our-yoga

Well, happy is a relative term, I suppose...

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Practice this morning was... interesting. First, I got up at my usual early-morning hour and did my Buddhist prayers. And then I realized that I felt very, very tired. So I went back to sleep for a couple more hours before getting back up to practice.

This morning, I did not-quite-full-primary: By that I mean I did primary up to Navasana, then skipped to Baddha Konasana. I'm not going to bore you with the blow-by-blow details of this morning's practice. Suffice to say that I modified a lot: I did no half-lotuses at all on the left knee. Which meant Janu Sirsasana in place of Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana on the second side. Which meant I modified all my Marichyasanas to work around the injured left knee. These modifications seem to have an effect on my inner focus. Perhaps because the modifications feel unfamiliar to me (full disclosure: I have actually never modified any of the Marichis in my practice up to this point), there is a lot more stopping to think about how best to modify this pose or that pose, and therefore less flow. Which meant that there was more space for extraneous, non-practice-related thoughts to creep in. Whereas with the regular no-injury practice, one kind of just zips through the whole thing without too much thought. But I suppose this is part of the process of change and adjustment, and when all is said and done, change is the only constant in the universe. One cannot avoid this truth: Ultimately, the only thing I can do is to embrace it, roll with the punches, and deal with change as best as I can. Or I can kick, scream, and fight it. And be very unhappy.

Huh, it seems that I am boring you with blow-by-blow details of my practice, after all? :-) Anyway, my plan right now is to work with this not-quite full-primary for the next couple of days. Then maybe add in the core primary postures (Bhujapidasana, Kurmasana, Supta K) over the next few days, if my body allows it.

One other thing that injury has taught me is that this practice gives you much, but it also asks a lot of you in return. (David Garrigues writes about this point very eloquently in this post.) Among other things, it asks that you structure your entire daily life around it. Structure your work around it, structure your play and rest around it. What this means is that if you do this practice, there is no room for burning the candle at both ends. You can't expect to, say, go clubbing and drinking every night and get up at 5 or 6 a.m. to do this practice, and expect to do this practice for very long.

Which is a sticking point for me. Well, I don't go clubbing and drinking (although I do have a bottle of beer after dinner some nights). Nevertheless, I do burn the candle at both ends, in my own way. Ever since middle school, I have conditioned/trained my body to go on six hours of sleep every night. By and large, it has not interfered with my daily functioning (at least not in any way that I notice). Sometimes, however, on days when I have been doing more things or not sleeping so well the night before, I get up feeling really tired, but I just go ahead and practice anyway, because I always feel awake and better after practice. And besides, one can always sleep when one is dead, right?

But recently, I have also started to wonder if lack of sleep might somehow translate to less awareness on the mat. Which leads to poorer judgments/choices. Which leads ultimately to injury. Does this mean I need to consider sleeping more? I don't know.  


On to a happier topic. In her recent post, Claudia writes about how her recent lack of a regular Ashtanga practice and her TCM treatment seems to have the combined effect of causing her to lose her desire for coffee. She writes:

"One day I woke up wanting tea instead of coffee. That had not happened since 2008 when the ritual of coffee was wiped out from me. I think it might have something to do with the TCM re-balancing my energies and my body becoming more aware of what coffee does to it.

So what is one to do about the Ashtanga (almost) mantra "no coffee no prana"? I am changing it, of course... [to "No Tea, No Prana"]."

Interesting. Well, here's my theory about what's going on. Perhaps Ashtanga practice stimulates a very special kind of prana flow; a flow that is very different from the prana flows stimulated by other kinds of yoga or mind-body practices. Let's call this special flow the Ashtanga Prana Flow (APF).

This being the case, when Sharath says "No Coffee, No Prana", he really means, "No Coffee, No APF." Or, to put it another way, Sharath could be taken to be saying, "If one drinks coffee, one can activate the APF." It is actually possible to express this in terms of a classical logical argument form:

1. If one drinks coffee, one can activate APF.
2. One drinks coffee.
3. Therefore, one can activate APF.

This argument follows by modus ponens. But if you have taken a philosophy class, you will know the saying, "One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." So the same argument can also be expressed as a modus tollens:

1. If one drinks coffee, one can activate APF.
2. One is not activating/cannot activate/does not wish to activate APF.
3. Therefore, one does not drink coffee.

All this might seem very dorky (but I am a dork, so deal with it :-)), but I think it tells us something about what might be going on in Claudia's case. Since Claudia has recently stopped practicing Ashtanga so regularly, she is not activating the APF; she might very well be activating other kinds of equally beneficial flows, such as chi flow from her TCM practice, but that is another story. In any case, since she is not activating the APF, she probably also does not feel the need to drink coffee. And her body basically responds to this change in her life by sending her brain messages that she does not need to drink coffee. Which is why she now does not want coffee, but wants tea instead. Indeed, it could even turn out that tea (Chinese tea?) activates chi flow. Maybe a TCM master somewhere would also tell us, "No tea, no chi"? But this is a topic for another post.

