New car purchase, in a six-hour dash of test driving and salesman-talking. Honda. Subcompact. 2007. The newest car either of us has ever actually owned (we've had access, of course, to newer cars, but not OUR OWN). This is good.
The insurance is all settled, my ex-car towed away, and that's now memory.
Every time I do asana, all of my joints hurt, from the shoulders to the hips (especially the hips) to the right wrist. The knees, however, are fine. I figure that as long as I can stand on my head, and sit in Lotus, which I can do (both poses are actually pretty easy and accessible), I can survive anything.
With car, the Y again becomes accessible. More regular practice looms. The last time I did Primary (2 days ago) jumpbacks were impossible, Navasana was easier and Upavistha Konasana was where I called it a practice.
It is so completely obvious to me that the asana mean nothing and that daily life is the yoga. This has never, ever been more clear. Nor has it been more obvious.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Watch things appear and disappear.
The first time I read that (again, from one of Larry's manuals), I didn't quite understand what that was about. It sounds metaphysical; it sounds long-ball, lifetime, sort of shallow-yet-deep wisdom from the ages, that you get from that bearded person on the mountain. Does s/he EVER know what s/he's talking about, or is s/he just pulling your chain? It had that kind of feeling.
As an aside, I'm being suprisingly chatty late in this month, don't you think?
I just did standing to half-lotus forward bend (with no forward bend) and that was sufficient practice. That's enough. The half-lotuses crack into my pain centers (outer hips) just enough to say hello and get a little release. And beyond that, those brief poses, I'm surfeit enough on pain to not need more.
True, in December I was in a studio room when no one showed up for class, and I touched my feet by myself in Kapotasana, which I refer to often as "the hardest pose in the universe." But then I went to see family and that shattered my practice ritual in a way that I have not recovered since. Then January was long, dark, silent agony until classes began, and then it was hectic, and then on the very first Thursday of classes (about ten days ago) my car was crashed into.
This morning, an insurance adjuster told me that the car would be a total loss, and that they would give me a good piece over two grand for it, and then tow it away. So be it. I took my parking pass and my license plate and went on my way, only hours later somehow thinking of Steve Martin in _The Jerk_.
Now that insurance and the authorities have decided "what happened," the story is this. Have you noticed, by the way, that in auto accidents, what "happened" is not really up to you, rather it's up to insurance? What happened is what they are able to conclude, not what you experienced. An auto accident is a lesson to be learned about the fluffiness of subjectivity, the way in which subjectivity and memory are nothing but a pile of feathers before someone turns the standing fan on.
Anyway: I was going north on a two-way street, crossing a four-lane one-way street going west. I got into that intersection and then was snowplowed by a van; I remember being "pushed" at least 8 feet westward. Then rationality took over and I drove out of the intersection and pulled over. The van's driver immediately insisted that I'd hit her (huh?). The damage on my car was full-on side impact between the passenger side wheels. I didn't (per the rules) say a thing about fault, either hers or mine, until the cops arrived, but later, I remember thinking, "Wait a minute, *I* hit *YOU*? How the fuck is that even POSSIBLE? What did I do, turn the wrong way into four lanes of one-way traffic and somehow THROW my car sideways into the front of your van?"
Further anyway: both the cops and the insurance company found her story to be ridiculous and told me so. But the damage overwhelms the car's value and so be it.
I bought that Saturn in January 2003, so we had a six year run. It was my Insanity Mobile, my Declaration of War on All Things Boring and Ignorant. This was 2003, mind you, and if you know my history, that was immolation time. Flame on. Burn it all down; somehow live through it and otherwise burn it all. Change life.
I had a night job for seven months during that time, and I used to drive all night on weekends, in part because of the job schedule and in part because I was processing madness. I remember chasing a train in the woods with that car, and sitting watching dawn happen over a college town strip club's veneer. I remember trips to Chicago and to Louisville, to commit things I'll not discuss in detail here. That car took me to my climbing gym probably a thousand times. That car facilitated my relationship with my current partner. It got me through the Bush presidency. And so be it. Some random 24 year old liar, on her way to see her parole officer, driving someone else's van, can take it, can end those adventures.
I have three job applications to write and five classes to plan lessons for. Ideas for a new car for the household are on the way (our remaining car is a Honda from the early 1990s).
Just a dash of ashtanga yoga is enough now. Larry used to say that 10 sun salutations was the minimum daily requirement. I need just a little ember-like glow of SF to get me through this. Springtime will come; it will.
As an aside, I'm being suprisingly chatty late in this month, don't you think?
I just did standing to half-lotus forward bend (with no forward bend) and that was sufficient practice. That's enough. The half-lotuses crack into my pain centers (outer hips) just enough to say hello and get a little release. And beyond that, those brief poses, I'm surfeit enough on pain to not need more.
True, in December I was in a studio room when no one showed up for class, and I touched my feet by myself in Kapotasana, which I refer to often as "the hardest pose in the universe." But then I went to see family and that shattered my practice ritual in a way that I have not recovered since. Then January was long, dark, silent agony until classes began, and then it was hectic, and then on the very first Thursday of classes (about ten days ago) my car was crashed into.
This morning, an insurance adjuster told me that the car would be a total loss, and that they would give me a good piece over two grand for it, and then tow it away. So be it. I took my parking pass and my license plate and went on my way, only hours later somehow thinking of Steve Martin in _The Jerk_.
