yogagodess

RF introduced the weekend workshops by announcing that we would be exploring the system of vinyasa, which I think is one of the most confusing terms in yoga today. Vinyasa is often used to indicate a style of yoga, somewhat interchangeable with the term Power Flow as a style. Most teachers teaching this style will say it is movement with breath. As a system, it is derivative of the Ashtanga system as taught by Patabhois Jois.

Right now, there is a lot of discussion over the system from the historical perspective. I will refer you to Grimmlys site who has studied and blogged about this extensively.

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/

Jois, along with Desikachar, Iyengar, and Ramaswami, among a few others, are considered to have brought the teachings of Krishamacharya out of the East and to the West. The teachings of Vinyasa are inherent in all of their teachings, but do not necessarily match up to what the West considers Vinyasa. I would assume a student of Power Vinyasa is not going to recognize what they consider to be Vinyasa in Ramaswami’s teachings of Vinyasa Krama, yet this form is recognizable in the other styles.

So going into this weekend, I already know that the Vinayasa system RF is teaching is within the form of Primary and Intermediate Series of Ashtanga yoga, but the system he brings into Vinyasa includes all of the subtle practices into the physical form.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika says that the practice of asana is bringing about the union of the prana and apana vayu systems. The union of these systems allows the central channel of shushumna to open, allowing the energy of kundalini to rise through the seventh chakra, which is the eighth limb of samadhi.

In order to do this energy as to go UP. How? Through the bandhas, breath, and drishti. You have to go through a few limbs to get there.

This is probably a little more than you learn in your average yoga class, no matter what “style” or dogma you are attracted to. A lot of teachers know these systems, but the Vinyasa system pulls them altogether. So they are married! (RFs lecture on the marriage of the pubic bone to the coccyx into the marriage bed of mula bhanda while trying to avoid mother in law sacrum is hilarous.) But the point is that all the physical centers have subtle components so when I posted about EXPERIENCE yesterday that is what I meant.

RF says often during workshops, you won’t get this today. The elusive bandhas. I tell students often that teachers will teach and remind you of bandhas often and then one day YOU will experience and that is what it is.

RF pretty much teaches this through the first three movements of Sun Sal As, ekam dve trini. You can go home after that.

I seldom go to a workshop or go through a week of blog reading without coming up with a discussion or lecture on chatarunga dandasana. I think most students and many teachers have a hard time with this pose and this weekend someone asked and RFs answer is that hands next to heart, heart open, shoulder down, and no shoulder blade wings. Also no tilting into the anterior deltoids. Check.

At that point I could have raised my hands and say but sir Gregor Maehle says that the hands are supposed to be lower with elbows over wrist. Which is the correct form?

RF addressed that. This is the first time I heard chataranga distinguished between A and B. According to RF, Krishamacharya devised Chataranga B, the version with hands further back as some sort of torture workout, one your trainer might give you, to hold for a long series of breaths, like maybe 10. Chat A is the Surya Namaskar version to moved into on the exhale from trini, also known as chatrvaari.

I have a few pictures to show but am not feeling that well today. I will upload them tomorrow.

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Frequently I announce my plan of attending Ricahrd Freeman workshops. This weekend I went through round three. Within this experience I try to come to terms with how to share the experience and this weekend tried to come to the same terms with the realization that the experience itself is what Freeman is able to bring forth.

I have gone through these sessions, several of them three times with the same teaching. Richard brings this same material in his workshops but instead of the just teaching the same material over and over as an attendee I understand that the experience is one of reframing pure practice on his part.

RF is relatable because of his practice. He is able to relay the experience of his practice through authenticity. He is trying to relate to the attendee by providing his practice as a teacher AND practitioner. Which is just fucking pure.

If you bring your own dogma to the workshop you will miss out. The first time I took notes. The second time less. This time it was pure practice to me. I see many dogma attendees at this and all workshops. I also see this in classes and among students. So and so said this or I do it THIS way.

If you don’t drop then pretenses you won’t get RF.

