Ok fans,
recent blogosphere activity has seen some film discussion, so here goes. I used to call myself a film student, but now that I'm PhD'd, I suppose I should call myself film professor---can you stand that? When I get correspondence from search committees, they call me, alternately, Dr. or Professor. Eeek, yipes, head for the hills. But then again, I did earn that, by finishing the dissertation.
So: I don't talk about film, movies, cinema, whatever you call it, much here, because it's a yoga blog....and stuff. But some discussion set me off, so here goes.
I've seen a lot of movies. I have a high tolerance for film violence, and I'm a very good "distanced" viewer; it's hard to get me to have a visceral experience in film. I'm attracted to art house stuff, indie stuff, dark stuff, edgy stuff, campy stuff, auteurs of legend status (ie, famous directors: Lynch, Godard, Scorcese, you know, all those people you know by name, as in "it's a Q film" or, "I've seen everything that N has made").
Some films I love, off the top of my head: Vertigo. Godfather I and II. 21 Grams. Fight Club. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. Eraserhead. Shortbus. The Doom Generation. Into the Wild. Dark City (the 1990s one). White Heat.
2 films I specifically dislike, and reasons why: Passion of the Christ. Strange Days. I dislike Passion of, because I think that it was irresponsibly distributed. Now that I've had a chance to get some distance from it and to read up on it, I'm told that it is a film which aims toward AFFECTIVE PIETY, which in short means that the viewer (who is a believer) desires suture with the suffering Christ, and that this suture increases the believer's piety. I can dig that. BUT, as I and many other people who saw that film are/were NOT believers, we had little choice other than to see it as a massively gratuitously violent propaganda piece with equally gratuitious point-of-view shots. It was called, by certain viewers, "a propaganda snuff film." And, if you're not grooving on affective piety, I think that's probably an accurate characterization. So I would like that film to have been distributed more wisely, and that's now my main complaint about it.
Strange Days: the sequence I specifically dislike from this film is the "she sees her own rape" sequence. The rapist/killer/bad guy has technology which allows him to project what he sees into the head of his victim. What we see on screen is set up as "her" point of view of her own victimization, and it's all eroticized, which I CAN now see as a distancing effect, a sort of morally-ambiguous "victim sees her own violation in killer's eyes" thing. BUT, I'm more likely, still, to see this as a woman filmmaker (one Katherine Bigelow, past paramour of James Cameron) trying to one-up the boys on eroticized violence toward women, to play a sort of "my phallus is bigger than yours" game. And that pisses me off.
If you want to see graphic, transgressive sexual imagery, go here: Catherine Breillat. John Cameron Mitchell. Otto Muehl. Monika Treut. Annie Sprinkle (when she's directing; see her video stuff from the 80s to today).
I will see virtually anything that's given an NC-17 rating. Often, experiments with censorship, specifically, earn an NC-17, and there's a wonderfully self-reflexive thing that happens. See Henry and June, see Midnight Cowboy (which actually got an X in 1969), probably see Lust Caution (haven't seen it yet, but I will).
Film violence: I grew up in the 80s and so saw tons of, gallons of, so so many, bad horror films. Freddy, Jason, the whole gang. I have a really high tolerance for shrieking violins and masked killers and blood. I thought _Scream_ was hilarious just because horror finally looked in the mirror and saw its own conventions. Anyway, this means that I can appreciate what directors like Tarantino do with film violence; I can dig it in terms of film history and aesthetics.
I'm not bothered by the murder of the five family heads in The Godfather; Kill Bill is all about movie citations, for me. What I did like, in terms of visceral experience, was the narrative of Inarritu's 21 Grams; I loved Babel and Amores Perros too, but I think 21 Grams remains my favorite of the trilogy. There is a sort of metaphysical emotional catharsis there, something on the cosmic level, which is of course emphasized by the humanity-encompassing, "We all lose something, about the weight of a nickel...21 grams." I love cosmic scope like that.
What I am NOT into in film is what you might call "realistic drama about human foibles." For example, I have heard that Laura Linney is doing a new thing about a family's struggle with a parent with Alzheimer's, and while this sounds topical and intense, it also sounds EXTREMELY painful in a way that is not cathartic. If I'm going to have emotional catharsis, I want it alongside grand tragedy, or cosmic scope, or politics, you know, something like Shakespearean tragedy, or deep irony, or camp, or Brechtian distancing effects.
I loved Solondz' Happiness, because of its pitch-black tone and its courage in non-preaching about pedophilia. I loved Araki's Mysterious Skin for the same reason. I love the tragedy of an Inarritu film because it is so cosmic. I love the suicide at the end of Araki's film Totally F***ed Up, because it needs to be there, and it possibly activates rage in the spectator, it can turn political or at least crack a sleeping eye about certain cultural nonsense.
I can even appreciate the emotional tugging of a film like My Life, and other films perhaps inaccurately labeled "chick flicks," you know, the "tearjerker" mini-genre. But what really hurts me without enabling me to set up my defenses and my enjoyment, are films that take up family drama in highly realistic terms, without camp, without politics, without irony, without any way to GET OUTSIDE it.
For the record, I really liked The Squid and the Whale. And Ghost World. And nearly anything with Steve Buscemi in it, for that matter. And I look forward to seeing the Coen brothers' McCarthy adaptation.
I used to hate Death of a Salesman, before I realized that it DOES have a political valence. I cannot, can NOT, abide films or drama or any text about people who are trapped in their ignorance, and whose tragedy comes from lack of knowledge. The only redeeming thing such a text can do is roar forth at the end, the way that Sophocles' Oedipus does: when he awakens, HORROR! And out come his eyes! Now THAT is tragedy. I have been, and still am, bored out of my head, watching The Big Chill. Whoever that film was made for, it's not me. Similarly, I found sexliesandvideotape to be, with a few momentary exceptions, yawn central.
Give me Antonioni's long, boring arthouse movies. Or Godard's political period. In general, anything that dials the levels up nice and loud, will have some appeal for me. And no, I haven't gone out of my way to see the new Tarantino stuff, with Rodriguez, or any of the Saw or Hostel flicks, heck I haven't even seen Sin City yet.
In general, I'm willing to watch almost anything that's not a suture-laden suburban mini-tragedy with high degrees of realism and no irony, camp or politics. Bring on Errol Morris' documentary about the electric chair and Holocaust denial, I am ALL the way down for that adventure. Bring on the nihilism or the arthouse (seen Man Bites Dog?) or the metaphysics or the science fiction. By all means bring on the pitch-black tragi-comedies that got so trendy in the 1990s. And bring on anything, ANYTHING, that is a cognition-heavy, mind-bending David Lynch trip, with surrealist dream material or Godardian citations or transgressive sexual material.
I do, also, for the record, enjoy just the proper variety of myth and/or fairy tales: Lord of the Rings? Check. Roan Inish? Check. Mythic scope, archetypes, deeply resonant heroes, quest narratives. Those are cool.
Is this an odd taste in films for an Ashtanga practitioner? Perhaps we should do a study.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Dear Bottled Genie...
Genie is actually an anglicized Djinn, isn't it? Or is that just the D&D talking?
Recently I have been asked, 5 times, for "added material," from potential job offerers. This has on 2 occasions meant that I've had to compose additional imaginary syllabi for courses I "might teach in the future." And I find that having to do the processing involved in imaginging 15 weeks of coursework has really loosened my screws: I become more permeable to ideas, concepts become more fluid, links more important, everything becomes thematically linked. As certain comments on certain blogs demonstrate, I am ready and willing to flow out onto any topic which interests me, in deeply tangential ways.
Yesterday I had my most sustained practice of the past four days: up to balance poses, which, as they have been for a week and more of practices here, were incredibly difficult. Job search, anyone? Stress over interviews or, worse, no interviews? Conference paper? The future calls? The sword of debt drops a hair lower? It is totally obvious why I am challenged in balance right now. No mystery.
The practices in the Philly area were pretty good, but I am sore up toward the attachments of all hamstrings. This reminds me of John Belushi: they say that he overdosed on chemicals NOT because he took more than usual, but because he took his usual amount in a DIFFERENT LOCATION, which changed how he was able (or unable) to handle the intoxicant load. This, I think, is why my hammies are sore.
Anyway, to the title here:
Dear bottled genie, would you send me a led class? I'm left with practicing in the house, which, given that I job search here, means I don't practice. It's 59 degrees in the house, which with sunlight occasionally reaches 61. It's solitary, which I can handle, but which drains my energy, and I've just returned to Indianapolis, which always depresses me (because I know, with diss finished and quest underway, that I don't REALLY live here, I know keenly and with no doubts that I'm just temporarily here). So it has been all negatives in my practice incentives recently. If you can spare the time, bottled genie, ship me a led class. Mmmmm.
This afternoon I will turn _Eraserhead_ into academically palatable material. Many of my students had never seen it, so Tuesday night's screening was a first. Very very curious as to how this class will go.
And then maybe I will sneak down to Bloomington on Friday, just to reset my energy mechanics.
And then the bandhas workshop happens Saturday. It's my show, but I have NO idea how many or few people will show for it.
I lead my one-a-week Mysore-style class Sunday afternoon, and then Monday night I might, MIGHT, be able to play student in the intro to Second.
Tuesday I am free to hit Chris' power yoga class. Mmmm Mmmm good.
Recently I have been asked, 5 times, for "added material," from potential job offerers. This has on 2 occasions meant that I've had to compose additional imaginary syllabi for courses I "might teach in the future." And I find that having to do the processing involved in imaginging 15 weeks of coursework has really loosened my screws: I become more permeable to ideas, concepts become more fluid, links more important, everything becomes thematically linked. As certain comments on certain blogs demonstrate, I am ready and willing to flow out onto any topic which interests me, in deeply tangential ways.
Yesterday I had my most sustained practice of the past four days: up to balance poses, which, as they have been for a week and more of practices here, were incredibly difficult. Job search, anyone? Stress over interviews or, worse, no interviews? Conference paper? The future calls? The sword of debt drops a hair lower? It is totally obvious why I am challenged in balance right now. No mystery.
The practices in the Philly area were pretty good, but I am sore up toward the attachments of all hamstrings. This reminds me of John Belushi: they say that he overdosed on chemicals NOT because he took more than usual, but because he took his usual amount in a DIFFERENT LOCATION, which changed how he was able (or unable) to handle the intoxicant load. This, I think, is why my hammies are sore.
Anyway, to the title here:
Dear bottled genie, would you send me a led class? I'm left with practicing in the house, which, given that I job search here, means I don't practice. It's 59 degrees in the house, which with sunlight occasionally reaches 61. It's solitary, which I can handle, but which drains my energy, and I've just returned to Indianapolis, which always depresses me (because I know, with diss finished and quest underway, that I don't REALLY live here, I know keenly and with no doubts that I'm just temporarily here). So it has been all negatives in my practice incentives recently. If you can spare the time, bottled genie, ship me a led class. Mmmmm.
This afternoon I will turn _Eraserhead_ into academically palatable material. Many of my students had never seen it, so Tuesday night's screening was a first. Very very curious as to how this class will go.
And then maybe I will sneak down to Bloomington on Friday, just to reset my energy mechanics.
And then the bandhas workshop happens Saturday. It's my show, but I have NO idea how many or few people will show for it.
I lead my one-a-week Mysore-style class Sunday afternoon, and then Monday night I might, MIGHT, be able to play student in the intro to Second.
Tuesday I am free to hit Chris' power yoga class. Mmmm Mmmm good.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Flipping the Dog--a flow class!
And this morning saw me in a flow class; technically, all of the classes are labeled "vinyasa," but vinyasa, flow, energetic flow, power yoga, you know how it goes. Don't know what you're in for beyond "linked poses"? Call it whatever you want.
I liked the class far more than I might have: a lot of vinyasa classes really don't ring my bells all the way, or I often feel unprepared for intense hip openers late in the class (like happy baby, which I have never really liked, or double pigeon, known in Sanskrit as agnistambhasana, which I used to accuse of being downright harmful to the human body--both of these are revised now, but do read on).
Yes, I started that first sentence with 'and.' Why? Well, I think that I understand this pair of posts as one thought, although the two were written almost two days apart.