Now that insurance and the authorities have decided "what happened," the story is this. Have you noticed, by the way, that in auto accidents, what "happened" is not really up to you, rather it's up to insurance? What happened is what they are able to conclude, not what you experienced. An auto accident is a lesson to be learned about the fluffiness of subjectivity, the way in which subjectivity and memory are nothing but a pile of feathers before someone turns the standing fan on.
Anyway: I was going north on a two-way street, crossing a four-lane one-way street going west. I got into that intersection and then was snowplowed by a van; I remember being "pushed" at least 8 feet westward. Then rationality took over and I drove out of the intersection and pulled over. The van's driver immediately insisted that I'd hit her (huh?). The damage on my car was full-on side impact between the passenger side wheels. I didn't (per the rules) say a thing about fault, either hers or mine, until the cops arrived, but later, I remember thinking, "Wait a minute, *I* hit *YOU*? How the fuck is that even POSSIBLE? What did I do, turn the wrong way into four lanes of one-way traffic and somehow THROW my car sideways into the front of your van?"
Further anyway: both the cops and the insurance company found her story to be ridiculous and told me so. But the damage overwhelms the car's value and so be it.
I bought that Saturn in January 2003, so we had a six year run. It was my Insanity Mobile, my Declaration of War on All Things Boring and Ignorant. This was 2003, mind you, and if you know my history, that was immolation time. Flame on. Burn it all down; somehow live through it and otherwise burn it all. Change life.
I had a night job for seven months during that time, and I used to drive all night on weekends, in part because of the job schedule and in part because I was processing madness. I remember chasing a train in the woods with that car, and sitting watching dawn happen over a college town strip club's veneer. I remember trips to Chicago and to Louisville, to commit things I'll not discuss in detail here. That car took me to my climbing gym probably a thousand times. That car facilitated my relationship with my current partner. It got me through the Bush presidency. And so be it. Some random 24 year old liar, on her way to see her parole officer, driving someone else's van, can take it, can end those adventures.
I have three job applications to write and five classes to plan lessons for. Ideas for a new car for the household are on the way (our remaining car is a Honda from the early 1990s).
Just a dash of ashtanga yoga is enough now. Larry used to say that 10 sun salutations was the minimum daily requirement. I need just a little ember-like glow of SF to get me through this. Springtime will come; it will.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Intermediate online in four parts, and stuff.
First off, I was just watching a four-part Youtube video where three women do the Intermediate series in a room in which I've practiced. Pretty cool. Dial up "Ashtanga Intermediate series" over there and you'll find it. No, they don't all do every pose, but it's sometimes an informative look at how different bodies do those things.
Oddly relatedly, this business of exposure to a teacher a time or two a year (an idea which was raised in the prior blog post's comments) also brings me to that same room; it's not every day one gets some serendipity of this kind.
OK, so the whole idea of rare but essential exposure to a teacher with whom I either have or can develop some history. A kind of long-distance teaching, if you will. Two words or so on the necessity of this: my first exposure to a Mysore-style room run by an authorized teacher somehow changed my whole idea of what practicing Ashtanga is/was.
The room, quiet--aside from all the ujjayi and the KATHUNK of chaturanga feet landing--the heat, heavy and dense; the half darkness, the wood floor, the wonderful blurry pratyahara that begins to set in when I take my glasses off. And then it was on. Move, breathe, sweat.
No leading, no voices, no one's practice but mine, in a way. Big, and I mean BIG, adjustments: the Prasarita C, the Baddha Konasana, the one Supta Kurmasana. The rockups, the drops back, all of that stuff. Also, notably, the great "curse," the line about no Intermediate til you stand, but really, a wonderful room.
Maybe Mysore-style practice isn't for everyone, but it's for me, or it was then and has been since. I compare it to being a samurai in the service of the emperor (an experience I'm not aware of actually having had, but which I derive from, largely, Kurosawa films). Time is ritualized; behavior is, to a degree, governed. There are rules and there is power in adherence to those rules, a vow, a willful restriction in order to pursue or attend to or simply focus attention on, something.
NOT exercise (or not only exercise); NOT getting fit; NOT even attaining enlightenment. Moving the vehicle. Cranking some action specifically into the relation of Purusha and Prakriti. To do something IN ORDER to attain enlightenment is pretentious. The experience I had in that room was like a rite, a ritual, actually a sort of entrance to some kind of weird community, an initiation. And of course, I'd had adjustments in Primary before, so it wasn't the poses or the adjustments, it was the WAY it was done, the arrangement of this MODE of teaching, of conveying, and perhaps only in a way that is illusory (OR MAYBE NOT), the idea that I was getting, second-hand, transmission from the source of all of this.
The obvious risk is to mythologize the whole idea of authorization/certification, when in actuality (hehe, or is it?) that's just a label for "sufficiently achieved" or "having been practicing long enough."
Then I went back to Indiana with an energy my regular teacher could see and feel off me at a distance, so she said. Now and again, I like to "recharge" in a Mysore-style room, and I am sure to bring my BIG practice there. I like what happens to me, what I do to myself, when I know I'm headed to Mysore-style practice. The focus comes with a vengeance, and the power, and the determination, and then IN the room, all of that drops off, and the practice is committed. But outside the room, particularly during the week (if I'm lucky enough to get a week), it's like revving up for battle LOTR style. Speeches, clanging of swords, shouts of determination before charging the enemy. Freakin' destiny. But in the room, again, day after day, it's progressive tiredness, almost scary flexibility and/or strength in the "stop" pose and then deep peace when it's over. Weird roller coaster; quite a trip; a definite ride.
