 09, which means full-power Visiting position, same school, same students, 3 courses a semester, more money, even some benefits. A downright mature job! This probably also means I'll have to job search BOTH in 2008 and 09, but I guess this is my next step up! I'll have news if/when this is finalized in paperwork.
What's interesting is that I made up, essentially, an Intermediate short form (leaving out everything after Pincha Mayurasana, which is the part of the series I rarely do anyway, even on Monday nights, due to time constraints; I want to be sure I understand those poses before I add them in).
Here was the short Intermediate practice:
Sun salutations Ax3, Bx2
Padangusthasana
Trikonasana
Parivrtta Trik
Parsvakonasana
Parivrtta Parsva
Prasarita A and C
Parsvottanasana
Pasasana (didn't bind)
Shalabhasana A and B
Dhanurasana
Parsva Dhanurasana
Ustrasana
Bakasana A
Bharadvajasana
Ardha Matsyendrasana
Eka Pada Sirsasana A (seated upright)
Pincha Mayurasana (couldn't stick it)
Urdhva Dhanurasana
Paschimottanasana
Sarvangasana
Halasana
Karnapidasana
Mathsyasana
Uttana Padasana
Sirsasana
Padmasana
That was it, and it was marvelous; it never occurred to me that I could MODIFY Intermediate like that, I (apparently used to) believe that Intermediate and I weren't on "good enough terms" to do that. Not so!
I'm still not doing a lot of asana regularly: I'm sore in the low left back, the left wrist, and the right trapezius, and with job stress not quite resolved and emotions still strained, it's not always safe to even do a Sun A. In a class environment, this clears up appreciably and it's downright nice.
There is a good chance (whisper amongst yourselves, this is still pretty top secret) that I will be doing a sabbatical-replacement here next year, from Spring 08 to Fall 09, which means full-power Visiting position, same school, same students, 3 courses a semester, more money, even some benefits. A downright mature job! This probably also means I'll have to job search BOTH in 2008 and 09, but I guess this is my next step up! I'll have news if/when this is finalized in paperwork.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
In Praise of Sweat (with tangents).
Since last week, some of the highlights have been:
A week ago in the Tuesday night vinyasa show, I nearly hit a full front split (Hanumanasana) with the right leg forward; I could feel the back of the knee sinking down and the left hip about to open enough to permit it.
This was the same class where, during "do some inversions," I hit the seven deadlies, all of them, no wall contact, straight legs up, straight legs down (I folded at the hip, didn't do chaturanga exits).
I also floated (really floated, way moreso than in my regular Ashtanga attempts) a forearm stand (Pincha Mayurasana) and hit a wall-less handstand. Magic little day.
In last night's Intermediate:
I'd laid off asana practice almost entirely for a week. Bad emotional states, no future promises, soreness, tiredness, better payoff by attending to work. But it was a shockingly good practice!
Smoothness and ease in Pasasana, through the baby backbends, a smooth drop into Kapo but again, no feet. About three breaths between each pose, but that's where my Intermediate is right now; it's super hard if I try to crank it on breath pace. MUCH greater ease in putting leg behind head, both sides; the shin fits so snugly behind the neck! I almost, ALMOST, hit Dwi Pada with the right leg back first. I hooked the ankles and rolled backwards.
Tittibhasana sequence was a burner, too burnt for a stable Pincha, and I totally half-assed an attempt at Karandavasana. Sore wrist would NOT have Mayurasana, and I skipped Nakrasana too, but did all of the rest of Intermediate, seven deadlies included. The whole damn thing (that's not the first time: long-term readers will remember a day in November that I did Primary and Intermediate, in toto, back to back).
It has nothing to do with claiming that I "can do" that series; I'm pretty sure that a Mysore-style instructor would send me back to "stand up from a backbend" but who cares, it's not like I have access to one.
I got into Ashtanga for the sweat of it, totally the anamaya kosha rush. Pouring sweat, just like in mosh pits, in summer sex, in crowds of psychedelic dance. Some say that breath unites all life; for me, sweat is the contact substance, the great uniter. There is something tribal, primitive, hunterly, about it. Jane's Addiction touches this for me; that's why I keep their CD's around the house. All of the rhetoric about "purifying sweat" is in there too, and all of the more spiritual, "mind" holiness and such, all of that, is incarnate for me in sweat, in a sort of transformation, a shedding, a gaining, sweat as the proof of time, of the fourth dimension.
Mind-altering: I had substantial experience with mind-altering WAAAYYYY before I got into climbing and Ashtanga yoga. There was plenty of sweat in that too, running around big fields under the moon and such. That was about ten years before my climbing and Ashtanga days, and it's all the same. A ritual, however arbitrary, a search for holiness, the simultaneous wonderful/terrifying discovery that holiness IS UPON THEE! The incommunicability of it all, and the absolute LUST for that state in day-to-day life. It's all there, totally all the same.
Body, or more aptly, anamaya kosha, remains the center of the transformative seesaw. It's the most easily accessible thing, and of course it's all simultaneous with the others, but I feel that the other mirrors "clear themselves" by means of this one; if you like, this is the first door. This is why Arjuna (the German doctor and Ashtangi, not the character from the Gita) says that "Ashtanga yoga is not just Hindu aerobics! You will get a beautiful body, but this is not the point!" Indeed, this is not the point. It's not that I NEED sweat for holiness (anchoring all of it to the anamaya) but much more that sweat REVEALS the whole truth of the thing to me, re-awakens me to what it is to NOT be ASLEEP to it all.
In a less comfortable way, the same way that INJURY does, the same way that long FEVER does. Awareness of the body, really, awareness of ANY ONE THING (as Jason had recently posted) is ENOUGH, it brings it ALL.
A week ago in the Tuesday night vinyasa show, I nearly hit a full front split (Hanumanasana) with the right leg forward; I could feel the back of the knee sinking down and the left hip about to open enough to permit it.
This was the same class where, during "do some inversions," I hit the seven deadlies, all of them, no wall contact, straight legs up, straight legs down (I folded at the hip, didn't do chaturanga exits).
I also floated (really floated, way moreso than in my regular Ashtanga attempts) a forearm stand (Pincha Mayurasana) and hit a wall-less handstand. Magic little day.
In last night's Intermediate:
I'd laid off asana practice almost entirely for a week. Bad emotional states, no future promises, soreness, tiredness, better payoff by attending to work. But it was a shockingly good practice!
Smoothness and ease in Pasasana, through the baby backbends, a smooth drop into Kapo but again, no feet. About three breaths between each pose, but that's where my Intermediate is right now; it's super hard if I try to crank it on breath pace. MUCH greater ease in putting leg behind head, both sides; the shin fits so snugly behind the neck! I almost, ALMOST, hit Dwi Pada with the right leg back first. I hooked the ankles and rolled backwards.
Tittibhasana sequence was a burner, too burnt for a stable Pincha, and I totally half-assed an attempt at Karandavasana. Sore wrist would NOT have Mayurasana, and I skipped Nakrasana too, but did all of the rest of Intermediate, seven deadlies included. The whole damn thing (that's not the first time: long-term readers will remember a day in November that I did Primary and Intermediate, in toto, back to back).
It has nothing to do with claiming that I "can do" that series; I'm pretty sure that a Mysore-style instructor would send me back to "stand up from a backbend" but who cares, it's not like I have access to one.
I got into Ashtanga for the sweat of it, totally the anamaya kosha rush. Pouring sweat, just like in mosh pits, in summer sex, in crowds of psychedelic dance. Some say that breath unites all life; for me, sweat is the contact substance, the great uniter. There is something tribal, primitive, hunterly, about it. Jane's Addiction touches this for me; that's why I keep their CD's around the house. All of the rhetoric about "purifying sweat" is in there too, and all of the more spiritual, "mind" holiness and such, all of that, is incarnate for me in sweat, in a sort of transformation, a shedding, a gaining, sweat as the proof of time, of the fourth dimension.
Mind-altering: I had substantial experience with mind-altering WAAAYYYY before I got into climbing and Ashtanga yoga. There was plenty of sweat in that too, running around big fields under the moon and such. That was about ten years before my climbing and Ashtanga days, and it's all the same. A ritual, however arbitrary, a search for holiness, the simultaneous wonderful/terrifying discovery that holiness IS UPON THEE! The incommunicability of it all, and the absolute LUST for that state in day-to-day life. It's all there, totally all the same.
