That is not an analogy; notice the absence of the colon indicating comparison.
I took the whole early week off; Monday to Thursday I did no asana and let this sniffly-sometimes-sinusy post-stress nonsense work its way out of my head. The best aspect of a half-cold (I no longer get full colds, but only half ones) is that it really does make me mellow out and sleep for 10 hours and sit on the couch and grade papers. I don't have energy to spare for complaining and existential analyses of some of capitalism's sharper edges. Such rest is actually quite nice, although I LOATHE being sick in any way shape or form.
Then on Friday, and again on Saturday, I went to 2 and then 1 1/2, respectively, hours of power yoga in the early am's on both days. It was brilliant; room in the mid- to high-seventies, which in my November practice is IMPOSSIBLE, and rooms FULL of like 15 to even 20 people. Long standing flows, a lot of Utkatasana, bound standing poses, Bird of Paradise, Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana variations, all kinds of wonderful stuff. Standing splits, half moon with the top leg in a Dhanurasana position, backbend series of various Locusts and Bows, a one-leg back sequence which included Tiriang Mukhaikapada Paschimo, Krounchasana, Bharadvajasana and then even Vatayanasana (without the vinyasa entry and exit). Really, really marvelous stuff. Oh, and of course, long varieties of Pigeon lunges and then front splits, Hanumanasana. I added in all kinds of Vinyasa Krama goodies, like wide-legged Cobra twists, and all sorts of more classical Ashtanga vinyasa (jumps and chakrasana). And I had a really fantastic time on the mat.
So Sunday I went back on the Ashtanga train, over on a carpeted flat space beyond the banked turn at the track at the Y (the same one with my red stairs). Up to Garbha Pindasana and then I just could NOT get the hip flexors to scrunch me into Kukkutasana; just could not do it. I wanted a lunge more than I wanted anything on planet earth. I could not bind my hands in Supta K, either; WTFFFF, SUPTA K???? You and I ALWAYS get a hand bind!! Perhaps it was the new location, or the 64 degrees, or the fucking EVIL arctic wind from hell that blew over me about every 8 minutes.
Anyway, I was not pleased; no, that's not quite true; I was puzzled more than not pleased. I got a dripping sweat on in the standing poses, but was wiped practically dry by mid-seated with that freaking breeze. That spot won't do for further practice.
Backbends were all about the psoas, which I felt wrung out like a sponge or a soaked t-shirt, right at the lumbar spine, in each bent-arm unsatisfactory wheel. I did 3 and then did 3 long hang backs which felt better than anything I'd done in the prior 40 minutes. Twists are still really intense hell, but bindable (with the exception, today, of the 2nd Mari D, which again, is totally unusual).
Anyway, it was one of those bizarre Primaries where friendly poses aren't, for no reason, and tomorrow they'll probably be all back to normal. Whatever; there's no making sense of it.
It is as if winter is throwing down the gauntlet: "Let's see you maintain an Ashtanga practice THIS winter, kid." The stress, cold, solitude and negativity are pouring down on me like a blizzard and I roll out the mat and go for it anyway. Call it tapas.
I notice that my attention in vinyasa practice has changed: I used to dread hip-reorienting standing flows (for example, a move from half moon to revolved half moon then back to half moon then to warrior 2 then to warrior 1), because they made the glutes burn like solar hell, and I also used to dread knee-tweaking hip openers like double pigeon (or in Sanskrit, Agnistambhasana). I used to greet arm balances with glee (because they've always liked me) and also inversions with like glee (because they have ALSO always liked me).
Now, I eagerly anticipate a halfmoon so that I can Dhanurasana the top leg and feel the hip flexors pull open. I welcome a standing split so that I can feel, again, the hip flexors allow the leg to rise. My arm balances are unchanged, in any way, and I blow through a series of side-crane-to-koundinyasana-1-to-koundinyasana-2 like it's a sun salutation. Similarly, I land any inversion I want, with the exception of handstand, in the middle of the room. TWISTS are what I have lost to my new backbending stretches. Nothing else. Marichyasana C and moreso, Pasasana, are new experiences in fascia-ripping release. I can still bind virtually any standing pose (and that goes for Trikonasana and even a hand-to-toe variation of Viswamitrasana) but Parivrtta Parsvakonasana gives me a measurement of where my twisting stops.
Ardha Matsyendrasana and Bharadvajasana are the two exceptions; I can take the full expression of A.M. ANYTIME I want to; hand to arch, glutes getting a massive, intense stretch. Bharad could be twistier, but I have what it takes to bind the lotused foot and put the fingers of the other hand to the floor under the knee (the palm only goes flat in my case, when I am having a REALLY on day).
December will bring, perhaps, interviews; it will also bring the end of classes. The art school has its final week coming up; the composition gig goes on for two weeks. Then it's grading, grading, grading; then it's a trip east to family, then it's interviews in San Francisco, if there are any. Then it's January and it's prepping syllabi to the gills, and then it's spring semester.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Trapezoid Man dream, and takin' it easier.
Not last night but the night before, I had a first-person, highly-detailed dream about Trapezoid Man (which you faithful readers know is sometimes my nickname for this pose).
By first-person, I mean I was seeing the pose done through my eyes; I was the bodymind doing it. I was on a mat, but I can't tell if it's mine or not, and the room was dark, sort of pre-dawnish, winter light maybe. "I" (I'm not sure that the yogi actually WAS me; maybe I was visiting, as they do in Being John Malkovich) dropped back onto my hands, but the arms were straighter than mine ever are; the backbend was deeper from go. I felt the fingertips touch the mat, way before I dropped into a bent-thighs arch; the thighs were still largely straight, which means the yogi had some massive backbending going on. Then hands down, walking in, touching the toes. "I" asked the left hand to move up the foot, and it would not. The right hand would, however, and it slipped up the foot (of which I could FEEL the skin and ankle-bones; high, HIGH detail!!) and eventually cupped the heel. From there the left hand crept up and also snugged over the heel, and then (again, in first person), "my" vision moved down, down, DOWN, closer and closer to the mat, as the elbows lowered. But then I was there making a cute little arch of energy.
And that was it.
I'm kind of cranked that my subconscious did or saw this, because I've heard that what one dreams is real, to the subconscious, anyway. On a more obvious level of "where did this come from," I think it's from having seen this not long ago.
I'm taking it easier with asana for a few days: post-nasal drip and anxiety about grading and money and life are starting to make me actually ill, and that's not cool. I cannot get sick AT ALL right now, and I certainly don't want to get sick just from worrying about stupid things that I can't seem to "turn down" enough to chill. I may do some Chandra Krama to keep "in shape", and I notice that even when I don't practice, the hip flexors and gluteus meds are STILL sore all night.
This process of flexors-and-glutes is going to be one hell of an opening when it comes.
By first-person, I mean I was seeing the pose done through my eyes; I was the bodymind doing it. I was on a mat, but I can't tell if it's mine or not, and the room was dark, sort of pre-dawnish, winter light maybe. "I" (I'm not sure that the yogi actually WAS me; maybe I was visiting, as they do in Being John Malkovich) dropped back onto my hands, but the arms were straighter than mine ever are; the backbend was deeper from go. I felt the fingertips touch the mat, way before I dropped into a bent-thighs arch; the thighs were still largely straight, which means the yogi had some massive backbending going on. Then hands down, walking in, touching the toes. "I" asked the left hand to move up the foot, and it would not. The right hand would, however, and it slipped up the foot (of which I could FEEL the skin and ankle-bones; high, HIGH detail!!) and eventually cupped the heel. From there the left hand crept up and also snugged over the heel, and then (again, in first person), "my" vision moved down, down, DOWN, closer and closer to the mat, as the elbows lowered. But then I was there making a cute little arch of energy.
And that was it.
I'm kind of cranked that my subconscious did or saw this, because I've heard that what one dreams is real, to the subconscious, anyway. On a more obvious level of "where did this come from," I think it's from having seen this not long ago.
I'm taking it easier with asana for a few days: post-nasal drip and anxiety about grading and money and life are starting to make me actually ill, and that's not cool. I cannot get sick AT ALL right now, and I certainly don't want to get sick just from worrying about stupid things that I can't seem to "turn down" enough to chill. I may do some Chandra Krama to keep "in shape", and I notice that even when I don't practice, the hip flexors and gluteus meds are STILL sore all night.
This process of flexors-and-glutes is going to be one hell of an opening when it comes.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Primary plus Ten despite job market stress, and a mystery revealed.
If you look at the bio of Liz's teacher in Austin, TX, it says "He practices six days a week, even when he doesn't want to."
Now you might think, "doesn't want to?" Dude, it's a yoga practice, what fun and joy, how dare someone not want to? Or you might understand :)
I really didn't want to practice today, but figured I should, since time was not given to me yesterday to pull a practice, and I'd done Chandra Krama earlier in the week to recover from non-stop aching crankiness in the hips.
And so be it. Sweatshirted under my stairs in the Y, probably 64 degrees, which is JUST BARELY warm enough for me to want to practice. Solo show, which I also don't like, and under florescent light, which I ALSO don't like. Negativity galore. From the third sun salutation, I could clearly feel two sort of clenched-fist bulbs of white light in my abs, and I knew that if I pushed into them, it would become one of THOSE practices, full of trauma and catharsis. One has to be IN THE MOOD for one of those. It was the last thing I needed, so I went out of my way to avoid it.
Twists were very intense throughout, from standing to seated to squatting.
Backbends were insanely difficult, with the exception of Purvottanasana which was fine. I had to really take it easy in all of Intermediate's backbends, including ribs-to-floor in Dhanurasana, no arch in Bhekasana, heels up in Ustrasana, and a Kapo that was just Ustrasana with my hands by my nose, in anjali mudra. SUPER reduced.
I made myself do five wheels--"you're going to do whatever's necessary to do 5 of these"--and bent-armed them all, trying to just barely push into those energy fists in my belly. Success. Five for five.
Vinyasa was unaffected, and in fact was downright powerful throughout the whole practice. Even Supta K didn't cooperate; I couldn't get my feet hooked. Silliness. Poses in seated, however, such as the Janu Sirsasana's, were as deep as ever. It seems that my core power and hamstring length are consistent. Good.
So, what's the deal, you ask?