One attendee actually asked during Parsvakonasa “well I learned it THIS way at Nancy Gilgoffs workshop”. Stupid bold or leading? RF said well that is POLITICAL question. He also speaks of adherence to fundamentalism in respect to asana and spirituality. We are all fundamentalists off the mat. We all come with experience prejudices and conditioning.

But his gift is bringing experience to the momemnt. If you can let go, do it, feel the luminosity potential in the simplest and hardest poses maybe you can experience the yoga. He uses the word luminous often. He teaches specifics of vinyasa,vayu, and bandhas. Then tells you to forget it. I mean, you have to experience it. I can’t keep explaining my experience.

It is crucially imperative not to move mentally into the next or last pose. RF makes it clear that it is not yoga. He is light, humorous, attainable. He is also dead serious and very clear about the whole thing.

Oh and the subtle practice. That is all there is in RF practice. It is all married together into a package. It is called practice. It is also theory. Minus the dogma. And sex scandals. Pure yoga and luminous.

I get it. And will be back for more.

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I am rereading the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and this path of Hatha yoga is considered to be the path towards the yoga of Patanjali, raja yoga. The path of the practice allows one the attainment of siddhis, or powers. The teaching does warn that the powers are temporary and often will leave the sadhaka on the wrong path towards the ego. On this path, there is no raja yoga.

Lately I am discussing, with two different groups of people, the path of yoga.

In the West, we are immersed in the ideal of yoga form, where the siddhi becomes this:

Obviously temporary and obviously the path to the ego. Recently I had a student who I hadn’t seen for a while ask me to show her how to get in a difficult pose after class, when I had told her months ago she needed to gain strength. It was obvious she was still not ready for the pose. It is difficult for us to hear, as Westerners, or to tell someone this. Most people want to be told that yoga is about empowering them to achieve what they want in the way of form.

Then I have the other group I talk to where we do not discuss this. Um. This is a small group and grows smaller by the day. Most people are much more interested in talking about achieving form then in experiencing the subtle form.

I am looking forward to the workshops with Richard Freeman, because his discussions show they are incorporated and you get one with the other. He discusses the pure experience available in yoga practice. This will be refreshing after the crap of this past week, really which I just hope is over soon, because truthfully I don’t care to hear about it any more.

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I mean what the f is this:

Anyway I would not read this for any reason. What sort of useless drivel is this? Not that I don’t harbor a secret desire to be a personal yoga instructor to a yoga celebrity and write a book and make a lot of money, but as long as this woman has worked with Jen, it hard to find pictures of her doing much asana. She does have great legs:

She has been doing this a while. I am just saying, but as much as I talk with people about yoga, there are pretty much two paths now in Western yoga, and I am definitely not going down this one. What is so wrong with saying Yoga Philosophy? Why make it cheap or forbidden?

Why are people so determined on keeping this practice at the superficial level?

I am sure Amazon is pleased that I am telling people not to buy books. Um. Okay, buy this one:

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I come from a family of five children. Two of my siblings are deceased. One deceased and one living were/are very artistic/crafty/creative. I thought I missed out on that gene, but am rather proud of Buddha garden phase one.

It will look much better when the lavender, sage, and lupine start to grow and other flowers. Under the dead leaves we cleaned out, and between the weeds we weeded, there was some small growth.

If you read my blog, you know this is the time of the year I start my outdoor meditation, my buddha garden. This year I am recycling an old dead tree from the front year and took the rocks I had and stacked them as Zen art. There are a few green things sprouting up and today was weeding, uncovering and cleaning duty.

It also turned into art therapy. My neighbor even came over to see what the fuck I was doing. Sorry for the profanity but I am inspired by Thug Kitchen.

I also am trying to draw hummingbirds so found a cute feeder and recycled a broken coke glass to draw them in:

Fellow yoga teacher Amy Roland is out in her garden too. I am hoping to see some pictures and be inspired. She actually has taken courses in garden landscaping. Mine will be real sad in the later summer.

