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2006-12-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

Moving to WordPress: donutszenmom

Finish your breath, Part 2

2006-12-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

My body is happy for the Moon Day, but my mind is really wanting to practice. I don't usually get this clear a split on the issue, so it's kind of amusing. I had a feeling this was going to happen, so I got up late, in order to thwart my rebellious nature ;-)

Saturday's post-led lunch was great fun. A very good turn out--twelve people, including Crim Girl, Sanskrit Scholar, Volleyball Guy, Renaissance Man, Returning Guy and New York Chick. Girl with a Red Mat brought her boyfriend. It's always fun to meet significant others. And The Human Puddle joined us. He doesn't do Mysore, but is a pretty consistent participant at led class. I like practicing next to him, and always remember the first time I did: during chanting at the end of practice, as we stood in tadasana, I kept catching sight of a motion in my peripheral vision. Turns out it was the constant drip of sweat onto the puddle on his mat. LOL! Seriously. I'm usually quite Howard Hughes about these things, but on that day I was just impressed.

***

Back to the ayurveda story. When we left off, I was at the ayurvedic practitioner's place, getting more and more restless because I needed to get back to the office.

Interestingly, the more revved up I got, the more slowly the ayurvedic practitioner seemed to move and speak. She gave me a leisurely lecture on sesame oil massage, actually miming the way the oil should be applied over my body (elliptical motions over the muscles, circular motions over joints). It started to feel vaguely hallucinatory, the way we were going so intensely out of sync, but I kept pulling myself back to the funky room.

As I was paying for my session, I asked for directions back to the main road. She explained the route to me. Then she map-quested and printed a map, which she highlighted as she reviewed the route. Then she used a pencil to do a line drawing of the route in the margin of the map quest page, and reviewed that. Then she added an R in a circle or an L in a circle on the line drawing to indicate right and left turns. "This is a remarkable amount of time to spend answering someone's question," I thought.

Ah, but it didn't end there: she had a book she wanted to show me, and she also wanted to give me a card for an ayurvedic practitioner in Phoenix who did medical treatments, in case I ever needed those kinds of services. She was very clear about the fact that she could give me an introduction to the principles of ayurveda, but if I needed medical intervention, I should see this other woman. But she couldn't find the card. Not where it usually was. But perhaps it was over here. Or here. Or perhaps it was in a drawer. Finally, she found the card.

Was this slow, thorough interaction the answer to the question that brought me here? Perhaps. I was aware that my mind was already heading back to the office, and I kept bringing it back to my current situation as well as I could. Still, it was a split consciousness. I couldn't seem to just be present in the ayurvedic practitioner's office any longer. I was too torn by what had to happen next (Get back to work!) At the same time, I was feeling envious of this environment where people could go as slowly as they liked--pausing to think and to share thoughts. Yes, this really is what I am trying to figure out lately--how to bring that to my own life.

Of course, the afternoon ended with me going back to work, but not until I picked up some food for lunch. And when I got back to my desk, a couple of coworkers happened by. I invited them in, and had a nice chat while I ate lunch, instead of diving right back into emails and voice messages.

The results of the experiment so far have been quite good: since my visit, I've slept more soundly than I've slept in years. I've been able to keep more centered at the office, though there is still work to be done on that count. I really feel like this is currently my most significant question: how can I bring, sustain, and promote centered consciousness in my workplace?

So far I only have a few ideas about how I can get this going: 1) keep centered via yoga practice and zazen, 2) laugh as much as possible at work.

Oh, I should mention how the ayurvedic session affected my Ashtanga practice. The first Mysore practice after the session was very grounded and strong. I was going along happily, when the thought came to me: Finish your breath. Sure enough, I suddenly recognized that I often don't finish my exhale. It felt quite revelatory--I saw that when I am stressed at all (even quite subtly stressed, like by a shift in my attention), I hold some of my out-breath. No idea why that is, but it felt really good to make a point of finishing each breath.

Maybe that's what the ayurvedic practitioner was modelling for me when she did her slower-and-slower wrap-up of our session?

I am, of course, amused. Here I am, decades into my life, and the biggest project I have going on is trying to remember to exhale all the way...

Finish your breath

2006-12-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was my appointment with the ayurvedic practitioner. A couple of months ago, My Gift was looking into ayurvedic practitioners and I asked her to send me the link she had, which listed exactly one practitioner in my (sort of) area. So off I went on Wednesday afternoon, driving out to the east of Scottsdale, in search of this practitioner in the mountains. It's not as Castenada-ish as it sounds. The mountains have highways and are built up with nice houses. Nevertheless...

I got lost, as is usual, and pulled over up on some hill overlooking more mountains, and used my Blackberry to access the internet and get myself squared away. Sure enough, after a bit of a drive, I found a funky little building with a green door, which led into a little office crammed with bottles and jars and heavy with incense. This must be the place. I stood there in my business clothes and thought, "How have I come to be here? No one in my family nor 99.9% of the people I've known in my life would ever want to track down a place like this..." Truth be told, I was brought up to be an east coast skeptic. Ancient medicine? Eastern philosophy? Even run of the mill fashionable new age? Not.

The woman who greeted me...eventually (I was thinking, Gee, they leave the door unlocked, aren't they concerned about security?...) was not at all the kind of person I was expecting. I couldn't tell how old she was, but she had long, spiky platinum hair (imagine Tina Turner hair, but messier) and old, funky clothes. Kind of a combo of Scottsdale chic and mountain camping utilitarian. Okay, I'll go along with this.

Sure enough, this was my ayurvedic practitioner. We went into a smaller room, where she started off by telling me that she'd had a facelift three weeks ago and still wasn't feeling quite recovered, that her face was still numb in places and kind of tight across the cheekbones.

I've never talked to anyone who's had a facelift (or at least, I've never talked with someone who's told me they've had one and wanted to discuss it) and it was quite fascinating. For one thing, this woman was an attractive woman, or more accurately, she was the kind of woman about whom people would say, "She used to be a very attractive woman," quite admiringly. So now she was a woman who used to be an attractive woman (presuming you believe aging detracts from initial attractiveness) and was now restored, via facelift, to a different kind of attractiveness. A facelifted attractiveness. Which, as I sat and looked at her, is simply a different kind of attractiveness from the natural youthful attractiveness she was born with, and the aged attractiveness I'm sure she had before the facelift.

Apparently, though, the wrinkled attractiveness made her unhappy, so she went for the facelifted one. Where you can see the wrinkles, but they are pulled tighter--well, I guess they are simply flattened wrinkles. It's just a slightly different aesthetic. Looked at without judgement--and it was easy to do this, once I got past the intial shock of Hmmm, I've never interacted with someone quite like this, because she was just a lovely, open person--I suddenly saw her in all three stages, and she was equally attractive in all three stages, though each face was a little different. Inside it, though, they were all, very clearly, her.

Okay, so anyhow, she did eventually get to talking about me. Vata pitta. I'm not terribly surprised. I knew I wasn't slight enough, or ethereal enough, to be a true vata. On the other hand, I'm not muscular enough or angry enough ;-) to be a true pitta. We reviewed my eating habits, my sleeping habits, my energy levels throughout the day, etc. The biggest reason I made the appointment was because work has been sucking the life out of me, day by day, and I couldn't seem to get a handle on it. I just felt energetically burnt out, and like I couldn't rejuvenate myself at all. Even weekends didn't seem to help me get my energy back.

We went over my eating habits, which tended toward light eating during the day, lots of raw food (and lots of days when breakfast was forgotten about or lunch missed because of meetings), and then an evening meal with The Cop. Sleep cycles were also reviewed. I had to 'fess up to the fact that I try to get enough but almost never manage, due to waking at 4:30.

She sketched out a couple of diagrams of eating and sleeping cycles and pointed out where I ought to be. Food: warmer, oilier foods, biggest meal between 10AM and 2PM, very light evening meal. Sleep: well, try to get a little more, and perhaps I'd sleep better with an evening nightcap of warmed milk with cardamom and cinammon. And then she suggested a sesame oil massage each morning before showering. And a sesame oil foot rub at night. She also had a few things to say about breathing (Yeah, yeah, I always think, Breathe. Yeah, I know.) You'd think I'd actually have more of a clue about breathing in "real life," but we'll talk about that later in this story.

Okay. All of this sounded do-able, and actually quite lovely. Well, maybe except for the milk idea, because generally dairy makes me feel sick. At this point, though, it was after 2 in the afternoon and I was starting to get restless and spaced out. I'd eaten a carrot on the way to the appointment because I forgot about lunch, and I had to rush back to work for a meeting. Ah yes, immersed in the glow of my ayurvedic consultation, and now I'm all revved about dashing back to the office.

This whole experience was starting to feel like a wake-up call. Fine. I decided to go get some lunch to bring back to the office, even though it meant I would be returning to the office even later than I expected, and that I'd be eating a late lunch despite the fact that I was slated for a work-related dinner in the evening. I didn't care. My time with the ayurvedic practitioner was very bizarre in some ways (perhaps one day I'll tell the story of her co-worker, who took a minute to tell me about a technology he has for healing people at a distance through his computer) but also...well...a wake up call. Something brought me out here to the ayurveda lady, so it seemed like a good idea to try out some of her suggestions.

***

Time to get ready for led class. Sanskrit Scholar suggested a post-practice lunch today and we've been inviting Mysorians, so that ought to be fun. There is even a possibility that Crim Girl and The British Director, both of whom have been absent lately due to life events, will join us. I'll go on with my adventures in ayurveda in a later installment.

Crappy hostess

2006-11-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm never going to win any Martha Stewart awards. I'm just not cut out for this hostess business. Perhaps I am in a rut? It's all about practice and reading and simple everyday things for me. My idea of a great evening is something to the effect of: early dinner, a little relaxing, early bedtime. Just call me Grandma ;-)

Irishseoul came along to led class on Friday and Saturday. Actually, we got up at 4:30 and headed over to Mysore practice on Friday, but when we got there, the doors were locked. Uh oh, apparently there was a change to the schedule due to the holiday. Fine. We just went back for the special post-holiday led class at 9 AM.

Not too many participants on Friday, and even fewer on Saturday. Suzie Columbus, participant on the infamous ezBoard, was in attendance. Sanskrit Scholar pointed her out to me and I went to say hi. It's a riot meeting people you "know" from cyberspace. And then to practice with her in the same room just underscores the fact that the sangha is bigger than any individual roomful of people practicing together.

I picked up a book yesterday (bookstore visits count as good hostessing, don't they?): Hardcore Zen, by Brad Warner. A pop-culture post-punk reading of Zen. I wasn't sure who I was getting it for: me? The Cop? My Gift? I'm finishing it up so I can send it back to northern Arizona with My Gift when she drives back to school today.

Here's a little quote about emptiness:

Emptiness is the single most misunderstood word in all of Buddhism. The original Sanskrit word for this is shunyata, which ultimately points to the as-it-is-ness of things, the state of things being as they are without being colored by our views and ideas.

Emptiness is not a nihilistic concept of voidness. Emptiness is not meaninglessness. Emptiness is that condition which is free from our conceptions and our perceptions. It's the world as it is before we come along and start complaining about the stuff we don't like.

Warner goes on to give examples, using David Cronenberg's movie The Fly as a frame of reference. All this in his essay on the Heart Sutra. Also included: quotes from Gene Simmons, Isaac Asimov, and Eric Cartman of South Park. I am amused.

Thanks

2006-11-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

Irishseoul and I got up at 6 AM and made our way through practice. It's funny--we spent many hours together in gyms in California, and now here we are, years later, practicing Ashtanga together in Arizona. We are good workout partners and good yoga partners: she is self-motivated and focused. As she was when we spent our time lifting weights and running on treadmills.

Meanwhile, My Gift and Maneki Neko went out with friends for sushi last night. They are sleeping in this morning, after a very late evening. The Cop worked until 3 AM, so he's sleeping, too.

Lovely to sit with Irishseoul and have tea and talk. I have very fond memories of tea with her over the years. About time for us to do a little cooking now, so enough blogging.

I am thankful for The Cop, My Gift, my friends and family. I don't have a huge circle of friends or a huge number of things, but those that I do have are dear to me, and I am very, very lucky.

Om shanti and Happy Thanksgiving.

Off and running

2006-11-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Global conference call at 5 AM. Therefore, no Mysore. My Gift has a rheumatologist appointment this afternoon, therefore no led class. So, at the end of the con call, I squeezed in a practice. The beauty part about being a fast breather is that I can roll through a practice in right about an hour. Was it meditative? No, not really. But I'm more grounded and the shoulder tweak is relieved. Not such a beautiful practice, but a practice nonetheless.

It rocks to have My Gift around for a few days, and Irishseoul and Maneki Neko are on the way. Looking forward to the holiday!

More fiction

2006-11-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

In a recent comment, Tim mentioned how much he's been affected by fiction. I'm in the same boat, which is why my current disillusionment is rather surprising and a bit disturbing. I've been a reader all my life, with a particular taste for fiction. I absolutely believe that my moral compass was deeply affected by my reading (as well as John Lennon's music, but that's another story). Books like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, An American Tragedy, Madame Bovary, The Awakening, Nightwood, Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, and of course, my true love, Ulysses, taught me about the aesthetics of writing, but more importantly, about the emotional lives of human beings. How else would I have known, growing up in the suburbs with stoical first generation parents hellbent on assimilation, about the inner lives of other people?

During and after college, I worked at bookstores for almost ten years (at a terrific independent bookstore in Harvard Square for a good number of those) and spent all my hours away from work reading and writing. Then off to grad school in New York, where I wrote and read some more. Honestly, I truly thought that the only thing more meaningful than life itself was a life devoted to reading and writing--to art. That was a core principle for me, a way I understood myself and the world.

So now, all of a sudden, there's this sense of ennui. Of just not wanting to indulge. Almost like I've eaten too much. Except for Haruki Murakami. I am always eager to get my hands on his new books. But what's the dealio? Not only am I off novels, I am feeling discombobulated politically. Yesterday on NPR, The Cop and I heard an interview with Ralph Reed, Andrew Sullivan and Dick Armey. I've always liked Andrew Sullivan and abhored Ralph Reed, but for goodness sake, there I was, AGREEING with Dick Armey's assessment of the current political situation. Huh?!?

Perhaps too much meditation and sloughing off of the ego? Is that what's making me seem less and less recognizable to myself? LOL! I say that kind of as a joke, but um, Dick Armey? He and Newt Gingrich are on the same side, for crying out loud! What is happening to me?!?!

Maybe it was the combination of indulgent liberals in the novel and a sensible-sounding Republican on the radio that threw me. Maybe it is some secret inner self revealing itself as my musculoskeletal system realigns. Or my ego dissolving. Who the heck knows? I have this panicky feeling like I need to hang on to what I recognize as the things I value, but then again...why bother?

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language-door and

open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.

-Rumi

PasOWsana & No Martha Stewart

2006-11-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have a crink in my shoulder. Hmmmm. "Crink" or "krink"? Actually, Merriam Webster says it's "crick" or "kink." Either way, something's going on in the right shoulder, under the shoulderblade. I'm thinking it's from The Cop's adjustment in pasasana. Upside of the adjustment: I had my fingers bound (however slightly) and my feet flat on the ground. Of course I was a bunched-up ball of flesh--no elegance whatsoever. But hey, I saw that the bind was possible, which is a great first step.

So there's work today and tomorrow (yes, I'm at work and blogging, so you can see how relaxing today is!) and then four days off. My Gift is driving home even as I write. And my best friend from California, from here on known as "Irishseoul," will drive down on Wednesday. Her daughter, who we will call Maneki Neko, will also visit. Maneki Neko and My Gift became fast friends as little children, while they languished in the childcare area of the gym Irishseoul and I attended. They were the instigators of my relationship with Irishseoul. As it turns out, Irishseoul and I spent many an afternoon lifting weights and doing cardio, and the girls became connoisseurs of the kids area of gyms. The best was Gold's in Palo Alto, with one of those bouncy slides and the tubes they could climb through.

Yay! A holiday! I am totally psyched. Holidays at my house mean a pre-holiday visit to our favorite sushi restaurant (that's tonight!). Holidays also mean not too much fancy cooking stuff (as in, not ANY!), but I do have a special recipe to try this year: jello shots. I know, I know, I should make a pie or some side dishes or something. But why, when what I really want is pineapple jello with Malibu rum? Actually, this morning one of the people on my team (who I will call "Partay Gal") told me about spodis. She couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it. I'm so behind the times. I think, though, that she's given me my special Christmas recipe.

Stranger than fiction

2006-11-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

Early blogging today. I'm waiting for The Cop to finish his coffee before we begin practice. Going over a few emails from work. The holiday schedule thing is happening at work: too many meetings, too few hours. I have an 8 AM meeting this morning, and tomorrow is a global conference call, which means those of us in Arizona call in at 5 AM. Hence, no Mysore practice. Blech. I'll just have to block off my schedule so I can get to Volleyball Guy's 4 PM led class later in the day.

Yesterday, Tim left a comment about the book I was reading (and which I finished last night). I am having strange and confusing thoughts about fiction these days. As I was reading On Beauty, I started to wonder why, exactly, I was involving myself in this story. It is well-written, and has a compelling-enough plot, but...well, why? Why would I get tangled up in the drama of these pretend people? Set in a university setting in the Northeast, with the usual professor/student dramas, and liberal versus conservative political issues, etc., etc. I think I used to remember I didn't care for fiction with a university setting, but I wanted to give it another go. Um, maybe I shouldn't have. The characters, and ultimately the novel, seemed rather indulgent and overwrought. And I kept wondering, "Why am I doing this to my psyche?" After all, my emotions/body don't know that this is all pretend; my mind does, of course, but the emotional hangover of fiction is real.

These are distressingly blasphemous thoughts from a gal who usually relishes blasphemy (when applied to religion--but goodness, NOT when applied to fiction! ;-) I guess I'll try another novel and see how that goes. Maybe, though, I'll need to switch to non-fiction or something.

Better late than never

2006-11-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Below is a post from yesterday. We're just back from the mountains.

***

Sunday noon and I am in a cabin in Lakeside, a little town 3 hours northeast of Scottsdale. All I've done so far today is read, eat a muffin and drink a really too sweet mocha The Cop tracked down in town this morning. I will make this entry and mail it to myself to post later, because my Blackberry does not accept cookies, and apparently that is necessary in order to log on to Blogger.

It was The Cop's idea that we get out into the wilderness for a few days. We don't talk about work very much or in any detail, since we both prefer to keep work at work, but obviously he knew I was rather stressed lately. So here we are, away from it all, and it feels great. The only downside to lying around and relaxing is that I feel how SORE I am! Yikes! That said, I got a world class adjustment from Volleyball Guy at Saturday led. Attendance was quite low, likely due to holiday travel, I'd imagine. So there was plenty of room for Volleyball Guy to work the room. I was psyched when he came over at baddha konasana. We did a 15 count baddha k, where you can choose to do A, B, and C for five counts each, or any combo of them that you like.

So I took my opportunity to have my head on the floor for all 15 counts. I am not sure why it is so easy for me to do the pose with an assist, but so difficult without. Obviously, it will come with time, but still it is curious. I suspect this particular pose requires a certain kind of gracious surrender that is not my strong suit. Anyhow, yeah, I just need to let it play out over time.

Okay, enough of this. Time to get back to my book (On Beauty, by Zadie Smith) and the hot tub!

Pulling the rug out

2006-11-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

Actually, no one pulled the rug out from underneath me. I just forgot it. I had an 8 AM meeting at the office, so I packed up all of my clothing and shower stuff and cosmetics and lunch and brought them, along with my mat, to practice with me this morning.

As soon as I got there, I realized I'd forgotten my rug. Uh oh. Just as I'd imagined, the jumpback foot drag thing that I have going on was made worse by the lack of a slippery rug. That's okay, though--it raises the bar for me. All in all, the lack of mat wasn't too bad at all. Kurmasana was where I really had problems. Usually I do the helicopter landing and slide my butt back on the rug as I tuck my shoulders under my legs. Volleyball Guy came over and adjusted me in kurmasana, so that was fine.

The real difference, though, was in supta kurmasana. The stickiness of the mat made it much easier for me to walk my feet together. The resistance of the mat meant I could walk one foot in a bit, then when I leaned to walk the other foot in, the mat kept the first foot from slipping back. Oh yeah! I think I'll be practicing without my rug for a while--it's worth it for the little boost in supta kurmasana.

Did the pasasana through ustrasana sequence, then off to work. Things seem to be settling down here at work. I read someone's blog last night, and there was a mention of Mercury in retrograde. I know absolutely nothing about astrology and generally pay it no attention at all, but geez, work has been so stressful recently that I was happy to have something to explain it all.

Got milk crate?

2006-11-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

I managed to find a metal mesh milk crate in a little designer-organizer boutique store (no plain old plastic milk crates in Scottsdale, apparently). It is ugly and bizarrely designed, to the point of compromising its actual strength. Sigh. What makes people produce poorly designed products?? This thing is actually made of more material than it actually warrants, which means it is probably pretty expensive to produce, but the design of said materials is so poor, so strangely arbitrary, that the darned thing isn't even as strong as a plain old plastic milk carton. Nice work, you crazy container designers. I guess it's supposed to be an aesthetically pleasing object. Too bad it's not.

Don't get me started about design. We are having design wars at work. One business unit seems to have decided that it should determine what we design. Oops, forgot about including designers!! No worries. We can have unqualified people dream up crazy ideas, and then tell the designers to make it. Yeah, that's sure to work. I imagine the container manufacturer was working under the same premise.

Okay, aside from the design issues at work, there are also major issues about control of the organization. Hey, I'm the first person to admit to fascistic tendencies. I'm singleminded and I have lots of energy and I can use language to sound like I always know what I'm talking about, so it's easy enough for me to run roughshod over the rest of the world. But geez, let's have a little self-awareness, people!! At least I have the grace to be abashed when I realize my ideas are impacting other humans, who do have the right to opinions and autonomy and respect. Sigh. So business units are pitted against each other. My boss is being extremely gracious--she's taking the high road. I have a zen commitment to right action, so I'm happy she's decided to go that way, but goodness, I sure am curious to see if the high road pays off.

Good versus evil. Really, is this something that should play out at work?? Yeah, yeah, I know it does all the time, for probably 99% of the population. Why do we create these soap operas for ourselves?? I always think about when I am a little old lady on my deathbed: I don't want to look back over my life and see my energy spent on years of corporate politics. YUCK!

Must. Rise. Above.

First thing Monday morning, one of my work friends came into my office, looked at me, and before either of us had said a word, announced, "You're on edge." I laughed my head off. He was so right and it was so stupid of me to be wound up at 8:30 on a Monday morning. Perspective, perspective.

At an afternoon meeting, another friend passed me a note. I opened it and read: "F**k this sh*t." Again I cracked up. I've been trying to keep that sense of humor all week.

So back to the crate. It's a good thing to lie across a milk crate (or a mesh crate, as the case may be). What is most apparent is that I have tight hip flexors. I tucked my legs under, a la kapotasana, and discovered just how ridiculously tight. Okay, so time to think about hip flexors more. And the shoulders/upperback-over-the-lip-of-the-crate stretch rocks.

Practice was good. A respite from my busy mind. Threw the crate in at the end.

Ready for another day.

Back to it

2006-11-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Back to Mysore today. Nice and toasty in there, as Volleyball Guy cranked the heat up. The British Director and The Other Dave were coming in just as I arrived, quickly followed by Renaissance Man and The Cat. Sanskrit Scholar showed up a little later, along with a few other folks.

Practice was good. I felt a little distracted to be practicing in a group, but not too bad. Of course, it was great getting adjustments from Volleyball Guy again. My hamstrings felt good enough to get my feet up off the floor in kurmasana, and supta kurmasana is hanging in there--bind getting tighter and tighter, soles together. Hmmm...just a little bit deeper to get the crossed feet... Anyhow, can't complain.

Volleyball Guy sandbagged me on baddha konasana (one on each thigh and two on my back) and what used to be searing pain as I put my head on the floor is now just intense pain. LOL! Just kidding. I don't know how this works, but once I am not afraid, the pain just becomes a feeling and it isn't so...well, painful.

After setu bandhasana, I went on to my little bit of second--through ustrasana--before urdhva dhanurasana. After urdhva dhanurasana, Volleyball Guy spotted me on dropbacks. Once that was done, I took a moment to savor the pukey feeling of my nervous system being stressed. Ahhhh! Such a lovely feeling. I haven't had it for a while. Seriously, I actually do have good associations with the seeing-stars-feeling-pukey feeling. The most intensely I've ever experienced it was when learning heavy squats and deadlifts. I could also get it from really hard climbing. And when I was first learning primary.

Of course, back in the day, I didn't have any fancy yoga way of understanding it ;-) When it happened from lifting, I called my brother, who was a personal trainer and gym manager, and he told me it was a normal reaction of the nervous system, a response to a new level of physical stress. "How far should I push it?" I asked him. "Well," he said, "Definitely don't puke on the equipment." This is not inconsistent with the messaging of rock climbers. In that environment, though, the word is: Don't puke on the belay ledge.

This morning, anyhow, wasn't quite so dramatic as all that. It was just that crispy, slightly burnt feeling of exertion. Which I love. I thought a bit about how we learn to be more efficient in our practices: how we smooth them and work out the kinks and learn the places where we need to be patient, where we need to pay a little more attention and breathe. We adjust, physically (and mentally), to the stressors. So this morning was a great bit of fun, to throw in the new poses. Something to mess practice all up again ;-)

Afterwards, I couldn't resist asking Volleyball Guy about what I'd done. As I'm sure I've mentioned a million times, he is not a traditionalist. So it's kind of dopey for me to ask. But apparently I am a traditionalist, because I wanted to check and make sure that what I was doing was okay.

