Ok suspense fans, sorry for all the anticipation, but you know I've got it as bad as you do. We've officially decided that if biological mechanisms do not kick in by the 3 June, we're going to have the whole affair begun artificially. So June 4, I think, at the latest, is this one's birthday to be :)
In other news, yes, there was practice (if I skip a day, will labor begin?). Primary, with hilariously bad balance in UHP, but fabulousness everywhere else.
I've started streamlining in places: exhale directly down in Ardha Baddha Padma Padottanasana and Ardha B. P. Paschimottanasana, half-lotus and lotus jumpbacks where applicable. My Navasana vinyasa game has been really kicking up my vinyasa strength and breath pace (it's easier to just inhale and take it up; don't wait!).
Wrists in Marichyasna D, cool; Supta K from Dwi Pada entry, cool. Nose to floor beyond feet in Baddha Konasana, cool. Chest to floor in Upavistha Konasana, cool. Five wheels, three hangbacks to the wall, one heels-up dropback and two feet-flat ones, with stand-to-knees; cool. 20 breaths in Uthpluthi and a clean lotus jumpback, cool.
Stand from a backbend. That is what remains before I can have, according to some, "an Intermediate practice."
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Quickly: more waiting, more practice.
Nope, no baby yet! But more practice! Primary and up to Ustrasana today, 3 wheels, 3 heels-up dropbacks, 2 standups-to-knees, full closing (25-10).
This Navasana vinyasa I've been playing with, is really tough, but it's funny and cool. I cross the legs from the pose, inhale, jump back, hold it, and then TRY to exhale swing forward like a jump through, and inhale, Navasana. HARD. Usually I land too low, too soon, on the swing through, and pile up my rug and then have to rebuild the pose and try it again.
Also, today saw a successful lotus jumpback from Kukku and another after 17 breaths of Uthpluthi. Good times. I like jumping back Padmasana, it's fun.
I've gradually added in more and more of the Intermediate backbends, and maybe I'll go all the way up to Kapo soon, but right now I think that it'd be productive to stop at Ustrasana until the hip flexor cranking from Dhanurasana, the Parsvas and Ustrasana itself feels more comfortable. We'll see what I get up to tomorrow.
I've also been taking the Dwi Pada entrance to Supta Kurmasana, in part because it's hard to cross the feet on grass (of COURSE I'm outside). Left foot back, when that deep in Primary in humid 70 degree weather, is EASY. But it's hard to both keep the left shoulder back, AND to keep the hand centered on the rug so that I can heft the right foot over while keeping it high up the arm. Nonetheless, I was, in two tries, able to lock the ankles, bind the hands and take the pose.
So practice is, again, good. This is what I'm used to; the summer high, easier practices. The flipside of that coin is the hard, hard practice of November, feeling the surrender of all of this summer heat flexibility.
Onward!
This Navasana vinyasa I've been playing with, is really tough, but it's funny and cool. I cross the legs from the pose, inhale, jump back, hold it, and then TRY to exhale swing forward like a jump through, and inhale, Navasana. HARD. Usually I land too low, too soon, on the swing through, and pile up my rug and then have to rebuild the pose and try it again.
Also, today saw a successful lotus jumpback from Kukku and another after 17 breaths of Uthpluthi. Good times. I like jumping back Padmasana, it's fun.
I've gradually added in more and more of the Intermediate backbends, and maybe I'll go all the way up to Kapo soon, but right now I think that it'd be productive to stop at Ustrasana until the hip flexor cranking from Dhanurasana, the Parsvas and Ustrasana itself feels more comfortable. We'll see what I get up to tomorrow.
I've also been taking the Dwi Pada entrance to Supta Kurmasana, in part because it's hard to cross the feet on grass (of COURSE I'm outside). Left foot back, when that deep in Primary in humid 70 degree weather, is EASY. But it's hard to both keep the left shoulder back, AND to keep the hand centered on the rug so that I can heft the right foot over while keeping it high up the arm. Nonetheless, I was, in two tries, able to lock the ankles, bind the hands and take the pose.
So practice is, again, good. This is what I'm used to; the summer high, easier practices. The flipside of that coin is the hard, hard practice of November, feeling the surrender of all of this summer heat flexibility.
Onward!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Gettin back to backbends.
Once again: baby? not yet! practice? yep!
Primary and up to Bhekasana, 5 wheels, 3 heels-up dropbacks, 15-8 closing.
I'm finding that my backbends (all of them) are full of fear and anxiety. This is not suprising, given the potential job offer or not, hanging in space, and of course, the baby who might arrive (or not) at any minute. Lots to think about and be aware of.
Still, I'm enjoying practice. Poses are happy, vinyasa is fairly easy, focus and state of mind are easy and consistent. I jump back a lotus from Kukkutasana regularly now, which really cleans up that vinyasa. I also try to jump back the final one, in Uth Pluthi, but without dropping it. The game is hold it, and then jump back, so that from breath one, nothing touches the ground but toes in chaturanga. Currently, 15 breaths is my limit for this game. 20 is too many; I did it once but can't repeat it.
Pasasana was the same; tiptoes one side, feet flat on the other, with some electric "zowie!" in the right hip. I LIKE Krounchasana, and I can easily go face to shin. That's one of my moments of ease in the practice: long hamstrings. But then those backbends, and the endurance demands, and having to open up with all this serious insecure stuff happening: wow!
For the record, Intermediate's backbends work like this in my body:
Shalabhasana strengthens the mid-lower back and makes the arch in Bhekasana easier. It also begins cracking open the low abs, which crack open throughout the sequence.
Bhekasana introduces the first big hip flexor stretch, but I get it more in the back, particularly if someone can pull my shoulders up and back (ahhhh!). I also see this as a strength pose of sorts.
Dhanurasana gets all over my hip flexors. The Parsvas, twice as much. Also, the low abs get a massive crank in these poses. So much so that I often have to rest a bit before Ustrasana.
Ustrasana for me is sort of waiting for the pose to get deep, deep into the iliopsoas. Sure, I can feel the quads energize, but if I think about that, they get too much energy and are tired for the next two poses. So I imagine Ustrasana lengthening the deep hip flexors.
Laghuvajrasana, is a strength pose. Somehow I can, at times, find the energy "bridge" (like that of Setubandhasana) which makes this pose simple and easy, but most of the time, I try to focus on the quads and inner thighs rotating inward, and it's hard, but it works.
Kapotasana. Whatever to say about this. I get this pose mostly in the right hip flexors, but also in the outer hip, and more on the right than the left. The quads need massive engagement, the abs need to permit a maximal stretch, and the rib cage needs to pull up as much as possible, so that the shoulder girdle permits the hands' walking in without the head crashing to the floor and making the movement impossible. Whoever--years ago on what was the Astanga Ezboard--said "these take years," was right as right gets.
Dropping back has receded some, so I had to tiptoe it. Coming up was ridiculously impossible. I threw myself "up" into a Supta Virasana on my first attempt! HAHA!!
I still find that I want to drop back and stand up before I Kapo. It was well on the way before I got caught up in job interview and baby wait. I can build it again.
Primary and up to Bhekasana, 5 wheels, 3 heels-up dropbacks, 15-8 closing.
I'm finding that my backbends (all of them) are full of fear and anxiety. This is not suprising, given the potential job offer or not, hanging in space, and of course, the baby who might arrive (or not) at any minute. Lots to think about and be aware of.
Still, I'm enjoying practice. Poses are happy, vinyasa is fairly easy, focus and state of mind are easy and consistent. I jump back a lotus from Kukkutasana regularly now, which really cleans up that vinyasa. I also try to jump back the final one, in Uth Pluthi, but without dropping it. The game is hold it, and then jump back, so that from breath one, nothing touches the ground but toes in chaturanga. Currently, 15 breaths is my limit for this game. 20 is too many; I did it once but can't repeat it.
Pasasana was the same; tiptoes one side, feet flat on the other, with some electric "zowie!" in the right hip. I LIKE Krounchasana, and I can easily go face to shin. That's one of my moments of ease in the practice: long hamstrings. But then those backbends, and the endurance demands, and having to open up with all this serious insecure stuff happening: wow!
For the record, Intermediate's backbends work like this in my body:
Shalabhasana strengthens the mid-lower back and makes the arch in Bhekasana easier. It also begins cracking open the low abs, which crack open throughout the sequence.
Bhekasana introduces the first big hip flexor stretch, but I get it more in the back, particularly if someone can pull my shoulders up and back (ahhhh!). I also see this as a strength pose of sorts.
Dhanurasana gets all over my hip flexors. The Parsvas, twice as much. Also, the low abs get a massive crank in these poses. So much so that I often have to rest a bit before Ustrasana.
Ustrasana for me is sort of waiting for the pose to get deep, deep into the iliopsoas. Sure, I can feel the quads energize, but if I think about that, they get too much energy and are tired for the next two poses. So I imagine Ustrasana lengthening the deep hip flexors.
Laghuvajrasana, is a strength pose. Somehow I can, at times, find the energy "bridge" (like that of Setubandhasana) which makes this pose simple and easy, but most of the time, I try to focus on the quads and inner thighs rotating inward, and it's hard, but it works.
Kapotasana. Whatever to say about this. I get this pose mostly in the right hip flexors, but also in the outer hip, and more on the right than the left. The quads need massive engagement, the abs need to permit a maximal stretch, and the rib cage needs to pull up as much as possible, so that the shoulder girdle permits the hands' walking in without the head crashing to the floor and making the movement impossible. Whoever--years ago on what was the Astanga Ezboard--said "these take years," was right as right gets.
Dropping back has receded some, so I had to tiptoe it. Coming up was ridiculously impossible. I threw myself "up" into a Supta Virasana on my first attempt! HAHA!!
