our-yoga

I suppose the more correct expression would be to say that I got stood on my hands during this morning's practice with Lino. But even this sounds wrong. But anyway, here's what happened. Towards the end of this morning's self practice with Lino, I did three Urdhva Dhanurasanas and three dropbacks and standups. Then I crossed my hands in front of my chest and waited for Lino to come over and drop me back. Lino came over, and asked me if I ever did handstand before. I said no; which is not, strictly speaking, true. I do play with handstands outside of practice now and then, but I knew that Lino was referring to going up into handstand and then dropping back into UD, so I simply said no, this is not part of my regular practice. Anyway, Lino asked me to give it a shot. I kicked up into handstand, Lino caught my feet and guided them part of the way down to the other side, so that my landing into UD from handstand wasn't so hard. And then he stood me up from UD. We repeated this handstand-UD-standup action three times. Then he dropped me back and stood me back up five times, before I went into the finishing sequence.

Now I'm wondering if I should incorporate this half-tick-tock sequence (I'm guessing this is what it's called) into my regular home practice, now that I have a senior teacher's blessing to do it. But then again, I won't have anybody at home to help me to cushion the landing into UD from handstand, so I am a bit hesitant. I suppose I'll come to a decision about this soon. But in the meantime, if you have any feedback and/or suggestions about this, I'll love to hear them.

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First, a little video eye-candy. I'm not particularly big on posting yoga videos, especially videos of people doing handstands. I know lots of people out there are fascinated with handstands, but honestly, I've never really understood this fascination. Don't really know why; I guess I just don't get what's so magical about being able to lift your feet all the way above your head without support; I mean, aren't there enough things to work on within the practice already? Besides, I often have this suspicion that people who make handstand videos are really just looking for an excuse to, well, show off their asana prowess in a gratuitous kind of way (btw, is there such a thing as non-gratuitous showing off? Hmm...).

Or maybe I just have a bad case of sour grapes. But in any case, there are handstand videos, and then there are handstand videos. The following handstand video that Kino recently made in Bali is so well-shot (the peaceful surroundings, the sound of water flowing from the stone buddhas, etc.) that even I have to suspend my usual non-fascination with handstand videos. It's definitely in a class of its own. Check it out:

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I just read Kino's latest post on Elephant Journal. It begins with an entertaining story about Kino bracing herself for a pick-up line: I'm not going to reproduce that story here; you can go read the actual post yourself :-) But I'll like to share the following lines from the later part of her post:

"All the handstands, acrobatic jump throughs, deep backbends and exciting postures are all just cheap tricks, but the miracle of the practice is no joke. The gravity of what happens underneath the physical through the practice of yoga is something that is incredibly hard to explain in words. It borders on the ineffable because the magic of yoga happens exactly when you touch the divine within yourself.
 
When your mind shifts awareness to the highest nature of spirit, the physical body heals, transforms and changes. But if you get caught in trying to master only the superficial tricks of the practice, you run the risk of preventing the experience, the magic, that is at the heart of yoga...

If you are not willing to let the experience of learning how to do a handstand literally turn your perspective on the world upside down, then a handstand is just a handstand. But if you are willing to let the process challenge your attachments, humble your ego and unlock compassionate strength then the process of yoga is happening. It is your choice what you focus on through the practice."

I really feel that this last paragraph really captures the essence of the asana practice. If you have been practicing Ashtanga for a while, you will no doubt notice that there is a certain paradoxical nature to the asana practice: It demands that you work really, really hard on a physical level to achieve some very specific physical outcomes, be it mastering a jumpthrough, getting into a deeper back/forward bend, or mastering a handstand. Indeed, I sometimes think that if somebody were to just randomly stumble into a mysore room and observe everything that's going on, that person might very well get the impression that all that's going on is a bunch of rather scantily-clad people doing gymnastic moves in a rather amateurish manner, accompanied by some unusually loud breathing. Because that's really what's happening, on a purely physical level.

And yet we also know that's not the whole story. What matters is not just what you do, but with what spirit you do it. Am I reaching for my heels in Kapotasana just to get that ego gratification that comes from getting my heels in Kapotasana (I may as well 'fess up here, and admit that I am not beyond such ego-gratification)? Or can I allow the process of reaching for my heels to be a sort of surrender, an exercise in challenging my attachments, humbling my ego, and unlocking compassionate strength? Therein lies the paradox of the asana practice: What appears to be extreme physical exertion and striving from an external perspective can actually be a tool for transformative surrender.

