How does one advertise at unfamiliar studios?

Friends, I have an advertising question:

I teach at 3 different yoga studios (one is a spa, technically, but I have great attendance for my 2 classes a week there) in the city. This makes it easy for me to advertise a workshop, say, at all three.

What is the polite way to advertise a workshop at studios where I don't teach or practice? Is there a way to do this? There are two big, apparently well-attended studios in the city, and to be honest, I want their students! I used to sub classes at the one, and I've never been to the other. How can I approach this?

The class in question is (don't tell anyone, but this is essentially Rocket 2): "The Anti-Gravity Class". Basics of weight management on the hands, and then about two hours of arm balances and inversions, sprinkled through a vinyasa-style yoga class. The highlight poses will be:

Crane (Bakasana), tripod headstand, forearm stand, side crane, two "scissors" arm balances (Eka Pada and Dwi Pada Koundinyasana), one-leg crane pose, eight angle pose (Astavakrasana), handstand, peacock balance (Mayurasana), shoulderstand, headstand.

It is going to RAWK. March 29, Saturday, 2-4:30 pm. $25. Cityoga.

What's the easiest, most polite way to get this out to studios where I don't teach or practice?

Blue skies, contemporary art.........Kino?

It's not yet 9 am, the skies are blue, and I have written the paper assignment for my 100-level class full of working artists. Historically, working artists do not write brilliant papers, because they, as the old adage has it, do instead of teach.

It was a compositional challenge: how do I make this assignment clear, and yes, it will pay off better if I really do an in-depth search of proper library databases and provide them an itemized list of said things. All of that is done and posted online now. In 90 minutes, I'll go through it in the classroom and it will all be marvelously clear (cross fingers, find wood on which to knock).

Kino MacGregor is coming to Chicago, the first weekend of June (6-8). It's a brief one: strength class Friday night, Primary and backbending on Saturday, Mysore and inner journey on Sunday. I'm tossing around the idea of an early morning Saturday drive, Primary, backbending, afternoon drive back. Eighty bucks to get a fourth series practitioner with YouTubed backbends (check it out!) to show us what it's all about. No hotel stay necessary. Rates are cheaper until May 22, and I should be a bit more out of my financial hole then. Hmmmmm.

Notice, for the record, that I too have fallen for the DonutsZenMom title presentation! Ahrrr matey! Karen, you're contagious! Does this mean we'll all start talking like The Cop now?

Intro to Intermediate: it's good. It always is.

I love this Monday night class, and especially when some beginner students show up, wondering what it is. The teacher modifies wonderfully, and she's completely lacking in any uptightness as to what ashtanga is or how it "should be done," because in this town, you can't do that (well, I can, but I let people know that, when they walk into my Sunday class).

Plus, it's well-known that I'll Mysore-style my way in any Ashtanga class that I'm not teaching, here. That's acknowledged and allowed. So some folks were doing hip openers, some were doing other leg-behind-head prep, Lisa (another teacher) and I were doing the full pose or something, and so on. Marvelous room. I find that I never lose a taste for the organized chaos of a Mysore-style room.

Specific poses: many of them are par for the course, but developments are occurring.

Laghuvajrasana: finally returned! I had a nice full expression of it tonight. Ahh. It's good to have it back.

Pasasana: remains tip-toe, going left. It was hard to bind it today; barely fingertipped it. This reduction in twistiness is typical of hard stress.

Kapotasana: I would love someone to watch me do this and estimate how it's going. Here are the stats, as near as I can figure them: I arch up; the lower back does not crunch. I reach over my head, breathe, look back, extend hands, breathe, drop back without a sound. The landing is soft and pleasant. But it is to the mat, not to the feet. I press up, the arms remain bent. The abs stretch hard, but do not get any "tearing open" sensation. The quads engage HARD. I take five breaths, walk my hands in once, again no feet, and take a few more breaths; they are challenging. I turn my head and see my hands maybe three inches (?) from my feet. Could be 2, I doubt it's 4. What do I work from here? Arms straighter? Rotate thighs in? What? Am I CLOSE to the full expression or FAR from the full expression? Holistically speaking, what is my Kapo all about?

I still exit Kapo via Supta Virasana, but now I skip actually doing SV and just sit back, inhale, put my hands down, chaturanga, and so forth. On with it.

Eka Pada: it's possible to put both right and left foot, separately, back, and hold. There's some strain in the back muscles, and I feel that my neck is too engaged, and the shoulder not enough. But A is comfortable, mostly, and B is not bad. I can reliably take the foot, and while breathing is tough in that forward bend, it's alright. I have been losing C after about 3-4 breaths; my head tilts a bit as I try to retain the foot behind.

Dwi Pada: still too tough to lean forward, reach the right shoulder under the leg, and use the right hand to guide the foot up. I can get it up there, but by the time I do, the left foot is already on top of my head. This, I can tell is very close. A teacher could put me into it with NO TROUBLE.

Titti sequence: still loving this, burn and all. I jump forward, feet land outside hands. Only ONCE did I jump into Titti, and that was over a year ago; I can't seem to repeat it. But my Titti A is big and strong and I like it. I worked at extending the head and the feet and pushing the arms straighter. Titti B is also nice; my legs aren't straight, but I bind the hands reliably. The walk could happen in bigger steps, but it works, and recently I have not melted down after it; tonight too, I walked my feet in (although apparently that's not how it's done anymore) and put the heels together and bound my hands and took five breaths. Then five more in a lazier, more bent Titti A, and then five MORE in Bakasana, jump back.

Nakrasana: it's not every day I get to do this one (time considerations). The jumps today were really nice, softer, not as loud. It's as if the fingers and toes are coming to life. Score!

Dhanurasana: is getting VISIBLY bigger. I can feel it. Often my ribs touch in the front, but today I was really getting the ribs up and away; the feet push up and back, and the arch was delicious. My sternum just popped, as I was sitting here considering this sentence.

Pincha: is really beginning to float. I've still surrendered the exit, because my big toe wants no more bruising.

Karanda: hahahahaha! I usually, mostly out of low endurance, hit Pincha again (this time it took 3 tries to get back up), lower the right leg toward lotus, find that it's not low enough, and then fall over. The main challenge for me here is LOTUS. I mean hell, I can do Garbha Pindasana in Primary, undo my hands, pull up into Urdhva Kukku C, lower down into tripod headstand, pick the lotus up, and lower it, all day long. BUT, I can't make it without my hands. I think I have strength aplenty for this, but not the proprioception/flexibility to do the inverted lotus.

Dropbacks: I am still doing, and deeply enjoying, Matthew Sweeney's "two hands back and spring" wall dropbacks. I do them this way: hands up overhead. Inhale long, exhale back, touch wall, lean deep (dropping head toward floor, hands DO NOT MOVE). Inhale, spring up. The fourth one of those, tonight, had my hands probably within 2 feet of the floor. When I drop my head down, I can see plenty of floor. I am regularly dropping my hands beneath the level of my hips.

Sirsasana: still getting 15 breaths in the full press-up, Urdhva Sirsasana. Rawk.

It is good.

Two down, two to go.

The second wave of job applications is underway; this is the long-term, apply-as-they-go visiting one-year (or sometimes 2 or 3) positions. These will open up as people who are in established positions, leave for other positions. Those openings will develop even into the summer. It's a matter of who leaves, how much notification they give, and if a visiting position is funded for the following year.

So, I have more information about how the job search goes, for humanities gigs in the Academy. The first wave of applications is usually due in about mid-November. Interviews are often accomplished in December, particularly if you're me and a big hiring confernence happens at the end of the month. Campus visits are largely done in January and February. Some universities will issue offers and receive acceptances by the end of February.

So far, and only by internet rumor, I have heard that about 10 universities (out of a list of over sixty) have offered positions which have been accepted. I sent out about 35 applications and have 5 formal rejections. So it's nearly the end of February and I am 0-5-and-30, in sports terms. 30 universities worth of silence.

This remains a puzzle; are those places not getting their top choices? Sending rejections at a leisurely pace? Unable to get the committee to meet? It's impossible to tell.