I asked him if adding the poses on was alright, or if I should get real and knock it off. He grabbed my shoulders and said, "Yes, you should do it. I'm proud of you!" LOL! He cracks me up. He acted like he'd been waiting for me to just go ahead and do it.

Well alrighty then.

Heart chakra

2006-11-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of days, I've been feeling "off." Just kind of extra-emotional. Actually, probably just normally emotional (generally I'm a pretty stoic gal). Tried to chalk it up to the little cold everyone at work has, and which I've been fighting. Then I tried pawning it off on Ladies Holiday.

Then this morning, as I thought, "Gee, I need to buy a milk crate at Target," I wondered if this emotionalism has been exacerbated by the extra backbending and my generally crim practice behavior. Backbends supposedly "open your heart," right? Give me a moment to smirk. Okay, I'm back.

If my heart is being opened, it would appear that it prefers to be shut. That way, I can go about my business and practice and go to work and function like a normal person, rather than someone who feels like her skin's been peeled off. Oh wait ! It reminds me of the Gnarls Barkley song I have stuck in my head:

Even your emotions had an echo
And so much space

Oh wait, there's even a bit of wisdom in there, too, that likely applies:

Ha ha ha!
Bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Okay, so I'm just going through a weird emotional space. For whatever reason. Kind of like the pain of learning the supta kurmasana bind. Back then, anyone except a yogi would have told me to knock it off, to give it up. So alright: I'll buy my milk crate and do my backbends and see where it goes. No going back.

Actually, there was a great little Dogen quote in my reading this morning:

One success is the result of the ten thousand failures.

And then there was a little additional insight from Gerry Shishin Wick:

Those who practice oneness will be released. It's as straightforward as that.

I don't have control. It's kind of scary. There's no going back. Fine. Carry on. All is coming.

Curve ball

2006-11-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

All psyched for Mysore this morning and Ladies Holiday intervenes. Okay, fine. Yin yoga, it is. I got out my little yin book and put on a flannel shirt over my yoga clothes, got the iPod, and was off and running.

Damn, it was cold in the house this morning. And to put it in perspective for everyone who lives outside of the desert, today's freezing house temperature is 68 degrees. I'm going to have to start turning on the heat when I practice at home. The little space heater, which I had blasting directly on me, isn't cutting it.

So yes, another attempt at yin yoga. Which always amuses me with its sweet and passive appearance, which masks intense physical danger ;-) Actually, of course, the practice isn't dangerous. I'm dangerous. My past forays into yin yoga have resulted in knee tweaks and back crinks. Why? Because in yin you are not supposed to push, and I don't understand what that means. My internal yin monolog goes: Okay, so don't push. Don't push. Relax and enjoy. Ooh, this feels nice. The whole point is to relax and not push. Hmmmm...I wonder if I can get a little further into this?

Today, though, I really didn't push. I just enjoyed the poses. Well, I enjoyed them while I was in them, and then I really hurt as I tried to get out of them. Therein lies the challenge of yin. If you lie there relaxed for five minutes, it hurts like a motherf***** when you come out of it. Who knew I'd need a motherf***** count for yin yoga? Today's count: around 3.

The fun part is listening to music. I have no compunction about playing music during yin practice. With Ashtanga, I sometimes listen to chanting. I always think before I turn it on, though, to see if I really want it. I'd rather not turn it into a habit. Usually I go with the low chanting about 30% of the time. With yin, though, woohoo, bring on the pop and the hip hop!

I spent some time downloading music over the weekend. And this morning I lay around on the floor in yin poses, reexperiencing the weird wonderfulness of Macy Gray's voice. Not at all what I had planned for myself, but pretty nice after all.

Serendipity

2006-11-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

Led class was pretty full, but you can't tell as much, now that the room has been reconstructed. There was a flood at the Scottsdale Starbucks of Yoga, which meant Saturday led class was in the teeny room at the Phoenix branch for a few months. For the first class in Phoenix, we practiced on an unfinished floor (mostly concrete and concrete dust) and no door, just a curtain between us and the racks of clothes in the boutique. Don't get me started on the boutiques.

Anyhow, today was back in the old room, which is now larger, because when the owners had to make major repairs after the flood, they decided to expand the room, too. Good call. The room was full, but we had at least a good 4 inches of space between mats. It was nice to practice with people again. Of course, I practice with The Cop on Tuesdays, and he counts as a person--though I like to think of him more as a representative of the aggressive, potty-mouthed side of our shared partnership. He completes me ;-)

Practice was good. Volleyball Guy keeps a very constant count: his five count is almost always exactly eight of my breaths. No matter where he is in the room or what he's doing, he manages the nice constant count. Hanumanasana on the first side pissed me off (oops, channeling The Cop) because it hurts and reminds me that there's something going on with the right hamstring insert again. Left over from the year of insert pain, maybe--or, more frighteningly, maybe something new. The jumpbacks still involve a foot touch, but the motion is easy now, and consistent and smooth. I'm not going to push much, but just wait and see where it goes with persistent practice.

Supta kurmasana feels good: the bind is tighter and tighter, and today it even felt like some room is opening up for me to slide my shoulders under more. At this point all I can do is put my feet together, but the ankle cross isn't that far off. Biggest issue was baddha konasana--I'm used to putting a sandbag on my back and taking extra breaths to get my head to the floor, but there isn't time for that sort of thing in led, so I had to let it go.

We get to the vinyasa after setu bandhasana, and I hear Volleyball Guy say, "Pasasana!" Woohoo! How psyched am I?!?! We went along through laghuvajrasana, which is the absolute last pose for me when I'm being crim. He called for kapotasana, but I decided to be a tourist for that one: practicing to my right was the Serene One, who has freakishly melty backbends, so I just sat and watched her execute a gorgeous, heel-grabbing kapotasana. Lovely!

On to urdhva dhanurasanas, then closing, then some chanting. Volleyball Guy did a call and response chant, and after we chanted a phrase back, he'd ask Sanskrit Scholar to translate and chant it in English. Very humorous, hearing her chant back in English, with the extra syllables kind of thrown in there and the translation going on in her head, and the trying to sing it back in the same melody. What an astounding challenge!

Got to hang out a little bit afterwards with Returning Guy, Sanskrit Scholar and The British Director. Good to see everyone. I was happy to be there.

Gate gate paragate

2006-11-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Woke yesterday with a bit of a sore throat and some sniffles. Nothing too bad, just a little something from being on a plane last week. A souvenir.

Didn't quite feel up to practice--whether this was a physical thing or mental, I'm not sure. At any rate, the right hamstring was tweaked (damn you, hanumanasana!) and I was a little off. Still wanted to do some backbending, though. My back and shoulders are nicely tender these days, from the routine of more focused and persistent backbending and all the gomukhasana fun.

So practice was something I never tried before: standing poses followed by the first few intermediate poses (pasasana through ustrasana). And I went with the full vinyasas. I've never done full vinyasa before, and I have no idea why it seemed like a good idea, beyond the notion that I needed more movement than half vinyasa would afford. I always wonder if these little notions ("Do a different practice today!" "Hey, how about full vinyasa?!") are indications of intuition, of my body/mind telling me something I need, or if they are just the actions of monkey mind. Maybe they are creative intuitions that should be followed. Or maybe they are delusions. Or maybe they just are what they are and my reactions to them the result of my own personal form of fundamentalist brainwashing. Or maybe:

Form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.

The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

This morning is led class at Starbucks of Yoga. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.

Poor research

2006-11-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Andrea posted a comment, asking why I felt guilty about doing some intermediate poses after primary. It's an interesting question.

I don't feel guilty because of how I was "brought up" in Ashtanga ;-) Volleyball Guy is not a traditionalist. Or if he is, it's a West Coast kind of old school. Basically, we're encouraged to explore. Any fundamentalist streak in my own personal practice comes from my self. So I don't feel guilty in regards to my teacher.

When you get right down to it, I suppose I feel guilty from a scientific perspective. I am curious about the traditional system (perhaps more from a physical than a spiritual perspective, given I do not share the same belief system as Guruji and other traditionalists), but I am even more curious from a "how does it work" perspective. So a little more than a year ago, I launched the experiment of Ashtanga using my self as a lab rat. Throwing curve balls (i.e., crim activities) into the mix makes me feel remiss from a research perspective. I'm adding variables, and, therefore, compromising the experiment.

The majority of my educational background is in the arts, but my second graduate degree is in a technical field--so though I do not have an innate love of the scientific, I do have great respect for the beauty of well-designed research.

So yes, here I am. In the midst of another muddle of the spiritual and the material, the absolute and the individual. And shame on me, who just a couple of hours ago read the end of the Diamond Sutra and apparently did not learn a thing. Ain't life grand? ;-)

No matter. This morning I did the intermediate poses again. I had an interesting day yesterday, both physically and emotionally. Felt both more centered and more edgy simultaneously. So I can't resist trying it again and seeing how it plays out today.

Not gonna make any pronouncements one way or another. Just gonna see how it goes.

Too much ezBoarding

2006-11-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm going to blame the ezBoard. It turns my head. And thus, today's seriously crim practice.

It came from out of the blue. I did the usual trip through Primary, which was quite lovely, except for a sense of tension in my hip flexors and lower back. Like there was a build up of energy--kind of like the feeling I get when I need to pop my knees or crack my knuckles. A restlessness. Didn't think too much of it, but as I finished up setu bandhasana, I just kept on going. What was I heading for? The shalabhasanas, dhanurasanas and ustrasana. Ahhh, relief! My hip flexors and lower back felt great! Knocked off at ustrasana and went on to urdhva dhanurasana. Then a little gomukhasana arms up against a doorway (to nudge the shoulders open a little more). More urdhva dhanurasanas. And then closing.

Sigh. Now there are feelings of guilt to process. Perhaps I will put the whole thing down (about good and bad and guilt and rebellion) and just go on and see how things go. See how I feel today. See what happens tomorrow at practice. Play it by ear. Be flexible. Not decide one way or another. This should be easy, shouldn't it?

Shouldn't it? ;-)

My Cop, My Mirror

2006-11-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yogamum is tracking her progress on a novel (with a daily candy consumption count), and I track my progress on poses (minutely, I know--sorry!) and The Cop...well, Tuesday is practice day for The Cop, and though we could track his progress in Primary (which has been quite good), I think perhaps the thing that needs the most attention is his swearing. To that end: Motherf****er count: 2. That's not too bad, but still two too many for, say, a led class. The Mysorians might be amused, but who knows.

The curses were for utthita hasta padangusthasana and for trying to come up from bhujapidasana. Fair enough.

It is fascinating to practice with The Cop. In the end, we share the same character flaws ;-) For example, both of us are appalled to find we cannot do something pretty much as soon as we try it. Why in the world would I not be able to do every pose in Primary the first time I try it? And even if I can't get it the first time, surely I will be able to on the second try, when I apply my WILL. Luckily, we're both stubborn, too. So if something eludes us, we are perplexed, and possibly irritated (or enraged ;-) and then we go back over and over again until we figure it out.

We are greedy and impatient. Human, I guess.

I threw in the samakonasana/hanumansana West coast criminal add-on today, and found myself focused on my right hamstring for the rest of practice. Do the benefits of this add-on outweigh the extra stress to my hamstring? Not sure yet. I had a year of aching-hamstring-inserts practices, and I'm not going to lie: I love the current pain-free practices. On the other hand, I could stand to open up my hip flexors. Will just have to see how this goes, I guess.

Duvet & the Art of Being

2006-11-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Usually when I get home from work on Monday evenings, The Cop is at home. It's his day off from work. Tonight, though, he came in late. With a card and a bouquet and a gift for my birthday. A few days ago, I told him about a duvet I saw and liked. He spent his day today looking for the duvet. As it turns out, he bought a different one, but an even better one than the one I was talking about.

Another thing I saw and liked this weekend was the film "Ayurveda: The Art of Being." A terrific documentary, available from NetFlix. About Ayurvedic practitioners from all around the world, but the most notable were two elderly men practicing in India. Wonderful old men--funny and charming and delightful. Coincidentally, I spoke with My Gift on the phone last night and she was researching Ayurvedic physicians in her town. So I figured, what the heck, I might as well check this out. Found a practitioner in my area. Ought to be an interesting experience.

Practice this morning was good--easy and light and thoroughly enjoyable. Last night I thought about when I was first learning Ashtanga. Practice was absolutely the high point of my day. Now, with some time, it is a good part of my day, but something I've perhaps grown to take for granted a bit. On the one hand, that helps me integrate the practice into my daily life; on the other hand, some of the excitement, some of the pleasure, gets pushed into the background. Not a problem, really--I just have to be mindful of how good it feels to practice, how lucky I am to have those 90 minutes every day. I set an intention to be more aware of those good feelings this morning, and for more mornings. It's a habit now, my practice, but I have to remember that it's also something joyful, something to really treasure.

Like The Cop. Like My Gift. And the dog and the cat and the new duvet. Plain old every day life. Doesn't get better than that.

Taste for ambiguity

2006-11-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

I don't like when I wake to news items about the death penalty. Even when it is Saddam Hussein that we're talking about. The Cop does not agree with the death penalty for the most part, though he does have certain exceptions--child molesters being one of them, or criminals who commit egregiously violent crimes against a defenseless victim. I'm pretty sure Saddam's death penalty is okay with him, though he did make note of the fact that Iraq uses hanging as a method, which he does not like.

All of this seems like splitting hairs to me, though. I just don't see how a crime plus an execution can possibly add up to justice. It's a disconnect, to my mind--a specious logic. Making more karma, even in the pursuit of "justice," is still making more karma. It just doesn't seem like a good idea.

***

I always do a little reading about zen in the morning, and now that I'm finished with Huang Po, I am on to "The Art of Just Sitting," a compilation of essays about sitting practice. Dogen this morning. He addresses my ongoing question about how one transitions between practice and "real life":

We should calmly give concentrated effort to the investigation of this question... Is there no path to be figured outside of seated meditation? Should there be no figuring at all? Or does it ask what kind of figuring occurs at the very time we are practicing seated meditation? We should make a concerted effort to understand this in detail. Rather than love the carved dragon, we should go on to love the real dragon. We should learn that both the carved and the real dragons have the ability to produce clouds and rain. Do not value what is far away, and do not despise it; become completely familiar with it. Do not despise what is near at hand, and do not value it; become completely familiar with it. Do not take the eyes lightly, and do not give them weight. Do not give weight to the ears, and do not take them lightly. Make your eyes and ears clear and sharp.

After I read this morning, I thought a little about how important ambiguity is to me. I love that space where you can just start to grasp at something, and yet it always seems elusive. As if the meaning doesn't quite reside in the words, but in the spaces between them. Where there is no black and white and no clear form. I guess that explains my love for zen writing and poetry.

And speaking of just starting to grasp something: gomukhasana. Gomukhasana has always been one of those poses that seemed entirely out of the realm of possibility for me. I didn't even think about imagining I could do it, given my shoulders of stone. Last week, though, I saw Returning Guy pulling off some beautiful urdhva dhanurasanas, and asked how he'd managed to get his shoulders so open.

"Bikram," he said.
"That's not the answer I want," I told him. "What poses?"
"Gomukhasana."

Sigh. Okay, so I set that info aside and went back to my lying-over-the-Swiss-ball routine, patiently waiting for my shoulders to do something...anything... Last night, though, I had the bright idea to see if I could use one of the vacuum motor belts as a prop to do a lame gomukhasana. I started off with the bigger one, which is about 4 inches in diameter. Held it in my top hand and struggled mightily to find the lower hand. Sure enough, I finally got it! Managed to pull it off on the other side, too. So I upped the ante and tried it with the smaller belt. Yup! Managed to get both sides. Then it struck me--duh!--that I should use the mirror in the bathroom to actually see what I was doing. Okay, yes! I could see that my fingers were actually just a fraction of an inch apart. And with the aid of my reflection (yes, I felt like a chimp the researchers would be excited about: "Look, she finally figured out how to use the mirror!") I touched my fingers together in gomukhasana. Then I went back to the livingroom to show The Cop, who was just waking up after a night shift, and who has to wonder, at least occasionally, how he's found himself married to a woman who can be so entertained by something you'd expect from a 5 year old. Our sports team won the title? I got a huge raise? We won the lottery? World peace has been declared? Oh no-- it's all about Look! I can touch my fingers together behind my back!

Okay, so much happiness on the shoulder-opening front. Until this morning, when I woke up feeling REALLY sore. I guess this is a glimpse of my future. The pain, though, is outweighed by the pleasure of finally getting some progress. I've always been pretty easygoing, pretty comfortable with ambiguity--just basically a flexible character. Except for this little core of tightness and control, of constriction. I wonder if that will start to come undone as the immobility of my shoulders unravels.

Last topic: good books. I'm off to the library this afternoon and could use some suggestions. Great fiction suggestion, anyone? Only thing I really don't care for is the American multi-generation family saga. Beyond that, I'm open.

Fighting spiders

2006-11-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

No, it's not a new, more aggressive kind of arachnid. It's what I was just doing out in the backyard. It all started when I identified the little round balls all over the couch I'd just cleaned. Birdseed! Our perp is, of course, the dog. The thing is, even as she stands out in the yard and eats the seed, she never looks like she is particularly enjoying it. She just feels obligated to consume anything that is edible, apparently. So she ate all the seed I put out this morning, then came into the house and spread the crumbs that were stuck to her jowls.

Clearly, the Buddha birdfeeder had to be up higher off the ground. The Buddha has been on a low platform of...I'm actually not sure what they are. Paving thingies. Rough-edged bigger-than-a-brick, smaller-than-a-concrete-block things with one rounded side. The rounded side allows you to make curved walls when you stack the bricks. I fashioned the low platform when we first moved into this house, pilfering a few of the paving thingies from a structure the old owners had built under the master bedroom window. Apparently it was a kind of flowerbox--about three feet high by four feet wide, and full of dirt. The Cop has been dismantling the structure and removing the dirt in installments. I guess having something like that against the house can compromise the house structure. Whatever. I just wanted some of the blocks.

The Cop has gotten to the point where we now have a deconstructed flowerbox, which means a bunch of stacks of paving bricks under the tangerine tree, and a pile of dirt. The bricks would do quite nicely for an upgrade to the Buddha's platform. As soon as I started picking up a brick, though, my desert mind kicked in. First thing I think of, when I am dealing with corners and crevasses, are black widows. I've killed a few black widows over the years--and felt pretty bad doing it--but the thing you notice most is how incredibly aggressive they are. When something gets into the web, the black widow goes tearing straight at it. Second thing I thought of were scorpions. I think bricks might be too cool for them in the fall, but they do like small spaces. They, too, are aggressive.

Just as I was thinking this over and picking up a brick, something went scurrying away. Too fast to really identify, it could have been a small lizard or a spider. Not a black widow, though; a black widow would have come right at me. Maybe a brown recluse? Okay. I picked up another brick, shuttling it over to the platform. Then another brick, and another frantic rustling amid the remaining pile. I thought about all the things it could be. Another brick. And another. Once I got uncomfortable enough, I realized I was going to have to break down and get my gardening gloves.

Ah, but wait. Right on the patio were The Cop's gloves for the heavy bag. Actually, they're more like mittens. Either way, though, they were the perfect solution for the rest of my paving brick adventure. I put them on and was ready for battle.

It was very interesting to me, how when I realized there might be some danger to picking up the bricks barehanded, I felt compelled to push the envelope. I could have just gotten gloves. But I wanted to see how far I could push it before it really bothered me. I'm not sure how, but I feel like that little game also manifests in Ashtanga, that it's something I love about practice. I thought about rock climbing. I remember sticking my hands into the cracks of rocks and having things fly out--bats, birds, bugs. I heard stories of people grabbing snakes as they reached for holds. Of course, being up high and clinging to a wall helps put getting bitten by a surprised animal into perspective, but still. I never thought about the danger to my hands.

I think I love practice because you can court that little danger--that uncomfortable feeling (What if I fall on my head? What if I hurt myself?) and learn to move through it. There is always a lot of debate about injury in Ashtanga, with plenty of people willing to believe that if something is dangerous, we shouldn't do it--but where do you draw the line? I want some danger. I want to feel some adrenaline and have the opportunity to challenge myself to keep a clear mind. I think lots of people use personal or emotional drama to create those feelings. I don't want that. I want the (albeit small) physical frisson; I want to have some skin in the game. It makes more sense to me, philosophically, I guess: mind unchanging, body transient. Keeping a still mind and playing the edge with the body is all about how life is--how death is. The body is always out there in the wilderness, no matter how we try to pretend otherwise.

The Buddha is now up at a height that should discourage the dog. I imagine she could climb up, but I don't think she'll bother, not for birdseed. Already the doves are out there, checking things out. Maybe eating any spiders that were on the bricks I moved.

No practice today. I'm thinking that since I am in a self-practice kind of mode, I might keep a more classical Sunday through Friday schedule.

It's just another day

2006-11-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

Home practice. And a very sweet one. Traveling really does stress me, and the exciting class has me all revved up--so much so that I couldn't sleep last night. I'm just kind over over-adrenalized in general. I was so psyched about the class that my boss asked for a presentation about it. Scheduled for noon today. LOL! That's what I get for sharing. The presentation request gives me an opportunity to review my notes, though, and gather my thoughts. Usually upon return from conferences or classes, I get swamped with the backlog of emails and phone messages and eventually the glow wears off, and somewhere down the line I write up a trip report and am sorry I didn't get to it when the memories were still fresh.

Anyhow, practice this morning felt nice and grounded. I took away some poses. I haven't done that for a while. Volleyball Guy is a laidback, surfer dude kind of teacher. I can muddle through, so he lets me. Always has. I have to take poses away from myself. What I'm noticing, now that I can make my way with equanimity through the Marichy D - Supta Kurmasana sequence that used to get my breath and focus kind of discombobulated, is that I start stressing around baddha konasana. So I'll stop there for a while. That way, I can get some energy focused around the pose, without having to worry about conserving energy for the last few poses.

The Cop just called. I always know something is up when he calls at the end of the shift: it means he wants to tell me something before I see it on the news. He and one of the other cops had a big drug bust, so he's running late. The funny thing was that when he called he said, "What are you doing?" "Practicing," I replied. "Oh, sorry to bother you." I think it is lovely that he's in the midst of a drug bust and yet is concerned about disturbing yoga practice.

I've come to the end of "The Zen Teaching of Huang Po." Throughout the whole book, I've wondered to myself, "How can I apply this to 'real life'? How can these things work at my job? How can I give up discursive thinking and judgement in a corporate environment?" Among the last few entries:

Realize that, though you eat the whole day through, no single grain has passed your lips; and that a day's journey has not taken you a single step forward--also abstain from such notions as 'self' and 'other.' DO NOT PERMIT THE EVENTS OF YOUR DAILY LIVES TO BIND YOU, BUT NEVER WITHDRAW YOURSELVES FROM THEM.

The last entry is:

The Master passed away on this mountain during the T'ai Chung Reign (A.D. 847-859) of the T'ang Dynasty. The Emperor Hsuan Tsung bestowed upon him the posthumous title of "The Zen Master Who Destroys All Limitations." The memorial pagoda is known as "The Tower of Spacious Karma."

Thanks, Huang Po. Nice work.

Ruined

2006-11-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yup, yoga has ruined me for flying. I only had to go as far as Chicago (~3 hours), but the sitting still part was unbearable. I had this really intense ache in my left hip joint that I couldn't resolve. I'm sure the people sitting near me, both flying to and returning from Chicago, were ready to strangle me, I was so fidgety.

There was no room for a Marichy A, and that was just what I was dying to do. LOL! Airplanes really do seem to be designed to thwart asana. I've been okay on flights where it wasn't packed full--then you can find a little space to stretch. But these flights, unfortunately, were both overbooked.

Chicago was great. Cold! I think it was even cold for the natives. I realize I am a wimp, coming from the desert and all, but the general folk walking around on the street looked like they weren't having too much fun either.

Class was amazing. Very intense, very concentrated. We started at 8:30 AM and ran until 9 PM each day. I've read Julie's accounts of conferences in the coding world, and she's remarked on the male-to-female ratio. Interestingly, this class was around 50 people, and only 3 of us were women. Product design and development. Engineers, designers and a few marketing folks. Who knew the demographics would be so skewed? So the days were full of doors being opened for me and people asking me to go ahead of them at the buffet line at lunchtime. Dinners were sit-down affairs. I was talking to someone and then looked up. Everyone at the table had been served, but no one had picked up their fork. "Seriously?" I thought to myself, "Are they waiting for me?" Opportunity for experiment: yup, I picked up my fork and everyone began. Emily Post, apparently, is alive and well.

Lots of discussion of product development (duh! that's what the class was about) from many different perspectives. Discussion about Monsanto's transition from chemicals to seeds for farmers; Proctor and Gambles' development of "new molecules" for cleaning products; car manufacturers' attempts to have people equate their cars with their emotional selves. Uuuuuuuuuugh. I started to have a pretty severe case of capitalism nausea. When the discussion was about how the weedkiller RoundUp was developed to go into plant stems and kill weeds, even if just a bit of the chemical got on the leaves, and how the company then used their technicians to develop corn and soy seeds that could resist those chemicals, it was characterized as a stunning commerical success, ensuring, as it did, that the vast majority of crops would be grown with those altered seeds. I shook my head and said to the guy beside me, "Really--we, as a species, deserve to die." Sigh. A couple of things I learned in class: 1) focus groups are out of fashion, and for very good reason (biased data), and 2) it's probably not a good idea to eat anything or clean anything or breathe.