I realize that all this is probably way more complicated and convoluted than it needs to be. But maybe this is what happens when you have an injured Ashtangi blogging. All that energy that would normally be devoted to practice now needs to go somewhere else :-)

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I hate to have to admit this on the blogosphere, but I think I better, since I always try to write in a way that is real and not (or at least not too) fake. So here it is: I officially injured my left knee. Probably did something to the meniscus. Which is rather ironic, in a way, since I have always thought it the stronger side. This, on top of the fact that I have a sore throat right now and can barely speak (but can still blog :-)) makes for a very interesting time.

I think the whole knee issue started a few weeks ago, when I decided to try going into Utkatasana from a squatting position in Surya B. The first few days I tried this, my left knee felt sore. And then my SI joint went out. So I switched to doing primary and the first few backbends of second to try to straighten out this issue. The SI joint healed, but the soreness/tweakiness in the left knee joint persisted. Basically, I discovered that postures which involve closing the left knee joint and bringing the left foot close to the left hip (Triangmukhaikapada Paschimottasana, Krounchasana, Bhekasana) tend to aggravate the left knee. Things got somewhat better on Wednesday, which was a moon day, presumably because I didn't practice and the body got to rest. And then during yesterday's practice, I definitely pushed past my limit in Bhekasana (I'm one of those people who can get the entire sole of the foot to the ground in this pose, which is a good thing when you are not injured. If you are injured, well, not so...), because my left knee felt really stiff after practice. (Why do I do this to myself? Ego. Guilty as charged...) 

And, to add insult to injury, when I got off the bus to campus yesterday, I jumped off the bus, landed on my left foot, and immediately felt that something was very wrong. For the rest of the day, I couldn't put pressure on the left foot while walking without feeling pain in my inner knee. Walking up the stairs is fine, but walking down the stairs hurts. I felt around my left knee, and found this tender spot on the inner knee. No good, no good. I spoke with a couple of people about this, and they suggested that I go get an MRI and get it checked out. It looks like I don't have a choice with this one; did I ever tell you that I dread/hate going to the doctor's? But what to do? 

This morning, I did a shorter practice: Primary up to Triangmukhaikapada Paschimottanasa, then skip to Baddha Konasana, followed by the rest of primary and finishing. I noticed a few things:

(1) When I stepped out into the standing postures (Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, etc.), I felt pain in my left knee, as if the stepping out movement was pulling on something in the left knee.

(2) When I got to Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, I really hesitated about doing the posture on the left side, but decided to try going into it very slowly on the left side. There was some discomfort closing the knee joint, but it closed, and I was then able to get into half-lotus. As I went into half-lotus, I felt something shift in the knee joint.

After I did Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, I decided, on a whim, to try the stepping out movement again. This time, it did not hurt. It appears that whatever was hurting the knee the first time had something to do with whatever it was that had shifted in the knee.

(3) I skipped the Marichyasanas today, because the act of closing the left knee joint combined with twisting or bending forward causes pain in that knee. Would one way of modifying the Marichyasanas be to not close the knee joint completely and/or not bend forward or twist fully? If any of you out there have any suggestions on this, I would live to hear them. 

So, this morning's practice was not great, but it was definitely healing. A few minutes after practice, I tried walking down the stairs in my apartment, and discovered that my knee did not hurt anymore. Which is good, because otherwise I won't be able to leave the house today. But injuries are really a bummer... 

Oh, and by the way, I am not writing this post to glorify injury or to advocate wearing injury like a badge of courage/honor/whatever. Injuries, as you can see, suck. But maybe they are part and parcel of the process for some people (i.e. me). So I will do my best to swallow my ego and try to learn from this. In the meantime, between my knee and my sore throat, you may find me posting less over the net few days. Not that you'd care, necessarily. But just thought I'd let you know :-)

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In a recent post, Bindy commented on a recent Elephant Journal article titled "Top 10 reasons why Ashtanga is the Hardest Yoga Practice." From reading the article, I gather that the author is also an Ashtangi, one who is trying (not very successfully, I'm sorry to say) to think of some tongue-in-cheek reasons why Ashanga might have a reputation of being "hard" or "badass." The most striking reason she gave (which was also the one that Bindy took most issue with) was that jump-throughs and jump-backs (JTJB) ruin her pedicures.

I don't have much to say about the EJ article myself. About JTJB possibly ruining one's pedicure, well, as some very wise person used to say, "The only cure for yoga is... more yoga." This applies to the case at hand as well: The only cure for ruined pedicures (if it is true, that is, that JTJB indeed ruins pedicures) is more practice, so you can perfect the JTJB and not scrape your feet/toes against the mat, and possibly ruin your pedicure. Actually, just talking about this makes me very tempted to go make my very first instructional video on how to JTJB without touching your feet to the mat :-). May be coming soon. Stay tuned.