I still find that I want to drop back and stand up before I Kapo. It was well on the way before I got caught up in job interview and baby wait. I can build it again.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Nope, not yet, and practice, what it is, backing off, comfort.
Baby: nope!
Practice: yep!
Primary and Pasasana, 5 wheels, 3 hangbacks, 15-8 closing.
What, no Kapo? No, no Kapo. I was in it for the comfort today; only do what's comfortable, what is SOBER. No driving to get sixteen light years into outer space. Electricity zapping around in the outer hips in Pasasana; it just didn't FEEL GOOD to think about seven backbends, at least two of which reliably crank that electricity all around the whole hip girdle (Parsva Dhanurasana and Kapotasana).
Primary was one of the friendliest ever, in terms of poses, general ease, and consistency of state of mind. I bind all Marichyasanas to the wrist, even the D's now. That's probably heat at work (in the house it was 71). I tried taking the Navasana vinyasa not just up, but also through, back, and UP, the way I've seen vids of Lino Miele doing, and then swing it BACK through, pendulum-style, and into Navasana for another round. EPIC FAIL! But it was fun, and I did all five like that. I can take it up and back and through, but then I crash as I try to pendulum back through, coming forward again. It was fine. Strength builder.
All jumps back, including half-lotuses and the full lotus from Kukkutasana, and all jumps through. Mental state was even, focused, but not sort of "against the world" focused; more integrated, more of a "focus simply is," flavor. Good stuff.
Five wheels, with standard flexibility, no suprises, no liabilities, again a "simply be" practice. I didn't do a single dropback any day last week, with baby expectations and job interviews on campus. WAY too hectic and unbalanced. It showed today; I took three ten-breath hangbacks with hands on hips. Got about 90 degrees back and just hung out, feeling the lateral hips and deep hip flexors stretch. That was enough.
Closed, felt mellow, not sky high, not deeply internally transforming as I do after Kapo and the Kapo hangbacks to the wall. Sober, is the word I used. No inner Sturm and Drang as often appears after Kapo. No scattered, sort of explosive energy, as, again, often after Kapo. Calm sobriety, ability to function, energy conservation.
Does that feel "mature" to anyone but me? See, the trick is, though, that I DON'T LIKE the word "mature." I like being the rebel firebrand, the young Lenin. I like being the "fuck you and the world you were born into" idealist guy. Anger and defiance are my calling cards. But not today. I like inner calm but I'm suspicious of it--that's funny and informative.
So I backed off at the first sign of that electric vibe in the hips. Maybe I'll just do Pasasana after Primary, until this goes away, until it gets mellow. My ego knows that this makes me look like one of those practitioners who is more dedication than skill, and it complains about the weakness--you know, "hey, everyone ELSE in the cybershala is doing some third, man."
But my ego ALSO turns to pride, because it ALSO knows that I have (with some practice) Intermediate basically wholesale on deck, if I can ever get a comfortable and regular Kapo at least to toes. Neither one of these will do. What, I'm going to judge my practice as weak because I can do in five years what some people can NEVER do? What, I'm going to say my practice is cool and stylin' because I can walk around with my head between my knees and my hands on my back? WTF, you know? On both counts.
My ego likes to say that I have skill that must be manifested. I'm pretty sure, when I look to an ideal (and likely impossible) asana future that I could probably, with sufficient practice, pull the LBH and strength moves of third. I suspect, also, however, that those advanced backbends would be a wall of stone. But the truth about this skill is that, sure, it's probably there, maybe there, who cares. But skill exists IN ONE'S LIFE, not (except for VERY VERY fortunate people) AS ONE'S LIFE.
And so my skill sets, various as they are, are manifested ALONGSIDE all of the rest of my existence. That means--for asana--that my skill set comes with no teacher, and that it comes with seasons (temperature changes), that it comes without dedicated space and time, that it comes with all the spatio-temporal challenges of householding. Therefore, it is existentially ridiculous to talk simply of my pure skill at asana, since such a pure measurement can never be taken.
Same with my skill at intellectual pursuits: do I have a "measure" of publication-ability? Maybe, but my ability to publish happens in and alongside my whole life in all of its other aspects, and right now it's very slow.
Same with my skill in a kitchen: these skills are actually more often called upon and developed (they get more exercise), and mediated by things like access to ingredients, preference for organics and ability to get them (economic, spatio-temporal, other) and such. No skill goes unmediated, and no skill can be measured without the mediations.
What have I chosen to do--what priorities have I elected? I've elected to pursue the academy, not the 9-5 mailroom. Right there, I also, whether I know it or not, choose an economic bracket and certain restrictions of my ability to travel. I choose family, and right there, I again set economics and mobility. Skill sets are arranged by demand, and a series of what are basically "exercises" are arranged. I am good at some of what will be demanded of me, and inexperienced and/or unwilling at other skills. Note that none of my priorities are chosen, based SOLELY on a skill set. Academics? Sure I'm good at it. But there are time and preference and job and money considerations playing into that choice. Regrets and hopes as well.
If I had prioritized practice above all else (if that had been possible), I'd probably have moved to a California beach town. Or to Portland. Or at least to Chicago. So if I think that the first half of third is within my potential and existential skill set (keeping in mind that that is IMPOSSIBLE to say), one could accurately say that I HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO GET THIRD even if I think I CAN DO IT.
This isn't some "holier than thou" claim at all, seriously. Understand. What I'm trying to say is that by choosing LIFE (hi, Trainspotting!) what I've done is choose healing my emotional and financial debts, OVER serving my skill set for gymnastics. I crave an ascetic, asana-focused train to mastery, sure I do. My ego sure does (as long as it underestimates the REAL DIFFICULTIES of such a road). But I DID NOT CHOOSE THAT. I usually say, that I "couldn't," that "life wouldn't permit it." But sure it would; get a mailroom job, get twenty thousand bucks, move to California, live in the desert, take a beater automobile over to the beachside shala, practice, live, go to Burning Man a few times. Sure, that's a life narrative, and it's possible, probably. But it's not what I did.
I CHOSE to de-emphasize my practice, I CHOSE not having access to a teacher, I CHOSE family and debt and householding OVER THAT.
So today I did less practice than I have in the past "wanted" to do, I gave myself fewer poses than I WISH I HAD BEEN GIVEN, and comfort, ease, and focus increased.
I chose this family over Kapotasana and Kala Bhairavasana. And so be it. Oh, those are still in my peripheral vision, and my silly desire to make those shapes, and you know what, so be that, too.
Practice: yep!
Primary and Pasasana, 5 wheels, 3 hangbacks, 15-8 closing.
What, no Kapo? No, no Kapo. I was in it for the comfort today; only do what's comfortable, what is SOBER. No driving to get sixteen light years into outer space. Electricity zapping around in the outer hips in Pasasana; it just didn't FEEL GOOD to think about seven backbends, at least two of which reliably crank that electricity all around the whole hip girdle (Parsva Dhanurasana and Kapotasana).
Primary was one of the friendliest ever, in terms of poses, general ease, and consistency of state of mind. I bind all Marichyasanas to the wrist, even the D's now. That's probably heat at work (in the house it was 71). I tried taking the Navasana vinyasa not just up, but also through, back, and UP, the way I've seen vids of Lino Miele doing, and then swing it BACK through, pendulum-style, and into Navasana for another round. EPIC FAIL! But it was fun, and I did all five like that. I can take it up and back and through, but then I crash as I try to pendulum back through, coming forward again. It was fine. Strength builder.
All jumps back, including half-lotuses and the full lotus from Kukkutasana, and all jumps through. Mental state was even, focused, but not sort of "against the world" focused; more integrated, more of a "focus simply is," flavor. Good stuff.
Five wheels, with standard flexibility, no suprises, no liabilities, again a "simply be" practice. I didn't do a single dropback any day last week, with baby expectations and job interviews on campus. WAY too hectic and unbalanced. It showed today; I took three ten-breath hangbacks with hands on hips. Got about 90 degrees back and just hung out, feeling the lateral hips and deep hip flexors stretch. That was enough.
Closed, felt mellow, not sky high, not deeply internally transforming as I do after Kapo and the Kapo hangbacks to the wall. Sober, is the word I used. No inner Sturm and Drang as often appears after Kapo. No scattered, sort of explosive energy, as, again, often after Kapo. Calm sobriety, ability to function, energy conservation.
Does that feel "mature" to anyone but me? See, the trick is, though, that I DON'T LIKE the word "mature." I like being the rebel firebrand, the young Lenin. I like being the "fuck you and the world you were born into" idealist guy. Anger and defiance are my calling cards. But not today. I like inner calm but I'm suspicious of it--that's funny and informative.
So I backed off at the first sign of that electric vibe in the hips. Maybe I'll just do Pasasana after Primary, until this goes away, until it gets mellow. My ego knows that this makes me look like one of those practitioners who is more dedication than skill, and it complains about the weakness--you know, "hey, everyone ELSE in the cybershala is doing some third, man."
But my ego ALSO turns to pride, because it ALSO knows that I have (with some practice) Intermediate basically wholesale on deck, if I can ever get a comfortable and regular Kapo at least to toes. Neither one of these will do. What, I'm going to judge my practice as weak because I can do in five years what some people can NEVER do? What, I'm going to say my practice is cool and stylin' because I can walk around with my head between my knees and my hands on my back? WTF, you know? On both counts.
My ego likes to say that I have skill that must be manifested. I'm pretty sure, when I look to an ideal (and likely impossible) asana future that I could probably, with sufficient practice, pull the LBH and strength moves of third. I suspect, also, however, that those advanced backbends would be a wall of stone. But the truth about this skill is that, sure, it's probably there, maybe there, who cares. But skill exists IN ONE'S LIFE, not (except for VERY VERY fortunate people) AS ONE'S LIFE.