Yoga while traveling is interesting. I had my mat in its bag, and the hardest thing for me to do was to check it in. I had books to carry and read on the plane, so that was my carry-on item, so the mat had to fly in the hold. LOL! You have no idea how difficult it was for me to leave it with the TSA guy. He had about a hundred bags all lined up to go through the x-ray machine, and there I am, handing him my mat bag and tempted to say, "Please, look after this." Sure, lose my clothes and all that, but let my mat make it to Chicago!

Chicago is an hour ahead of Scottsdale, so if I got up at my usual 4:30, that'd be the equivalent of 3:30 Scottsdale time. Sigh. I compromised and set the alarm for 5. The carpet at the hotel was squooshy, but there was a marble foyer in the bathroom. Practicing in the foyer reminded me of practicing in the foyer of the old house, along with My Gift's and The Cop's shoes. Traveling practice is never spectacular for me, but it is soothing and familiar and sufficient. Oddly, though, I always kind of wonder if that soothing, familiar feeling doesn't indicate that my practice is a little OCD. When my nerves are jangly, it makes me feel better to practice. I know it's a healthy habit, in the grand scheme of things, but is ANY habit really healthy?

Dog eating dirt

2006-10-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I did not have the camera handy to document the dog enjoying some delicious dirt from the jade plant pot I put on the patio, but I'm sure everyone can imagine. She had the same guilty face she gets when I catch her eating birdseed from the birdfeeder. Dog with pica. For some reason I find it incredibly funny.

The jade plant, a gift from my team, looks like it might be wrapping up its current incarnation and returning to the One. I like to think I had nothing to do with this, and that it is simply an old jade plant that is eager to be reincarnated as something else, but the statistical likelihood that all the plants I've ever owned are old and on the brink of death is rather...well, unlikely. So I'm a plant killer.

Led practice today. Volleyball Guy is away, so The British Director ran the show. And quite nicely. I practiced near Returning Guy and The Cat, so I was happy in my little spot. Returning Guy asked where I was yesterday and I launched into my "want to practice alone for the most part" story. He asked if he could make an observation, and went on to tell me that my practice is very focused and meditative, and then he theorized that the music in the shala might be throwing me off. I laughed and said it was more likely the fact that we had a moaner at Mysore on Wednesday. He told me an amusing story of a moaner at a Bikram class, who apparently rivalled Sally in "When Harry Met Sally."

"Well, it was happening around ustrasana," he said, quite kindly. "You know how backbends can really open your heart chakra."

I think I looked skeptical. Maybe it is a function of my clamped-shut heart chakra that I just wish people wouldn't moan profusely throughout practice? LOL! Who knows. I do realize that it is my problem, and that I just have to put it down. Still, when I see Sally enter the room, I do kind of feel a little irritated. Ah well.

Today we had no moaners. The British Director led us and we had a nice practice. Lots of new faces. Seems like someone's turned up the volume on the popularity of Ashtanga.

Volleyball Guy, and Volleyball Guy's students (e.g., The British Director) include the samakonasana/hanumanasana sequence after the prasaritas. I haven't been doing samakonasana or hanumansana lately, because they seem to irritate my hamstring. Well DUH! LOL! Tried them today, though, and it went just fine. I've noticed that if I do that sequence every day, my hamstrings get burnt, but if I just do it once a week in led class, I actually seem to make progress. I found the same thing with handstands today. I haven't been doing them for weeks (in hopes that my shoulders would loosen up), and today I gave one a try and stayed up easily for a good 15 breaths--my balance felt just right on. Maybe it's one of those "the harder you try, the worse it gets" kind of deals?

Before practice, I went to buy a couple of sweaters. I'm afraid of how cold it's going to be in Chicago for the next few days. I know, I'm a baby. I also found the cutest shoes on sale, and some black pants. Bought everything and hurried off to practice. Now that I'm home, I find that I have two left shoes and a pair of pants with the plastic sensor still attached. Alrighty, then. Guess my efficient shopping before class didn't work out quite as well as I had planned...

Remiss

2006-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

Feel slightly remiss--decided to practice at home instead of heading over to Mysore practice. Not sure what the deal is, with all this self-practice.

Lately, though, self-practice has been very internal, very dreamy almost. A really interesting contrast of physical extension and psychic relaxation--almost a hypnagogic state. My breathing is much quieter at home.

This morning I thought a little, at the tail end of practice, about the idea of pushing energy OUT. I tend to bring it in, and kind of curl around it through my shoulder girdle and sacrum. In ubhaya padangusthasana I realized: there needs to be more external energy--balance and strength and a radiating energy. I tend to pull everything inward. Which is great for core strength, but needs to be balanced more by an opening OUT. Seems like the opening out is where the real joyousness of the pose resides.

Quickly... sinking... into... energy talk...
Must... knock it off ;-)

Okay, back to reality. Thank God it's Friday. Not much of a weekend, though. Off to Chicago on Sunday morning. For a four day class on managing new product design and development. Which starts on Sunday from 3-9 PM (egads!), then Monday and Tuesday 8:30 AM - 9 PM, and Wednesday 8:30 AM - 1 PM. I just got the pre-reading material yesterday: 150 pages of articles and a book. I'm looking forward to the program, but gee, I don't know if I can really stay awake in a classroom 'til 9 PM!

Sthira & sukha

2006-10-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Home practice this morning. Got some Krishna Das CDs to play in the background, and they rock.

So a quiet morning. A tough practice. Lots of thoughts--in part because I am headachey from allergies, and in part because my traps are tight as hell. Because of the jumpback initiative, perhaps. Because of work being really busy and rather stressful, maybe. So there were "maybe you should just go to navasana" thoughts, and "maybe don't do a vinyasa between sides" thoughts. Which I just ignored, because I don't want to start the habit of changing it up because my mind is busy.

The traps, though, really ARE like rocks. Too much sthira. As per usual. Sthira is definitely my habit--strong and active. But of course, since I am always rather extreme, my sthira comes at the expense of sukha--comfortable and light.

Seems like life is conspiring to push my "sthira" buttons. Work, My Gift moving away for college, and... LOL! Actually I guess that's about it, stressor-wise, but they are two omnipresent forces: work and My Gift. Between them and my tendency toward hypersthirativity (just made that up; don't try using it in any yoga lectures ;-) I'm kind of wound too tight these days.

Time for some sukhativity. Actually, the realigning of my hips/sacrum over the past year and (almost) half of Ashtanga has brought lots more sukha through that area. Sure, it hurts sometimes, but at least there is movement. The traps/shoulders, though...I don't know about that. I suppose it's inevitable that there be realignment there, too. Though primary series doesn't really seem to get at it directly. Unless I'm overlooking something?

Okay, so "joyful and soft" has to be the mantra for practice for a while. And life, too!

Since it's early and I have time to write, I'll share a Huang Po quote from my pre-practice reading:

Any SEARCH is doomed to failure. Some madman shrieking on the mountain-top, on hearing the echo far below, may go to seek it in the valley. But, oh, how vain his search! Once in the valley, he shrieks again and straightaway climbs to search among the peaks--why, he may spend a thousand rebirths or ten thousand aeons searching for the source of those sounds by following their echoes! How vainly will he breast the troubled waters of life and death! Far better that you make NO sound, for then there will be no echo--and thus it is with the dwellers in Nirvana! No listening, no knowing, no sound, no track, no trace--

And yes, I see the irony in posting this quote along with an entry about my SEARCH for sukha. I'm still shrieking in the valley. Slow learner.

Odds and ends

2006-10-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Mysore this morning. Practice felt good--I kept the mantra "strong & light" in mind, and as it turns out, practice worked out that way.

The stressed breathing that I was having a few weeks ago during the Marichy D through Supta Kurmasana sequence seems to be resolved. My only "sticking point" is Kurmasana. For some reason, once I get into the pose, it takes a number of breaths for my hamstrings to really relax so I can lift my heels. Residual fear, perhaps, from the time I cranked my feet up and hurt the insertion points. Can't blame the hamstrings for remembering that!

Garbha Pindasana is coming along. I can finally get my palms to my cheeks. Volleyball Guy adjusted me today, and it was cool to feel the pose as a flattening out (somewhat similar to Yoga Mudra in the action of the back). I love Yoga Mudra, so it was nice to find that feeling in Garbha Pindasana. Usually I just roll in place and don't go around in a circle, but today I gave the circle business a whirl. It was pretty pathetic, but whatever. There's a part of me that really does NOT want to roll in a circle. No idea why. Perhaps because it seems so ridiculous and undignified. LOL! Like the rest of my practice is dignified! I have no idea what my problem is on that. I just have to do it and get over myself.

The other place where I am taking extra breaths is Upavistha Konasana. After Baddha Konasana, my hips and back are so burnt that I just kind of creakily sink down into the pose, taking a bunch of breaths and being kind of surprised at my own...well, creakiness.

Speaking of Baddha Konasana. Today I decided that Baddha Konasana is, for me at least, the most painful pose to learn in the primary series. Oh yes, I remember my moaning about collarbones when I was learning Supta Kurmasana. And yes, I realize Baddha Konasana may seem more painful now, since it is what is currently hurting. But whatever. The darn thing is pretty intense.

As I've mentioned (often), I am not a natural when it comes to this pose. I started off about...oh, I don't know, maybe two feet away from the floor? Seriously far. Then I learned that if I turn my feet up and engage my quads and PUSH my feet against each other HARD, I can get further forward. So now it's a prop pose for me: a sandbag on each thigh, and then Volleyball Guy goes by and puts a couple of sandbags on my back. It takes about ten breaths, at this point, for me to get my head on the floor. Then I stick around for a few breaths, just to enjoy the searing pain.

Then I sit up straight and press my sandbagged thighs down even more, to increase the pain. Hahaha! When I write it out, the mania of my willfulness is both amusing and frightening. Seriously, though, this is the pose I most had to surrender to: I had to fully believe that I was going to break myself trying, decide to go ahead and break, and then find out that in fact I didn't break. So now I love it, even though it really still hurts. I'm not sure if I've drawn this analogy before (and vegetarians, read no further), but it's like when you roast a chicken. When it's cooked, you can rotate the legs in the joints quite easily. That's the only way I can make sense of Baddha Konasana. It's a pose that's cooking me like a chicken.

Jumpbacks are still on the menu. Looking pretty bad, I'm sure, but feeling more and more familiar. The side of my right foot is getting irritated from dragging on my mat. I suppose once it gets bad enough, it will teach me to curl more effectively. LOL! Lazy woman's guide to Ashtanga: let it hurt until you do it right ;-)

Sports specificity

2006-10-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Tuesday mornings are practice with The Cop. As per usual, we just proceed. I make, at most, two statements about form per practice session. This morning was the elbow/wrist form for chaturanga (he tends to have issues with his wrists, and I wanted to head that off at the pass), and an "inhale UP and exhale BACK" for jumpbacks. Beyond that, he just followed along. I could hear some ragged breathing, but he persisted. At the end, he mentioned that he felt tired, probably from all the mountain biking he's been doing since he bought a new bike last week.

It's hard to do Ashtanga once a week--harder than doing it six times a week. At least I can build some efficiencies in my practice. The Cop, on the other hand, is basically just starting over and over and over every time. I thought about how I'd fare on my mountain bike these days. I'm figuring I'd be sucking wind at about the ten minute mark.

The Cop wants me to ride with him, but I am averse to crashing. I guess because of climbing days, I only like to fall when I am tied in to a rope. Plus, desert crashes are entirely different from a nice grassy single-track crash. Desert crashes involve rocks and cacti. If you're lucky, maybe you just hit gravel. Plus, I am a huge baby about my hamstrings. I'm kind of ashamed, truth be told: "Oh, I can't do things like that! It'll tighten my hamstrings." Sigh. I've turned into that kind of person?

We used to go to the gym almost every night and lift and do cardio together. **Mushy love-moment memory** Then I got crazy into Ashtanga and he returned to martial arts and biking. I was tempted to go to martial arts with him, but then that seemed kind of weird. So here we are, trying to find a way to share some activities, but both pretty involved in what seem like mutually exclusive pursuits. Not to say I can't bike with him, just that I don't want to bike with him enough to tighten my hamstrings. Much like he practices with me on Tuesdays, but does not want to expend too much energy on yoga, because it makes more sense, in a sports-specific universe, to practice his biking. So I'll go biking occasionally, and he'll practice with me occasionally. And I will always be starting over with biking and he'll always be starting over with yoga.

I can fall over on beginner terrain and he can swear during bakasana.

Love. Sigh.

It's a bitch ;-)

Back

2006-10-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Back at Mysore practice this morning. Nice to see everyone. A great adjustment in supta kurmasana from Volleyball Guy. I'm not sure how it's happening, but slowly there seems to be more space in the pose.

Also a good adjustment in baddha konasana. A nice, strong pop in my sacrum. Most addictive pop in the series, at least for me.

Jumpbacks proceed. Addressing their quality seems silly at this point. I'm just happy to be persisting.

When walking, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking,
being silent, moving, being still

At all times, in all places,

Without interruption--what is this?

Community

2006-10-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

Brunch with Sanskrit Scholar, Crim Girl, and...hmmmm, let's call her "Girl with a Red Mat." As in "Girl with a Pearl Earring," Girl with a Red Mat should be imagined in a Vermeerish light. Anyhow, brunch was good, with lots of laughter and Ashtanga talk. I asked Sanskrit Scholar about our responsibility to the community. Obviously, I was asking because I have been practicing on my own. She, gracious as always, preceded her response with a "Well, I can only speak for myself..."

Anyhow, there is a certain amount of business that must be generated by the Mysore practice in order for it to remain on the Starbucks of Yoga schedule. There are also details re: how the money goes to the studio and to Volleyball Guy. Suffice it to say, it is a good idea for me to practice there at least a couple of times a week. And so I shall.

The catch now is going to be finding a way to let folks know that my struggles with supta kurmasana--ugly, frantic and crazed as they may appear--should be allowed to proceed. Yup, everyone is so thoughtful that they want to intercede, to help me find some semblance of the pose. But I need to be left to flop around. Hahaha! I guess it's like asking people to let someone fall down a flight of stairs day after day. Yes, it's painful to watch, but it's the only way I'm going to learn.

Brunch was lovely, and now I'm home with The Cop, who is just getting up after working the night shift last night. He had to go "hands on" with someone last night--a drunk fellow, of course. I guess the guy got in a fight at a bar, decided to fight when The Cop tried to arrest him, and then even got into a fight with the guys at the jail.

Prohibition really starts to seem like a good idea, once you hear enough of The Cop's stories. Sigh. I think he should do commercials: "Crystal meth, breakfast of car thieves," "Bud Lite, beer of choice at 9 out of 10 domestic violence calls!"

10/20/06

2006-10-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Awake, caffeinated, and ready to begin practice, when (woohoo!) it's Ladies Holiday. No wonder I felt kind of unmotivated. So here I am, all dressed up and no place to go ;-) Definitely can't leave the house: today's wardrobe includes yet another camouflage shirt (I love camouflage print) with a plaid shirt over that, and a Nick Nolte mugshot hairdo.

The plaid shirt is out of My Gift's closet--one of the few items she left behind when she moved to her dorm. We bought it when she was in the eighth grade. I always loved it more than she did--it reminds me of high school days (long, long ago, when most of the Ashtangis on this board were probably not born yet) when we wore long bell bottoms that dragged on the ground and construction boots and big plaid flannel shirts. What can I say? We were hippies back then.

Okay, so no yoga today, and quite serendipitously, no yoga tomorrow. The organization has prospective faculty fly in for training twice a year, and the training takes place on Friday, with the "audition" on Saturday morning. Bleh, work on Saturday. Not only work, but work starting at 8AM. I was going to have to get up at my usual time to get a practice in beforehand. I don't mind getting up really early during the week, but it seemed rather sad to have to do it on a Saturday.

Speaking of work. I really try to bring my zen practice to work, which as one can imagine, isn't always easy--particularly in a corporate environment. It's especially challenging when things are tense and stressful. Which, in my experience, is almost always, in corporate environments. So I'm always practicing--and running into pretty much the same stuff I run into in Ashtanga practice: new situations (poses) that are hard to fathom, even impossible, and one tries to remain calm and unattached, focused but not willful--strong yet flexible. Appropriate to the situation. And of course sometimes it's just a huge disaster and all you can do is say, "Yeah, well, I'll be back tomorrow."

Were you now to practice keeping your minds motionless at all times, whether walking, standing, sitting or lying; concentrating entirely upon the goal of no thought-creation, no duality, no reliance on others and no attachments; just allowing all things to take their course the whole day long, as though you were too ill to bother; unknown to the world; innocent of any urge to be known or unknown to others; with your minds like blocks of stone that mend no holes--then all the Dharmas would penetrate your understanding through and through.

Oh, it all sounds so lovely. Actually it reminds me of a day after a migraine--when everything seems rather relaxed and slightly spacey and I don't have the energy to turn on my sense of being responsible for everything.

Honestly, not too long ago, I would have said that the mind Huang Po is talking about would be absolutely impossible in a corporate environment. Or at least, that my ability to reconcile the apparent incompatibilities was just not there. The practice has been slow, but like all practice, it is slowly manifesting its changes. If nothing else, I know that if I practice, all is coming.

So I guess I'll just get myself to work, and commence with the practicing.

Carry on

2006-10-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

The jumpback initiative is adding a whole new dimension to practice. For one thing, I have to think a little bit to coordinate them, and it is very funny to have thoughts between poses. Usually I have thoughts during poses--followed by simple, thought-free vinyasas.

I think I came to the current "practice alone" period because I realized that I had to "listen in" more carefully than I can when there are other folks around. I was aware of the fact that my breathing was getting out of sorts around Marichy D, in anticipation of the kurmasana/supta kurmasana/garbha pindasana/baddha konasana sequence. My mind would get lots of static through that whole part of the practice. Not freak-out quality static, but just busy-ness, flightiness. As if it was trying to escape.

A good bit of it, I think, was residual fear from all the collarbone pain I used to feel in supta k. Plus a dose of frustration and striving around the "how the hell am I supposed to cross my feet?!" issue. Anyhow, all of that is calmed down now. The issues are not resolved, but they are also not setting my mind and breathing aswirl every morning.

So now it's funny to throw in the jumpback dealio. It may actually serve to pull my mind a little more off the poses; it may knock off some of the striving aspect. The actual jumpbacks themselves? Still pretty rickety. Feet touch the floor, momentum is used, my breathing is not smooth.

Huang Po, in my pre-practice reading, had some words of wisdom. They were striking before practice, and are even more so, now that I've practiced and written this entry:

Why this talk of attaining and not attaining? The matter is thus--by thinking of something you create an entity and by thinking of nothing you create another. Let such erroneous thinking perish utterly, and then nothing will remain for you to go seeking!

On the one hand, I could understand that Huang Po wants me to quit blogging ;-)

On the other hand, I can understand: now go to work. And tomorrow, practice again.

Second the motion

2006-10-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

You know, I don't think I've ever posted twice in a day...or maybe I have once or twice. Can't remember. Regardless, I have to second Vanessa's recommendation of jms's post on white elephant or termite practice.

Rock on, jms.

Forward. Way forward.

2006-10-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Can I read something, have it make sense, and still not do it? Yup. I even made note of it in a blog entry: When doing jumpbacks, keep the gaze forward. Way forward.

Totally changes it up. You get this strange (and strangely delightful) little flex in between the shoulders once you kick back into chaturanga, when your gaze is so forward.

I didn't remember, though, to put it into practice until about half way through the seated poses. I am always amazed at how our habits cling to us. How I want to tuck my head as I go forward at the beginning of a jumpback. How easy it is to draw a parallel to how I want to tuck my head in all stressful situations. Just a little easier to recognize when the stressor is so evident ("Am I gonna slam my face on the floor?"). I default to strengthening myself through my traps in stressful situations (physical and mental), when I really should strengthen through the shoulders. It distributes the stress more gracefully. Perhaps that is why I enjoy the little flexy feeling between the shoulders at the end of the movement: it is strong but flexible. Not like tightening the traps, which just sort of freezes up the whole musculature. Ah well, enough psychoanalysis of musculature ;-)

My other little jumpback discovery was tested, too. My form, as I first starting attempting jumpbacks, included pulling my knees in really tight, with my ankles/shins crossed. Then I would isometrically pull my knees toward each other as much as possible. As it turns out, if I let my knees flop apart a little bit (though still keep them drawn close to the chest), they seem to get under me a little more easily. It feels like more momentum, more ease, and less hip flexor intensity. It seems counterintuitive--after all, the wider your knees are, the more difficult it should be to get them between the arms, but for some reason it seems to sort itself out and the arms aren't a problem.

Of course, this may just be a little idiosyncracy that works with my body type. I was explaining it to The Cop, who did not practice this morning, and he was slightly skeptical, given his long arms and legs. We'll see, though--I'm sure he'll be eager to try it out at his next practice.

Back to another day at work. Another "how long can I keep my yoga mind?" experiment ;-)

Same old

2006-10-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was due in the office for a webconference at 7:30 this morning, so roused The Cop at 4:25. He was a sport about it--though he lay in bed until 4:35. I have no idea how people can just lie in bed like that: I jump right out of bed, or else I will fall back to sleep. No way I could just lie there, awake (or awakening) for ten minutes.

So we zipped through a nice practice. I had the space heater blasting (gosh, it's getting cold here in the desert ;-) and we just went along silently. Well, mostly silently. The Cop starts to mumble at utthita hasta padangusthasana, and then he curses pretty intensely through ardha baddha padmottanasana. That's it, though, for swearing during practice these days. He still likes a nice chest bump after savasana, though.

My practice was good. Nothing special to report. Well, a chance little discovery in jumpbacks, but it was at the very end, so I have to try it out tomorrow to see if it's really a helpful hint.

And then a very freaking long day at work. Sigh.

Ah well. The yoga room is lovely in the morning. Lucky, too, because I'll be seeing it again really soon :-)

A little guilty

2006-10-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

I feel a little guilty when I decide to stay home and practice, rather than going to Mysore at Starbucks of Yoga. I realize: a) there are plenty of folks who would love to have an opportunity to practice Mysore with a good teacher, b) the folks I practice with are terrific people who have a strong investment in our community, c) Volleyball Guy gives quite selflessly to all of us, d) it's a good idea to contribute to the community of Ashtanga in general.

On the other hand, I feel a great pull to solitary practice. It's familiar--like zazen--a delicate, stabilizing force. I love when practice is divorced from "the yoga lifestyle" and is just a practice in a room with dim morning light. I've always admired the Dalai Lama and the monks who get up in the middle of the night to start their sitting--a sort of integrated biorhythm that is beyond thinking. No "shall I get up?" or "who'll be there?" or "ow, my hamstrings hurt"--just the practice. None of this is easier or more difficult according to where I practice, of course--that part is all in my mind. But it's something that is working in my subconscious at this point. Like a koan, I'll have a look at it and then leave it to its work. Eventually it'll come clear.

All that said, practice at home is an opportunity for adventures in style. I put on a polka dot top and black tights. Went into the livingroom and felt cold. Layered on a camouflage shirt that left the bottom of the polka dot top showing. Still cold. Added plaid pajama bottoms. Passed by a mirror and had to laugh at my get-up. It worked, though. Along with the space heater.

When I got to supta kurmasana, I grabbed a couple of vacuum cleaner belts (popular with Volleyball Guy and Sanskrit Scholar as aids when one is learning to bind). I have a couple left from when I was learning, and I decided to use one for supta k so I could get the hand bind without stretching my shoulders to the limit, figuring that with a little extra mobility I could try to get more happening with my hips/legs/feet. It was quite a thrashing about that took place. I usually go directly from kurmasana into supta k--from that position, my legs are high enough that I can grab my hands. But then, of course, I am "stuck" in the upper body if I want to hold the bind--and then there is little I can do with my legs.

I got the hand bind without the ring (just to practice it quickly), then let go and tried pushing my legs higher up on my shoulders--with my right hand pushing the right calf, then the left hand pushing the left calf. Quite an ugly self-adjustment, I'm sure. It occurred to me that if I were at the shala, someone would have hurried over to help by now. But wait! I'm not done ruining this pose! ;-) Oh no, not by a long shot. At this point, with my hands up at my ankles, I have to rotate my shoulders back for the hand bind. Of course, the flopping makes my feet fall to the floor. I shift my shoulders again and get underneath as much as possible, then go ahead and cross my feet on the floor. More cross than I can usually manage. And then I grab the vaccuum cleaner ring for the hand bind and call it good.

Despite the ugliness, I consider this a rather successful attempt. At the very least, I am beginning to explore how the whole thing works, even if I am kinesthetically clueless. Eventually, something will start to click and I will feel what I'm supposed to be trying to do.

In the spirit of using props, when I got to urdhva dhanurasana, I did the usual three, then broke out my climbing harness. Yup. And a carabiner and a daisy chain. Hooked myself into the higher ropes on the wall, and did some hanging-back pre-dropback practice. On the one hand, I feel like a wimp: I know folks do the hanging back stuff without props. On the other hand: I have ropes on the wall and a harness that's gathering dust. I can use them to spot me. Plus it's fun. At the end, I walked my feet up the wall and stretched my arms back for a nice urdhva d with my upper body and legs parallel to the floor.

Lots of fun before 7AM ;-)

For some reason, I keep thinking of the end of the Diamond Sutra, so I'll end with that:

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

Calm

2006-10-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

I found Renaissance Man's blog today and read about myself. He characterized me as calm. This amused me, and reminded me of something my boss said recently. There is lots of stuff going on at work, and lots of changes, and often people get pretty revved up or emotional--so there've been a good number of stressful meetings and such. Anyhow, she said, "When things get tense, I always look over and see you calmly dunking your tea bag in your tea and looking relaxed."

