My mind managed to trick my body into the studio tonight.
Praise Siva. Om hare om.
Deep Stretch - that was the class.
I was gonna to get off easy...no vinyasa, no bleepin' warriors, no Awkward shit. It'd be like yoga in the park. Or spa yoga. Yoga on the Wii. Ya know...imaginary yoga. Just sittin' around in a warm room with some groovy folks thinking about enlightenment.
Enter: Reality. aka Deep Stretch.
There was no escape in this yoga. No, no. It was the unholy opposite of escape.
The deeper and LONGER I sank into a posture - each pose was held for 3 mins plus! - the less I had to distract me from the central theme - letting go. True, we lengthen the side body, we extend the fingers, we focus on breathing, but foremost we surrender to the great force of Mother Earth. That very same force - the planet's gravity - which our entire musculo-skeletal system is designed to counter (and most of our spiritual practice attempts to ascend).
Here's a sexy paradox: yin yoga = hard yoga.
The utter stillness of it all, it's downright maddening. Bent over in a humbled twist of man flesh, there are only so many adjustments I can make, only so many times I can scan my body, only so many chores I can do before I get down to the real work. Letting go.
Breath by breath. Inhaling - creating space. Exhaling - exploring space. Softer, softer, softer still. Melting away layer after layer of previously unrealized tension. (you know the feeling...you're in the full expression of the pose, deep as you're gonna be...but then something triggers an awareness of new, deeper tension...maybe down in your hip...and you breathe and you shudder through its release...aahhh...)
It's too much. I'm not sure I'll be back.
Not until I feel more prepared to swim alongside all which I try to keep beneath the surface.
Or better still, not until I can honestly relax heavy on the earth, nestled in the arms gravity's unyielding embrace.
G'night.
k
Friday, April 15, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Hot Weekend
I ran into one of the Heidi's tonight.
Couldn't help but notice the heavy rings under her eyes when she looked over at me and said,
"Kevin, you look tired."
Yep. I've got the same Bikram© eyes.
Ripples in my body pond from a giant yoga rock (pronounced "rick") that landed square on my bhava.
-
I miss Katey.
-
Hands to heart center, melting forward, "friendly" full body adjustments in Prasarita Padottanasana. The whole enchilada.
But still...
RIck is the man...a true yogi. Wit, wisdom and whippings all wrapped up in a grumpy cuddle bear. Honestly, a year ago when I first stepped into his class, I didn't like the guy. Didn't want to like the guy. Couldn't believe this type of yoga existed...
Don't reach for water?? No "extra" movements?? NO FANCY FINGERS!?!? My mind screamed: "Shove that tapas right up your ass!"
The very idea of a "prescribed" yoga, of a singular scripted sequence - (it took me a couple classes before I realized it was actually a script, even with Rick's swirls added in) - the idea of an immutable series was totally incongruent with what I perceived the art of yoga to be. A yoga multivitamin, really?
I saw yoga as personal expression; yoga as the flower's path - a path of living mystery. Who the hell really knows what pose is gonna to happen next??
But then again, as one fellow in that movie said, yoga is all that it is supposed to be and nothing more..... And to quote Rick, "that which challenges us most, brings us the most."
I, myself, find Bikram very challenging.
Thank you, dear sir, for a powerfully productive and enlightening weekend. No bullshit, I've come much closer to the "hot" lineage and the philosophy of Bikram yoga through your tutelage. In the crowds behind Josh, I bow to you as a disciple bows to a guru.
Whoever makes money on lactic acid, thanks you, as well.
---
As to Bikram Chowderhead, here's my 2 cents*: He is a visionary who, like many of his kind, sees his path as the only path. And frankly, that single minded passion is the paradox that simultaneously makes him appealing and repulsive.
Forget the copyright madness...in my mind Bikram has EVERY right to suggest that if you put his name on your class or your studio that it should meet determined standards. If it was Kevin's Stand-Up Yoga Hour or Tia's Ustrasana Bump Yoga, we'd expect certain standards as well, respectively.