11 people or so, and you know I love energy of bodies in the room. That was a plus. 3 men, 8 women, and that's typical; I also don't "need" guys in the room, I'm fine without any others around. The intro was very mellow, very attentive to breathing, an invitation to community, to "moving together" and such...to be honest, I tuned out on it and did a gentle pranayama with retention for a few rounds before we began to cat-dog (or cat-cow, as you'll hear it) and then got into the first down dog.
The sun salutations were much longer holds than I'm accustomed to, and I think that was in the name of stretching into them, but I'd really rather have shorter holds and build the stretch from the heat of dynamic movement (say, you're not an ashtanga practitioner at ALL, are ya?? HAHAHAHAHA).
But then they became fine, and it was on. Beads of sweat developing and hanging out in the eyebrows. Ahh, honey, I'm home! Bwahaha! Warriors 1 and 2, developing into standing flows involving triangle, half-moon (which I held tolerably) and standing split. No dynamic jumps back except from "long spine" to chaturanga, which was fine, but I missed it (sometimes I'll take a few just to scratch the itch).
Prasarita Padottanasana A twice; tripod headstand the second time around. Utkatasana into spinal twist, step back into revolved side angle; step up; both sides. Hand to big toe, to "airplane" (which in Ashtanga is Dikasana B, in the Advanced A). Some good poses; I was having fun. Then we "tipped the dog," which can become a down-dog-to-wheel move; I learned it from a workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh.
To tip/flip your dog: down dog. Extend a leg up and back. Bend the knee and "stack the hips," so you get this brilliant hip stretch. Let the foot descend to the floor, navel points up at the ceiling (basically, you side plank your tipped dog, and it flips). Point both feet to what is now the "back wall" (the one your heels pointed towards in down dog). I can't get this to become a wheel without putting some weird pressure on my wrists (as my hands don't point the right way in the tip/flip) but I see how it's done. The arch in the back, and really pushing the navel toward the ceiling, is where the magic happens. Wonderful, really great, hip opening.
Then two rounds of the wheel, and the room was warm, so I got some really pleasant straightness in the arms and opening in the low abs, and a navasana-abs workout (hands up, twist right, twist left), which were so reminiscent of Larry's ab workout that I wanted to "jump into a handstand!" but we all hit svasana instead.
There was a final seated series: dandasana, janu a, and then a sort of "double twist": janu a, seated, and reach for the foot with the opposite hand (right hand to left foot) and push with the other hand. THEN, reach the opposite hand around the back, and take the same-side foot with the same-side hand, upside down (in a way, a setup for revolved janu a, and also, another really brilliant hip opener). From there to Ardha Matsyendrasana and then Agnistambhasana, which was fine (I've really developed a tolerance for it).
Good little workout, product of a well-trained teacher. Then after class the silliness began, with people putting their mats in expensive "mat bags" and such, and of course, the following compliment, in dialogue:
"I just love her classes, they are TOTALLY DIFFERENT EVERY TIME!"
"I know it, they're great!"
I snickered, to myself. Later I would ask my partner why it is that people often cut the seated vinyasa, even if they do modified ashtanga. She got it SPOT ON: people don't want (so she said) to pay money to do something that's not only repetitive, but also potentially boring, and which, despite being "easy" (chaturanga, updog, downdog, jumpthrough, pose, jumpback, repeat), is also quite difficult. Vinyasa is challenging but not "new" and certainly not "funky." I think she totally nailed it. But then, for those of us who want to look in the ashtanga mirror each morning (or day), vinyasa is the way to go. Jump on back and feel the flow. (Yes, I'm copping Swenson there).
Back to Indianapolis tomorrow. Leading another Primary Monday night.
I liked the class far more than I might have: a lot of vinyasa classes really don't ring my bells all the way, or I often feel unprepared for intense hip openers late in the class (like happy baby, which I have never really liked, or double pigeon, known in Sanskrit as agnistambhasana, which I used to accuse of being downright harmful to the human body--both of these are revised now, but do read on).
Yes, I started that first sentence with 'and.' Why? Well, I think that I understand this pair of posts as one thought, although the two were written almost two days apart.
11 people or so, and you know I love energy of bodies in the room. That was a plus. 3 men, 8 women, and that's typical; I also don't "need" guys in the room, I'm fine without any others around. The intro was very mellow, very attentive to breathing, an invitation to community, to "moving together" and such...to be honest, I tuned out on it and did a gentle pranayama with retention for a few rounds before we began to cat-dog (or cat-cow, as you'll hear it) and then got into the first down dog.
The sun salutations were much longer holds than I'm accustomed to, and I think that was in the name of stretching into them, but I'd really rather have shorter holds and build the stretch from the heat of dynamic movement (say, you're not an ashtanga practitioner at ALL, are ya?? HAHAHAHAHA).
But then they became fine, and it was on. Beads of sweat developing and hanging out in the eyebrows. Ahh, honey, I'm home! Bwahaha! Warriors 1 and 2, developing into standing flows involving triangle, half-moon (which I held tolerably) and standing split. No dynamic jumps back except from "long spine" to chaturanga, which was fine, but I missed it (sometimes I'll take a few just to scratch the itch).
Prasarita Padottanasana A twice; tripod headstand the second time around. Utkatasana into spinal twist, step back into revolved side angle; step up; both sides. Hand to big toe, to "airplane" (which in Ashtanga is Dikasana B, in the Advanced A). Some good poses; I was having fun. Then we "tipped the dog," which can become a down-dog-to-wheel move; I learned it from a workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh.
To tip/flip your dog: down dog. Extend a leg up and back. Bend the knee and "stack the hips," so you get this brilliant hip stretch. Let the foot descend to the floor, navel points up at the ceiling (basically, you side plank your tipped dog, and it flips). Point both feet to what is now the "back wall" (the one your heels pointed towards in down dog). I can't get this to become a wheel without putting some weird pressure on my wrists (as my hands don't point the right way in the tip/flip) but I see how it's done. The arch in the back, and really pushing the navel toward the ceiling, is where the magic happens. Wonderful, really great, hip opening.
Then two rounds of the wheel, and the room was warm, so I got some really pleasant straightness in the arms and opening in the low abs, and a navasana-abs workout (hands up, twist right, twist left), which were so reminiscent of Larry's ab workout that I wanted to "jump into a handstand!" but we all hit svasana instead.
There was a final seated series: dandasana, janu a, and then a sort of "double twist": janu a, seated, and reach for the foot with the opposite hand (right hand to left foot) and push with the other hand. THEN, reach the opposite hand around the back, and take the same-side foot with the same-side hand, upside down (in a way, a setup for revolved janu a, and also, another really brilliant hip opener). From there to Ardha Matsyendrasana and then Agnistambhasana, which was fine (I've really developed a tolerance for it).
Good little workout, product of a well-trained teacher. Then after class the silliness began, with people putting their mats in expensive "mat bags" and such, and of course, the following compliment, in dialogue:
"I just love her classes, they are TOTALLY DIFFERENT EVERY TIME!"
"I know it, they're great!"
I snickered, to myself. Later I would ask my partner why it is that people often cut the seated vinyasa, even if they do modified ashtanga. She got it SPOT ON: people don't want (so she said) to pay money to do something that's not only repetitive, but also potentially boring, and which, despite being "easy" (chaturanga, updog, downdog, jumpthrough, pose, jumpback, repeat), is also quite difficult. Vinyasa is challenging but not "new" and certainly not "funky." I think she totally nailed it. But then, for those of us who want to look in the ashtanga mirror each morning (or day), vinyasa is the way to go. Jump on back and feel the flow. (Yes, I'm copping Swenson there).
Back to Indianapolis tomorrow. Leading another Primary Monday night.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Primary in Pennsylvania
Ahh, post-plane Primary. See how, sometimes, life lets you alliterate? How hot is that...
Up at 5:15, on the road at 6 am, waiting for the plane at 6:30, boarding at 8, take off just after 8:30, Philadelphia at 10:30, arrive about 40 minutes north of there by 1 pm. That's my destination. And there is a yoga studio 12 minutes from here, and I've just been, to a 7 pm Primary.
Dave Swenson has just been here, 3 days ago, for one of his week-long training things. And that's cool, Wendy, one of my early teachers, began teaching after a Swenson gig. So the guy who led the class is a new Swenson grad, and he's been making friends with Ashtanga for 10 years, and knows his limits (for example, his knees do not permit Lotus, nor do they do Tiriang Mukha, which some of you probably know better as "hurdler's stretch"). It was cool.
I got some adjustments in my standing...lower hip forward in Triangle, top ribs long in Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. Nice ones. Foot cup in the "swing leg to side" move, the Sanskrit being Utthita Parsvasahita. Ribs back (less backbend) in Vira A.
Plenty of vinyasa, Mari D, exits from Bhujapidasana and Kurmasanas, really nice forward bend in Baddha Konasana (attention to knees down). Three wheels, never totally "hands in line with eyes" but nice and straight, not painful. Excellent chakrasanas. 8 breaths in ALL finishing poses, including the headstand. That must be how DS told them to do it. But nice little practice. Thanks, Mitch the Ashtanga guy. I appreciate it.
Thanksgiving tomorrow; Friday's a moon day, right? We'll see. Maybe I'll throw down a Rocket, or maybe I'll visit the slightly further away studio. Onward! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Up at 5:15, on the road at 6 am, waiting for the plane at 6:30, boarding at 8, take off just after 8:30, Philadelphia at 10:30, arrive about 40 minutes north of there by 1 pm. That's my destination. And there is a yoga studio 12 minutes from here, and I've just been, to a 7 pm Primary.
Dave Swenson has just been here, 3 days ago, for one of his week-long training things. And that's cool, Wendy, one of my early teachers, began teaching after a Swenson gig. So the guy who led the class is a new Swenson grad, and he's been making friends with Ashtanga for 10 years, and knows his limits (for example, his knees do not permit Lotus, nor do they do Tiriang Mukha, which some of you probably know better as "hurdler's stretch"). It was cool.
I got some adjustments in my standing...lower hip forward in Triangle, top ribs long in Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. Nice ones. Foot cup in the "swing leg to side" move, the Sanskrit being Utthita Parsvasahita. Ribs back (less backbend) in Vira A.
Plenty of vinyasa, Mari D, exits from Bhujapidasana and Kurmasanas, really nice forward bend in Baddha Konasana (attention to knees down). Three wheels, never totally "hands in line with eyes" but nice and straight, not painful. Excellent chakrasanas. 8 breaths in ALL finishing poses, including the headstand. That must be how DS told them to do it. But nice little practice. Thanks, Mitch the Ashtanga guy. I appreciate it.
Thanksgiving tomorrow; Friday's a moon day, right? We'll see. Maybe I'll throw down a Rocket, or maybe I'll visit the slightly further away studio. Onward! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Pre-vacation catch-up!
Time sure flies when your computer won't boot up!
So I am typing on whatever computer is available and not strictly suited for work.
I haven't done many full practices since the computer mess, although yesterday I let myself modify whatever was necessary (balance poses, primarily) and did up to Pasasana and then 10 backbends (more backbends when more stressed, makes backbends easier) yesterday, and that was very good stuff. True, the first two made me feel like I was going to toss my cookies, but the ninth and tenth saw me lifting one hand from the floor to the thigh. Exploring that "stand up" mystery...
Three different jobs have asked me for "more documents," which means they have at least some interest in pursuing me as a candidate. Score! More of this, I hope, will come as the big conference at the end of December approaches.
Tomorrow morning I am off to the East, and back on Saturday. There's a led Primary in town on Wednesday night; I'll have a report if I hit it. There's also an Anusara-flavored vinyasa studio.
Finally, I led a Primary last night, and got to actually roll two people to-and-fro in Garbha Pindasana....fun fun fun, but boy HOWDY, hard on the lower back...no wonder they say that teaching ashtanga will mess up your practice...
anyway, today I'm off to my FINAL day of the two-week free sampler at the gym, and it's way too expensive to keep. I'll probably try a YMCA membership (cheaper, and all over the city) for my new "rental space."
So I am typing on whatever computer is available and not strictly suited for work.