So I asked The Cop if I am calm. "Yes," he said. "In fact, you'd probably make a very good cop if you could get past all that 'everyone is basically good' stuff."

It's interesting to read about oneself. I mean, I know I am even-tempered, but I guess, as a writer, I always feel like I am looking at others, that I am observing, and that somehow I, personally, am somewhat invisible--that I'm not giving off any particular quality.

And on the business pants for Ashtanginis front: Tim gave good advice in his comment. I didn't make it to Banana Republic, but I did go to one of that corporation's other stores: The Gap. I don't know if you've seen those Audrey Hepburn ads for "skinny pants," but I decided to check them out. Sure enough, they are actually quite nice material, come in subdued colors, and are machine washable. And they fit great. Shapely but not too tight. Woohoo!

Gap tops, though, are too casual for work. Next stop: Banana Republic. Where I will calmly shop :-)

Business clothes for Ashtanginis

2006-10-14T08:56:00.004-07:00

My Gift is visiting from college this weekend. No Saturday led class for me. Instead, we will shop. Well, we'll shop after a trip to the beauty salon where My Gift has an appointment to get her eyelashes tinted. I'm going along to watch the child I love most in this world act like a little cosmetic tester bunny. If she's not blind at the end, we'll stop for smoothies and then head for the mall. Usually I hate shopping at the mall, but with My Gift out of the house, shopping adventures have come to a complete halt--so I've had enough time to recover and rejuvenate my will to consume.

She has a billion things she wants to buy (is it because Mom's debit card seems to magically materialize at every cash register? ;-) I, on the other hand, have a short list. And I'm turning to the Ashtanginis out there to ask for some suggestions. Business clothes. Bane of my existence. Necessary, though. Where do Ashtanginis buy their business clothes? Pants, specifically. I have a few parameters I need to work within: petite clothes (I'm 5'4"), small (size 2), NOT jeans cut (i.e., skintight), NOT polyester, NOT dry clean only, relatively low-rise cut, and under $100.

One might think that these parameters would make it impossible to find pants. But I found a pair of Nine West pants at Macy's once, and they do meet all the criteria. Unfortunately, despite my best internet searching, they do not seem to be on the market any more. Please save me from the Juniors section--it's starting to hurt my self esteem.

So...any ideas?

And lest anyone think I'm just a boring, fashion-impaired professional with a jumpback fetish, check out this blog that My Gift turned me on to. She wishes our family could be like this one. I agreed that we can have Jello shots at Christmas, but once we consume them, we're not likely to strip and run around with guns. No, we'll all grab whatever books we're currently reading and quietly read in the livingroom. Well, to be fair, there's a good chance The Cop would welcome the opportunity to celebrate the holidays with his guns. But in the end, sadly, it is not our karma to be a family like this one:

http://badnewshughes.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_badnewshughes_archive.html

Why I am addicted to the internet

2006-10-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Cody talked a little today about his Ashtanga addiction. I took a break from work to read his blog, and other Ashtangis' blogs, and then I looked at ezBoard, and there was an entry from jms, who was coaching someone on jumpbacks:

Very important: use the inhale to facilitate the lifting, curling and tucking. And always, always look well ahead of the hands.

Oooh, I thought. Since I'm working from home, I can try this right out. So here I am in my home office, trying out the advice: Lift? Check. Curl? Got it. Tuck? Yup. Look well ahead of the hands?

No.

No, I haven't been looking well ahead of the hands. I've read this before, but I've only been working on the jumpback thing for the past week or so, so I've never had to remind myself to make this habit of looking forward. As it turns out, the looking ahead of the hands thing makes a big difference.

Those little tidbits one reads or hears that make such a big difference. Like Volleyball Guy's suggestion this morning during dropbacks: "Make your legs strong; make your shoulders soft." For a split second my body understood.

It goes against years of training. Too much strength training, for one thing. Too much rock climbing. I've never had penis envy, but I've always had upper body strength envy, and I've spent decades trying to compensate. Plus I had the "always be strong" requirement of a single mom for many years. In the end, it manifests as a good strength-to-weight ratio, but also as lots of tension in the upper body. I'm going to have to really work hard to break that habit.

The jumpback project goes on. At first a whole practice with all the lifts/tucks/folds made my shoulders pretty sore, but that stage seems to be over. Now I'm in the slightly frustrated stage, where the key is going to be just keeping my perspective and not turning this into a drama. Obviously, if I do it for a year, I'll be better next October than I am today. So just do it.

Supta kurmasana (don't miss jms's YouTube of the pose on ezBoard) is coming along well--my hand bind is getting nice and tight and strong--but the crossed feet business has me a little stymied. It's funny how I over-invested in one part (the hand bind) when beginning, which has manifested in a habit of really going for the bind. Now that that's working, though, I realize I have to pull some focus away from the hands and work some stuff out about hips/legs/feet. You know that story about catching monkeys by putting food into a jar that they can't pull their hands out of once they've grasped the treat? Yeah, that's my current supta k situation. To start figuring out the feet, I'm going to have to experiment with the pose, which means not always doing it the way I know will guarantee me the hand bind. So Ashtanga is teaching me about my pride and my greed. Thank you, Ashtanga (said in a grudging tone).

Seriously, though, it's an addiction with a lot of remarkable qualities. One of which might ultimately be to release one from one's addiction to Ashtanga. And even (and I suspect this is the point) to the body, to the self. That seems like an impossible asana from my current perspective, but I'm pretty sure that's where all of this is headed.

Majorly distractable

2006-10-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Not sure what the deal is, but I am totally distracted by people these days. Not tons of mind chatter, but just continuously aware of people on the periphery of my vision. Practice this morning was fine, except for the weird sense of distraction.

It also occurs at (and I wonder if it doesn't originate from) work. We're getting toward the end of the year, there's all sorts of planning, changes in the works, strategies, questions, debates, blah blah blah. My team is getting bigger, so there are more designers to try to manage (LOL! and I do mean try)--they are all wonderfully talented and self-sufficient, but with strong tendencies toward perfectionism and compulsion, and of course as a manager, one of my jobs is to get product out the door--so I'm always trying to pry projects out of people's hands when it's finished and they are just polishing and polishing it and driving themselves mad in pursuit of perfection. In the meantime, they are all terrific people and my personal impulse is to just let them do whatever they want so they'll be happy.

So it's people, people, people. And in the meantime I am trying to find the most zenlike way to live. Trying to let go of the ego, opinions, judgments. To make as faint a set of footprints as possible. How, though, can one do that in a corporate world? Or in a shala, for that matter?

I had the strongest impulse to just practice alone at home, and after a week, when I went to the studio and Volleyball Guy said, "We missed you last week," I was really rather struck with a kind of guilt--like I was not contributing to the larger community. What is my resposibility?

There is, as always, an easy/difficult zen answer, at least for this very moment:

Just don't know. Finished practice, now go to work.

Sore Initiative

2006-10-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

The Mysorians enter the studio through the back door in the morning, since the studio isn't officially open. Volleyball Guy was standing outside when I showed up this morning. "Missed you at Mysore last week," he said.

Practice was good. Still hanging in there on the jumpback attempts. Tried every single time throughout practice. Sore, too. Saturday's attempts left me sore in the medial deltoids and obliques. I haven't had muscle soreness like that in a long time. It's amazing how the body adjusts to whatever you throw at it, but then if you add in one new move, it can make you really sore.

This morning I wore my glasses to the studio, then ditched them when it was time to begin. Instant drishti. Very nice. I read somewhere that Guruji had told someone not to use glasses or contacts during practice. Saturday, I practiced next to Ms. Scorpionessa, and I noticed she had tucked her glasses away at the end of her mat. After class I asked if she always did that, if she never wore contacts to class. She rather ruefully suggested that she was probably cheating by relying on bad eyesight to ensure drishti, but it seemed like a good idea to give it a try. Putting in contacts: one less thing to do at 4:30AM.

It was very strange not to be able to see as clearly as I usually do. On the other hand, my drishti can get kind of "sharp," kind of over-effortful, so going without contacts automatically softened up my vision. It was, as I had imagined, a little difficult as I came up from Prasarita C. When Volleyball Guy adjusts me in this pose, I totally let go of any sense of up or down, so coming back up is very disorienting and usually pretty clumsy. And so it was today. Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana also. I think I sight the horizon on my way up from them, in order to get my bearings.

Baddha Konasana was the most intense adjustment of the day. I had gotten myself with my head almost on the ground, already popped my sacrum, when Volleyball Guy came over and just smooshed me straight down into the ground. It made me think of chicken wings, the way my legs were folded and tucked. There's this thing cooks do with poultry wings before roasting, where you turn the joint and tuck the tip of the wing back under the...well, I guess it's the armpit of the bird. Interesting to feel my hips twisting that way, so my thighs could flatten.

Volleyball Guy asked if The Cop would be coming to Mysore practice. I said The Cop would probably want to learn more before he practiced with other people. "Ego," Volleyball Guy said, nodding. When I told The Cop, he said, "It's more lack of interest. I do like working out with you, though." Working out? Hmmmm. Apparently the KoolAid isn't quite as strong as I might have imagined ;-)

One step forward...

2006-10-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

...two steps back. Yesterday morning was led practice. After a week of alone practice, it felt nice to see everyone. Mat to mat, we were, at the Phoenix Starbucks of Yoga; the Scottsdale branch is under reconstruction after a flood a few weeks ago.

How'd I do? Well, asana practice felt terrific. What I'll call the "Jumpback Initiative" (in honor of the fact that it seems like all I've done at work the past couple of months is crank out documents detailing strategic initiatives for the next 3-5 years) went well. Ugly, yes. But I did it all the way through, which was my only criterion for success.

What really caught my attention, though, after a week of solitude, was the ENORMOUS weight of my competitiveness. Not the kind that breaks drishti, but just the kind that makes one conscious of other people around, of PERFORMING. Sigh. The thing is, it is so deeply ingrained that I can't even fathom working up an initiative to overcome it.

Ohhh, I just looked up and spotted what looks like a black widow's nest in the frame of the hammock. That can't be good...

Back to the matter at hand. Self-consciousness. Ego. Seriously, is there no end to this? It feels like a thread I've been pulling for years and years, and even as some of it dissolves, the remainder seems to get bigger and bigger.

I'm afraid I'm about to bust out with a Huang Po quote. I'm liking the idea of substituting "other people practicing in the room with you" whenever he says "sentient beings" ;-)

"Buddha" and "sentient beings" are both your own false conceptions. It is because you do not know real Mind that you delude yourselves with such objective concepts. If you WILL conceive of a Buddha, YOU WILL BE OBSTRUCTED BY THAT BUDDHA!!! And when you conceive of sentient beings, you will be obstructed by those beings. All such dualistic concepts as "ignorant" and "enlightened," "pure" and "impure," are obstructions. Just as apes spend their time throwing things away and picking them up again unceasingly, so it is with you and your learning. All you need is to give up your "learning," your "ignorant" and "enlightened," "pure" and "impure," "great" and "little," your "attachment" and "activity." Such things are mere conveniences, mere ornaments within the One Mind. Really you must give them up!

In other news, on Friday My Gift sent me an email from her new home at college, detailing a little taste of nirvana:

The leaves are all over everywhere. The leaves from those trees you like, with the berries, they're really small and when they're in puddles they look like cornflakes. I thought of you. And Andy Goldsworthy. Why he would be interested in cornflake leaves is beyond me, but they were artistic in their cerealesqueness.

And this morning The Cop came home and said the time around Moon Days are hard for cops, as well as yogis. Apparently he had to go "hands on" (i.e., fight) with a 300 pound drunken, belligerent domestic violence suspect last night. The Cop's mindfulness is always of interest to me, because it springs from his particular practice, which includes martial arts and Buddhist practices. He detailed for me the whole encounter, which included escalating belligerence, resistance, and ultimately violence. His mind was clear through the whole thing--even when fighting with the guy, as he considered his options (Taser, pepper spray, club) and determined that none of that was necessary at any given moment, right up until the guy was subdued.

At which point, The Cop puts the whole thing down: it never is personal to him. That is part of his practice. It's interesting, because it is something I see play out when we watch mixed martial arts fights: when one opponent taps out (gives up), The Cop is extremely unhappy if the winning opponent continues his submission hold or punches the opponent again or does anything except cease and desist immediately.

So that's it from here. Me, My Gift and The Cop off doing our things. And for some reason, this whole entry reminds me of a line from one of my favorite Coldplay songs: We live in a beautiful world.

Very difficult, very easy

2006-10-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

This morning on ezBoard, someone was asking about the cross of the feet in bhujapidasana--right over left, or left over right? I can't resist questions like that, and I hit the books: Maehle, Swenson, Yoga Mala, Sweeney = right over left. Lino's book = left over right.

A few minutes later, I spied John Scott's book, and, being a geek, just had to look up bhujapidasana. On my way, though, to bhuja p, I flipped past jumpbacks. Okay, so exhale in dandasana, then inhale into lolasana, then swing back on the exhalation. Oh, and wait a minute, after your butt is up and your legs are pulled back through your arms: "you may have to touch the floor lightly with one or both of your feet." Okay! Now there's a useful sentence! I can use it to substitute for my usual "after your butt is up and your legs are pulled back through your arms, you may have to grow confused, run out of strength and drop onto your knees." Gosh, I love books. Mostly because they save me from my crazy ideas, like that there is no touching the feet in jumpbacks, even when you first start doing them.

Lately I've been reading Karen Armstrong's biography of the Buddha (entitled, in proper zen-like fashion "Buddha"), and I was particularly interested in the time when Buddha studied and practiced yoga. I am always deeply struck by how Ashtanga practice intersects with zen practice--gosh, I'd love to talk with Huang Po or Hongzhi about their perspectives on this, but since they've been dead since 850 and 1157 respectively, I guess that's out of the question. At the shala, of course, spiritual discourse revolves around the Hindu system, which is fine. I just always feel like I come from a different country. No worries, though: zen has plenty of ways to put these things in perspective. I can easily imagine the masters saying: "Are zen and Hinduism the same or different? If you say different, I'll hit you 30 times. If you say the same, I'll hit you 30 times."

Looking forward to practice at the shala this morning.

Beware: Practice notes only

2006-10-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

Serious self practice mode lately. Not quite sure why. It struck me one morning as I was leaving the shala that there are a few things I am working on in practice, and that the only way to proceed was simply to keep practicing: no muss, no fuss. And it's stuff I can do at home, day after day, simply by walking into the yoga room. For some reason it seemed really important that I subtract any extraneous details, that it simply be me and my practice. Based on the notion that if I just bust out bunches of practices, I'll get further into the poses.

Basically, I have work to do on supta kurmasana, garbha pindasana and baddha konasana. And the only way to proceed, or actually, the easiest way to proceed, is to not make too much of the whole deal but just to get up every morning and practice. I have the poses figured out, and the only thing that will open them up more is persistance.

As is usual, I have identified the things I want to focus on. Also what I can skip (handstands, bakasana transition out of utkatasana, eka pada bakasana transition out of virabhadrasana). I just want a plain old minimalist primary practice.

Baddha k is all about getting my head to the floor. As I've mentioned before, I am not one of those people who find baddha k relatively easy or "natural." That said, I seem to be through the terrifying crack-of-the-sacrum phase: at this point, it's just a little pop. And I'm down to one sandbag on my back to get my head to the floor--for a while there, it required two sandbags and a push. There's still plenty of stuff going on in the adductors, stuff I can't even fathom, but it's just a matter of time before they release.

Garbha p is pretty rewarding, and I'm starting to understand how the pose fits into the sequence, how the sensation of the rolling can be soothing and energizing at the same time. At the shala, folks usually just wrap their arms around their legs and roll when they get to garbha pindasana, so I felt like a dork when I decided to carry around my bottle of water, pull up the legs of my pants and douse my limbs with water in order to get my arms all the way through my legs. I was only able to put my hands in front of my face and touch my fingertips to my forehead for the first few weeks, though for the past couple of practices, my palms are almost cupping my face. Again, just a matter of time.

Supta kurmasana. What can I say? The hand bind gets stronger and stronger, enough of a grip at this point that I can really roll side to side pretty vigorously in an attempt to get my feet together, and, on good days, slightly crossed. Getting there...

The other "at home" project is jumpbacks. I'm usually pretty good for some relatively good jumpthroughs, though once I get tired, they tend to devolve into "jumpslides"-- half slides that can almost resemble jumpthroughs, courtesy of my slippery rug. Aw, but I know it's a fake.

Anyhow, I suddenly realized the flaw in my logic that suggested it would be easier to learn jumpthroughs first, jumpbacks later. As it turns out, though, I find myself worrying about the stress an uncontrolled jumpthrough is likely to exert on my shoulder, specifically the old rotator cuff tear. It's healed (happened years ago), but still there's a sense of it being the weakest link. Last week I had a brainstorm: learn jumpbacks. The resulting strength and control will actually make jumpthroughs safer. So jumpbacks it is. Or, more accurately, lolasanas followed by a butt-lift followed by my strength giving out and me ending up on my knees. Okay, well that's fine. If I do it a billion times, eventually my strength will increase and I'll pull this off.

So that's the story from here. At least the practice notes story. Inspired by Neti, who pointed out that practice notes are perfectly acceptable blog fodder.

Practice a Deux

2006-09-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Folie à deux (literally "a madness shared by two") is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another.
--Wikipedia

Tuesday mornings are practice with The Cop. Today he completed the entire series. Usually he gets irritated with kurmasana and then agrees to come along to baddha konasana, which I don't want to miss these days. This morning, though, we just rolled through the whole thing.

I helped him find his hands in supta k and he put his soles together. A huge bit of progress for him. And then, quite delightfully, he asked me what his drishti was supposed to be.

It's fun "teaching" The Cop. "Teaching" in quotation marks, because he is just like me and does NOT like to be taught. He likes to watch and figure things out for himself. If I start to explain, I can watch my words hit his "Do Everything Myself" force field, where they are revealed to be the lame explanations they are. Like trying to explain an answer to a koan to the zen master. You only have to get about two words out before you realize you should just stop.

So in the end, I teach just the way I most prefer: by example. Not to say I'm a stellar example. But I'll do.

And he'll do, too. He gave me a great adjustment in baddha konasana.

My own practice is in a good place: my focus has been on a handful of poses: marichy D (setting it up without putting my weight onto the vertical leg), supta k (getting the hand bind more fully and figuring out how to cross my feet), garbha pindasana (pulling it tighter) and baddha k.

Best of all, though (and I say this hoping I'm not going to jinx myself!): my hamstrings seem to be healed, and also just more generally stretched and open. Like they stay open even if I don't practice for a day. This is so lovely! I looked back in these entries and found that I have had hamstring pain since March. Seven months of it!

Why did I practice through all of that? Folie a un, I guess.

On the periphery of practice

2006-09-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Cop had someone at gunpoint last night. He told me about it when I got home from practice. Usually after evenings with gun-related events, we chat a bit before he goes to bed.

The guy was in a stolen car, tried to elude the police, and then, when the police caught up and there was a confrontation, rammed one of the police cars and then bolted on foot.

The Cop, checking out the area, just happened to hear the guy rustle some bushes. (Coincidentally, those are the bushes near where the Mysoreans park their cars on practice mornings.)

Anyhow, The Cop spotted him in the bushes and had him at gunpoint, and the guy was moving around without showing his hands. As is always the case when we discuss potentially violent events, I verified: "You were ready to shoot, right?"

This is an interesting question to ask right after practice. It certainly doesn't qualify as "yogic" in the usual sense that the term seems to be used. But it is an entirely sensible question from a zen perspective.

I really suspect that yoga is pretty tough--like zen, and that there's been an overlay of a kind of alternative view of it, of yoga as a gentle lifestyle. Kind of new agey. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with new-agey-ness. But it can be somewhat limited. And limiting, if you conflate new-agey-ness and yoga.

Practice, practice, practice

2006-08-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

I wanted to spend the past week or so just focusing the blog entries on practice notes. I kinda liked it, but it is repetitious. Practice is, after all, essentially the same thing over and over again, day after day. The only way to get some variability is to hyper-focus on details. Not sure how helpful that is. Need to think about it a bit.

LOL! It is very tempting for me to write about this morning's practice, but I think I will restrain myself.

Lunch blog

2006-08-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Mysore this morning. A few really cool things. For one, marichyasana D. This morning was the very first time that I really felt the work of the lotus foot in the abs. It was quite intense, the combination of the twist and the deeply pressing foot. Up 'til now, my marichy D has been all about containing centrifugal force as my limbs tried to spring out of the pose. Today, though, it was all centripetal energy, and it totally rocked. Kind of like a marichy B feeling on steroids.

Next good thing: kurmasana. Heels up and no pain. There's a big fear factor, still, because I think this pose (well, actually, my bullheaded attempts to get into this pose) is where my hamstring drama started.

After kurmasana, I was flailing for supta kurmasana and Chanting Man asked me if I wanted some help. He gave me a great adjustment--hands bound really tightly, and soles of my feet together quite painlessly. At the end, I said, "Thank you. That was good." He said, "I read your blog. I know your issues." I laughed and said, "It's my cry for help." LOL!

Baddha konasana: Volleyball Guy draped two sandbags on my back and I managed to get my forehead to the ground after about 7-8 breaths. Woohoo! I still am thrilled by this pose. I especially like the cracking sacrum sound effect.

Savasana involved a lengthy fantasy. First, I thought about the upcoming rope wall in the yoga room (which The Cop claims I am obsessed about). It occurred to me that if we were going to have hooks on the wall, we could easily install some climbing holds. But just straight up climbing? Booooring. Wait a minute, the ceiling slants up rather nicely from the yoga room into the livingroom, where it makes a sharp peak. It's a big open space with a half wall/fireplace separating the two rooms. You could cover the whole thing with holds and it'd be a climbing dream. I thought about our couch and chairs and end tables and TV all surrounded by walls and ceilings of climbing holds. The Cop is handy; he could do this. Oh wait, we'll need anchors for belays--but that's do-able. And rebar grids to reinforce all the walls...hmmmm, maybe this is not quite so simple as my savasana dream...

I told The Cop all about it when I got home from practice. He shot it all down with a "diminished resale value" argument. Right, like the heavy bag he installed on the back patio is an upgrade, but my climbing wall interior would be a problem ;-)

I'm gonna keep the dream alive. Maybe one day it'll manifest.

Bowing and praying

2006-08-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Nansen asked Joshu, "Have you a master of your own or not?"
Joshu said, "Yes, I have."
"Where is your master?"
Joshu replied, "In the middle of a severe winter, I bow and pray that the Master may thrive and prosper."
Nansen realized that Joshu was a vessel of dharma and permitted him to become his disciple.

I love the master koans. I use them often at work, and now, with My Gift moving, I am bowing and praying in a severe winter.

Yesterday, after led, Crim Girl and I went to lunch. We got to discussing Iyengar ropes. I've never tried them, but I've seen pictures, and they seem like such a good idea now that my practice is at the point where I want to really try to open my shoulders for backbends. Hip opening has come along really nicely over the past year, but as my hips open, it makes my shoulders seem even tighter by comparison. Gotta focus in on the shoulders for a while.

The Cop is uber-handy and I have a devoted yoga room, so last night I ordered the ropes. Can a home climbing wall be far behind? ;-) Yes, secretly I just want to hang upside down like a bat for fun. But I can use the ropes for yoga purposes, too.

My cousin wrote to me today, and sent me a link to a shaman woman. My cousin's daughter, who is in her late 20s, has been trying to find herself, but kind of spinning her wheels for a long time now. My cousin wondered if I thought this shaman might be able to help. This is a really interesting question to me. For one thing, I am amused that when people in my family see or hear something that seems wacky to them, they turn to me. How many times has one of them said, "It's a really weird [book/movie/place], you'd probably really like it!" LOL!

In this case, though, I am out of my element. I know next to nothing about shamanism, But I do have the feeling that it would be good for my cousin's daughter to find some sort of spiritual system that might offer her perspective on life. This side of the family, though, is famous for being entrenched in their idea of reality. They are heavily invested in rejecting anything that isn't familiar.

I have no idea if Cousin's Daughter will be able to suspend her disbelief long enough to find whatever she might need in a shamanistic experience. People often feel like they have to either totally buy into, or totally reject, belief systems.

What I told my cousin is that maybe her daughter would find something--a kernel of personal truth, a metaphor, anything--that would be useful. And it may not be immediately useful, but something that she needs later on. Who knows. At the very least, a new experience with an unfamiliar belief system is always enlightening on some level (even if not conscious). Cousin's Daughter has struggled for years, trying to find some inner peace. Maybe this will be a teeny step in some direction.

Oh, the practice report: Led class yesterday was good. Volleyball Guy's son, Muscle Man, taught. He gave me a really interesting adjustment in ardha baddha padma paschimottansana, which involved the turn of the binding shoulder toward the extended leg's hip. Haha! This sounds like one of those, "my aunt's husband's stepson's daughter's boyfriend" kind of explanations. Suffice it to say, it was a nice, subtle adjustment that gave me something new to think about.

My hamstrings, which were entirely pain-free on Friday, felt a little hinky on Saturday. No great surprise, I suppose. And they weren't all that bad, so I can't really complain.

To my right during class was a very languid practitioner. A teacher of a different style of yoga. Her Ashtanga practice was interesting to me, because it seemed super languid. It made me think about styles of yoga (yin immediately comes to mind) where you get into the pose and then kind of go limp.