But the second wave, the visiting positions (and now and then a full tenure-track position) seem to come in February and March. I sent out applications for two visiting positions today and have another one to send, and then an application for a tenure-track gig at a very big, well-known, prestigious university at which I don't expect to end up, but who knows.

And, a free note about reading me:

I write entirely about my inner states, particularly in my more emotional posts, so when you see anger/fear/joy/something else here, it's like seeing an emotional snapshot. Sure, I don't like capitalism, and I am not in the least shy about stating that. But that too is a snapshot of my inner belief systems as they currently stand, in said snapshot. I am aware of the fact that I can use language with substantial force and at times with unwise impact. But, these are words on the page. Any impact they have, your reading mind is fully invited to mitigate. If the impact of reading me is unpleasant, I apologize currently and in advance, but I don't intend to mediate my portrayal of the unpleasantness of my job search, in order to make this blog less edgy. I won't sacrifice honesty for ease; where I need edginess to express pain that I'm in, edginess you get. So be it.

Do NOT look for academic jobs.

This morning I've spent three hours composing two job application letters; the main obstacle has been lost course evaluations (in which mountain of paperwork could they be located?).

This brings up all of the frustrations and bureaucratic bulwarks involved in the whole process: the long silence, the waiting, the total lack of knowledge about how anything progresses or even works, the Kafkaesque trial of it all.

Do NOT, NOT, seek an academic job unless you have some desperate need to sit in an emotional blast furnace for nine months.

There is NO SUCH THING, no job, no task, no day's work, which equals this noiseless, bureaucratic isolated sitting, for sheer emotional agony. It has all of the stress of a hectic work day, but it has none of the tangibility. You CAN'T just go to that meeting, or have that conversation, or get that document done. You just pitch pieces of paper into the void and you never hear anything, and the pressure never lets up. It's like finals week, except it lasts for over a half year, and the paper is NEVER WRITTEN.

Die, job search, you bureaucratic soul-eater. Die, academics, you fucking liars, you self-deceivers.

And no, of course, I didn't want to go the OTHER way and get some soul-crushing forty-hour-workweek "gold watch at the end" rat race nonsense job either.

Die, capitalism, with all your imperatives, and for leaving out, ignoring, everything that is ACTUALLY important in life.

Die, bureaucrats of every stripe, every kind, everywhere, everywhen. You middlemen, you tamers of immanence, you consummate, utter liars, you paper-blooded silhouettes.

Photos! Defying gravity here...and in Colorado!

The studio pics below were taken this afternoon after I taught my Mysore-style gig.
The outdoor pic was taken in August 2007, at a place called Herman Lake, which is at 12,000 feet altitude, in Colorado. Note the red water bottle in the background, which comes with me EVERYWHERE.

All of the arm balances were entered from something OTHER than tripod headstand, and so while I can do these poses, I don't do the Advanced A entry. These are Rocket arm balances; thanks Larry! I'm not sure what is up with the angle of my feet in the Eka Pada Koundi...

The forearm stand is the same one I do in Intro to Intermediate on Monday nights; it's the same one I'll do if I ever "get it" from an authorized teacher, and as long as I don't mind bruising my big toe on the right foot, I can pull the chaturanga exit, too.

Parts of Primary; the end of February.

Bloomington trip today; no, let me be more specific.

Up at 7:15, an hour of getting the house and life and work in order, and then driving at 8:30 to the class 40 minutes away, to give a modified Primary to seven students, and thence to Bloomington, to get tax forms (which was a bust) and then to get some books on video-making international women such as Shirin Neshat and Mona Hatoum (her stuff RULES!), and then a most-of-Primary in the university gym there (a few sun salutations, not 10, and then all of standing, all of seated, and up to Garbha Pindasana, and then some skipping around, and full closing) and then home.

I'm stressed, generally, about Monday's class (2 and a half hours of video installation lecture; do I ever have enough material? will the lesson plan hold? I have 8 books now, from my library search; provided that I can digest them before noon on Monday, I can deal). Then there is Tuesday, when I think we do Conceptual Art for the contemporary class. Conceptual is OK; there's a guy named John Baldessari who did some very funny video bits, parodies of high-art style performance and movement as art-making (you can Google it).

I must do taxes soon, and that's stressy; money always is. This is also, apparently, the final month I can afford with fellowship money, so that's stressful. I'm not sure if my fellowship and yoga money (all independent contracting) will put me in the hole, or if my massive loan interest payments will balance them out. Quite a bit of tax drama, if you will. Hey, call MTV, maybe I've got a reality show :)

The practice was brilliant, and I'll put one in tomorrow too, before I teach. Two of my regulars are in Michigan, doing a David Swenson weekend. I can't wait for their return and stories and such. Also, I must have pictures taken, soon, for workshops over on the westside, and downtown. At the end of March I'm going to throw something I'm calling "The Anti-Gravity Class." All arm balances and inversions, in workshop format. Bring your serratus anterior!

Three job applications to go out this week; that implies future developments, and of course that's stressy. Ok, so I know where it's all coming from. Boy, I could use a job offer. Really. In a week, it'll be March, and two months later, I'll be 38.

Birthday means high holy season; power increases every day.

In a word? Catherine Breillat is a genius.

I'm currently watching a special-features interview with said director, attached to the DVD version of _Anatomy of Hell_.

Anatomy of Hell is, in a fashion, the story of Adam and Eve, told with an in-story profit motive which is unaware of how overridden it will become by affect, but aside from this, the total story is about transformation.

Take these quotes to the bank:

"Is it unwatchable? Unwatchable only means that we cannot watch something AND REMAIN AS WE ARE."

"Every deal is a lie; they exchange money to make the deal EFFective, forgetting that it will instead become AFFective."

"Our aesthetic teaches us that the sexual body is a thing to be feared, that it is horrible. The same with things that are slimy, are bloody, which secrete. These are the things of terror. A decency which silences the sexual body. The obscene is negated by feelings. Obscenity is a social phenomenon."

See the connections? Let me give the connections which I see:

"Effective" versus "affective": the profit motive is overrun by emotional warmth. Chill profit (and Breillat sets up this duality of temperatures) is warmed by emotion, and the deal becomes untenable. "Watch me where I'm unwatchable." This is precisely a lure to an EMOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION, and both he, the nameless Man of the film, and we, the spectators, are lured into it.

"The obscene is negated by feelings." There are at least "two" obscenities here, two obscenes. One: that which is obscene is less so once we relate to it affectively. Sure, horror is affective. But the warmth which develops in this most physically bare--and most INTIMATE, precisely!!!!--of relationships, negates the OBSCENITY of it. However, it does not, not in toto anyway, negate the EXTERNAL obscenity, the force of judgment, "THAT IS OBSCENE," which prevails in the judging eye BEFORE SEEING THIS FILM and OUTSIDE THE VIEWING of it. It does, however, FOREGROUND the PRESENCE of that judgment, which we now all clearly see as SOCIAL, as AESTHETIC, as an actual social PROGRAM, one CREATED by human WILL. As Bertolt Brecht would have it, that which man has CREATED can also be CHANGED. It is very, very POWERFUL to be able to see "obscenity" as a systematic part of a social PROGRAM.

Transformation: watch me where I'm unwatchable. See what cannot be seen; more precisely, what cannot be BORNE, what one cannot STAND to see. And in the seeing, the transformation of the seer. Not "I am bearing it," but "I like it, I am attracted to it, this is not horrifying." Not that which CANNOT be seen, but that which IS NOT seen. Questions of WHY arise...WHO...why can this not be seen, is this not seen? Who does not see, who does not wish to see? WHY? And the investigation is on.

The fear of the sexual body; obscenity as a social program. By creating a warm affect in precisely the midst of "unseeable" obscenity, Breillat reveals the mechanisms of that obscenity as SOCIAL and precisely NOT as imbricated in the sexual bodies her film represents, which it, again, precisely, MAKES VISIBLE.

Surrealism's program was to use the material of the unconscious mind to both create art and to liberate humanity from bourgeois morality. "Change Life," they said. Do you see how much like the "sexual body" Dali's melting watches are? And from there, Oldenburg's soft sculptures? All the way to the Sensation exhibit of, what, 1997?