Here's the mystery: there is stress in the world. Some of it, depending on one's experience and constitution, is easier or harder to handle. The stress which I find MOST challenging is long-term ambiguity about long-term material needs. Translation? My financial future, which is completely hand-to-mouth, makes me anxious. The academic job market, which is a huge unpredictable crap shoot, is what I'm relying on to DETERMINE my financial future. I need, without exception, $1400 a month. I currently have that until June. Debt certain, income temporary. This, I find extraordinarily stressful.
Those of you who've been reading this for a long time will recall that from last November to January, I had sensations JUST LIKE those "energy fists" and I had practices JUST LIKE THESE; same with late dissertation, same with job insecurity, same with last year's job market.
Thus, these mystery practices are no mystery. They tend to happen from late fall to early winter, and they have increased in frequency and intensity ever since I saw the end of the dissertation coming (and that means, the beginning of 'the real world').
I handle short-term stress quite well; long-term stress is harder. Long-term stress about my uncertain income, combined with my certain debt, which also doubles as potential long-distance relating, with totally uncertain job satisfaction (which would then result in even MORE insecurity as I do the market again), is the hardest. This, and not cold weather, or florescent light, or solitude, is what is behind my "fall and winter" practices.
Mystery solved. I shall expect, then, to have pretty intense, careful, attentive practices from now until January.
I cannot WAIT until this bullshit resolves. Come on job market! (rolls dice)
Now you might think, "doesn't want to?" Dude, it's a yoga practice, what fun and joy, how dare someone not want to? Or you might understand :)
I really didn't want to practice today, but figured I should, since time was not given to me yesterday to pull a practice, and I'd done Chandra Krama earlier in the week to recover from non-stop aching crankiness in the hips.
And so be it. Sweatshirted under my stairs in the Y, probably 64 degrees, which is JUST BARELY warm enough for me to want to practice. Solo show, which I also don't like, and under florescent light, which I ALSO don't like. Negativity galore. From the third sun salutation, I could clearly feel two sort of clenched-fist bulbs of white light in my abs, and I knew that if I pushed into them, it would become one of THOSE practices, full of trauma and catharsis. One has to be IN THE MOOD for one of those. It was the last thing I needed, so I went out of my way to avoid it.
Twists were very intense throughout, from standing to seated to squatting.
Backbends were insanely difficult, with the exception of Purvottanasana which was fine. I had to really take it easy in all of Intermediate's backbends, including ribs-to-floor in Dhanurasana, no arch in Bhekasana, heels up in Ustrasana, and a Kapo that was just Ustrasana with my hands by my nose, in anjali mudra. SUPER reduced.
I made myself do five wheels--"you're going to do whatever's necessary to do 5 of these"--and bent-armed them all, trying to just barely push into those energy fists in my belly. Success. Five for five.
Vinyasa was unaffected, and in fact was downright powerful throughout the whole practice. Even Supta K didn't cooperate; I couldn't get my feet hooked. Silliness. Poses in seated, however, such as the Janu Sirsasana's, were as deep as ever. It seems that my core power and hamstring length are consistent. Good.
So, what's the deal, you ask?
Here's the mystery: there is stress in the world. Some of it, depending on one's experience and constitution, is easier or harder to handle. The stress which I find MOST challenging is long-term ambiguity about long-term material needs. Translation? My financial future, which is completely hand-to-mouth, makes me anxious. The academic job market, which is a huge unpredictable crap shoot, is what I'm relying on to DETERMINE my financial future. I need, without exception, $1400 a month. I currently have that until June. Debt certain, income temporary. This, I find extraordinarily stressful.
Those of you who've been reading this for a long time will recall that from last November to January, I had sensations JUST LIKE those "energy fists" and I had practices JUST LIKE THESE; same with late dissertation, same with job insecurity, same with last year's job market.
Thus, these mystery practices are no mystery. They tend to happen from late fall to early winter, and they have increased in frequency and intensity ever since I saw the end of the dissertation coming (and that means, the beginning of 'the real world').
I handle short-term stress quite well; long-term stress is harder. Long-term stress about my uncertain income, combined with my certain debt, which also doubles as potential long-distance relating, with totally uncertain job satisfaction (which would then result in even MORE insecurity as I do the market again), is the hardest. This, and not cold weather, or florescent light, or solitude, is what is behind my "fall and winter" practices.
Mystery solved. I shall expect, then, to have pretty intense, careful, attentive practices from now until January.
I cannot WAIT until this bullshit resolves. Come on job market! (rolls dice)
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
I go through phases like this.
Earlier tonight I read an entry on this very blog from September 2007, where I was studying my slow progress of hands-toward-feet in Kapotasana. The pose was almost EXACTLY where it still is.
I hadn't, it's true, been taken to my feet six times, as I have since then, but come on now, that's FOURTEEN MONTHS ago.
In the Saturday breakout vinyasa classes, I notice that my backbending focus has given me more depth in numerous poses:
in standing splits, the raised leg is CLEARLY higher and straighter than it used to be.
in seated splits, the front thighs give more and the pose calls for more from the hamstrings. It too, deepens.
in Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (pigeon lunge, bring back foot toward head), my left foot is creeping quite dangerously close to my head. I can't do the overhead reach yet, but I can certainly think about it. This is clear, physically measurable progress.
In Kapotasana itself, particularly when I practice it at 64 degrees, no change.
Perhaps I need to revisit the late-night Monday "Intro to Intermediate" which, due to school, I've only been able to attend about four times all semester. It comes with human energy, warmth, and instruction. Perhaps there I will see where my Kapo REALLY is.
****************
One really never has a "real" asana practice. That's a deception. Sure, I can fairly regularly pull every pose of Primary, but what about the days I can't balance? Why shouldn't that be my "real" practice? What would it mean if it were?
Why do I even care if I ever take my feet in that backbend? (because you have numerous voices, online and off, and a tradition, which says that heels is the official watermark on that pose, and only at that point, do you move on--YEAH BUT what about the fact that my two post-SF mysore room experiences let me run up to Kapo EVEN THOUGH those teachers KNEW by my own admission that I didn't really drop back? How do you explain THAT?)
Is that kind of fire-ants-in-the-head really necessary? Am I really going to have that discussion again?
I have 30, maybe as many as 35, but not more than that, days of Mysore-room experience. My Ashtanga practice is 4 years and 4 months old: that's SIXTEEN HUNDRED days. 1600/30.
My partner not long ago, having to put up with this self-investigation, said:
"Maybe that's as far as your body ACTUALLY GOES in that pose."
That's possible. I had multiple reactions:
1) Nah, I don't want to give up the fight yet.
2) Man, that'd be refreshing.
In a way, I want regular exposure to a teacher so that I can either be put in that pose to my maximum ability (whatever that is) or else have it said by an authority that my maximum ability is as far as it currently is. Either I do more pose or I do enough pose. Really, all I want to know is which one it is.
When I try to teach myself Kapotasana, which is a ridiculous proposition, I rely on advice given to me by people who can do it. For obvious reasons, I trust people who've adjusted me in it more than people who haven't.
No visible progress is coming in it, although as I've said, visible progress is happening in a bunch of OTHER postures. I'm going to keep doing it, progress or not, because that's what you do. You walk face into the wall until the day when a passage mysteriously and for no reason, opens before you. That's how it is.
I hadn't, it's true, been taken to my feet six times, as I have since then, but come on now, that's FOURTEEN MONTHS ago.
In the Saturday breakout vinyasa classes, I notice that my backbending focus has given me more depth in numerous poses:
in standing splits, the raised leg is CLEARLY higher and straighter than it used to be.
in seated splits, the front thighs give more and the pose calls for more from the hamstrings. It too, deepens.
in Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (pigeon lunge, bring back foot toward head), my left foot is creeping quite dangerously close to my head. I can't do the overhead reach yet, but I can certainly think about it. This is clear, physically measurable progress.
In Kapotasana itself, particularly when I practice it at 64 degrees, no change.
Perhaps I need to revisit the late-night Monday "Intro to Intermediate" which, due to school, I've only been able to attend about four times all semester. It comes with human energy, warmth, and instruction. Perhaps there I will see where my Kapo REALLY is.
****************
One really never has a "real" asana practice. That's a deception. Sure, I can fairly regularly pull every pose of Primary, but what about the days I can't balance? Why shouldn't that be my "real" practice? What would it mean if it were?
Why do I even care if I ever take my feet in that backbend? (because you have numerous voices, online and off, and a tradition, which says that heels is the official watermark on that pose, and only at that point, do you move on--YEAH BUT what about the fact that my two post-SF mysore room experiences let me run up to Kapo EVEN THOUGH those teachers KNEW by my own admission that I didn't really drop back? How do you explain THAT?)
Is that kind of fire-ants-in-the-head really necessary? Am I really going to have that discussion again?
I have 30, maybe as many as 35, but not more than that, days of Mysore-room experience. My Ashtanga practice is 4 years and 4 months old: that's SIXTEEN HUNDRED days. 1600/30.
My partner not long ago, having to put up with this self-investigation, said:
"Maybe that's as far as your body ACTUALLY GOES in that pose."
That's possible. I had multiple reactions:
1) Nah, I don't want to give up the fight yet.
2) Man, that'd be refreshing.
In a way, I want regular exposure to a teacher so that I can either be put in that pose to my maximum ability (whatever that is) or else have it said by an authority that my maximum ability is as far as it currently is. Either I do more pose or I do enough pose. Really, all I want to know is which one it is.
When I try to teach myself Kapotasana, which is a ridiculous proposition, I rely on advice given to me by people who can do it. For obvious reasons, I trust people who've adjusted me in it more than people who haven't.
No visible progress is coming in it, although as I've said, visible progress is happening in a bunch of OTHER postures. I'm going to keep doing it, progress or not, because that's what you do. You walk face into the wall until the day when a passage mysteriously and for no reason, opens before you. That's how it is.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Lunges, backbends, vinyasa, climbing: a thousand movements.
I knew this, of course, but I move in a lot of different ways.
There is my now-suprisingly-regular Ashtanga practice, which in full form is Primary plus ten (Kapotasana) to fifteen (Eka Pada Sirsasana) poses.