Tomorrow I can’t wait to take a class with UpperMidWestFacingDog, who just got back from six days of yoga with Sharath! I am sure she will be inspiring too.

For the rest of the day I am going to engage in some reading:

Watch these two misbehave:

And plan my yoga classes for next week:

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What a hypocrite I am, first I condemn someone for not checking the blog facts and then I go and do the same thing about Gwyneth. A very nice reader posted a video from 2005 of Gwyneth talking about Intermediate Ashtanga practice. Her arms look really great. I am wondering however why she quit the yoga for the pink weights.

I have issues and this is an obvious one. I can not forgive the academy for giving her the best actress award award in 1998 over Cate Blanchett for playing Elizabeth over that Shakespeare in Love. I confess. I LOVE Cate:

And I LOVE the Tudors. All of it, the show, all movies, the history, all books.

The Windors are a snoozefest for me.

So taking off the Moon Day, was great. I had a great practice today. I am injury free and almost pain free. I have several students suffering through injuries and I always stop when someone tells me of their injury and say a little prayer of gratitude for being injury and pain free.

I am pretty lucky for my age, I don’t have a lot of physical disabilities. I have a little knee issue and some recurring neck pain and a slight tendonitus in a foot, but nothing huge like back pain etc.

So thanks to the reader who corrected me. Good thing I am not a journalist.

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Last week I joined the gym again and this blog is about rationalizing it to myself. Pay no mind. Ashtanga Yoga should be enough. However, I enjoy the mindless gerbil wheel, the elliptical, and when I go to the gym, no one talks to me. This never happens in yoga. When I first started going to Bikram yoga I had that experience for at least two years. No one talked to me. No one knew my name, even the teachers. It was great.

I am sure I will have that experience at Yoga View in Chicago when I attend the Richard Freeman weekend workshops on May 11-12. Once in a while though I do run into someone I know in Chicago at a yoga studio.

When I joined the gym again, they, of course, tried to get me to get a trainer, but I don’t want to build more muscle by rolling tires around a parking lot. I told her I practice Ashtanga, she gave me a ‘look’, because they have YOGA there.

Interestingly enough I read a blog yesterday about Gwyneth Paltrow being People’s Most Beautiful Person and the blog attributed it to her practicing Ashtanga. I hate it when bloggers don’t do their research. Gwyneth may hang around with Ashtangis like Eddie Stern and her buddy Madonna, who I believe no longer practices, but as far as I know walking around with a yoga mat with someone who teaches or practices does not make you an Ashtangi.

If I find out that that works, I will go to the nearest shala and walk around outside with a yoga mat and have my pic taken and call myself that. Actually she works with a trainer with very light weights for two hours a day so you don’t bulk up. No pushing tires around a lot. That is her trainer Tracy someone or other. They have a set of videos and a 700 calorie a day nutrition plan for 30 days. If you buy it, review and let me know about it.

Even my husband uses heavier weights than that. Yoga does not have to be exclusive or have a goal, just like any other activity. Biking, running, walking, or pushing tires can also be fun and worthwhile activities. What are you doing moon day?

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a href=”http://yogagodess.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/252px-five_kleshas_yantra.jpg”>I have been thinking about the kleshas lately and the obstacles to the path. It is good to KNOW the path is eight limbs as your focus but being aware of what is in your way is crucial.

Not recogninizing your obstacles is not being aware of the enemy. A lot of times we THINK something is an enemy, when it really is not.

The five kleshas are avidya, asmita, raga, evesa, and abhinevesah.

Teachers talk about the ego a lot but not about ignorance, because it sounds like such an insulting word. Being ignorant is not being dim or stupid, you just don’t know what you don’t know. One of keys to overcoming ignorance is svadhyaya. Study, learn, question, ask, don’t take much at face value because the veil of maya is over everything.

There is always discrepancy between what we see, what is actually there, what people are telling us, and what the truth is, but the power of knowledge is the opportunity for a discerning mind to determine the truth of the true nature of the self.