Obscene, literally, means, "off-stage." Ob skene. In Freudian terms, the unconscious is off-stage. Surrealism aims, admittedly by using the same perhaps already erroneous Freudianism, to CREATE ART, to MAKE VISIBLE, the machinations and entities inhabiting those spaces in the wings.

So does David Lynch: remember how full of fluids the film ERASERHEAD is? Do you know why it's more disturbing than the Freddy and Jason franchises? That's right, it relies on a more complicated system of AFFECT than they do: family, baby, angst, darkness, the wife leaving, Henry's jealous, desperate solitude. The cries of that skinless, goat-headed infant body in bandages.

Did you know, further, that the popularity of the teen-slaying horror movie, in the eighties, has been read (I forget at this moment by whom) as a symptom of increasing anti-sexual conservatism in that time period? Remember your conventions, from SCREAM: the virgin always survives! Where did those conventions come from? Exactly. Punishing the sexual body? Establishing, now listen to this, an AFFECT OF HORROR alongside, as, parallel with, an affect of warmth and sexual bodies? But at the same time, failing to realize how HOT a film like de Palma's BODY DOUBLE would thus become? To say nothing, later, of BLUE VELVET?

See how the body constantly, without end, slips between the fingers of a social apparatus which would have it obscene? And what about those fig leaves in the story of Adam and Eve anyway? There is no unwatchable before the Fall, right? But if you change your metaphysics from the Christian post-lapsarian (LOVE that word) to something like the eternal present (of Nietzsche) or the timeless Purusha (of the Yoga Sutras), suddenly there is no difference between watchable and unwatchable...

Do you see, do you fully understand, now, why I love the art cinema of the world? Is it clear, now, why my online movie queue is full of this stuff?

Do you see the course I could teach here? The research paper? Or, just the juicy, so juicy, fluid, flowing rant?

The interview which set this off, is still going. Do you see how my mind works? See how all of this emerges, crystallizes and re-dissolves? See why there needs to be a category of the rhizome, the schizophrenic out for a walk? The lines of flight?

Your friendly neighborhood.....(thanks Anna!)

Your results:
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Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

George Harrison is following me.

Sunday morning, after coming out of post-Primary svasana, I heard the radio playing first Springsteen's "Nebraska," which really works the wonderful darkness possible in acoustic folk music, and then a live rendition of "My Sweet Lord," by Harrison and company, and it was fabulous. Have you ever "returned" while listening to that song? It DOES things to you, it makes you more aware, maybe, of the metaphysical presence that things have when you come back, sort of an incidental reminder-by-content of what you can, at moments, ACTUALLY sense.

It's Tuesday night, and that means vinyasa night. I had a marvelous, really a great, practice, and then I got in the car, and the radio was playing "My Old School," by Steely Dan, but since that station is doing its A to Z thing, this was immediately followed by...

You guessed it!

So, George Harrison is following my practices, and I DIG IT, man! I'm driving through downtown, the about 12 minutes to my house, and I'm all spaced out from practice and I'm getting "hare rama, hare krishna" and I'm tripping out on the Bhagavad Gita and I'm processing advanced asana as something "beyond" community, but that's only if it's gymnastics, and suddenly I understood how one turns inside from outside, and I GRASPED, really GOT IT, the idea about inner practice, regardless of outer practice.

But instead of justifying "my pose Q is here, ok fine," this sense of "inner practice regardless of outer practice" went the OTHER way, and I wound up thinking about advanced (and I mean A and B, not just "advanced") poses that I get more and more certain that I WILL SOMEDAY DO. And all over again, it was will to power, surging up from the whole body of the earth.

I have, for a long time, looked in the mirror, wondering what my full power is, what the "full" manifestation of me, is. It's an odd question, one that can only come from someone who doesn't feel that presence, but senses it. A tightrope walker asks that question. More and more certainly I sense it from the inside, and the outer manifestations are things like, "yes, you'll make those shapes." I don't know how or under whose guidance I'll do things like Karandavasana, but apparently it is all true, or will be. It wasn't indifference or surrender that I sensed, but certainty.

Practice: this, maybe I'm recording more for me, but it was a great, great practice, and it deserves recording.

Sun salutations built in pieces, as usual, with warriors, and then Vira 2 to Trikonasana to Ardha Chandrasana (half moon), and I usually LOATHE that pose, but tonight I nailed it, on both sides, complete with eye gaze up and top arm extended. In a Parsvakonasana sequence, I bound the wrist, both sides, and on both sides took Bird of Paradise, complete with leg extended (but not straight). Yogi squats I turned into Malasana the first time, with wrist bind (not behind back) and the second time, I took Pasasana, both sides, and bound it, both sides (heels up, going to the left).

Bakasana, I jumped into, and then extended into Eka Pada Bakasana, both sides, and back to Bakasana in between and then took Tripod Headstand into another Bakasana and back down and timbered to chaturanga. We then did Parsva Bakasana, and I did Eka Pada and then Dwi Pada Koundinyasana from there, but lost the Dwi Pada on the right side. I got back into it from Tripod Headstand, but couldn't hold it either.

Ustrasana, twice, with ease and happiness, then Dhanurasana, Parsva both sides, and then a bridge and three rounds of Urdhva Dhanurasana, with one walk of the hands in, which was also ease and happiness. Pigeons turned into Hanumanasana, because I felt the intense quad stretch in the back leg called for it. I am about two inches off the floor, closer to three inches with the right leg back. This is good news; often I am more like eight inches off the floor with the right leg back.

Vinyasa and Baddha Konasana (chin to toes) and then vinyasa and Marichyasana C, both sides. I took the wrist going right but clasped hands going left. That twist is stil uneven, something is working itself out in the left outer hip. I also notice that in Mari D with the right foot in half-lotus; the issues are not in the lotused leg but in the outer hip on the left; same in Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. Hmmm.

Those are the highlights; then Harrison took me home and I busted out a veggie curry from scratch in about 20 minutes: onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, chick peas, peas, curry powder and a handful of dried herbs, whole milk. Combine, enjoy. Yes, yes, I know, "no onions and garlic": HAH! Maybe NEXT lifetime. I will no more give up garlic and onions than I will give up cheese and ice cream.

Instant Karma.

I've always loved that song, from the very first time I noticed hearing it, which in my memory is about 1990. Much of the identity I still claim as "me" was born around 1990, probably centering around reading a story called "The Metamorphosis" by some German/Czech writer with famously dry, minimalist language. I was sitting on the front steps of a building on the campus of Norwich University, in Northfield, Vermont, in the midst of a Russian immersion program. If I had hung with that major, I'd be doing some high-powered translating now, at the very least. Can you imagine? Russian major in 1990, immersion, sometimes speaking without accent? Oh well, the possible futures.

A home practice of full Primary this morning! Amazing! Rain, house still 60 degrees, me decked out in sweats, but I did it, all of it...less than a full Supta Kurmasana, and took two tries to bind Mari D with the right foot half-lotused, but everything else was dessert!

Two cents on backbends: I find that my wheel "oscillates": that is, I come up with some severe wrist extension, and then I press over my hands, and I straighten up, and it takes about three or so "waves" for my wheel to set up. But this makes the hands feel VERY springy, and eventually, I'm hoping that it'll lead to rocking up and back. I did four wheels total and a bridge, for five, and then three dropbacks on the wall (two hands back, bend elbows, spring up). Fun!

Then I went to teach my Mysore class: 2 students, which, as they said, meant that they both got a TON of attention. One of them bound both Mari D's today; celebration! He said, "Wow, it's like the poses just get harder from here" and I said, "Well, Mari D opens the most challenging part of the sequence...oh and congratulations!" It was pretty amusing. That class rules, and from the big adjustments, I always feel like I've practiced, after I teach it. I really get it in the shoulders and the trapezius and the lower back. Gotta be careful giving all those "bend over and press the yogi flat" adjustments.

Anyway, off to get the partner from the airport in about 30 minutes, and then we work all night to get our Mondays ready. Sexy, huh?