I haven't done many full practices since the computer mess, although yesterday I let myself modify whatever was necessary (balance poses, primarily) and did up to Pasasana and then 10 backbends (more backbends when more stressed, makes backbends easier) yesterday, and that was very good stuff. True, the first two made me feel like I was going to toss my cookies, but the ninth and tenth saw me lifting one hand from the floor to the thigh. Exploring that "stand up" mystery...
Three different jobs have asked me for "more documents," which means they have at least some interest in pursuing me as a candidate. Score! More of this, I hope, will come as the big conference at the end of December approaches.
Tomorrow morning I am off to the East, and back on Saturday. There's a led Primary in town on Wednesday night; I'll have a report if I hit it. There's also an Anusara-flavored vinyasa studio.
Finally, I led a Primary last night, and got to actually roll two people to-and-fro in Garbha Pindasana....fun fun fun, but boy HOWDY, hard on the lower back...no wonder they say that teaching ashtanga will mess up your practice...
anyway, today I'm off to my FINAL day of the two-week free sampler at the gym, and it's way too expensive to keep. I'll probably try a YMCA membership (cheaper, and all over the city) for my new "rental space."
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Non-attachment, essentially.
This morning sees me wrangling with what are, basically, attachments. Attachment in the yoga sense doesn't mean something as simple as "the necktie is mine!" It's much more about, as I understand it, ties to that-which-passes. And those ties can be (tangent: I probably read at a "junior high level," as one blog-meter puts it, because I start sentences with "and," and I know I shouldn't do that, grammatically speaking, but in spoken English, I frequently do this, and I type, in a situation like this, more akin to how I speak than how I formally write; end tangent) both literally "attachments" (to car, to relationship, to socks) as well as what are sometimes called "aversions" (to relationship, to religion, to half-moon pose) and also, they can be desires for/wishes for/dreams of (relationship, car, flat kurmasana, whatever it is).
I find myself multiply attached to practice, and in ways that are, or should be, contradictory. Let me make sense:
1) This gym I go to: essentially, I "rent space" there for two hours. Sure, they offer a dozen classes a day, but I go, do my practice, and get out.
2) Why not try a class? Is it because
a) I'm too far out for that? Hush, ego. I hear you. So noted.
b) I'm too busy for that? "My" practice counts more than my "practice"? Is that what that is?
c) Yoga class as "fitness"? I haven't maybe EVER understood my practice to be about fitness. So is it that "my" yoga doesn't fit "this" yoga? Well, to argue the other way, isn't one's yoga practice one's OWN understanding and not some organization's impersonal marketing?
d) I see an aversion (and thus an attachment) to the term "fitness," to the whole idea of "going to the gym."
3) I want classes where I can practice, I want organized humanity, all doing the same thing.
4) BUT, I want to practice alone, I don't want to do "my" practice as part of a group. Uh, hey Patrick, WHICH IS IT?
5) I want a spotlight (hi ego, how are you today?) but I also want darkness, privacy. Simultaneously.
What's this all about?
A) Fitness. The rhetoric of fitness, as I see it in gym advertising, is this (and this also goes for chiropractor rhetoric):
your job/life/relationship/other situation
is causing lower back pain/overt weight gain/some other malady;
the solution is to come to our gym/office/other location
and to bike/run/get a private lesson/do some yoga/something else
in order to become more strong/flexible/aerobically saavy/something else.
B) Privacy. I have, all things considered, a FREAKISH yoga practice for this state and perhaps for this part of the country. For all I know, I have a freakish yoga practice for most of the country. And by freakish I mean that my practice is full of what John Schumacher once called "Omigod Harry, look at that!" moments. You know, asana gymnastics. And part of me wants to be private, to turn that off.
C) Publicity. I'm an extrovert; a big one. I like to demonstrate, even when I'm teaching yoga, the far-out moves, because when I was learning, say, Primary series, it was the far-out moves, the "impossible" asanas, that I found deeply inspiring. Yes, I know that not everyone responds that way. So in part, I want to practice in public (studio room, open gym room, outside, etc.) in order to sort of "turn on the universe."
Thoughts on these three categories:
1) Fitness. When I was a teenager, I used to be the 98-pound guy that no one wanted on their team. The skin-and-bones show. I ran three seasons of track in high school, but I was deeply uncool and I had all the markers of it: too smart, not cool enough of a sport, no willingness to partake of 80s fashion, and so forth. By college I settled into a frame of about 5'11, 165 and I stayed there for years. Most of my athletics in college surrounded Olympian feats of booze consumption. Then by the time I got into a seven-year bad relationship from the mid-90s to the early 2000's, I turned into 5'11, 190 or so. I don't like looking at photos of myself from those days. Post-divorce in December 2002, I dropped 25 pounds in two months, and started climbing walls out of RAGE more than any notion of "fitness." By late 2004, with a few months of ashtanga practice under my belt, I was more like 5'11, 150. But that too, was never "fitness," it was obsession, concentration, transformation. If someone had asked me why I was practicing yoga, I would have quoted Kerouac: "Because I want God to show me his face." That's sure as hell not "fitness rhetoric." And now, I'm getting that ropy Ashtanga musculature, and I'm both pierced and painted, and I have no idea what I must look like to someone who sees my practice from a distance. Five years ago I could NOT TOUCH MY TOES. Yesterday I rather comfortably put my leg behind my head. So in a gym, on my mat, going about my business, WHAT AM I? It's a postmodern question: is my history written on my skin? Or do I seem to be the "fulfillment" of fitness advertising? Where is that 98-pound kid, with whom I still largely self-identify?
2 and 3) Privacy and publicity. Contradictions. I think that what I would really like to see in America is something like a "transformation center," which in a sense is what a gym CAN BE, and so what I mean more specifically is that I want transformation foregrounded as something to be achieved in this existence. I want it written into the Constitution: Life, liberty and the pursuit of total and complete transformation. Body alchemy. Magic and flashes of light and steam rising from the body in the early morning dark. Or, if you will, Life, Liberty, and the right to trip frickin HARD. And so now I see my duality more clearly: on the one hand, my trip, my transformation, is between me and the Cosmos, as the Cosmos, and in a way, I turn "myself" into the Cosmos. "The seen exists for the sake of the Seer." And that isn't "FOR" people. BUT, on the other hand, Jivanmukta, the enlightened ones who walk the earth. Not that I'd claim to be one (that's a sure sign that one isn't), but the idea is totally sexy--not even to be one, but to think about meeting one, the very idea that such a "person" would even EXIST. Yum! So when I hit an arm balance in a class, or swing through in a jump-back, it's about making the urge for transformation, contagious. And again, it well exceeds "fitness" as a goal. Sure, you can be fit, sure you can bike more miles or fold forward, or whatever, but TURN ON THE HUNGER! Want transformation and enlightenment and warrior power, the way a predator wants prey. Hunt it, salivate for it, chase it down and pounce on it, RAWR!!! Put your face in it and come up messy, RAWR!!!
I think that some folks can walk in the rain on a quiet night and get what I've just tried to describe, and from that, I realize that my imagery about transformation really is a hunt, a body-intensive, sweat-loving, deeply carnal thing. And this shows me, again, my attachments. A DESIRE for transformation. There's one, right there. A REFUSAL of the "weak body," the judgments of "cool" kids in the 80s. There's another one. A desire to TRANSCEND the body-hate I inherited from lay Catholicism. That's a big one.
So no, my history isn't written in my skin. But also, I don't have this ropiness from "processing issues." There is simultaneity here again: sure, Patrick, go on with your transformation "away" from thing X and "toward" thing Y. Every time you practice, reality continues to sort itself out from dark mirrors. Some day it'll sort out the dark mirror of "away and toward." Incite practice however you like; you eventually clear your incitements. THAT is non-attachment.
I find myself multiply attached to practice, and in ways that are, or should be, contradictory. Let me make sense:
1) This gym I go to: essentially, I "rent space" there for two hours. Sure, they offer a dozen classes a day, but I go, do my practice, and get out.
2) Why not try a class? Is it because
a) I'm too far out for that? Hush, ego. I hear you. So noted.
b) I'm too busy for that? "My" practice counts more than my "practice"? Is that what that is?
c) Yoga class as "fitness"? I haven't maybe EVER understood my practice to be about fitness. So is it that "my" yoga doesn't fit "this" yoga? Well, to argue the other way, isn't one's yoga practice one's OWN understanding and not some organization's impersonal marketing?
d) I see an aversion (and thus an attachment) to the term "fitness," to the whole idea of "going to the gym."
3) I want classes where I can practice, I want organized humanity, all doing the same thing.
4) BUT, I want to practice alone, I don't want to do "my" practice as part of a group. Uh, hey Patrick, WHICH IS IT?
5) I want a spotlight (hi ego, how are you today?) but I also want darkness, privacy. Simultaneously.
What's this all about?
A) Fitness. The rhetoric of fitness, as I see it in gym advertising, is this (and this also goes for chiropractor rhetoric):
your job/life/relationship/other situation
is causing lower back pain/overt weight gain/some other malady;
the solution is to come to our gym/office/other location
and to bike/run/get a private lesson/do some yoga/something else
in order to become more strong/flexible/aerobically saavy/something else.
B) Privacy. I have, all things considered, a FREAKISH yoga practice for this state and perhaps for this part of the country. For all I know, I have a freakish yoga practice for most of the country. And by freakish I mean that my practice is full of what John Schumacher once called "Omigod Harry, look at that!" moments. You know, asana gymnastics. And part of me wants to be private, to turn that off.
C) Publicity. I'm an extrovert; a big one. I like to demonstrate, even when I'm teaching yoga, the far-out moves, because when I was learning, say, Primary series, it was the far-out moves, the "impossible" asanas, that I found deeply inspiring. Yes, I know that not everyone responds that way. So in part, I want to practice in public (studio room, open gym room, outside, etc.) in order to sort of "turn on the universe."
Thoughts on these three categories:
1) Fitness. When I was a teenager, I used to be the 98-pound guy that no one wanted on their team. The skin-and-bones show. I ran three seasons of track in high school, but I was deeply uncool and I had all the markers of it: too smart, not cool enough of a sport, no willingness to partake of 80s fashion, and so forth. By college I settled into a frame of about 5'11, 165 and I stayed there for years. Most of my athletics in college surrounded Olympian feats of booze consumption. Then by the time I got into a seven-year bad relationship from the mid-90s to the early 2000's, I turned into 5'11, 190 or so. I don't like looking at photos of myself from those days. Post-divorce in December 2002, I dropped 25 pounds in two months, and started climbing walls out of RAGE more than any notion of "fitness." By late 2004, with a few months of ashtanga practice under my belt, I was more like 5'11, 150. But that too, was never "fitness," it was obsession, concentration, transformation. If someone had asked me why I was practicing yoga, I would have quoted Kerouac: "Because I want God to show me his face." That's sure as hell not "fitness rhetoric." And now, I'm getting that ropy Ashtanga musculature, and I'm both pierced and painted, and I have no idea what I must look like to someone who sees my practice from a distance. Five years ago I could NOT TOUCH MY TOES. Yesterday I rather comfortably put my leg behind my head. So in a gym, on my mat, going about my business, WHAT AM I? It's a postmodern question: is my history written on my skin? Or do I seem to be the "fulfillment" of fitness advertising? Where is that 98-pound kid, with whom I still largely self-identify?
2 and 3) Privacy and publicity. Contradictions. I think that what I would really like to see in America is something like a "transformation center," which in a sense is what a gym CAN BE, and so what I mean more specifically is that I want transformation foregrounded as something to be achieved in this existence. I want it written into the Constitution: Life, liberty and the pursuit of total and complete transformation. Body alchemy. Magic and flashes of light and steam rising from the body in the early morning dark. Or, if you will, Life, Liberty, and the right to trip frickin HARD. And so now I see my duality more clearly: on the one hand, my trip, my transformation, is between me and the Cosmos, as the Cosmos, and in a way, I turn "myself" into the Cosmos. "The seen exists for the sake of the Seer." And that isn't "FOR" people. BUT, on the other hand, Jivanmukta, the enlightened ones who walk the earth. Not that I'd claim to be one (that's a sure sign that one isn't), but the idea is totally sexy--not even to be one, but to think about meeting one, the very idea that such a "person" would even EXIST. Yum! So when I hit an arm balance in a class, or swing through in a jump-back, it's about making the urge for transformation, contagious. And again, it well exceeds "fitness" as a goal. Sure, you can be fit, sure you can bike more miles or fold forward, or whatever, but TURN ON THE HUNGER! Want transformation and enlightenment and warrior power, the way a predator wants prey. Hunt it, salivate for it, chase it down and pounce on it, RAWR!!! Put your face in it and come up messy, RAWR!!!