Body, or more aptly, anamaya kosha, remains the center of the transformative seesaw. It's the most easily accessible thing, and of course it's all simultaneous with the others, but I feel that the other mirrors "clear themselves" by means of this one; if you like, this is the first door. This is why Arjuna (the German doctor and Ashtangi, not the character from the Gita) says that "Ashtanga yoga is not just Hindu aerobics! You will get a beautiful body, but this is not the point!" Indeed, this is not the point. It's not that I NEED sweat for holiness (anchoring all of it to the anamaya) but much more that sweat REVEALS the whole truth of the thing to me, re-awakens me to what it is to NOT be ASLEEP to it all.
In a less comfortable way, the same way that INJURY does, the same way that long FEVER does. Awareness of the body, really, awareness of ANY ONE THING (as Jason had recently posted) is ENOUGH, it brings it ALL.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Time, nostalgia, openings and closings.
A year ago it was April 21, 2007. That may sound elementary.
Those of you who know me and who know about the VAST, MASSIVE difference between how and where I currently AM living and how and where I would LIKE to live will know that an auspicious anniversary approacheth.
On Friday, April 27th, 2007, I took a five-hour flight from here to a big city on the west coast, and managed public transportation into the south end of said city, from which I walked in bright sunshine up and down the gigantic freakin' hills they have there, using a Mapquest map to try to find out where the hell one or the other main streets were. When I got to the apartment I'd managed to rent for a month, in one of the most famous neighborhoods in the entire US, I had to track down a key hidden under one of the plants, and it took four guesses for me to find it. The apartment looked exactly like pictures I'd been shown; I was the only one home (and dragging a big heavy month worth of your belongings up three flights of narrow stairs is an experience everyone needs to have).
I walked across the city for a how-do-you-do Friday vinyasa class, at 4:30 pm, which bragged that it would be "90 poses in 90 minutes." True to life; standing series, pouring sweat, arm balances, handstands, you name it. But I'd been doing double Primary practices for MONTHS prior to this, and dawn practices, and a Tuesday vinyasa class. Nothing was so new or so foreign that I couldn't hit it. Brilliant class; strangers noted me, the sweat, the energy. True dat, suckas. So true dat.
I think I spent the rest of Friday trying to move in, get my act together, find out what resources I needed to have.
Saturday morning at 10 am I walked back over there for a "mixed levels" class which was easier but cool. Saturday at 8 pm I went down south to another neighborhood, for a three-hour vinyasa fest which was to raise money for the Power to the People festivities; it was mat-to-mat in there, and hot as hell. We vinyasa'ed, we danced, we hopped to and fro like punks at a show (no slamdancing), we hugged strangers, we broke it down.
Everything I brought with me--clothes, mat, rug, everything--was soaking TOTALLY through. I got back to the apartment at about midnight and probably not to sleep until about 1:30 am. Up at 5, walking down into yet ANOTHER neighborhood, to sample my first REAL LIVE Mysore-style class. The mat was too wet to use, but I managed it anyway. Then I headed over to downtown, again, for a 9:30 Primary, which was the intro to teacher training (yes, back to back Primaries; I did that all four Sundays).
And it was on.
The studio up here that, prior to that travel, I used to go to on Wednesday nights, recently closed. I see also that a studio in that big hilly city has recently closed; those closings suck. But time passes and stuff happens, and it's cool.
Can I take the same equanimity about my time here? The long job search, the potentially fruitless job search, the small classes, the fact that the ONLY person in this whole STATE who can teach my practice is me?
I'm getting too big for this pond; it used to be an adventure, to be a big fish, one on the rise, but now the pond constrains me, I bump against every shore. Either I'm getting bigger or this is turning into a puddle...
There is another class of teacher trainees over there, now, and not that it means anything, but they are the anniversary of "my" group. Sure, anniversaries are no more important or necessary than those arbitrarily appointed holidays we celebrate or don't, but surely you see the appeal for me in celebrating this one.
Those of you who know me and who know about the VAST, MASSIVE difference between how and where I currently AM living and how and where I would LIKE to live will know that an auspicious anniversary approacheth.
On Friday, April 27th, 2007, I took a five-hour flight from here to a big city on the west coast, and managed public transportation into the south end of said city, from which I walked in bright sunshine up and down the gigantic freakin' hills they have there, using a Mapquest map to try to find out where the hell one or the other main streets were. When I got to the apartment I'd managed to rent for a month, in one of the most famous neighborhoods in the entire US, I had to track down a key hidden under one of the plants, and it took four guesses for me to find it. The apartment looked exactly like pictures I'd been shown; I was the only one home (and dragging a big heavy month worth of your belongings up three flights of narrow stairs is an experience everyone needs to have).
I walked across the city for a how-do-you-do Friday vinyasa class, at 4:30 pm, which bragged that it would be "90 poses in 90 minutes." True to life; standing series, pouring sweat, arm balances, handstands, you name it. But I'd been doing double Primary practices for MONTHS prior to this, and dawn practices, and a Tuesday vinyasa class. Nothing was so new or so foreign that I couldn't hit it. Brilliant class; strangers noted me, the sweat, the energy. True dat, suckas. So true dat.
I think I spent the rest of Friday trying to move in, get my act together, find out what resources I needed to have.
Saturday morning at 10 am I walked back over there for a "mixed levels" class which was easier but cool. Saturday at 8 pm I went down south to another neighborhood, for a three-hour vinyasa fest which was to raise money for the Power to the People festivities; it was mat-to-mat in there, and hot as hell. We vinyasa'ed, we danced, we hopped to and fro like punks at a show (no slamdancing), we hugged strangers, we broke it down.
Everything I brought with me--clothes, mat, rug, everything--was soaking TOTALLY through. I got back to the apartment at about midnight and probably not to sleep until about 1:30 am. Up at 5, walking down into yet ANOTHER neighborhood, to sample my first REAL LIVE Mysore-style class. The mat was too wet to use, but I managed it anyway. Then I headed over to downtown, again, for a 9:30 Primary, which was the intro to teacher training (yes, back to back Primaries; I did that all four Sundays).
And it was on.
The studio up here that, prior to that travel, I used to go to on Wednesday nights, recently closed. I see also that a studio in that big hilly city has recently closed; those closings suck. But time passes and stuff happens, and it's cool.
Can I take the same equanimity about my time here? The long job search, the potentially fruitless job search, the small classes, the fact that the ONLY person in this whole STATE who can teach my practice is me?
I'm getting too big for this pond; it used to be an adventure, to be a big fish, one on the rise, but now the pond constrains me, I bump against every shore. Either I'm getting bigger or this is turning into a puddle...
There is another class of teacher trainees over there, now, and not that it means anything, but they are the anniversary of "my" group. Sure, anniversaries are no more important or necessary than those arbitrarily appointed holidays we celebrate or don't, but surely you see the appeal for me in celebrating this one.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Less ashtanga, more stuff.
While the job search remains a magnet for what seems like every negative emotion I've ever felt in my entire life, the big picture of how it has operated this year is becoming clearer: I now have three rejection letters from one-to-two-year visiting positions, all of which claim that a suprisingly large number of people (in one case, over 150) apply for even these positions.
What is happening is that there are too many seekers and too few positions; in film or media studies, this is certainly true this year. Early on in November, a position opened for which I heard that nearly THREE HUNDRED people applied. My advisor, who teaches and is tenured at a big research university, said that on a typical job search, sixty to seventy people will apply and you pick about a dozen to interview from that, and then two to three to bring to campus, and that's how it works.
Two hundred? Three hundred? Or even a hundred and fify for a one-year visiting gig?
So this, my friends, is what is happening this year.
I have applied for what is basically a writing gig, and this week I'll inquire about a gender studies gig. If film is overfull with applicants, we shall have to look elsewhere...
I also FINALLY finished a publishable copy of an article and sent it off for submission; updates to come by October.
Other than this, I am up to my ears in grading and I get a pack of tests to grade, on Thursday. Spring semester goes out like a lion, every time.
What is happening is that there are too many seekers and too few positions; in film or media studies, this is certainly true this year. Early on in November, a position opened for which I heard that nearly THREE HUNDRED people applied. My advisor, who teaches and is tenured at a big research university, said that on a typical job search, sixty to seventy people will apply and you pick about a dozen to interview from that, and then two to three to bring to campus, and that's how it works.