I DID, for the record, get all of the exams graded, and grades entered. Now it's just a matter of getting some background on video artists who create installations based on the idea of surveillance, and then prepping my Tuesday morning contemporary art class, and STILL finding time to write that damn article.

Ah, AND this is my all-yoga week: teaching Primary Monday night, doing a vinyasa class Tuesday, teaching on Wednesday and Thursday, subbing a "hot yoga" Friday, and then doing a morning Primary Saturday, teaching Mysore on Sunday. Hah! It is good for you! Rawk!

On recognizing one's power.

Ok, so it's the darkest possible stretch of the job search: the "first round," with applications due in November, is sorting itself out, and positions for which I interviewed, are apparently offered and accepted. The "second wave" is due this month and in March, and that means I won't hear anything definite, if I do at all, until April, maybe May. In Tolkien-ese, this is maybe the setup for the siege of Minas Tirith (hey, give me my mythology, it's useful to have archetypes for one's daily experience, makes everything you do feel important and essential).

Additionally, if you've been reading along, you know that I'm going to run out of money in April or May, and that might mean paying loans with credit cards, which is admittedly something that "poor people" do, but once school ends at the end of April, I am teaching a night class in May, which would allow me to get a full-time job doing whatever (I don't really care what it is), and that'll finally allow me to pull three or four hundred bucks a WEEK instead of a MONTH, and so the poverty of April and May will quickly turn around into a busy, hectic, but financed summer. (Please note that, for the record, that was ONE sentence).

This morning it was sunny, and sunshine reminds me of the encroaching spring, and spring is my holy season. The lion roars a distance off; stop and hear it. I felt good when I woke up, and the morning was this: breakfast, drive 40 minutes, teach yoga, drive back 40 minutes, do Primary, then finish grading papers, research video installations, continue writing article on New Queer Cinema. I'm just now breaking into the papers. We'll see how much of my list I get done.

But, this was not the original plan for this Saturday: it was supposed to be a trip to Bloomington to talk about chapter drafts with my advisor's dissertating grad students (I go, because I'm writing the above article for her this semester; we're going to get it submitted and do rewrites and all of that). That usually means that I lose the day to Bloomington, because I go, meet, then hit the climbing gym and set some routes, then stop by this excellent little brewery and fill a growler (and yes, I know what that is slang for over in the UK and environs; in the US it means a half-gallon glass container). So on a Bloomington Saturday, I often get home between 8 and 11 pm, and that's that.

It turns out that my advisor and several of the dissertators are fighting flu, and so today I get to work, grade, clean house, feed cats, and so forth. Everyday life city! I'm not pleased about the flu, but I am pleased to be here today; it let me do a Primary which I REALLY needed, and now I'm all flexified and mellowed and ready to go (well, after I finish writing this).

Quick practice notes: the swing to the side in standing balance is getting easier, more casual. Good. Engaging the outer hips to straighten the leg, in seated twists, is making them more productive. Also good. I hit a post-boat handstand, without touching the wall. Boo-ya! Pressing the heels up in the tortoise (Kurmasana) is REALLY hard, but I can do it regularly now. Makes me want to scrunch up in the shoulders; must pay attention there. Must remember that two-hands-back wall dropbacks are all about ENERGY! They rock! The wheel pressups from the floor are about opening, about the sort of "shutter effect" of cracking the thoracic open, but the dropbacks are PURE prana baby! LOVE those things. I had a FIFTEEN breath stay in press-up headstand, totally off the floor! Go me!

Anyway, practice was good, I liked it :) This Monday I have to miss Intermediate because I'm subbing in the north end of town and leading a Primary. I am also talking to my west-side studio (spa with yoga space) about letting me lead a two-hour version of my one-hour class, which will ALSO be Primary (they get modified from me, even though the class is just called "Yoga"). And, this morning I had FOURTEEN PEOPLE (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)----FOURTEEN!!!! In a random Indianapolis suburb! Doing modified Primary! UN FREAKING HEARD OF!!!!! This was a real power builder; if I can get fourteen suburbanites in THIS STATE onto yoga mats, then I RAWK!!

Of course, as Nietzsche reminds us, the will to power (if that's the terminology you'd like to use) is not something that's possessed, it is something that more "wells up from under," like geysers or oil. The will to power is bigger than you are, and you are the manifestation OF IT, not the other way around. The whole idea of "the lion" comes right from that.

So, on feeling one's power. Last night, perceiving these dark days honestly, I called in for reinforcements, and watched my beloved DVD of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Something about that film brings me my lion archetype. The man with no name. A force of nature. And that totally, utterly UNBEATABLE soundtrack. Ye gods.

Speaking of soundtrack: my local pop station is doing their annual "A to Z," where they play their whole library alphabetically. Sure, it's pop rock, and it's mainstream, but some of the mini-sets that emerge are fun. Here, have a listen by clicking the "listen live" link. They play a bunch of stuff you can't beat with a stick, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and occasionally some old Dylan, as well as the expected Collective Soul and Matchbox 20 and Feist and all of that.

Speaking of SRV, check THIS out and tell me it doesn't rawk you upside down.

Anyway: this is where it is. I sense my native power, what Satchidananda in the Sutras translation he did would call something like the inner light, the sense of utter undisturbable satisfaction, a desirelessness due to full presence. The full body of the earth, as Deleuze and Guattari would elsewhere put it.

I know what brings, for whatever reason, this power, this plenitude, and those things are my reinforcements. SRV. Zeppelin, in the right circumstances. That spaghetti western. The Sundays' tune "Here's where the story ends". I'm not sure why, but these things do. My Bloody Valentine (the band, not the bad horror movie). That whole list of music that I posted a while back. Carlos Santana. And so on. Tittibhasana.

Ok, enough time dedicated to the blog. I have to grade papers on Andy Warhol, and so it's comic that there are 32 of them, which say roughly the same thing. Maybe I should lay them out on a silkscreen in an 8x4 pattern, eh? Some self-reflexive grading? Draw similar repeated marks on each one? Alright, alright. Happy Saturday, everyone.

The 14th of February.

One thing that Valentine's Day has remarkably made possible is that it reduced my Thursday night yoga class from ten to one student. Admittedly, I like a one-student class, it's a real workshop, lets me get downright technical and all into alignment and such, but I miss the class of ten. Just wait til next week!

Valentine's Day has never really up and spoken to me as a holiday; my power holidays have always been Thanksgiving/Christmas, which is cool, because my other power "holiday" or simply day, is my birthday, which is in the first week of May.

I'm not going to do some cynical deconstruction of Valentine's Day or anything like that; you can read that elsewhere and sure, it's all about a Roman-era martyr and it's an ugly story, but that doesn't have much to do with the selection of ONE day a year for romance and sentiment and (let's be honest about it) capitalism. Same way that Christmas is about the "spirit of the season" and you can almost hear the CHA-CHING!! in the background. Yeah, I'm not here to be cynical about it.

My history with Valentine's Day is this: I started relating late, the same way that I start everything late. Nietzsche once said that late youth promoted long youth. So for me, Valentine's Day for a long, long time was like someone else's promise, and it was much more about alienation and loneliness than it was about, you know, Valentining and all of that. And that remained its main flavor until 1995, when by utter and total coincidence a "honeymoon period" in my life just HAPPENED to coincide with it. 1995 remains the one Valentine's Day that in any fashion resembled the stereotype (stereotype, you say? What stereotype? Oh come on, search that dusty little capitalist unconscious, YOU'LL FIND ONE IN THERE).

And so sure, I poured invective on that holiday for a few years, and yes, insert long story here. Now, it doesn't matter; it's like one of many traditions that don't matter. Like Easter: for me, that's just another day of the month. What's extra cool about this is that for my partner, it ALSO does not matter. She finds it a bit silly to celebrate one's relationship SPECIFICALLY ON ONE DAY; why not more, or any, or all? While our histories and logics regarding Valentine's Day are quite different, they arrive at the same point, and so some months ago, she asked me if it was "ok" if she went to Colorado for a ski weekend (mid-semester!) which would take her out of town for Valentine's Day; without a second thought, I said, "hell yeah, sure, ski and be happy during the Spring semester, you go!" and there wasn't even a mention of Valentine's Day.