And so my skill sets, various as they are, are manifested ALONGSIDE all of the rest of my existence. That means--for asana--that my skill set comes with no teacher, and that it comes with seasons (temperature changes), that it comes without dedicated space and time, that it comes with all the spatio-temporal challenges of householding. Therefore, it is existentially ridiculous to talk simply of my pure skill at asana, since such a pure measurement can never be taken.
Same with my skill at intellectual pursuits: do I have a "measure" of publication-ability? Maybe, but my ability to publish happens in and alongside my whole life in all of its other aspects, and right now it's very slow.
Same with my skill in a kitchen: these skills are actually more often called upon and developed (they get more exercise), and mediated by things like access to ingredients, preference for organics and ability to get them (economic, spatio-temporal, other) and such. No skill goes unmediated, and no skill can be measured without the mediations.
What have I chosen to do--what priorities have I elected? I've elected to pursue the academy, not the 9-5 mailroom. Right there, I also, whether I know it or not, choose an economic bracket and certain restrictions of my ability to travel. I choose family, and right there, I again set economics and mobility. Skill sets are arranged by demand, and a series of what are basically "exercises" are arranged. I am good at some of what will be demanded of me, and inexperienced and/or unwilling at other skills. Note that none of my priorities are chosen, based SOLELY on a skill set. Academics? Sure I'm good at it. But there are time and preference and job and money considerations playing into that choice. Regrets and hopes as well.
If I had prioritized practice above all else (if that had been possible), I'd probably have moved to a California beach town. Or to Portland. Or at least to Chicago. So if I think that the first half of third is within my potential and existential skill set (keeping in mind that that is IMPOSSIBLE to say), one could accurately say that I HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO GET THIRD even if I think I CAN DO IT.
This isn't some "holier than thou" claim at all, seriously. Understand. What I'm trying to say is that by choosing LIFE (hi, Trainspotting!) what I've done is choose healing my emotional and financial debts, OVER serving my skill set for gymnastics. I crave an ascetic, asana-focused train to mastery, sure I do. My ego sure does (as long as it underestimates the REAL DIFFICULTIES of such a road). But I DID NOT CHOOSE THAT. I usually say, that I "couldn't," that "life wouldn't permit it." But sure it would; get a mailroom job, get twenty thousand bucks, move to California, live in the desert, take a beater automobile over to the beachside shala, practice, live, go to Burning Man a few times. Sure, that's a life narrative, and it's possible, probably. But it's not what I did.
I CHOSE to de-emphasize my practice, I CHOSE not having access to a teacher, I CHOSE family and debt and householding OVER THAT.
So today I did less practice than I have in the past "wanted" to do, I gave myself fewer poses than I WISH I HAD BEEN GIVEN, and comfort, ease, and focus increased.
I chose this family over Kapotasana and Kala Bhairavasana. And so be it. Oh, those are still in my peripheral vision, and my silly desire to make those shapes, and you know what, so be that, too.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Still waiting, and Chandra Krama in the meantime.
Nope, no baby yet! Everyone is asking. It's pretty funny, actually.
In the meantime, I spent this moon day with Sweeney's Chandra Krama. It IS a nice sequence. MS says, "do it slowly," and that's good advice. Slow practice really increases the attention to breath.
Chandra is suprisingly strong in places: the 15 breaths of three-legged-dog is POWER! The low lunges with arching back--what MS calls "ardha chandrasana," are also delicious, but as they come early, are not to be cranked into. None of it is, really.
I am loving the pigeon twists. It is substantially easier for me to twist toward the foot, than it is to twist toward the knee.
Also, in the half-Kapos from Camel (which are this: set up Ustrasana, grab one ankle, and reach over your head, toward the floor, with the other hand), I have found that I do better with the alignment of the hips, if I HANG rather than all twist the pose out of shape by trying to make my hand touch the floor.
This puts me back in a mind to go back to my "cat-paw" Kapo hangbacks, with arm straightening. Those really are my royal road to Kapo. But the backbending has been on hold this week, will have to go back gently at the start.
I'm downright eager to get a full practice in tomorrow, but of course, baby arrival (if it happens) gets priority. Duh! Hahaha!
In the meantime, I spent this moon day with Sweeney's Chandra Krama. It IS a nice sequence. MS says, "do it slowly," and that's good advice. Slow practice really increases the attention to breath.
Chandra is suprisingly strong in places: the 15 breaths of three-legged-dog is POWER! The low lunges with arching back--what MS calls "ardha chandrasana," are also delicious, but as they come early, are not to be cranked into. None of it is, really.
I am loving the pigeon twists. It is substantially easier for me to twist toward the foot, than it is to twist toward the knee.
Also, in the half-Kapos from Camel (which are this: set up Ustrasana, grab one ankle, and reach over your head, toward the floor, with the other hand), I have found that I do better with the alignment of the hips, if I HANG rather than all twist the pose out of shape by trying to make my hand touch the floor.
This puts me back in a mind to go back to my "cat-paw" Kapo hangbacks, with arm straightening. Those really are my royal road to Kapo. But the backbending has been on hold this week, will have to go back gently at the start.
I'm downright eager to get a full practice in tomorrow, but of course, baby arrival (if it happens) gets priority. Duh! Hahaha!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Wait goes on, and .02 on "doing the yoga" in the West
Still waiting; the original due date of May 26 is now where I am setting my intention. It wasn't easy, handling the idea that May 19 might have been the arrival date, when I was out of town. But I'm over it now.
This morning, as usual, I hit the power vinyasa class downtown. Because Seane Corn is in town, we were in the smaller room, with a crowd of over 20 people, so it was workshop tight, and sweaty to the point where you get off the mat and look like you've been thrown in a swimming pool. But I like that; the extrovert in me absolutely feeds off the human company.
The hissy fit-style angst attacks I've had all week about patience and about limited yoga practice (for example yesterday's Primary-to-Bhujapidasana-with-hangbacks-but-no-drops) have been teaching me that there's more to "doing yoga" than that pesky third limb of the eight (asana).
Yes, we all know this, we pay it good lip service. But chances are that if you walk into a class in this country or in the West anywhere (for all I know), "doing yoga" means making shapes. Sure, there's Kundalini and there are kirtans and such, but still, generally, I think I have a point; I know I do here, anyway.
The quick description under "Bolo Ram" on "Live on Earth" reads something like this: Sing! Sing when nothing's worth a damn! Sing when it's too hard!
So I spent a lot of yesterday just taking that with me, all around the house and town, just a little "Rama bolo" rhythm. Bhakti yoga? Maybe not, but then again, maybe so.
Also, Matthew Sweeney's Vinyasa Krama book has sections on certain pranayamas, viloma being the most "dynamic" and the kevala kumbhakas being the most passive (if that's the binary we want to use). Breathe, and feel the sensations. Observe. I'm not going to quote the whole page here, but basically MS says that the more observing we do, the calmer the chitta vrittis become. It's good to have directions re: breath and concentration, rather than just the imperative, "calm the mind." (how does one do that, exactly?)
I took rest early in class (skipping a reclined twist) and got a nice long rest in, and true to life, a quiet place happened where "I" wasn't there. Phases of quiet, phases of awake; phases of release, phases of control.
No one writes about pranayama, as Owl once accurately noted, and I don't intend to break that here, but I took up some pranayama practice yesterday and felt my inner noise get antsy at being asked to be quiet. I have a really scattershot breath/meditation practice, but I notice that it immediately does interact with the inner noise, even if it doesn't seem to do much.
Anyway, this patience quest, where many days asana is simply TOO MUCH STRESS on top of what I've got, has pointed me clearly toward other of the 8 limbs, and it's cool to see them integrate, to be less "oh yeah the OTHER parts of yoga, whatever" and to become more actual, more interesting.
This morning, as usual, I hit the power vinyasa class downtown. Because Seane Corn is in town, we were in the smaller room, with a crowd of over 20 people, so it was workshop tight, and sweaty to the point where you get off the mat and look like you've been thrown in a swimming pool. But I like that; the extrovert in me absolutely feeds off the human company.
The hissy fit-style angst attacks I've had all week about patience and about limited yoga practice (for example yesterday's Primary-to-Bhujapidasana-with-hangbacks-but-no-drops) have been teaching me that there's more to "doing yoga" than that pesky third limb of the eight (asana).
Yes, we all know this, we pay it good lip service. But chances are that if you walk into a class in this country or in the West anywhere (for all I know), "doing yoga" means making shapes. Sure, there's Kundalini and there are kirtans and such, but still, generally, I think I have a point; I know I do here, anyway.
The quick description under "Bolo Ram" on "Live on Earth" reads something like this: Sing! Sing when nothing's worth a damn! Sing when it's too hard!
So I spent a lot of yesterday just taking that with me, all around the house and town, just a little "Rama bolo" rhythm. Bhakti yoga? Maybe not, but then again, maybe so.
Also, Matthew Sweeney's Vinyasa Krama book has sections on certain pranayamas, viloma being the most "dynamic" and the kevala kumbhakas being the most passive (if that's the binary we want to use). Breathe, and feel the sensations. Observe. I'm not going to quote the whole page here, but basically MS says that the more observing we do, the calmer the chitta vrittis become. It's good to have directions re: breath and concentration, rather than just the imperative, "calm the mind." (how does one do that, exactly?)
I took rest early in class (skipping a reclined twist) and got a nice long rest in, and true to life, a quiet place happened where "I" wasn't there. Phases of quiet, phases of awake; phases of release, phases of control.
No one writes about pranayama, as Owl once accurately noted, and I don't intend to break that here, but I took up some pranayama practice yesterday and felt my inner noise get antsy at being asked to be quiet. I have a really scattershot breath/meditation practice, but I notice that it immediately does interact with the inner noise, even if it doesn't seem to do much.
Anyway, this patience quest, where many days asana is simply TOO MUCH STRESS on top of what I've got, has pointed me clearly toward other of the 8 limbs, and it's cool to see them integrate, to be less "oh yeah the OTHER parts of yoga, whatever" and to become more actual, more interesting.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Back to ashtanga posting.