I think that some folks can walk in the rain on a quiet night and get what I've just tried to describe, and from that, I realize that my imagery about transformation really is a hunt, a body-intensive, sweat-loving, deeply carnal thing. And this shows me, again, my attachments. A DESIRE for transformation. There's one, right there. A REFUSAL of the "weak body," the judgments of "cool" kids in the 80s. There's another one. A desire to TRANSCEND the body-hate I inherited from lay Catholicism. That's a big one.
So no, my history isn't written in my skin. But also, I don't have this ropiness from "processing issues." There is simultaneity here again: sure, Patrick, go on with your transformation "away" from thing X and "toward" thing Y. Every time you practice, reality continues to sort itself out from dark mirrors. Some day it'll sort out the dark mirror of "away and toward." Incite practice however you like; you eventually clear your incitements. THAT is non-attachment.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The world's quickest catch-up
Sunday: Primary; Baddha Konasana opens to a suprising degree.
Monday: stressy partial Primary (six job applications to mail; Veteran's Day; they wound up being Fed-Exed). Up to Purvottanasana, then closing.
Tuesday: Primary and Intermediate. All of it. Seriously modified but not skipped: Kapo, Dwi Pada, Karandavasana. 2 and a half hours, from enter-locker-room to exit-locker-room.
Monday: stressy partial Primary (six job applications to mail; Veteran's Day; they wound up being Fed-Exed). Up to Purvottanasana, then closing.
Tuesday: Primary and Intermediate. All of it. Seriously modified but not skipped: Kapo, Dwi Pada, Karandavasana. 2 and a half hours, from enter-locker-room to exit-locker-room.
Dec 1: Bandhas workshop!
Hi folks,
On Saturday, Dec 1, I will lead a workshop on the mysterious BANDHAS.
The stats are these: 2-4:30 pm, $25, Cityoga (see www.cityoga.biz for maps, contact info, other info). For you out-of-state readers, that's Indianapolis, home of the Crossroads of America (I-65 and I-70 meet here; or at least they will, once those I-70 exits open again, this week, yeehaw!)
The workshop: First, we'll figure out exactly what a "bandha" is. A lock? Energy? Flexed muscles? Something else? Where are the bandhas? Then we will do some general, totally accessible muscular engagement of the bandhas, and gradually work toward a more subtle maintenance of the bandhas. Focusing on uddiyana bandha ("flying up"), the class will turn toward simple pranayama exercises (breath control; it's not as scary as it sounds) which will fine-tune the bandhas before we set off on a vinyasa yoga practice.
The practice: Expect to concentrate on bandhas in poses, rather than full expressions or "getting the pose." There will be plenty of sweat, for certain, but we will really be taking apart the movements of Sun Salutations, which are the building blocks for most Ashtanga and vinyasa practices. We'll build the bandhas as we build the salutations, and then see how the bandhas work in standing poses, forward bends, balance poses (both standing- and arm-), backbends and inversions.
Bandhas are part of every variety of yoga practice, even the non-asana-intensive ones. They are also an essential part of pranayama, as well as asana. It doesn't matter WHAT kind of yoga you do, or how beginner or advanced you are. Bandhas get the most press, probably, from vinyasa practitioners: "engage your bandhas!" Come to this workshop and learn what that means! For those of you going to the Rolf Gates workshop the next weekend (Dec 7-9), as well as those who are practicing Ashtanga yoga in the city, you're going to want to bring your bandhas!
On Saturday, Dec 1, I will lead a workshop on the mysterious BANDHAS.
The stats are these: 2-4:30 pm, $25, Cityoga (see www.cityoga.biz for maps, contact info, other info). For you out-of-state readers, that's Indianapolis, home of the Crossroads of America (I-65 and I-70 meet here; or at least they will, once those I-70 exits open again, this week, yeehaw!)
The workshop: First, we'll figure out exactly what a "bandha" is. A lock? Energy? Flexed muscles? Something else? Where are the bandhas? Then we will do some general, totally accessible muscular engagement of the bandhas, and gradually work toward a more subtle maintenance of the bandhas. Focusing on uddiyana bandha ("flying up"), the class will turn toward simple pranayama exercises (breath control; it's not as scary as it sounds) which will fine-tune the bandhas before we set off on a vinyasa yoga practice.
The practice: Expect to concentrate on bandhas in poses, rather than full expressions or "getting the pose." There will be plenty of sweat, for certain, but we will really be taking apart the movements of Sun Salutations, which are the building blocks for most Ashtanga and vinyasa practices. We'll build the bandhas as we build the salutations, and then see how the bandhas work in standing poses, forward bends, balance poses (both standing- and arm-), backbends and inversions.
Bandhas are part of every variety of yoga practice, even the non-asana-intensive ones. They are also an essential part of pranayama, as well as asana. It doesn't matter WHAT kind of yoga you do, or how beginner or advanced you are. Bandhas get the most press, probably, from vinyasa practitioners: "engage your bandhas!" Come to this workshop and learn what that means! For those of you going to the Rolf Gates workshop the next weekend (Dec 7-9), as well as those who are practicing Ashtanga yoga in the city, you're going to want to bring your bandhas!
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Addendum: but what about India?
As soon as I posted my history with IY yesterday, the following ran through my head:
Hey, you forgot about the AYRI; what about India? Surely you can learn Ashtanga yoga from, you know, the SOURCE.
Yes, you can. I forgot about that because I don't think I can go. Sure, it's as easy as find plane, collect money, stay for a month or three or six or more. But I'm applying for jobs to fend off a truly impolite amount of debt. How am I ever going to get the time and life-room to go to India and practice yoga? Yes, all things are possible, they are. The universe is large and spacious. The problem with my going to India is that I don't BELIEVE it's possible for me to put that in my life, at least not until I get this job (knocking on wood) landed.
As a side note, I DO believe I'm going to get my feet in Kapotasana. Belief, for yes or for no, is powerful magic.
That line in the Matrix? "What's he doing?" "He's beginning to believe." You know, that one? That really IS as empowering as it sounds. But if you don't believe, it's as disempowering as it sounds. When I believe I can go to India, I probably will go to India.
Hey, you forgot about the AYRI; what about India? Surely you can learn Ashtanga yoga from, you know, the SOURCE.
Yes, you can. I forgot about that because I don't think I can go. Sure, it's as easy as find plane, collect money, stay for a month or three or six or more. But I'm applying for jobs to fend off a truly impolite amount of debt. How am I ever going to get the time and life-room to go to India and practice yoga? Yes, all things are possible, they are. The universe is large and spacious. The problem with my going to India is that I don't BELIEVE it's possible for me to put that in my life, at least not until I get this job (knocking on wood) landed.
As a side note, I DO believe I'm going to get my feet in Kapotasana. Belief, for yes or for no, is powerful magic.
That line in the Matrix? "What's he doing?" "He's beginning to believe." You know, that one? That really IS as empowering as it sounds. But if you don't believe, it's as disempowering as it sounds. When I believe I can go to India, I probably will go to India.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Larry Schultz, the Bad Man of Ashtanga Yoga.
I have 200 hours of certification from the school run by one Lawrence Schultz, who bills himself as the official Bad Man of Ashtanga Yoga. Why 200 hours there? Well, if you hunt around for tt's that are based in ASHTANGA, you'll have to wade through about 2 pages of search engine hits before you even SEE anything else, and, because ashtanga isn't something you can really "learn" in 200 hours, and further, because it doesn't even have "official" teacher trainings, the best ways to get experience with ashtanga are:
1) personal experience. do your practice and all is coming.
2) same.
3) same.
4) more of the same.
5) a workshop, session, or other training with a senior teacher. David Swenson? Manju Jois? Matthew Sweeney? You get the idea.
But, being in Indiana and wanting to teach "yoga," I couldn't just walk into some studio, spa or fitness center and give them some line about how I engage my bandhas and have years of personal practice with no "saleable" sort of yoga "license." So when I went looking for 200 hours, I landed in San Francisco. Sure, Larry's outfit doesn't do classical ashtanga except for a Full Primary on Sunday mornings, BUT they retain set sequences of poses, and they also retain dristi, breath and bandhas.
For 200 hours in Ashtanga, and having no local access to a senior teacher, this was the obvious, OBVIOUS choice for me.
The home practice of It's Yoga is The Rocket, which combines poses from the first four series (all it borrows from Advanced B is the side split and the side crane; it takes a pack of arm balances from Advanced A, however). Yes, it is what you might call a "crim" practice; it's not classical ashtanga, but then, it doesn't pretend to be, either. I remember a dude teaching a led Primary who said, "Classical Ashtanga people, you should know that you are in the house of the Revisionists!" That was hilarious. The thing is, if you want to do classical Primary, you can. You've signed on to learn the house sequences, which means you learn the Rocket, but for me, it never made any sense to set up some big ugly division between "us" the "classical" ashtangis and "them" the It's Yoga rocketeers. Why would you think in us/them if you had an option? People, come on...
Larry doesn't have a lot of friendly things to say about Mysore-style, and if I remember right, that's largely because he got tied up for years trying to do the half-lotus bound twist, but could do Bakasana pretty easily, the problem being that Bakasana is buried pretty deep in Intermediate and that half-lotus twist is about two-thirds of the way through Primary, so if you do Classical one-pose-at-a-time Ashtanga, you don't "receive" the arm balance. So he re-cut the sequences, called it the Rocket (which has a wonderful origin story involving Bob Weir telling Larry to call it that, "because it gets you there faster"), and started teaching.
Apparently no one (except me and my IY shala-mate Annie) goes to It's Yoga for 200 hours and ALSO does morning Mysore practice, which I think is insane. I mean, people, come on, you're in SAN FRANCISCO....THINK!! You can get your classical AND your Rocket, two for one! SCORE!!
And so Larry is the Bad Man of Ashtanga Yoga. Apparently Pattabhi Jois told Larry that for a bad man like himself, all was coming in 25 years! Larry likes to hold court after he leads a Rocket class--I used to love hanging out there to see what kind of craziness and wisdom would be dispensed post-class. It's not for a classical Mysore-style crowd, but hey, in those 200 hours, I learned stuff about bandhas and dristi that I still use today. That, and I learned how to stick the forearm balance nearly whenever I want to, and, as I'll get to in a minute, I stuck a handstand for a few breaths this afternoon without touching the wall, yee-haw!
Today is a moon day (new moon), which means there's classically no practice. But, as you've been reading, I am in a SERIOUS high-powered practice groove right now. When I was in SF, I used to skip Clayton's place on moon days (there were 2 while I was there) and still practice at Larry's place. So, in honor of that history, I went to the gym today, set the mat down in the aerobics-prop-storage area and did The Rocket II. Mmmm mmmm good.
Sun salutations and closing series are still the same for the Rockets: Rocket 1 is basically Primary with much louder vinyasa, and of course, handstands. Rocket 2 is a real mix-up of different poses, and it's harder and comes with more prana fun.
Rocket 2 goes something like this: sun sals, Utkatasana down to bakasana, vinyasa.
Then step right leg forward, do standing poses all on right side, forearm balance.
Left leg forward, do standing poses on left side, forearm balance.
Prasarita series: step wide, fold forward into the four variations, then side splits, then both front splits (right and left) and then seated wide angle and a press-up in that position, to chaturanga, and vinyasa.
Pasasana (squat and bind) to side crane, extend the legs into what Ana Forrest calls "scissors" but which is more aptly named Eka Pada Koundinyasana, and then bring the back leg in for Dwi Pada Koundinyasana. Do both sides.
Jump through, extend the left leg up into Krounchasana, then release leg and keep it up there, and then put the foot down and roll forward and up into Eka Pada Bakasana. Do both sides.
Jump through and assemble Astavakrasana (or jump into it from down dog). Both sides. If you like, hold the exit in Eka Pada Koundinyasana II.