I like relating to traditions, to cycles, to holidays, to western culture, this way. I nod at the announced tradition, see its contradictions, and go on my way.

Actually, I'm currently watching the Monkees (yes, THOSE Monkees) in the Jack Nicholson/Bob Rafaelson production HEAD. So far it's psychedelic and crazed and hilarious. Imagine the Monkees and some football player guy on the war front, and then passing through a wall of fire, onto the stage. Suddenly it's Beatlemania and bubblegum songs and whip pans and arbitrary zooms. Hurrah!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Clarity, and none of it good: Money, Jobs.

It is becoming clear to me--increasingly so--about how money and jobs will play out into the summer.

For one: all of the jobs for which I interviewed in December (3), have now apparently been offered to people, and none of those people are me. This doesn't mean they've been accepted, but they've been offered.

For two: I have enough cash to pay two more loan installments, IF I do not spend any money on things like food. So March is covered, but April is not, and because I teach early on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can't cover it, I can't get some 40hour a week temp job or anything like that. I could put in some hours maybe on Wednesdays and Fridays, but it looks like April AND May are going to be paid by someone else's savings. I will officially financially fail in April, but I won't be destroyed.

For three: visiting professor gigs start to look better. I've applied for one, will apply for another in the next ten days, and then there is a great big tenure-track position due in March. This is good news; the game is not yet up, and even though rumors have it, that those jobs I for which I interviewed, have now been offered, gigs remain, and I also have close to 20 outstanding not-yet-rejections.

The upcoming financial failure hurts, but there's no way I can foresee, other than maybe a lucky lottery ticket, to duck it. I knew this would come someday, and I've known that ever since 1996 or so. Ten years of living in reactionary terror is less pleasant than finally seeing the bottom of the barrel come rushing up.

Hi, capitalism. Thanks.

The Seven Deadlies--sort of.

Tuesday night vinyasa class (which I attend, not teach), and after a day-long ice storm. Messy roads; four students, including me, all veterans.

Standing flows, warriors, standing split and halfmoons, then low lunge to front splits, an arm balance exit, hip openers, backbends (bow and wheel), and then a big do-whatever inversion sequence. You hear about this in vinyasa classes: "choose an inversion!"

I started with forearm stand, close to the wall. I went up, without touching. Then I tried to fold each leg into half-lotus, in order to build my Karandavasana and the proprioception, along with my incomplete lotus upside-down, TOTALLY evades me.

So then I did a headstand, and it occurred to me: wait a minute, there are SEVEN headstands you could do. Awww yeah, you're doing this.

I did (in the slang in which I know them) tripod, forklift, spotlight, and then the standard headstand, arms-crossed, pincha hands, and elbows.

I like tripod; I'm used to it, just from vinyasa class exposure and an occasional foray into Advanced A arm balances (ahem). Really, I like the Seven Deadlies as a group, I enjoy them. I LOVE forklift hands; tonight I wasn't sure I had the core power to lift up with straight legs into it, but I lifted straight legged into ALL SEVEN, which ruled.

Spotlight hands are the most challenging; my elbows want to pop up and that destabilizes the posture, but tonight I stuck it on the second try up, got full vertical and everything. Arms crossed hasn't presented a challenge ever since the first time I tried it, over a year ago. Pincha hands is the most physically difficult in which to lift; spotlight is the hardest BALANCE, but pincha hands makes my shoulders want to turn in and my hands to stack; it's REALLY hard to press them flat into the floor. And then elbows, I think is fine. I don't feel like I'm going to waver, and while it's hard to manage the weight to allow a straight-legged entry into it, I managed it.

So hurrah! I also did some wall dropbacks, with two hands at once, spring into the elbows, pop up. My hands are beneath the line of my hips, which is good, but I might even try some wider feet (maybe mat-wide) to see about hitting the drop to the floor. Experiments, experiments.

It occurred to me that Intermediate (not that I did that tonight) is a sort of climbing route: it would go like this:

1) The opening move is killer, but if you concentrate, you can stick it (Pasasana).
2) After that, there's a mellow, but sustained sequence, which
3) concludes in some CRAZY hard moves, the last of which I cannot stick yet, but I see HOW to stick it (hi, Kapo!)

4) Then you get a chance to chill; the moves are tough and weird, but they're chill once you get the hang of them; the dyno in the middle is SWEET!! (Supta Vaj, Bakasanas, Bharadvajasana, Ardha Matsyendrasana)

5) So then a technical sequence starts, with some sustained elements, but if you stick this sequence, you start believing you're a superhero, man! These moves are the "Omigod, Harry, look at that!" ones. There's a slippery little trick late here that I can't often pull, but I can ALMOST get it. (Hi, Dwi Pada!)

6) And after that comes a powerful sequence; the faster you do it, the better it goes. Don't think! It's a MAJOR burner, keep moving, keep breathing! Read it and run!

7) After that, you get to chill, if you can stick this tricky balance move. Once you learn the balance, you actually just hang and breathe. It's pretty kewl.

8) BUT after that, you pull this sort of delicate but SUPER powerful move which is completely from freakin' SATURN. I know how one does it, in my head, but in my body, when I'm trying to pull it, it's TOTALLY OUT OF MY LEAGUE (hi, Karanda!)

9) And then there is a long, flowing sequence with a sustained power move right in the middle of it, and like before, if you Don't Think About It, you can flow right through and never realize how totally beat you are. Emphasize the flow and it's yours.

10) UNTIL you get to this short set of dynos (dynamic movements), one after the other, after the other! It is SICK! They're not hard individually, but this pack of them, done HERE on the route, is crazy talk. Although, at the same time, it's kind of energizing to hit this sequence, it's like skiing moguls.

11) And then, my friend, it's mellow for a while, FINALLY!! Flow and breathe, don't get lazy here, sustain the core power, it's what gets you through. Concentrate, move, breathe, that's the name of the game. You've got to fold yourself into some uncommon positions, but at least you're not leaping dynos or doing sustained endurance and power. Don't underestimate these movements.

12) The climactic moves are all about core and balance, and they're all essentially the same, but also totally different, and any one of them might be where you cash in. Set up the move, balance, lift, and hit it. Repeat. In a way, it's the dual test from earlier movements: sustained, powerful, but also repetitive. Emphasize meditation over boredom, focus over laziness. That goes for everything on route, actually, and most of life, while we're at it.


Feedback on this experiment: that was an interesting exercise, to cast one set of movement in the VOCABULARY of the other. Dynos? Nakrasana? Hilarious! In some cases, the actual movement was described in terms of quality (endurance, power) rather than technical terms (like "dyno"). Of course, my description of Intermediate is also subjective: for example, I find the Titti sequence MUCH less challenging than taking my feet in Kapo, which has never happened. Interesting parallels include the fact that a "route" really IS much like a "series"; you progress from move to move and you "redpoint" a route when you finish it at any point beyond the first try. For example, I have "redpointed" Primary, I don't know HOW many times. There's a wholly separate discussion here of meditativeness and "being in the zone" and such, of course, too. Something I've additionally learned here is how the climber in me THINKS of Intermediate. That, actually, now that I read what I've written, is the main point, to show myself the series, to mirror it, to "see someone climb it". If you like, to "give myself beta" on the Intermediate series: look how full of advice the description of it is!

Return of Primary.

A led most-of-Primary on a Saturday; it's standard, and I took yesterday off. I'll get more on schedule when my life does (hello, May).

Fourteen students including me, and Kim the newly graduated 200-hour teacher trainee, and four of my Mysore-style regulars. I stayed on the pace of the class, up to the balance poses, where I and a few others took the standing half-lotus and the rest of the class went to the seated version and some forward bend work. There were a LOT of new folks in there, and so it's totally a mixed-levels class; I Mysore-style it, and most times, I get through the full Primary.

Standing poses fine; strong. Twists still developing; there's tension in the psoas, tension in the outer hips. My Parivrtta Parsvakonasana is clearly deeper, with the left leg forward, than with the right leg forward. Head to floor in all the Prasaritas except C. Decent balance in Utthita Hasta; some dancing, but no falling out of the pose.