As for Ashtanga being hard or badass, I've blogged about this topic on a few occasions, so I won't say too much else here. I'll just say this: When it comes down to it, Ashtanga is no more "hard" or "badass" than any other life-changing practice which requires a lot of effort, time and dedication on the part of the practitioner. The same can be said of, say, practicing to become a concert pianist, martial artist, or anything else that is transformative, really. And we do frequently say that martial artists are "badass" (I'm not sure if we say that of concert pianists, but the same idea applies). Q.E.D.

In addition to the immediate issue that prompted Bindy's post, an interesting conversation also ensued in the comments section of her post, which brings up a few interesting issues. I thought about commenting in that comment thread, but I decided that it would be better for me to write my own post about it, rather than go manifesto on Bindy's blog. So here goes.

In response to a commenter who remarked that Bindy's post was the product of "someone who was not happy with herself and who in all likelihood held a lot of repressed anger too close to her heart for too long, but doesn’t want to let it go because she’s not sure who’ll she be without it", Bindy replied with the following:

"yes-i DO have a chip on my shoulder. but i’m still extremely compassionate believe it or not. who cares what i think? it’s just a rant. i’m hoping if my writing is too abrasive for anyone, they just stay away from this blog. just like astanga. if all you can do is complain about it, there are thousands of other yoga styles that you can go to."

In her latest post, Bindy further elaborates on her views about blogging:

'...every time i write an “offensive” post i go through some mental torment. should i be saying these things? why am i saying them? am i too harsh? am i supposed to pretend to be the perfect yogi just in case people judge me? thing is this. people are going to judge me no matter what i say. i’m trying to let go of such things & just be me. does this mean i’m making an ass out of myself? maybe. it sure wouldn’t be the first time.

i can’t write like the perfect yogi because i don’t even consider myself a yogi. yoga is part of my daily life, but i don’t embody what other’s say is “yogic.” and i refuse to pretend, like SO many others. that would make me a hypocrite.'

I think Bindy's point is well-taken in and of itself. If there is no other purpose to blogging other than simply to give expression to whatever happens to be on one's mind on any particular day at any particular time, and if one happens to be in a particular state of mind which makes an ass out of oneself (at least in the eyes of others), then the right and appropriate thing to do would be to simply vent and write whatever it is that makes an ass out of oneself. Indeed, if writing anything else other than what happens to be on one's mind at the moment would be merely pretending to be what one is not, then the only right thing to do would be to simply vent and write whatever it is that is on one's mind, even if doing so makes one an ass: The only other alternative would be to be a hypocritical ass in yogi's clothing.

But is there no other purpose to blogging other than simply to give vent to and express one's raw emotions at any given moment? Is it true that the only alternatives are to give vent to one's raw emotions, or be a hypocrite? Personally, I'm not so sure about this. At the risk of sounding very naively yogic, I would like to say that I see blogging as an extension of my yoga practice; I see it as a place where I try to translate whatever I do on the mat into an off-mat medium. What this means is not just that I try to apply the yamas and niyamas (non-harming, non-stealing, truthfulness, etc.) to my blogging. This also means that, just as I try to make my yoga practice something that adds to my life, I also try to make my blogging "practice" something that adds to my life, rather than take away from it. David Garrigues expresses this point very nicely in a post he wrote some time ago. At the risk of being very unoriginal, I'll like to quote him here at length:

"As we all age we see how challenging it is to continue to practice in such a way that our bodies and minds stay truly strong, fit and supple.  Other priorites come along to replace the fire, zeal, and devotion we have for practice.  It is tempting to let ourselves off the hook thinking that asana is for youth.  That somehow being intensely physical has a cut off point-perhaps it does for some of us.  But for many of us, the discoveries we make as we flow though our sequences continue to feed our body’s, minds, and souls.  And we continue to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to really go into our asana practices.  We also realize more and more the extent to which we have to give up other things.  This is the key if you want to have a fruitful serious asana practice, you must know it and fashion your life and choices to ensure it.  There really is limited time and thus limited things you have available to put your energy into.  The reality is that Ashtanga Yoga asks much of you; it gives you much but also asks much...

Do you see it?  What is holding you back, from going further, I’m talking about things that truly don’t belong there.  Not things in your life that do belong, like a great job, relationship, children, art and such, ultimately, those things feed you and your soul in just as necessary ways as your practice does.  I’m talking about the things only you’ll know what they are.  The expendable parts of your life that you are choosing to divert your energy into...

Funnel your energy towards the real heart of what you want to share, create, and become– unswerving, able to keep the target in your sights. You’ll see a major shift in your experience, new found energy for what you want will arrive to help you."