I get that too, in led practices, and solo practices, but I don't get it LIKE THAT. It's like the chemicals have been allowed to age or something; it's the same magic, but it's not as fresh.
ANYWAY (this has been a massive digression),
I know I can visit any number of Mysore rooms on the planet, but so far, I have been to three (one on tour): there is C, M and K.
C's room has moved from where it was the last time I was there, and it's far to fly to, but it's also in my favorite city on the face of the earth. I do not, however, have cheap ways to stay there or keep myself alive, and that's a consideration.
M's room only happens when he goes on US tour, unless I can afford the time to fly to the other side of the earth where he lives. This, itself, is difficult. This summer I expect to have an enormous amount of business to attend to lifewise, and I'm not sure a week's travel to some room 9-12 hours drive from me, is in the cards.
K's room happens in the state where I have abundant family, which is an easy plus for living and rent. Also, I have a nephew to regularly see, in that state. However, K goes on tour from about mid-fall to early spring, which means time is tricky. Summer vacation, however, is a match (and was last year, which is when I was there).
This of course could change totally if I get a job somewhere, or if I do the year-to-two-year training for a school teaching certificate which would then allow me to move anywhere...such as...Portland (OR, not ME). My partner and I have West Coast souls...hers is from Seattle; mine from San Francisco. Portland, we think, would be a good compromise.
Many things may happen. Right now I am solidly landed in IN from now until Dec 2009.
Oddly relatedly, this business of exposure to a teacher a time or two a year (an idea which was raised in the prior blog post's comments) also brings me to that same room; it's not every day one gets some serendipity of this kind.
OK, so the whole idea of rare but essential exposure to a teacher with whom I either have or can develop some history. A kind of long-distance teaching, if you will. Two words or so on the necessity of this: my first exposure to a Mysore-style room run by an authorized teacher somehow changed my whole idea of what practicing Ashtanga is/was.
The room, quiet--aside from all the ujjayi and the KATHUNK of chaturanga feet landing--the heat, heavy and dense; the half darkness, the wood floor, the wonderful blurry pratyahara that begins to set in when I take my glasses off. And then it was on. Move, breathe, sweat.
No leading, no voices, no one's practice but mine, in a way. Big, and I mean BIG, adjustments: the Prasarita C, the Baddha Konasana, the one Supta Kurmasana. The rockups, the drops back, all of that stuff. Also, notably, the great "curse," the line about no Intermediate til you stand, but really, a wonderful room.
Maybe Mysore-style practice isn't for everyone, but it's for me, or it was then and has been since. I compare it to being a samurai in the service of the emperor (an experience I'm not aware of actually having had, but which I derive from, largely, Kurosawa films). Time is ritualized; behavior is, to a degree, governed. There are rules and there is power in adherence to those rules, a vow, a willful restriction in order to pursue or attend to or simply focus attention on, something.
NOT exercise (or not only exercise); NOT getting fit; NOT even attaining enlightenment. Moving the vehicle. Cranking some action specifically into the relation of Purusha and Prakriti. To do something IN ORDER to attain enlightenment is pretentious. The experience I had in that room was like a rite, a ritual, actually a sort of entrance to some kind of weird community, an initiation. And of course, I'd had adjustments in Primary before, so it wasn't the poses or the adjustments, it was the WAY it was done, the arrangement of this MODE of teaching, of conveying, and perhaps only in a way that is illusory (OR MAYBE NOT), the idea that I was getting, second-hand, transmission from the source of all of this.
The obvious risk is to mythologize the whole idea of authorization/certification, when in actuality (hehe, or is it?) that's just a label for "sufficiently achieved" or "having been practicing long enough."
Then I went back to Indiana with an energy my regular teacher could see and feel off me at a distance, so she said. Now and again, I like to "recharge" in a Mysore-style room, and I am sure to bring my BIG practice there. I like what happens to me, what I do to myself, when I know I'm headed to Mysore-style practice. The focus comes with a vengeance, and the power, and the determination, and then IN the room, all of that drops off, and the practice is committed. But outside the room, particularly during the week (if I'm lucky enough to get a week), it's like revving up for battle LOTR style. Speeches, clanging of swords, shouts of determination before charging the enemy. Freakin' destiny. But in the room, again, day after day, it's progressive tiredness, almost scary flexibility and/or strength in the "stop" pose and then deep peace when it's over. Weird roller coaster; quite a trip; a definite ride.
I get that too, in led practices, and solo practices, but I don't get it LIKE THAT. It's like the chemicals have been allowed to age or something; it's the same magic, but it's not as fresh.
ANYWAY (this has been a massive digression),
I know I can visit any number of Mysore rooms on the planet, but so far, I have been to three (one on tour): there is C, M and K.
C's room has moved from where it was the last time I was there, and it's far to fly to, but it's also in my favorite city on the face of the earth. I do not, however, have cheap ways to stay there or keep myself alive, and that's a consideration.
M's room only happens when he goes on US tour, unless I can afford the time to fly to the other side of the earth where he lives. This, itself, is difficult. This summer I expect to have an enormous amount of business to attend to lifewise, and I'm not sure a week's travel to some room 9-12 hours drive from me, is in the cards.
K's room happens in the state where I have abundant family, which is an easy plus for living and rent. Also, I have a nephew to regularly see, in that state. However, K goes on tour from about mid-fall to early spring, which means time is tricky. Summer vacation, however, is a match (and was last year, which is when I was there).