There is also the Saturday morning vinyasa class downtown, which has been awesome for the past couple weeks, even more than usual. I mean lunges, Utkatasana variations, Ardha Chandrasana variations (like taking the top leg in a Dhanurasana hold), Krounchasana and/or Hanumanasana, and minutes of improvisation in Bakasana, where I usually try on the tripod headstand versions of Eka Pada Bakasana (I often get one side but don't get the other; man, that pose is HARD!). I've been adding in backbends (Urdhva Dhanurasanas, that is) during the closing ab work, and last time I was in that class I actually stuck a handstand jump (with knees bent) and took a breath or two while floating it. That was cool; I love the Saturday breakouts.
Yesterday I got an email invite to go to Bloomington and climb walls, and timing didn't work out, so I wasn't able to hook up a meeting with the folks who offered the invite, but that was fine; I set some stuff instead.
Because I only make it down there once or twice a month, usually I set as quickly as possible so that I can maintain some presence on the walls. It can be a rush to set with a "deadline" in this way, but sometimes it's stressful too (discussion of body movement as "good" stress here withheld).
I was able to set yesterday with less of a "deadline" because the schedule was different; the random day down, different people in the gym, variations. The three routes I put up (for you ratings monkeys: 5.11b?, 5.8+ and 5.10d) were very much about balance and flowing movement, very dancerly things. A lot of hip swaying, a lot of looking up and down for the foot or the hand, a lot of thinking of ways to make the move easier. Bodymind moves, choreography.
So, from all of this different body movement, I am well sore, and I've especially been so since Saturday, which was a "core practice" and for me turned into a glutes practice. The backbends of Intermediate are turning my hips inside out, as are the hang backs that I always do after some route setting. This morning all I wanted was a big Janu Sirsasana A and an Ardha Matsyendrasana. I'll almost certainly practice, but this morning, all I want is some stretch in the quadratus L and the glute max.
The backbends are still cracking me open and creating all of this emotional business, and I think they are making me what 0v0 somewhere called "all lovey and shit." This is fine, but it means, I think, a surrender of all of the (something like) power archetypes that I gathered around me after the great life changes of 2002. There is a poster for Taxi Driver in my house: "Too much abuse has been going on for too long...no more destroyers of my body. Now will be total organisation. Every muscle must be tight." A series of power archetypes, which also run to Fight Club and to The Hurricane: "I will make my body into a weapon." Sure, it's masculinist on the surface, and sure, Travis Bickle was crazy. I knew all that, but those were Lion-heavy days.
I don't think I'll consciously try to surrender these archetypes; that won't work. If whatever comes from backbending moves beyond them, so be it.
It's uncommon for me to be sore from practice, and that's weird, because I've had consistent soreness in the hip flexors since June, so maybe I'm getting used to it. This morning it is FEROCIOUS all in the hips and glutes, and it's different, as if things are gradually stretching rather than being pulled from without. Inside to out, not outside to in; this is good. It doesn't feel brilliant right now, but I'll just do less of it until it does. We're on the backbend train, which is also a train to all kinds of different things. When I have the perception to realize those other things, I'll probably call it something different. Cheerio!
There is my now-suprisingly-regular Ashtanga practice, which in full form is Primary plus ten (Kapotasana) to fifteen (Eka Pada Sirsasana) poses.
There is also the Saturday morning vinyasa class downtown, which has been awesome for the past couple weeks, even more than usual. I mean lunges, Utkatasana variations, Ardha Chandrasana variations (like taking the top leg in a Dhanurasana hold), Krounchasana and/or Hanumanasana, and minutes of improvisation in Bakasana, where I usually try on the tripod headstand versions of Eka Pada Bakasana (I often get one side but don't get the other; man, that pose is HARD!). I've been adding in backbends (Urdhva Dhanurasanas, that is) during the closing ab work, and last time I was in that class I actually stuck a handstand jump (with knees bent) and took a breath or two while floating it. That was cool; I love the Saturday breakouts.
Yesterday I got an email invite to go to Bloomington and climb walls, and timing didn't work out, so I wasn't able to hook up a meeting with the folks who offered the invite, but that was fine; I set some stuff instead.
Because I only make it down there once or twice a month, usually I set as quickly as possible so that I can maintain some presence on the walls. It can be a rush to set with a "deadline" in this way, but sometimes it's stressful too (discussion of body movement as "good" stress here withheld).
I was able to set yesterday with less of a "deadline" because the schedule was different; the random day down, different people in the gym, variations. The three routes I put up (for you ratings monkeys: 5.11b?, 5.8+ and 5.10d) were very much about balance and flowing movement, very dancerly things. A lot of hip swaying, a lot of looking up and down for the foot or the hand, a lot of thinking of ways to make the move easier. Bodymind moves, choreography.
So, from all of this different body movement, I am well sore, and I've especially been so since Saturday, which was a "core practice" and for me turned into a glutes practice. The backbends of Intermediate are turning my hips inside out, as are the hang backs that I always do after some route setting. This morning all I wanted was a big Janu Sirsasana A and an Ardha Matsyendrasana. I'll almost certainly practice, but this morning, all I want is some stretch in the quadratus L and the glute max.
The backbends are still cracking me open and creating all of this emotional business, and I think they are making me what 0v0 somewhere called "all lovey and shit." This is fine, but it means, I think, a surrender of all of the (something like) power archetypes that I gathered around me after the great life changes of 2002. There is a poster for Taxi Driver in my house: "Too much abuse has been going on for too long...no more destroyers of my body. Now will be total organisation. Every muscle must be tight." A series of power archetypes, which also run to Fight Club and to The Hurricane: "I will make my body into a weapon." Sure, it's masculinist on the surface, and sure, Travis Bickle was crazy. I knew all that, but those were Lion-heavy days.
I don't think I'll consciously try to surrender these archetypes; that won't work. If whatever comes from backbending moves beyond them, so be it.
It's uncommon for me to be sore from practice, and that's weird, because I've had consistent soreness in the hip flexors since June, so maybe I'm getting used to it. This morning it is FEROCIOUS all in the hips and glutes, and it's different, as if things are gradually stretching rather than being pulled from without. Inside to out, not outside to in; this is good. It doesn't feel brilliant right now, but I'll just do less of it until it does. We're on the backbend train, which is also a train to all kinds of different things. When I have the perception to realize those other things, I'll probably call it something different. Cheerio!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Intense practice: backbends, psoas.
My relationship with backbends seems to be a real solo flight, in the cyber-shala as well as in real life, as far as I've heard, so maybe there will be few readers of this one, and that's cool.
I already don't have the experience as at-hand as I did at 12:30, when I got up off the mat in the Y, near the track, under the dark-red-painted stairs. Note to self: the 6-8 degree temperature differential between the house (58) and the Y (64-66 probably) is freakin' HUGE. I can practice in shorts and double t-shirts in the Y, and today I added sweatshirt for extra heat, and it was fine. Quite sweaty actually.
I knew from the first sun salutations that something special awaited in the quads, the psoas, the low back and the abs. This became clearer in Sun B's, where the Utkatasana entry and the mid-salutation Virabhadrasanas started to crack into the hips.
Electricity. Release. Cracking open. White light.
It didn't really bite down until Janu A, which was SO INTENSE in the low back, musculature of the back just PEELING away from the hipbones. Quadratus lumborum surging up and open like some kind of fascia sunrise.
Less, but similar, intensity in Janu Sirsasana C.
The Marichyasanas were ALL intense, all 8 of them (ABCD, both sides). Hip flexors, QL, glutes in the twists, all over. I took extra breaths after each side of every one.
Navasana, however, was much easier than it has been of late. (WTF??)
Also, some of the smoothest entries/exits in Bhujapidasana and the Kurmasanas, all week. Again, WTF??
Baddha K, where I very nearly put my face on the floor beyond my feet (and for me that is a GIANT Baddha K), resonated in my hips all the way through to Supta Konasana.
Intense emotional release began in Supta Padangusthasana, and I also could not balance for my life today in Supta Konasana, Ubhaya Padangusthasana and Urdhva Mukha Paschimo, none of which are usually any trouble at all.
Pasasana was all about intensity blazing in the glutes and not about the hands being bound. Absolutely UNREAL intensity. Right at the glute max and the sacrum (must consult anatomy book to see if the glutes attach there), this white-light stretch, uncommon.
Bhekasana saw me with some extra height, coming out of the mid-back, and that was welcome. Updog, all practice long, had been fairly big (a little reluctant in the sun salutations, but that's typical).
Dhanurasana was good, but I felt extra intense goodness waiting in Parsva Dhanurasana, and so I held each side for 8 breaths rather than 5 and every single extra breath just about redoubled the pose's blazing nodes of white light in the hip flexors. Holy COW is that pose intense. Yes, I know it looks like nothing, but do Parsva Dh. with MY HIPS and you will understand.
Ustrasana, at first, felt like nothing; no sensation. But then I listened more closely and actually felt something like the psoas lengthening, like an octopus tentacle. It is SUPER SUPER FREAKY to feel something in the center of your body MOVE. It's the same kind of freakiness that comes from dentists' drills and traumatic injuries like ligament tears. You FEEL the inside of you, and for a second, it's very "omg I'm gonna hurl" and then you get over it.
That was enough: the last thing in the world that I wanted was to feel this practice's version of Kapo, if THAT is what its Ustrasana felt like. I STILL shiver at the thought.
Urdhva Dhanurasana: there were blazing points of release, which weren't sure if they were trauma or blessings, all OVER my glutes at this point, both the big gluteus maxes and the lateral gluteus med's. Also, the psoas was all activated and wriggling around. Good backbending was not foretold, but I breathed and pressed up into one of my bent-arm struggle-for-air wheels and held it for five, and then lowered to my head and then pressed up again, felt the whole "fuse box" of my hip flexors and glutes sort of "blow out" and let it all go.
This would not do. I laid out and breathed for a while (practice had been interrupted by emotional release, shakings, laughings, and whatnot at least four times by this point anyway), and then took what I once read that Tias Little teaches for Supta Virasana:
Fold one leg back (as for Virasana) and RAISE the other knee. THEN lean back, maybe to the floor. Keep the Virasana-side glute soft. TOTALLY gets into the deep flexors. Shaking, releasing, pulling open, very deep, pretty intense. Not totally comfortable, either physically or emotionally, but I could handle it.