Not that I have practice notes or anything from any of the past three days, but nonetheless.
Know what I would like? A regular place to practice, with regular people, and to just go in early, do it, be done, repeat, with teaching and eventually progression, but a progression (and later, a regression) that comes with repetition, that is guided by repetition.
Someone once said, I think it was about "turning 30," that one either starts preaching or stops preaching. I stopped preaching to myself because what I saw coming, happened.
Enough privation. On all fronts, everywhere and about everything. Enough privation, on a cosmic level.
I see that I feel like being metaphorical and obtuse tonight; and so be it, that's a broad streak in me and it means no comments. And know what? Who gives a fuck? If I am to have no comments because I'm talking to myself, then I can write whatever I please, yes?
Once upon a time there was a headache from caffeine overconsumption and a picture framed turned face down. Elsewhere there were toes whitened with effort and unrealized capability.
One of the "weird things I believe" is that there's no such thing as satisfaction. I think that if one were to ponder that for a couple minutes, one would come to believe as I do, that if there were satisfaction, time would have to cease to exist.
Another of the weird things that I believe is that the capability of human behavior--its actual scope, its possibilities for action in all directions--is not restricted IN ACTION by any moral schema, nor can it be. One acts or does not; there is no restriction on one's action via morality. We trick ourselves by believing that the inversion of this is true.
I said this was going to be ashtanga posting, didn't I? Am I thinking about practice?
The train goes like this: practice, not practicing, reason?, daily life, the phenomena of daily life, past routines, present routines, restrictions, abilities, choices, priorities, fear, anxiety, imperatives, priorities, time, cyclicality...
Daily life is practice, and especially when it replaces practice. I close my eyes and imagine kundalini fire rising from a spinning yellow-and-red disk at my sacrum up my spine, cracking open the blue rotating geometry at the crown of my head. Inhale, hear shattering glass; exhale, feel the heat.
It's not systemic, regular, regulATED enough, to be practice. But I have enjoyed taking it as I can, when I can, nipping time from so-called "real life" to do it.
How the fucking hell do people find time to do this? Yes, of course, jobs provide (most of them, anyway) a 9-5 block around which time can be organized. You academics, however, you people have no schedules. When do you turn OFF the thinking mind, the conceptualization, the potential conference paper? If that comes knocking at 4 am, you TAKE THE CALL, don't you?
Recent life has been the diametrical opposite of my psycho-emotional tendencies.
Don't think I didn't see that--don't see that--as a lesson to be learned. That's a practice. I see that negation and that frustration and that overwork, that opportunity to drown without reprieve, coming, and I know it's more practice.
I don't bother trying to read my life as my self-realization. I used to wish that it was, or would be, and I envisioned how it would go, but now I know that's not true, never was. I still feel like the embodiment of my idealism, but the world for which I am ideal, doesn't exist.
So I walk around in this one, never seeing my own reflection anywhere, in anything. But it's not alienation and existentialism; that's just the TRUTH. Seekers seek; if you satisfy a seeker's seeking, you destroy the seeker. Why would the world even need to exist, if that happened?
When I was setting routes in climbing gyms, it was to encourage self-discovery and transformation, but people now want tactics they can use on real rock, external versus internal, an intentional opposition, a different school of thinking, not realizing how close the two are. And how inseperable. But as is common in me, I forgot the external for the internal and also, in the other direction, ruined the game.
You'll (accurately) point out an exception.
I do love the quest; open a hip, climb a wall, self-realization; I never get tired of it. But I get tired of the REAL work of it, the work I don't choose, the work I don't see as rewarding, the work I don't see as pursuit, which doesn't conform to my imagination of how one SHOULD obtain self-realization. Self-realization for me is a LION process, a roaring chase in tall grass, predator infrared, hand-held camera with digitally hidden cuts, pure movement, face in warm blood, carnality supreme with keen godlike intelligence and electricity, instinctive, the big current underneath, the most subterranean truth, plate tectonics, Pangaea.
But ACTUAL self-realization in this world and in my experience, comes from long, long duree service, and is a CAMEL thing. I intentionally choose long torturous walks of patience-requiring monkey-minding MADNESS. Dissertation, loan payments, job applications, Kafka's messengers-and-kings, pregnancy pain I can't cure, can't address, can't fix, and a thousand other ways to sit still, to be impotent, to do nothing, to suffer absolutely unbearable inactive, agentless agony. THESE are what strengthen me for self-realization. Boredom. Annoyance. Regularity. Scheduling. Bureaucracy. Incapacity. Paralysis. Cyclical repetition. Impotence. Delegation of duties. But first, instead, how about, I could suggest.
I do what I loathe because I loathe it. The best strength-builder in the world is doing what you hate. But cynicism, this never is. Remember, I maintain my idealism, but I can never live it, because this world doesn't have a space for it. I alone am the space for it.
I tried to live as I wished, as I saw, and I wound up in a hard lesson about strength-building, and I learned from it. I tried again, and could only manage the life I wanted, in the context of long-duree camel-acts I loathed. And now I see that that is ALWAYS how it must be.
Abandon the loathing, you say? Trickery! Oh it sounds good, but it's a deception. If I abandon the loathing, I abandon the ideal. The ideal must be maintained, and so dissatisfaction with this world is absolutely FOUNDATIONAL. Read carefully and you will see that even the Yoga Sutras, in a fashion, agree with this.
I was going to go on, but in philosophical terms, this whole worldview has so much Nietzsche in it (bloody lions? the call of the wild?) that you should probably just read ZARATHUSTRA again and take the ride yourself :)
Know what I would like? A regular place to practice, with regular people, and to just go in early, do it, be done, repeat, with teaching and eventually progression, but a progression (and later, a regression) that comes with repetition, that is guided by repetition.
Someone once said, I think it was about "turning 30," that one either starts preaching or stops preaching. I stopped preaching to myself because what I saw coming, happened.
Enough privation. On all fronts, everywhere and about everything. Enough privation, on a cosmic level.
I see that I feel like being metaphorical and obtuse tonight; and so be it, that's a broad streak in me and it means no comments. And know what? Who gives a fuck? If I am to have no comments because I'm talking to myself, then I can write whatever I please, yes?
Once upon a time there was a headache from caffeine overconsumption and a picture framed turned face down. Elsewhere there were toes whitened with effort and unrealized capability.
One of the "weird things I believe" is that there's no such thing as satisfaction. I think that if one were to ponder that for a couple minutes, one would come to believe as I do, that if there were satisfaction, time would have to cease to exist.
Another of the weird things that I believe is that the capability of human behavior--its actual scope, its possibilities for action in all directions--is not restricted IN ACTION by any moral schema, nor can it be. One acts or does not; there is no restriction on one's action via morality. We trick ourselves by believing that the inversion of this is true.
I said this was going to be ashtanga posting, didn't I? Am I thinking about practice?
The train goes like this: practice, not practicing, reason?, daily life, the phenomena of daily life, past routines, present routines, restrictions, abilities, choices, priorities, fear, anxiety, imperatives, priorities, time, cyclicality...
Daily life is practice, and especially when it replaces practice. I close my eyes and imagine kundalini fire rising from a spinning yellow-and-red disk at my sacrum up my spine, cracking open the blue rotating geometry at the crown of my head. Inhale, hear shattering glass; exhale, feel the heat.
It's not systemic, regular, regulATED enough, to be practice. But I have enjoyed taking it as I can, when I can, nipping time from so-called "real life" to do it.
How the fucking hell do people find time to do this? Yes, of course, jobs provide (most of them, anyway) a 9-5 block around which time can be organized. You academics, however, you people have no schedules. When do you turn OFF the thinking mind, the conceptualization, the potential conference paper? If that comes knocking at 4 am, you TAKE THE CALL, don't you?
Recent life has been the diametrical opposite of my psycho-emotional tendencies.
Don't think I didn't see that--don't see that--as a lesson to be learned. That's a practice. I see that negation and that frustration and that overwork, that opportunity to drown without reprieve, coming, and I know it's more practice.
I don't bother trying to read my life as my self-realization. I used to wish that it was, or would be, and I envisioned how it would go, but now I know that's not true, never was. I still feel like the embodiment of my idealism, but the world for which I am ideal, doesn't exist.
So I walk around in this one, never seeing my own reflection anywhere, in anything. But it's not alienation and existentialism; that's just the TRUTH. Seekers seek; if you satisfy a seeker's seeking, you destroy the seeker. Why would the world even need to exist, if that happened?
When I was setting routes in climbing gyms, it was to encourage self-discovery and transformation, but people now want tactics they can use on real rock, external versus internal, an intentional opposition, a different school of thinking, not realizing how close the two are. And how inseperable. But as is common in me, I forgot the external for the internal and also, in the other direction, ruined the game.
You'll (accurately) point out an exception.
I do love the quest; open a hip, climb a wall, self-realization; I never get tired of it. But I get tired of the REAL work of it, the work I don't choose, the work I don't see as rewarding, the work I don't see as pursuit, which doesn't conform to my imagination of how one SHOULD obtain self-realization. Self-realization for me is a LION process, a roaring chase in tall grass, predator infrared, hand-held camera with digitally hidden cuts, pure movement, face in warm blood, carnality supreme with keen godlike intelligence and electricity, instinctive, the big current underneath, the most subterranean truth, plate tectonics, Pangaea.
But ACTUAL self-realization in this world and in my experience, comes from long, long duree service, and is a CAMEL thing. I intentionally choose long torturous walks of patience-requiring monkey-minding MADNESS. Dissertation, loan payments, job applications, Kafka's messengers-and-kings, pregnancy pain I can't cure, can't address, can't fix, and a thousand other ways to sit still, to be impotent, to do nothing, to suffer absolutely unbearable inactive, agentless agony. THESE are what strengthen me for self-realization. Boredom. Annoyance. Regularity. Scheduling. Bureaucracy. Incapacity. Paralysis. Cyclical repetition. Impotence. Delegation of duties. But first, instead, how about, I could suggest.