Two hundred? Three hundred? Or even a hundred and fify for a one-year visiting gig?
So this, my friends, is what is happening this year.
I have applied for what is basically a writing gig, and this week I'll inquire about a gender studies gig. If film is overfull with applicants, we shall have to look elsewhere...
I also FINALLY finished a publishable copy of an article and sent it off for submission; updates to come by October.
Other than this, I am up to my ears in grading and I get a pack of tests to grade, on Thursday. Spring semester goes out like a lion, every time.
Monday, April 14, 2008
I think that Intermediate might help men understand pregnancy.
No, seriously.
Here's the sensation: most mornings, I wake up with a ring of musculo-pranic sensations from the glutes to the iliac crests, down to the greater trochanter, and in a pretty clean line from each iliac crest to the base of the rectus abdominis, within an inch of the pubic bone. It feels like I've had some kind of deep muscular massage there, maybe, or worked WAY too hard doing some kind of ab/hip workout from Mars or something. Very strange sensations; impossible to relate to any kind of workout I can imagine.
These sensations are SIMULTANEOUSLY "tightness," "release," lactic acid hangover, muscular torque, emotional containment, emotional release, needing massage, having had too much. I can't tell what the heck is going on, and whether I want to leave this ring of fascia alone or work it out.
Primary poses which particularly work into this area: Up-dog, Virabhadrasana 1, Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, "up and back" before Prasaritas, "swing to the side" in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Half-lotus ANYTHING, Janu Sirsasana C, ALL Marichyasanas, Baddha Konasana (but it often feels brilliant), backbends.
If I work too hard into this hip/abs ring, I get overwhelming "sweet fatigue pain," and I'm still trying to dial in the levels. This morning standing half-lotus was too much. I've been able to take the foot for over a year, even on the famously tight right side, and suddenly today it's too much; had to go to svasana.
What makes this feel better? On a stressy day, some gentle sun salutations, gentle twists, and a supported bridge (either by hands or over a futon). Wrings the lower back right out.
What REALLY makes this feel better, most days? INTERMEDIATE. Can you STAND that?
Now admittedly, there are days when I do standing and then sink into Pasasana and it is the pose from hell and I go right to svasana from there. BUT, say in all of last week, I got some great relief from this hip/back/abs situation by doing Intermediate up to leg-behind-head, and one day, well beyond that.
BEST POSE EVER: Ardha Matsyendrasana. Addresses these tensions and aches and never seems to make them worse; always better, no matter HOW DEEP I take the pose.
Also good poses, these days: Gomukhasana. Agnistambhasana (double pigeon). I used to LOATHE those poses, and now they provide such nice release. Heh--the whole puzzle is right there, no doubt.
Anyway, my idea is that Intermediate, if this is how it affects "western guy hips," is all about teaching men what pregnancy might feel like. I've been told that pregnant women, in a yoga class, will be quite strong and flexible, and that their practices will vary day to day. Check. I'm still strong, still flexy, and my practice varies virtually day to day, sometimes precipitously. There's pain, but it's not always pain, sometimes it's release, and sometimes that's emotional, which then brings physical release. Some days it's better to work into it and some days it's better to leave it alone.
I feel like my hips are about to give birth to SOMETHING and I don't know what it is. Other times, it feels like there's so much torque going on in the glutes and hips, that I'm going to "pull free" on the line between them and turn into one of those long-bellied snaking energy people from old Odilon Redon paintings.
I remember Jason talking about being adjusted in Kapo by Sharath, and describing the abdominal and armpit work as "ripping(!)" (parenthetical exclamation point, his). That's also in the mix. I wonder if my dual quest for Kapo/dropbacks isn't working itself out like this.
Another tricky thing is, I don't think I'm overworking those poses. I drop back, two hands to wall, bend elbows, spring up. Four or five times at most, per practice. Sometimes in Intermediate I'll take ten breaths in my modified Kapo, but it's not like I'm doing the pose five times. This hip business just seems to be par for the course where Intermediate and I are concerned.
After all, it's not like my WHOLE YOGA PRACTICE hasn't been, at times, about the tight right glutes/abs I've inherited, I think from 1993's appendectomy. This is simply another incarnation of an area of long term fascial/muscular/energetic/emotional interest.
Aside from this hip-glutes-abs ring of fascia, I feel pretty good; even the healing left wrist permits Intermediate's arm balances or Primary's vinyasa, without hurting the next day (but I still don't handstand on it). So, since all of this sensation is not "overwork" pain, or really pain of any kind, I'm going to assume it is a cocoon for transformation. Grow, emerge, take flight. It's springtime, after all.
Here's the sensation: most mornings, I wake up with a ring of musculo-pranic sensations from the glutes to the iliac crests, down to the greater trochanter, and in a pretty clean line from each iliac crest to the base of the rectus abdominis, within an inch of the pubic bone. It feels like I've had some kind of deep muscular massage there, maybe, or worked WAY too hard doing some kind of ab/hip workout from Mars or something. Very strange sensations; impossible to relate to any kind of workout I can imagine.
These sensations are SIMULTANEOUSLY "tightness," "release," lactic acid hangover, muscular torque, emotional containment, emotional release, needing massage, having had too much. I can't tell what the heck is going on, and whether I want to leave this ring of fascia alone or work it out.
Primary poses which particularly work into this area: Up-dog, Virabhadrasana 1, Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, "up and back" before Prasaritas, "swing to the side" in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Half-lotus ANYTHING, Janu Sirsasana C, ALL Marichyasanas, Baddha Konasana (but it often feels brilliant), backbends.
If I work too hard into this hip/abs ring, I get overwhelming "sweet fatigue pain," and I'm still trying to dial in the levels. This morning standing half-lotus was too much. I've been able to take the foot for over a year, even on the famously tight right side, and suddenly today it's too much; had to go to svasana.
What makes this feel better? On a stressy day, some gentle sun salutations, gentle twists, and a supported bridge (either by hands or over a futon). Wrings the lower back right out.
What REALLY makes this feel better, most days? INTERMEDIATE. Can you STAND that?
Now admittedly, there are days when I do standing and then sink into Pasasana and it is the pose from hell and I go right to svasana from there. BUT, say in all of last week, I got some great relief from this hip/back/abs situation by doing Intermediate up to leg-behind-head, and one day, well beyond that.
BEST POSE EVER: Ardha Matsyendrasana. Addresses these tensions and aches and never seems to make them worse; always better, no matter HOW DEEP I take the pose.
Also good poses, these days: Gomukhasana. Agnistambhasana (double pigeon). I used to LOATHE those poses, and now they provide such nice release. Heh--the whole puzzle is right there, no doubt.
Anyway, my idea is that Intermediate, if this is how it affects "western guy hips," is all about teaching men what pregnancy might feel like. I've been told that pregnant women, in a yoga class, will be quite strong and flexible, and that their practices will vary day to day. Check. I'm still strong, still flexy, and my practice varies virtually day to day, sometimes precipitously. There's pain, but it's not always pain, sometimes it's release, and sometimes that's emotional, which then brings physical release. Some days it's better to work into it and some days it's better to leave it alone.
I feel like my hips are about to give birth to SOMETHING and I don't know what it is. Other times, it feels like there's so much torque going on in the glutes and hips, that I'm going to "pull free" on the line between them and turn into one of those long-bellied snaking energy people from old Odilon Redon paintings.
I remember Jason talking about being adjusted in Kapo by Sharath, and describing the abdominal and armpit work as "ripping(!)" (parenthetical exclamation point, his). That's also in the mix. I wonder if my dual quest for Kapo/dropbacks isn't working itself out like this.
Another tricky thing is, I don't think I'm overworking those poses. I drop back, two hands to wall, bend elbows, spring up. Four or five times at most, per practice. Sometimes in Intermediate I'll take ten breaths in my modified Kapo, but it's not like I'm doing the pose five times. This hip business just seems to be par for the course where Intermediate and I are concerned.
After all, it's not like my WHOLE YOGA PRACTICE hasn't been, at times, about the tight right glutes/abs I've inherited, I think from 1993's appendectomy. This is simply another incarnation of an area of long term fascial/muscular/energetic/emotional interest.