But, who is Bikram to put 5,000 years of yoga into a SINGLE hour and a half? How can this one man encapsulate an entire cultural lineage with such determinacy?
Yet, the evidence is strong, the experience is clear - we've all felt it - Bikram "hot" yoga will likely transform your body - and it will certainly fuck with your mind.
The gift Bikram is giving, his genius if you will, is to see the demographic of the West and all of it's most prevalent ailments, and to provide a simple complex of postures that will significantly remedy many of those ailments. The penicillin analogy - I get that. Put together one effective elixir that can battle 90% of the ills.
That is a gift of genius.
---
I'm fading now, but in the next day or so I'd like to share some more thoughts on my experience with Bikram (and Rikram!), meander a bit on the biz of yoga (a la Yoga, Inc.), toss some ideas out about Josh's community teaching model, and invite you to the giant yoga party I'm planning to throw for all of us (and all of them!)! Oh, and check out Tom's meditation class tonight.
Praise god.
And the devil, too.
K
*Note: probably worth only 1/2 a cent on the open market
Couldn't help but notice the heavy rings under her eyes when she looked over at me and said,
"Kevin, you look tired."
Yep. I've got the same Bikram© eyes.
Ripples in my body pond from a giant yoga rock (pronounced "rick") that landed square on my bhava.
-
I miss Katey.
-
Hands to heart center, melting forward, "friendly" full body adjustments in Prasarita Padottanasana. The whole enchilada.
But still...
RIck is the man...a true yogi. Wit, wisdom and whippings all wrapped up in a grumpy cuddle bear. Honestly, a year ago when I first stepped into his class, I didn't like the guy. Didn't want to like the guy. Couldn't believe this type of yoga existed...
Don't reach for water?? No "extra" movements?? NO FANCY FINGERS!?!? My mind screamed: "Shove that tapas right up your ass!"
The very idea of a "prescribed" yoga, of a singular scripted sequence - (it took me a couple classes before I realized it was actually a script, even with Rick's swirls added in) - the idea of an immutable series was totally incongruent with what I perceived the art of yoga to be. A yoga multivitamin, really?
I saw yoga as personal expression; yoga as the flower's path - a path of living mystery. Who the hell really knows what pose is gonna to happen next??
But then again, as one fellow in that movie said, yoga is all that it is supposed to be and nothing more..... And to quote Rick, "that which challenges us most, brings us the most."
I, myself, find Bikram very challenging.
Thank you, dear sir, for a powerfully productive and enlightening weekend. No bullshit, I've come much closer to the "hot" lineage and the philosophy of Bikram yoga through your tutelage. In the crowds behind Josh, I bow to you as a disciple bows to a guru.
Whoever makes money on lactic acid, thanks you, as well.
---
As to Bikram Chowderhead, here's my 2 cents*: He is a visionary who, like many of his kind, sees his path as the only path. And frankly, that single minded passion is the paradox that simultaneously makes him appealing and repulsive.
Forget the copyright madness...in my mind Bikram has EVERY right to suggest that if you put his name on your class or your studio that it should meet determined standards. If it was Kevin's Stand-Up Yoga Hour or Tia's Ustrasana Bump Yoga, we'd expect certain standards as well, respectively.
But, who is Bikram to put 5,000 years of yoga into a SINGLE hour and a half? How can this one man encapsulate an entire cultural lineage with such determinacy?
Yet, the evidence is strong, the experience is clear - we've all felt it - Bikram "hot" yoga will likely transform your body - and it will certainly fuck with your mind.
The gift Bikram is giving, his genius if you will, is to see the demographic of the West and all of it's most prevalent ailments, and to provide a simple complex of postures that will significantly remedy many of those ailments. The penicillin analogy - I get that. Put together one effective elixir that can battle 90% of the ills.
That is a gift of genius.