Backbend sequence: Locust to bow and side bow, quick diversion into tripod headstand, lower into Bakasana, press up and then lower down, vinyasa, come into Rajakapotasana (or modify), vinyasa, Ustrasana, vinyasa, Kapotasana. 5 rounds of the wheel.
And then the handstands begin: forward bend, vinyasa, come to Bharadvajasana. After each side, "Jump into a handstand!" Then Ardha Matsyendrasana, handstand. Then pigeon pose, first the "sphinx" seated version, then reclining front, then up and reaching (various ways) for the back foot. Then Gomukhasana, handstand.
Then (optional, but I did this) Eka Pada Sirsasana (all three parts). Vinyasa and take Mayurasana. Twice if you feel like it. A final forward bend and close.
If you're really dedicated to your regular Ashtanga practice, I'm not going to insist that you do this, but the prana levels are TOTALLY different. You know the way you "sink" into Primary, really get the sense withdrawal going? Or the way that Intermediate cracks so much of you open that you BECOME the breath, so you can be sure that you're still breathing? Rocket II is like Dead trance-dancing, it's like being a kaleidoscope on speed or something. To borrow some phrasing from Anusara, you "go for a ride" doing this sequence. But, because it is SET, like the Ashtanga sequences are, you can develop all of the same elements, the same peace and flow, in it.
I laid off Rocket 2 for many months, after SF, to let my wrists heal, and today I laid off the last two handstands, but it was a really nice, energizing practice.
So yes, I'm a Bad Man. Practicing on a moon day, and more than that, practicing a Revisionist Method on a Moon Day! Whoohoo! Bad Man!
1) personal experience. do your practice and all is coming.
2) same.
3) same.
4) more of the same.
5) a workshop, session, or other training with a senior teacher. David Swenson? Manju Jois? Matthew Sweeney? You get the idea.
But, being in Indiana and wanting to teach "yoga," I couldn't just walk into some studio, spa or fitness center and give them some line about how I engage my bandhas and have years of personal practice with no "saleable" sort of yoga "license." So when I went looking for 200 hours, I landed in San Francisco. Sure, Larry's outfit doesn't do classical ashtanga except for a Full Primary on Sunday mornings, BUT they retain set sequences of poses, and they also retain dristi, breath and bandhas.
For 200 hours in Ashtanga, and having no local access to a senior teacher, this was the obvious, OBVIOUS choice for me.
The home practice of It's Yoga is The Rocket, which combines poses from the first four series (all it borrows from Advanced B is the side split and the side crane; it takes a pack of arm balances from Advanced A, however). Yes, it is what you might call a "crim" practice; it's not classical ashtanga, but then, it doesn't pretend to be, either. I remember a dude teaching a led Primary who said, "Classical Ashtanga people, you should know that you are in the house of the Revisionists!" That was hilarious. The thing is, if you want to do classical Primary, you can. You've signed on to learn the house sequences, which means you learn the Rocket, but for me, it never made any sense to set up some big ugly division between "us" the "classical" ashtangis and "them" the It's Yoga rocketeers. Why would you think in us/them if you had an option? People, come on...
Larry doesn't have a lot of friendly things to say about Mysore-style, and if I remember right, that's largely because he got tied up for years trying to do the half-lotus bound twist, but could do Bakasana pretty easily, the problem being that Bakasana is buried pretty deep in Intermediate and that half-lotus twist is about two-thirds of the way through Primary, so if you do Classical one-pose-at-a-time Ashtanga, you don't "receive" the arm balance. So he re-cut the sequences, called it the Rocket (which has a wonderful origin story involving Bob Weir telling Larry to call it that, "because it gets you there faster"), and started teaching.
Apparently no one (except me and my IY shala-mate Annie) goes to It's Yoga for 200 hours and ALSO does morning Mysore practice, which I think is insane. I mean, people, come on, you're in SAN FRANCISCO....THINK!! You can get your classical AND your Rocket, two for one! SCORE!!
And so Larry is the Bad Man of Ashtanga Yoga. Apparently Pattabhi Jois told Larry that for a bad man like himself, all was coming in 25 years! Larry likes to hold court after he leads a Rocket class--I used to love hanging out there to see what kind of craziness and wisdom would be dispensed post-class. It's not for a classical Mysore-style crowd, but hey, in those 200 hours, I learned stuff about bandhas and dristi that I still use today. That, and I learned how to stick the forearm balance nearly whenever I want to, and, as I'll get to in a minute, I stuck a handstand for a few breaths this afternoon without touching the wall, yee-haw!
Today is a moon day (new moon), which means there's classically no practice. But, as you've been reading, I am in a SERIOUS high-powered practice groove right now. When I was in SF, I used to skip Clayton's place on moon days (there were 2 while I was there) and still practice at Larry's place. So, in honor of that history, I went to the gym today, set the mat down in the aerobics-prop-storage area and did The Rocket II. Mmmm mmmm good.
Sun salutations and closing series are still the same for the Rockets: Rocket 1 is basically Primary with much louder vinyasa, and of course, handstands. Rocket 2 is a real mix-up of different poses, and it's harder and comes with more prana fun.
Rocket 2 goes something like this: sun sals, Utkatasana down to bakasana, vinyasa.
Then step right leg forward, do standing poses all on right side, forearm balance.
Left leg forward, do standing poses on left side, forearm balance.
Prasarita series: step wide, fold forward into the four variations, then side splits, then both front splits (right and left) and then seated wide angle and a press-up in that position, to chaturanga, and vinyasa.
Pasasana (squat and bind) to side crane, extend the legs into what Ana Forrest calls "scissors" but which is more aptly named Eka Pada Koundinyasana, and then bring the back leg in for Dwi Pada Koundinyasana. Do both sides.
Jump through, extend the left leg up into Krounchasana, then release leg and keep it up there, and then put the foot down and roll forward and up into Eka Pada Bakasana. Do both sides.
Jump through and assemble Astavakrasana (or jump into it from down dog). Both sides. If you like, hold the exit in Eka Pada Koundinyasana II.
Backbend sequence: Locust to bow and side bow, quick diversion into tripod headstand, lower into Bakasana, press up and then lower down, vinyasa, come into Rajakapotasana (or modify), vinyasa, Ustrasana, vinyasa, Kapotasana. 5 rounds of the wheel.
And then the handstands begin: forward bend, vinyasa, come to Bharadvajasana. After each side, "Jump into a handstand!" Then Ardha Matsyendrasana, handstand. Then pigeon pose, first the "sphinx" seated version, then reclining front, then up and reaching (various ways) for the back foot. Then Gomukhasana, handstand.
Then (optional, but I did this) Eka Pada Sirsasana (all three parts). Vinyasa and take Mayurasana. Twice if you feel like it. A final forward bend and close.
If you're really dedicated to your regular Ashtanga practice, I'm not going to insist that you do this, but the prana levels are TOTALLY different. You know the way you "sink" into Primary, really get the sense withdrawal going? Or the way that Intermediate cracks so much of you open that you BECOME the breath, so you can be sure that you're still breathing? Rocket II is like Dead trance-dancing, it's like being a kaleidoscope on speed or something. To borrow some phrasing from Anusara, you "go for a ride" doing this sequence. But, because it is SET, like the Ashtanga sequences are, you can develop all of the same elements, the same peace and flow, in it.
I laid off Rocket 2 for many months, after SF, to let my wrists heal, and today I laid off the last two handstands, but it was a really nice, energizing practice.
So yes, I'm a Bad Man. Practicing on a moon day, and more than that, practicing a Revisionist Method on a Moon Day! Whoohoo! Bad Man!
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Conan, What is Best in Life?? Practice!
Ahhh my friends, another one! Another marvelous practice! I went over at about 11 am, so that I could combine practice and teaching (I teach a 1:30 class on TR), since the gym and the university are about a quarter mile from each other.
Stronger, lighter sun salutations; some soreness in the deltoids and shoulders, from this return to vinyasa. Big, friendly standing poses; good concentration; ujjayi breathing and dristi and hop to the front! Head not to the floor in all four Prasarita Padottanasanas but I let it go. Decent balance; better with the left leg extended than the right. Some tough vinyasas in seated, but better flexibility in the back than yesterday, throughout.
A lot of intentionality in the Marichyasana sequence. Careful breathing, slower, more intentional movement; something about the twist is really cranking the hips open. I noticed this in the standing twists too. Seven wrist binds out of eight poses--just you wait, Mari D with the right leg in half-lotus! It's coming!
Still cannot jump into the arm balance and the setup for the tortoise; that's still fine. ONE TIME, outside practice, I landed a jump into this. David Swenson says that the yoga fairies sometimes play games with you like that. But the poses were deep and satisfying, and today I LANDED all of the Bakasanas, including the jump in Intermediate.
Today's Intermediate was very similar to yesterday's, as far as binding or not, but the backbends were more open, there was less pulling in the front body--hurrah! I have discovered that one of the very best poses for cracking open the front-outside of my hips (where I keep all my tension) is this one, which may seem odd, but if I look back, really open the throat chakra, I feel this really pleasant, never-too-intense cracking open right in the magic spot, that line where the abdomen becomes the upper thigh.
I'm going to change my playing-around with Kapo; today I was moving the hands in, but what that does is pull my back long and straight, and I lose the "dorsal arch." So what I'm going to do is concentrate on pressing the hands DOWN and the navel UP, sort of working toward Kapo B in order to get Kapo A.
The twists remain fantastic, and I did the three sections of Eka Pada Sirsasana (foot behind head: first put it there, second fold forward, third press up with it still there) on both sides and stuck them AGAIN! Milagro! True, it's not exactly a "comfortable seat" in the pressup, and I'm sure I'd lose it if I were made to hold it for 10 breaths rather than 5, but for 5, I can do it, swing through, chaturanga!
Today I went to backbends after that, and did three press-ups, the third being the straightest of the arms (but hands still wide, not under shoulders as they have been in the past). Nonetheless, these were far better than yesterday's backbends, and in the three hang-backs after, I could see the edge of my well-loved red rubber mat! Hurrah! Then I went to the wall outside the track and took a handstand (as Clayton had me do in SF) and then closed. Magnificent. And it took 100 minutes in all, I still had a big ole half hour to clean up and prep my class--Conan, we've won again!
I am loving this "dedicated space" thing. Not for 80 bucks a month yet, but I'm loving it.
Stronger, lighter sun salutations; some soreness in the deltoids and shoulders, from this return to vinyasa. Big, friendly standing poses; good concentration; ujjayi breathing and dristi and hop to the front! Head not to the floor in all four Prasarita Padottanasanas but I let it go. Decent balance; better with the left leg extended than the right. Some tough vinyasas in seated, but better flexibility in the back than yesterday, throughout.
A lot of intentionality in the Marichyasana sequence. Careful breathing, slower, more intentional movement; something about the twist is really cranking the hips open. I noticed this in the standing twists too. Seven wrist binds out of eight poses--just you wait, Mari D with the right leg in half-lotus! It's coming!
Still cannot jump into the arm balance and the setup for the tortoise; that's still fine. ONE TIME, outside practice, I landed a jump into this. David Swenson says that the yoga fairies sometimes play games with you like that. But the poses were deep and satisfying, and today I LANDED all of the Bakasanas, including the jump in Intermediate.
Today's Intermediate was very similar to yesterday's, as far as binding or not, but the backbends were more open, there was less pulling in the front body--hurrah! I have discovered that one of the very best poses for cracking open the front-outside of my hips (where I keep all my tension) is this one, which may seem odd, but if I look back, really open the throat chakra, I feel this really pleasant, never-too-intense cracking open right in the magic spot, that line where the abdomen becomes the upper thigh.
I'm going to change my playing-around with Kapo; today I was moving the hands in, but what that does is pull my back long and straight, and I lose the "dorsal arch." So what I'm going to do is concentrate on pressing the hands DOWN and the navel UP, sort of working toward Kapo B in order to get Kapo A.
The twists remain fantastic, and I did the three sections of Eka Pada Sirsasana (foot behind head: first put it there, second fold forward, third press up with it still there) on both sides and stuck them AGAIN! Milagro! True, it's not exactly a "comfortable seat" in the pressup, and I'm sure I'd lose it if I were made to hold it for 10 breaths rather than 5, but for 5, I can do it, swing through, chaturanga!