Great jumps back and through; I had planned, for time-saving, to take a liftoff only, between sides, but by the Marichyasanas realized that I'd been jumping between sides, and so I figured, whatever, I'm having success not thinking, let it continue! Score!

Marichyasanas were more intense in the hips than usual, or maybe I was paying more attention; even A is a big cranking rotation in the hip, B moreso (and increased by putting attention on the press between shin and upper arm), C more than that (but differently--it's the engaging of the abductors, pulling the leg away from the ribs and upright, that is important there too) and then D was my par for the course, currently: no problem binding ten fingers with the left leg up in half-lotus; slipped off my knee, with the right leg up. A teacher could hold (and has held) me bound in that one; it'll return. Warmer weather cometh :)

One of the best Bhujapidasanas ever; no funny slippage down the arm on the right side, and so that really locked the pose. Heels up in Kurmasana; hands and feet bound in Supta Kurmasana (no Dwi Pada on the exit, but really, who cares). A totally new Baddha Konasana: feet just under the chin, both on the straight back fold AND the rounded one; if this keeps up, I'll touch the floor, whoohoo!

Good bandhas on the rollups from Supta Konasana and Ubhaya Padangusthasana; still no straight legs on Urdhva Mukha Paschimottansana. Backbends were limited by the intense soreness/sensation in the front thighs and lower back (psoas, anyone?) but I did five and they were ok; tomorrow they'll be better.

I'm beginning to make a sort of half-lotus upside-down, finally, in the shoulderstand sequence; the right leg comes down just barely to the knee, and I adjust it with my hand, but I CAN, more and more, slip the left foot over the right knee and walk it in, toward what is then a full lotus. Karandavasana, here we come, eh?

Great practice, gotta love that stuff. Tomorrow I teach my Mysore-style thing, then a Primary on Monday night, and then next Monday I lead a Primary in another studio.

Students in my west-of-the-city class are increasing in number: TEN on Thursday night; SEVEN this morning. Fun! They, of course, are getting a modified Primary in this class called simply "yoga"...I invited a couple of them to tomorrow's Mysore...

Go the other way.

I've been waiting to write this: amidst the utter depression of classes despised and a job search testing me by fire (again! Is this going to end in my 40s?), I do nonetheless bounce back at moments to "normal," understood as lion voice, self-possession, stronger and more present than this test.

Tonight's impetus for this comes from multiple sources: first, a link in Anna's blog to a Ratdog show with a Terrapin encore (sorry if you don't speak Deadhead, I'm not translating), to which I'm currently listening. Thank you Cody, I bow to your lotus feet.

Yes, I'm a hippie at heart, with a head full of avant-garde French literature. Sue me all day long, see if I care :)

Also, I went to the class-to-which-no-one-comes tonight and met a very energetic woman who also teaches there, and she is all about publicity and open houses and workshops and such, and it was just downright NICE to be around such energy. The extrovert in me had an absolutely IMPOLITE feast on her energy. I don't think, in my heart of hearts, that any of this will come to anything for that studio, but all the same, if you put energy near this starved extrovert, he'll suck it through a straw.

And this rendition of "Terrapin Flyer" rouses the Lion. Let me explain the Lion. I have elsewhere described the Lion as once and simultaneously the Man with No Name and the Dark Goddess. The Lion is the springtime roar of life bursting out of frozen earth and the transformation of everything, the simultaneity of life and death not any longer understood as binary or opposed; ONE movement. The Lion is Kali. Mother, destroyer, birther, eater of children, and ONCE and SIMULTANEOUSLY.

The Lion is not ego power; the Lion is the full body of the earth, the sum total, the absolute goods. The Lion is positive energy without end, to the point where it burns everything and anything to a crisp. It is an extrovert astronaut launched into the Sun, to see the Face of God. Kerouac's alcoholism came from the Lion. NOTHING holds its own against the Lion, because everything that exists comes from the Lion and is the Lion's. This predator has all the cosmos as prey. We are far, far far far, my friends, from taxes and money and capitalism and Republicans and everything shallow and stupid in the world.

The Lion is bigger than God, any god you can name. The Lion subsumes them all. The Lion is utter holiness, the perfection, the end of binaries, the ultimate recombination. The final superlative. The endless wonder, unto insanity and eternity and timelessness. There is nothing but the Lion. BUT, the Lion is also self-destruction, the end of limits, the anti-rational, a black hole, irresistible gravity unto compaction, the end of selfhood. You don't survive this lover's embrace.

Whenever I have blown my own mind, with dedication RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE of harm or beyond it--and in particular I think of my wild 5:30 am's in San Francisco--I am possessed with the Lion. Wrist soreness for FOUR MONTHS after teacher training. That is the mark of the Lion. A search for God, if you will, or for something, for FULLNESS, for PLENITUDE, so complete that, as Kafka once brilliantly put it, "horse's head and neck were already gone."

That is the Lion; the destroyer, but an ecstasy of destruction. Nuclear war, too, is the tool of the Lion. Come to me! Do it by yoga meditation, do it by nuke war, but COME! That is the call of the Lion; the mode doesn't matter, peace doesn't matter, ease doesn't matter. The Lion is the great plasmic push-and-pull, the pulse of pinkish, glowing, sexual EVERYTHING. Morality and intent crumble like the feeble fabrics they are in the presence of the Lion; there is nothing that survives the Lion.

Nietzsche saw this thing as fully as one could before insanity, and he crossed it. Artaud, too, is a spirit given to the Lion. Rimbaud couldn't make up his mind, so the Lion took his leg and made him a martyred genius. Laughter that feels like it might never stop, belongs to the Lion. Lysergic acid was invented by the Lion.

Eventually, you have to refuse it, you have to say no. Saying yes to the Lion is putting your head in those irrefutable jaws, as we all do. You can't tame this Lion, not this one; no one can, if only because you ARE the Lion, and when you tame yourself, you sit in front of that prodding chair and that whip, and then the Lion pounces on you from underneath, from within, from any direction but where your attention is, and you go under. The Lion knows more than you do, and the hall of mirrors where you confront yourself, is organized by the Lion. You grow from the Lion like flowers from the earth, and we all know what happens to flowers at frost, which also belongs to, which IS, the Lion.

The Lion is death and fluidity, is transformation, is irresistible, is not to be resisted. "I wonder, in the bath, that I do not dissolve, like a cube of sugar," Picasso said. He ruminated on the Lion.

Camus, Miller, anyone whose philosophy or language or life has flowed, has taken flight, has dynamically danced in a dead-end street corner, ever, in any way real or metaphorical or imagined before waking, anyone such, has seen, has been, the Lion.

A schizophrenic out for a walk. Do you see the fur, amidst the grass? The fur, subtle on your knuckles? The fur, on the sun? I thought so.

No one, and nothing, real or imagined, now, before, after, later, or earlier, has, can, will, or might, resist the Lion. Embrace reality.

Depression and Insight

Bad days are coming more than once a week now; I would estimate every fourth to seventh day, there is a massive wave of soul-eating depression, which again, is totally unlike me (but which has appeared consistently since the non-stop breakless run through divorce-dissertation-job search which without any break of any sort links December 2002 to RIGHT NOW). That's not true, SF was a break.

When you have a bad emotional day regarding a long-term source of suffering, it becomes familiar. The drive back home from the studio, when I got some aware distance from the depression, reminded me that I felt like this for MONTHS after I got divorced. Definitely from December into at LEAST March. And again, I felt like this for MONTHS, probably for over a YEAR, while writing my dissertation. And again, here it is. Everything has a note of pain, a note of sadness to it. And it's entirely situational; as soon as I, years back, put down the divorce and climbed, or whatever it was, I was back, lioning my way through the cosmos. Same with the dissertation; same with the job search.

Patience might be good, and it might be a virtue, but developing it at the hands of bureaucracy is an insane spill of personal blood; more pain than it will EVER be worth, no matter what virtue is acquired. There is no debate about this.

But again, if you're in the Academy, you work from failure, you work from excessive expenditure, those are the facts of even BEING in the Academy. If you had ever been smart enough not to do this, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE.