---
I'm fading now, but in the next day or so I'd like to share some more thoughts on my experience with Bikram (and Rikram!), meander a bit on the biz of yoga (a la Yoga, Inc.), toss some ideas out about Josh's community teaching model, and invite you to the giant yoga party I'm planning to throw for all of us (and all of them!)! Oh, and check out Tom's meditation class tonight.
Praise god.
And the devil, too.
K
*Note: probably worth only 1/2 a cent on the open market
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Beloved - What's In a Name?
Om pria, y'all.
Holy mother of ganesha...is Patti freakin' amazing, or what?! "Now for the heavy, deep and real." Who says shit like that and gets away with it...seriously?
One take away for me is the beauty of seeing dharana as a practice of "becoming aware of the gaps between thought"...that is, experiencing dharana as the practice of focusing all thought on one "object" - the failure of which is to lose the thought stream and its object of concentration...not allowing the thought stream to carry us to its ocean, if you will.
Dhyana would appear to be the reciprocal practice - not allowing any single thought stream to carry us away AT ALL - that is, dhyana is (in part!) the practice of sitting in stillness and witnessing action (fluttering thoughts), whereas dharana is more the practice of sitting in active concentration and witnessing the breaks in that intense action of concentration (also, fluttering thoughts!).
They offer two polar avenues to mastering the mechanics of the mind. Not unlike how abhyasa (effort/discipline) and vairagya (renunciation/non-attached awareness) - Patti's "two pillars of yoga" - are practiced by the master yogin to create a dynamic balance. Skillful living always dances between inhale and exhale, between giving and receiving, between trying and letting go.
It's riding the wave of Katey's "spandha" - the in/out pulse of the universe.
Anyway, Patti's a babe and has me mesmerized continuously.
------
Thank you Meagan (sp?) for being such a stoic yet welcoming mirror in the eye-to-eye meditation we did. There was a gentle moment of dissolving that - for lack of verbal artistry - had our colors bleeding together. I sensed myself pondering myself even while I pondered you. Gratzi.
-----
Did anybody write down the 7 (?) internal gaze points that Patti outlined. (e.g. third eye, navel chakra, nose bone thing, etc)? Can you shoot them to me? I wonder if those are the technical drishtis of yoga? I thought there were nine.
-----------
Chrissy turned me on to this video about getting into padmasana (padma = lotus). Though I've never been comfortable even just crossing my legs "native american style", within 3 minutes of watching this video I was in full lotus floating 6" off the ground with white light shooting out of my butt.
Not exaggerating, nope.
Also of great worth is the work of Erich Schiffmann - .
------
An exercise in devolution:
Tolle speaks of the name - that is, our individual names (Kevin, Heidi, Sharon) - as a basket into which we toss the stuff of our lives...experiences, objects of possession, beliefs, dreams, etc... We do this, or rather the unfettered ego does this, in an effort to have a greater sense of self.
The more I fill the basket of my name with material goods, with bitter or with sweet memories, with accomplishments and failures, with stories I tell myself about the "cruel and beautiful world", the more my ego feels confident in its continued existence.
And the more I lose contact with my deeper self - my atman. Reuniting with (or remembering) atman is the realization of yoga, the source of enlightenment we all contain within us. Egoism is allowing the world of form to distract us from that realization.
Of course, upon examination, we realize we are never satisfied with the contents of our basket. We continually feel the need to throw things out out and toss things in the basket as we seek fulfillment from the fleeting world of form.
One of the great processes of initiation in many spiritual practices is to be "renamed" by a guru or through some ceremony. Called "now names" or "spirit names" in some traditions, the devotee forgoes the basket of name that defined his/her previous ego and is reborn with a new name, ususally one that invokes powers outside of the individual (Rainbow Walker or Lama Surya Das or Madonna).
I offer two seeds to your garden:
Who would you be today, in this moment, without your name? Imagine, here and now, that you have no name. How would you then answer the eternal question "who are you?"