After both sides of that, I was able to push up into a big tiptoe wheel with arms straight, and hold for 5, and then drop my feet flat and hold THAT for 5. I tried a hangback, got hands to chest for 5 more in a fairly shallow but successful hang, and called it a practice.
Practices like this are hard-won openings; they have to be. I wasn't tight, really, although the wheels looked it. In fact, many of the poses which earned "release" were some of the biggest versions I'd done of late. The Supta Pad, the Baddha K, the final (post-Parsva) Dhanurasana, all of those were freakin' GIGANTIC.
The really quite icky-feeling psoas movement of Ustrasana and the Supta Virasana, might well turn into big, brilliant backbends tomorrow. Who knows.
I keep asking for Kapo and it seems to me that THIS is how I'm getting it. Perhaps my early experiences with Primary, which were backbend-light, were so (in terms of the big picture) because body sensation THIS INTENSE would have freaked me out four years ago. Maybe ONLY NOW can I handle this kind of transformation, because after all, my front hips are where I keep ALL my bad emotional business. The release of shaking and laugh-crying my way out of the Baddha K energy or, most intense, the Pasasana energy, was deep and very chill. Very much like film representations of therapy breakthroughs.
"It's a homeopathic dose," a blogger once said to me about poses. I found myself thinking about Reichian therapy during practice. I've been reading a lot about affect (emotional affect) and cinema recently, and seeing in some cases a lot of really intense body-blood-viscera footage in the "extreme" films I'm researching, and so also, I was thinking about this practice as a "body genre," as a sort of effect in-body, not just for the mind and some detached idea of "focus."
I came out of one of the release-sessions, and actually said, in a whisper, "Kaivalya," which is usually translated as "freedom." It's a therapeutic practice. This wasn't about "bigger backbends" or "deeper poses," but quite literally about releasing stuff (muscular-emotional-physical-psychological stuff; there really IS NO DIFFERENCE; those are NOT FOUR THINGS).
Then I knew, or re-learned, what the asana practice is, perhaps just for me, REALLY FOR. It IS for focus and mind-training and all of that, and pranayama too, and all of that, but it is very much, now that I/it/some agent is cracking into the glutes/flexors/hips, and quite literally, about TRANSFORMATION. If one IS one's memories, one's experiences (yes, we enter existential territory here), then changing one's physical retention of memories/experiences-as-emotions-as-body/embodiment, is a profound change, not just of the physical OR mental-emotional-psychological, but as ALL of that, and further, a change which DENIES THE SEPERATENESS of those spheres. Mind-body problem be damned!
I remember a talented backbender once writing that the skills came from self-acceptance and overnight listening to recordings which promoted that. That COMPLETELY makes sense right now.
It's exactly like the slightly armchair psychology of GOOD WILL HUNTING: It's ok, Will, it's ok; it's ok; it's ok. A mantra. Repeat it until breakthrough occurs.
Weird questions arise from this:
What, then, is/will be Kapo? What IS that pose? Who will I be when I can do it? Will I need to be alive any more once this is processed? How much of who I think I am is built on long-held unhappiness and suffering? What will it REALLY mean to undercut those foundations? Am I ripe for my fruit? When I can "do" Kapo, WHY WILL I KEEP PRACTICING?
Perhaps this is an introspective phase of practice; one which will turn extroverted again later. Extroversion always makes more sense to me; it's my home setting. So answers will become apparent.
This ACTUALLY calls for meditation, for chanting, for sitting still. An 8-limbed path grows out of one's asana/pranayama practice, that's what they say, right? And it HAS TO. One goes CRAZY trying to handle this without those branches.
I already don't have the experience as at-hand as I did at 12:30, when I got up off the mat in the Y, near the track, under the dark-red-painted stairs. Note to self: the 6-8 degree temperature differential between the house (58) and the Y (64-66 probably) is freakin' HUGE. I can practice in shorts and double t-shirts in the Y, and today I added sweatshirt for extra heat, and it was fine. Quite sweaty actually.
I knew from the first sun salutations that something special awaited in the quads, the psoas, the low back and the abs. This became clearer in Sun B's, where the Utkatasana entry and the mid-salutation Virabhadrasanas started to crack into the hips.
Electricity. Release. Cracking open. White light.
It didn't really bite down until Janu A, which was SO INTENSE in the low back, musculature of the back just PEELING away from the hipbones. Quadratus lumborum surging up and open like some kind of fascia sunrise.
Less, but similar, intensity in Janu Sirsasana C.
The Marichyasanas were ALL intense, all 8 of them (ABCD, both sides). Hip flexors, QL, glutes in the twists, all over. I took extra breaths after each side of every one.
Navasana, however, was much easier than it has been of late. (WTF??)
Also, some of the smoothest entries/exits in Bhujapidasana and the Kurmasanas, all week. Again, WTF??
Baddha K, where I very nearly put my face on the floor beyond my feet (and for me that is a GIANT Baddha K), resonated in my hips all the way through to Supta Konasana.
Intense emotional release began in Supta Padangusthasana, and I also could not balance for my life today in Supta Konasana, Ubhaya Padangusthasana and Urdhva Mukha Paschimo, none of which are usually any trouble at all.
Pasasana was all about intensity blazing in the glutes and not about the hands being bound. Absolutely UNREAL intensity. Right at the glute max and the sacrum (must consult anatomy book to see if the glutes attach there), this white-light stretch, uncommon.
Bhekasana saw me with some extra height, coming out of the mid-back, and that was welcome. Updog, all practice long, had been fairly big (a little reluctant in the sun salutations, but that's typical).
Dhanurasana was good, but I felt extra intense goodness waiting in Parsva Dhanurasana, and so I held each side for 8 breaths rather than 5 and every single extra breath just about redoubled the pose's blazing nodes of white light in the hip flexors. Holy COW is that pose intense. Yes, I know it looks like nothing, but do Parsva Dh. with MY HIPS and you will understand.
Ustrasana, at first, felt like nothing; no sensation. But then I listened more closely and actually felt something like the psoas lengthening, like an octopus tentacle. It is SUPER SUPER FREAKY to feel something in the center of your body MOVE. It's the same kind of freakiness that comes from dentists' drills and traumatic injuries like ligament tears. You FEEL the inside of you, and for a second, it's very "omg I'm gonna hurl" and then you get over it.
That was enough: the last thing in the world that I wanted was to feel this practice's version of Kapo, if THAT is what its Ustrasana felt like. I STILL shiver at the thought.
Urdhva Dhanurasana: there were blazing points of release, which weren't sure if they were trauma or blessings, all OVER my glutes at this point, both the big gluteus maxes and the lateral gluteus med's. Also, the psoas was all activated and wriggling around. Good backbending was not foretold, but I breathed and pressed up into one of my bent-arm struggle-for-air wheels and held it for five, and then lowered to my head and then pressed up again, felt the whole "fuse box" of my hip flexors and glutes sort of "blow out" and let it all go.
This would not do. I laid out and breathed for a while (practice had been interrupted by emotional release, shakings, laughings, and whatnot at least four times by this point anyway), and then took what I once read that Tias Little teaches for Supta Virasana:
Fold one leg back (as for Virasana) and RAISE the other knee. THEN lean back, maybe to the floor. Keep the Virasana-side glute soft. TOTALLY gets into the deep flexors. Shaking, releasing, pulling open, very deep, pretty intense. Not totally comfortable, either physically or emotionally, but I could handle it.
After both sides of that, I was able to push up into a big tiptoe wheel with arms straight, and hold for 5, and then drop my feet flat and hold THAT for 5. I tried a hangback, got hands to chest for 5 more in a fairly shallow but successful hang, and called it a practice.
Practices like this are hard-won openings; they have to be. I wasn't tight, really, although the wheels looked it. In fact, many of the poses which earned "release" were some of the biggest versions I'd done of late. The Supta Pad, the Baddha K, the final (post-Parsva) Dhanurasana, all of those were freakin' GIGANTIC.
The really quite icky-feeling psoas movement of Ustrasana and the Supta Virasana, might well turn into big, brilliant backbends tomorrow. Who knows.
I keep asking for Kapo and it seems to me that THIS is how I'm getting it. Perhaps my early experiences with Primary, which were backbend-light, were so (in terms of the big picture) because body sensation THIS INTENSE would have freaked me out four years ago. Maybe ONLY NOW can I handle this kind of transformation, because after all, my front hips are where I keep ALL my bad emotional business. The release of shaking and laugh-crying my way out of the Baddha K energy or, most intense, the Pasasana energy, was deep and very chill. Very much like film representations of therapy breakthroughs.
"It's a homeopathic dose," a blogger once said to me about poses. I found myself thinking about Reichian therapy during practice. I've been reading a lot about affect (emotional affect) and cinema recently, and seeing in some cases a lot of really intense body-blood-viscera footage in the "extreme" films I'm researching, and so also, I was thinking about this practice as a "body genre," as a sort of effect in-body, not just for the mind and some detached idea of "focus."
I came out of one of the release-sessions, and actually said, in a whisper, "Kaivalya," which is usually translated as "freedom." It's a therapeutic practice. This wasn't about "bigger backbends" or "deeper poses," but quite literally about releasing stuff (muscular-emotional-physical-psychological stuff; there really IS NO DIFFERENCE; those are NOT FOUR THINGS).
Then I knew, or re-learned, what the asana practice is, perhaps just for me, REALLY FOR. It IS for focus and mind-training and all of that, and pranayama too, and all of that, but it is very much, now that I/it/some agent is cracking into the glutes/flexors/hips, and quite literally, about TRANSFORMATION. If one IS one's memories, one's experiences (yes, we enter existential territory here), then changing one's physical retention of memories/experiences-as-emotions-as-body/embodiment, is a profound change, not just of the physical OR mental-emotional-psychological, but as ALL of that, and further, a change which DENIES THE SEPERATENESS of those spheres. Mind-body problem be damned!
I remember a talented backbender once writing that the skills came from self-acceptance and overnight listening to recordings which promoted that. That COMPLETELY makes sense right now.
It's exactly like the slightly armchair psychology of GOOD WILL HUNTING: It's ok, Will, it's ok; it's ok; it's ok. A mantra. Repeat it until breakthrough occurs.