It took me hours, today, of slacking and boredom and anxiety, to realize that this was another big depression day. Then I went to a yoga class, did an abbreviated intro to Intermediate before the class began (I twist, backbend gently, take a shot at Kapo, do a single bridge or wheel, and then get set for class), and felt that twists were NOT going to happen. Not even Parivrtta Parsvakonasana; restriction and pain, caution and "BEWARE!". This cued me in to my emotional state; only when I'm desperately pained can I not twist.

So I modified large parts of the whole class; it was vinyasa and it's got a "take it or leave it" mode of doing things, so I left a lot of stuff, including a Pariv Parsvakonasana, and including a front split, and a lot of other quad-flexion-intensive stuff.

A woman in front of me, during our backbend sequence, dropped into Kapotasana, took her ankles, and then sprung up, did a wheel, stood up from it, dropped back, and stood up again. I actually ENCOURAGED my ego to feel pain at this. Go ahead, FEEL that jealousy, feel the pain, FEEL IT ALL!! And you know what makes it even richer? She's an Integral practitioner, and so she has NO IDEA what those poses mean to someone in my position re: authorized teacher's say-so! HILARIOUS!!

I felt, again, a keen desire to NEVER work with an authorized/certified teacher. This cycles through: I went to SF to get a "measurement" of my practice, and I got one. I have a deep, deep, thorough Primary. But I saw some freakish things in SF too: for example, I saw a woman with such desperate frog-feet that she was almost pointing her toes to the SIDES OF HER MAT, do a half-assed wheel, with hands well out beyond shoulders, POP UP TO STANDING from there. THIS COUNTED AS HER DROP BACK. I believe my reaction was something like, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????" and it still is.

That position makes my back sore to even THINK ABOUT. I saw people with significantly shallower Supta Kurmasana's than mine, with shallower Garbha Pindasanas than mine, with all kinds of differences, but who could, nonetheless, drop back and stand up, and get Intermediate. There is something to these differences and I must not forget it. It really isn't "my pose is better, meow meow"; this is important. The differences I saw were something like horizontal pose acquisition versus vertical pose acquisition. These students must get a series of "horizontal" OK's, as they move through the sequence. After all, who says that in a Mysore room they can't be pulled into a crossed-ankles Supta K?

My experience has been Primary after Primary after Primary, with my own scattershot, at-will, independent forays into Intermediate, totally by myself, and so naturally I've developed an "everywhere at once, gradually deeper" sort of "vertical" Primary. Two different modes of learning. And so it's fine, but it still, if I was teaching, does NOT, REPEAT, NOT!!!!! make that woman's INSANELY DANGEROUS wheel an alright thing to pop up from. That really was the spookiest, craziest thing I saw a yoga practitioner do in my time in that city. Absolutely nuts.

I wonder, sometimes, how it is even possible that people with SHALLOWER backbends than the ones I've got (and when mine are good, they are BIG, really freakin' big) can pop to standing from there. How the hell is that possible? Just training, grokking the proprioception? What gives, god damnit???????

Ok ok ok, I'm frustrated and venting. I invited this, after all, asking the ego to take it.

Anyway, sometimes I want to just develop a freakishly intense Ashtanga practice all by myself, and then be out on top of some rock somewhere doing my practice and have some young person come by and be like "DUDE what the HELL is THAT????" and I'll say, "that's Ashtanga yoga," and then a whole franchise is set off (this story is a paraphrase of Larry Schultz' discovery of Ashtanga). The hell with communities and systems and "belonging" and all that community stuff I crave so badly.

The hell with this job search. Fuck you, academy, fuck you and die twice.

Insight: my partner reminded me tonight, after I was again whining about how much I despise teaching Intro to Contemporary Art (die, Contemporary Art, die twice) that I have been able to teach a wide variety of courses thus far, throughout grad school, with virtually NO supervision as to content, form, students, relationship, mode of teaching, ANYTHING, and that I have thrived on this utter lack of authority figures and bureaucracy (aside from grading). This was very keen for me: my main problem with the courses I'm teaching are that a) I don't know the material and b) I don't love it. These are the two sustained boons of everything I've taught through grad school, with the exception of Basic Composition, which sucks for EVERYONE. I was able to design, conceive, research, and get psyched for COURSE after COURSE, semester after semester, with no interfering bureaucrats or "I'm sorry, sir, you can't, you shouldn't, blah". This was very informative.

Now that I see what a university needs, and that it needs things I don't love or really know like the back of my hand, and which further are NOT MY IDEA to teach, I see all of the evil and bitterness in teaching within an institution.

I AM BETTER BY MYSELF. I lone-wolf it; I'm used to it and I'm VERY skilled at it.

Perhaps that is the theme of today. A sort of bitter, institutionalized Rousseau or Walden or Whitman or any one of my heroes (Rimbaud? Kerouac? Even that kid from Into the Wild? Do you think we're not, in ways, the same?).

Monday night Intermediate.

I Mysore-it-up in this class, as you faithful readers know (how many of you are there, anyway?).

9 people tonight--the growth just continues! It's not steady, by any means--next week it could easily be 4 or fewer--but growth is growth and we'll take it!

I LOVE being a student, although often, earlier in the day, I FEAR this class, because it asks very intense things of me, such as the leg-behind-head sequences FOLLOWED by the Tittibhasana sequence and then the cherry-on-top of Pincha Mayurasana, the forearm stand.

What I forget is that I can DO those poses. Haven't internalized it yet, and when I do, I'll talk about it less. That's a lesson learned from reading Jason's stuff.

Difficult twists unless VERY, very warm: Pasasana with no bound hands, not on either side. Krounchasana a little shallower than usual. Bhekasana, feeling deeper than usual; that was nice. Knees further straight back, not as "out to the sides" as sometimes, and maybe an illusion, but shoulders feeling more upward and back, chest higher.

Dhanurasana began the feeling of sweet fatigue-pain, you know the one. Breathe, hold, one more, uhhhhh collapsing... THAT ONE. But you don't, you stick it. This continued all the way through Ustrasana and a lame exit (successful, but lame) from Laghuvajrasana, and then it got me in Kapo.

Arms melting, fascia under ribs pulling open, releasing a wave of muscle-melting fatigue and sweet pain, and I melt down like a Dali yoga clock to a Supta Virasana, but I don't take it, I instead make myself roll forward, down, chaturanga, vinyasa, jump through (BRILLIANT jumps tonight, a few touchless!) and set up for Supta Vajrasana, which I really enjoyed.

Arms not totally straight in either Bakasana; I didn't set up for the jump, and it was more off-balance than usual, but I stuck it.

Very happy twists, at that point. Deep, fun, just what the doctor ordered. And then put your foot behind your head! Damn, this sequence DOES NOT LET UP. Hah, but you know that!

Not my best Eka Padas; still did A and B and lost the foot about 3-4 breaths into the pressup (C), but most of the weight FELT like it was on the neck, not on the shoulder. I attended to pressing the shoulder back, but the weight felt mismanaged; HOWEVER, I'm not sore in the back of the neck, as I sometimes am, so maybe all of my felt mismanagement is not actually accurate. Perenially tricky, those poses.

No luck at all with Dwi Pada unassisted, none. Left leg back, yes, and right leg over shoulder, but can NOT link and hold and sit up.

Not as brilliant a Titti sequence as last week, but fine; to make up for the less deep B and the less-far-off-the-floor walk in C, I moved right to D, got really sweet exhaustion fatigue pain, and then took a bent-leg 5 breaths in Titti A and then 5 more breaths in Bakasana, and stuck the floatback, whoohoo!

I stuck Pincha and the exit (and once AGAIN landed heavily on the right big toe) and then totally faked a Karandavasana; too tired to re-stick Pincha, too tired and puzzled about proprioception to make lotus in a tripod headstand. I basically did two inversions, called it a pose, and moved on.

Mayurasana from standing; 5 breaths; well done. I just now, at the beginning of this post, realized that I SKIPPED Nakrasana, totally spaced it. Bad man! Fifty dollar fine! Ok ok, I'll do it TWICE next time I do Intermediate, no really.

I took Vatayanasana and loved it, I really have some deep affection for that half-lotus vinyasa, late in the practice, it TOTALLY works. And then backbends and closing.