What might your spirit name or nom de plume be for this chapter of your life? Without attachment, it's safe to play with new names a bit. Try Talks With Rain. Or Stirring Tiger. Or Tender Heart Bear. Or Ziji Boom-freakin-basa.
Someday, I hope to meet each of you again outside the basket of our names.
Aho.
K
Holy mother of ganesha...is Patti freakin' amazing, or what?! "Now for the heavy, deep and real." Who says shit like that and gets away with it...seriously?
One take away for me is the beauty of seeing dharana as a practice of "becoming aware of the gaps between thought"...that is, experiencing dharana as the practice of focusing all thought on one "object" - the failure of which is to lose the thought stream and its object of concentration...not allowing the thought stream to carry us to its ocean, if you will.
Dhyana would appear to be the reciprocal practice - not allowing any single thought stream to carry us away AT ALL - that is, dhyana is (in part!) the practice of sitting in stillness and witnessing action (fluttering thoughts), whereas dharana is more the practice of sitting in active concentration and witnessing the breaks in that intense action of concentration (also, fluttering thoughts!).
They offer two polar avenues to mastering the mechanics of the mind. Not unlike how abhyasa (effort/discipline) and vairagya (renunciation/non-attached awareness) - Patti's "two pillars of yoga" - are practiced by the master yogin to create a dynamic balance. Skillful living always dances between inhale and exhale, between giving and receiving, between trying and letting go.
It's riding the wave of Katey's "spandha" - the in/out pulse of the universe.
Anyway, Patti's a babe and has me mesmerized continuously.
------
Thank you Meagan (sp?) for being such a stoic yet welcoming mirror in the eye-to-eye meditation we did. There was a gentle moment of dissolving that - for lack of verbal artistry - had our colors bleeding together. I sensed myself pondering myself even while I pondered you. Gratzi.
-----
Did anybody write down the 7 (?) internal gaze points that Patti outlined. (e.g. third eye, navel chakra, nose bone thing, etc)? Can you shoot them to me? I wonder if those are the technical drishtis of yoga? I thought there were nine.
-----------
Chrissy turned me on to this video about getting into padmasana (padma = lotus). Though I've never been comfortable even just crossing my legs "native american style", within 3 minutes of watching this video I was in full lotus floating 6" off the ground with white light shooting out of my butt.
Not exaggerating, nope.
Also of great worth is the work of Erich Schiffmann - .
------
An exercise in devolution:
Tolle speaks of the name - that is, our individual names (Kevin, Heidi, Sharon) - as a basket into which we toss the stuff of our lives...experiences, objects of possession, beliefs, dreams, etc... We do this, or rather the unfettered ego does this, in an effort to have a greater sense of self.
The more I fill the basket of my name with material goods, with bitter or with sweet memories, with accomplishments and failures, with stories I tell myself about the "cruel and beautiful world", the more my ego feels confident in its continued existence.
And the more I lose contact with my deeper self - my atman. Reuniting with (or remembering) atman is the realization of yoga, the source of enlightenment we all contain within us. Egoism is allowing the world of form to distract us from that realization.
Of course, upon examination, we realize we are never satisfied with the contents of our basket. We continually feel the need to throw things out out and toss things in the basket as we seek fulfillment from the fleeting world of form.
One of the great processes of initiation in many spiritual practices is to be "renamed" by a guru or through some ceremony. Called "now names" or "spirit names" in some traditions, the devotee forgoes the basket of name that defined his/her previous ego and is reborn with a new name, ususally one that invokes powers outside of the individual (Rainbow Walker or Lama Surya Das or Madonna).
I offer two seeds to your garden:
Who would you be today, in this moment, without your name? Imagine, here and now, that you have no name. How would you then answer the eternal question "who are you?"
What might your spirit name or nom de plume be for this chapter of your life? Without attachment, it's safe to play with new names a bit. Try Talks With Rain. Or Stirring Tiger. Or Tender Heart Bear. Or Ziji Boom-freakin-basa.
Someday, I hope to meet each of you again outside the basket of our names.
Aho.
K
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