I do what I loathe because I loathe it. The best strength-builder in the world is doing what you hate. But cynicism, this never is. Remember, I maintain my idealism, but I can never live it, because this world doesn't have a space for it. I alone am the space for it.
I tried to live as I wished, as I saw, and I wound up in a hard lesson about strength-building, and I learned from it. I tried again, and could only manage the life I wanted, in the context of long-duree camel-acts I loathed. And now I see that that is ALWAYS how it must be.
Abandon the loathing, you say? Trickery! Oh it sounds good, but it's a deception. If I abandon the loathing, I abandon the ideal. The ideal must be maintained, and so dissatisfaction with this world is absolutely FOUNDATIONAL. Read carefully and you will see that even the Yoga Sutras, in a fashion, agree with this.
I was going to go on, but in philosophical terms, this whole worldview has so much Nietzsche in it (bloody lions? the call of the wild?) that you should probably just read ZARATHUSTRA again and take the ride yourself :)
Waiting Game, and Live on Earth
The original due date for the house pregnancy to end was May 26. Two weeks ago, a doctor said, "We think he'll come a week early." That would have been yesterday.
Saturday, I was 75 minutes away, all day, and fairly anxious about it. From Monday afternoon to Tuesday night, I was 2 hours away, practicing intense focus and performed relaxation, at a campus visit and job talk (which I think went brilliantly, perhaps to be taken up below, as well).
But no labor began, and so now the waiting game continues, although in a way it feels like it begins. Family and friends begin arriving later this week, for longer and shorter visits.
I was going to compare this intense, ready-to-go-any-second waiting to holding a challenging but not impossible pose, like Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, for three weeks. But as I thought of the nature of the challenge, no, it's not like that. It's like what I've heard and seen about Vipassana retreats, or seated Zen meditation, but of course, without the retreat part. SIT. MAINTAIN. The challenge of this is two-fold, as a metaphor for late pregnancy:
1. The challenge of, itself, sitting, waiting, being always present.
2. But I think also the much, much more intense practice of doing so in the middle of daily life in America.
Two cents on how the pregnancy behaves: this has been a lesson for the two of us in levels of physical and emotional discomfort that are often crippling in intensity. Yes, it's still miraculous, but it is easily the hardest thing we've ever done.
Early on, thirteen solid, unbroken weeks of morning sickness. Then a cold (there is nothing, NOTHING, less happy than a pregnant woman with a cold). Then a scan for genetic disorders, which was pure, unmitigated panic, with big potential consequences. No disorders were detected (whew!). There was NEVER any "flush of health" or any of that "I have so much energy" that you read about with certain "mythological" pregnancies. No archetypal self-realization, no inner feminine, none of that post-Jungian magazine-cover nonsense. Sure, the second trimester was the least painless, but that's about it.
Kicks and movements were cool, at the start, but quickly turned into "ow my bladder" and "gah, get off my internal organs!" and in month eight, they turned into pressure on nerves, an early drop into the pelvis (week 33), regular sciatic pain, and so much various nerve and organ pressure and regular, enthusiastic kicking and wiggling, that my partner frequently has to crawl about on all fours.
This kind of serial disabling (from the morning sickness to the sciatica) is NOT easy to handle if you've always been a hale, fairly powerful, self-possessed, woman. It makes pregnancy come across as a forebearer of what old age gone wrong might feel like.
When we were four months in, a friend of ours (with whose family I stayed in Minneapolis last July, for a week) started chemo treatments for breast cancer. Her descriptions of the exhaustion and nausea, sounded just like the physical symptoms of our pregnancy. So please, spare us the tales about "I had so much energy" or "I loved being pregnant."
The challenge for me has of course been different, because it's not a big physio-chemical body change first and then psycho-emotional changes in adjusting to them.
However, the donation of emotional support has been MASSIVE; the sexual frustration has been INTENSE (don't give me any of that fucking garbage about "the second trimester is the best sex you'll ever have" either, please, and while we're at it, said frustration goes for both of us, not just me) and the sheer amount of work and maintenance and errand-running has been RELENTLESS.
So, put short and pretty, we haven't enjoyed this very much. We're eager for it to be over, and for the caring for the actual child, to begin. And so it is a waiting game. Sit. Maintain.
********************
On one of the Monday night yoga classes, I remember asking myself what music we were listening to. Often I don't hear music past about the second sun salutation. The senses close off and it's fabulous. But on this night, I have photographic memories of the light, the pose (Ardha Matsyendrasana, first side), and everything. WHAT IS THAT MUSIC? It was Krishna Das, for certain (no mistaking that voice) and only after practice did I find that something called "Live on Earth" was in the CD player.
Now, I'm not often impressed by yoga gear, yoga music, or yoga books. Sure, I have the requisite collection of ashtanga books so that I can "have my identity" (snark). But I never buy yoga CD's. Freakin' come on, I know how capitalism works, give me a break.
But the "Namah Shivaya" on that disc 2 is so freakin' magical, such a strange power anthem, that I had to have it. And so, eight dollars and Ebay later, now I do.
I am going to have to go back to early am practices.
There is too much life, too much chaos, too much attentive waiting on what never happens, too many errands, too much class prep...in a phrase, there is TOO FUCKING MUCH of everything, to do it during the day.
I find also that I don't want to get too far into outer space when I practice, because it's hard to deal with stuff. I mean, I do, of course, want to get into outer space, because I enjoy it, but it's like drinking booze (odd metaphor for asana practice, wouldn't you say?).
Part of this (and this is pretty key) is that I want to backbend more, as I'm sure that it is all coming, finally, but I realize right now that I won't be able to have the "victory" of this achievement. I'm having a son, sometime soon. A backbend's going to matter, no matter how pretty and hard-won it is, compared to that? Of COURSE they come now. It's like a dissertation defense: the job is to pull your nose away from the page.
I've been emphasizing repetition over achievement in practices lately (scattershot as they've been), and the move to early a.m.'s, so that I can practice AT ALL, is part of this repetition that I didn't want to have to add in. I love practicing in big, hot, open summer, but this summer, I can't, it's not any longer going to be a primary part of who I am and what I do. It'll be "something else I do while." That hasn't been true for EVER. Time to surrender the spotlight. I know that a diaper change is going to be more important than standing up from a backbend sometime soon, and then even THAT will get routine.
I want the victory--and I'm sure I'll announce it here--but as is already happening, even when yoga people see me, they ask "Do you have a baby yet?" and that isn't a replacement or a competition, it's a lesson for me internally, being manifested externally.
If I move two hours away (if I get the job and accept it), I probably won't teach yoga; I won't have the time.
I want the "warrior soul" to carry over to the new world, and I'm cognitively certain that it'll translate but I can't see how, yet.
So along with "sit, maintain" is "repeat." Trust it.
Saturday, I was 75 minutes away, all day, and fairly anxious about it. From Monday afternoon to Tuesday night, I was 2 hours away, practicing intense focus and performed relaxation, at a campus visit and job talk (which I think went brilliantly, perhaps to be taken up below, as well).
But no labor began, and so now the waiting game continues, although in a way it feels like it begins. Family and friends begin arriving later this week, for longer and shorter visits.
I was going to compare this intense, ready-to-go-any-second waiting to holding a challenging but not impossible pose, like Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, for three weeks. But as I thought of the nature of the challenge, no, it's not like that. It's like what I've heard and seen about Vipassana retreats, or seated Zen meditation, but of course, without the retreat part. SIT. MAINTAIN. The challenge of this is two-fold, as a metaphor for late pregnancy:
1. The challenge of, itself, sitting, waiting, being always present.
2. But I think also the much, much more intense practice of doing so in the middle of daily life in America.
Two cents on how the pregnancy behaves: this has been a lesson for the two of us in levels of physical and emotional discomfort that are often crippling in intensity. Yes, it's still miraculous, but it is easily the hardest thing we've ever done.
Early on, thirteen solid, unbroken weeks of morning sickness. Then a cold (there is nothing, NOTHING, less happy than a pregnant woman with a cold). Then a scan for genetic disorders, which was pure, unmitigated panic, with big potential consequences. No disorders were detected (whew!). There was NEVER any "flush of health" or any of that "I have so much energy" that you read about with certain "mythological" pregnancies. No archetypal self-realization, no inner feminine, none of that post-Jungian magazine-cover nonsense. Sure, the second trimester was the least painless, but that's about it.
Kicks and movements were cool, at the start, but quickly turned into "ow my bladder" and "gah, get off my internal organs!" and in month eight, they turned into pressure on nerves, an early drop into the pelvis (week 33), regular sciatic pain, and so much various nerve and organ pressure and regular, enthusiastic kicking and wiggling, that my partner frequently has to crawl about on all fours.
This kind of serial disabling (from the morning sickness to the sciatica) is NOT easy to handle if you've always been a hale, fairly powerful, self-possessed, woman. It makes pregnancy come across as a forebearer of what old age gone wrong might feel like.
When we were four months in, a friend of ours (with whose family I stayed in Minneapolis last July, for a week) started chemo treatments for breast cancer. Her descriptions of the exhaustion and nausea, sounded just like the physical symptoms of our pregnancy. So please, spare us the tales about "I had so much energy" or "I loved being pregnant."
The challenge for me has of course been different, because it's not a big physio-chemical body change first and then psycho-emotional changes in adjusting to them.
However, the donation of emotional support has been MASSIVE; the sexual frustration has been INTENSE (don't give me any of that fucking garbage about "the second trimester is the best sex you'll ever have" either, please, and while we're at it, said frustration goes for both of us, not just me) and the sheer amount of work and maintenance and errand-running has been RELENTLESS.