David is talking here about the asana practice in Ashtanga, but I really feel that his words apply to blogging and to everything else in life as well. The fact of the matter is that we have limited time and energy in this world. Given this fact, we can choose to do things that feed us and our souls. Or we can choose to do things that drain our energy and time, leaving us empty and, well, drained. The difference does not just lie in what  we do, but also in how we do the things we do. This applies to the asana practice. It also applies to all our activities off the mat, including blogging. It makes a difference whether I make an effort to blog about things that bring out a better part of myself and which are, hopefully, of service to others. I'm not doing this because I want to pretend to be what I'm not: I'm doing this with the awareness that service to others is ultimately service to myself. That which feeds others and their souls ultimately also ends up feeding me and my soul. By this logic, it also follows that if I write something which puts others down, I am ultimately also putting myself down, making me less of a person than what I am capable of being.    

Well, I think you get what I'm saying. Besides, if I say more, I'll probably end up sounding too preachy and moralistic and high-horsey. So I'll sign off here.

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Earlier today, I stumbled upon an Occupy Event here in Davenport, Iowa, without intending to.

Here's the chain of events that led up to it. After giving my presentation at the philosophy conference this afternoon, I attended another presentation. The presenter was giving a presentation on theodicy: If you are not familiar with this term, it basically involves an attempt to reconcile the existence of God and the problem of evil in this world, i.e. how can there be an omnipotent, morally perfect God when there is so much suffering brought about by human and natural evils in this world?

After listening to that presentation... I bailed! Yes, I know that probably makes me a bad philosopher, but I simply find it impossible to justify spending an entire perfectly beautiful fall day indoors, when I am in a city that I have never been to before. I just felt that I should explore the city a little while there is still some daylight. Besides, I have heard so much about the beautiful Davenport riverfront (the Mississippi river runs through the Iowa-Illinois border, and separates Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois); it would be a shame not to see it.

So I, ahem, sneaked out of the conference venue (not that there were any philosophy police to catch me ;-)), got into my car, and drove down to the riverfront. The riverfront is indeed beautiful. But an even more interesting sight greeted me. As I drove along the riverfront, I saw a group of people seated in chairs in a bandshell by the river, listening to what I thought was a band concert. I got out of my car, and heard a spoken word poet reciting an inspirational poem to the people sitting in the bandshell: "Now is the time to speak up. I know that the pen is mightier than the sword. I know that we are all heroes, and silence is our kryptonite!"

Hmm... silence is our kryptonite? Interesting, I thought, as curiosity drew me closer and closer to the bandshell. As I approached it, I saw people carrying signs that said, "We are the 99%", etc. And then it hit me: This is an Occupy event! After the poet recited his poem, a few other speakers took the podium, and spoke about their own feelings and thoughts about being the 99%. The audience listened appreciatively, interjecting with enthusiastic applause now and then. I learned from the speeches that earlier in the day, there had been a march organized by the local Occupy movement across the Centennial Bridge linking Rock Island and Davenport, and that this rally was actually the second part of the day's events.

There were people of all ages at the rally, although it seems that compared to the crowd in Fargo (see this post), the average age of the crowd here seems to be somewhat older. Somehow, I sense that the people in this part of the country are gentle, down-to-earth people; people who have decided that enough is enough, and that the only viable option is to speak up. Which, again, totally discredits the mass media's portrayal of Occupy Event participants as hippies who never shower or get haircuts.

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I am sitting in a Starbucks in Davenport, Iowa, doing a little last minute preparation for my conference presentation this afternoon. When I walked in here half an hour ago, the place was really crowded, and I couldn't find a place to sit. An older couple--they both looked like they were in their seventies--invited me to join them at their little table. I thanked them, and accepted. But by the time I got my coffee, a nearby table had opened up, and I moved over to the now-available table. Nevertheless, I made a little small talk with the couple, and then they got up to leave. As he was leaving, the man patted me on my shoulder and said, "See you later."

This is, of course, a perfectly routine thing to say to anybody from whom you are parting company, whether that person is an old friend or a very new acquaintance (as in this case). Nevertheless, I couldn't help wondering: Hmm... see me later? Uh... when? Given that I don't even live in this state, and we didn't exchange contact information, the chances of our paths ever crossing again are unlikely, to say the least. Considerations like this, of course, don't stop people from saying "See you later" to other people whom they will probably never meet again (at least not in this lifetime).

What is the moral of this little neither here nor there story? Well, nothing (or maybe everything, depending on how one sees it). Just a random musing on a random event on a random day.    