Aside from this hip-glutes-abs ring of fascia, I feel pretty good; even the healing left wrist permits Intermediate's arm balances or Primary's vinyasa, without hurting the next day (but I still don't handstand on it). So, since all of this sensation is not "overwork" pain, or really pain of any kind, I'm going to assume it is a cocoon for transformation. Grow, emerge, take flight. It's springtime, after all.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Dear asana doctor...
What is up recently with my Marichyasana C?
Let me lay out the trajectory of Primary for the past few months, as well as some notes from Intermediate.
Seated series: often I'm cleanly and lightly jumping to-and-fro, and jumping right into Janu A and B. Things get a little slower with Janu C, which cranks some really good stretch into my glutes (glutes are where I keep life stress; they are perenially tight or at least carrying sensation of stretching).
By Mari A, I notice poses leaving a "hangover," I can feel the stretch well into the vinyasa, and the vinyasa begins to become heavier. The start of "sweet fatigue pain." This didn't happen a year ago; the Marichys were as fluid as the rest of seated.
Mari B, likewise, is more intense in the low back than it used to be; it feels GOOD, but it feels INTENSE. A year ago I was wrist-binding everything but Mari D with the right foot up, and it wasn't hard. Now, I probably take a hand in B.
Mari C: very intense, all under the iliac crest and into the gluteus max. The other glutes (medius and minimus) live under the iliac crest, I believe, and so I suspect life stress of reducing the pose. I still bind, but the stretch is huge and intense, and I take a handful of fingers. It's a good grab, and a good pose, but boy HOWDY does it leave a "stretch hangover" these days. I take a recovery breath or three and vinyasa.
Mari D: as ever, easier with the left leg half-lotused than the right. I twist and bind with the left foot up, not as easily as a year ago, but with approximately the SAME degree of intensity as my Mari C on this side. Often, with the right foot up, I don't go for the bind, but just enjoy the HUGE twisting sensation in the right hip and the lower back, really cranking the juice out of those tight spots. It is DELICIOUS, but it definitely needs some recovery breaths after. Both hands are down, I'm leaned slightly away from the upright thigh, and cranking the twist. Yum.
There are days I don't go any further in Primary than that.
Intermediate: just for comparison, my Ardha Matsyendrasana is often as deep as I've ever been taught to take it, and it feels delicious. SUBSTANTIALLY easier than Marichyasana C these days. Fold into pose, press opposite ribs to upright thigh, twist, reach, take arch of foot. Hold for five, release; I don't "pop" out of the pose as I sometimes do from Mari D.
Any ideas what's behind the Marichyasana C challenge? Energy, cold practice room, life stress, too much leg-behind-head, something else? Any thoughts welcome...
Let me lay out the trajectory of Primary for the past few months, as well as some notes from Intermediate.
Seated series: often I'm cleanly and lightly jumping to-and-fro, and jumping right into Janu A and B. Things get a little slower with Janu C, which cranks some really good stretch into my glutes (glutes are where I keep life stress; they are perenially tight or at least carrying sensation of stretching).
By Mari A, I notice poses leaving a "hangover," I can feel the stretch well into the vinyasa, and the vinyasa begins to become heavier. The start of "sweet fatigue pain." This didn't happen a year ago; the Marichys were as fluid as the rest of seated.
Mari B, likewise, is more intense in the low back than it used to be; it feels GOOD, but it feels INTENSE. A year ago I was wrist-binding everything but Mari D with the right foot up, and it wasn't hard. Now, I probably take a hand in B.
Mari C: very intense, all under the iliac crest and into the gluteus max. The other glutes (medius and minimus) live under the iliac crest, I believe, and so I suspect life stress of reducing the pose. I still bind, but the stretch is huge and intense, and I take a handful of fingers. It's a good grab, and a good pose, but boy HOWDY does it leave a "stretch hangover" these days. I take a recovery breath or three and vinyasa.
Mari D: as ever, easier with the left leg half-lotused than the right. I twist and bind with the left foot up, not as easily as a year ago, but with approximately the SAME degree of intensity as my Mari C on this side. Often, with the right foot up, I don't go for the bind, but just enjoy the HUGE twisting sensation in the right hip and the lower back, really cranking the juice out of those tight spots. It is DELICIOUS, but it definitely needs some recovery breaths after. Both hands are down, I'm leaned slightly away from the upright thigh, and cranking the twist. Yum.
There are days I don't go any further in Primary than that.
Intermediate: just for comparison, my Ardha Matsyendrasana is often as deep as I've ever been taught to take it, and it feels delicious. SUBSTANTIALLY easier than Marichyasana C these days. Fold into pose, press opposite ribs to upright thigh, twist, reach, take arch of foot. Hold for five, release; I don't "pop" out of the pose as I sometimes do from Mari D.
Any ideas what's behind the Marichyasana C challenge? Energy, cold practice room, life stress, too much leg-behind-head, something else? Any thoughts welcome...
Friday, April 11, 2008
Time for me to post again.
This past week I broke into new territory: after Monday night's Intro to Intermediate, I did Intermediate (parts of it) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I took today off because I do Primary with a led class on Saturday, and then next week it will be (intention noted) all Intermediate again.
Tuesday I did 2nd to Eka Pada Sirsasana; Wednesday I did up through Karandavasana (well, my modified version thereof); Thursday, back to Eka Pada Sirsasana. It is great fun to do Intermediate right from Virabhadrasana II (classically I think it's done from Parsvottanasana, but I do all of standing).
Primary was just getting too tough, wasn't working well enough, was inheriting aversion; complicated. In a led room I can hit it with beauty, but at home alone it was getting crazy.
Eka Pada is a "temperature" pose: when the house is over 66, I can do entrance, pose and exit. When it's below 64, I can't. Kurmasana used to be like this; Mari D used to be like this. Poses mastered as winters turned into summers; do them all summer long, and they stick for the next winter. All is coming.
I applied today for a job that I really feel I can have, one I might well get. Not tenure-track, not film studies, not on the west coast. Still, fairly powerful, prestigious even (given the university to which it is connected). There is a big, or at least two-studio-wide, Ashtanga community in that town. They said the words "Intermediate series" there, so you know they mean it at least that much. Could be interesting.
It is dropping to the 40s this weekend and then spring is on for real. High of 70 expected by Wednesday. The summer of the dropback. The summer of Intermediate.
Tuesday I did 2nd to Eka Pada Sirsasana; Wednesday I did up through Karandavasana (well, my modified version thereof); Thursday, back to Eka Pada Sirsasana. It is great fun to do Intermediate right from Virabhadrasana II (classically I think it's done from Parsvottanasana, but I do all of standing).
Primary was just getting too tough, wasn't working well enough, was inheriting aversion; complicated. In a led room I can hit it with beauty, but at home alone it was getting crazy.
Eka Pada is a "temperature" pose: when the house is over 66, I can do entrance, pose and exit. When it's below 64, I can't. Kurmasana used to be like this; Mari D used to be like this. Poses mastered as winters turned into summers; do them all summer long, and they stick for the next winter. All is coming.
I applied today for a job that I really feel I can have, one I might well get. Not tenure-track, not film studies, not on the west coast. Still, fairly powerful, prestigious even (given the university to which it is connected). There is a big, or at least two-studio-wide, Ashtanga community in that town. They said the words "Intermediate series" there, so you know they mean it at least that much. Could be interesting.
It is dropping to the 40s this weekend and then spring is on for real. High of 70 expected by Wednesday. The summer of the dropback. The summer of Intermediate.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Skating Away on the thin ice of the new day...
It proved cathartic to realize that new frustration is related to old frustration (for details, see the post prior to this one). Springsteen turned into the Guess Who (New Mother Nature, specifically) and then quite suprisingly into Jethro Tull, whom I've not really thought much about since a couple of sweet sweaty weekends in summer 1993.
This won't make sense without a referent, but you'll just have to float it: I think that human stories don't really make sense--aren't anything but, at best, archetypes, and maybe not even that--without a taste of regret, mourning, even. There is an essential mortality, and storytelling modes like old epics (Beowulf) and art cinema realize this. Hollywood too often misses it, and of course porn misses it by definition, which is unfortunate, given how much mourning and regret there can be in even the slightest tryst or romance. Oh well.