This of course could change totally if I get a job somewhere, or if I do the year-to-two-year training for a school teaching certificate which would then allow me to move anywhere...such as...Portland (OR, not ME). My partner and I have West Coast souls...hers is from Seattle; mine from San Francisco. Portland, we think, would be a good compromise.
Many things may happen. Right now I am solidly landed in IN from now until Dec 2009.
Friday, January 23, 2009
What it is, to ashtanga in Indianapolis.
This is mostly for you folks out there who aren't from anywhere near here; it's meant more as a sort of diary or photograph, of how one does ashtanga's potentially very traditional format, in this city where there's quite literally no access to that tradition.
I've done ashtanga yoga in two locations in Indiana: Bloomington, the big college town down south, and Indy, the centrally located capitol.
There is no classical, traditional Mysore-style here, and also none of what that implies: no organized, studio dawn practices 6/week, no regular expectation of big strong adjustments, no stopping at the pose you can't do, no standards like "wrist bind the Marichyasana in order to get Intermediate," and all of that. For that matter, there's not much discussion of the whole progression of Primary to Intermediate and core postures, and so forth. Many people who do Ashtanga poses here, do led Primary (sometimes even without teaching of ujjayi, bandhas and dristi) and come across thinking that "ashtanga" is this quick moving sequence with a ton of forward bends in it.
Reasons why people stop doing ashtanga yoga here include the following:
1) I can't lotus, and that sequence needs me to, so I can't do it.
2) The repetition is boring.
3) The poses are too advanced and I can't learn to do them.
Now in a classical room, support and advice are given (or at least have been to me) as to the pose where you stop, and so while you do stop, you also progress. Lotus or backbends or whatever it is, is coming. Also, in a classical room, there is teaching and adjusting in Marichyasana D or Baddha Konasana or Garbha Pindasana and such.
In an Indianapolis room, where the levels are radically mixed and the time limit is often 90 minutes if not 75, and the series is always led (unless it's "beginning" or "intro" or simply taught by someone who always modifies the sequence), there isn't really time to teach Marichyasana D or to explain how to do Garbha Pindasana, and because ashtanga tends to be billed simply as "one of the vinyasa yogas," if it comes across as impossible, people go to an easier-access class, and there winds up being even fewer ashtanga classes than there are now.
Many people who teach ashtanga here, do so without the hard poses. NO ONE learns to do Garbha Pindasana unless they specifically ask for it. Janu C and Marichyasanas B and D are regularly, but not always, cut.
So how is this sequence taught here?
Most ashtanga teachers in this area come from David Swenson. There are also some who come from Johnny Kest (maybe you'll say, "that's not ashtanga!" Haha, maybe so, but Michigan's close and it's sure easier to get 200 hours in a month than to try to explain how your three months in a Chicago Mysore room make you able to teach some esoteric sequence of vinyasa poses, right?).
So the "tone" of ashtanga teaching here, tends to be either "modify it yourself" (i.e., Marichyasana D will be verbally introduced and people will be invited to non-lotus the one foot) or "just do the easier version" (Janu A instead of C). It's actually very nurturing, in a way, very heavily "take care of yourself." The dialing in of hard poses is completely and utterly student-specific. If you want to learn to jump back or want to learn to lotus, you HAVE to specifically ask for it, often before or after class. Sometimes, there will be a break in class to work on lotusing the hip open, but then you're costing valuable minutes of your 75-minute slot.
Led Primaries in Bloomington are 90 minutes and either do part of the sequence, but more slowly, or do the whole sequence, with modifications and options. There's no Mysore-style individual attention. Take-it-up-asana (Swenson's funny tolasana) is taught but never required, as a vinyasa option.
Led Primaries, when there were some, in Indianapolis, tended to be full sequence (but now, part sequence), with modifications more closely tied to students' capabilities. Classes tend to be small (1-6 people) and so it's easier for individual attention to get done. Still, the student has to request the hard pose in order to get teaching about it.
In this context, I developed endurance in Primary series. In Bloomington from 2004-06, I could sometimes get in four classes a week. I was able, early, to take it up, and in Indianapolis Primaries, started getting advice and encouragement to jump back. A workshop thrown by an It's Yoga (SF) grad taught me the rest of the jumps. I started pursuing "the real" ashtanga yoga, in books. I started pursuing the hard poses no one could do. I started to wonder about "the right breath pace" and all of that. I did, admittedly, 200 hours with a modified Ashtanga school, but I also did a month of Mysore-style and got a Baddha Konasana adjustment that changed that pose for EVER.
I came back with real exposure to the real tradition, from people who had really learned it from the real source. And for four months prior to going, I threw down a dawn practice, full Primary when I could muster it, in a cold house, in sweats, in the dark, before an 8-hour temp job doing data entry. Solitude like few people understand.
It would be, I think, accurate, to say that I do the most traditional ashtanga in the entire state of Indiana, anywhere.
But can I teach that mode here? Sometimes.
Recently I said that ashtanga might benefit from more of a "coach-athlete" relationship than a "guru-student" relationship. What I meant by that, and I tried to locate that comment specifically in Indianapolis, is that coaches encourage their athletes, and don't go out of their way to injure those people in order to "get them to achieve."
A vinyasa class I really like here is taught in a coaching way: the challenge is offered, and people are free to modify; the teacher more coaches, than leads. There is encouragement and sometimes the flowing sequences are too stout for anyone in the room to do, and that just means, metaphorically, that you take a break from the Stairmaster, or you walk for a bit, up the hill on the marathon. There is no failure in this rhetoric, no frustration (except one's own), and underneath it all, a net of "it's cool, it's all good."