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I'm on the road today, on the way to Davenport, Iowa to present a paper about procrastination at a philosophy conference tomorrow (Saturday). In order to make the whole trip less onerous (it's a 10-hour drive if I drive nonstop from Moorhead, MN to Davenport, IA), I stayed in Minneapolis last night; which means I still have a 6-hour drive ahead of me. Quite a drive, yes, but can't be as bad as driving 10 hours straight, can it? So here I am, sitting in a coffeeshop in St. Paul, typing out this post before I hit the road.

The nice thing about stopping over in the Twin Cities is that I get to go to mysore practice at a shala before hitting the road again. This morning, I went to the Yoga House in Minneapolis for mysore practice. I decided to do this, even though I only had four hours of sleep. Why? I don't know: Because I'm crazy?

In any case, it was a great mysore session. It was a very small group this morning; it was just me, one other student, and the teacher. I did full primary and second up to Ardha Matsyendrasana. I got a few good adjustments and assists (and no, I really don't think an assist is a prop...). I got an especially valuable assist in Supta Vajrasana.

To be quite honest, Supta V is my "lazy" pose, the one that I just kind of do in my daily practice: I typically do the posture to my best approximation, write a mental check mark next to a mental list of second series postures, and then move on to the next exciting posture. There are a few lame excuses I can give you for my less-than-fully-enthusiastic attitude towards Supta V:

(1) If you normally practice alone (as I do), it is very difficult to do the posture yourself, unless you prop your lotus knees under a low table or bench, and use it to support you as you go into the backbend. But I don't have a table that is low enough (or so I say), so I normally just go into bound lotus and try to bend as far back as I can without rolling backwards, and then move on to the next more exciting posture.

(2) At his Minneapolis workshop back in July, Matthew Sweeney told me that my body seems to have a puzzling disconnect when performing Supta V: It's like the lower part of my body is not transmitting energy to the upper body, so that when I bend back, the lower body (i.e. the bound lotus) gives. He wasn't quite sure why this is so, since I am neither inflexible nor not strong. Well, if even the great Matthew Sweeney is puzzled over my non-performance in this posture, can anybody reasonably expect more of me in this posture? :-)

(3) Since Supta V comes immediately after the formidable Kapotasana, I always end up subconsciously telling myself that I am entitled to a little break after all that work in Kapo :-)

But I digress. As I was saying, the teacher gave me an especially valuable assist in Supta V this morning. She also suggested that I could work on only going as far back as I can while still being able to come back up (i.e. don't rest the crown of the head on the ground). I thought this was a good suggestion, and thanked her for it.

Alright... I need to stop procrastinating about making the drive to Iowa and actually hit the road very soon if I want to get to Davenport at a reasonable hour. I had a mocha and some crostinis and cheese curds as I was typing this post... (Btw, if you live or are visiting in the Twin Cities, you really should check out this coffeeshop--Kopplins Coffee in St Paul. They do really good coffee.) Oh, I was saying, the crostinis and cheese curds... well, they are really good (at least, they were really good when I was eating them :-)), but I feel so totally saturated with oil and fat now; who was it who said that Ashtanga practice makes us make better food choices? (obviously not true for me today...) Hmm... maybe a six-hour drive will do me some good (or not)? We'll see. More later. 

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Ebola is a deadly virus, the word "Ebola" comes from a name of Ebola River which lies in the northern parts of Congo, Africa, Ebola was first appeared somewhere in 1975-1976, it belongs to the family Filoviridae, which is causative for a severe and sometimes deadly viral hemorrhagic fever, it is mostly found in the animal family of monkeys such as gorillas and chimpanzees, some human beings have also got this virus as well. It is a fatal disease, In an ordinary person the fatality ranges are about 45 to 85 percent, the infections caused by ebola virus are severly acute.

Symptoms of Ebola Virus:

Some of the main symptoms of this ebola virus are:

1. Fever.
2. Headaches.
3. Rash.
4. Profuse hemorrages.
5. The incubation period Ebola HF ranges from 2 to 21 days.
6. Sore throat.
7. Stomach pain.
8. Diarrhea.
9. Vomiting.
10. Muscles and joint pains
11. Internal bleedings.
12. Hiccups.

How this Disease Spread:

1. Ebola is often spread to other people through families and friends of patient, because these people come close to contact with such secretions when caring for infected persons or also with touch of infected needles and objects related to a patient.
2. If used needles or syringes of infected person are reused by any other person then ebola can grow in more people.

Ebola Diagnosis:

1. There are some tests envolved in diagnosing this virus, like ELISA test, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) etc. 

Ebola Treatment:

Doctors and specialist usually try to balance the fluids and electrolytes of patient, they also maintain their oxygen status and blood pressure, and treat them for any other infections.