So, put short and pretty, we haven't enjoyed this very much. We're eager for it to be over, and for the caring for the actual child, to begin. And so it is a waiting game. Sit. Maintain.
********************
On one of the Monday night yoga classes, I remember asking myself what music we were listening to. Often I don't hear music past about the second sun salutation. The senses close off and it's fabulous. But on this night, I have photographic memories of the light, the pose (Ardha Matsyendrasana, first side), and everything. WHAT IS THAT MUSIC? It was Krishna Das, for certain (no mistaking that voice) and only after practice did I find that something called "Live on Earth" was in the CD player.
Now, I'm not often impressed by yoga gear, yoga music, or yoga books. Sure, I have the requisite collection of ashtanga books so that I can "have my identity" (snark). But I never buy yoga CD's. Freakin' come on, I know how capitalism works, give me a break.
But the "Namah Shivaya" on that disc 2 is so freakin' magical, such a strange power anthem, that I had to have it. And so, eight dollars and Ebay later, now I do.
I am going to have to go back to early am practices.
There is too much life, too much chaos, too much attentive waiting on what never happens, too many errands, too much class prep...in a phrase, there is TOO FUCKING MUCH of everything, to do it during the day.
I find also that I don't want to get too far into outer space when I practice, because it's hard to deal with stuff. I mean, I do, of course, want to get into outer space, because I enjoy it, but it's like drinking booze (odd metaphor for asana practice, wouldn't you say?).
Part of this (and this is pretty key) is that I want to backbend more, as I'm sure that it is all coming, finally, but I realize right now that I won't be able to have the "victory" of this achievement. I'm having a son, sometime soon. A backbend's going to matter, no matter how pretty and hard-won it is, compared to that? Of COURSE they come now. It's like a dissertation defense: the job is to pull your nose away from the page.
I've been emphasizing repetition over achievement in practices lately (scattershot as they've been), and the move to early a.m.'s, so that I can practice AT ALL, is part of this repetition that I didn't want to have to add in. I love practicing in big, hot, open summer, but this summer, I can't, it's not any longer going to be a primary part of who I am and what I do. It'll be "something else I do while." That hasn't been true for EVER. Time to surrender the spotlight. I know that a diaper change is going to be more important than standing up from a backbend sometime soon, and then even THAT will get routine.
I want the victory--and I'm sure I'll announce it here--but as is already happening, even when yoga people see me, they ask "Do you have a baby yet?" and that isn't a replacement or a competition, it's a lesson for me internally, being manifested externally.
If I move two hours away (if I get the job and accept it), I probably won't teach yoga; I won't have the time.
I want the "warrior soul" to carry over to the new world, and I'm cognitively certain that it'll translate but I can't see how, yet.
So along with "sit, maintain" is "repeat." Trust it.
Monday, May 18, 2009
A Monday of many minds.
It's not every day that I can take an inner scan and see all of this:
1. SKPJ, back to the One. Gratitude, for this practice.
2. In eight hours I'll be in the Monday evening part of my campus visit, which is as close to getting a career doing this, as I've yet come.
3. Still waiting for the child to arrive, and now hoping he doesn't, until at least tomorrow night, so I don't have to leave my job interviews for labor. There's so much joint-easing hormonal chemistry in my partner's system, that when she pushes herself upright to get out of bed, her wrist gets sore for a few hours. The original due date guessed at by the hospital was a week from tomorrow. They say he might arrive "about a week early."
They say the cosmos abhors a void; there is certainly no void here.
1. SKPJ, back to the One. Gratitude, for this practice.
2. In eight hours I'll be in the Monday evening part of my campus visit, which is as close to getting a career doing this, as I've yet come.
3. Still waiting for the child to arrive, and now hoping he doesn't, until at least tomorrow night, so I don't have to leave my job interviews for labor. There's so much joint-easing hormonal chemistry in my partner's system, that when she pushes herself upright to get out of bed, her wrist gets sore for a few hours. The original due date guessed at by the hospital was a week from tomorrow. They say he might arrive "about a week early."
They say the cosmos abhors a void; there is certainly no void here.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Take some hangbacks and call me in the morning.
In order to get my feet-flat-in-dropbacks mission going, I've decided to prescribe myself a bunch of Sweeney hangbacks. That, as both Karen and I have described before, is stand with back to a wall, arch and hang (ideally, arms fully extended), and drop both as low and as quietly as possible to the wall, no wall walking. Push off, or else move the hips forward enough to lift the hands off, and rise. Repeat as needed (if it feels good, do more; if not, do less).
Earlier this week, in an effort to un-train myself to take the heels up as I drop back, I did various hang- and drop-backs, probably over a dozen worth. I can hang back pretty low now (not like Susan does, or anything, but low) and yesterday, after a heavily modified Intermediate sequence (hey, it's the experimentation day of the week, right?), I noticed that my hangbacks are clearly below the 90 degree line, and I'm pleased about that.
Unlearn what you have learned, eh?
Also, a quick note about late Intermediate, by which I mean the poses we never get to do on a Monday night here:
1. Mayurasana. Simply not difficult for me; not the vinysasa in, not the vinysasa out. Look out, though, for popping the head through in that jump forward!
2. Nakrasana. Must keep elbows in toward ribs. I get both height and distance, but I know that the arms extend below the ribs, which makes it sort of "crocodile on springs," which is cheating (I suspect).
3. Vatayanasana. I like this pose. I've never been taught it, and so could be doing it wrong entirely, but I really like half-lotus vinyasa. I turned the foot out, and my experience of the horseman is BALANCE, BALANCE, BALANCE.
4. Parighasana. I suspect that one is to keep both sitting bones down. Marvelous stretch, however, in the side body. Better even than that first Trikonasana.
5. Gomukhasana. Again, never been taught the ashtanga version, and can't quite figure it. To me this felt much more like a balance pose than a hip opener.
6. SUPV. Again, I like this pose. It cracks me up. I set up a half-lotus, seated, and then roll back. I cannot hook right hand to right foot, but on the left side, I can. MUST, in the rollup, keep extended arm outside the body, or else the extended foot winds up tucked under the half-lotus and it's all a mess. It wasn't beautiful on either side, but the final Bharadvajasana felt SO GOOD.
7. The deadlies. I like the deadlies, too. I've discovered that I can do what a student of mine says the martial artists call "dead man": you roll onto your neck from a headstand (by accident) and don't break your neck and wind up paralyzed. I did the first three by the book, and then lost the fourth one in the switch to tripod hands, did the fifth one, lost the sixth one coming up, and simply did not have the core strength to stick raising the seventh one. So be it.
Earlier this week, in an effort to un-train myself to take the heels up as I drop back, I did various hang- and drop-backs, probably over a dozen worth. I can hang back pretty low now (not like Susan does, or anything, but low) and yesterday, after a heavily modified Intermediate sequence (hey, it's the experimentation day of the week, right?), I noticed that my hangbacks are clearly below the 90 degree line, and I'm pleased about that.
Unlearn what you have learned, eh?
Also, a quick note about late Intermediate, by which I mean the poses we never get to do on a Monday night here:
1. Mayurasana. Simply not difficult for me; not the vinysasa in, not the vinysasa out. Look out, though, for popping the head through in that jump forward!
2. Nakrasana. Must keep elbows in toward ribs. I get both height and distance, but I know that the arms extend below the ribs, which makes it sort of "crocodile on springs," which is cheating (I suspect).
3. Vatayanasana. I like this pose. I've never been taught it, and so could be doing it wrong entirely, but I really like half-lotus vinyasa. I turned the foot out, and my experience of the horseman is BALANCE, BALANCE, BALANCE.
4. Parighasana. I suspect that one is to keep both sitting bones down. Marvelous stretch, however, in the side body. Better even than that first Trikonasana.
5. Gomukhasana. Again, never been taught the ashtanga version, and can't quite figure it. To me this felt much more like a balance pose than a hip opener.
6. SUPV. Again, I like this pose. It cracks me up. I set up a half-lotus, seated, and then roll back. I cannot hook right hand to right foot, but on the left side, I can. MUST, in the rollup, keep extended arm outside the body, or else the extended foot winds up tucked under the half-lotus and it's all a mess. It wasn't beautiful on either side, but the final Bharadvajasana felt SO GOOD.
7. The deadlies. I like the deadlies, too. I've discovered that I can do what a student of mine says the martial artists call "dead man": you roll onto your neck from a headstand (by accident) and don't break your neck and wind up paralyzed. I did the first three by the book, and then lost the fourth one in the switch to tripod hands, did the fifth one, lost the sixth one coming up, and simply did not have the core strength to stick raising the seventh one. So be it.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Apparently dropbacks/standups are contagious.
Yesterday I was doing Primary alongside one of my regular students (it rules to practice with company). When we got to backbends, I said I was going to do my regular dropbacks and my to-knees standups, and she said that she could drop back but not stand up, and so she would watch one.
My dropbacks now are heels-up and easy. I don't worry at all about cratering on the mat. However, my standups also tend to come heels-up and those are hard to the point of impossible as far as standing goes. To knees, however, is easy.
So I did one, and it took a couple rocks forward to get up, but it worked. I explained to her my sensation of the physics, which is basically, "hips forward, and don't be afraid to hurl yourself with some force, you're not going to pitch onto your face. Feel the hands get light; when the balance is in your navel, you won't drop back onto your hands."
Because she is a bendy reed of a yoga practitioner, her standup was ALL THE WAY UP. Boing, and she was standing, just like that. She was freakin' psyched. Then she did another one.
Now obviously, she's had this skill for some time, but I really like that, if one can say that I "taught" her the move, such teaching occurred without a single touch. Totally verbal. That's cool.
I did five, back-and-up.
Feet flat is the next goal. If I can drop comfortably with feet flat, I can stand comfortably with feet flat. Then I can remove the curse I levied onto myself two years ago.