One of my own students recently said that ashtanga was "nurturing." You won't find THAT often, online in the ashtanga blogosphere.
It's very hard, here, for the asana practice to show one, one's own demons. The daily mirror-look of Mysore-style practice really isn't a motivator here. Most yoga practices are in class, led, with company, "apart" from daily life. Sure, people bring demons they can't put down, or images of failure and insufficiency and "I can't," but they are as likely to confront those on a morning RUN as they are in a yoga room.
The asana practice is NOT understood here as a shadow-revealer. It is not for that.
Unless, of course, you take up or direct your you-mobile TOWARD that.
This is what it is, to ashtanga here. People want the endorphin rush, the sweat of fitness training, and a good send off; they don't want demons, meditation, and the philosophy of the Sutras along with that. In fact, talk about demons, meditation and the Sutras is often done in classes totally SEPARATE from asana. There is led asana practice, AND THEN there is discussion of "healing" and all of that, all done by different people, unless it's a combination of "getting healthy and changing habits," which is very cool but isn't, for example, strict 8 limbs (and nor does it claim to be).
So the whole idea of people projecting onto a teacher as a guru who can heal them of their whatever? That idea is, quite literally, IMPOSSIBLE here. And perhaps that impossibility is a GOOD thing.
I've done ashtanga yoga in two locations in Indiana: Bloomington, the big college town down south, and Indy, the centrally located capitol.
There is no classical, traditional Mysore-style here, and also none of what that implies: no organized, studio dawn practices 6/week, no regular expectation of big strong adjustments, no stopping at the pose you can't do, no standards like "wrist bind the Marichyasana in order to get Intermediate," and all of that. For that matter, there's not much discussion of the whole progression of Primary to Intermediate and core postures, and so forth. Many people who do Ashtanga poses here, do led Primary (sometimes even without teaching of ujjayi, bandhas and dristi) and come across thinking that "ashtanga" is this quick moving sequence with a ton of forward bends in it.
Reasons why people stop doing ashtanga yoga here include the following:
1) I can't lotus, and that sequence needs me to, so I can't do it.
2) The repetition is boring.
3) The poses are too advanced and I can't learn to do them.
Now in a classical room, support and advice are given (or at least have been to me) as to the pose where you stop, and so while you do stop, you also progress. Lotus or backbends or whatever it is, is coming. Also, in a classical room, there is teaching and adjusting in Marichyasana D or Baddha Konasana or Garbha Pindasana and such.
In an Indianapolis room, where the levels are radically mixed and the time limit is often 90 minutes if not 75, and the series is always led (unless it's "beginning" or "intro" or simply taught by someone who always modifies the sequence), there isn't really time to teach Marichyasana D or to explain how to do Garbha Pindasana, and because ashtanga tends to be billed simply as "one of the vinyasa yogas," if it comes across as impossible, people go to an easier-access class, and there winds up being even fewer ashtanga classes than there are now.
Many people who teach ashtanga here, do so without the hard poses. NO ONE learns to do Garbha Pindasana unless they specifically ask for it. Janu C and Marichyasanas B and D are regularly, but not always, cut.
So how is this sequence taught here?
Most ashtanga teachers in this area come from David Swenson. There are also some who come from Johnny Kest (maybe you'll say, "that's not ashtanga!" Haha, maybe so, but Michigan's close and it's sure easier to get 200 hours in a month than to try to explain how your three months in a Chicago Mysore room make you able to teach some esoteric sequence of vinyasa poses, right?).
So the "tone" of ashtanga teaching here, tends to be either "modify it yourself" (i.e., Marichyasana D will be verbally introduced and people will be invited to non-lotus the one foot) or "just do the easier version" (Janu A instead of C). It's actually very nurturing, in a way, very heavily "take care of yourself." The dialing in of hard poses is completely and utterly student-specific. If you want to learn to jump back or want to learn to lotus, you HAVE to specifically ask for it, often before or after class. Sometimes, there will be a break in class to work on lotusing the hip open, but then you're costing valuable minutes of your 75-minute slot.
Led Primaries in Bloomington are 90 minutes and either do part of the sequence, but more slowly, or do the whole sequence, with modifications and options. There's no Mysore-style individual attention. Take-it-up-asana (Swenson's funny tolasana) is taught but never required, as a vinyasa option.
Led Primaries, when there were some, in Indianapolis, tended to be full sequence (but now, part sequence), with modifications more closely tied to students' capabilities. Classes tend to be small (1-6 people) and so it's easier for individual attention to get done. Still, the student has to request the hard pose in order to get teaching about it.
In this context, I developed endurance in Primary series. In Bloomington from 2004-06, I could sometimes get in four classes a week. I was able, early, to take it up, and in Indianapolis Primaries, started getting advice and encouragement to jump back. A workshop thrown by an It's Yoga (SF) grad taught me the rest of the jumps. I started pursuing "the real" ashtanga yoga, in books. I started pursuing the hard poses no one could do. I started to wonder about "the right breath pace" and all of that. I did, admittedly, 200 hours with a modified Ashtanga school, but I also did a month of Mysore-style and got a Baddha Konasana adjustment that changed that pose for EVER.
I came back with real exposure to the real tradition, from people who had really learned it from the real source. And for four months prior to going, I threw down a dawn practice, full Primary when I could muster it, in a cold house, in sweats, in the dark, before an 8-hour temp job doing data entry. Solitude like few people understand.