Weird questions arise from this:
What, then, is/will be Kapo? What IS that pose? Who will I be when I can do it? Will I need to be alive any more once this is processed? How much of who I think I am is built on long-held unhappiness and suffering? What will it REALLY mean to undercut those foundations? Am I ripe for my fruit? When I can "do" Kapo, WHY WILL I KEEP PRACTICING?
Perhaps this is an introspective phase of practice; one which will turn extroverted again later. Extroversion always makes more sense to me; it's my home setting. So answers will become apparent.
This ACTUALLY calls for meditation, for chanting, for sitting still. An 8-limbed path grows out of one's asana/pranayama practice, that's what they say, right? And it HAS TO. One goes CRAZY trying to handle this without those branches.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Job applications and 58 degrees.
Small notices and letters are beginning to come in, reading "Thank you for your letter of application...by early December we will be doing preliminary interviews with selected candidates."
Unheard-of nervousness ensues as the future is now created for me: early December now EXISTS, and I have ever found this kind of futurity stressful. WILL there be interviews? Panic. Will there NOT be interviews? Panic. WILL they go well and lead to campus visits? Panic. Will that NOT happen? Panic.
What kind of lose-lose game have I gotten INTO here? You will recall that this was EXACTLY my emotional state LAST November as well, and for exactly the same reasons.
******
I have finished grading the 180 art history tests; seven pages per. Over a THOUSAND pages of marking. I estimate that the pile weighed about 12 POUNDS. I brought that little stack of hell with me EVERYWHERE for four days, grading before yoga classes, around sips of coffee, while movies ran on the DVD player, everywhere. Kneeling, cobra-ing, folded into Janu A formation, into a non-lotused Bharadvajasana formation, into a pigeon formation, ever-changing, and STILL my hips and glutes turned into a twisted mess that it's taken me two practices to undo.
******
Today I wasn't in the mood for the florescently lit basketball court-surrounded-by-track setting of the Y, with its aging walkers who try, apparently, not to look at me as I do my 80-odd poses in the corner under the red-painted stairs by the big black column wrapped in some kind of plastic to make it safe, it seems, for people to run into.
So I put on the polar fleece sweatshirt and the Under Armor sweatpants, over shorts and t-shirt, and went for it in the living room, with the house at its usual temperature for fall and winter, 58 degrees. That's right.
Soft, but brilliant, salutations, and a big easy standing series. Less restrictive to do it in sweats than I'd remembered. Sweating by seated series; warm throughout. Vinyasa--in particular jumping back--was hard and only got harder with each pose. That, I DO remember from the past. Release of the grading-asana was so intense that by Marichyasana B I called it a practice and went to what could be said to resemble backbends. Three bent-arm struggling wheels, trying to stretch abs that felt like they were made of hard plastic. The quads flexed and burned out, just like that. I let them all go. Then I laid out on the floor and laughed, loudly, for a few minutes. Hi, four years of dedicated practice! You wouldn't know it from one round of art history grading and a cold room! Hah! What a freakin' riot! FOUR MONTHS AGO I was dropping back somewhat softly onto my hands, and now I can't freakin straighten my arms for my LIFE???? Thanks, fall semester! I love you too!
Seriously.
So I waited out the humor and then I pressed up, over and over and over, until I could get my arms straight. No matter of two breaths, three breaths, five breaths; up until it maxed out, hold a breath, come down, repeat. Up, hold the max, come down. Further, then a little further, then as far and more comfortable, and so on. I think I did a total of something like 8-9 backbends, but it was all necessary to get the grading-asana the hell out of my glutes and hips and flexors. Like one massive counterpose.
A light closing series and then really I felt pretty good. I've been experiencing Primary (or, since Monday, partial Primary) as really a therapeutic practice. Not restorative; it's not nearly THAT easy; it is, however, definitely therapeutic.
Sensation is starting to expand and deepen in my hip flexors and the whole glute system of muscles. I feel, regularly now, an "arc" of energy which moves from deep in the front hip, to the low back, and then around in a sickle, in the glute max and over to the superficial and deeper glutes in the lateral hip. This increase in sensation I think comes from long work on those units and predicts change, opening, so that possibly, SOME MORNING before I turn freakin FIFTY, I may feel something OTHER than crankiness in the hip flexors.
Travel plans are laid:
Dec 19, to Philadelphia to see partner's family; then up to see mine in the Boston area; Dec 26, fly back to Indy.
Dec 28, if necessary, I fly to SF to (again, if necessary) have job interviews. I return the night (overnight flight) of the 30th, landing in Indy on the 31st.
Job potential is in MA, VA, PA, NC, SC, TX, NY, OH (but I doubt it), WI, IL. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, westerly this year. But look at all those freakin' blue states. Also, three jobs alone, in Massachusetts. One is out of my league and really, so is another one, but that third one is well-suited. So is the gig (not tenure-track, but who cares) in Chicago.
And of course I checked to see where the Mysore rooms are.
Unheard-of nervousness ensues as the future is now created for me: early December now EXISTS, and I have ever found this kind of futurity stressful. WILL there be interviews? Panic. Will there NOT be interviews? Panic. WILL they go well and lead to campus visits? Panic. Will that NOT happen? Panic.
What kind of lose-lose game have I gotten INTO here? You will recall that this was EXACTLY my emotional state LAST November as well, and for exactly the same reasons.
******
I have finished grading the 180 art history tests; seven pages per. Over a THOUSAND pages of marking. I estimate that the pile weighed about 12 POUNDS. I brought that little stack of hell with me EVERYWHERE for four days, grading before yoga classes, around sips of coffee, while movies ran on the DVD player, everywhere. Kneeling, cobra-ing, folded into Janu A formation, into a non-lotused Bharadvajasana formation, into a pigeon formation, ever-changing, and STILL my hips and glutes turned into a twisted mess that it's taken me two practices to undo.
******
Today I wasn't in the mood for the florescently lit basketball court-surrounded-by-track setting of the Y, with its aging walkers who try, apparently, not to look at me as I do my 80-odd poses in the corner under the red-painted stairs by the big black column wrapped in some kind of plastic to make it safe, it seems, for people to run into.
So I put on the polar fleece sweatshirt and the Under Armor sweatpants, over shorts and t-shirt, and went for it in the living room, with the house at its usual temperature for fall and winter, 58 degrees. That's right.
Soft, but brilliant, salutations, and a big easy standing series. Less restrictive to do it in sweats than I'd remembered. Sweating by seated series; warm throughout. Vinyasa--in particular jumping back--was hard and only got harder with each pose. That, I DO remember from the past. Release of the grading-asana was so intense that by Marichyasana B I called it a practice and went to what could be said to resemble backbends. Three bent-arm struggling wheels, trying to stretch abs that felt like they were made of hard plastic. The quads flexed and burned out, just like that. I let them all go. Then I laid out on the floor and laughed, loudly, for a few minutes. Hi, four years of dedicated practice! You wouldn't know it from one round of art history grading and a cold room! Hah! What a freakin' riot! FOUR MONTHS AGO I was dropping back somewhat softly onto my hands, and now I can't freakin straighten my arms for my LIFE???? Thanks, fall semester! I love you too!
Seriously.
So I waited out the humor and then I pressed up, over and over and over, until I could get my arms straight. No matter of two breaths, three breaths, five breaths; up until it maxed out, hold a breath, come down, repeat. Up, hold the max, come down. Further, then a little further, then as far and more comfortable, and so on. I think I did a total of something like 8-9 backbends, but it was all necessary to get the grading-asana the hell out of my glutes and hips and flexors. Like one massive counterpose.
A light closing series and then really I felt pretty good. I've been experiencing Primary (or, since Monday, partial Primary) as really a therapeutic practice. Not restorative; it's not nearly THAT easy; it is, however, definitely therapeutic.
Sensation is starting to expand and deepen in my hip flexors and the whole glute system of muscles. I feel, regularly now, an "arc" of energy which moves from deep in the front hip, to the low back, and then around in a sickle, in the glute max and over to the superficial and deeper glutes in the lateral hip. This increase in sensation I think comes from long work on those units and predicts change, opening, so that possibly, SOME MORNING before I turn freakin FIFTY, I may feel something OTHER than crankiness in the hip flexors.
Travel plans are laid:
Dec 19, to Philadelphia to see partner's family; then up to see mine in the Boston area; Dec 26, fly back to Indy.
Dec 28, if necessary, I fly to SF to (again, if necessary) have job interviews. I return the night (overnight flight) of the 30th, landing in Indy on the 31st.
Job potential is in MA, VA, PA, NC, SC, TX, NY, OH (but I doubt it), WI, IL. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, westerly this year. But look at all those freakin' blue states. Also, three jobs alone, in Massachusetts. One is out of my league and really, so is another one, but that third one is well-suited. So is the gig (not tenure-track, but who cares) in Chicago.
And of course I checked to see where the Mysore rooms are.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Suprisingly marvelous Primary.
I was tired, from being up at 4 am. Would I practice? Yes, I was certain that I would; after all, it had been a FULL practice week, a rarity in my busy fall semester. Would I throw down a 75 minute span on the mat?
Yes; it took until 1:30 pm, but I did it. 1:30-2:45, right over there on the living room floor.
I was determined to take it soft, but it just wasn't to be. The poses, the breath, didn't want that, and I let them instruct.
Big Virabhadrasanas in Sun B's are a key. Easy toe-taking in Utthita Trikonasana is another. These cue me that I'm going to have a big practice. If those are lacking, I move more softly, I take it easy.
Bigger, sort of "more vertical" Parsvakonasanas and Parivrttas. These are part of my progressively growing twists (my twists tend to shrink as I develop backbends).
Two days ago I sat in Marichyasanas C and D for ten breaths, really cranking the twists down into the glutes and the outer hips (in particular, the right one), and the twists have "learned" from that. They've been bigger ever since. Soon, if this progress continues, I will recover my wrist binds in those poses.
Vinyasa wasn't perfect, a lot of foot sliding on mat, but it was back, then through, then back, then through, with only one toe-catch the whole practice.