Practice yesterday (the Monday Intermediate show) was shockingly good, after a week of sore hips and tight everything. I touched every pose up to and including Nakrasana, and that is a LOT of practice; I don't understand how people can say that Intermediate is not enough (but I believe them anyway, if they believe it). Four attempts at Kapo (no feet) and three at Dwi Pada (hooked, but over my head, not behind it). Nakrasana is a silly thing, but I can hit the ten jumps in chaturanga shape and then it's over. The Titti walk is MUCH easier, done on breath cue, and it's actually easier with a big lean ONTO the standing foot, as the steps are taken. The bigger you step (watch Swenson do it), the easier the steps are on the quads; how's that for a suprise.
Somewhere (Sweeney's book? Maehle's?) I've read that the point of the core poses in Primary is to gain stability (that's you, Mari D, Navasana, up to Baddha K). This is related to the way in which asana builds the body's "readiness" for pranayama. The aspect of my practice that I've been reluctant to talk about for the last few days is something like an awareness of this building, this "core stability" which allows or permits more intense energetic play.
Even my current patience-tapas which I have been enduring these few months, seems to be part of this; binaries dissolve. "Tight" musculature isn't just physical, isn't maybe primarily physical: energy moving around. Meditation channels it. The actual DESIRE to sit and channel. THAT is new. A move--a big one--AWAY from "I got it, I didn't, I want to do pose X" and TOWARD energy management. Energy and mind, self-possession on a scale that is NOT so left-brain, so "I," so ego. See the paradoxes? This is what is underway. If it's fuzzily described, it's because it is also fuzzily grasped. Right now.
And let's not forget how nice it is to have a fuzzy cat on one's lap.
This won't make sense without a referent, but you'll just have to float it: I think that human stories don't really make sense--aren't anything but, at best, archetypes, and maybe not even that--without a taste of regret, mourning, even. There is an essential mortality, and storytelling modes like old epics (Beowulf) and art cinema realize this. Hollywood too often misses it, and of course porn misses it by definition, which is unfortunate, given how much mourning and regret there can be in even the slightest tryst or romance. Oh well.
Practice yesterday (the Monday Intermediate show) was shockingly good, after a week of sore hips and tight everything. I touched every pose up to and including Nakrasana, and that is a LOT of practice; I don't understand how people can say that Intermediate is not enough (but I believe them anyway, if they believe it). Four attempts at Kapo (no feet) and three at Dwi Pada (hooked, but over my head, not behind it). Nakrasana is a silly thing, but I can hit the ten jumps in chaturanga shape and then it's over. The Titti walk is MUCH easier, done on breath cue, and it's actually easier with a big lean ONTO the standing foot, as the steps are taken. The bigger you step (watch Swenson do it), the easier the steps are on the quads; how's that for a suprise.
Somewhere (Sweeney's book? Maehle's?) I've read that the point of the core poses in Primary is to gain stability (that's you, Mari D, Navasana, up to Baddha K). This is related to the way in which asana builds the body's "readiness" for pranayama. The aspect of my practice that I've been reluctant to talk about for the last few days is something like an awareness of this building, this "core stability" which allows or permits more intense energetic play.
Even my current patience-tapas which I have been enduring these few months, seems to be part of this; binaries dissolve. "Tight" musculature isn't just physical, isn't maybe primarily physical: energy moving around. Meditation channels it. The actual DESIRE to sit and channel. THAT is new. A move--a big one--AWAY from "I got it, I didn't, I want to do pose X" and TOWARD energy management. Energy and mind, self-possession on a scale that is NOT so left-brain, so "I," so ego. See the paradoxes? This is what is underway. If it's fuzzily described, it's because it is also fuzzily grasped. Right now.
And let's not forget how nice it is to have a fuzzy cat on one's lap.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Trapped! (both the song, and not)
"Trapped" was written by Jimmy Cliff, and most famously covered by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Yes, I know there's a Tupac song by that title too.
These are the lyrics to "Trapped" and of course I'm envisioning them as a love song to the Academy (one of sorts, that is):
Seems like I'm caught up in your trap again
Seems like I'll be wearing the same old chains
Good will conquer evil
And the truth will set me free
And I know that someday I will find the key
I know that somewhere I will find the key
Seems like I've been playing your game way too long
Seems the game I've played has made you strong
When the game is over I won't walk out the loser
I know I'll walk out of here again
I know someday I'll walk out of here again
Well now I'm trapped
Ooh yeah
Trapped
Ooh yeah
Trapped
Seems like I've been sleeping in your bed too long
Seems like you've been meaning to do me harm
But I'll teach my eyes to see beyond these walls in front of me
Someday I'll walk out of here again
Someday I'll walk out of here again
Trapped (et. al., with reprise and sax solo)
I've always liked that song, from way back whenever it was put out and I was asking, "Bruce who?" I'm not a diehard Bruce fan, but it's hard to be in your teens in the eighties and not have gotten the whole "Born in the USA" album mainlined into your musical bloodstream. That and "Thriller" and all that Paula Abdul later on. Eh, we cannot always choose these things.
Here's what you might call the "diegetic" trap: It's April, and at the end of this month, I don't work for my fellowship gig any more, but I do work these awkward afternoon teaching hours until the end of the month. This makes it hard to work part-time, and makes full-time working impossible, until May. The problem with not being able to make money beyond my $400/month from teaching, is that I owe over $1000 on May 5, and I won't have it. This is the trap. I mean, someone will no doubt give me that money (family/friends) but I can't be self-sufficient and teach; it's not enough. This fellowship is intended for grad students, and its supposed to be a boon, but for me, it has turned into a trap. $14000 a year is no good when your loan debt is $12500 and next year, with all loans on at once, will be $17000.
So the great paradox is that because I've stayed in the academy, I can't afford the debt which I accumulated FROM staying in the academy. That's the trap, and it's looking more and more like I won't even GET an academic job so that I can pretend there was some poetic justice.
That's a pretty raw reality. It's not easy to swallow that.
It'll be fine, I'll survive it, but ever since dissertation writing, the "big retreat" from real life, which I thought that grad school was, has been turning more and more into what feels like emotional abuse (which I've received first hand, so I know what I'm talking about).
Back in 2003 I swore that I'd never get myself into a bullshit position again, by which I meant a position of agency-less, powerless frustration at someone else's hands. However, this is exactly what I've wandered into, and I've got an oceanic level of bitterness about it.
From roughly May 1995 until December 2002 I stayed in a relationship which had been great fun from January 1995 until that May and which, as of May, turned more and more manipulative and emotionally harsh. It looked nice, and both of us became masters of deception in different ways, and no one knew it was all rotten inside except me (my theory is that she was able to deceive herself about its rottenness; it's complicated but I think I'm right about this). We got married and shouldn't have, in June 1998, and by 2000 the whole relationship was emotionally dead to me; ever done that? Do you know what that feels like? Imagine Jonah inside the whale, being slowly digested but not minding, and then imagine that the whale beaches and dies and begins to decay and he stays in there for six years and dances about so that none of his family will know that anything's amiss. That's what that feels like.
I have stories from that relationship which can turn listeners to ice. I have stories from then which are so vile that I bet they can make people physically ill. A combination of honesty and lies got me out of it and it looks like I'm the one who acted dishonestly and "broke the bond," and true-to-life, I did, but I'm not the one who maintained the lies, the surfaces (well, that's not true: I did, but at the same time, I cruised an underground which was massive in scope). I stayed because I was afraid to be myself, and she stayed because she was afraid not to live the illusion of household and "maturity" and so forth, all of which was backed up by a willfully undercut self-image and past sexual abuse (at the hands of partners, not family). That whole thing was rotten inside and out.
I remember realizing in a cafe one afternoon that that relationship would kill me. It would make me dead to myself inside, and I KNEW it, it wasn't just some perjorative hyperbolic thing to say. Then I saw _American Beauty_ and I knew that this sort of thing REALLY HAPPENED to people.
I spent thirteen years in a grad program because I spent seven of them doing THAT. Really, and I can't ever explain this in a cover letter, I finished a MA/PhD program in about six years, because for the other seven, I was doing different stuff.