It would be, I think, accurate, to say that I do the most traditional ashtanga in the entire state of Indiana, anywhere.
But can I teach that mode here? Sometimes.
Recently I said that ashtanga might benefit from more of a "coach-athlete" relationship than a "guru-student" relationship. What I meant by that, and I tried to locate that comment specifically in Indianapolis, is that coaches encourage their athletes, and don't go out of their way to injure those people in order to "get them to achieve."
A vinyasa class I really like here is taught in a coaching way: the challenge is offered, and people are free to modify; the teacher more coaches, than leads. There is encouragement and sometimes the flowing sequences are too stout for anyone in the room to do, and that just means, metaphorically, that you take a break from the Stairmaster, or you walk for a bit, up the hill on the marathon. There is no failure in this rhetoric, no frustration (except one's own), and underneath it all, a net of "it's cool, it's all good."
One of my own students recently said that ashtanga was "nurturing." You won't find THAT often, online in the ashtanga blogosphere.
It's very hard, here, for the asana practice to show one, one's own demons. The daily mirror-look of Mysore-style practice really isn't a motivator here. Most yoga practices are in class, led, with company, "apart" from daily life. Sure, people bring demons they can't put down, or images of failure and insufficiency and "I can't," but they are as likely to confront those on a morning RUN as they are in a yoga room.
The asana practice is NOT understood here as a shadow-revealer. It is not for that.
Unless, of course, you take up or direct your you-mobile TOWARD that.
This is what it is, to ashtanga here. People want the endorphin rush, the sweat of fitness training, and a good send off; they don't want demons, meditation, and the philosophy of the Sutras along with that. In fact, talk about demons, meditation and the Sutras is often done in classes totally SEPARATE from asana. There is led asana practice, AND THEN there is discussion of "healing" and all of that, all done by different people, unless it's a combination of "getting healthy and changing habits," which is very cool but isn't, for example, strict 8 limbs (and nor does it claim to be).
So the whole idea of people projecting onto a teacher as a guru who can heal them of their whatever? That idea is, quite literally, IMPOSSIBLE here. And perhaps that impossibility is a GOOD thing.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The car adventure and the return to asana.
On Thursday last week, I was leaving school and, at an intersection, a van plowed into the side of my Saturn. I'm fine and the car can be driven, but the alignment is wacked and the passenger side door is useless.
Insurance and cops are still collaborating as to fault (I believe I have an excellent argument that it's not mine) and money or not and all of that. This means, I cannot drive the car, which means I can't really go anywhere. I'm considering renting for a while but haven't acted on it yet. My partner's generosity in hauling me downtown to teach yoga classes over the weekend is so noted.
Yesterday saw me thrown down an afternoon Primary at 61 degrees in the house; all of the stoutest poses and jumpbacks had to be modified. Five effortful wheels, no half-bending at all. This was my first asana practice in about five days; I NEVER take five days off. Not in probably over 2 years have I taken five days off. This is a marker of deep, dark winter depression.
BUT
Teaching is actually quite amazingly positive. I should have expected this: I get to talk about avant-garde art and film for three days solid in the middle of each work week. I LOVE that. There are classes of 18-36 people (depending on which of my three classes it is) and I run the show, very much circus-ringleader style, which I like.
Also, I have my own office. This is a major change, much more so than I expected, actually. I FEEL like real, live faculty, even though I've been teaching courses for this same place since 2004. This gives me faith that, in fact, I MIGHT WELL do this for a living. I know I'll need to publish probably two pieces this year, to make that actively possible, but it's very comforting to feel it. To have certainty that what one does, is what really suits one as a thing to do.
So I await news on my car. My partner is currently having what might be long-term back pain, which puts me in charge of the house and all things household. I have rediscovered, again, that I also love to cook; the kitchen is another workshop location, just like the classroom.
In a fashion, this is forced hibernation, and since with age I've learned to hold winter in deep and deepening contempt, forced hibernation is actually kind of nice.
Insurance and cops are still collaborating as to fault (I believe I have an excellent argument that it's not mine) and money or not and all of that. This means, I cannot drive the car, which means I can't really go anywhere. I'm considering renting for a while but haven't acted on it yet. My partner's generosity in hauling me downtown to teach yoga classes over the weekend is so noted.
Yesterday saw me thrown down an afternoon Primary at 61 degrees in the house; all of the stoutest poses and jumpbacks had to be modified. Five effortful wheels, no half-bending at all. This was my first asana practice in about five days; I NEVER take five days off. Not in probably over 2 years have I taken five days off. This is a marker of deep, dark winter depression.
BUT
Teaching is actually quite amazingly positive. I should have expected this: I get to talk about avant-garde art and film for three days solid in the middle of each work week. I LOVE that. There are classes of 18-36 people (depending on which of my three classes it is) and I run the show, very much circus-ringleader style, which I like.
Also, I have my own office. This is a major change, much more so than I expected, actually. I FEEL like real, live faculty, even though I've been teaching courses for this same place since 2004. This gives me faith that, in fact, I MIGHT WELL do this for a living. I know I'll need to publish probably two pieces this year, to make that actively possible, but it's very comforting to feel it. To have certainty that what one does, is what really suits one as a thing to do.
So I await news on my car. My partner is currently having what might be long-term back pain, which puts me in charge of the house and all things household. I have rediscovered, again, that I also love to cook; the kitchen is another workshop location, just like the classroom.
In a fashion, this is forced hibernation, and since with age I've learned to hold winter in deep and deepening contempt, forced hibernation is actually kind of nice.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Addendum to the preceding hissy fit.