The people telling you something is true may be fine for you, but if you don’t know he whole story, it won’t resound with your own truth. Once you are able to own your own truth, the path is easier.

You can also proceed on your path with your best knowledge and a discerning mind. Kind of like Arjuna, or you can just continue and rely on someone elses truth or message. It isn’t an easy path and oftentimes you will find yourself at odds with friends and family.

My husband turns on Fox and Friends and then leaves the channel on knowing I will turn it and I also say, John those are NOT your friends.

Be discerning. Ask, question, study, you can’t know what you don’t know.

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Know your obstacles. They are all over the place. Right in front of you.

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Yoga community is cultivated over a period of time with people coming together with similar values to establish Sangha. Sangha is a community of a spiritual nature. Many of us grew up in a specific faith or church where we had specific practices, spiritual texts, spiritual leaders, and ceremonies. This is Sangha. Family is Sangha too. Friends are Sangha. So is a basketball team. Sangha does not mean we have to be on the same page, but we need a base of values that we agree on.

It is always extremely difficult when we find the situation where our values do not match at all with the Sangha. If your ideas and values are extremely odds, you start to feel like you have lost your base. You still want to assimilate, but it no longer feels natural. I know for myself, personally, my family and personal values have always been more aligned to this sort of Sangha:

I try to align with my Core belief of respect to the earth and all its creatures. A lot of people make fun of me for loving bald eagles. Uh and I THINK they are crazy to not understand a love for all creatures, not just their pets. I get this a LOT. Like DAILY. And my family does NOT look like that, but in my spiritual family Sangha they do.

I also think my true Yoga Sangha looks more like this:

Then this:

Which may also seem a little crazy to some and not that is not any affiliation to Bikram. Which I don’t even think about. The second looks a lot more fun after all.

Being true to your real or imagine Sangha does take some integrity if it doesn’t look like what people think it should. I am fine with that actually. Or what you were born into and practiced at one time. Sangha changes. People move on and it doesn’t mean the old one was a bad one. It may have been right for a time, then it quit working. The real craziness is sticking with something not working and then INSISTING it is the only way. That is dogma and dogma is okay for sheep. I always believe people eventually find their tribe.

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After a few years of practice being a chore or mundane or oftentimes non-existent it feels great to be excited about it again to the point where I get done practicing and can’t wait until tomorrow to practice. To the point where I don’t sleep well. Like I can’t WAIT to get up. Seriously that is NOT a good thing though. I woke up today at 3:30 for a 6:30 practice. I really needed the sleep. Can I go to bed NOW so I can get up and practice? PLEASE?

I had this feeling when I practiced Bikram yoga a LOT, then I gave it up. I also had it in Forrest, then I moved on. Now I have it in Primary Series.. Like I can’t WAIT until tomorrow.

That whole statement may seem weird coming from a teacher, but all teachers experience it. Most teacher trainees fear they will lose the focus on the practice they love so much if they teach a lot and they probably will at some point as they add to their teaching schedule. Then it is time for decision making. If you lose the space and time for your practice, no doubt you are cheating yourself, but you also are cheating your student. Not that their expectations should drive you to practice or perform, but because drawing on your practice experience will help them in their own experience.

I remember in a workshop Ana Forrest being very tough, in a loving way, with a Forrest teacher who was not able to find time to practice. I remember Ana saying what is the point of teaching then?

It is fun to be a student too. That is why I love workshops. I can’t wait to surrender to my teachers in the trainings I have planned for the year. I am anxious to learn from then, even if students out there don’t want to learn from me. I still have my practice.

I have blogged a lot about home practice too and while I believe a strong practice at home is essential, so is studio practice. Teachers have to learn the discipline of home practice. It is also a source. For you to take from. And give back to students. When accomplished practitioners tell me they don’t know how to home practice it makes me scratch my head. Buy a tape. Work on your tight hips. Practice inversions. What do you mean you don’t know what to do. Practice at home can be very distracting though so you need space away from computers, washer/dryers, and dirty toilets. Sigh.

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