It would take a wholly separate post to explain why I don't just "do it now."
My dropbacks now are heels-up and easy. I don't worry at all about cratering on the mat. However, my standups also tend to come heels-up and those are hard to the point of impossible as far as standing goes. To knees, however, is easy.
So I did one, and it took a couple rocks forward to get up, but it worked. I explained to her my sensation of the physics, which is basically, "hips forward, and don't be afraid to hurl yourself with some force, you're not going to pitch onto your face. Feel the hands get light; when the balance is in your navel, you won't drop back onto your hands."
Because she is a bendy reed of a yoga practitioner, her standup was ALL THE WAY UP. Boing, and she was standing, just like that. She was freakin' psyched. Then she did another one.
Now obviously, she's had this skill for some time, but I really like that, if one can say that I "taught" her the move, such teaching occurred without a single touch. Totally verbal. That's cool.
I did five, back-and-up.
Feet flat is the next goal. If I can drop comfortably with feet flat, I can stand comfortably with feet flat. Then I can remove the curse I levied onto myself two years ago.
It would take a wholly separate post to explain why I don't just "do it now."
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Backbends, mat, 9th month, Indianapolis, etc: Life.
Today I returned to my full practice, complete with hangback detours for Kapo. By full practice, I mean Primary and to Kapo, 4 Kapo hangbacks, often but not always a re-Kapo, Supta Vajrasana, 3-5 backbends (3 today), 3 dropbacks, and 3 self-tosses toward standing (one from each dropback), and then closing (25-10 if I have time).
This takes between 1:45 and 2 hours solid. It's a BIG practice. And sure, I know it gets bigger. I know it can go as far as Primary and through the Tittibhasanas. That's freakin' crazy talk, but I think eventually I'll do it.
I find now that when I drop back, there's a springiness, an eagerness, and on breath pace, to get back up. So I toss myself forward. It's hard to keep the feet flat. My hands do leave the mat, but often I fold over onto my knees and rise from what looks like Ustrasana. Nonetheless, today's backbending session has me feeling it EVERYWHERE, from the quads to the outer hips to the lumbar to the hip flexors and, tellingly, up between the shoulder blades. It's like a whole body experience, backbending and particularly trying to stand up, and I think that's a good sign.
Mats:
I'm considering recycling my old 1/8" red Jade Harmony through www.recycleyourmat.com and I see that they give 20% off coupons for Manduka products for each mat they receive. Hmmm. Now, off an EIGHTYSIX DOLLAR MAT, that's like seventeen bucks. Good deal: so the question becomes, do I go Manduka Black?
1) I'm not desperate for cushion. Ustrasana and Parsva Dhanurasana and I get along fine on a wood floor or a 1/8" mat.
2) But I would like lifetime durability. Between sweat and all that vinyasa, I am really tough on mats (even though, in five years, I'm only on my third one).
The rest of life:
It's the 9th month of my house's pregnancy. Today we both went to the each-week doctor's appointment, and apparently this kid can come at any time. Day, night, tomorrow, two weeks from now. Anytime. This situation makes it HARD to practice as hard as I do and then to, as some have been advised, "Relax." Hah! Sure, with my grading and my housework and the fact that right now only I can drive any substantial distance, walk any substantial distance, or even be far from home at all. I am basically running the entire house; relax, aside from whatever I can pull as I dash hither and yon, is completely and totally out to pasture.
Will labor and my job interview 2 hours by car, from here, coincide? That is some stress, mister: believe it! You think I want to be 2 hours from here when that kicks off? But I cannot, not go. Come on, universe!
I am handling stuff: cats are fed and maintained, rooms cleaned, tasty food made, bills still paid, school over (until night class begins next week). Schedule flexibility designed into summer teaching, yoga teaching, elsewhere.
What's weird practice-wise about backbend fever is that I feel that Karen and I are the backbend twins. Over here, you get third series; over there, you get Karanda fever. It's WEIRD to practice ashtanga here, as I've said a thousand, thousand times. There hasn't been any instruction in dropping back, for example, until about a month ago when I started pulling it on Monday night. Now, because I do it, there's some instruction for others about how to do it. Same with jumping back. I saw it, I wanted it, and there began to be instruction about it. I feel like the kid in 6th grade who is part of the redistricting experiment where all the northside kids are made to go, for one year, to their southside rivals' school (yes, that happened; we were the experimental year; they undid it the year after).
Last week, I did this practice Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, with a Monday night Intermediate, and I was so smoked on Thursday-Friday that I didn't get practice in. But this is obviously the summer of backbending, and so I'm going to do it as often as I can, trying to get myself to chill the Primary in order to make it through the week. Will I still practice when the kid has arrived? Right now, you damn betcha. If anything, I see continued practice as a ritual maintained, a sort of island of order in perhaps total chaos. Plus, I want the post-asana vibe in the house.
Home practice, it is! I used to feel super hardcore about my home practice tapas, until reading Grimmly's home practice story; THERE is a practitioner whose shala percentage dwarfs my own! Hell, I started with potentially four led Primaries a WEEK down in Bloomington. It was class-heavy until I moved up here, and then it was still a couple a week, and then finally, and especially when Primary and I got really friendly, sparser and sparser. The more advanced my practice has become, the fewer opportunities to have classroom space for said practice, there are. My backbend practice happens in almost total solitude (not just in that it happens in my house or the Y, but no one practices the backbends I do, in the way I do; I quite literally have no company). So there's a nod to the cybershala, but what's weird about the cybershala, as I said above, is that Karen and I are the backbend twins. There isn't a lot of "omg my backbends, wtf" out there. People are in different places.
I feel that, in a way, my practice, which turns five years old this summer, has been 2 and a half years of "why won't my right hip do half-lotus?" and 2 years of "why won't my right hip permit backbends?" I think it's the appendectomy. I don't know. I don't have any idea. But regular practice works, and so be it.
To sum up in a sentence: regular practice is going to be my order in this chaos.
This takes between 1:45 and 2 hours solid. It's a BIG practice. And sure, I know it gets bigger. I know it can go as far as Primary and through the Tittibhasanas. That's freakin' crazy talk, but I think eventually I'll do it.
I find now that when I drop back, there's a springiness, an eagerness, and on breath pace, to get back up. So I toss myself forward. It's hard to keep the feet flat. My hands do leave the mat, but often I fold over onto my knees and rise from what looks like Ustrasana. Nonetheless, today's backbending session has me feeling it EVERYWHERE, from the quads to the outer hips to the lumbar to the hip flexors and, tellingly, up between the shoulder blades. It's like a whole body experience, backbending and particularly trying to stand up, and I think that's a good sign.
Mats:
I'm considering recycling my old 1/8" red Jade Harmony through www.recycleyourmat.com and I see that they give 20% off coupons for Manduka products for each mat they receive. Hmmm. Now, off an EIGHTYSIX DOLLAR MAT, that's like seventeen bucks. Good deal: so the question becomes, do I go Manduka Black?
1) I'm not desperate for cushion. Ustrasana and Parsva Dhanurasana and I get along fine on a wood floor or a 1/8" mat.
2) But I would like lifetime durability. Between sweat and all that vinyasa, I am really tough on mats (even though, in five years, I'm only on my third one).
The rest of life:
It's the 9th month of my house's pregnancy. Today we both went to the each-week doctor's appointment, and apparently this kid can come at any time. Day, night, tomorrow, two weeks from now. Anytime. This situation makes it HARD to practice as hard as I do and then to, as some have been advised, "Relax." Hah! Sure, with my grading and my housework and the fact that right now only I can drive any substantial distance, walk any substantial distance, or even be far from home at all. I am basically running the entire house; relax, aside from whatever I can pull as I dash hither and yon, is completely and totally out to pasture.
Will labor and my job interview 2 hours by car, from here, coincide? That is some stress, mister: believe it! You think I want to be 2 hours from here when that kicks off? But I cannot, not go. Come on, universe!
I am handling stuff: cats are fed and maintained, rooms cleaned, tasty food made, bills still paid, school over (until night class begins next week). Schedule flexibility designed into summer teaching, yoga teaching, elsewhere.
What's weird practice-wise about backbend fever is that I feel that Karen and I are the backbend twins. Over here, you get third series; over there, you get Karanda fever. It's WEIRD to practice ashtanga here, as I've said a thousand, thousand times. There hasn't been any instruction in dropping back, for example, until about a month ago when I started pulling it on Monday night. Now, because I do it, there's some instruction for others about how to do it. Same with jumping back. I saw it, I wanted it, and there began to be instruction about it. I feel like the kid in 6th grade who is part of the redistricting experiment where all the northside kids are made to go, for one year, to their southside rivals' school (yes, that happened; we were the experimental year; they undid it the year after).
Last week, I did this practice Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, with a Monday night Intermediate, and I was so smoked on Thursday-Friday that I didn't get practice in. But this is obviously the summer of backbending, and so I'm going to do it as often as I can, trying to get myself to chill the Primary in order to make it through the week. Will I still practice when the kid has arrived? Right now, you damn betcha. If anything, I see continued practice as a ritual maintained, a sort of island of order in perhaps total chaos. Plus, I want the post-asana vibe in the house.
Home practice, it is! I used to feel super hardcore about my home practice tapas, until reading Grimmly's home practice story; THERE is a practitioner whose shala percentage dwarfs my own! Hell, I started with potentially four led Primaries a WEEK down in Bloomington. It was class-heavy until I moved up here, and then it was still a couple a week, and then finally, and especially when Primary and I got really friendly, sparser and sparser. The more advanced my practice has become, the fewer opportunities to have classroom space for said practice, there are. My backbend practice happens in almost total solitude (not just in that it happens in my house or the Y, but no one practices the backbends I do, in the way I do; I quite literally have no company). So there's a nod to the cybershala, but what's weird about the cybershala, as I said above, is that Karen and I are the backbend twins. There isn't a lot of "omg my backbends, wtf" out there. People are in different places.