I hurt myself pretty much every single time I try yin practice--not serious injury, but tweaks--so I am very suspicious of this idea of totally letting go in poses. In terms of the Middle Way, there's the stiff-as-a-board mode (Volleyball Guy calls it being "a yoga statue") and the floppy mode--and somewhere in the middle is the engaged mode, where the inner experience of the pose modulates with the breath and the mind.

Anyhow, the floppy practitioner seemed pretty tired at the beginning of class and utterly exhausted by the end. I was wondering why I felt fascinated by this observation--what the lesson was--and then I thought about Mysore the other day, when I had my super-adrenalized, speedy practice.

Okay, fair enough. So whether in the middle of a speedy practice, or upon observing a floppy practice, I will bow and pray that the Master may thrive and prosper.

Crackpotting

2006-08-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if practice makes me more sensitive, and other times I wonder if I'm just a crackpot with an obsession.

Mysore this morning. I was running a little late, and when I got there, there were three new people! What?! Actually, one was a guy who comes to Saturday led quite regularly. Then there were two women I've never seen before. One of the new people was just to my right. It didn't take me long to realize she was doing "yoga improv." How did I know? Well, the sequence, of course, but also the fact that she turned to her left and faced me on some of her poses. LOL! I felt like a kid in a classroom, when the person in front of you keeps turning around to talk to you during class and you want to tell them to knock it off and face in the right direction.

Does practice make OCD tendencies worse? ;-)

Practice felt great right from the very beginning. Is it because I've been icing my hamstrings twice a day and always after practice? Or is the extending from the spine (hereafter referred to as the "Jody Maneuver") helping? Or am I just finished with whatever realignment was going on over the past few months? Who knows. And who cares? All I know is practice felt wonderful.

Strong and flexible and a little over-adrenalized--I think because I've been eating meat (well, fowl and fish) again. I'm also kind of aggressive lately, but that's a story for another entry. Anyhow, I rolled along at a very good pace. Maybe more than a good pace--I think I was actually a little speedy. For some reason I felt like I wanted to hurry up. But for what? Here's the crackpot part: I felt like my over-adrenalized feelings were coming from The Improvisor. Like I was getting a jolt of nervousness from her. I had the impression that she was giving off "What do I do next?" vibes and I was caught up in them. Even though I knew what I was going to do next--I do the sequence almost unconsciously at this point. All of a sudden, though, I had this feeling like I had to move along quickly because if I didn't I would forget. Weird, huh?

Whatever. When I got to kurmasana, my legs felt totally relaxed and pain-free, so I just lifted my heels up and it felt totally effortless and light. It's been a looooong time since my legs felt okay in kurmasana, so I was psyched. Volleyball Guy always keeps an eye on me in kurmasana and supta kurmasana these days, and as per usual, when I got to supta k, he let me grab my hands, then stabilized them and got my feet together. The feet dealio is coming along.

On ezBoard there is discussion about supta k and the length of people's legs and arms and backs and whatever. In the end, of course, we probably all can do the pose, provided we patiently persist for however long it takes.

Baddha konasana was terrific. Usually I grab a sandbag and put it on my back in this pose (usually I have one pose where I stop and take time to set up and try to really work it--and currently baddha k is that pose). I was doing pretty well (my back seems to be "getting it" finally--for a long time, the very idea of deeply folding forward in this pose has seemed so weird and undo-able) when Volleyball Guy came over and draped a second sandbag over my back. It was just enough to help me touch my forehead to the floor. This is a really big deal, because I am not a natural baddha konasan.

What's next? Well, I often dream of doing durvasana. Of course, in my dreams, it is very, very easy.

Home Practice: 8/17/06

2006-08-17T07:00:00.001-07:00

Take-away from today's practice: I know I need to extend more through the spine, particularly the lower spine, but this morning I realized that I tend to be slightly afraid of extending this way, that I kind of contract my lower back a bit to "protect" it--in part, I think, because I grew up among people who had lower back problems (which is quite common in America), and in part as a remnant of weightlifting days, when I protected my lower back by flexing the muscles. This slight ongoing contraction, or pulling back, is pretty much unconscious--it's just the way I hold myself, and I never really noticed it because it is so "normal" for me. Anyhow, I have to work this through. This morning, with some extra attention, I managed to extend more from the sacral area, which felt quite good physically, though a little scary psychically. The extension takes some of the stress off my hamstrings, and when I do it, it seems kinesthetically "correct."

And there was a side bonus for my sore hamstrings: instead of blindly cranking my quads to protect the hammies, I focused in and applied quad tension with more discrimination. Tried to modulate it to work with the stuff going on in my sacrum. Seemed to help.

So many things to focus on while I'm not thinking ;-)

These days, I feel nervous as kurmasana approaches, so I just tried to breathe through the nervousness and pay attention to how the hamstrings responded. I'm not going for perfection on the pose, not trying to work around the left hamstring, but just trying to feel it out. Hopefully the relaxed approach will, at the very least, get me past the bad association (kurmansana = strain & pain) that I've established. Then when my hamstrings are healed, the pose can be a newer, gentler kurmasana ;-)

Here's a quote from Hakuin. (Editorial note-to-self: the "valiant heart that presses forward" is not equivalent to the hamstrings that press down in kurmasana.)

Such knowledge as originates from outside yourself can never assist your arriving at a great Satori, the big Awakening. Whatever you do, you must once see for yourself the fact that that buddha-nature you sought for was always yours from the start--there is nothing more important than this.

How can we see for ourselves this fact that buddha-nature was originally ours?

The Buddhist teachings have assumed various forms in the course of explanation: sudden and gradual, greater and smaller vehicle, revealed and esoteric, indeterminate, and so on. But in the realization of the Buddha Way, the most important thing is to evince a valiant heart that presses forward and never falls back. Until you can taste the joy of great Satori, the big Awakening, never fall back--it is in this spirit you must enter into practice.

Practice Notes: 8/16/06

2006-08-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Another quick debrief as I gulp down some lunch then run to the next meeting. Work is a madhouse lately. Very exhilarating, but also daunting--multi-tasking is definitely the devil's invention. I won't even get started about the logistics of getting My Gift relocated for college, never mind the emotional energy of letting go. And hey, I'm a manager--wouldn't it make sense if I actually had some time to talk to my team? Oops, had to stop to take a call from the orthodontist My Gift will be transferring to. Oh wait, I have to book boarding for the cat for the nights we're delivering My Gift to college... Okay, you get the idea.

Thank God for Mysore this morning is all I can say. My hamstrings actually felt pretty darn good, especially considering I actually thought about skipping practice on Monday because they hurt so much. I've been icing three times a day--though who knows if that's what's making the big difference. Maybe it's Jody the Yoga Star's advice about extending through the spine more. I'm actually too crazy busy to think about why things are happening, which may actually improve my practice ;-)

The only place where I felt particularly nervous was in kurmasana. And again, with his uncanny perceptiveness, Volleyball Guy came over and helped at the most painful part of my practice. I was going easy on my hamstrings, trying not to use my legs to squish myself flat, when he picked up my heels, nice and gentle. My thought? Oh, I'm supposed to extend through the hips and legs to get my feet up, not just crank my muscles until my feet pop up. Okay, that's a good lesson for today.

Quiet morning: British Director, Other Dave, Mr India, Chanting Man, Cat and NYChick. Lovely practice buddies all. I hope Friday practice is a nice, crowded, raucous one. I think we're about due for that kind of fun.

Oh crap, I forgot about my sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Lynnie!

Home Practice: 8/15/06

2006-08-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

Woke up worried about my hamstrings. I think it's interesting that my system can hook onto things and kind of mull them over at night while I am unconscious. It makes the whole idea of keeping a clear, positive mind very compelling: I know I stabilize and solidify belief systems during the night. Some of it is physical in the gross physical sense (e.g., my hamstrings are sore these days), and some of it is energetic (e.g., I can invest emotional energy into the underpinnings of the gross physical aspect). And all of it can happen as I sleep. Uh oh, it's probably too early for thoughts like this.

I considered a day off today, after yesterday's practice and subsequent attempts to help the poor hammies with ice, but My Gift told me she was going to wake up at 4:30 so she could go help a friend move into her dorm. There are so many kids moving in that there is a schedule, and My Gift's friend got a 6-8 AM slot. Anyhow, I figured if My Gift was getting up, I would just go ahead and get up with her. That way we could have a little coffee and I'd see her on her way.

As I said, I woke with worry about my hamstrings. I expected them to be really sore, but as it turns out, they're not too bad. My half-awake (half-aware? ;-) musings during the night last night pinpointed the hamstrings as a repository of fear/anxiety, and the insertion points as the strength I mount against fear/anxiety. Oh great, a pulling in two directions. No wonder they hurt.

Jody suggested yesterday that I try for more extension through my spine, so that was my focus this morning. Seemed to work pretty well, too. I know my focus has been really deep in the hammies for the past few practices, which is, I suppose, a reasonable response to pain, but today I tried to pull the center of my focus up into uddiyana bandha and then extend up from there. Makes for a nice, light practice.

I figure all of my quad engagement efforts may have been too unyielding (in essence, I tried to just "lock" the quads on every pose to cut the hammies some slack), but I guess (duh!) my response is going to have to be more subtle. No matter what, I'm going to have to back off on the left side, while ratcheting up a bit on the right. I have to give the right side a chance to open up more: the imbalance in openness on the right and left sides are likely at the root of a lot of this.

Good news of the day, though, is that marichyasana D is finally settling down. I've been able to bind my hands for a good while now, but only by putting a lot of my weight forward onto the foot that's flat on the floor. Initially, I had to lean way forward, to the point of taking all of my weight on the foot. It was the only way to get compact enough to bind my hands. So then I'd have the bind, but at the expense of being a crunched up and twisted little person balancing on one foot. No extension through the spine whatsoever. I started leaning back more and more after I made the bind, which seemed to open my hips a bit and give me more space for my back, but I always had to start the pose off with my weight far forward. Today I managed to build the pose from the floor--with bent leg foot, knee of lotus leg, and lotus leg sitting bone making a tripod on the floor. On both sides. Woohoo!

When I got to kurmasana, I backed off on my legs and just worked my back/chest. I am surprised to find how much I drive that pose through my hamstrings, and pretty much forget about my back. Like I can flatten myself using my legs and totally leave the back/abs out of it. Yeah, um, but only at the expense of your hamstrings, Karen. Another duh! moment. For supta k, I just bound my hands and then breathed. Left my legs alone entirely.

As Jody pointed out in his comment yesterday (quite rightly, I think), a lot of this hamstring stuff may be coming out of the kurmasana/supta k work. I tried to barrel through it, but it seems I'm going to have to double back and be more sensitive. If there's fear stored up in those hamstrings, I'm probably not gonna be able to steamroll my way through.

Home Practice: 8/14/06

2006-08-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Wake with a burning sensation in both hamstring inserts. Not good. Home practice today--no Mysore, as Volleyball Guy is out of town.

As usual, the morning begins with coffee and some reading:

When a person faces the great doubt, before him there is in all directions only a vast and empty land without birth and without death, like a huge plain of ice extending ten thousand miles.
--Hakuin

Decide to use the space heater, to try to bribe my hamstrings with heat. Think this might be a bit crazy, seeing as we're in the desert and all, but tough times call for tough measures.

Practice totally revolves around the pain. Poses of particularly excruciating note are: padangusthasana, padahastasana, parivritta trikonasana, and the most horrifying of all: the prasaritas. By the time I get to prasarita B, I decide to try bending my knees a bit. Seems to help. Not sure if this is kosher or not, but the pain to pleasure ratio of practice is starting to list hopelessly toward the pain end of the continuum, and bent knees are the only solution that comes to mind.

Plod along, making note of the "sensations" ;-) and trying to back off just a bit, until marichyasana C, at which point I finally start to feel some relief. Decide to really be diligent about icing four times a day for a while (I'm sitting on ice as I type this entry). How can I spread the stress of stretches throughout the whole hamstring? Why does everything seem to be converging at the inserts?

A quick note about the dinner party at The British Director's house. It wasn't such a big collision of worlds. I met The British Director's boyfriend, who, like The Cop, is not an Ashtangi. I think by the end of the evening both he and The Cop probably felt pretty satisfied that we aren't all members of a cult.

The British Director, I am very happy to report, is one of those people who reads cookbooks for pleasure. Gosh, can she cook! There was grilled salmon and a mango salsa, endive and avocado salad with mustard dressing, quinoa with corn (my favorite!), pasta with pesto sauce, and bread. And The British Director's boyfriend, who will from here on in be called The Wine Connoisseur, chose and served some unbelievably good wines.

Also in attendance: Mr India and The European Beauty, Volleyball Guy and Sanskrit Scholar, Chanting Man and The Cat's Mom, Crim Girl and her consort yet to be named. It struck me that The Cop might feel like he was in the movie "The Big Chill," and I leaned over to whisper that to him. "What's 'The Big Chill'?" he asked. Never mind.

A lovely time was had by all. The Cop felt slightly out of his element, though he enjoyed himself. Perhaps like he was with a close group of hippie-ish friends. You know, like in "The Big Chill"? Okay, okay--never mind ;-)

Home practice: 8/12/06

2006-08-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

My Gift's rheumatologist said she should have a flu shot before college, so we are off to a flu shot clinic downtown when she finishes up her morning shift at Juicy Yoga Studio. No led class for me.

Wonders of technology side note: This week, My Gift was given contact info for her roommate. The two girls talked on the phone, then connected via their My Space pages. This morning, My Gift casually mentioned that she and The Roomie have been chatting via instant message. I'm pleased to hear this, because they'll have a chance to get to know each other a bit before they're thrown together in a couple of weeks.

So, home practice this morning. A really exuberant, happy practice. One where the vinyasas are just such a pleasure, and poses and vinyasas flow together seamlessly. Left hamstring is cranky, but not impossible. The most interesting thing, though, was this practice felt joyous, and really well-integrated. Somehow, it understood that it is not the point--though it is a means.

"Truth can be compared to the moon," said Hui Neng, pointing to the moon with his finger, "I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don't need my finger in order to be able to see the moon."

Tonight, dinner at The British Director's house. I get to meet Crim Girl's new partner in crime, and The Cop meets the Mysorians. What happens when worlds collide?

Practice notes in 5 minutes or less (8/11/06)

2006-08-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Mysore morning. The British Director, Crim Girl, Mr India and NYChick. A small turnout for a Friday. I miss Returning Guy. He is visiting with his son, and the shala just isn't the same. He is always the first one in, surya-ing away as the rest of us enter the room.

Practice was good. Warm and a little ponderous, but not too bad. All of my energy is focused on the quad engagement, and my hamstrings are very happy for it. Additionally, my drishti stays on my nose/shins in forward bends--no looking at my toes. I miss them, and I miss the intense focus of that particular gaze, but my hamstring inserts are really feeling alot better with this small shift in drishti. I'm sure it's because my lower back is rounding more, but hey, I'm one year into Ashtanga practice and I have to accept that it's gonna take a while for those hamstrings to release. I need to cut them some slack.

Handstands have been particularly fun: Volleyball Guy has me holding my knees in tight until my hips are up, and then I extend my legs. It feels like swimming in air. Same dealio on the way back down to the next navasana: hold the crossed legs in tight all the way down from handstand.

Supta K was the usual: I get in, grab my fingers, scoot my feet. Volleyball Guy put his hand over mind, then pushes my feet closer. I don't think I'll get my feet crossed, because I am short and stubby. I think I'll have better luck getting my feet cross behind my head.

Therefore the usual foot behind the head goofing around after backbends. If I just do it persistently, eventually it'll happen.

Home practice 8/10/06

2006-08-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Home practice with Sharath's CD, because I felt like moving along at a good pace. Kept the focus on quad engagement, which really seems to be doing the trick, hamstring-pain-wise.

After backbends, played with putting my feet behind my head instead of paschimottanasana. What fun! Wasn't as heated up as yesterday morning, so I couldn't straighten my back up once my leg was behind my head. Persistance, though, will do the trick. And as I said, it's such fun that it doesn't seem like work at all.

Savasana with Simon and Garfunkel on the iPod. Relaxed, lying in the sunshine of the yoga room, I had, suddenly, the strongest sense of uddiyana bandha that I've ever felt. Very cool. Interesting when these things happen, because I can chase the feeling (make a vow to consciously reproduce it in practice), or I can set it in the back of my consciousness, like a koan, and trust that it is developing. I guess this circles around to the thoughts I've been having lately about willfulness and the role it does, or does not, play in my practice. Those thoughts, too, though, have to be left alone a bit. They remind me of the seeds I planted in the front yard on Sunday. Left alone, they'll sprout. (And then, if it's anything like the seeds I planted two weeks ago, the rabbits will come and eat them one morning. LOL!)

Practice notes: 8/9/06

2006-08-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday The Cop and I drove up to Sedona, because my sister and her girlfriend were up there vacationing (they live in San Diego). We went up for lunch, and a short visit. The Cop laughed at me when I explained that today was a Moon Day, so I would take it a day early and then go to Mysore practice this morning. He is amused by my poor rule-following skills and my excellent rationalization skills.

This morning's practice was all about quads. My poor hamstrings have been so tortured. I did some more reading in Gregor Maehle's book and decided I would devote today's practice to making sure my quads were mindfully engaged the whole way through. Heels pulled to the floor on sitting poses, feet flexed, the whole deal. This is, at least for me, a daunting challenge. I like to drift off into my yoga bliss, and sometimes that bliss doesn't include quadriceps mindfulness. But I managed well enough. And sure enough, I remembered something Crim Girl told me months ago: she suggested I pull up through my arches, which seemed like a fine idea, but I had no clue how to do it. This morning, as I engaged my quads in down dog, those arches just popped right up. Nice.

Practice felt a little plodding at the start--perhaps because the air is rather humid here in the desert, and we aren't accustomed to that sort of heaviness. But the poses and vinyasas were pleasant and I managed to keep doing the quad reminder.

Supta K went well--I managed to grab my hands, and then Volleyball Guy put his hands over mine to stabilize them while I tried to cross my feet, which at this stage in the game means I try to touch the soles together. "Close, very close," he said. Volleyball Guy does not dole out lots of verbal feedback, so I was happy to hear this.

And this morning, I did normal urdhva dhanurasanas, instead of my usual ustrasana/dhanurasana combo. I asked Volleyball Guy if the switch would be okay, and mentioned I wouldn't mind skipping adjustments, since his back has been sore. Of course, he couldn't resist adjusting. I did a couple of urdhva ds myself and then one holding his ankles, where he then supported my upper back and had me take my hands off the floor and just open my arms like an airplane--well, a relaxed airplane, anyhow. It was a great adjustment! He reminded me to work my legs, and with him supporting my shoulders and pushing just a bit toward my feet, I could work into the backbend with my feet and legs and abs and really feel the form. All I need to do now is find a way to always subtract my concrete shoulders from the urdhva dhanurasana mix.

Then a few dropbacks, which felt great. As I sat down after backbends, I noticed The Other Dave (who was practicing second) showing The Cat eka pada sirsanana. Then they played around a bit with kashyabasana. I was nice and warm, and I've been messing around with yoga nidrasana in the evenings (in hopes it'll aid my supta kurmasana), so I tried putting my feet behind my head. To very good effect. I managed to get first my left and then my right foot situated behind my neck. I don't know why, exactly, but I sure do love those foot behind the head poses. They're challenging and funny and scary and cool. And way more entertaining post-backbend poses than paschimottasana, which is usually just excruciating.

One From the Books

2006-08-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

My own little koan of the past year: Are meditating while practicing Ashtanga and meditating while sitting zazen the same or different?

From "Sitting with Koans":

Hakuin...emphasized practice in the midst of activity... 'I am not trying to tell you to discard completely quietistic meditation and to seek specifically for a place of activity to carry on your practice. What is most worthy of respect is a pure koan meditation that neither knows nor is conscious of the two aspects, the quiet and the active. This is why it has been said that the true practicing monk walks but does not know he is walking, sits but does not know he is sitting.

For penetrating to the depths of one's own true self-nature and for attaining a vitality valid on all occasions, nothing can surpass meditation in the midst of activity.'

Mysore practice was good this morning, though I couldn't get my hands in supta k. It felt rather tragic for a moment, but then there was the next breath, and time to be off on other pursuits.

I ate fish twice yesterday--mercury...uh, I mean, tuna for lunch, and sushi for dinner. I generally don't eat much animal food at all, so this was a big dose of it. My mind felt really pointed this morning, but maybe a little too hard, like its surface was steely, somehow. So I wasted some time thinking about my diet during practice. Maybe the supta k problem was from stiffness due to eating animals. *Sigh.* Like my thinking about it would change the situation. Not.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about willfulness the past couple of days (most notably, yesterday morning while I washed the venetian blinds in the kitchen by hand). Willfulness is interesting: people love it or they hate it. I want to play around with some ideas, and then maybe write a bit about it. I think it may play strongly into my practice, and may even be a large part of why karma brought me to practice.

Happy Monday! (and yes, that's sarcastic ;-)

Plain old practice notes

2006-08-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Woke this morning with some sore spots (piriformis, most notably) and thought "Hmmmm, this must be from playing around with yoga nidrasana last night." This playing around with yoga nidrasana is, of course, part of my attempt to understand supta k. Yesterday in led, supta k was terrific, at least the bind was. Still have some work to do on the hips (hence yoga nidrasana). Anyhow, the hand bind is getting very straightforward. Jody mentioned something in his blog about the set up of the hands, which I've found to be true. For a few weeks now, I've had to put a lot of energy into the correct set up of my hands, in order to have any hope of getting the bind.

When I first started practicing the pose, I would reach back with both hands--and with a huge sense of blindness and futility. The whole back body was just a vast uncharted expanse my hands/arms couldn't possibly encompass. Then one morning, as I was flailing, Sanskrit Scholar said something about turning one hand in the opposite direction (I was reaching with both palms facing up). Duh! With both palms facing up, my fingers would occasionally brush, but I could never grab the other hand. One palm had to face down and one up in order to pull this off. So I started setting up with the right hand facing down. That was the key to the whole bind, that the right hand be extended as far across my back as possible (by scooting the right shoulder under my leg) and held in place as strongly as possible. I would feel with my fingertips and try to be sure that my fingers were past my spinal column (basically, that the right fingers were more than halfway across my back). Then I could reach my up-facing left hand across my back to look for the right. Basically, the right always waits in the same place on my back, in the ready position, and the left seeks it out.

This solution is somewhat unbalanced, as it plays directly to my strengths and my weaknesses. I had a rotator cuff tear on the left side a few years ago, and the left shoulder is my weaker link. I suspect it may be psychological, this perceived weakness, but I suppose that doesn't matter. So I use the right side to be strong and still and "correct" in set-up, and then I use the left side to "find" the right and stretch toward it.

At the same time, I am also really focused on back bends these days. Finally, I am starting to understand the strange (to me) kinesthetics of backbends. I am all about forward bend consciousness: internal, quiet, intuitive, etc. (Last week, I was composing an email to Crim Girl, as we chatted about the energy of back bends, and I realized that I have all kinds of adjectives for the energy of forward bends, and pretty much no words for the energy of back bends.) So this business of turning my heart out is quite a project. Hampered, to the nth degree, by decades of weightlifting, where heavy squats were by far my favorite thing to do. Psoases of steel. Quads like stretched cables ;-)

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the back bends are starting to come clear.

It occurred to me this morning that by focusing on supta k and backbends, I am working both ends of the spectrum of primary: supta k is the deepest expression of forward bending in the series, and backbends, well, the only expression of backward bending in the series. The image of a paper clip being bent back and forth comes to mind ;-) It's kind of funny, but also an interesting idea: the bending has to be thoughtfully dispersed along the full length of the material, or else the whole thing eventually snaps. And it's really interesting to mess around with the energies of forward and backward bending, to compare and contrast, to feel around in it, to (maybe?) try out a zen thing where they are different but the same, and both the same, and both different. And then, of course, just do it.

B*tch

2006-08-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yup, that's me. Saturday led class. I think I might have been cranky right from the get-go. There is something about Saturday led that makes me weird, emotionally, but I can never quite put my finger on it. I know, though, that the way I most like the class is when I am surrounded by a few of the Mysorians.

This morning, though, it was me and Sanskrit Scholar. That's it for Mysorian representation. Sanskrit Scholar does the teacher training at Starbucks of Yoga studio, and as I rolled out my mat she introduced me to a few teacher trainees who were taking the class to experience Ashtanga. Did I have kind of a bad attitude about this? Okay, yes, I'm going to admit it. Not a terrible attitude, but not as open and welcoming as I might like to be, and certainly not as welcoming as Sanskrit Scholar (who, as I've mentioned before, is really a teacher by nature).

Okay, so we start practice and I wonder why I am so loose so early in the practice. DUH! It hits me: because it's 10 AM, not 5:30 AM. I think I realized this a long time ago, but then forgot it and managed to experience it again today in a realization of the utterly obvious.

I think I'm putting off my story because I'm feeling bad about it. Okay: we do hanumansana and upavistha konasana after the prasaritas. As I am leaning forward into upavistha konasana--slowly and with some fear (because my hips/hamstrings are so weird lately, and prone to sudden pain) and attempting to really pay attention to the sensations--the gal behind me reaches forward and starts pressing down on my back. I scoot forward to get away, and she scoots right after me. I turn around and say I have a hamstring issue. She grabs my my legs. "No!" I say, shaking her off.