This trap feels like that one. It's different, but the frustration is the same, the immobility, the weariness, the certainty that the system, knowingly or not, means me harm, or will cause it, no matter what it intends or doesn't. I swore on everything real, that I would never do this again. But I didn't know that a dissertation led here: a PhD should MEAN SOMETHING, right? It should give ACCESS, open DOORS, right? Well it doesn't seem to. I didn't know, and I was ignorant of things, and I apologize to myself and I forgive myself for not knowing this.
This frustration cuts deep, to old frustrations, past wounds that aren't all the way bled out yet. When I have my worst days with this job search, it's not pure job search; it is channelling other things too.
These are the lyrics to "Trapped" and of course I'm envisioning them as a love song to the Academy (one of sorts, that is):
Seems like I'm caught up in your trap again
Seems like I'll be wearing the same old chains
Good will conquer evil
And the truth will set me free
And I know that someday I will find the key
I know that somewhere I will find the key
Seems like I've been playing your game way too long
Seems the game I've played has made you strong
When the game is over I won't walk out the loser
I know I'll walk out of here again
I know someday I'll walk out of here again
Well now I'm trapped
Ooh yeah
Trapped
Ooh yeah
Trapped
Seems like I've been sleeping in your bed too long
Seems like you've been meaning to do me harm
But I'll teach my eyes to see beyond these walls in front of me
Someday I'll walk out of here again
Someday I'll walk out of here again
Trapped (et. al., with reprise and sax solo)
I've always liked that song, from way back whenever it was put out and I was asking, "Bruce who?" I'm not a diehard Bruce fan, but it's hard to be in your teens in the eighties and not have gotten the whole "Born in the USA" album mainlined into your musical bloodstream. That and "Thriller" and all that Paula Abdul later on. Eh, we cannot always choose these things.
Here's what you might call the "diegetic" trap: It's April, and at the end of this month, I don't work for my fellowship gig any more, but I do work these awkward afternoon teaching hours until the end of the month. This makes it hard to work part-time, and makes full-time working impossible, until May. The problem with not being able to make money beyond my $400/month from teaching, is that I owe over $1000 on May 5, and I won't have it. This is the trap. I mean, someone will no doubt give me that money (family/friends) but I can't be self-sufficient and teach; it's not enough. This fellowship is intended for grad students, and its supposed to be a boon, but for me, it has turned into a trap. $14000 a year is no good when your loan debt is $12500 and next year, with all loans on at once, will be $17000.
So the great paradox is that because I've stayed in the academy, I can't afford the debt which I accumulated FROM staying in the academy. That's the trap, and it's looking more and more like I won't even GET an academic job so that I can pretend there was some poetic justice.
That's a pretty raw reality. It's not easy to swallow that.
It'll be fine, I'll survive it, but ever since dissertation writing, the "big retreat" from real life, which I thought that grad school was, has been turning more and more into what feels like emotional abuse (which I've received first hand, so I know what I'm talking about).
Back in 2003 I swore that I'd never get myself into a bullshit position again, by which I meant a position of agency-less, powerless frustration at someone else's hands. However, this is exactly what I've wandered into, and I've got an oceanic level of bitterness about it.
From roughly May 1995 until December 2002 I stayed in a relationship which had been great fun from January 1995 until that May and which, as of May, turned more and more manipulative and emotionally harsh. It looked nice, and both of us became masters of deception in different ways, and no one knew it was all rotten inside except me (my theory is that she was able to deceive herself about its rottenness; it's complicated but I think I'm right about this). We got married and shouldn't have, in June 1998, and by 2000 the whole relationship was emotionally dead to me; ever done that? Do you know what that feels like? Imagine Jonah inside the whale, being slowly digested but not minding, and then imagine that the whale beaches and dies and begins to decay and he stays in there for six years and dances about so that none of his family will know that anything's amiss. That's what that feels like.
I have stories from that relationship which can turn listeners to ice. I have stories from then which are so vile that I bet they can make people physically ill. A combination of honesty and lies got me out of it and it looks like I'm the one who acted dishonestly and "broke the bond," and true-to-life, I did, but I'm not the one who maintained the lies, the surfaces (well, that's not true: I did, but at the same time, I cruised an underground which was massive in scope). I stayed because I was afraid to be myself, and she stayed because she was afraid not to live the illusion of household and "maturity" and so forth, all of which was backed up by a willfully undercut self-image and past sexual abuse (at the hands of partners, not family). That whole thing was rotten inside and out.
I remember realizing in a cafe one afternoon that that relationship would kill me. It would make me dead to myself inside, and I KNEW it, it wasn't just some perjorative hyperbolic thing to say. Then I saw _American Beauty_ and I knew that this sort of thing REALLY HAPPENED to people.
I spent thirteen years in a grad program because I spent seven of them doing THAT. Really, and I can't ever explain this in a cover letter, I finished a MA/PhD program in about six years, because for the other seven, I was doing different stuff.
This trap feels like that one. It's different, but the frustration is the same, the immobility, the weariness, the certainty that the system, knowingly or not, means me harm, or will cause it, no matter what it intends or doesn't. I swore on everything real, that I would never do this again. But I didn't know that a dissertation led here: a PhD should MEAN SOMETHING, right? It should give ACCESS, open DOORS, right? Well it doesn't seem to. I didn't know, and I was ignorant of things, and I apologize to myself and I forgive myself for not knowing this.
This frustration cuts deep, to old frustrations, past wounds that aren't all the way bled out yet. When I have my worst days with this job search, it's not pure job search; it is channelling other things too.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Do Hamsters Blog, do you suppose?
What, really, would be the point of rephrasing the numerous negativities which continue, in their unchanging ways, to cycle through?
a: the job search remains emotionally equivalent to an abusive relationship. Shocker.
b: I'm under-prepared for the video installation class tomorrow, a class for which I have serially been underprepared ALL damn semester, because I agreed to teach it, even though I knew FUCK ALL about video art in January. So again, shocker.
c: I'm about to teach American postmodern painting this week in my 100-level art survey, which as you well know by now, is art I HATE like DEATH. Shocking, I know.
d: While yesterday I was able to pop off three old-school wheels, happy ones, today I was totally unable to muster a backbend. Interesting practice in ways I don't want to uncover just yet for the public, but in backbends, nada, no go.
e: the continuing solitude of home practice, job search, money anxiety remains massive and tsunami-like in its unflagging consistency.
A year ago I was ramping up for an April 27th departure to San Francisco, with the dissertation newly conquered. This year could not BE more different.
My advice remains: DO NOT SEEK THE ACADEMIC GIG. THE AGONY ISN'T WORTH IT.
a: the job search remains emotionally equivalent to an abusive relationship. Shocker.
b: I'm under-prepared for the video installation class tomorrow, a class for which I have serially been underprepared ALL damn semester, because I agreed to teach it, even though I knew FUCK ALL about video art in January. So again, shocker.
c: I'm about to teach American postmodern painting this week in my 100-level art survey, which as you well know by now, is art I HATE like DEATH. Shocking, I know.
d: While yesterday I was able to pop off three old-school wheels, happy ones, today I was totally unable to muster a backbend. Interesting practice in ways I don't want to uncover just yet for the public, but in backbends, nada, no go.
e: the continuing solitude of home practice, job search, money anxiety remains massive and tsunami-like in its unflagging consistency.
A year ago I was ramping up for an April 27th departure to San Francisco, with the dissertation newly conquered. This year could not BE more different.
My advice remains: DO NOT SEEK THE ACADEMIC GIG. THE AGONY ISN'T WORTH IT.
Friday, April 4, 2008
David Mamet or Steely Dan, maybe...
I'd wavered between calling this post "Can't buy a thrill," after the Steely Dan album of the same name (which I don't even own) and "Always Be Closing," from Alec Baldwin's disempowering pep talk to "the closers" in _Glengarry Glenross (or is it Ross?)_.
Last night I was saying that apparently I can't sell myself in this city or this nation right now; it's like I'm sub-prime or something. I can't seem to sell my ample smarts and highly performative, energy-charged academic teaching, anywhere, yet. Also, I can't seem to sell my admittedly high-powered asana practice (as in, low workshop attendance). Primary series just is not a high seller here; turn it into VINYASA, however, and suddenly you too can own your own studio!
There are hundreds of posts about that: would we really want ashtanga to be sellable and perhaps commodified and then to show up on the cover of Yoga Journal and such? But that's not my question here.
