I am now sitting in a coffee shop in Memphis, Tennessee. It's called Republic Coffee. I just had a double espresso and a mushroom and spinach omelette with hash browns. The espresso's quite good, and so is the omelette, but the hash browns... hmm, all the hash browns I've ever had have always been light and fluffy, but the ones here are kind of... soggy. Do they make hash browns differently here in the South?
What brings me to Memphis? Well, I came here to present my paper on procrastination at a philosophy conference at Rhodes College. I arrived here yesterday afternoon, and so far, I've just been doing what I would have done if I were anywhere else. Had some dinner at an Indian restaurant yesterday, then went to Whole Foods to stock up on provisions.
This morning, I did my practice in my hotel room. This morning's backbends were especially delicious. Especially the dropbacks. I have been gaining more control in dropping back over the past few weeks. I almost never just flop and crash to the ground these days (I don't want to say "never", because I might jinx myself). This morning, during my first two dropbacks, I actually succeeded in lowering myself slowly to the ground, touching my fingertips to the mat, and then coming back up. For the third dropback, I walked my hands to my heels, touched them, but did not succeed in getting into Chakrabandhasana by myself. I have yet to succeed in getting into Chakrabandhasana by myself thus far; a little assist by a capable teacher in this area (say, by someone like Kino) would have been very nice :-)
Speaking of assists... you know, maybe someday we will develop the technology to make instructional yoga dolls that do assists. Basically, you will have a life-size statue of your favorite yoga teacher, and then program the statue to give you assists when you get to postures that you find challenging. Can you imagine what it would be like to have, like, a life-sized Tim Miller Assist-Doll or Kino Assist-Doll standing around and assisting you at the appropriate moments? From an economic point of view, these Assist-Dolls will sell like the way yoga DVDs are sold today. So Kino, for instance, will sell her own line of Assist-Dolls just like she sells her DVDs now.
Wouldn't that be so kick-ass? And while we're at it, maybe somebody should also make a life-sized Sharath Assist-Doll as well? I'm sure they will sell like hot cakes--or like hot dosas! And then who would need to go to Mysore? Gee, I may be getting a little sacrilegious here. Well, if you're offended, try to pretend you never read these last two paragraphs.
Before I arrived here in Memphis, I was thinking of possibly doing some touristy things; things like going to Graceland to see The King, for instance. But then I got here, and just felt like doing what I would normally do if I were at home. Maybe this is what Ashtanga does to you: It turns you into a boring person.
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