Did full primary and second up to Ardha Matsyendrasana this morning. The postures themselves were respectable, but the energy level was rather low, and I had to move at a slower pace than usual. This may have something to do with what I did in my class last night. Last night, one person showed up for class. As this person is quite new to Ashtanga, I decided to demonstrate more than I usually do as I led him through the primary series. I was also inspired by sereneflavor's comment on one of my recent posts, in which she said that there is nothing like visual inspiration to get newbies to understand directly where the practice can take them. So, before I knew it, the Ashtanga spirit/demon had taken over me, and I ended up doing the practice with him, all the way to Janu Sirsasana A, with vinyasas on both sides all the way through. Although it was less than half primary, and I actually felt quite good after the class, I woke up feeling quite tired this morning. I guess I need to manage my energy better if I am going to continue to teach and do my own practice at a sustainable level. If any of you seasoned teachers out there have any advice/suggestions as to how to manage this, I'll love to hear from you. Of course, one very obvious solution is: Do not, under any circumstances, practice along with your students. Or, if one were to cast this in the form of a commandment: Thou Shalt not practice with thy student! But other than this obvious solution, if you have any other suggestions, I'll love to hear them.

Recently, Grimmly posed the question: Is an assist a prop? As always, Grimmly's interesting question has generated a lively conversation on his blog. Claudia thoughtfully commented that an assist is a prop, but at the same time "is more than that".

I think this is right. I would go further, and say that an assist is, in a sense, superior to a prop. Why? Used properly, a prop serves two functions: (1) It enables you to get into a certain modification of a particular pose that you might not be able to get into while maintaining proper alignment without the prop, (2) It enables you to feel and "get" the required opening that one needs to get to perform the posture effectively.

Let's take Kapotasana as an example. There is a tendency for many practitioners (including me) to bend too much at the lumbar spine and/or the shoulders in this posture, while not taking enough of the backbend in the thoracic spine. The effective use of a prop (say, doing a preparatory backbend with a block wedged between the shoulder blades) can function to remind the practitioner to take the backbend more into the thoracic spine.

However, in my opinion, the trouble with props is that over time and with repeated use, there is a tendency for the practitioner to come to rely too much on the prop to open the area/s of the body that needs to be opened; when this happens, the practitioner consciously or unconsciously comes to see the prop as a purely mechanistic device to be used in a mechanistic way to passively open a certain part of the body in order to "get" to a particular posture. When this happens, the energetic flow of the asana is overlooked. The same thing tends to happen when one uses blocks for forward folds or to rest the lower hand in Trikonasana: There is often a tendency to lean into the block, and in this way, neglect the energetic engagement of the bandhas that is integral to the effective performance of the posture.

Seen in this light, an assist is "superior" to a prop simply because the assistant is alive whereas a prop is "dead". A properly trained and sufficiently perceptive assistant understands that the purpose of the assist is to enable the student to feel the energetic flow of the asana while developing the strength and engagement necessary to eventually perform the posture unassisted. With this understanding, the assister can provide feedback to the practitioner consistently, reminding the practitioner to keep working on cultivating strength and engagement.

That said, I think it's possible for assistants to over-assist. For instance, sometimes people can so dependent on being assisted into a particular posture that they may not develop the strength to get into the posture themselves. Because of this, there is good reason to give assists sparingly: For instance, at her Richmond workshop in April, Kino told me that it is better to let people struggle with Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana at least a couple of times rather than just rush over and support them from the beginning. Same goes with Kapotasana: If one never had the opportunity to try and get into the posture on one's own, regardless of how deeply one gets, one might never develop the strength and muscular and energetic awareness needed to perform the posture effectively.

This, at any rate, are my two cents/rupees/yen on the topic.    

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I just took a few minutes to reflect on what I learnt from Casey's workshop over the weekend (for more details, see previous post). As I was reflecting, I suddenly remembered a little thought that occurred to me during yesterday morning's mysore session with Casey. Somewhere in the middle of primary series (I can't remember which posture), it suddenly occurred to me that the concept of swara encapsulates very nicely what I see as the main difference between western and eastern philosophy, and by extension, western and eastern ways of understanding the world and our place in the universe.

As I mentioned in my previous post, swara is a concept that originated in Indian music; a concept which expresses the circularity of all phenomena. Just as one starts over at the first note of the musical cycle (the octave) after playing the last note of the previous cycle, exhalation is followed by inhalation, which in turn is followed by exhalation. The ending of a sound is followed by silence, which is then followed by the beginning of a new sound. Destruction is followed by creation which, in turn, is followed by another act of destruction. This circularity is important, for without it, all events and phenomena would be congested into a great cluster-fuck of non-flow (excuse the language, but there's really no more apt expression I can think of here), and creation and destruction--indeed, the very flow of time itself--would simply become impossible.