And of course I felt rude afterwards. But mostly I felt really irritated about this whole episode. Maybe I can't practice with the yoga folk anymore. I am losing my socialization skills. I really don't like it when people I don't know touch me. This is true in real life and slightly adjusted in yoga situations, because I recognize the fact that yoga is "touchy." It's part of the culture, I guess. Though, truth be told, I find Ashtangis as a whole to be more reserved than other practitioners--less likely to bust out with lots of PDAs. But I do understand that the commonly accepted culture of yoga is one of softness and touchiness. The thing is, though, I am not in class to experience the "yoga lifestyle" (seriously, there's reference to this on the Starbucks of Yoga promotional material). I am at Saturday led to do my practice. With my teacher.

I think Adjustment Gal probably wondered what the dealio was and if I was lying about the hamstring problem when Volleyball Guy came over and crushed me flat in ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana. But the plain old fact of the matter is: he's my teacher. I work with him four days a week and I trust him. He knows what I have invested in my practice and he invests himself as my teacher. When Volleyball Guy gives an adjustment, he is listening intently. He does not approach it with ego. He totally respects your space, even as he gives close adjustments. It's the perfect mesh of the impersonal and the intimate, with a dash of egolessness for boundaries.

And when I get adjustments from the Mysorians, I know they know what I have invested, and we both know that there are two objectives: 1) further the adjustee's practice, and 2) give the adjuster a chance to work on adjustments. It's experimental, it's part of participating in the community, and it's rooted in the understanding that everyone is clear about how important each individual's practice is.

Wow, I'm not sure why I was rubbed the wrong way SO intensely, by what I am sure was a perfectly well-meaning attempt by Adjustment Gal to help me out. Something about it was off, though, and I think it may be that I didn't like having someone presume to hand out a generic adjustment on someone they never saw before in their life. If it's not a real adjustment (i.e., helpful to the individual, and significant enough, physically, to make an impact--and that implies a trust relationship that includes understanding the possibility of injury) then all it's about is someone putting their hands on me for THEIR reasons. Whether it was to be helpful, to show she knew something, to practice her skills, it did not take into account MY relationship to the touch.

I guess I'm back around to whether touchiness from strangers is just something you have to live with in yoga. Pretty funny, if so--because while I am at a studio devoted to the "yoga lifestyle" (which presumably values this kind of touchiness), I am also going more deeply into my practice, which seems to push me further and further away from the "yoga lifestyle." Is this part of my practice, that I'm getting too cranky to go out in public? ;-)

Self / Consciousness

2006-08-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Talked, via email, with Crim Girl this week about the difference between Mysore practice and home practice. Obviously, both have their advantages.

This morning at Mysore, we had some new folks. One gal practicing second, and one who seems to be new. About three quarters of the way through practice, I noticed that there was so much energy in the room: people helping each other, people talking, people walking around. Very busy. Of course, this kind of energy can fuel a practice. On the other hand, it is rather distracting. Maybe that's just me, though--I am way out there on the introvert scale.

What I mentioned to Crim Girl, as we discussed this issue, is not that I feel self-conscious in the sense of worrying about people watching me, but that at home, practice feels more intuitive, more flow state, more improvisational. Even as I stick to the primary series.

Sanskrit Scholar said something last week about how each pose is new, how you have to approach it and feel inside it and discover it each and every time. Sometimes I find that easier when I am at home and The Cop is sleeping and My Gift is sleeping and the dog is sleeping and the only thing I can hear is my breath and, occasionally, the cat walking by on his way to look out the window.

It's a very specific kind of consciousness, and it reminds me of a few lines from a book I'm reading:

Prajna is not a special, privileged, "correct" way of knowing events but rather is the knowing of events in the total absence of all viewpoints and perspectives...

...Practice...is a process of digging down through the various layers that cover the light of clear knowing, a kind of spiritual archaeology, so to speak. In human beings, these layers are made up of such things as concepts, symbols, language, categories, habits, ideological presuppositions, and the natural, innate tendency to divide the world into "self" and "not self."

...To experience events as they truly are, one must experience them without the least bit of personal or cultural meaning added to them. This kind of knowing might best be called "no mind."

... "No mind" is not confusion, uncertainty or blankness, but, rather, an extremely clear knowing freed of all conceptualization and symbolization.

--Sitting with Koans

Maybe it seems a little tough to access no mind at Mysore because of the community feel. Perhaps that group energy, which is quite compelling, subsumes no mind. Or maybe it's something that comes in time.

This morning The Cop called to say he'd be late getting home. Usually he's back by around 7AM, but it looks like he'll be putting in lots of extra hours. At the end of his shift he had an assault arrest. I always wonder if these events are taking place at the same time I'm doing handstands, for some reason. It makes me curious about time and the nature of simultaneous events. If we are all one, how does it happen that someone is being violent when another is balancing on her hands? Not sure why that fascinates me, but there you have it.

More Psyche/Somatic Musings

2006-08-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

My usual modus operandi is to keep drishti on toes during forward bends. Which means keeping my head (and, consequently, torso) up a bit. This morning, I tried keeping nasagrai drishti and just letting my head fold down to my shins. This seemed to reduce some of the tension in my hamstring inserts, which seemed to offer more chance to meditate (rather than just weathering the pain), and the closer drishti and less painful hammies made for a nice, soft practice.

At the end of my daily backbending session, Volleyball Guy's modus operandi is to have me kick up into a handstand, then drape me upside down over his back as he bends forward. Like a human backbending rack. Today he disappeared after the upside down draping session. I wondered if he'd gone out back to cry in despair, because I am too darn heavy to pick up at 6:45 every morning, and he does it EVERY freaking day, and will my back and shoulders NEVER open? It's his Sisyphean task. And I am the stone.

Seriously, my shoulders are stones. I am having a physical education--care of Ashtanga and weekly massage sessions with Koko the magical massage therapist--and what I am learning is the strange emotional geography of my back. Shoulders house all of my ideas about strength. Every moment I spent as a single Mom trying to protect My Gift and make it through the world has congealed into the toughest part of my body: my shoulders. Yeah, I know: cliche. Shouldering the weight of the world and all that.

In the middle of my back, right at the center of the thoracic spine, is grief. Every last bit of any deep grief I've ever felt is all balled up right there.

Left sacrum contains my fears about my own mortality. Every time I looked down off a cliff I was climbing and thought about what it would feel like to suffer equipment failure right then; every time I held on by my fingers and had to let go of my feet to climb an overhang; every time I noticed the car in the next lane suddenly swerving toward mine--all of those feelings are squeezed into a small space that sleeps in the left sacrum. Around it, all through the lower back, my awareness that I will eventually die.

And in my hips sockets: sadness. Plain old garden variety human sadness. I am digging into this during baddha konasana, which is the pose I am working most diligently these days. Different from grief. Softer and oilier. Kind of a perfect focus during this time of preparing for My Gift to move to her dorm. She was off visiting her Dad's family this weekend. When she got home last night we talked a bit about her upcoming move. She said she feels excited and scared and sad. I asked her why she feels sad. She said, "Because I won't wake up here and have breakfast with you." A very touching comment. I've worked long hours and did my second round of grad school as My Gift was growing up. We definitely did not have an All-American routine of family dinners. We did, however, always manage to sit for a few minutes and have breakfast. So I am touched that this is what she feels she will miss.

After all this mapping of the back's emotions, I've gotten to wondering about where my other emotions are. Quite honestly, the emotion that I feel most routinely and most easily, as if it isn't "stuck," as if it flows easily, energetically, throughout me, is joy. It's really easy for me to feel joy when I look at mountains or birds or people. It's a gift from my Dad, I think, who used to always get up early in the morning before work so he could have his breakfast and sit on the deck and look at the birds and squirrels. Contentment. He cultivated it quite diligently when I was growing up. And he still does.

I wonder what happens when the clotted places in my back loosen up and flow? Maybe I keep it all separate like this because I'm worried it might impinge on my contentment and joy. Not really sure. Very cool to have this opportunity to mess around with it, though. Even if it sounds crazy when I write it all out in words ;-)

Life is like a hamstring

2006-08-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

No, not really. I was thinking about the Forrest Gump "life is like a box of chocolates" line. The hippie music Volleyball Guy likes is actually from that movie's soundtrack.

This morning, life was like the chocolate that doesn't want to practice. Yup, the chocolate with the resistant mind in the middle ;-) It told me my knees were tired (kind of a new trick, you sneaky mind!) and my hamstrings were going to hurt again, just like yesterday.

I frittered away a little bit of time reading:

Yunyan asked Daowu: "How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes?"
Daowu said: "It's just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow."
Yunyan said: "I understand."
Daowu said: "How do you understand it?"
Yunyan said: "All over the body are hands and eyes."
Daowu said: "What you said is all right, but it's only eighty percent of it."
Yunyan said: "I'm like this, senior brother. How do you understand it?"
Daowu said: "Throughout the body are hands and eyes."

Sigh. You gotta love these guys.

So I found myself chanting the vande in my head, and went to my mat, figuring I ought to be standing on it by the time I finished. Practice was quite sweet right from the start, with, rather miraculously, no pain. How does that happen?! I was dying yesterday, and today everything felt lovely.

So lovely, in fact, that I not only paused before dandasana to put down my rug, I also put on the iPod so I could listen to Coldplay as I did seated. Just utterly delightful. Even the urdhva dhanurasanas.

Slowly, I am starting to understand the role my legs play in urdhva dhanurasana but I feel totally TWISTED from the weightlifting years. Actually, I guess I feel kind of "clotted" in spots--hamstrings/quads & shoulders/traps especially. Like the years of focus on those muscle groups kind of coagulated the energy into lumpy spots. Not as bad as it sounds, but when I see Crim Girl do backbends, her whole body/energy flows back and forth in a smooth arc.

I have these hunks of energy-sucking areas that I made with my mind and the weights. Black holes! ;-) I don't really regret it--it made climbing possible, and I suspect it's made learning Ashtanga a bit easier than it would have been otherwise.

I just need to smooth it all out--which ought to be a pleasant enough process. You know, provided my mind doesn't psych me out. I'm willing to ply it with Coldplay, though, as I reach back in the middle of the night, searching for a pillow. Whatever's necessary.

Dog Breath

2006-07-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

Mysore this morning was permeated with vague regrets about Saturday led. Which rocked. Among other things, there were eight urdhva dhanurasanas that actually made me feel like perhaps I am not sentenced to a lifetime of sucky backbends. Sunday, though, I was sentenced to screaming hip flexors, care of those urdhva Ds. Especially the left side. Kinda good, though, because tight hip flexors are really hampering the udhva D improvement project. So I welcome the growing pains.

So yeah, this morning I was a mess. Left hamstring pain, as usual, plus the screaming hip flexor. Oh, and a burning sensation in the right hamstring insertion. Joy.

I struggled through practice, feeling a good bit of pain. Interestingly, I also was in a really happy mood. No idea why. Just wanted to practice. Right around triang mukha eka pada paschimottansana, I suddenly thought about the dog. When I am sitting on the floor in the livingroom and she wants something (generally a biscuit or for me to open the back door), she'll come over and put her head on my shoulder, take a normal inhale, and then exhale in this little shuddering breath that has the teeniest moan threaded through it. It is delicately long-suffering and hysterically funny. I really want to learn how to do the dog breath, because it'd be perfect for when I'm having a painful practice. I gave it a couple of tries this morning, but I need to get her to teach me the subtleties. It cheers me up.

So yes, Saturday led was great. I got a really solid hand bind in supta K, and managed to get my feet together (usually they don't quite touch without my losing the hands). Baddha konasana is next on the tough pose to-do list, and it's going well. But between the supta k and the baddha k, I am feeling weirdly destabilized in the hips. Driving to work this morning, I thought of rubberband-jointed dolls. I'm not sure if Barbie was one, but there were Barbie-like clone dolls with articulated joints, and if you pulled the ball of the joint out of the socket, you could see that an internal rubberband held the whole thing together. Today my rubber bands feel pretty gnarly.

For some reason, though, I don't mind all of this. Maybe my mind, as well as my body, is realigning. Weird, huh? Sometimes you feel physically great but your mind gives you huge suffering about practice, and sometimes you feel bad physically but your mind is happy. Who knows? I wish I had a picture of the dog's big brown eyes--just to illustrate that remarkable combination of suffering and joy.

"Interesting"

2006-07-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

An "interesting" night's sleep. The back/hip thing has been coming more and more "clear"--in a somatic sense (versus a narrative sense). As per usual, I am experiencing these changes most clearly in the hypnagogic state. So last night was a light sleep, and I woke numerous times, in all different positions, and upon gaining a bit more consciousness, I could feel places where my back was misaligned, and knew how to move to readjust it. Bodywork while sleeping. I know it sounds crazy, but there you have it. I am inspired to write about this after sitting zazen this morning, then reading Linda's mention of the Seth material. Gosh, I read the Seth stuff decades ago, and still I love it. Yup, there's lots of stuff out there that sounds crazy, and I was brought up to disparage them just like everyone else ;-) So call me crazy.

Lots of stuff going on emotionally about My Gift moving away for college, too. Everyone in the extended family expects me to crack up about this. I guess that's considered "normal." My Mom really suffered a lot when my sister, my brother and I moved away. I was listening to a podcast by my favorite Thai forest monk this weekend, and he talked about how humans make this suffering, how birds let their young fly from the nest, etc. The upshot was that you don't own your children, that they aren't a reflection of you, or a chance for you to re-do your life in an alternate mode. Essentially, you get this human sent to you and you help them out and send them into the world. I am down with that. I adore My Gift, but I have never wanted to make those sticky emotional overattachments that mothers sometimes try to make (sorry, Mom).

Anyhow, I am processing this change as much as possible beforehand, and seem to be working some of it through in dreams. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the time I get to spend with her before she goes. Her thrill at being out in the world will (and should) far outweigh any desire I have to keep her close.

Meanwhile, practice is rocking. There is a newfound strength--something akin to what I used to feel when I was lifting weights and just totally in the zone. Where nutrition and activity and rest and love all come together nicely.

Yup, things always change. For this moment, though, they are quite sweet. And I feel really grateful.

Led, with crack

2006-07-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday led practice in the summer seems to be not such a popular place. I'm good with that! Got to the Starbucks of Yoga studio and signed in. Only The British Director's and Sanskrit Scholar's names were on the list. Often when I sign in there are a good 15-20 names. At first I figured it was the weather we've been having. I assume that an ambient temperature of 115 degrees makes a cramped practice room seem quite unappealing. Later, though, Crim Girl suggested that the low attendance might be due to folks taking vacation.

Whatever it was, it rocked. I practiced between Sanskrit Scholar and The British Director, in the space near the door (prized for its relative coolness). There were about 12-15 of us, all together. Returning Guy was there, as was Crim Girl, Chanting Man and The Cat. And best of all, Volleyball Guy propped the door open a bit with a sandbag. Heaven. Air and some space around my mat. What more could you ask for? Oh, I know: Crim Girl setting up her mat at the end of mine. Now I am totally surrounded by Mysorians. Score!

Practice goes nicely. A couple of new people, who kind of sit up and look around to figure out what everyone else is doing. With their heads popping up every now and then, they remind me of the meerkats My Gift and I watched on TV yesterday.

Everything rolls along nicely. I am at a point where practice just is, and it's interesting, because I can listen to what's going on with my body without using too much of my mind. Which means the details can kind of blur together. After practice, Crim Girl and I went out for lunch. I was telling her that somewhere in practice, my shoulder had popped dramatically, but I couldn't attach the details and remember what had happened. Very much like recounting a dream.

Suddenly, though, I remembered what it was. Supta kurmasana. I got the hand bind on my own, and then Volleyball Guy crossed my feet and pulled them up so my upper body could fall through the space. As I fell through, my shoulder made an enormous crack. A gee-I-think-I-just-broke-my-collarbone crack. I heard it and quite purposefully pushed my consciousness away from the sound and any thoughts I might have about the sound--I didn't want to decide if it hurt or not, or if I should be freaked out. LOL! So I forgot about it as soon as it happened.

I guess I'm getting to a point where I can let my subconscious do some work. I don't have to think about the sequence any more, and I kind of have a grasp on the practice as a whole. So I can let my id get in there and mess around with these somatic structures I've molded into my "self." Yup, and this paragraph represents a pretty good facsimile of my post-practice discussion with Crim Girl. Who will attend the zendo tomorrow morning. She went to the Philosophy Monk for Rolfing, and as everyone knows, Rolfing and long discussions about energy and the history of Western philosophy are a sure road to the zendo ;-)

After practice, Chanting Man and The Cat mentioned that they'd found my blog. Now that folks are finding out about it, I think someone else from the shala ought to do some blogging. To offer some alternative views of our community. Chanting Man mentioned our newest Mysorian, who I've been calling the new guy, and who I must name since he really does practice with us every day. We discussed how quiet this fellow is, how he comes in and does his practice, then leaves. On my drive home, it struck me that I will call him The Ninja. LOL! Cool name, huh? Now that the Mysorians are reading this blog, I'm sure they're going to want equally cool names. Perhaps we will do some revisions. The only person so far who has had a name change is Crim Girl, who started out as The Beautiful One. But with much effort, she managed to flaunt all the rules of Ashtanga and, indeed, general human society, and thereby forced a name change. So okay, we may revise some blog monikers. Perhaps I can make this as intricate and difficult to follow as the characters in a Russian novel ;-)

You never know

2006-07-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Really, you just never know what kind of practice you're going to have. Last night I slept terribly--kept waking with pain in my lower back, kept thrashing around trying to get comfortable. It all added up to 6 hours of crappy rest. So I figured practice, which has been kind of painful lately, was going to be quite a challenge.

As it turned out, though, practice was incredibly light and strong. We have a terrific shala; the energy is always really good, but on Fridays it is particularly happy. I ran into the British Director in the parking lot, which was nice, because I haven't seen her for a while. As I went through the door, I almost knocked The Cat over with my huge Manduka mat bag. True to feline form, she just looked up, smiled, and scampered away.

Returning Guy was already doing his Suryas--somehow he's always the first one to practice. The Cat's dad, Chanting Man, was present, as was the new guy, who I have to think up a name for, because he's been quite devoted to practice these past couple of months. Sanskrit Scholar, The Other Dave and Crim Girl all came in a little while later. Sanskrit Scholar's just back from Costa Rica, where she hoped to try surfing. I can't wait 'til before tomorrow's led class to ask her if she had a chance to give it a try.

Volleyball Guy came over for Prasarita C--which appears to be one of his favorite adjustments lately. The Prasaritas have been killing my hip, but not too bad this morning. When he came over for C, I didn't want to run away quite as much as I usually do. It was a great adjustment, too--my hands touched the floor on the third breath. Haha! A new record ;-) On the way up from the adjustment, I suddenly heard the loudest buzzing noise. Which was, I realized, all in my head. Trippy.

Crim Girl helped me out with adjustments in the Baddha Konasanas, which was great, because popping my sacrum seems to make it feel better for a day or so.

Best of all, we had hippie music, which always makes me love everyone and feel like I am 13 years old again. I was just ecstatic through all the seated poses. It's goofy as hell, but boy, it feels great. For some reason it brings back memories of hanging out and smoking pot in the woods. (Cop, disregard previous sentence.)

Speaking of The Cop, I wanted to take a moment to think about how cool he is. He bears with this craziness that leaves him with a wife who sometimes suffers long periods of self-inflicted pain. Many people (my entire extended family, for example) would tell me to knock it off, that practice must be bad if sometimes the result is pain. The Cop, however, is endlessly supportive. Which rocks, because it means things like putting up with me shifting around constantly during our viewing of "Pirates of the Caribbean" over the weekend. I just can't sit still for two hours. The movie? Eh. It was okay. Johnny Depp with eyeliner? Priceless.

Great!

2006-07-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was chiro/massage day. First, an hour long massage, concentrating on my shoulders and traps. Then an adjustment session with the chiro.

She asked, "How was yoga today?"

"Great!" I replied happily. (Volleyball Guy was back after a couple weeks of vacation; he adjusted me in Marichyasana D, which is quite unusual. Usually he stands back and lets me make my way through the pose, which is improving, but which as yet yields decidedly unaesthetic results. Yesterday, though, he moved in for a much-appreciated adjustment. Then he spotted me for between-Navasanas handstands, which were light and fluffy. Then an adjustment in Kurmasana, after which he stepped back and let me get the hand bind on my own before he helped out with my feet in Supta Kurmasana. Then an adjustment in Baddha Konasana. I was in heaven! So much help in the part of the practice I most want to concentrate on.)

"So," said the chiro, "No pain!"

"Huh?" I said. What in the world could she be talking about? During practice, my hamstrings and hip had hurt like hell.

"Great yoga. No pain," she said.

I laughed and told her why. She looked perplexed. I guess we have to clarify our criteria for a "great" practice ;-)

Lunch blog

2006-07-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

About pain, of course, but it's not what you think.

No whining.

For the past couple of days, the back/sacrum pain has kind of cracked open and become malleable. Energetically, or psychically. The intractable, everpresent lump of pain now has a more diffuse, more differentiated, quality. As if it has come alive, somehow, and become more accessible.

This may be, at least in part, due to the chiropractic adjustment. And it may be, in part, due to my discussions with Crim Girl about energetic sensibilities and sensitivities.

Anyhow, the pain has gained a kind of coherence, which somehow makes it more accessible to my conscious mind. And to my imagination. And that somehow makes it more possible to resolve. I'm not sure how the mind/body interface works--all I can say is that it is somehow manifesting. One morning this weekend I woke with a lot more pain, and the next, I woke with absolutely none. Now it is oscillating. In the midst of all this, I've had so many dreams, all kinds of memories from the past, and little glimpses into the future. Then the pain resolved into this intense energy--almost like that "restless leg" thing that can happen--in my lower back. "Oh, so this is what people mean by blocked energy," I thought. Energy that can, potentially, be unblocked and manifested as mobility, flexibility, possibility.

It's scary, and it's hard to conceptualize, but it's real.

I had the thought this weekend, "I should learn to do bodywork," meaning bodywork for other people (this after a discussion with Crim Girl about cranio-sacral work). I had to kind of laugh as I realized that, as yogis, we are all bodyworkers. It can be hard to trust oneself, though. That's what makes the adventure.

What if I undo these structures I've created subconsciously? What will be left? Will "I" unravel? Am I undoing nature? What authority do I have? What training?

Yup, a challenging adventure.

And all of this reminded me of an excerpt from Richard Freeman's article "Fundamentalism and the Middle Path":

Freedom in yoga is not a single experience or a belief, or even the giving up of a belief: it is the ability to enter and to release theories and experiences to find direct experience of the living process. This freedom of the awareness appears as a Middle Path between our mental processes of mapping out reality and then leaving those maps. This Middle Path is hard to define, subtly serpentine, and it is where yoga systems meet their perfection. It frees us from politics without making us apolitical. It frees us from religion without making us irreligious. It frees us from thought without making us thoughtless. It has been called love, but it’s not what you think. For the present moment, we should keep on looking, avoiding jumping to conclusions.

Crackin'

2006-07-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

The short version, since I am at work (bad lady!):

Left hip killing over past couple/few weeks. Finally broke down and did a massage/chiropractor combo. Unbelievably good massage--the kind that makes you want to cry and laugh at the same time. Chiro cracked my neck (mmmmmm, good!) and adjusted my hips. I left feeling relaxed and vaguely headachey from having my neck adjusted for the first time in at least a couple of years.

This morning: now I'm sore on both sides of my hips! Practice regardless. Turns into a very sweet, deep practice. The biggest change (result of adjustment/massage? who knows...) is a really clear and intense uddiyana bandha. And a sense that said uddiyana bandha, applied more diligently in the future, will help stabilize/heal the hip situation. True? Who knows. Even a placebo effect will be acceptable, though. For some reason, I kept thinking mula bandha was what I needed to focus on, but that idea went out the window this morning. Uddiyana! That's the ticket! If I remember correctly, someone on ezBoard said you automatically get mula bandha when you apply uddiyana bandha, but not vice versa. Am I remembering that, or did I dream it?

Got to supta k and felt remarkably clear and confident: set up the right arm, then calmly reached with my left, and sure enough, the bind was achieved in one breath. It's weird how sometimes it's a huge struggle, and other times, it all seems so easy. Did the adjustment/massage make this possible? And if so, is it physiological? Psychological? Doesn't matter, I suppose. Ultimately it's just the practice, doin' its thing.

Exorcism

2006-06-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

The visit to My Gift's soon-to-be new home went really well. "Well" in the sense that she is happy and excited and that the kids at the college seem just terrific. My Gift, having spent four years in high school in Scottsdale, happily reported to me that she did not see a single Coach purse or Louis Vuitton accessory during the entire orientation period. Yup, it's a hippie school. My Gift will have such fun.

That being said, it is not all fun for me. Obviously there is sadness in the realization that My Gift will no longer live with me. Yes, I will be happy for her to go off on her independent life, and yes, yoga will help me process this change. But it'd be much easier if yoga would process it FOR me, and I didn't have to think about it/feel it. Do they make that kind of yoga?

First night, My Gift and I stayed at a hotel in town. A small place--functional but not particularly roomy. And carpeted. No readily available source of coffee. Which meant practice did not involve my waking up and having coffee and reading. Nope, it was wake up, leave off the lights so as not to disturb My Gift, step onto the mat, try not to breathe too loudly--and...ow! Yeah, so apparently the 45 minutes I spend reading and drinking coffee before practice actually has a small, but significant, warm-up effect. I'm a homebody introvert, so new (dark) environment, new schedule, My Gift leaving me forever, no coffee--it all added up to one crappy practice. It would appear that I am unable to bend at the waist without a little caffeine.

Oh, I soldiered through, but just the standing poses. Then I cut my loses.