It's not that I want to be sold: it's that I want a gig, a future, an end to this bottomless-pit, frictionless curse of a job market hunt. ENOUGH freefall, already! That's one thing, and you have known about that for at least three months now. The other is that I don't really understand why I can't sell my yoga practice here. It's obviously high-powered, and I'm able, willing and ready to share it with whoever shows up. Heck, I've been in the same vinyasa class for well over a year, hitting hard poses and such, advertising whatever workshop I do. Still, four people here, three people there, two people there.
Apparently it is not about how smart, flexible or strong I am. Apparently it is not about my "liveness" or overall energy or vibe. What then, WHAT???? Is ten damn years of teaching courses as a grad student somehow not ENOUGH?
Is there some kind of mystery discourse I need to participate in, so I can get "membership" to some hidden club? Mini-marathons? Regional MLA committees? WHAT? Do I need to start classes with a reading and then a mini-chant in the middle and emphasize how the poses will help runners or golfers or some other group stretch their whatever-needs-it? Do I need to emphasize the fitness rhetoric and talk about "toning" and weight loss and all of that?
These are all idiotic questions. I know I won't do any of that; it's not even an option. Academics: I haven't done enough service, been "committee" enough, gotten to know the right people, gotten close enough to my advisors and faculty, haven't gone to the right conferences at the right times, haven't sucked up properly to the department(s) and volunteered to work with graduate student government and all of that. Those are my weaknesses. Also, my degree took too long. Thirteen years to finish a MA/PhD combo program? Those are the weaknesses.
Yoga: I don't talk about fitness, I don't talk about toning and weight loss, I don't even talk in friendly, approachable terms about "chakras" and "opening" and so forth. I step on the mat, lead sun salutations, guide inhale-up, exhale-down, describe vinyasa (and I don't, don't EVER, skip it: if I'm teaching Ashtanga, even modified Primary, we damn well do seated vinyasa).
A few days ago I was listening to a conversation about the ways in which Primary can be a boring practice, and I thought to myself, "well, that's because you're doing it as if it were a vinyasa sequence which you do once or twice a week, just like any other good old vinyasa sequence. If you understood that Primary has core postures, the achievement of which lead to Intermediate, which has core postures....and so forth, then you'd understand that at some point in that sequence, you'll get turned on to breathing, and to more of what America would call the spiritual aspects, and then the mere repetition of asana will become something really quite more involved and complex and juicy." But I didn't say that. Some mysteries are to be discovered, and some modes of looking, simply do not give access to some mysteries.
I spent the morning looking at compelling artwork by students headed for graduate degrees. Predictably, I responded better to the pieces with more intense, and darker, conceptual elements, because that's what I like in art. I also gravitated, quite predictably, to the more obtuse and complicated pieces, for the same reason.
Grok this once and for all, Patrick:
You're NOT a person who's more committee and more hirable than you are.
You're NOT a person who has an accessible, inviting yoga practice which will result in a "massively successful studio".
You're NOT a person who likes simple, accessible artwork, no matter how much money it makes.
Those people are tested later and earlier, by things that aren't this long soak in frustration. Their tests aren't yours, and yours aren't theirs. There is no certificate awarded at birth which reads, "This one must play the Glass Bead Game."
How do I bend this into a formula for happiness?
1) Consider--if you enjoy teaching people as much as you do--private high schools.
2) Take the yoga inside; abandon studio success or even income from teaching or practice.
3) Feel free to savor things that are dark and complicated. You've got a Netflix queue; use it. You've got a museum membership; go.
Once the current school semester ends, the world opens up for 40 hour-a-week jobs, any kind you think you can get. Why aim low at minimum wage? Why not aim high for, say, 50 grand a year, and see if it happens?
Remember, the academy is the ONLY job market where a PhD can mean NOTHING for your job prospects.
Your May teaching job is at NIGHT, twice a week. At the end of April, a NEW REALITY BEGINS.
Last night I was saying that apparently I can't sell myself in this city or this nation right now; it's like I'm sub-prime or something. I can't seem to sell my ample smarts and highly performative, energy-charged academic teaching, anywhere, yet. Also, I can't seem to sell my admittedly high-powered asana practice (as in, low workshop attendance). Primary series just is not a high seller here; turn it into VINYASA, however, and suddenly you too can own your own studio!
There are hundreds of posts about that: would we really want ashtanga to be sellable and perhaps commodified and then to show up on the cover of Yoga Journal and such? But that's not my question here.
It's not that I want to be sold: it's that I want a gig, a future, an end to this bottomless-pit, frictionless curse of a job market hunt. ENOUGH freefall, already! That's one thing, and you have known about that for at least three months now. The other is that I don't really understand why I can't sell my yoga practice here. It's obviously high-powered, and I'm able, willing and ready to share it with whoever shows up. Heck, I've been in the same vinyasa class for well over a year, hitting hard poses and such, advertising whatever workshop I do. Still, four people here, three people there, two people there.
Apparently it is not about how smart, flexible or strong I am. Apparently it is not about my "liveness" or overall energy or vibe. What then, WHAT???? Is ten damn years of teaching courses as a grad student somehow not ENOUGH?
Is there some kind of mystery discourse I need to participate in, so I can get "membership" to some hidden club? Mini-marathons? Regional MLA committees? WHAT? Do I need to start classes with a reading and then a mini-chant in the middle and emphasize how the poses will help runners or golfers or some other group stretch their whatever-needs-it? Do I need to emphasize the fitness rhetoric and talk about "toning" and weight loss and all of that?
These are all idiotic questions. I know I won't do any of that; it's not even an option. Academics: I haven't done enough service, been "committee" enough, gotten to know the right people, gotten close enough to my advisors and faculty, haven't gone to the right conferences at the right times, haven't sucked up properly to the department(s) and volunteered to work with graduate student government and all of that. Those are my weaknesses. Also, my degree took too long. Thirteen years to finish a MA/PhD combo program? Those are the weaknesses.
Yoga: I don't talk about fitness, I don't talk about toning and weight loss, I don't even talk in friendly, approachable terms about "chakras" and "opening" and so forth. I step on the mat, lead sun salutations, guide inhale-up, exhale-down, describe vinyasa (and I don't, don't EVER, skip it: if I'm teaching Ashtanga, even modified Primary, we damn well do seated vinyasa).
A few days ago I was listening to a conversation about the ways in which Primary can be a boring practice, and I thought to myself, "well, that's because you're doing it as if it were a vinyasa sequence which you do once or twice a week, just like any other good old vinyasa sequence. If you understood that Primary has core postures, the achievement of which lead to Intermediate, which has core postures....and so forth, then you'd understand that at some point in that sequence, you'll get turned on to breathing, and to more of what America would call the spiritual aspects, and then the mere repetition of asana will become something really quite more involved and complex and juicy." But I didn't say that. Some mysteries are to be discovered, and some modes of looking, simply do not give access to some mysteries.
I spent the morning looking at compelling artwork by students headed for graduate degrees. Predictably, I responded better to the pieces with more intense, and darker, conceptual elements, because that's what I like in art. I also gravitated, quite predictably, to the more obtuse and complicated pieces, for the same reason.
Grok this once and for all, Patrick:
You're NOT a person who's more committee and more hirable than you are.
You're NOT a person who has an accessible, inviting yoga practice which will result in a "massively successful studio".
You're NOT a person who likes simple, accessible artwork, no matter how much money it makes.
Those people are tested later and earlier, by things that aren't this long soak in frustration. Their tests aren't yours, and yours aren't theirs. There is no certificate awarded at birth which reads, "This one must play the Glass Bead Game."
How do I bend this into a formula for happiness?
1) Consider--if you enjoy teaching people as much as you do--private high schools.
2) Take the yoga inside; abandon studio success or even income from teaching or practice.
3) Feel free to savor things that are dark and complicated. You've got a Netflix queue; use it. You've got a museum membership; go.
Once the current school semester ends, the world opens up for 40 hour-a-week jobs, any kind you think you can get. Why aim low at minimum wage? Why not aim high for, say, 50 grand a year, and see if it happens?
Remember, the academy is the ONLY job market where a PhD can mean NOTHING for your job prospects.
Your May teaching job is at NIGHT, twice a week. At the end of April, a NEW REALITY BEGINS.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Change is in the Air.
It's April.