Because much of Indian philosophy subscribes to such a circular worldview, there is no need to postulate the existence of a personified deity that is omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect. I suspect that, to a mind that is attuned to the concept of swara, the idea of a Judeo-Christian God would seem very strange; such a deity makes sense only within the context of a linear time-space continuum, in which things must have a definite end and a determinate beginning. Which, of course, brings up all kinds of intractable theological and philosophical problems (if God created the universe, who created God? Is Judgment Day really the end of time? Etc, etc.).

If one believes that all phenomena and events are cyclical and circular in nature, then one nicely sidesteps all these problems.

Well, just a few thoughts on everything and nothing, as always. :-)  

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This has been a most exciting and eventful weekend here in Fargo-Moorhead. Two very cool things happened to me: I was part of the first ever mysore class in Fargo-Moorhead, and I became a sign-holding protester for the first time in my life :-)

First, the mysore class. In order for the story to make sense, I need to begin from the beginning. So here goes: On Saturday and this (Sunday) morning, I had the great fortune of attending a workshop with Casey Palmer. Casey is an Ashtanga teacher based in Portland, Oregon, and is the owner of Near East Yoga in Portland. My friends Derek and Brenda, who are his students, invited him here to teach at their studio in downtown Fargo.

Casey began his Saturday morning class with a lecture, and then led us through half-primary. A key concept that he focused on in his lecture was the concept of Swara. Swara is a concept in Indian music. It refers to the seven notes of the Indian classical music scale. I suppose the closest equivalent concept in western music would be the octave. The basic idea here is that Swara is a circular, not linear concept; when you get to the last note of the scale, you begin again at the first note.

The same idea informs Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga practice. As you do the postures, you inhale and then exhale. At the deepest point of the exhale, you inhale again. If you keep the inhale and exhale even and steady throughout the practice, you manifest swara; in this sense, what postures you do or how "well" you do them is totally secondary.

The same idea can also be applied to the community of practitioners. In the first stages of a yoga community's formation, there might only be the teacher and perhaps one or two students. The teacher, out of a sense of responsibility and love of the practice, shows up no matter how many students come to the class. Over time, more students start to understand and share the same passion for the practice, and begin to come to class more regularly. Through coming to class, they support the community, and the community gradually grows. The growth and continued flourishing of the community also embodies the circular concept of swara: The teacher supports the students' growth and contributes to the community. In return, the students respond by coming to class and supporting the teacher's efforts and the community. And the community, in turn, nurtures the student. This circular swara relationship involves every single person who has anything to do with the community, from the teacher to the experienced student, all the way to the new student who steps into the shala for the very first time.

Initially, I was only planning on going to Casey's Saturday morning class. But at the end of the Saturday morning class, as I was chatting with him, he asked me if I would be coming to the mysore session the next morning. I told him that I wasn't sure, as I needed to be somewhere at noon (This, by the way, is true: I am not much of a white liar :-)). Casey responded by suggesting that I could just come, do my practice and leave right away: The important thing is that, through my presence, I can do something to support the community. As he said that, I remembered the concept of Swara that he was just talking about, and so I decided to come back for mysore the next morning.

This morning's mysore practice was wonderful. There were about twenty of us in the practice room, under Casey's watchful guidance. For more than half the people in the room, this was their first ever mysore experience. In fact, according to Derek and Brenda, this was actually the first ever mysore class in Fargo Moorhead!

What this meant, in practical terms, was that Casey spent most of his time helping the newbies. As a result, I did not get many adjustments (a couple of adjustments in downdog in the first couple of Surya As, and a nice assist to help me get deeper into the twist in Mari C). Nevertheless, I'm really happy I went and practiced, and was part of this historic event :-) The energy in the room was simply fantastic. A lot of it was newbie energy, characterized by earnest questions about how to do this or that posture, what posture comes next in the series, punctuated by good-natured giggles over trying for the first time bizarre-looking postures like Garbha Pindasana. You know, for "oldbies" like me (and maybe you as well), many of the postures are so familiar that we sometimes forget how bizarre they can look and feel to somebody who's doing them for the first them. For instance, it's not every day that the average person gets to fold his or her legs into lotus posture, use his or her sweat to lubricate the arms, then try to squish the arms through the folded legs. And then, to top it all off, roll around like a ball for five to nine times. It's a pretty bizarre action, if you stop to think about it.

On another note, Casey mentioned to us that oldbies also contribute to swara just by doing their practice: By doing my practice in the practice room, I allow the newbies to get an idea of where the practice can take them, and what is possible through this practice. I am happy I was of service in this way :-)

Casey hopes that we can start a regular rhythm of having mysore classes here in Fargo-Moorhead, even if just one day a week. We'll work on this.

On Saturday afternoon, after Casey's workshop, I attended the local Occupy Fargo demonstration in downtown Fargo. It was held in front of the US Bank plaza on Broadway, just across the street from Derek and Brenda's studio. There were somewhere between 50 and 100 people at the event; a modest turnout, by New York or even Twin Cities standards, but the energy was simply amazing. There were people of all ages and races, and everybody was in high spirits. I ran into a fellow Ashtangi, and chatted with him about practice for a few minutes, right in the middle of the event (can you tell what an Ashtangeek I am?).