Today I went to backbends after that, and did three press-ups, the third being the straightest of the arms (but hands still wide, not under shoulders as they have been in the past). Nonetheless, these were far better than yesterday's backbends, and in the three hang-backs after, I could see the edge of my well-loved red rubber mat! Hurrah! Then I went to the wall outside the track and took a handstand (as Clayton had me do in SF) and then closed. Magnificent. And it took 100 minutes in all, I still had a big ole half hour to clean up and prep my class--Conan, we've won again!
I am loving this "dedicated space" thing. Not for 80 bucks a month yet, but I'm loving it.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Ahhhhhhhhhh that's better: Practice.
This gym, which I've just joined for two weeks, is a national outfit, dedicated to wider fitness in the US in toto. One thing this means is that, as far as its office staff, it is polished and corporate. It is a very slick outfit; not slick as in slimy, but slick as in really well-polished; if it was a climbing hold, you'd have to have hands of rubber to stick it.
This also means that it is really well-outfitted and equipped, in terms of what it provides. Details: sauna in locker rooms, free weights galore, Olympic-looking track with an actual basketball court set *inside* said track, along with a ton of cycling machines (spinners and others) and Cybex (tm) machinery AND a half-court (made of the same flooring as the basketball court) for aerobics and that sort of thing. The "group fitness" room is kind of small, but it could probably fit 20 practitioners (yoga, pilates, etc) if it needed to.
Right now I am getting a two-week intro free; after that, it's 80 dollars for the first four months and 44 after that. That's expensive, for my life expenses. BUT it allows me to practice in a space dedicated to, for once, NOT thinking about all of the stress-from-hell that much of my life is about right now. Is this worth it? That is something I will be asking in every marvelous svasana for the next two weeks.
I laid out my mat on a rubberized surface in a corner of the aerobics-floor, where they keep all of the steps and whatnot. Basically, prop storage. Practice: Sun salutations, standing, seated, vinyasa with a few scrapes and quite a few floats, boat, arm balance and exit (missed the Bakasana but that's ok), tortoises and exits (again, missed the Bakasana, but that's still ok), hit Kukkutasana on the second try rolling up, finished Primary in style. Bound Pasasana on the left with flat feet and not on the right until I let my heels up. Felt intense front-body pulling in Bhekasana, through Dhanurasana and all the way to Kapotasana (Hello Trapezoid Man! where I dropped back, walked my hands in twice, held for five, released down to Supta Virasana, which is how I usually exit my half-Kapo) and then went onward. Today was about freeing up my prana pathways, not about "stopping where I should." Plus, I really don't care for going to backbends RIGHT after Kapo and the backbends of Intermediate.
I didboth Bakasanas, although I flubbed the one you jump into (what's that, the daily theme or something?) and then did a modified Supta Vajrasana (hands back, fists supporting the chest arch) and then both twists, which have REALLY been feeling good lately, and then, to my UTTER suprise, I stuck all three parts of Eka Pada Sirsasana--both sides! Shocker! So I went on to Dwi Pada, which I still get into from Supta Kurmasana. It was so-so; a teacher could easily have pulled me deeper and straighter in it. I got into my usual too-round Yoganidrasana and then did Tittibhasana A and went to tight backbends (I knew they would be, from cranking my back into the Eka Padas, so it was fine). My right hip feels better--I noticed in the Janu Sirsasanas that it had gotten notably tighter from when I was last regularly practicing. Bad chairs, bad job applications! Bad chair-asana!
So after closing I took a shower (which always freaks me out a bit, in gyms: homosocial environments, by which I mean "men's this, men's that" have always freaked me out, because for most of my life I have been, in various ways, "insufficiently masculine," and men, particularly young men, when I was, say, anywhere between 14 and 24, were never shy about reminding me of this) and walked out of the place, totally disoriented with that post-yoga happy that you get after brilliant, huge practice. FINALLY, some clearing of all that stress-traffic in my right hip. Emotional ease. FINALLY.
As far as I know, either no one checked out my practice, or else those who did made no comments, no glances, no "dude, did you SEE where that guy put his foot??" and that's all fine. I don't practice for that, but I do get downright anxious about it, despite what an extrovert I am.
This also means that it is really well-outfitted and equipped, in terms of what it provides. Details: sauna in locker rooms, free weights galore, Olympic-looking track with an actual basketball court set *inside* said track, along with a ton of cycling machines (spinners and others) and Cybex (tm) machinery AND a half-court (made of the same flooring as the basketball court) for aerobics and that sort of thing. The "group fitness" room is kind of small, but it could probably fit 20 practitioners (yoga, pilates, etc) if it needed to.
Right now I am getting a two-week intro free; after that, it's 80 dollars for the first four months and 44 after that. That's expensive, for my life expenses. BUT it allows me to practice in a space dedicated to, for once, NOT thinking about all of the stress-from-hell that much of my life is about right now. Is this worth it? That is something I will be asking in every marvelous svasana for the next two weeks.
I laid out my mat on a rubberized surface in a corner of the aerobics-floor, where they keep all of the steps and whatnot. Basically, prop storage. Practice: Sun salutations, standing, seated, vinyasa with a few scrapes and quite a few floats, boat, arm balance and exit (missed the Bakasana but that's ok), tortoises and exits (again, missed the Bakasana, but that's still ok), hit Kukkutasana on the second try rolling up, finished Primary in style. Bound Pasasana on the left with flat feet and not on the right until I let my heels up. Felt intense front-body pulling in Bhekasana, through Dhanurasana and all the way to Kapotasana (Hello Trapezoid Man! where I dropped back, walked my hands in twice, held for five, released down to Supta Virasana, which is how I usually exit my half-Kapo) and then went onward. Today was about freeing up my prana pathways, not about "stopping where I should." Plus, I really don't care for going to backbends RIGHT after Kapo and the backbends of Intermediate.
I didboth Bakasanas, although I flubbed the one you jump into (what's that, the daily theme or something?) and then did a modified Supta Vajrasana (hands back, fists supporting the chest arch) and then both twists, which have REALLY been feeling good lately, and then, to my UTTER suprise, I stuck all three parts of Eka Pada Sirsasana--both sides! Shocker! So I went on to Dwi Pada, which I still get into from Supta Kurmasana. It was so-so; a teacher could easily have pulled me deeper and straighter in it. I got into my usual too-round Yoganidrasana and then did Tittibhasana A and went to tight backbends (I knew they would be, from cranking my back into the Eka Padas, so it was fine). My right hip feels better--I noticed in the Janu Sirsasanas that it had gotten notably tighter from when I was last regularly practicing. Bad chairs, bad job applications! Bad chair-asana!
So after closing I took a shower (which always freaks me out a bit, in gyms: homosocial environments, by which I mean "men's this, men's that" have always freaked me out, because for most of my life I have been, in various ways, "insufficiently masculine," and men, particularly young men, when I was, say, anywhere between 14 and 24, were never shy about reminding me of this) and walked out of the place, totally disoriented with that post-yoga happy that you get after brilliant, huge practice. FINALLY, some clearing of all that stress-traffic in my right hip. Emotional ease. FINALLY.
As far as I know, either no one checked out my practice, or else those who did made no comments, no glances, no "dude, did you SEE where that guy put his foot??" and that's all fine. I don't practice for that, but I do get downright anxious about it, despite what an extrovert I am.
Can you breathe? Great.
The transformation to fall/winter practice remains consistently challenging. I often feel like I need oil in all my joints, when I wake up. Darkness does not help this at all. Job applications, loan payments, and other noise in my head means that if I turn this computer on, I won't practice unless no one shows up to an afternoon class, in which case I can use the dedicated space as a rare practice opportunity. The living room is virtually impossible as a practice space; too much life, too much noise. Or, as I found this morning, too much six-month-old kitten, on whom I half-stepped this morning in mid-sun salutation. That won't do either.
So, there is a "get two weeks free" gym membership flyer in my house. The gym is connected to the university where I currently teach; maybe after two weeks I can get some kind of uni deal, maybe maybe not. Here's how I imagine the dialogue:
A: "welcome to gym x, sir, I see you have your own mat."
B: "it's true, the mat is mine; do you have a room with a flat floor?"
A: "well, that's an uncommon question, but we do have a room for yoga classes."
B: "great, is it available at a set time weekday mornings, say 7 am?"
A: "there are classes in that room according to this schedule, and..."
B: "aha, I see that that room's unoccupied at times q, x and z, how kosher is it if I walk in there at those times, put this mat down, and do some breakdancing?"
A: "pardon?"
Today I got up, found that I could breathe, walk, and speak English, still. Great. That counts as a practice. It is all hand-to-mouth right now. The lesson of the house this morning is that practicing at home is going to be IMPOSSIBLE. The flyer is a sign. Maybe.
So, there is a "get two weeks free" gym membership flyer in my house. The gym is connected to the university where I currently teach; maybe after two weeks I can get some kind of uni deal, maybe maybe not. Here's how I imagine the dialogue:
A: "welcome to gym x, sir, I see you have your own mat."
B: "it's true, the mat is mine; do you have a room with a flat floor?"
A: "well, that's an uncommon question, but we do have a room for yoga classes."
B: "great, is it available at a set time weekday mornings, say 7 am?"
A: "there are classes in that room according to this schedule, and..."
B: "aha, I see that that room's unoccupied at times q, x and z, how kosher is it if I walk in there at those times, put this mat down, and do some breakdancing?"
A: "pardon?"
Today I got up, found that I could breathe, walk, and speak English, still. Great. That counts as a practice. It is all hand-to-mouth right now. The lesson of the house this morning is that practicing at home is going to be IMPOSSIBLE. The flyer is a sign. Maybe.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Being given the next pose, or, Thoughts on Something Never Experienced
It just occurred to me after reading around on here that despite "being an Ashtangi," I have never, here read that again,
NEVER ONCE
been "given a pose." I learned Primary all at once, as a series where the hard poses were modified. When I was doing Mysore-style in SF, Clayton let me do all of Primary and then we worked on dropbacks/standups. I was never "given" any of Primary (as I'd gotten it all myself; that was pretty cool) and I was also never "given" any of Intermediate. I've seen poses given, but I've never received one. Far out.
Heck, I even "give" poses in my one afternoon Mysore-style class; that is HILARIOUS. I don't formally "give" them, really, or at least I don't sense my authority in that way, but I do tell folks when to move to backbends and I do my best to encourage, bend, twist and otherwise move people into poses.
I'm not worried about whether or not I "count" as an Ashtangi, regarding all of this. I count, first because that's how I would describe my practice, and second because I maintain as much of the tradition, what might be called the subculture, as possible (as much as I remember, transmitted from SKPJ to CH thence to me).
But wow, I've never had what might be considered "THE" experience of a long-term ashtanga practice. Far, far out.
NEVER ONCE
been "given a pose." I learned Primary all at once, as a series where the hard poses were modified. When I was doing Mysore-style in SF, Clayton let me do all of Primary and then we worked on dropbacks/standups. I was never "given" any of Primary (as I'd gotten it all myself; that was pretty cool) and I was also never "given" any of Intermediate. I've seen poses given, but I've never received one. Far out.
Heck, I even "give" poses in my one afternoon Mysore-style class; that is HILARIOUS. I don't formally "give" them, really, or at least I don't sense my authority in that way, but I do tell folks when to move to backbends and I do my best to encourage, bend, twist and otherwise move people into poses.
I'm not worried about whether or not I "count" as an Ashtangi, regarding all of this. I count, first because that's how I would describe my practice, and second because I maintain as much of the tradition, what might be called the subculture, as possible (as much as I remember, transmitted from SKPJ to CH thence to me).
But wow, I've never had what might be considered "THE" experience of a long-term ashtanga practice. Far, far out.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Playing catch-up
"That most American of games," as some character represented by Sean Connery once said. Irvine Welsh, if you remember, has Sick Boy parody Connery by substituting "sh" for "s." That mosht American of gamesh. Isn't there a story about Connery having had some kind of dental surgery, and cheeks full of cotton, which resulted in said accent? And yet I think that's an urban legend...