Six wheels, in three parts: 2 wheels, down, a prep pose involving headstand hands (sort of a modified Viparita Dandasana), down, and then 3 wheels, up, down to head, up, down to head, up, down. Big, straight arms. Perhaps a BIT in front of the shoulders, but they looked and felt straight up to me. Good times.

No work with dropbacks and I couldn't stick the post-wheels handstand; it doesn't matter, it's not like my enlightenment depends on it.

High as a kite after; good times! You rawk, Intermediate series!

32 Different flavors or so.

Check-in first:

Job search? Not traumatic today; boring, of course, but there's nothing wrong with that. Non-tenure track positions are beginning to appear. I sent my alma mater an application for a one-year visiting position (main drawback of non-tenure-track gigs being, one has to do the job market trauma AGAIN). Of course, the tenure-track acquisition game is underway hardcore now; acceptances and offers will be made and refused and so on, and the waterfall down the "qualified but not top three" towers will be coming soon. Maybe some tasty gig is in the mail as we speak.

School teaching? Today is new media seminar day, which is the course I'm really not sure about. I feel like each lesson plan is paper-thin and that it might well fall to pieces as I even drive over there. Insecurity central. But I did have an insightful conversation about contemporary art (teaching it, anyway) last night: much of it is about the NEW YORK SCENE, which in the long view really is just a blink in art history, but currently, it IS contemporary art, disciplinarily speaking. Sure, it's largely commodified rich-patron capitalist fluff and created spectacular fame and shallowness and everything bad about postmodernism, BUT that's what contemporary art IS, chief.

Yoga teaching? Still busy--five in my Mysore-style room, an offer to sub a led Primary in the middle of February, and I'll be doing another led Primary a week from today. To have Ashtanga in this city, it's worth it.

Yoga practice? It's been slow of late: Rocket on Friday, Saturday off, and inadvertently I took Sunday off too (either practice or set up new media class; insecurity ruled).

Saturday pulled me down to Bloomington for a meeting with the current dissertation writers, and each day I'm down there, if possible, I bring my climbing gear over to the gym and set some routes in there. That's getting very rare indeed, but I still love it and they still like having me do it, and so it's on.

Most climbing holds are bolted to the wall by cranking down the bolts with big Allen wrenches, but some are screwed down by means of portable drills which one can hang from climbing harnesses. These holds are called "screw-ons," and the problem with having a route made of them is that, when you take it down, you've gotta haul up there with drill in hand and hang in the harness for half an hour while you un-screw maybe as many as 80 of those little things. Saturday I was the official "un-screw-on" guy and spent my first hour in the gym, hanging out and unscrewing two routes worth of those.

I can tell when I've not been climbing/setting in a while, because one frequency comes out of my hands and head: it's strong, balance-intensive, and highly technical. Often the rating is high 5.10 to mid-5.11 (that's tough). I put up four routes, and only one was under 5.10; the other three were all upper 10, big powerful, technical, balance monsters.

Let me put ratings this way: if you climb a vertical ladder, that's maybe 5.3 to 5.4. The "5" in "5.whatever" means vertical, requiring rope (and so yes, a ladder isn't a "five" precisely because it's a ladder, but this is an example, right?). If you have two vertical ladders, maybe 3 feet apart, and you have to climb up one a few feet and then MOVE over to the other one, or better, to have one foot on EACH ladder, you're suddenly in 5.8 or 5.9 or 5.10 territory, depending on how sparse the hand-holds are. Add some high steps (skipping rungs), along with some tricky handholds (for example, being able only to fingertip the rung rather than wrap your hand around it) and some other tricks, and you can maybe imagine 5.11 territory. That's not the best example, but it works.

so: some climbing, which rules; really increases the confidence, demonstrates the inner power, the warrior soul. And then some new media seminar, which really cranks hard on the lack-of-confidence, the anxious soul. Alongside this runs the job market, which is best not thought about (what can one do? Nothing; worry, maybe). There's a lot of insecurity, and there is, above all, MASSIVE loneliness, even in a class full of students, even in a gym full of climbers, even in a job market full of seekers.

I feel an entity I call the "spring lion" (about which more later), and that is a good thing, a sign of springtime (my high holy season), but I also feel deep loneliness and anxiety (which is at least more distant from me than January's internalized horrorshow). It will improve after the seminar is over; five hours. Intro to Intermediate tonight; hurrah!

Thoughts on yoga workshops.

Everywhere online, with a few exceptions, but not many, you'll see "Teacher X has studied with people A, B, Q, T, and Y." That's just how it is done; that's how you describe yourself.

Check out the "no need for names" sometimes on Justin Barnes' bio (you can find him either here or also, until March, here). That's a different way of doing it.

This isn't about whether or not I think it's cool to list the workshops one has been to, the teachers with which one has been associated or shared a room. I am thinking about workshops, because there are many coming around, and yet, I don't think I'll attend. Sure, largely that's because of money, but it also is not, and it's the "also is not" that's interesting.

Tim Miller is coming here for a Primary and pranayama and adjustments week in April. Lino Miele is doing a near-week of Mysore-style over here in April.

Of course, you know that Pattabhi Jois is coming to Florida for, what is it, two weeks of classes, in March? But that's the week after Spring Break, and I'd need to find subs, find money, find lodging.

As you know if you read me a lot, Matthew Sweeney is coming to Minneapolis for a week of workshops including an Intermediate Series class, Mysore-style and Primary-adjustments in July, and I'm going, as of now, to the Mysore-style and adjustments sessions, and am seeing how soon money will allow me to hit the Intermediate class (at least).

So why not hit all of these; why not go, while I'm at it, to one of Tim's big week-long training intensives? Why not train up and get the exposure to senior teachers?

To be honest, I'm not drawn all the way to a handful of Mysore-style classes in a city where my practice isn't familiar to anyone. That's one. I'm also not desperately drawn to a weekend workshop on Primary--this may sound pretentious, but I can teach myself quite a bit about Primary, and as Tim Miller once said, the practice is the best teacher. Sure, I'd like to have someone have a look at my twists and tell me how to figure out the hip. But for hours of travel and a couple hundred bucks? Why not just roll out the mat, six feet from this computer, and have at it?

Intermediate, however, is a different matter. Or a backbending workshop, that's a a different matter. I'm interested in those; really really interested. Or a week chock-full of different topics. That raises my eyebrows. You might be thinking, "Dude, Lino is one of the senior, SENIOR teachers, come on now" or you might be thinking, "Dude, Tim Miller is not to be missed." Yes, yes on both counts, no disparagement is intended or should be inferred. But my tendency is to get a WEEK of Tim on Primary sometime. 200 for a weekend, or 1700 for a week intensive? Hmm. Yes, I'm certain that Lino would give me some advice, adjustment or something else that would be priceless. But in a full room where I'm the stranger? Should I spend the driving time, the cash per class, and the need to find subs for my school classes down here, on the CHANCE that in a full room I'd get that "magic moment"? Do I NEED that "magic moment" that much?

One of the main attractions for Sweeney's Mysore-style classes in July is that he's teaching a room of 12 people, really doing it old school.

I don't doubt that I'm missing out. But I don't want to leap at the nearest workshop just because it's THERE either. I have inherited a certain austerity, almost a standoffishness, from all of this home practice.

Recently I had to write a bio for a change of studio ownership, and I didn't mention any workshops other than my teacher training. For the record, here's my workshop and teacher-training history:

200 hours with Larry Schultz and company.

Fairly regular attendance, for a month, at Clayton's Mysore-style room.

Weekends with Doug Swenson (twice), Rolf Gates. A 3-hour class with Seane Corn. A 3-hour class with Desiree Rumbaugh. A weekend with David Swenson.

That's my "famous names" history, all of it.

A lot, and I mean a LOT, of led Primaries with Wendy and Carol. First Ashtanga class ever, and a few in Primary and also modified Intermediate, with Debby.

And the rest of it is home practice, with a pack of vinyasa classes sampled, including one I hit each week on Tuesday nights here and an Intro to Intermediate three times a month (but even there, I Mysore-style it).