Day two involved spending the night at one of the dorms. I was on the second floor, My Gift was on the seventh. Why don't they put grates over the windows? How will My Gift get enough rest when it is so loud around here? What if she feels sick? Who will look after her? Yeah, that's a pretty good approximation of my night. Plus the beds are these things that you can stack into bunk beds, and I was on one that was about five feet off the floor. And about half as wide as a single bed. After I worried about My Gift, I thought about how I might fall out of the bed. After I moved the mattress to the floor, I worried about fires in high-rise buildings. Might as well spend some time worrying about The Cop's job. I haven't done that for a while. Hey, what if I oversleep and don't practice tomorrow? What if My Gift is falling out of a window right now? Ah, what a lovely night.

I woke right at 4:30 and did another practice through standing, then called it quits. Who was I kidding? The dampness in the air was killing my hamstrings and my mind was pretty much berserk. Honestly, I think the practice really helped, at least as much as possible under the circumstances.

Needless to say, I was thrilled to get to Mysore this morning. Volleyball Guy, with his usual, rather uncanny ESP abilities, snagged me for two early (and very intense) adjustments: trikonasana and parivritta trikonasana. I know, those are so simple and who adjusts in them, right? Well, he was dead on: for some reason, the hip/hamstring thing I have has been at its absolute worst in those two poses. Like, killer pain.

So, like I said, Volleyball Guy adjusted me in trikonasana. "Exorcist" adjustments, where your body is turned backwards from normal human. It hurt like a mother, and then it felt great. And as he was walking away, apparently he intuited that the only thing hurting worse than trikonasana these days is parivritta trikonasana. Yeah, hurts worse as in exponentially worse. So he came back in for another super-adjustment. There is something really special about the amount of pain your teacher can inflict on you, and how good that can make you feel. Yes, I know that sounds like masochism. And perhaps it is. The rest of practice absolutely rocked, though. It was like he wrung the pain out of me in one fell swoop. Even the My Gift pain felt better.

Best things ever

2006-06-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well, right now the best thing ever is "Matcha Green Tea Mist" from Jamba Juice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm not a huge smoothie fan, but this stuff rocks. I just googled matcha tea, and it's a powdered green tea--the same stuff used for tea ceremonies. Yes, tea ceremony. The beautiful, centuries old art. The exquisite zen practice. Or you can mix the powdered tea with soymilk and dairy base (whatever that is) in loud blenders in a brightly painted Jamba Juice establishment with blaring background music and pour it into styrofoam cups and call it Matcha Green Tea Mist. Same same. Artful and chock full of cultural significance :-)

What also rocks is doing a little afternoon errand-running with My Gift. Oil change for her car, and then a look through the Victoria's Secret super-sale. Where I found great cotton capris for $9.99. Is it wrong that I find yogawear in Victoria's Secret? And then a turn through Barnes and Noble, where I found a book called "Getting Stoned with Savages." I love travel adventure books like this! And My Gift got "Kafka on the Shore," by Haruki Murakami, who is my very favorite contemporary writer. It's so cool that My Gift is old enough to read and enjoy the same books that I love. We can share clothes and books.

Okay, last "best thing" for today: led practice this morning. Great to hang out and chat with everyone. And the class was less full--apparently other people were as put off by the heat and the crowd as I've been. I went back today, though, and thank goodness, we were a reasonably sized group. I got to practice near the door (ah, cool air!), between Sanskrit Scholar and Returning Guy. The British Director was there, and Crim Girl. Who had chai with her again. Apparently she has such an amusing life these days that she needs extra hydration and perhaps a little caffeine to keep her awake after all the late nights ;-)

Most fun pose of the day: garbha pindasana. I don't bother trying to push my arms through in Mysore or self-practice, because I am not usually sweaty enough, and I'm too lazy to keep track of a spray bottle. Led class, though, is the perfect opportunity to try out the pose. At this point, there's no problem getting my arms all the way through and my chin in my hands. The rolling part is a little lame (my control isn't great), but good enough, and the roll up into kukkutasana is a-okay. Fun to do--in part because I don't do the full pose on a day to day basis.

Tomorrow, a day off. My Gift and I travel together to her college orientation in the evening. Monday and Tuesday, we'll be in Flagstaff. Should be fun. My Gift's a pleasure to spend time with. Another "best thing ever"!

Friday

2006-06-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

First thing as I go into practice, Volleyball Guy silently hands me an index card. On it, info about how Mysore practice will not be happening from July 3-11. We'll be back at it on the 12th.

What? No practice?! My mind was all busy trying to process this information as I unrolled my mat. No practice?! LOL! My mind is very used to Mysore practice at the studio on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. This new information was quite disconcerting. I had to figure out what the current date was, think about the fact that I'll miss a practice next Monday because I'm going with My Gift up to Flagstaff for her incoming freshman orientation. So when does the no-Mysore thing begin? What day does it end? Ah, such a busy mind! :-)

Of course, as soon as I started the suryas, things kind of relaxed. Geez, it's not like I'm gonna die without Mysore practice. I practice at home, no problem. Blah blah blah. I'm a creature of habit, I guess.

Practice was good, though the left hip/hamstring was pretty painful. I think, though, that I am just getting used to it. I expect it, and there it is. The only time it really messes with me is in upavishta konasana, when the crinky place makes me not able to get all the way down on one exhale. I have to kind of slowly work my way to the floor. All the other forward bends hurt, but in a way that I can just move through. Not so much the upavishta k.

Bhujapidasana has a new twist lately: I can descend slowly enough that I'm willing to attempt landing on something other than the top of my head. Apparently, though, my good intentions for extending my chin are a bit overly ambitious: I can land on my forehead gently, but I can't figure out how I would extend my neck the right way to actually get my chin out enough to land on it. Fine. I can wait for this to sort itself out. It wasn't very long ago that I was using a towel to try to cushion the blow to my head as I flipped over, so at this point, I can't complain.

What I also couldn't complain about was the music this morning. Usually Volleyball Guy plays chants at a low volume as we practice. Lots of Krishna Das, that sort of thing. On Fridays, though, at around 7 AM, he likes to put on some oldies, generally of the Motown variety, at a slightly higher volume. It's great fun: everyone in the shala gets very happy and it's just a cool Friday thing to do. Today, though, he started early, and he had some great songs: "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)," "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)," "Aquarius ," "Everybody's Talkin'," "Joy to the World," "Stoned Love," "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head." Blast from the past! Everyone was very cheerful and seemed to enjoy the change.

I think I may try Saturday led tomorrow. Word is, the class has been less packed. I'd like to check in with the posse. Friday is music day, but Saturday is hang-out-afterwards-and-talk-to-each-other day. Don't want to miss that.

Sad day

2006-06-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

It was a sad day for The Cop. He got home from work after 3AM and fell into bed asking me to please wake him at 7AM. Why? To watch the World Cup. When I left for work, the US was down 2-1. And that turned out to be the final score. Sigh. Sorry, Cop.

This morning I slept in. No kidding. 'Til 6:30. I just felt run down last night, so I figured I'd get some sleep. The Cop grilled me when he got up. Kept asking me if I was okay. When I asked why, he said, "Something's up, if you didn't practice." LOL! Nah, I just had a moment of non-obsessiveness, where I could look at my situation and realize the best thing to do was to get some sleep. Geez, that doesn't sound like me!! ;-) I enjoyed it, knowing I won't suffer too many moments of such clarity.

So my one year anniversary of Ashtanga practice is quickly approaching. In just a couple of weeks. I'm pleased with where I'm at. It's tempting to think in terms of poses, but the real good news here is that I love practicing and love how I feel re-aligned (even though parts of the process are still kinda painful) and Ashtanga is a terrific practice that makes my life so much fuller and more calm than I ever could have imagined. It makes me grateful and mindful and content.

I imagined, when I started out, that I'd have a pretty good grasp on primary by the end of a year. And I feel like that's played out pretty much as I'd figured. I was thinking about Marichy D the other day, and I suppose that pose has been the real challenge, along with Supta K. The thing that's kind of interesting is that Volleyball Guy has always left me to wrestle with Marichy D on my own. Psychologically, it's like untangling a ball of string: a long process with much potential for frustration. Supta K, on the other hand, is just simply more about physical opening and the subsequent physical ability. Once my hips open more, the pose will be easier. Oh, and there's a little fear about having my leg behind my head and my head falling off. That theory will be easy enough to disprove, though. Eventually.

Anyhow, Marichy D has taught me most about patience and persistence. Actually, it's taught me about my own impatience and greed. Seriously. I look back and think: gosh, a year goes by so quickly, and then I realize that I was frustrated with Marichy D after just a few days and weeks. Silly.

At this point, I can always bind my fingers, but the resulting pose is pretty ugly and squished. So these days, I'm grabbing my fingers and then moving on (even to the point of letting go of the bind) to work for a longer spine and more general extension. Why do I have to grab my fingers first? Ego. Ego. Ego. Ego. Okay, fine. I suppose the practice has brought me to a point where I can see that I have ego issues and then I can go on to actually look for the grace in the pose. Dorky, I know, to hang on to the ego. But there you have it. I can't transcend myself in one fell swoop.

You know, though, it rocks. I'm sure Volleyball Guy knows why I do my weird ugly pose with a bind and then move on to the more graceful version. I'm sure Sanskrit Scholar and Crim Girl would know why, too, if they were watching. And I like being accepted as the ego-driven obsessive person that I am. 'Cause all of us are looking for the same thing. Freedom. It's pretty sweet.

State of the state

2006-06-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Yay, my parents are back in their own state: Florida. Golf courses. Ocean. Hurricanes. And I am in my state: Arizona. Mysore practice. Quiet time with The Cop and My Gift. Sigh. Life is good again.

Practice was busy this morning. More and more, the new faces are becoming regulars. Add in the diehards, and we have a considerable shala.

Today I had my usual left hip/hamstring glitch, with the added entertainment of some twinges in my shoulder. Left over from a rotator cuff tear a couple of years ago. I know there is some stiffness and probably adhesions in there, and it's scary to try to work through it. Is the ache a result of my loosening scars of an old injury (essentially "digesting" and being done with the injury) or am I just hurting myself all over again? Ah, so many questions that will only come clear with time ;-)

What I can definitely count on these days, though, are my Mysore adjustments. Which pretty much inevitably include: a spot on handstands between navasanas and adjustments in supta kurmasana and baddha konasana. At this point I am madly in love with baddha konasana, probably because it is such a difficult pose for me, and each time I touch my head to the ground, it is just thrilling. Also, the adjustment is scary, which introduces a nice sense of adventure and surrender. And the cracking sound is fascinating. I guess because I am surprised I can hear it and not feel freaked out.

Supta kurmasana is the other challenge at this point, but I am not as invested in it as I am in baddha konasana. Mostly, I think, because the kinesthetics of supta k are kind of unfathomable, and the pose is only going to come clear with time and practice. I'm not going to be able to figure it out in my head. The idea of supta kurmasana being yoga nidrasana upside down is interesting to me, and I can't help but think that yoga nidrasana seems like it'd be easier to pull off than supta kurmasana. LOL! No doubt this is one of those cases where something seems so obvious in my head, and then when I try it, I am astounded by the depth of my cluelessness. Kinda like when I read Richard Freeman's explanation of Marichy C when I was learning the pose, and thought "Oh, gee, now that he's explained it like that, surely I can do the pose." Yeah, that was a disappointing morning ;-)

Okay, back at work, back to practice, back to normal everyday life. Nice.

On and off the mat

2006-06-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

Practice with Sharath's CD this morning. I am progressively more stressed with the family visiting, and found myself waiting for Sharath to catch up to me during practice. Gosh, how stressed do you have to be to go faster than Sharath?!

I was actually going to go to Saturday led today, just to get a break from my parents, but my Dad is going to meet with a realtor and I need to give him a ride to the other side of the valley for the appointment. Hence the home practice.

Haha! Practice totally felt like a refuge this morning. I was so happy to hear Sharath's voice and just start the familiar postures. I've been working on jump-throughs lately, and they're coming along nicely (hovering with straight legs just before sitting). Jumpbacks are a work in progress--I still have to push off a bit with my feet, but eventually they'll get squared away.

It's been interesting, these past few days. I've been feeling irritable, which is something I don't often experience. It's rather uncomfortable, and quite tiring. My mom has a childish quality that really bothers me. And she loves to make judgments: everything in the world is good or bad--people, places, objects, events. Yikes! It's exhausting! I feel bad about the fact that I feel so irritated, but I can't seem to get past it. I suppose it just is what it is.

I think it bothers me from a feminist perspective: she expects my dad to take care of her, and she also expects to always get her way and have lots of attention. Sigh. I'm gonna have to simply give myself points for being mindful, experiencing this, and not reacting to it overtly (i.e., not acting outwardly irritated). Sort of like a practice that kind of sucks, but at least you got on the mat.

Happy Bloomsday!

2006-06-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

In the full practice the practitioner must bring to the engagement the three necessities of the Great Root of Faith, the Great Ball of Doubt, and the Great Overpowering Will...
At first, one's efforts and attentions are focused on the [posture]. When it cannot be solved (one soon learns that there is no simple "right answer"), doubt sets in. Ordinary doubt is directed at some external object such as the [posture] itself or the teacher, but when it has been directed back to oneself, it is transformed into Great Doubt. To carry on relentlessly this act of self-doubt, one needs the Great Root of Faith. Ordinarily, faith and doubt are related to one another in inverse proportion: where faith is strong, doubt is weak; and vice versa. But in [asana] practice, the greater the doubt, the greater the faith. Great Faith and Great Doubt are two aspects of the same mind of awakening. The Great Overpowering Will is needed to surmount all obstacles along the way. Since doubt is focused on oneself, no matter how strong, wily, and resourceful one is in facing the opponent, that opponent (oneself) is always just as strong, wily, and resourceful in resisting. When self-doubt has grown to the point that one is totally consumed by it, the usual operations of the mind cease. The mind of total self-doubt no longer classifies intellectually, no longer arises in anger or sorrow, no longer exerts itself as will and ego.
--Sitting with Koans, John Daido Loori

I substituted some yoga terms for the original zen terms in this text, because I was struck with how much this teaching relates to asana practice: [posture] was substituted for the term koan; [asana] was substituted for the word zen.

How amusing is this: Doubt is directed at some external object such as the [posture] itself or the teacher. Or the system, I guess ;-)

And how cool is this: The greater the doubt, the greater the faith. Great Faith and Great Doubt are two aspects of the same mind of awakening.

We assume self-doubt to be a negative state, but that's not how it's meant in this text. It is considered an essential feature of spiritual inquiry--and implies not the usual pity-party of "I doubt myself/I feel bad about myself/I will never get this posture," but, rather a state of...I guess I'll call it disorientation, or openness, that is so profound that all notions of a stable self, or a stable universe, or a stable reality pretty much go out the window. Only to open up a whole world of possibility.

Mysore practice this morning. A huge, delightful crack as I was being adjusted in baddha konasana. I wonder how long it takes, as a teacher, not to kind of jump back when students are cracking under your adjustment. Volleyball Guy didn't flinch. He left all the doubt for me ;-)

All In The Family

2006-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

Long time, no blog. My parents are visiting. Tiffany, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but it never gets better. LOL! Just kidding (kind of ;-)

There are so many bloggers now, that I can just read read read pretty much all day. No need to add anything more. Everyone's got it covered.

Plus I wonder if I'm overanalyzing. If the blogging doesn't exacerbate that tendency. Whether that's helpful right now.

Practice this morning was good. Home practice. Half, just to navasana. My dad walked past and kind of gave me a bemused look. I was using the iPod (onto which I ripped Sharath's CD), so I could stay focused, and so when my folks peered in at me in the yoga room, they'd see I was busy, that I was listening to something--that my inattentiveness wasn't anything personal. No insult intended.

Jeez, and what a project, attention-wise. I am NOT used to practicing with people puttering in the kitchen, making noise, making me nervous that they're going to wake The Cop--who got home from work at 4 AM, just a scant half hour before I rolled out of bed.

I wanted them to be interested in my practice, and I wanted them to leave me alone. Haha! How are they going to be able to figure out when I want them to be interested and when I want them to leave me alone?

Okay, so practice today was at home, was fine, was distracted, was just a good thing to manage to pull off with vistors setting off the fire alarm while making toast. I love them.

Yesterday was Mysore, and Volleyball Guy easily guided my hands to the floor in prasarita C. My hamstrings are glitchy but not unbearably so. In Gregor Maehle's book, he says to point the toes in forward bends. I've always flexed my feet. Pointed, the quads are automatically engaged, and I don't have to try to remember to pull up my knees. Much easier, and it seems to be helping my hamstrings recover. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this little change will make a big difference.

Tomorrow is Mysore again. The family (my sister arrived today) is making fun of me for getting up at 4:30 AM every day. They don't understand why anyone would do such a thing. They wonder if it's a cult. Or an addiction. Uh oh, I suppose I'm gonna have to come clean and admit that it is both.

Just don't know

2006-06-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

Was it wise to lift my heels off the floor in kurmasana yesterday? Dunno.

Home practice is sweet because you can hear your breath so clearly. A little less sweet because you can hear your resistances so clearly. So it turns into an oblique argument between the breath and the resistances. All of which seem to call into question one's ability to mediate. The argument just begs for the ego to take sides. I get caught up in it (this feels good, this feels bad, I wonder if this is making my hamstring better, I wonder if this is making my hip worse), try to figure it out, recognize I'm fluttering around in my brain, put it down. Over and over and over. Sigh. Busy practice.

In about a month, it'll be one year of Ashtanga practice. As I lay on my mat, I made a little pact with myself: I will review next month, at the one year mark. Then I will do an annual review a year later. In the meantime, I'm going to just try to keep putting any discursive thought, any discriminating thought, down.

My mind is very pushy. It can't believe my body knows what it's doing. A very unruly team ;-)

Speaking of teams, we have our quarterly planning meeting today at work. Will it be sweet or will it hurt? Just don't know.

A monk asked National Teacher Chu of Nanyo, "What is the original body of the Cosmic Buddha?" The National Teacher replied, "Go and fetch me the washbasin." The monk brought the washbasin to him. The National Teacher said, "Now, go put it back." The monk asked again, "What is the original body of the Cosmic Buddha?" The National Teacher remarked, "The old Buddha is long gone."

Circus time

2006-06-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

This morning was kind of a circus. Morning Mysore circus. New people, doing all kinds of different things. LOL! It's like having crazed soccer fans attend the symphony. Soccer fans rock; symphony rocks--but put 'em both together and you get a circus. Perhaps, though, I am simply overly attached to shala protocol.

Anyhow, lots of yoga improv going on this morning. I wondered if Volleyball Guy was looking around and feeling like a ringmaster. One guy, who I will refer to as Cute Nerd (let the record show: Crim Girl bestowed the name) was doing something that may or may not have been an esoteric pranayama practice. I have pretty much zero knowledge about pranayama, so I can't even guess what he was up to, but it was really loud and relentlessly intermittent. Toward the end of practice, I looked up at Crim Girl, who was next to him, and she made a face. I had a vision of us in a giggling fit, with Volleyball Guy sending us to the principal's office.

When I wasn't wondering what was going on around me, practice was pretty good. Left hamstring, um...okay, I guess. Functional, if somewhat shaky. I am finding it remarkably difficult to always remember to keep the quad engaged. It would seem that I have lazy, or at least forgetful, quads. I did, though, remember to point my toes and engage my quads for kurmasana, and lifted my heels off the floor quite easily for the first time in at least two months. Thanks for the tip, Gregor Maehle! Sanskrit Scholar helped me out in supta kurmasana (I haven't been able to grab my fingers for a couple of weeks now, after a few lucky successes). She helped me with my hands, then grabbed my feet and started showing me how to get my legs up over my head. Of course, my hands gave out at that point. But not before I got today's lesson: there is still a lot of painful shoulder "opening" to be had in supta kurmasana. Oh goodie! I can kind of laugh about it now, but it's hard first thing in the morning to be open to supta kurmOWsana. Sigh. Just part of the practice.

There's a terrific Guruji story on Matrika's blog today. Well worth checking out. Especially for us old people with few children ;-)

Food

2006-06-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Lots of food stuff going on. Ashtangis starting food blogs, Susan sending me info about vegan sites when I mentioned My Gift is trying veganism to see if it reduces the effects of lupus (results after one week: yes, she is feeling much better), Yoga Chickie posting about a significant, yoga-altering dinner ;-)

My food story is that yesterday I took the day off from led practice, but met up with Crim Girl and Returning Guy at a nearby restaurant afterwards. Returning Guy had to run off to a massage appointment (poor guy!) so just stopped in for a few minutes. After he left, Crim Girl and I settled in for a three hour lunch. After practicing Mysore with someone for months and months and never really talking for more than a few minutes at a time (who's really up for a conversation at 5:30 AM?), it was great fun to just sit there and talk and talk and talk. I love that the Mysorians all want to spend more time hanging out and socializing. There's even been discussion of DVD viewing get-togethers, where we can have a drink and watch Ashtanga DVDs. LOL! Really, it's the height of yoga nerdiness, but I think it's a riot.

The other food story for today revolves around the dog (aka Old Monkey). Every Sunday morning, I give her a bone from the butcher and she lies out in the grass and eats it. I guess they must be cow bones; they're cut into big chunks and frozen in a bag. This morning, I gave her a bone, she trotted outside with it, and I went to make some toast. By the time breakfast was ready, she was back in the house, begging me for some.

It's hot out (110 yesterday; possibly warmer today) so I figured she'd gotten hot out there and decided to abandon her treat for a little while (it's not allowed in the house) and take a break indoors. As I'm websurfing and eating my toast, I start hearing the weirdest, loudest squeaking and squealing noises. What the heck is that?! Sure enough, it's Old Monkey's stomach. Apparently she has managed to swallow the frozen bone pretty much whole. She's out back now, eating grass. For some reason, she was also inspired to try eating some of the flowers out there, which suggests that an unchewed melting hunk of bone and marrow is a most uncomfortable meal: she's the most obedient gal in the world, and she knows the flowers are off limits. If she's eating them, she's feeling pretty funky.

Myself, I've been eating more, and less carefully, for the past few days. I tend to get overly-enthusiastic about things (Gee, it's easier to practice if I haven't eaten much the day before. Perhaps I can just skip eating entirely!), so it was time to come back down to earth a bit. The middle way: I have to try to keep it in mind. Crim Girl and I were discussing this a bit yesterday: yoga helps me gain insight into my behaviors (obsessiveness being one of them). But the more clear my behaviors become, and the more I let go of them, the more I can see how deeply they (karma) run!

Oh well. I suppose I must get on to the habit of house cleaning. I will strive not to be too obsessive about it ;-)

Recuperative Power of Lasagna

2006-06-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

From the first breath, practice felt terrific. Why?

Maybe I was more centered after yesterday's mindful home practice.
Maybe the extensive email discussion I've been having with Crim Girl helped:

It's good to cultivate just being in the moment, and not thinking about how that particular moment relates to any other moment, like for example the last time you were in the same pose. (!)
--Crim Girl

Maybe it was the lasagna The Cop made for dinner last night (he really believes that's the answer ;-)
Maybe it was the doubt, finally just accepted for what it is.
Maybe some of the alignment tips from Maehle's book.

Maybe. My number one choice, though, is Volleyball Guy's suggestion of more water and some salt. Yes, that's my final answer: Gatorade and potato chips. No matter what, though, it sure was sweet. I haven't been so free of pain for weeks.

As I was doing surya As, a new gal came in and Volleyball Guy gestured for her to put her mat down next to mine. She jumped right into the suryas. I was finishing up on my fifth and she just seemed to join right in, doing that last A with me and then following into the Bs. Uh oh, I thought, she's following my lead... Aw, I'm all connected here and mindful; don't make me self-conscious!

Okay, I put it down. Just carried on. Enjoyed feeling light and strong and pain-free. A few times she lagged a bit--getting binds, etc., and at first I wondered if I should just (haha, I hate to admit this) speed up and lose her, or whether I should pay attention to her and make sure I adjusted so she could keep up and get five proper breaths in each pose, etc. In the end, I just kind of winged it. If she was taking a while, I grabbed an extra breath or two, but it was pretty transparent in my mind.

So along we went. Through the series, through backbends, through closing. Savasana. As I got up to roll up my mat, she sat up and did a little namaste bow with the sweetest smile.

My Gift is sleeping in. Last few days of school and they're not doing much, so I told her to go in late. The Cop was just getting home when I got in from practice. He's off to bed, along with the dog. Last night, as he was getting ready to go to work, I heard him laughing. The dog sometimes falls asleep on her face, and her jowls are all crooked when she wakes up. I grabbed the camera and managed to get this:

Compassion & Doubt

2006-06-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

The coalescence of all the meditator's thoughts and actions into... doubt... produces the power (here, almost the courage) necessary to abandon himself seemingly to ultimate disaster: his own personal destruction. When the student's consummate dynamism carries him beyond the point where he can cope with the pressure created by the doubt, the doubt explodes, annihilating the student's identification with body and mind. While ordinary language may be unable to describe this achievement, it is an experience that is readily available to all; Ta-hui compares it to 'a man drinking water: he himself knows whether it is cold or warm.'

--Essentials of Ch'an, Kao-feng Yuan-miao

Mmmmm. Water. Volleyball Guy suggested I needed more of it when I mentioned my killing hamstrings. How apropos. And I myself know whether it is cold or warm.

Yup, I've got the doubt. Freaked me out at first, and will probably again--but for now, it is just there. Doing its work like a koan.

The Cop shares the doubt, but from an external perspective. He wonders what I'm doing to myself, what the practice is doing to me. If it's going to hurt me. He has great restraint, though, and will not interfere. He'll go along for the ride. Watchfully. I appreciate that. It's turnabout, though--because I stand by for his dangerous job, and for his martial arts practice. We promised at the wedding to help each other find enlightenment, so here are our opportunities.