I feel that, in a way, my practice, which turns five years old this summer, has been 2 and a half years of "why won't my right hip do half-lotus?" and 2 years of "why won't my right hip permit backbends?" I think it's the appendectomy. I don't know. I don't have any idea. But regular practice works, and so be it.
To sum up in a sentence: regular practice is going to be my order in this chaos.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Intermediate's still funky, and I have a campus visit!
Easier news first: on May 18-19, I will be on a campus visit! Whoohoo! I'm one of three finalists for a tenure-track film gig. This RULES.
Of course, it is silly messy to consider moving (even if close to here) with a kid on the way, and said kid might well arrive (it's possible) on May 18-19. Nonetheless, must go. There's no promise I'll get it and I can't refuse to go. I told them I'll need a cell phone with me at all times and they said, "Hey, we're family friendly." That ruled.
And, the Monday night Intermediate show!
Some poses retreated and SOME poses advanced. Very hard to say. But it was fun playing.
Everything up to Kapo was par for the course. Kapo was hands down, just bumping left toes, adjusted to a firm toe grab for five heavily belaboured breaths and then a Kapo B with arms bent, but hey, it was a Kapo B.
Supta Vajrasana was too slippery to maintain toe contact. Uncommon.
Bakasana B was easier than it has been, for no particular reason.
Eka Pada was a bit stiffer than usual, particularly on the right, but presented no trouble (I couldn't Chakorasana the exit, but that's par for the course).
Dwi Pada! Perhaps with cues from Grimmly vids, I pulled almost a full expression. Hooked right over left, kept the shoulders through. Couldn't make prayer hands and balance, but did lift for five and exit. Hurrah.
Less round in Yoganidrasana. Happier.
Tittibhasana sequence remains probably my favorite part of the series. It's really wonderful except that it smokes me for Pincha (as if the Kapo backbending doesn't).
3 attempts before sticking Pincha, and then 6 attempts at Karanda, all failing in making the lotus. So, I took a Sirsasana, made the lotus, lowered it, switched the hands to Pincha position, hefted my head, and then tried and totally failed to even make the lotus twitch upward. It was cool to feel it, though.
Mediocre backbends and not enough of a hangback to feel safe dropping. 3 hangs and then closing.
Onward, as usual!
Of course, it is silly messy to consider moving (even if close to here) with a kid on the way, and said kid might well arrive (it's possible) on May 18-19. Nonetheless, must go. There's no promise I'll get it and I can't refuse to go. I told them I'll need a cell phone with me at all times and they said, "Hey, we're family friendly." That ruled.
And, the Monday night Intermediate show!
Some poses retreated and SOME poses advanced. Very hard to say. But it was fun playing.
Everything up to Kapo was par for the course. Kapo was hands down, just bumping left toes, adjusted to a firm toe grab for five heavily belaboured breaths and then a Kapo B with arms bent, but hey, it was a Kapo B.
Supta Vajrasana was too slippery to maintain toe contact. Uncommon.
Bakasana B was easier than it has been, for no particular reason.
Eka Pada was a bit stiffer than usual, particularly on the right, but presented no trouble (I couldn't Chakorasana the exit, but that's par for the course).
Dwi Pada! Perhaps with cues from Grimmly vids, I pulled almost a full expression. Hooked right over left, kept the shoulders through. Couldn't make prayer hands and balance, but did lift for five and exit. Hurrah.
Less round in Yoganidrasana. Happier.
Tittibhasana sequence remains probably my favorite part of the series. It's really wonderful except that it smokes me for Pincha (as if the Kapo backbending doesn't).
3 attempts before sticking Pincha, and then 6 attempts at Karanda, all failing in making the lotus. So, I took a Sirsasana, made the lotus, lowered it, switched the hands to Pincha position, hefted my head, and then tried and totally failed to even make the lotus twitch upward. It was cool to feel it, though.
Mediocre backbends and not enough of a hangback to feel safe dropping. 3 hangs and then closing.
Onward, as usual!
On mastery and repetition.
Yesterday I was thinking that it's not necessary--beyond a certain point, or certainly EVERY TIME--to master a pose. I don't mean "to be done with it," which is a different discussion, but to master it, to be able to do it with ease, to have no anxiety about it, to do it and move on, to (if you will) not see the ripples.
This doesn't mean, of course, not trying, not struggling, and so on. It doesn't mean, no effort is expended. The context, more precisely, for this rumination was a half-Intermediate that I did, and I really was going for speed, rather than depth, and so I got an experience of "surfing" each pose, taking it as it was, rather than it "should have been," and I found that I could still "do" a pose without owning it, without having mastered it, without feeling that I had, in a sense, tamed it, owned it, domesticated it.
I think (and I am guessing) that in a regular Mysore-style room, one only has to master the pose maybe once, or a series of times (perhaps a long series) before one gets the next pose, yes? Please feel free to correct me on that.
When I'm in a Mysore-style room, and very much because of how rarely that happens, I make sure to bring the biggest, deepest practice I can possibly muster, the first day, because I feel an absolute NEED to show "where it is." I go all out: concentration, alignment, conservation of movement, breath pace, all of that. This also happens to me sometimes in my own practice, and what now is kind of interesting and amusing is that I DON'T NEED TO DO THAT. Not in my own practice and not in a Mysore room.
My behavior/belief system in this regard is like that of anyone who has only brief, very sporadic ability to satisfy a given appetite. If you only see tasty, so tasty food once in a while, you GO. If you only see tasty, so tasty carnality once in a while, you take it for HOURS. It's exactly a philosophy of deprivation and indulgence, and I recognize it in myself, it's a standard that I commit in other realms of life too.
What would it be like to understand practicing asana more as repetition rather than mastery (either achieved or to be achieved)?
True, my regular practice doesn't differ THAT MUCH from my "go git it!" practices. Sometimes I flub a rollup in Garbha, or a Dwi Pada exit from Supta K, and sometimes Kapotasana is a far-from-feet hard-to-breathe little scrunch of a dropback. Sure.
I wonder sometimes if teachers can read the vibe, or if they read it as I read it, or if they read it differently. I've gotten--as I've described before--what I've wanted from recent Mysore rooms. To put it in my opening binary terms here, is that because of my dedicated practice (repetition) or my "extra effort" (mastery)?
Like all binaries, this is a silly question. No binary is really true; they're just shorthand for understanding more complex things.
I think the real question is, what if I just brought my regular repetition to a Mysore room? Some days, in the house or at the Y or wherever I'm practicing, it's CHILLING THE PRESENCE that leads to a suprisingly good practice. Letting go of the "now wait, do it this way, make sure..." and such.
And that Thursday (the fourth day), last summer, in both MN and in MA, I was freakin' TOASTED from days of hard, hard practice. Hard driven. When Matthew said, "Four times back," for dropbacks on that final day, I was about to ask him to make it stop. You have got to be KIDDING, sir! I think that's the balancing payback. You drive in here hard the first day? So be it! We shall maintain that level all week! Hah!
This doesn't mean, of course, not trying, not struggling, and so on. It doesn't mean, no effort is expended. The context, more precisely, for this rumination was a half-Intermediate that I did, and I really was going for speed, rather than depth, and so I got an experience of "surfing" each pose, taking it as it was, rather than it "should have been," and I found that I could still "do" a pose without owning it, without having mastered it, without feeling that I had, in a sense, tamed it, owned it, domesticated it.
I think (and I am guessing) that in a regular Mysore-style room, one only has to master the pose maybe once, or a series of times (perhaps a long series) before one gets the next pose, yes? Please feel free to correct me on that.
When I'm in a Mysore-style room, and very much because of how rarely that happens, I make sure to bring the biggest, deepest practice I can possibly muster, the first day, because I feel an absolute NEED to show "where it is." I go all out: concentration, alignment, conservation of movement, breath pace, all of that. This also happens to me sometimes in my own practice, and what now is kind of interesting and amusing is that I DON'T NEED TO DO THAT. Not in my own practice and not in a Mysore room.
My behavior/belief system in this regard is like that of anyone who has only brief, very sporadic ability to satisfy a given appetite. If you only see tasty, so tasty food once in a while, you GO. If you only see tasty, so tasty carnality once in a while, you take it for HOURS. It's exactly a philosophy of deprivation and indulgence, and I recognize it in myself, it's a standard that I commit in other realms of life too.
What would it be like to understand practicing asana more as repetition rather than mastery (either achieved or to be achieved)?
True, my regular practice doesn't differ THAT MUCH from my "go git it!" practices. Sometimes I flub a rollup in Garbha, or a Dwi Pada exit from Supta K, and sometimes Kapotasana is a far-from-feet hard-to-breathe little scrunch of a dropback. Sure.
I wonder sometimes if teachers can read the vibe, or if they read it as I read it, or if they read it differently. I've gotten--as I've described before--what I've wanted from recent Mysore rooms. To put it in my opening binary terms here, is that because of my dedicated practice (repetition) or my "extra effort" (mastery)?
Like all binaries, this is a silly question. No binary is really true; they're just shorthand for understanding more complex things.
I think the real question is, what if I just brought my regular repetition to a Mysore room? Some days, in the house or at the Y or wherever I'm practicing, it's CHILLING THE PRESENCE that leads to a suprisingly good practice. Letting go of the "now wait, do it this way, make sure..." and such.
And that Thursday (the fourth day), last summer, in both MN and in MA, I was freakin' TOASTED from days of hard, hard practice. Hard driven. When Matthew said, "Four times back," for dropbacks on that final day, I was about to ask him to make it stop. You have got to be KIDDING, sir! I think that's the balancing payback. You drive in here hard the first day? So be it! We shall maintain that level all week! Hah!
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