Saturday I drove at 7 am to Nashville, Indiana, and subbed a class at the Indiana Yoga Retreat, which is an annual event (in it's third year, I think it was). It's cool to be surrounded by all kinds of people doing all things yoga. I led a modified Primary, gave a pack of adjustments, had a class of 7 (which, in this state, is a sizeable class), told a few funny stories (it's almost impossible to get out of a class with me, without a funny story or two) and hung out for a while, talking about my post-going-veggie need for raw nuts (B vitamins?).
And then I drove over to Bloomington for another round of dissertation-advice-group (which I'm done with, on one level, but still attend, because I can submit things like, now get this, the beginning of a BOOK PROPOSAL based on my own diss) and then at about 3 pm went to the south end of town to catch up on my route-setting gig at the local climbing gym.
Five hours, six routes, none of them climbed while I was there. I'm getting faster, and I think the ratings were accurate, but I didn't see any of them tested. It was a good time; as I've written before, I love the energy, the "service to humanity."
Practice remains catch-as-catch-can, and will probably stay that way through this and next week. 9 more job applications to send by the 15th; classes to teach on material with which I am not back-of-hand familiar; book proposal to begin in draft form, submitted to the group before Saturday. Class stuff to grade and return, various bureaucratic tasks to maintain. Intro to second, tonight, and next week I will sub that class, too, and lead Primary for whoever shows.
So what am I doing using valuable minutes to write in this thing? Yikes.
*Zip-bang!*
Saturday I drove at 7 am to Nashville, Indiana, and subbed a class at the Indiana Yoga Retreat, which is an annual event (in it's third year, I think it was). It's cool to be surrounded by all kinds of people doing all things yoga. I led a modified Primary, gave a pack of adjustments, had a class of 7 (which, in this state, is a sizeable class), told a few funny stories (it's almost impossible to get out of a class with me, without a funny story or two) and hung out for a while, talking about my post-going-veggie need for raw nuts (B vitamins?).
And then I drove over to Bloomington for another round of dissertation-advice-group (which I'm done with, on one level, but still attend, because I can submit things like, now get this, the beginning of a BOOK PROPOSAL based on my own diss) and then at about 3 pm went to the south end of town to catch up on my route-setting gig at the local climbing gym.
Five hours, six routes, none of them climbed while I was there. I'm getting faster, and I think the ratings were accurate, but I didn't see any of them tested. It was a good time; as I've written before, I love the energy, the "service to humanity."
Practice remains catch-as-catch-can, and will probably stay that way through this and next week. 9 more job applications to send by the 15th; classes to teach on material with which I am not back-of-hand familiar; book proposal to begin in draft form, submitted to the group before Saturday. Class stuff to grade and return, various bureaucratic tasks to maintain. Intro to second, tonight, and next week I will sub that class, too, and lead Primary for whoever shows.
So what am I doing using valuable minutes to write in this thing? Yikes.
*Zip-bang!*
Friday, November 2, 2007
Asana, mind, body: One thing, not three!
I wish I had a pithy Sutras quote or something more "yogic" with which to title this, but I don't. Here is today's (re) discovery.
I went outside (in November!) to practice--it's in the low 60s, which is going to be typical of my practice temperatures until at least April-- and laid out the cotton rug and did 5 Sun Salutation A's and 2 B's before I realized that downward facing dog was not comfortable (too much sitting at the computer, in a western chair) and was not likely going to GET more comfortable as practice progressed. So I moved to a hand-supported bridge pose and then to a series of baby backbends, including cobra, locust, and a big, long upward facing dog as well as a half-supta-virasana with one knee raised and the opposite foot tucked back.
This, with sun shining and all (crim, crim practice, hahaha), was what I did today for asana practice. However: as I'd written earlier about "body flexible, mind stiff," I could feel that I still had the strength to do a one-legged Bakasana if I so chose, and to do jumps back and through, if I so chose. Body flexible. I knew this, implicitly understood it. Mind stiff: this also, I implicitly understood.
Sure, the baby backbends were intended to (and were successful in doing this) extend and stretch my right lateral hip, which becomes very irritated and tight and whiny after extended chair-sitting. Some backbending and a long stand in "Warrior 1 feet" (with the right foot back, heel down) really pull open the lateral musculature and fasciae which are so irritated by chairs.
But still, this was a practice for the MIND: now the stressors become more obvious, vision becomes clearer, self-understanding is drawn in more easily visible lines.
1) I'm stressed about driving 90 minutes to the "Third International Yoga Retreat" held down south in Brown County this weekend (see www.indianayoga.org). What will the students for the 75-minute Ashtanga class I'm subbing, be like? How many? What energy? Will I arrive on time? How will it all be run? A thousand questions.
2) I'm stressed, at a fairly consistent grade, about the job search. This is the kind of gradually-invisible-by-virtue-of-consistency stress that can, without sufficient checking-in, become the new "base level" of life stress. Writing a dissertation also carries this same threat.
3) These, along with the daily stress of householding, end up in my right hip and in my spine, and all throughout "me." However, it's not a simple mind-body thing, it's not even as fun and complicated as saying "stress shows up in the body," although that is, largely, accurate.
The asana practice that I did today was about vision, not about physical condition, not about "stilling the mind stuff," even, not really. Vision. Checking in, scanning, having a look. With what eyes? At what object? Yes, the microscope metaphor. And in postmodernism, that works this way: what eye is objective enough to regard itself under the microscope? Doesn't it realize that the seer is the seen? In yoga terms, this is ALWAYS how reality works until enlightenment, when Purusha and Prakriti really are REALIZED as separate; they already are, but it's a matter of SEEING it.
I practiced so that I could say, "You look like this today." But I didn't know that until I was "done" with the practice, I realized this in practice. Images became clear, stress became obvious. I didn't ask questions, I simply saw something that took the form of dialogue.
Who is to say that "the body" moves during "asana practice" and that this affects "the mind"? Who attributes those agents and objects? How do we know they're accurate? What if the asana practice moves the mind and the body's motion is the result? How does that change things, what things does that change?
It would be more accurate, watching a film of today's practice, to say that the question motivated me, perhaps the desire to see clearly, rather than to practice "to a certain point." Certain point often means "up to pose Q." What if one practiced up to BREATH Q or up to VISION Q? And see the passive voice construction? WAS MOTIVATED BY. Who or what is the motivator?
It's not a master of positing a puppet master. That only exists in mind and body dichotomies, and maybe in horror movies. Because, let's remember, the actual level of my stress and the amount of "chair-asana" I'd done are REAL; it is my awareness of those things which VARIES. Perhaps the stressors THEMSELVES wanted to point out their own presence and THAT is what drove the practice from which came (and as which was) the realization.
Outside a dog was barking. I heard it. Was that part of practice or not? The case for not: not unless we make some pun about "downward facing dog," maybe. The case for yes: of course it is; the dog was heard, the sky was blue, the spine was bent, the diaphragm lowers, the diaphragm rises. Shall I draw a black line around my body and say that THIS is me and everything OUTSIDE IT is not? How then do senses work? Do I sense "myself"? Do I possess what I sense, in a way, "consuming" it? Or am "I" part of "outside," even in the act of breathing, even in involuntary muscular action? Aren't, as Whitman asked many times in more lyrical language, my body and the grass the same thing? What is it, then, to "practice"?
Still, yes, there were physical sensations "within" my borders, as well as outside them (suspend here the discussion of whether the heard-but-unseen dog was "real" as well as the discussion of whether hearing refers to the outside world or the interior one).
The world (if you will) changes the mind. One is constantly invited to "listen," to "look," to do a thousand things. What I most often (and most familiarly) experience with my mind is the lack of a culture-wide program for enlightenment. If death is a certainty (transition or end or something else, whatever you see it as), then shouldn't enlightenment about mortality, or at least religion, some kind of address or answer or at least a QUESTION, be a cultural imperative? And then to see capitalism in that light, is, oddly, amusing. Make money? Is that my answer? Is that the way to answer curiosity about "what awaits on the other side"? It's like some Zen koan: you ask the universe what the "point" is, and you hear a cash register. KA-CHING!!! Or maybe you hear a Pink Floyd song. You'd crack up. You'd have to.
Q: "Hey, how's your job seach going?"
A: "Every minute Zen!"
I went outside (in November!) to practice--it's in the low 60s, which is going to be typical of my practice temperatures until at least April-- and laid out the cotton rug and did 5 Sun Salutation A's and 2 B's before I realized that downward facing dog was not comfortable (too much sitting at the computer, in a western chair) and was not likely going to GET more comfortable as practice progressed. So I moved to a hand-supported bridge pose and then to a series of baby backbends, including cobra, locust, and a big, long upward facing dog as well as a half-supta-virasana with one knee raised and the opposite foot tucked back.
This, with sun shining and all (crim, crim practice, hahaha), was what I did today for asana practice. However: as I'd written earlier about "body flexible, mind stiff," I could feel that I still had the strength to do a one-legged Bakasana if I so chose, and to do jumps back and through, if I so chose. Body flexible. I knew this, implicitly understood it. Mind stiff: this also, I implicitly understood.
Sure, the baby backbends were intended to (and were successful in doing this) extend and stretch my right lateral hip, which becomes very irritated and tight and whiny after extended chair-sitting. Some backbending and a long stand in "Warrior 1 feet" (with the right foot back, heel down) really pull open the lateral musculature and fasciae which are so irritated by chairs.
But still, this was a practice for the MIND: now the stressors become more obvious, vision becomes clearer, self-understanding is drawn in more easily visible lines.
1) I'm stressed about driving 90 minutes to the "Third International Yoga Retreat" held down south in Brown County this weekend (see www.indianayoga.org). What will the students for the 75-minute Ashtanga class I'm subbing, be like? How many? What energy? Will I arrive on time? How will it all be run? A thousand questions.
2) I'm stressed, at a fairly consistent grade, about the job search. This is the kind of gradually-invisible-by-virtue-of-consistency stress that can, without sufficient checking-in, become the new "base level" of life stress. Writing a dissertation also carries this same threat.
3) These, along with the daily stress of householding, end up in my right hip and in my spine, and all throughout "me." However, it's not a simple mind-body thing, it's not even as fun and complicated as saying "stress shows up in the body," although that is, largely, accurate.
The asana practice that I did today was about vision, not about physical condition, not about "stilling the mind stuff," even, not really. Vision. Checking in, scanning, having a look. With what eyes? At what object? Yes, the microscope metaphor. And in postmodernism, that works this way: what eye is objective enough to regard itself under the microscope? Doesn't it realize that the seer is the seen? In yoga terms, this is ALWAYS how reality works until enlightenment, when Purusha and Prakriti really are REALIZED as separate; they already are, but it's a matter of SEEING it.
I practiced so that I could say, "You look like this today." But I didn't know that until I was "done" with the practice, I realized this in practice. Images became clear, stress became obvious. I didn't ask questions, I simply saw something that took the form of dialogue.
Who is to say that "the body" moves during "asana practice" and that this affects "the mind"? Who attributes those agents and objects? How do we know they're accurate? What if the asana practice moves the mind and the body's motion is the result? How does that change things, what things does that change?
It would be more accurate, watching a film of today's practice, to say that the question motivated me, perhaps the desire to see clearly, rather than to practice "to a certain point." Certain point often means "up to pose Q." What if one practiced up to BREATH Q or up to VISION Q? And see the passive voice construction? WAS MOTIVATED BY. Who or what is the motivator?
It's not a master of positing a puppet master. That only exists in mind and body dichotomies, and maybe in horror movies. Because, let's remember, the actual level of my stress and the amount of "chair-asana" I'd done are REAL; it is my awareness of those things which VARIES. Perhaps the stressors THEMSELVES wanted to point out their own presence and THAT is what drove the practice from which came (and as which was) the realization.
Outside a dog was barking. I heard it. Was that part of practice or not? The case for not: not unless we make some pun about "downward facing dog," maybe. The case for yes: of course it is; the dog was heard, the sky was blue, the spine was bent, the diaphragm lowers, the diaphragm rises. Shall I draw a black line around my body and say that THIS is me and everything OUTSIDE IT is not? How then do senses work? Do I sense "myself"? Do I possess what I sense, in a way, "consuming" it? Or am "I" part of "outside," even in the act of breathing, even in involuntary muscular action? Aren't, as Whitman asked many times in more lyrical language, my body and the grass the same thing? What is it, then, to "practice"?