Home practice this morning. I actually brought Gregor Maehle's book to the mat, did standing, then went back and reviewed each pose against his descriptions. Standing is killing me these days--sitting is just fine. I spent a good bit of time with parivritta trikonasana and parivritta parsvakonasana. The second side on both of those are a hip/hamstring nightmare. Got some great perspective from the book on hip alignment. And I spent time with parsvottansana, which has been a particular bane. Good suggestions about redistributing my weight more evenly.

Also, plenty of reminders to make sure I engage the antagonist muscles (I tend to just stretch and forget about the need to engage the opposing muscles) and to be more sensitive to my feet and hips. I fall into "habit" mode, I think, and overlook the mindful set-up of the poses. Easy enough to do, I suppose, as a beginner. I get caught up in the breath and overlook the need for structural integrity.

A nice morning of practicing what's been hurting, of trying to work it out. Then zazen with the sun on my back.

Hurtie time

2006-05-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

I guess everyone goes through times where practice pretty much just hurts. My hamstrings are both complaining, though the left one is the real problem child. There's something in my lower back that's kind of nagging, too. All of this enough of an issue that I asked Volleyball Guy about how to proceed (after he squashed me in baddha konasana until my chin touched my toes for the first time. I'm not a natural baddha konasian--so this was rather a milestone). He told me to keep on practicing. "Should I keep trying to push into each pose, to try to push through this?" No, he said. Back off just a hair and pay attention.

The key'll likely be more attention in home practice. My home practice has been slovenly at best, lately. Must re-focus and bring some sensitivity to it, try to hear what's going on with all of these crinks and aches. I really do believe that it's alignment stuff happening--the proper alignment promised by yoga chikitsa, but still it's a challenge not to feel overwhelmed or hopeless or scared that I'm going to really damage myself somehow. I guess these are my physical and mental granthis.

On the up side: got Gregor Maehle's book yesterday. What a tome! Super-detailed physical information. Just what I wanted.

Practice has its inception in doubt, is enhanced through dynamism and the application of effort, and develops into faith only as those preceding factors mature.
--Sitting with Koans, John Daido Loori

Just Say No...

2006-05-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

...to Saturday led class. Last week was 34 people in a teeny room. I just can't do it again! (said in dramatic voice). I had a good week with my less strenuous schedule. Instead of a week of getting up 5 mornings in a row at 4:30AM, capped by a Saturday led class that knocks me out for the rest of the day, I did early Mysore on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, an evening led on Thursday, and I will practice here on my own today. Likely, I will do a little something tomorrow, too. Not Ashtanga, I think, but something different--just for fun.

I am actually a little giddy at the expanse of Saturday lying before me. The Cop kindly gifted me with a rake (which I'd been asking for), and I can try it out in the back yard. He uses a blower to deal with leaves, etc., but I wanted an old-fashioned rake. I am thrilled at the prospect of having excess energy and a yard to use it on: there are rose bushes to trim, hibiscus to prune, palm trees and oleander to water, and all sorts of things to rake. Then I can clean the pool and jump in.

On the My Gift front, we have some relief in the tiredness she's been feeling. I read some interesting info on vegan diets for lupus, and she's giving that a go. Feeling very sorry for herself at times, particularly when she's with friends who are having fast food. But she'll be fine. She's off to a hippy kind of college in the fall, and her diet and Buddhist beliefs and yoga ways will suddenly stop being strange for Scottsdale and become totally normal for Flagstaff.

Happy Saturday!

2 extra hours!

2006-05-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

I got up at 6:30 this morning and it totally rocked. The Cop shared the same pot of coffee as me, which is almost unheard of. My 4:30 coffee is generally a lonely affair ;-)

I sat on the couch and said, "Waking up at 6:30 is very different from waking up at 4:30." He looked at me with a compassionate expression that seemed to indicate "Duh!" Anyhow, after my oblique little blog-discussion-via-comments with Jody yesterday, I realized that it might be wise to see if less than 6 days a week of practice makes me more attuned to normal human life.

The Cop seems to vote yes. I appreciate his willingness to let me explore these ideas on my own. Honestly, if I told him I wanted to practice three times a day, seven days a week, I think he would express concern for my health, but then buckle down and help me do it, if I were bound and determined. I love him for that. I fear for my general well-being (shouldn't someone try to stop me?!?!) but I love his willingness to be supportive.

So with an excess of energy, I went to work. Lunch was a pizza bribe to the guys in IT so that my team could sit down with them and discuss technology in general, and podcasts in specific. I think some podcasts on our website (we're an educational organization) are a great idea. And since I brought the pizzas, how could they be upset when I mentioned that I might have downloaded an open source code audio editor on one of our workstations so we could do some experimenting with audio files?

Anyhow, lunch was lots of fun and I learned that though they have the capacity to spy on us (and rat me out for occasional blog entries during working hours ;-) they don't. This is refreshing to hear: the last company I worked for was a network analysis company with a bad attitude and a penchant for spying on everyone.

The day off worked out marvelously. I am eager to get to practice tomorrow morning, and not nearly as wiped out as I generally feel at 4 in the afternoon. I'm not even sporting my late afternoon headache. I have no idea how this experiment with my schedule is going to work out, but the current plan is to do Monday/Wednesday/Friday Mysore, and Tuesday/Thursday evening led. The heck with Saturday led: it's too hot and it knocks me out for the whole day. We'll try the new 5 day a week schedule for a bit and see what happens. No matter what, it's always fun to try something new.

Adjusting

2006-05-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Volleyball Guy's adjustment workshop. Okay, so if I'd thought about it for even a minute, it probably would have occurred to me that non-Ashtangis would attend. And that they would ask to learn adjustments for non-Ashtanga poses. And they would be people I do not know or practice with.

Ah, my limited view! I go around thinking Scottsdale's yoga folk are the people I practice with each morning at Mysore class. And maybe the Saturday led folks. As it turns out, there are a lot of other yogis out there, and they don't do Ashtanga. How narrow is my view? Okay, so we did adjustments for Ardha Chandrasana and revolved Ardha Chandrasana and Natarajasana. Sigh. Forgive me, but I am an efficient person, and all I could think was "Don't do this one. Don't do this one. Don't need this one." Say it in a Rainman voice and it's more endearing.

On the upside, we did Vasisthasana, which felt delightful and criminal. The woman I was working with complimented my Vasisthasana, which I love to do, and which I learned from Anusarians. For a moment there, thinking back to my Anusara teachers (who rocked, and who are now My Gift's employers), I put down my prejudices against the non-Ashtangi. (Haha! On re-reading this, I realize we pretty much all just sound like a bunch of nerdy groups from a Star Trek convention anyhow.)

As I adjusted to the reality of the adjustment class, I realized a few things:

I can only understand which "side" of the pose I'm doing if I turn my body to the right on my mat.
I don't trust adjustments from anyone except Volleyball Guy and the Mysorians.
I don't like touching people I don't know.
I don't like people I don't know touching me.
I particularly dislike being sweated upon by people I don't know.
I'm not cut out to be a yoga teacher.

Basically I walked away with a newfound respect for the physical effort Volleyball Guy makes for us every day. Note to self: work more on the Eka-Pada-Bakasana-to-handstand exit from Virabhadrasana B before you kill him.

I was surprised at how many people seemed to think that adjustments were a way to put students into the pose perfectly. My experience with Volleyball Guy is more about him helping me push past the normal edge of a pose. And then the next time I do the pose, I try to push into that new space that was created, that new possibility. Okay, enough about that. A lot of what he was trying to teach us yesterday involves trusting the unsaid, trusting the experiential--so no more words.

Practice this morning was fun, though kinda off for everyone, since we'd all given up our day off to go spend four hours giving and receiving adjustments. Lots of good cheer this morning, but lots of sighs and grunts, too. The team is a little tired. I'm taking a day off tomorrow. I need to do some thinking about whether 6 days a week is making me too tired. I'm not sure if I'm managing to adjust.

How many yogis does it take to overfill a room?

2006-05-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

As many as we had today at led.

Yikes. Mat to mat. I wanted to feel happy and gracious and pleased with how many people were there, but mostly I felt like I wanted to close and lock the door. Parallels with the immigration issue: of course you want everyone to be able to go where they want and do what they want--but how are we going to handle the logistics?

I had a huge bodybuilder fellow put his mat down perpendicular to the top of mine. I wondered if he was a Bandha Boy (which is what Sanskrit Scholar calls the muscular fellows who can float into handstand from navasana), but he looked a little too bulky. As it turns out, he seemed to just be a bodybuilder who decided to check out Ashtanga. He had that kind of stunned look that new people get about three quarters of the way through standing poses, but then he dug down and really hung in there through the rest of practice. I was impressed. I used to really value big muscles (both on men and women), but that aesthetic doesn't do much for me anymore. Still, you've got to hand it to a bulky person who hangs in through two hours of practice. You know he's got to have wished he hadn't worked so hard for all that extra weight.

Beyond the bodybuilder, there were a handful of other new people. The more I think about it, the more I realize the heroic effort it takes to be a beginner in Saturday led class. The room is packed, everyone seems to know everyone else, all the words are in Sanskrit, it's a bazillion degrees. It sounds kind of hellish when you think about it. LOL!

Gotta love the possibilities the heat brings, though. Well, the possibility of really hurting yourself, which I try to avoid by giving myself a little talking-to on the drive over to the studio. But also the possibility of getting deeper than you can any other time. Today I got my chin in my hands in garbha pindasana for the first time. Yay! And then I decided to try to roll that way. Yeah, with the mat-to-mat situation, I ended up pretty much just rolling back and forth on my mat and not really doing any revolutions, but that's fine. Now I have a new issue with kukkutasana: when you roll up and your arms are super sweaty, how do you keep from slipping back down on your arms? I am pretty sure the answer is going to involve the term "bandhas" ;-)

Tomorrow, Volleyball Guy is doing an adjustment workshop. I'm going, as is Crim Girl, Returning Guy and Chanting Man. Should be fun. Maybe we can learn some things that will be helpful in our ever-growing Mysore practice. Soon Volleyball Guy is going to need some help to look after all the new students.

Cracking the shell

2006-05-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Why is it hard to practice in the morning (zazen or Ashtanga)? I think I have a little insight today. For the past couple of weeks, My Gift has been feeling tired and run down. And then she got a little sore on the side of her mouth. These are signs that the lupus might be kicking in more than usual. When she is ill, it takes up a good bit of my psychic space. It's pretty awful, really, because there is nothing I can do about it and we have no idea what course this disorder will take.

Anyhow, when I woke this morning, my psyche felt very tender and defenseless. Which is common, I think, after a night of unconsciousness. All of the static of a busy day hasn't started up, all the thoughts that kind of pull us out of the center of ourselves. So I got to thinking about how morning is the perfect time for meditation, because of this lack of psychic "shell," but it's also a little tough for the same reason. Psychic vulnerability. Good to work with, but it can be a little hard to open yourself up day after day.

This morning I felt the pull of My Gift. Hard to leave the house and go to Mysore practice. Not that my staying home would have done anything at all. She doesn't need anything from me, and there is nothing I can do to help. But the psychic pull is there.

Off I went.

Very crowded today. More and more folks showing up for Mysore practice. I wonder if Volleyball Guy is starting to feel overwhelmed. I went happily along. Fridays always have a cheerful feel with this group.

When I got to supta k, I managed to graze my fingers together, but then when I tried again, I just couldn't find them. Why does this happen? I have a theory. I keep using the muscular energy of my arms to try to get my hands together, and I suspect that may collapse my chest. I need to make the grab from my shoulders, by opening my chest and pressing under my legs more. At least that is the answer in my head today. We'll see if it works in physical reality tomorrow morning.

Crim Girl spotted me thrashing and helped me out with a hand bind. In the meantime, Volleyball Guy showed up and got my feet together. Gotta keep pressing through with the shoulders and chest, I think. And just get used to the whole thing. I did about 25 breaths today and by the time I was done, my arms were exploding with energy--all tingly and discombobulated. It was really hard to do the vinyasa. I wondered if I'd face plant.

Supta k is interesting because it tempts you to think it is about the limbs, about arms and legs, when really it's about the core. Duh, I suppose. But I just figured it out this morning. I keep defaulting to arms, but it's really about shoulders and chest/back. I keep defaulting to legs/feet, but it's really about hips and bandhas.

Crim Girl helped me out in baddha konasana, too. We got a great crack out of the left side of my sacrum. Mmmmmm. That feels so good. In a really scary way. LOL! I have a bit of a leg up, I think, because I like to surrender to adventure. And what an adventure it is.

When I got home, My Gift was all ready for school and feeling chipper. We had a breakfast of poached eggs and vegan muffins (orange cranberry), and yes, I see the irony in our menu. We chatted about one of our favorite podcasters, an Australian monk of the Thai forest tradition. His name is Ajahn Brahm, and he is available via MP3. My Gift and I love to listen to his talks. A little while later, The Cop showed up after an overnight shift and then a deposition at court. So we all met for a moment and then went on our Friday ways.

New "Openings" :-)

2006-05-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

You know how in your practice, there are little spots in the sequence that your energy starts to be attracted to at different times? Right now for me, that's supta kurmasana and baddha konasana. And they are interrelated. Supta k is asking me to be less fearful about the back of my neck. I never realized how sensitive I am about that part of my body. Or rather, I guess I was so used to it that I never challenged the belief system that makes me feel like it's fragile.

Anyhow, I am about where I need to be to start binding my feet, at least according to Crim Girl. Who is a harsh taskmaster, I must say. Take that as a warning, anyone who might practice on a mat next to her ;-) My hips need to be a bit more open to really pull this off, so that's where the baddha konasana seems to be coming in.

Interestingly, I started out with my increased energy around supta k and baddha konasana thinking that it was primarily about the hip opening. As it turns out, the real challenge may be in my neck. That's where my fear is, and I suppose it might be a delicate process teasing it out. Baddha konasana B is quite the challenge for me, because it feels so weird to try to curve my neck that way. Maybe something to do with a resistance to/misunderstanding of whatever forces are at work in jalandhar bandha?

A good exercise, no matter what. Usually when I am frightened, I do whatever it is that's scaring me. I took up climbing when I was laid off from my job and terrified, as a single mother, about my and My Gift's futures. Solution to that huge life fear? Take up rock climbing! Feeling small and weak? Do heavy squats alongside the guys at the gym. LOL! It really does help put things in perspective. But it's also indicative of my approach: bust through with brute force--either of will or of muscle. This neck thing, though, is likely going to require a bit more finesse.

I'm a little excited about the idea of meeting a delicate challenge. Totally something new for me. No idea how it will go.

Staring Me Right in the Face

2006-05-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

When I woke this morning, my first thought was: I wonder if I actually, physically, am not getting enough sleep because of my early practice? Or maybe it was the margarita from the night before talking. Not sure. Don't want to belabor the thought.

This morning, there was a new gal at Mysore practice. Doing God only knows what. All sorts of poses, but not any Ashtanga sequence.

Okay, so I start my practice. And am immediately assailed by thoughts about work. It is rare that I think about work outside of work, so when I do, it means something's up. The deal: a few people in my department tend to have a habit of being angry. That seems to be their programmed response to pretty much everything. Yes, it's an interesting illustration of the idea that karma is simply the habits of the mind. But it's also hard to deal with. For me, anyhow. The truth is, I have very little anger to deal with in "real life." The Cop and My Gift are easy to get along with, my yoga friends and zen friends all try to cultivate ease and lightness. So I'm not well-practiced in dealing with anger.

After a few angry situations last week (not for me, but for people on the team I manage) I decided I had to think more about anger. Specifically, how to deal with it from a zen perspective. I read, I thought, I listened to podcasts by zen monks. I practiced. I sat. Still, I couldn't put it down.

Mysore practice goes along this morning and suddenly I am starting to feel really irritated by the gal right across from me. Why is she doing her crazy poses?! Why no Ashtanga?! And with that feeling of irritation, I get into Janu A, and suddenly realize that all my "work" about anger is based on my feeling that I have to "fix" something. That I have to find a way to motivate these angry people to change. I am trying to be zenlike, but still I am presuming they are doing something wrong that needs to be changed. That I can do something to make things the way I want.

Oh, thank you, Gal Right Across From Me Doing God Knows What. Thank you for irritating me until I understand I am going down the wrong path. I don't need to figure out what to do to change these folks: I need to sit more zazen to get clear. They're not out there, these issues. Just like my irritation isn't coming from out there where you are doing...geez, I think it's Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, but I'm not entirely sure.

When I get to baddha padmasana, I manage to touch both of my toes at the same time. Usually it's grab one, then lose it when I try to grab the other. Back and forth, back and forth. Kind of like chasing my feelings and thoughts about anger. Today, though, with the incremental results of practice, I touch both. Not a grab, but a touch. Not sure what that means, but somehow it seems hopeful.

Sweet Thing

2006-05-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

My Gift knows just what to get me for Mother's Day. We opened the box at noontime and tried three of the chocolates. I pick one and she takes the first bite, then passes it back to me for the second bite, then I pass it back to her for the last bite. Then she picks one and passes it to me.

Mmmmmm. Great assortment. One of them is a chocolate with ginger bits mixed in. You can't taste the ginger for the first few seconds, and then there it is. Delicious.

Dinner at our favorite place tonight--southwestern food. The Cop had a busy night last night, so many dinner stories. And then we came home and hit the chocolate again.

Chocolate. The ultimate Ashtangi food.

More Unconscious Criminality

2006-05-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

After led today, Sanskrit Scholar, Crim Girl, Returning Guy and I were hanging out, chatting. Returning Guy said something about it being the Moon Day. I looked at Crim Girl and we both cracked up. Yup, I complained about being inadvertently crim yesterday, and now I'm hearing I've done it again. Two times in two days! Way to go! LOL!

Practice was good, whether it was a Moon Day or not. Hot as hell, which is par for the course here in the desert. I believe we hit 100 degrees today. I mean 100 degrees out in the real world--way more than that in the studio. Pack a bunch of people in a small room in the desert and practice, and you can imagine the rest. Upside: I got my arms all the way through and at close to a 90 degree angle in garbha pindasana. I couldn't quite put my chin in my hands, but it's just a matter of time. I'm pretty reserved about my rolling when my arms are through padmasana, because I have no idea how to correct if I veer off course. But it was fine, all in all, and kukkutasana worked out beautifully. Kukkutasana's a funny pose, because just a split second before I roll up onto my hands, I wonder if I'm going to face plant. If I thought about the pose, I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to do it.

During backbends I had a glimpse of the results of the 4 months I've spent doing dhanurasana and ustrasana in Mysore practice. When I pushed up into urdhva dhanurasana today, it felt light and balanced and easy. I stood up (with an assist, lest anyone overestimate my abilities ;-) easily and happily. I'm still not sure what the dealio is with backbends--apparently I am only sensitive to the subtleties of the front body--but whatever Volleyball Guy's backbend master plan is, it seems to be working. I figure my job is simply not to get overly attached or ambitious.

After class, lunch with My Gift at a mongolian barbecue place that looked vaguely unsanitary to me, but which, apparently, the high school set loves, and a trip to the mall to find a graduation dress and shoes and jewelry. I was kind of lagging, which is usual after led class--but I made it through. I really wanted to have some quality time with her, and we did have fun. Soon she'll be off to college. Seriously, though, hell has to be an endless shopping trip in a suburban mall.

Is it a crime if you just forget?

2006-05-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

The Moon Day, that is. I have so much stuff written on my calendar that I didn't see the note about it being a Moon Day. Bad lady. I have asked The Cop if I would get in trouble if I were simply to forget a law and the officer who pulled me over understood it wasn't on purpose but just a case of me spacing out. The Cop has made it clear that I would be outside of the law and, therefore, fully responsible. I don't think I buy this, but he is pretty definite. LOL!

Practice was good. The posse was there: Sanskrit Scholar, the British Director, me, and of course Crim Girl. She has to be there on the Moon Day to keep her moniker.

The posse has been chatting alot via email this week. Well, except for the British Director, who, apparently, has a job that does not allow for extensive thought and discussion about Ashtanga in the middle of the day. Throw off your chains, British Director! :-)

This morning, Volleyball Guy adjusted me in janu A, and it totally turned into a scary pose. He cranked my folded right leg waaaaaay back, and then turned my torso waaaaay to the left. I felt like my cat, except without the extra vertebrae. It was delightful, in part because janu A is a straightforward pose that doesn't usually contain lots of adventure, and suddenly it felt like something that could go horribly wrong. These physical fears, brought up by practice, are so interesting to me. I have so many beliefs about how my physical self is, about how it moves and what it can do. Of course those beliefs are incredibly limiting, in many ways. So practice ends up being like climbing: you attempt something that is scary as hell, and you come out of it with an adjusted belief system. I love it! Especially the fact that this is nothing that can be accomplished by thinking, by intellectualizing: it all happens through experience and the body. Second side of the janu A adjustment wasn't quite as deep, but was even more scary, because there is something in my hip that is resisting. Nothing major, just another structural reality that will change with time and practice.

Upavistha konasana was another adventure: I got my whole chest fully on the floor for the first time. It's amazing how the belief that says: Go ahead, results in such a dramatically different experience from Oh God, I can't do this!

On my way home I had to have a heart-to-heart with myself about my use of Sharath's CD during home practice. It is a great motivator, but I can also use it to be lazy. Practice at the shala is always good, but less deep than a really engaged home practice. Not for any reason except it is easier to focus when there is no one else around. I have to get back to that next week. It's always so satisfying after the fact (practicing alone), but can be a little hard to approach initially. Same with zazen (easier at the zendo than at home) and same with climbing (easier to follow than to lead). That's fine, though. Just something else to work toward. Practice.

Portrait of Today's Practice

2006-05-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

A cat, a mat, a kleenex. Oh, and sun. Lots of sun.

Posse Gals Who Lunch

2006-05-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

Practice was busy this morning. Crim Girl brought her Neti tee shirt so we could all check it out. She has suggested we all get one and become an Ashtanga posse. I was happy to get a look at the shirt, because I always wonder how tee shirt sizes run, and whether the cut will be too boxy, etc. There seems to be lots of variability in tee shirt sizing. The British Director, Sanskrit Scholar, Crim Girl and I all gathered around the tee shirt, and Sanskrit Scholar read/chanted and translated the text on the front of the shirt.

Apparently my sense that we all hang out together but never really get to talk is gathering some critical mass. The four of us have been emailing a bit, and there was lots of energy this morning: people wanted to socialize. Actually, it was just the women: The Other Dave, Returning Guy, Chanting Man and Volleyball Guy probably wondered why we were all gathered in a circle, chattering away. I think we will have to do lunch pretty soon. Perhaps when we all have our tee shirts. LOL! Maybe we can go after Saturday led, sporting Guruji shirts and messy, sweaty hair. The restauranteurs of Scottsdale will vie for our patronage.

Good practice today. Though sniffly. I had to give up and go get a Kleenex just before standing. Volleyball Guy sounded pretty bad, too. He only wanted me to do one navasana after utkatasana. Usually he likes to do three--just for practice. I was happy enough to leave it at one.

When I got to supta k, I clumsily tried to bind my hands. Crim Girl to the rescue! Thanks, Crim Girl. You are still compassionate, despite your life of yoga crime. A few minutes later, I caught a glimpse of Volleyball Guy adjusting her in supta k--bound hands and feet behind the head. She even did the push up to vertical. I emailed her later on to ask a few questions: she answered them, and also made the very good suggestion that perhaps we should all sit down and do a little talking about practice/particular poses.

We all work very hard, and pretty much silently, day after day and week after week. The idea of spending some time talking about what we do is very appealing to me.

Later on I had lunch with someone from work with whom I've never really had any extended conversation. She suggested the lunch, and I am really happy I went. You know how every so often you meet a really cool, really together, but still totally human individual? She's like that. She was quite interested in the zendo, and had done some rolfing with Philosophy Monk. And she is going through some intense transitions in her life. With lots of grace, but also, I'm sure, happy for some support. She wants to come down to the zendo once her life is back on track a bit.

So I had a number of cool conversations today. And you know, for all the fuss that gets made about the dialog on something like "Sex and the City," real-life conversations with actual women are so much more interesting.

Small Kindness

2006-05-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

This morning during home practice, I had a flashback to yesterday's Mysore practice. I was doing finishing poses, and I reached for my toes for yoga mudra. I can always grab my left toes, but I can't quite reach the right ones. I make a point of grabbing the left, then trying for the right for a breath -- and then I just go ahead and lean forward into the pose and feel around a bit to see if I'm even close. Then I grab my elbows behind my back.

Yesterday, as I was going to give up and grab my elbows, I hear this little padding step coming toward me. Gee, Volleyball Guy is light on his feet today, I thought for a second, before realizing this must be Sanskrit Scholar, who was, last I knew, fully engrossed in her own practice across from me. I re-grabbed my left toes and felt her take my right arm, pull it away from my body, then bring my hand to my right toes. With a friendly little squeeze of my hand, she went back to her mat.

Thanks, Sanskrit Scholar! You rock. Kindness first thing in the morning is very sweet.

This morning was the first time I used the sun instead of the heater. Yup, it's summer in the desert, and I had to turn my mat to keep the sun from blinding me. I turned it so the sun shone on my back, and boy, did it feel great.

During savasana, I heard the cat pad into the room. Then, at the same time I heard him make a little trill, a fly landed on my face. Oh no! The cat is ready to pounce on the fly that's sitting on me! LOL! I've learned to be still through itches and sore knees and all the other things that happen when you are meditating. But there's no way I sit still through a cat attack to the face. Haha! End of savasana.