Yes, it's true, my hips are often sore and it's often from advancing backbending.
HOWEVER,
mature life is finally coming to claim me with both hands, and it does not seem to be guaranteed to bring any kind of financial stability with it, and so now and then, I will have panic attacks which, because I try not to talk about my non-asana life on here too much, will be expressed as hissy fits about asana (non-) achievements.
Ah, the wonders of sublimation. Or something.
Anyway, on a certain level, I might not write in here too much for some amount of time TBA.
HOWEVER,
mature life is finally coming to claim me with both hands, and it does not seem to be guaranteed to bring any kind of financial stability with it, and so now and then, I will have panic attacks which, because I try not to talk about my non-asana life on here too much, will be expressed as hissy fits about asana (non-) achievements.
Ah, the wonders of sublimation. Or something.
Anyway, on a certain level, I might not write in here too much for some amount of time TBA.
Wrestling with the Paradox, Episode #391,215.
I wish there were physical therapists who were also ashtanga yoga teachers. Let me explain; no, let me explain this most tired of paradoxes first.
The age-old, the most-tired, and yet the never-ending question:
I backbend; the wheel and I are friendly, and that's fine. I only sometimes, and sporadically, however, drop back, and I do not (yet) stand up. I have formulas for this and strategies, which I learned over the summer. However, whenever I half-bend or drop back, my outer hips get REALLY FUCKING SORE for like 72 hours, and they STAY THAT WAY for freakin MONTHS if I continue to work half-bending. My twists begin to vanish, and while I realize that sustained effort is good, sore hips put my in a rotten mood much of the time, EVEN THOUGH the half-bending itself feels fantastic.
It's the "hangover," if you will, from indulgence in more advanced backbending that I don't like.
Thus the questions and the paradox: if I lay off the half-bending for even three days, my hips aren't sore, my mood improves, and my poses return. The asana "I" to which I am accustomed, resurface. If I half-bend even TWICE in one evening class, the next day, the outer hip hangover returns, often with a vengeance.
There is never "joint pain," which some people also call "bad pain," and there is never any low back pain (although I do feel some intense muscular action in a pattern which duplicates that of the iliopsoas muscular pair).
So painwise, one vote for "keep doing the half-bending."
Moodwise, one vote against doing the half-bending.
Ashtanga practice is exceptionally difficult with cranky outer hips. The last freaking thing I want to do is 11 forward bends. But I know that if I cut Primary and only do Intermediate, vinyasa will get harder and endurance decreases.
Plus, a great many non-Ashtanga poses really answer my outer hips' need for stretching, so it looks like I need a substantial extra-curricular practice. Where the hell am I supposed to find the time for THAT?
Things that I believe I can trust as true:
1) I do NOT wish to make some hybrid Ashtanga practice. That path leads to the Dark Side, as our resident Dark Sider Cody can attest.
2) The Matthew Sweeney vinyasa sequences feel absolutely FANTASTIC on the outer hips, even when they get really backbendy.
3) Freeform standing sequences (like rotations in Warrior 1) also feel fantastic. Erich Schiffman is on to something with that whole idea.
4) Winter ashtanga practice, even at the Y, is hard-fought struggle. Rewarding, but not appetizing. I need to put my tapas hat on if I'm to maintain that.
5) Ashtanga backbending in the winter tends to crack me open in ways that border on traumatic, and much moreso emotionally than physically. This is a challenge I'm willing to accept, but said backbending also comes with "outer hip hangover." Not too attractive a prospect.
6) BUT, apparently "my pose" is dropping back and standing up. This is really the core of the paradox. HOW BADLY, given that there's no authorized ashtanga within A HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING MILES OF ME, do I need to acquire that skill? How badly?
*****************************************
What do I do here? Ashtanga when I feel like it? Risky; dark side thinking. Sweeney sequences early in the day and ashtanga practices LATER? A little "pre-practice" routine to crack the outer hip hangover? Give up the dropbacks? Drink more water? Add some kind of daily cross-training like running a mile or hitting a stairmaster? Pursue poses that seem to hit these muscles, like halfmoon bow pose (reach back for the extended foot)?
What is the formula?
Of course there's no answer to that; I would have come across it by now if there were.
Or do I just wait for warm weather when all of this gets easier? Of course, that won't do either.
I wish that wrestling with this beast was, itself, enough of a warmup. Now that would rule.
The age-old, the most-tired, and yet the never-ending question:
I backbend; the wheel and I are friendly, and that's fine. I only sometimes, and sporadically, however, drop back, and I do not (yet) stand up. I have formulas for this and strategies, which I learned over the summer. However, whenever I half-bend or drop back, my outer hips get REALLY FUCKING SORE for like 72 hours, and they STAY THAT WAY for freakin MONTHS if I continue to work half-bending. My twists begin to vanish, and while I realize that sustained effort is good, sore hips put my in a rotten mood much of the time, EVEN THOUGH the half-bending itself feels fantastic.
It's the "hangover," if you will, from indulgence in more advanced backbending that I don't like.
Thus the questions and the paradox: if I lay off the half-bending for even three days, my hips aren't sore, my mood improves, and my poses return. The asana "I" to which I am accustomed, resurface. If I half-bend even TWICE in one evening class, the next day, the outer hip hangover returns, often with a vengeance.
There is never "joint pain," which some people also call "bad pain," and there is never any low back pain (although I do feel some intense muscular action in a pattern which duplicates that of the iliopsoas muscular pair).