And then I ran into a couple of my students from my classes at the university. One of them had made some signs, and offered me a sign which said, "Still waiting for that money to trickle down." I hesitated for about half a second; being a prim and proper Asian guy with a rather prim and proper Asian upbringing in the prim and proper island of Singapore, I had actually never been part of a demonstration before; all my youthful memories of demonstrations involved seeing TV footage of South Korean students getting blasted with fire hydrants and teargas, and scattering like bugs before a huge predator...

In any case, as I saying, I hesitated for about half a second, and then smiled and took the sign. I thought, "What the heck, there's always a first time for everything, right? And besides, I can probably use my considerable breath control powers if I ever get attacked by teargas."

My anxieties proved totally unfounded. As we stood there holding the signs, many motorists drove by and honked their support. To pass the time, my students and I even got into a discussion about Plato and his views on democracy while smiling and waving at motorists. There were a couple of cops around, but they seem, if anything, to be quite sympathetic to our cause, and did nothing to disrupt us.

So with this, I did two firsts this weekend: I was part of the first ever mysore class in Fargo-Moorhead, and I became a sign-holding protester for the first time in my life :-) I can't help feeling that participating in an Occupy event is also swara; by participating in a non-violent peaceful demonstration like this, I demonstrate my support and solidarity for the community (the 99%). In return, the 99% also supports and strengthens my conviction in the power of non-violent protest based on peaceful coexistence and dialogue. 
   

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I just saw this video of Marianne Williamson speaking at Occupy L.A. over at Claudia's blog, and was so impressed and inspired that I decided to post it here.

The first one minute of the video is disrupted by a technical difficulty; they had to get her another mic, as the one she started out speaking with was not loud enough. But if you stick through that first minute, you will be rewarded with really good stuff.

One thing that she said really stood out to me: American capitalism has lost its ethical center. If this is not a yogic statement, well, I don't know what is. The parallel with our yoga practice couldn't be more obvious: Whatever our particular yoga style, in our daily practice, we step onto the mat in order to center ourselves, so that we can live in accordance with the yamas (ethical precepts) and niyamas (spiritual guides) for the rest of the day. Seen in this light, we can say that the Occupy movement is a movement to shift the ethical orientation of the entire country (and with it, the entire world) back in accordance with the ethical ideals of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, and non-greed. As I said, if this isn't yoga, I don't know what is.

So, at the risk of sounding very preachy, let me say this: Whether you are on the street, at home, or at your workplace (or anywhere else), please direct your thoughts, words, and/or actions to the success of this movement. This is not a political movement. It is a spiritual movement against unnecessary human suffering.  

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Unless you have been living under a rock or in a state of cryogenic hibernation for the last month, you know about the #Occupy Wall Street movement; a movement to take back America (and, perhaps by extension, the rest of the world) from the 1% who control a disproportionate amount of its wealth, and redistribute said wealth more equitably among the remaining 99%. Right now, the movement has spread to many North American cities, and many other cities around the world have either followed suit or are following suit.

I have been thinking about and trying my best to observe this movement from my corner of the midwest. I have so far hesitated to say anything about it on this blog, for a few reasons. First, I suffer from what might be called "observer's guilt". I thought that since I am not actively participating in the movement, anything I say about it would be at best lacking in street cred and, at worst, hypocritical. I mean, if I really passionately believe in something, I should be in the trenches (or in this case, on the streets), and not just commenting on it from the relative safety of my home or office, shouldn't I?

Secondly, I did not get the sense that the occupy movement had any clear objectives as to what exactly it is that they want to achieve, beyond bringing about an end to the current system of wealth and capital distribution. And I had always been suspicious of mass movements without a clearly articulated set of objectives. 

Thirdly, I hesitated to comment on what I saw as a sensitive and polarizing topic; I have recently become a little weary (and wary) of blog wars, preferring instead to blog only about things that pertain directly to Ashtanga yoga practice. Blog wars, in my opinion, serve little purpose other than to inflate a few egos and hurt a whole bunch of people's feelings. To what end?

But this last reason turns out to be quite unfounded. Over the past few weeks, I have observed that there have been relatively few posts about this movement in the yoga blogosphere. The few posts that did emerge (examples include posts by Roseanne at It's All Yoga Baby, Carol at Think Body Electric, and Yoga Dork) have received either scant comments, or downright snarky and dismissive comments which question what kind of a place yogis could possibly have in a socio-political movement like this.

Well, seriously, what kind of a place could yogis and "spiritual" people have in a movement like this? Here's one answer that Michael Stone offers in a guest post on IAYB:

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