Navasana is getting harder as backbends take tension and shortness out of my hip flexors. I read once that a tight muscle is also a weak muscle, because it does not HAVE to contract; it's already chronically contracted. This is a very funny development, if it's true. The more flexible my flexors become, the harder Navasana is, until actual strength starts to take up the slack that was taken up by tension.
Feet still crossed, sort of "over" my head, in Supta Kurmasana. I was not able to do THAT all week. Often, because my legs are really long, my feet simply slip over my head and hang like a necklace in the exit from Supta K.
Face practically to floor beyond feet in Baddha Konasana. That ALSO is the deepest incarnation of BK all week.
Really easy, light rollups in Ubhaya Padangusthasana and Urdhva Mukha Paschimo; Matthew made a big deal out of rolling into UMP with straight legs, and I have done so every occasion since July.
Updogs, throughout practice, had been bigger than usual, and they too are a sign of the bigness or softness of my practice. How flexy is my spine feeling? Today it was, suprise of suprises (no seriously), feeling pretty flexy. I have no idea how or why, given ALL THAT KAPO all week long, but so be it.
Five of the easiest, biggest wheels ever came directly out of me after Setu Bandhasana; one right after the other, up, five, down, up, five, down, just like that. Arms big and straight. Gaze locked at nose tip. Reflection of my chest pressing forward, in the TV behind me. Yoga TV, if you will. One walk in, in the fifth wheel, and my partner came in from an errand, commenting, "Well that's a nice looking backbend." It was. I could have done another three.
Three ten-breath hangbacks, which felt like some serious effort, but it was all muscular learning in the low back and the mid back, and that was good.
25 breaths in each closing inversion; 20 in Uth Pluthi.
It was freakin brilliant. Completely suprised me after yesterday's soreness festival.
I'm going to an 8 am vinyasa class, and maybe, this weekend, to one session of a Nicki and Eddie workshop; they're in town! Anyone have a review??
See you on the mat in 10 hours!
Yes; it took until 1:30 pm, but I did it. 1:30-2:45, right over there on the living room floor.
I was determined to take it soft, but it just wasn't to be. The poses, the breath, didn't want that, and I let them instruct.
Big Virabhadrasanas in Sun B's are a key. Easy toe-taking in Utthita Trikonasana is another. These cue me that I'm going to have a big practice. If those are lacking, I move more softly, I take it easy.
Bigger, sort of "more vertical" Parsvakonasanas and Parivrttas. These are part of my progressively growing twists (my twists tend to shrink as I develop backbends).
Two days ago I sat in Marichyasanas C and D for ten breaths, really cranking the twists down into the glutes and the outer hips (in particular, the right one), and the twists have "learned" from that. They've been bigger ever since. Soon, if this progress continues, I will recover my wrist binds in those poses.
Vinyasa wasn't perfect, a lot of foot sliding on mat, but it was back, then through, then back, then through, with only one toe-catch the whole practice.
Navasana is getting harder as backbends take tension and shortness out of my hip flexors. I read once that a tight muscle is also a weak muscle, because it does not HAVE to contract; it's already chronically contracted. This is a very funny development, if it's true. The more flexible my flexors become, the harder Navasana is, until actual strength starts to take up the slack that was taken up by tension.
Feet still crossed, sort of "over" my head, in Supta Kurmasana. I was not able to do THAT all week. Often, because my legs are really long, my feet simply slip over my head and hang like a necklace in the exit from Supta K.
Face practically to floor beyond feet in Baddha Konasana. That ALSO is the deepest incarnation of BK all week.
Really easy, light rollups in Ubhaya Padangusthasana and Urdhva Mukha Paschimo; Matthew made a big deal out of rolling into UMP with straight legs, and I have done so every occasion since July.
Updogs, throughout practice, had been bigger than usual, and they too are a sign of the bigness or softness of my practice. How flexy is my spine feeling? Today it was, suprise of suprises (no seriously), feeling pretty flexy. I have no idea how or why, given ALL THAT KAPO all week long, but so be it.
Five of the easiest, biggest wheels ever came directly out of me after Setu Bandhasana; one right after the other, up, five, down, up, five, down, just like that. Arms big and straight. Gaze locked at nose tip. Reflection of my chest pressing forward, in the TV behind me. Yoga TV, if you will. One walk in, in the fifth wheel, and my partner came in from an errand, commenting, "Well that's a nice looking backbend." It was. I could have done another three.
Three ten-breath hangbacks, which felt like some serious effort, but it was all muscular learning in the low back and the mid back, and that was good.
25 breaths in each closing inversion; 20 in Uth Pluthi.
It was freakin brilliant. Completely suprised me after yesterday's soreness festival.
I'm going to an 8 am vinyasa class, and maybe, this weekend, to one session of a Nicki and Eddie workshop; they're in town! Anyone have a review??
See you on the mat in 10 hours!
Pre-dawn, job apps, Backbends
I got up this morning at 4:17 am.
Mostly that is from stress about dealing with job applications, grading, the early test I'm going to give later today, the 3-hour composition class I'm going to teach, the anticipated payment, THREE MONTHS LATE, from the bureaucrats who have managed basically to not pay me for my 180-student grading gig all semester long so far.
These are small things and all of them will be vastly improved in about 16 hours.
The big set of job applications is sent: this week I'll send five more, and with a spare one or two here and there, that'll be it. I don't know yet if I even need to use the ticket I bought for San Francisco, in December (hiring conference). This, again, will all sort itself out in about a month from now; five weeks maybe.
I pulled a whole week of practice. Very uncommon this semester, and the eruption of spring-ish weather, the marvelous Indian Summer we've had, really helped with that.
Outdoors every day it was available, and Primary plus Ten (which is my regular practice and will be until who KNOWS when) every day except Tuesday when I gave it up after Mari D, and Wednesday, when I tacked on five more poses.
Yesterday, on the last of the November spring days, I was SORE in the low abs and the low back; not joint sore, but muscle sore. A hang back after Kapo and three wheels was just NOT happy, so I took four breaths and went to Paschimottanasana. This is common from intense, sustained practice. Four days in Minnesota over the summer, saw me with this kind of soreness on Thursday. Similarly, in Boston. The last day was the sore one.
That doesn't go for all backbends, however: Shalabhasana improved, all week. With my low-ab-and-hip-flexor soreness, that pose was downright refreshing. Bhekasana too; it's always hard to breathe in that pose, but it never gives me any trouble.
Dhanurasana is always intense and always delicious. Double that for the Parsvas.
Ustrasana is where the effort re-begins, as the backbends turn from strengthening the back body (which I think is plenty strong), toward opening the front body. Laghu is actually SOMETHING of a break, because it's a strength pose. Then Kapo, of course, is the flexibility pose to end all flexibility poses, but that's not true.
I've been learning, since "going backbends" this past summer, that a backbend is something that LOOKS like a flexibility pose, but which is actually very much a strength pose. Anyone who drops back knows this. No, maybe that's not true either.
Backbending takes all of my concentration and then some, when I really decide to do it with attention. Take Urdhva Dhanurasana: where's my gaze? How's my breathing? Sensations: right armpit? Right hip flexors? Are the hands flat? Ribs moving up and away? Feet planted? Can we walk in? What has changed? How does that feel?
Ustrasana and, moreso, Kapo: Inner thighs rotating inward, engaged. Ribs up and away. Breathe. Abdomen LONG. Glutes SOFT. Spine LONG, arching. LONG, arching. Inhale, LONG, exhale, ARCH. Repeat.
Kapo: Inhale, hips forward, hands to face; exhale, hang. Inhale here, less ragged. Less, I say. Exhale, hang. Inhale, look back, exhale hands over, CLOSE together. Inhale here, extend arms, exhale, drop, SOFT. Stop freaking out. Hands walk IN. Inhale, PUSH, thighs ENGAGE. HOLD. Breathe. Thighs. Arching. Inhale, spine LONG, exhale ARCH; thighs, yes. Walk in. Stop dropping down. Slower. Control. Breathe. PUSH. Thighs, so noted. Ribs toward your face. Push, breathe, engage. Walk in. Panicking. So noted. Observer's mind. A teacher could take me to my feet right now; so noted; play said teacher. Walk in. No go. Scrape in; move hands any way possible. No sale. Ok then, push up. Five breaths here. Call it Kapo B.
That is SOMETHING like my inner experience in Kapo.
It is extremely chatty; flashbacks to adjustments, attention ALL OVER the place, so much to think about, concentrating on the sensations, moving from the thighs to the hands, to the spine, moving the gaze "rounded" toward the feet, pushing up, walking in, so far inevitably getting stuck, pushing up, coming down and out, call it a practice.
It's not quite frustrating and it's not quite beyond me; it's where the practice is, but it's a challenge unlike any other pose. No, that's ALSO not quite true. The inner chitchat when I try a Karandavasana is similar, but it's all about "lotus, keep balance, proprioception, think of a backbend, lower thighs to chest, KAPLUNK" (fall into a heap on floor).
The rest of Intermediate, aside from keeping the bind in Supta Vajrasana, is really pretty fine.
Sweeney says that heels is standard in Kapo; that is "the pose." I looked at my feet soon after reading that and realized that, as hard as it is for me to get my hands to my TOES, there are about SIX MORE INCHES, at LEAST, between my toes and my heels.
That will be a transformative little process.
Primary later today; curious to see how the hangbacks are doing.
Mostly that is from stress about dealing with job applications, grading, the early test I'm going to give later today, the 3-hour composition class I'm going to teach, the anticipated payment, THREE MONTHS LATE, from the bureaucrats who have managed basically to not pay me for my 180-student grading gig all semester long so far.
These are small things and all of them will be vastly improved in about 16 hours.
The big set of job applications is sent: this week I'll send five more, and with a spare one or two here and there, that'll be it. I don't know yet if I even need to use the ticket I bought for San Francisco, in December (hiring conference). This, again, will all sort itself out in about a month from now; five weeks maybe.
I pulled a whole week of practice. Very uncommon this semester, and the eruption of spring-ish weather, the marvelous Indian Summer we've had, really helped with that.
Outdoors every day it was available, and Primary plus Ten (which is my regular practice and will be until who KNOWS when) every day except Tuesday when I gave it up after Mari D, and Wednesday, when I tacked on five more poses.