So painwise, one vote for "keep doing the half-bending."
Moodwise, one vote against doing the half-bending.
Ashtanga practice is exceptionally difficult with cranky outer hips. The last freaking thing I want to do is 11 forward bends. But I know that if I cut Primary and only do Intermediate, vinyasa will get harder and endurance decreases.
Plus, a great many non-Ashtanga poses really answer my outer hips' need for stretching, so it looks like I need a substantial extra-curricular practice. Where the hell am I supposed to find the time for THAT?
Things that I believe I can trust as true:
1) I do NOT wish to make some hybrid Ashtanga practice. That path leads to the Dark Side, as our resident Dark Sider Cody can attest.
2) The Matthew Sweeney vinyasa sequences feel absolutely FANTASTIC on the outer hips, even when they get really backbendy.
3) Freeform standing sequences (like rotations in Warrior 1) also feel fantastic. Erich Schiffman is on to something with that whole idea.
4) Winter ashtanga practice, even at the Y, is hard-fought struggle. Rewarding, but not appetizing. I need to put my tapas hat on if I'm to maintain that.
5) Ashtanga backbending in the winter tends to crack me open in ways that border on traumatic, and much moreso emotionally than physically. This is a challenge I'm willing to accept, but said backbending also comes with "outer hip hangover." Not too attractive a prospect.
6) BUT, apparently "my pose" is dropping back and standing up. This is really the core of the paradox. HOW BADLY, given that there's no authorized ashtanga within A HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING MILES OF ME, do I need to acquire that skill? How badly?
*****************************************
What do I do here? Ashtanga when I feel like it? Risky; dark side thinking. Sweeney sequences early in the day and ashtanga practices LATER? A little "pre-practice" routine to crack the outer hip hangover? Give up the dropbacks? Drink more water? Add some kind of daily cross-training like running a mile or hitting a stairmaster? Pursue poses that seem to hit these muscles, like halfmoon bow pose (reach back for the extended foot)?
What is the formula?
Of course there's no answer to that; I would have come across it by now if there were.
Or do I just wait for warm weather when all of this gets easier? Of course, that won't do either.
I wish that wrestling with this beast was, itself, enough of a warmup. Now that would rule.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Power, soreness
Today I made a Bloomington trip; my first since November, I think. A long time coming.
I generally do three things down there: research, yoga, climbing. Well, that and drink beer (I like beer; sue me. That, and cheese. Well, and ice cream. Basically, anything with hops and/or dairy).
Today was no different. I went early (before noon) for research on video installations, and in about 80 minutes picked up 20 pounds of books on Vito Acconci, Steina and Vasulka, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, and various theoretical treatises and interviews. Academics come to have "an area" in the Dewey Decimal system which is their own. One of mine is PN1995.9.E96.
Then I went to the climbing gym at about 2:30, and stayed in there for six hours. There are few places I'm happy to be inside of, for six hours. There is a toprope competition on the 17th, and so my job, I found out, would be to set for that competition. Easy routes (which are rated 5.7 to 5.9) would have to be kid-reachable, which means no long moves. I wound up setting four grades, which I think are about 5.10a (the beginning of advanced, kinda like starting Intermediate), 5.7, 5.9 and a hard, wickedly thinky 5.11. I set, as more than one person has put it in the past, "mindfucker" stuff. So be it.
Then I took off to the local brewpub to drink hoppy India pale ale and eat a veggie burger (the veggie burger is an utter staple of my life since turning veggie in about 2005). The 75-minute drive back here was in light snow, the onrushing flakes of which at 55 mph look like the cosmic snow which froze Buck Rogers.
I shall be sore tomorrow, in the trapezius, the back deltoids, the abs, probably the inner thighs. It is a LOT of effort to climb walls, and the time off, shows. Still, I love it, and I won't privilege my backbending work over climbing, as I've said before. We'll see how Primary plus ten goes tomorrow.
I generally do three things down there: research, yoga, climbing. Well, that and drink beer (I like beer; sue me. That, and cheese. Well, and ice cream. Basically, anything with hops and/or dairy).
Today was no different. I went early (before noon) for research on video installations, and in about 80 minutes picked up 20 pounds of books on Vito Acconci, Steina and Vasulka, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, and various theoretical treatises and interviews. Academics come to have "an area" in the Dewey Decimal system which is their own. One of mine is PN1995.9.E96.
Then I went to the climbing gym at about 2:30, and stayed in there for six hours. There are few places I'm happy to be inside of, for six hours. There is a toprope competition on the 17th, and so my job, I found out, would be to set for that competition. Easy routes (which are rated 5.7 to 5.9) would have to be kid-reachable, which means no long moves. I wound up setting four grades, which I think are about 5.10a (the beginning of advanced, kinda like starting Intermediate), 5.7, 5.9 and a hard, wickedly thinky 5.11. I set, as more than one person has put it in the past, "mindfucker" stuff. So be it.
Then I took off to the local brewpub to drink hoppy India pale ale and eat a veggie burger (the veggie burger is an utter staple of my life since turning veggie in about 2005). The 75-minute drive back here was in light snow, the onrushing flakes of which at 55 mph look like the cosmic snow which froze Buck Rogers.
I shall be sore tomorrow, in the trapezius, the back deltoids, the abs, probably the inner thighs. It is a LOT of effort to climb walls, and the time off, shows. Still, I love it, and I won't privilege my backbending work over climbing, as I've said before. We'll see how Primary plus ten goes tomorrow.
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