Still, yes, there were physical sensations "within" my borders, as well as outside them (suspend here the discussion of whether the heard-but-unseen dog was "real" as well as the discussion of whether hearing refers to the outside world or the interior one).
The world (if you will) changes the mind. One is constantly invited to "listen," to "look," to do a thousand things. What I most often (and most familiarly) experience with my mind is the lack of a culture-wide program for enlightenment. If death is a certainty (transition or end or something else, whatever you see it as), then shouldn't enlightenment about mortality, or at least religion, some kind of address or answer or at least a QUESTION, be a cultural imperative? And then to see capitalism in that light, is, oddly, amusing. Make money? Is that my answer? Is that the way to answer curiosity about "what awaits on the other side"? It's like some Zen koan: you ask the universe what the "point" is, and you hear a cash register. KA-CHING!!! Or maybe you hear a Pink Floyd song. You'd crack up. You'd have to.
Q: "Hey, how's your job seach going?"
A: "Every minute Zen!"
Hey California, What Gives?
It seems that all of the gigs in the state of California take one of two forms:
1) Specialist in South Asian cinema. Cinema, yes. South Asian? Dang, shoulda changed my major.
2) Tons of gigs in film................PRODUCTION. You name it: tenure-track, non-tenure track, if you know how to make movies, we want ya. And again, SHOULDA CHANGED MY MAJOR, I guess. Perhaps I should have MADE an indie film instead of trying to BECOME ONE.
In any case:
Come on California, you know I like you, I know you like me, it's a natural thing. Don't let Eugene, Oregon be my only west-coast job application. I mean, really: I even know where Kenneth Anger used to live on Fulton Street, in San Francisco. And you've got four, count them FOUR different, and apparently well-attended, Mysore-style programs, IN THAT CITY ALONE. Plus, I hunted down some of the hotels and locales that Hitchcock used in Vertigo; heck I even tried to duplicate the right camera angles before taking a photo of what is now called the York hotel (I think). And yes, I saw the little plaque mounted in that alley downtown, where the death of Miles Archer is proclaimed.
Do I really have to step into the time machine and get in on the Clinton-era boom in technology out there? And then wise up and turn to yoga to get my inner life in order? Do I have to be one of those guys to live inside your lines, California?
But hey, it's alright. We'll always have airplanes and the BART.
You know what? I think maybe the rest of the state is just jealous, because really, the only part of CA I've ever been to is San Francisco and Marin (with some side journeys to Carmel and Monterey, but those weren't my idea at the time). Maybe it's that I'm too biased in my Californication. I can hear it now: "You only love me for my San Francisco." Hey, what can I say, I've loved your San Francisco since I was a teenager.
Open letter to someone: next time you're in the Haight, hit these for me.
I used to live here in May 2007. Does that apartment still have scaffolding all over the front of it? Take a trot South on Masonic and look at all the memorabilia on the walls of Coffee to the People. Head over to the People's Cafe and see if they still have happy hour from 2-8 pm on weekdays. Cross the street to the Blue Front Cafe and see if they still serve "Millenium Joe." What's playing about four blocks further down, at the Red Vic? Is Tikka Masala still down there? How about El Balazo? Is the view from the top of Buena Vista Park still all pretty? Is that ridiculous neon-lit MacDonald's still sitting at the west end of Haight street?
You and me, upper Haight. Some day.
1) Specialist in South Asian cinema. Cinema, yes. South Asian? Dang, shoulda changed my major.
2) Tons of gigs in film................PRODUCTION. You name it: tenure-track, non-tenure track, if you know how to make movies, we want ya. And again, SHOULDA CHANGED MY MAJOR, I guess. Perhaps I should have MADE an indie film instead of trying to BECOME ONE.
In any case:
Come on California, you know I like you, I know you like me, it's a natural thing. Don't let Eugene, Oregon be my only west-coast job application. I mean, really: I even know where Kenneth Anger used to live on Fulton Street, in San Francisco. And you've got four, count them FOUR different, and apparently well-attended, Mysore-style programs, IN THAT CITY ALONE. Plus, I hunted down some of the hotels and locales that Hitchcock used in Vertigo; heck I even tried to duplicate the right camera angles before taking a photo of what is now called the York hotel (I think). And yes, I saw the little plaque mounted in that alley downtown, where the death of Miles Archer is proclaimed.
Do I really have to step into the time machine and get in on the Clinton-era boom in technology out there? And then wise up and turn to yoga to get my inner life in order? Do I have to be one of those guys to live inside your lines, California?
But hey, it's alright. We'll always have airplanes and the BART.
You know what? I think maybe the rest of the state is just jealous, because really, the only part of CA I've ever been to is San Francisco and Marin (with some side journeys to Carmel and Monterey, but those weren't my idea at the time). Maybe it's that I'm too biased in my Californication. I can hear it now: "You only love me for my San Francisco." Hey, what can I say, I've loved your San Francisco since I was a teenager.
Open letter to someone: next time you're in the Haight, hit these for me.
I used to live here in May 2007. Does that apartment still have scaffolding all over the front of it? Take a trot South on Masonic and look at all the memorabilia on the walls of Coffee to the People. Head over to the People's Cafe and see if they still have happy hour from 2-8 pm on weekdays. Cross the street to the Blue Front Cafe and see if they still serve "Millenium Joe." What's playing about four blocks further down, at the Red Vic? Is Tikka Masala still down there? How about El Balazo? Is the view from the top of Buena Vista Park still all pretty? Is that ridiculous neon-lit MacDonald's still sitting at the west end of Haight street?
You and me, upper Haight. Some day.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Quiz: what kind of Ashtanga Jedi are you?
Are Ashtangis actually Jedi Knights? Tonight we resolve this much-debated question, with the following quiz. I'm going to write this as if it were to be a meme, but I really don't care what happens to it (or not). Please note: the following is fully intended to be quite tongue-in-cheek. Props to you if you get most of the references!
1. Can you levitate?
a. Heck yeah! Me and my stoner friends can ALL levitate, right on! Boo-yah!
b. Well, I have in the past had a levitation-like sensation during svasana.
c. Well, not technically, but I did have a pic taken of me in mid-Nakrasana and it sure as heck LOOKS like I'm levitating.
d. Well, no, to be honest, but that's not important for my eventual enlightenment.
2. How's your ujjayi breathing?
a. Dude, my ujjayi can breathe no matter how tight my pants are. Partytime!
b. Oh man, I sound just like you-know-who.
c. It's quiet, but present, and becomes a mantra as I flow through my moving meditation.
d. Yoga is the stilling of the movement of the mind-stuff.
3. Where's your dristi?
a. I got'cher dristi, RIGHT HERE!
b. Uh, currently I'm doing, like, CPU dristi or something.
c. Since I'm not practicing, it's improper to describe my gaze in these terms.
d. The third eye is always open.
a (reprise). COME ON SAY IT, YOU'VE GOT LAPTOP DRISTI! Whoo! *gives high five*
4. Can you jump back?
a. Jump back! Toooo hot! AAAOWWWWW!!! I feel...GOOD!!
b. I sort of scrape, throw, toss back. I get to chaturanga, let's say that.
c. It would be more accurate to say that I float back.
d. This really isn't important to my eventual enlightenment.
5. Have you ever done Mysore-style?
a. Dude, I've done it EVERY style! Whoo, party time! 69, dude!!
b. Yes, but really, it was pretty early. I was pretty stiff.
c. That's my regular practice, yes.
d. Body flexible, mind stiff.
6. Which of these non-yoga films is REALLY, at the deepest level, about yoga anyway?
a. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
b. Breathless
c. Being There
d. At the deepest level? All is yoga.
7. What is your favorite quote from Darth Vader?
a. "Put him in!"
b. "Impressive...most impressive."
c. "The Force is strong in this one."
d. Even Darth Vader is yoga.
8. Why did Luke fail at the tree?
a. Whoa! Dude, this tree, like, never fails. Heheheheheh. *SMACK* Shut up Beavis!
b. Probably because he was using it to steady his handstand.
c. He was insufficiently self-realized.
d. He had not separated Purusha fully from Prakriti.
9. Jar-Jar Binks:
a. Is totally a Rasta! Rawk on Jar-Jar!!!
b. Is bad for my dristi.
c. Could use a few months of my Mysore-style class.
d. What is the sound of one hand?
SO, what kind of Ashtanga Jedi are you? If you answered the same letter 5 times or more, you are:
a. Um, effectively, you're an 8th grader. This won't keep you from being an Ashtangi, of course, but you have much to learn, young Jedi. You must go to the Dagobah system!
b. You practice Ashtanga! Congratulations! But control, control, you must learn control! The Force is all around us, and binds us! Don't give in to hate...that leads to the dark side...
c. Mmmmmm, much Ashtanga have you practiced. You can raise your own ship from the swamp. Things you will see: the future, the past...
d. You have already rescued Captain Solo and the Wookie, and have defeated the Emperor. Now, Jivanmukta, you must enjoy the dance of the Ewoks!
1. Can you levitate?
a. Heck yeah! Me and my stoner friends can ALL levitate, right on! Boo-yah!
b. Well, I have in the past had a levitation-like sensation during svasana.
c. Well, not technically, but I did have a pic taken of me in mid-Nakrasana and it sure as heck LOOKS like I'm levitating.
d. Well, no, to be honest, but that's not important for my eventual enlightenment.
2. How's your ujjayi breathing?
a. Dude, my ujjayi can breathe no matter how tight my pants are. Partytime!
b. Oh man, I sound just like you-know-who.
c. It's quiet, but present, and becomes a mantra as I flow through my moving meditation.
d. Yoga is the stilling of the movement of the mind-stuff.
3. Where's your dristi?
a. I got'cher dristi, RIGHT HERE!
b. Uh, currently I'm doing, like, CPU dristi or something.
c. Since I'm not practicing, it's improper to describe my gaze in these terms.
d. The third eye is always open.
a (reprise). COME ON SAY IT, YOU'VE GOT LAPTOP DRISTI! Whoo! *gives high five*
4. Can you jump back?
a. Jump back! Toooo hot! AAAOWWWWW!!! I feel...GOOD!!
b. I sort of scrape, throw, toss back. I get to chaturanga, let's say that.
c. It would be more accurate to say that I float back.
d. This really isn't important to my eventual enlightenment.
5. Have you ever done Mysore-style?
a. Dude, I've done it EVERY style! Whoo, party time! 69, dude!!
b. Yes, but really, it was pretty early. I was pretty stiff.
c. That's my regular practice, yes.
d. Body flexible, mind stiff.
6. Which of these non-yoga films is REALLY, at the deepest level, about yoga anyway?
a. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
b. Breathless
c. Being There
d. At the deepest level? All is yoga.
7. What is your favorite quote from Darth Vader?
a. "Put him in!"
b. "Impressive...most impressive."
c. "The Force is strong in this one."
d. Even Darth Vader is yoga.
8. Why did Luke fail at the tree?
a. Whoa! Dude, this tree, like, never fails. Heheheheheh. *SMACK* Shut up Beavis!
b. Probably because he was using it to steady his handstand.
c. He was insufficiently self-realized.
d. He had not separated Purusha fully from Prakriti.
9. Jar-Jar Binks:
a. Is totally a Rasta! Rawk on Jar-Jar!!!
b. Is bad for my dristi.
c. Could use a few months of my Mysore-style class.
d. What is the sound of one hand?
SO, what kind of Ashtanga Jedi are you? If you answered the same letter 5 times or more, you are:
a. Um, effectively, you're an 8th grader. This won't keep you from being an Ashtangi, of course, but you have much to learn, young Jedi. You must go to the Dagobah system!
b. You practice Ashtanga! Congratulations! But control, control, you must learn control! The Force is all around us, and binds us! Don't give in to hate...that leads to the dark side...
c. Mmmmmm, much Ashtanga have you practiced. You can raise your own ship from the swamp. Things you will see: the future, the past...
d. You have already rescued Captain Solo and the Wookie, and have defeated the Emperor. Now, Jivanmukta, you must enjoy the dance of the Ewoks!
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