Yesterday, on the last of the November spring days, I was SORE in the low abs and the low back; not joint sore, but muscle sore. A hang back after Kapo and three wheels was just NOT happy, so I took four breaths and went to Paschimottanasana. This is common from intense, sustained practice. Four days in Minnesota over the summer, saw me with this kind of soreness on Thursday. Similarly, in Boston. The last day was the sore one.
That doesn't go for all backbends, however: Shalabhasana improved, all week. With my low-ab-and-hip-flexor soreness, that pose was downright refreshing. Bhekasana too; it's always hard to breathe in that pose, but it never gives me any trouble.
Dhanurasana is always intense and always delicious. Double that for the Parsvas.
Ustrasana is where the effort re-begins, as the backbends turn from strengthening the back body (which I think is plenty strong), toward opening the front body. Laghu is actually SOMETHING of a break, because it's a strength pose. Then Kapo, of course, is the flexibility pose to end all flexibility poses, but that's not true.
I've been learning, since "going backbends" this past summer, that a backbend is something that LOOKS like a flexibility pose, but which is actually very much a strength pose. Anyone who drops back knows this. No, maybe that's not true either.
Backbending takes all of my concentration and then some, when I really decide to do it with attention. Take Urdhva Dhanurasana: where's my gaze? How's my breathing? Sensations: right armpit? Right hip flexors? Are the hands flat? Ribs moving up and away? Feet planted? Can we walk in? What has changed? How does that feel?
Ustrasana and, moreso, Kapo: Inner thighs rotating inward, engaged. Ribs up and away. Breathe. Abdomen LONG. Glutes SOFT. Spine LONG, arching. LONG, arching. Inhale, LONG, exhale, ARCH. Repeat.
Kapo: Inhale, hips forward, hands to face; exhale, hang. Inhale here, less ragged. Less, I say. Exhale, hang. Inhale, look back, exhale hands over, CLOSE together. Inhale here, extend arms, exhale, drop, SOFT. Stop freaking out. Hands walk IN. Inhale, PUSH, thighs ENGAGE. HOLD. Breathe. Thighs. Arching. Inhale, spine LONG, exhale ARCH; thighs, yes. Walk in. Stop dropping down. Slower. Control. Breathe. PUSH. Thighs, so noted. Ribs toward your face. Push, breathe, engage. Walk in. Panicking. So noted. Observer's mind. A teacher could take me to my feet right now; so noted; play said teacher. Walk in. No go. Scrape in; move hands any way possible. No sale. Ok then, push up. Five breaths here. Call it Kapo B.
That is SOMETHING like my inner experience in Kapo.
It is extremely chatty; flashbacks to adjustments, attention ALL OVER the place, so much to think about, concentrating on the sensations, moving from the thighs to the hands, to the spine, moving the gaze "rounded" toward the feet, pushing up, walking in, so far inevitably getting stuck, pushing up, coming down and out, call it a practice.
It's not quite frustrating and it's not quite beyond me; it's where the practice is, but it's a challenge unlike any other pose. No, that's ALSO not quite true. The inner chitchat when I try a Karandavasana is similar, but it's all about "lotus, keep balance, proprioception, think of a backbend, lower thighs to chest, KAPLUNK" (fall into a heap on floor).
The rest of Intermediate, aside from keeping the bind in Supta Vajrasana, is really pretty fine.
Sweeney says that heels is standard in Kapo; that is "the pose." I looked at my feet soon after reading that and realized that, as hard as it is for me to get my hands to my TOES, there are about SIX MORE INCHES, at LEAST, between my toes and my heels.
That will be a transformative little process.
Primary later today; curious to see how the hangbacks are doing.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
75 degrees, Primary plus Fifteen, OBAMA
It continues to be Indian summer: blue skies without clouds, gentle breezes, embracing sunshine, mid-70s. I have been outside every day by the Indiana State Museum for practice (perhaps there are pictures of what I call "my field" online). Said field might also be part of White River State Park; in any case, it is 60 feet of grass in every direction, skyline visible north, river visible south. Concrete walkways, public art, architecture, autumnal trees, fantastic, really wonderful, beauty. So good for practice that it's unreal.
Outside practice rocks the earth; maybe because Swenson recommended it, I take it whenever I can, and in public is better for me than in the back yard (also, the back yard is terribly uneven, whereas publicly tended fields and parks tend not to be).
So today, with marvelous energy and lightness before I even rolled out the rug, I went out to my field (hah, MY field, as if it's named for me) and did Primary plus fifteen poses, which is Intermediate from Pasasana through Eka Pada Sirsasana. Occasionally Kapo seems to me to become a roadblock, which is not healthy either for me or for Kapo, and so I run past it, just to make sure that I know that it is "only a position" after all.
I held various poses for 10 breaths, to appreciate their wonder in stretching various parts of the glutes, specifically: Janu A and C, Marichyasana C and D.
Pasasana returned to a bind on both sides, ahhh.
Dhanurasana crept up, as one blogger put it to me long ago, "behind the heart," which was spooky but also pleasant to feel. Parsva Dhanurasana remains, as ever, intense in the hip flexors, but also deeply enjoyable. Even after a vinyasa, that pose remains so "loud" in me that it's often hard to tell exactly WHAT Ustrasana is supposed to stretch. I concentrate on thighs rotating in, tailbone under, ribs up, and head back; the backbend recipe.
Tough to come up from Laghu, but successful. Today I tried what I hear is Sharath's approach to teaching Kapo: drop back, straighten arms as much as possible, walk in, straighten, walk in, and so on. I cannot get my arms straight. When I walk them in, I also drop down, nearly to the top of my head. My bodymind's aim in Kapo is to let it GO and find Supta Virasana; the POSE's aim is to go both UP and FORWARD into Kapo. Fear, anxiety, panic. We expect this.
I think I will begin taking more breaths in Kapo; I know from backbending that more breaths is generally a deeper pose. It has to develop somehow, and without a teacher to fold me into it, I have to find a way, so more breaths, at the beginning, will simply be about experimenting with sensation, endurance and various ways of approaching the pose.
The only thing that keeps me from complaining about people who find Kapo easy (and really, how the flying hell is that even humanly POSSIBLE?) is that I find Mayurasana ridiculously simple, and really about nothing other than balance.
So I ran up to Eka Pada: the bound lotus backbend after Kapo is VERY hard to do solo. The twists which follow, however, are totally delicious; very glutes-oriented, and so, SO good.
Eka Pada itself has retreated some, as it will with my not doing it, but I was able to park the left leg behind the shoulder, which really took some pressure off the neck. I held the upright position for 5 breaths, then the fold for 5 breaths, and then exited, losing the LBH in both exits. But all in all, a fine pose. Much easier than Kapo.
Five wheels, with some slight walking in of hands, and then three big, intense hangs back, hands by hips, urging the hip flexors to release, the tailbone to drop, and the hang to increase. Ten breaths per hang back.
Classical closing, with 25 breaths in each inversion and a Siddhasana after coming up from rest.
Obama:
Have you seen the acceptance speech? All of the parallelisms, the cadence, the references to the age-old documents of famous American speeches? The total and overt refusal of partisanship and the so-Bush politics of divisiveness?
Did you feel a sort of odd, irresistible "promise" from all of this? I don't mean simply an emotional spell cast by the closing repetition of "Yes We Can."
Tom Wolfe (yes, THAT Tom Wolfe, author of the Tangerine Flake Baby and such) in 1994 spoke at Bloomington about America, and he said that he was going to take a Nietzschean line on whether or not America would "make it" as a nation, and he found that the nation is capable of a sort of regeneration, that it never QUITE settles into one mode, and thus can reinvent itself from any circumstances.
It's that same animal. I feel a strange opening between my private and public lives, with this election, not because we've broken any race barrier or because the Democrats took so many seats or any of that, but because in a way we have elected an official who is NOT playing Nixon's post-sixties reactionary culture war.
This culture war, the one that is still running anti-gay-marriage and abortion rights and social conservatism and all of that anti-reason ugliness as well as political correctness and that whole game? This is largely Nixon's doing (yes, I copped that from SICKO, but I trust Moore on this one point).
To have a politician NOT in any way shape or form, address the politics of culture war (which are the Bush politics EXTRAORDINAIRE) ONLY in terms of unity and in fact in terms of "America," the nation defined by a fluid democracy, and to have such an official talk about America in terms which include "humility," is mindbending stuff.
Obama is, and always has been, even when I was aware of him just as a Senator, had a very diplomatic, highly educated, well-reasoned public speaking presence. I first voted in 1988, and I've not, before, in 20 years, seen the US elect, on a certain level, such "intelligence." I don't mean rationality or some kind of anti-faith platform, I simply mean an intelligence not couched in "MY party, THEIR party," not disguised necessarily in terms of us and them.
I DON'T want my political leaders to "be like me"; I think that whole idea is totally bankrupt and self-deceiving. I want my leaders to be superior to me, better than I am at policy. On a certain level, I WANT a type of elitism, because if I thought I could run for President or be good at it, hell, I'd run myself.
There is a feeling of not just co-operation, but of downright healing, in the air. The Bush presidency, according to MANY people I've talked to, has been like living in an emotional war zone. A lot of people are crying today just spotaneously, from the release, the catharsis.
My own emotional stance for the last eight years has been something like that of the Heisman Trophy. See a link. Charging hard. In 2004 I covered my car with political stickers, out of outrage. It was either that or just start attacking people at random in the street and beating them senseless.
I feel, and for the past couple days, have felt, rage turning down in me, the levels lowering. While I still, for example, find the Proposition 8 business in California to be the new definition of narrow-minded fear-driven idiocy of the worst possible kind, I'm not angry about it, but simply sort of sighingly bored. Yes, let the social conservatives quiver in their fear and spend their money instituting policy which governs other people's rights in a way that doesn't affect those social conservatives at all. Sure. Whatever, dude.
In a certain way, social conservatives are fine. Republicans ever since the 1970s have been ramping up the fire under those people, intentionally stoking their fear into a political force. That's playing on the Dark Side and now, it seems, that table has turned.