I did not get the job at my undergrad alma mater; this was expected. The rejection email was fairly impersonal and totally stock. Eh, whatever.
Emory University, however, sends the best rejection letters in the business, and even better than that, they process their searches QUICKLY. Applications due March 1? I had a rejection letter in my hand on the 29th! Legendary!
About a week ago, my favorite uncle died in Florida, from lung cancer. This has, perhaps oddly, really quickly settled into a deep soak in all of the marvelous stories we created back in the early nineties. I used to work with him on his house, and in his big garden, summers when I was in college. Many many good times were had; he's the reason I know how to make pesto and how to make top-notch steamed mussels in basil-tomato broth, and good nuggets like that. The world won't be as much fun without him in it, but I passed through the "sadness" phase of this adjustment in about ten minutes; the stories are too juicy, too fantastic and fun, to bother being depressed about the present.
The hard drive on this computer went belly-up three days ago. "Unmountable boot error." While I had numerous files in email, and on thumb drives, I've lost some stuff, and none of it is recoverable. This, again, is suprisingly not full of angst and sadness. I find that I ENJOY the sort of "fresh new" appearance of this machine. All those applications for schools that didn't accept me: gone. All of those old files for teaching and such: gone. Vanished, never to return. Sure, I have all of that in my email, but right now, I don't have a thing. Just firefox, some virus-scanning programs, a few other things. I don't even have a background. It's kind of hilarious. Spring cleaning indeed.
Around the time that I was sweating attendance on my yoga weekend, my hips turned to stone. I mean, aching pain from when I get up from bed, to when I get back in, non-stop. For four days, approximately. The one workshop had three attendees, the other one had two. The Anti-Gravity class was still great fun (of course), but I'd have liked more students. My hip tightness (stress, money, blah, the usual) made Primary virtually impossible and the wheel out of the question. Whatever. That happens. It's better now but not one hundred percent yet.
Something is afoot in my asana practice, and I think I see how it'll play out, but that's not for public sharing; too much pulling back of the curtain could scare it off.
The city remains typical toward Ashtanga: there is a workshop now emphatically titled "Ashtanga-INSPIRED" on some website. Hah, I wonder why that is: is Primary too scary? There is a summer teacher training coming here, from YogaWorks. They have the schedule posted in PDF from that studio's home page, and it's a jumble of standing poses, twists, backbends, Sutras, and an anatomy weekend. Ought to be fine, and to further saturate an over-saturated market of yoga teachers. Notably, the YogaWorks blurb says that it has produced "some of the most successful yoga studios in the United States." Oh, so THAT's what it's all about. THANKS!! It costs, if you get in early, over $2900 to do a month workshop in Indianapolis. San Francisco, complete with training, plane, rent and food, and Mysore classes, cost me about $4500; maybe $5000. I'm biased, of course, but if you want a Yoga Alliance certification in Ashtanga yoga, you can't beat the training I did, for it. Well, as long as you've got substantial home experience with Ashtanga; no training can bring you something you don't have.
I continue to teach sparse classes out west (3-5 students) and up north (1-2 students and not infrequently none).
Recently I feel as if all of this is changing, as if the earth is sort of metaphysically cracking open; going to seed, maybe. I like this sensation; it requires greater responsibility from me, and that's where I have power. I manage a certain level of chaos quite well, and it actually ENHANCES my personal power to do so. Stability above a certain minimal requirement is DEADLY stultifying, and the combination of daily stability and total uncertainty, but a CONCRETE uncertainty, a sort of untouchable DEAD uncertainty, is COMPLETE anathema (that's what the academic job market has so far been; total stability mixed with utter uncertainty, but with no action permitted).
There is a juicy, so juicy, tenure-track position due soon. It doesn't pay brilliantly, but if I remember right, it doesn't cost a lot to live where it is, so maybe in cost-of-living terms it's ok.
Tomorrow I'm judging (on a panel) artwork by students, in order to be part of the process of awarding a graduate school scholarship. This will be fun. Unversity service--page, fetch me my CV!
Tax refunds (because I made just under $10,000 this year; how laughable is that? See what a PhD and a fellowship will get you?) are paying my student loans this month. April will be fine; May will still be random chaos.
I did not get the job at my undergrad alma mater; this was expected. The rejection email was fairly impersonal and totally stock. Eh, whatever.
Emory University, however, sends the best rejection letters in the business, and even better than that, they process their searches QUICKLY. Applications due March 1? I had a rejection letter in my hand on the 29th! Legendary!
About a week ago, my favorite uncle died in Florida, from lung cancer. This has, perhaps oddly, really quickly settled into a deep soak in all of the marvelous stories we created back in the early nineties. I used to work with him on his house, and in his big garden, summers when I was in college. Many many good times were had; he's the reason I know how to make pesto and how to make top-notch steamed mussels in basil-tomato broth, and good nuggets like that. The world won't be as much fun without him in it, but I passed through the "sadness" phase of this adjustment in about ten minutes; the stories are too juicy, too fantastic and fun, to bother being depressed about the present.
The hard drive on this computer went belly-up three days ago. "Unmountable boot error." While I had numerous files in email, and on thumb drives, I've lost some stuff, and none of it is recoverable. This, again, is suprisingly not full of angst and sadness. I find that I ENJOY the sort of "fresh new" appearance of this machine. All those applications for schools that didn't accept me: gone. All of those old files for teaching and such: gone. Vanished, never to return. Sure, I have all of that in my email, but right now, I don't have a thing. Just firefox, some virus-scanning programs, a few other things. I don't even have a background. It's kind of hilarious. Spring cleaning indeed.
Around the time that I was sweating attendance on my yoga weekend, my hips turned to stone. I mean, aching pain from when I get up from bed, to when I get back in, non-stop. For four days, approximately. The one workshop had three attendees, the other one had two. The Anti-Gravity class was still great fun (of course), but I'd have liked more students. My hip tightness (stress, money, blah, the usual) made Primary virtually impossible and the wheel out of the question. Whatever. That happens. It's better now but not one hundred percent yet.
Something is afoot in my asana practice, and I think I see how it'll play out, but that's not for public sharing; too much pulling back of the curtain could scare it off.
The city remains typical toward Ashtanga: there is a workshop now emphatically titled "Ashtanga-INSPIRED" on some website. Hah, I wonder why that is: is Primary too scary? There is a summer teacher training coming here, from YogaWorks. They have the schedule posted in PDF from that studio's home page, and it's a jumble of standing poses, twists, backbends, Sutras, and an anatomy weekend. Ought to be fine, and to further saturate an over-saturated market of yoga teachers. Notably, the YogaWorks blurb says that it has produced "some of the most successful yoga studios in the United States." Oh, so THAT's what it's all about. THANKS!! It costs, if you get in early, over $2900 to do a month workshop in Indianapolis. San Francisco, complete with training, plane, rent and food, and Mysore classes, cost me about $4500; maybe $5000. I'm biased, of course, but if you want a Yoga Alliance certification in Ashtanga yoga, you can't beat the training I did, for it. Well, as long as you've got substantial home experience with Ashtanga; no training can bring you something you don't have.
I continue to teach sparse classes out west (3-5 students) and up north (1-2 students and not infrequently none).
Recently I feel as if all of this is changing, as if the earth is sort of metaphysically cracking open; going to seed, maybe. I like this sensation; it requires greater responsibility from me, and that's where I have power. I manage a certain level of chaos quite well, and it actually ENHANCES my personal power to do so. Stability above a certain minimal requirement is DEADLY stultifying, and the combination of daily stability and total uncertainty, but a CONCRETE uncertainty, a sort of untouchable DEAD uncertainty, is COMPLETE anathema (that's what the academic job market has so far been; total stability mixed with utter uncertainty, but with no action permitted).
There is a juicy, so juicy, tenure-track position due soon. It doesn't pay brilliantly, but if I remember right, it doesn't cost a lot to live where it is, so maybe in cost-of-living terms it's ok.
Tomorrow I'm judging (on a panel) artwork by students, in order to be part of the process of awarding a graduate school scholarship. This will be fun. Unversity service--page, fetch me my CV!
Tax refunds (because I made just under $10,000 this year; how laughable is that? See what a PhD and a fellowship will get you?) are paying my student loans this month. April will be fine; May will still be random chaos.
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