Enough. Enough fear and ideological terrorism. Enough of Sarah Palin refusing to qualify Eric Rudolph as a terrorist (when he quite clearly is one). Enough paranoia, enough putting the sixties on trial. Enough, Republican party. Enough culture war. Enough damage to the nation. John Stewart called you on it way back in his legendary Tucker Carlson interview (and I went to school, for the record, with Tucker Carlson). "Stop...hurting...America."
So Yes We Can, couched not in Democratic terms, not in partisan terms, but in national terms, AS the national IDENTITY, is powerful magic. NOT let's conquer Europe or let's stomp the (whoever), but simply Tes We Can. Facing economic, social, political negativity, as well as personal negativity.
Two days ago I rolled up into Kukkutasana and locked my gaze on an American flag blowing in the wind and actually felt something. Potential, sort of.
I am reducing, as I'm able, the rage I feel, have felt. Just in case the personal really is political and the door between the two is wide open. The energy shall be good. Never, have I felt anything like this in an election. It's WEIRD. But I like it.
Outside practice rocks the earth; maybe because Swenson recommended it, I take it whenever I can, and in public is better for me than in the back yard (also, the back yard is terribly uneven, whereas publicly tended fields and parks tend not to be).
So today, with marvelous energy and lightness before I even rolled out the rug, I went out to my field (hah, MY field, as if it's named for me) and did Primary plus fifteen poses, which is Intermediate from Pasasana through Eka Pada Sirsasana. Occasionally Kapo seems to me to become a roadblock, which is not healthy either for me or for Kapo, and so I run past it, just to make sure that I know that it is "only a position" after all.
I held various poses for 10 breaths, to appreciate their wonder in stretching various parts of the glutes, specifically: Janu A and C, Marichyasana C and D.
Pasasana returned to a bind on both sides, ahhh.
Dhanurasana crept up, as one blogger put it to me long ago, "behind the heart," which was spooky but also pleasant to feel. Parsva Dhanurasana remains, as ever, intense in the hip flexors, but also deeply enjoyable. Even after a vinyasa, that pose remains so "loud" in me that it's often hard to tell exactly WHAT Ustrasana is supposed to stretch. I concentrate on thighs rotating in, tailbone under, ribs up, and head back; the backbend recipe.
Tough to come up from Laghu, but successful. Today I tried what I hear is Sharath's approach to teaching Kapo: drop back, straighten arms as much as possible, walk in, straighten, walk in, and so on. I cannot get my arms straight. When I walk them in, I also drop down, nearly to the top of my head. My bodymind's aim in Kapo is to let it GO and find Supta Virasana; the POSE's aim is to go both UP and FORWARD into Kapo. Fear, anxiety, panic. We expect this.
I think I will begin taking more breaths in Kapo; I know from backbending that more breaths is generally a deeper pose. It has to develop somehow, and without a teacher to fold me into it, I have to find a way, so more breaths, at the beginning, will simply be about experimenting with sensation, endurance and various ways of approaching the pose.
The only thing that keeps me from complaining about people who find Kapo easy (and really, how the flying hell is that even humanly POSSIBLE?) is that I find Mayurasana ridiculously simple, and really about nothing other than balance.
So I ran up to Eka Pada: the bound lotus backbend after Kapo is VERY hard to do solo. The twists which follow, however, are totally delicious; very glutes-oriented, and so, SO good.
Eka Pada itself has retreated some, as it will with my not doing it, but I was able to park the left leg behind the shoulder, which really took some pressure off the neck. I held the upright position for 5 breaths, then the fold for 5 breaths, and then exited, losing the LBH in both exits. But all in all, a fine pose. Much easier than Kapo.
Five wheels, with some slight walking in of hands, and then three big, intense hangs back, hands by hips, urging the hip flexors to release, the tailbone to drop, and the hang to increase. Ten breaths per hang back.
Classical closing, with 25 breaths in each inversion and a Siddhasana after coming up from rest.
Obama:
Have you seen the acceptance speech? All of the parallelisms, the cadence, the references to the age-old documents of famous American speeches? The total and overt refusal of partisanship and the so-Bush politics of divisiveness?
Did you feel a sort of odd, irresistible "promise" from all of this? I don't mean simply an emotional spell cast by the closing repetition of "Yes We Can."
Tom Wolfe (yes, THAT Tom Wolfe, author of the Tangerine Flake Baby and such) in 1994 spoke at Bloomington about America, and he said that he was going to take a Nietzschean line on whether or not America would "make it" as a nation, and he found that the nation is capable of a sort of regeneration, that it never QUITE settles into one mode, and thus can reinvent itself from any circumstances.
It's that same animal. I feel a strange opening between my private and public lives, with this election, not because we've broken any race barrier or because the Democrats took so many seats or any of that, but because in a way we have elected an official who is NOT playing Nixon's post-sixties reactionary culture war.
This culture war, the one that is still running anti-gay-marriage and abortion rights and social conservatism and all of that anti-reason ugliness as well as political correctness and that whole game? This is largely Nixon's doing (yes, I copped that from SICKO, but I trust Moore on this one point).
To have a politician NOT in any way shape or form, address the politics of culture war (which are the Bush politics EXTRAORDINAIRE) ONLY in terms of unity and in fact in terms of "America," the nation defined by a fluid democracy, and to have such an official talk about America in terms which include "humility," is mindbending stuff.
Obama is, and always has been, even when I was aware of him just as a Senator, had a very diplomatic, highly educated, well-reasoned public speaking presence. I first voted in 1988, and I've not, before, in 20 years, seen the US elect, on a certain level, such "intelligence." I don't mean rationality or some kind of anti-faith platform, I simply mean an intelligence not couched in "MY party, THEIR party," not disguised necessarily in terms of us and them.
I DON'T want my political leaders to "be like me"; I think that whole idea is totally bankrupt and self-deceiving. I want my leaders to be superior to me, better than I am at policy. On a certain level, I WANT a type of elitism, because if I thought I could run for President or be good at it, hell, I'd run myself.
There is a feeling of not just co-operation, but of downright healing, in the air. The Bush presidency, according to MANY people I've talked to, has been like living in an emotional war zone. A lot of people are crying today just spotaneously, from the release, the catharsis.
My own emotional stance for the last eight years has been something like that of the Heisman Trophy. See a link. Charging hard. In 2004 I covered my car with political stickers, out of outrage. It was either that or just start attacking people at random in the street and beating them senseless.
I feel, and for the past couple days, have felt, rage turning down in me, the levels lowering. While I still, for example, find the Proposition 8 business in California to be the new definition of narrow-minded fear-driven idiocy of the worst possible kind, I'm not angry about it, but simply sort of sighingly bored. Yes, let the social conservatives quiver in their fear and spend their money instituting policy which governs other people's rights in a way that doesn't affect those social conservatives at all. Sure. Whatever, dude.
In a certain way, social conservatives are fine. Republicans ever since the 1970s have been ramping up the fire under those people, intentionally stoking their fear into a political force. That's playing on the Dark Side and now, it seems, that table has turned.
Enough. Enough fear and ideological terrorism. Enough of Sarah Palin refusing to qualify Eric Rudolph as a terrorist (when he quite clearly is one). Enough paranoia, enough putting the sixties on trial. Enough, Republican party. Enough culture war. Enough damage to the nation. John Stewart called you on it way back in his legendary Tucker Carlson interview (and I went to school, for the record, with Tucker Carlson). "Stop...hurting...America."
So Yes We Can, couched not in Democratic terms, not in partisan terms, but in national terms, AS the national IDENTITY, is powerful magic. NOT let's conquer Europe or let's stomp the (whoever), but simply Tes We Can. Facing economic, social, political negativity, as well as personal negativity.
Two days ago I rolled up into Kukkutasana and locked my gaze on an American flag blowing in the wind and actually felt something. Potential, sort of.
I am reducing, as I'm able, the rage I feel, have felt. Just in case the personal really is political and the door between the two is wide open. The energy shall be good. Never, have I felt anything like this in an election. It's WEIRD. But I like it.
Monday, November 3, 2008
November, Indian Summer, Primary plus ten.
It's November, and it's 70 degrees outside. This is fantastically delicious.
I practiced from about 12:45-2:15 and did my regular 82 poses. Blue skies, cotton rug on wide open expanse of green grass, all of Primary and then "my backbending sequence," Intermediate from Pasasana to Kapotasana.
Kapo is getting, gradually, bigger, which in my current experience means it's getting a little tiny bit more forward and higher, as the hip flexors so, SO SO gradually lengthen, and the thighs creep more vertical and the arms creep a bit more in toward the feet, both in the drop and the fight to walk in. I'm starting to give up on whether or not I "get it," which according to a number of bloggers is when the pose suprises one. This will be good.
Still five wheels, as in almost every practice since Austin on Oct 11. They too were bigger today, arms straighter, but no walking in. It has taken me some serious time to acquire the endurance to hold five for five.
Three hangs back, the final one with arms extended, mat visible, but too much fear to drop back. I did drop back on Saturday, after a climbing gym setting adventure, with feet flat, but it was more ballistic than I wanted. I wonder, if I had to choose, should I choose heels up with greater control, or feet flat with less?
Anyway, it is Indian summer and it RULES. This will, of course, be followed quickly by the official slam of the warm weather door until March.
I practiced from about 12:45-2:15 and did my regular 82 poses. Blue skies, cotton rug on wide open expanse of green grass, all of Primary and then "my backbending sequence," Intermediate from Pasasana to Kapotasana.
Kapo is getting, gradually, bigger, which in my current experience means it's getting a little tiny bit more forward and higher, as the hip flexors so, SO SO gradually lengthen, and the thighs creep more vertical and the arms creep a bit more in toward the feet, both in the drop and the fight to walk in. I'm starting to give up on whether or not I "get it," which according to a number of bloggers is when the pose suprises one. This will be good.
Still five wheels, as in almost every practice since Austin on Oct 11. They too were bigger today, arms straighter, but no walking in. It has taken me some serious time to acquire the endurance to hold five for five.
Three hangs back, the final one with arms extended, mat visible, but too much fear to drop back. I did drop back on Saturday, after a climbing gym setting adventure, with feet flat, but it was more ballistic than I wanted. I wonder, if I had to choose, should I choose heels up with greater control, or feet flat with less?
Anyway, it is Indian summer and it RULES. This will, of course, be followed quickly by the official slam of the warm weather door until March.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)