I'm now going to take this discussion in a rather different direction. At the risk of flogging what may be a very dead horse (there's got to be a less Ahimsa-violating analogy here...), I'm going to draw your attention to a striking parallel between Kino's words and something that we have been talking a lot about recently in the blogsphere: Going or not going to Mysore. (You should have seen this coming... well, it's still not too late to stop reading now :-)) Where is the parallel? To see this, simply replace "learning how to do a handstand" in that last paragraph with "going to Mysore". Here goes:

Although I have yet to go to Mysore, I have always suspected that going to Mysore isn't just about going to a physical place and practicing in a particular shala under a particular teacher (Sharath or Saraswati), although these are wonderful things in themselves. I suspect that a big part of the experience lies in getting way out of one's comfort zone, letting go of what one is or was, and laying oneself bare on many levels (physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual), allowing the experience of practicing and living in a very strange and unfamiliar place to change one in ways that one cannot anticipate. I think this may be part of what Owl has in mind when she writes about being a zero. In this sense, the physical act of going to Mysore is like the asana practice: It's not just what one does, but with what spirit one does it. 

But I suppose somebody could probably respond to all this by saying, "Well, if it's just about going to a foreign place and getting out of your comfort zone, how is going to Mysore to practice different from going to, say, Paris or Timbuktu?" Well, aside from the fact that the KPJAYI is not in Paris or Timbuktu, I'll say that there probably isn't that much of a difference where you go; again, it's a matter of with what spirit one goes where one goes. I suppose it is possible to go to Timbuktu (I've never been there, and know nothing about the place: I basically just pulled this place out of my mind's a%%; if you are reading this, and happen to be from Timbuktu, please feel free to call me out, and educate me about the intricacies of the place. I'll humbly accept whatever you have to teach me), stay there for a couple of months, do the practice while there (or not), and have a totally transformative experience. There. I said it. So it appears, in the final analysis, that there is nothing particularly special about going to Mysore after all.

Oh well. There's a part of me that feels that I should probably write more, and try to say something about why practicing in Mysore might be very different from practicing in Timbuktu. But since I have never been to either of these places (yes, I'm an armchair Ashtangi... how about that?), I think any such attempt would be in bad faith. And besides, today is clearly not a good blogging day. My mind is running all over the place, as you can see, and it would be very unfair to subject you to more of my chitta vrtti if you have been kind enough to actually read this far. So I'll

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sign off now. More later.

7 months ago I started working on handstand (adho mukha vrksasana - downward facing tree pose. Go figure.) Now, I have never been gymnastically inclined. I could never do a backflip, or a cartwheel (still can't!), or any elegant combination of those things. So given that, I think it would be fair to say that I brought little experience but lots of baggage with me when I began this pose.

Sometimes the hardest part of learning something new is un-learning all the things you learned before.

In my mind, I can feel this pose. I can sense the muscles in my body as I place my palms on the floor, pressing down through the fingertips, and then lift one leg up to the sky and hop ever-so-smoothly and rise up, my lower back curving, my muscles engaged, my feet lifting towards the sky! In my mind.

Back in the real world and firmly rooted in my body, however, it is a whole different experience. My courtship with handstand has been neither graceful nor smooth. It has been a hard, sweaty, teeth-gritting experience. It has been a grueling and inelegant process of throwing myself towards an unforgiving wall and heavily crashing back to earth. There has been sweat. There have been grunting and angry noises. There has been frustration, and oh yes, there have been tears.

There have been sacrifices, many of them on the part of my partner, who time after time has stood behind me and dodged my wildly flinging legs in an attempt to catch me in the pose. She learned handstand at the advanced age of about 7, and used to walk on her hands in the front yard. She, as rational a being as has ever walked on two hands, cannot understand the fear. It goes something like this:

her: "you can totally do this pose!"
me: "I know. but I can't!"
her: "why not?"
me: "I don't know! I don't trust the wall to catch me."
her: "but the wall has to catch you! it can't go anywhere!"
me: "yes. no! I'm afraid."
her: "but you know you can do it, and you know the wall is here!"
me: "yes. but I'm afraid."

At some point in Yoga, we have to confront our fear. It is part of the flow. It is deeply entwined with the journey we are on. It manifests to us in a thousand different variations, each deeply personal to the wide-eyed traveler. It is one of the most daunting things we can do as an adult. Sure, we cope with fear when it comes upon us in extreme situations. That is one thing. But intentionally seeking out your fear and confronting it - that is a whole different experience. At the end of the day, we are alone in our fear. Fear shatters our ego and the delusions we make about ourselves. It is up to us to try, fail, cope with failing, and try again. Until one day, yes, we lift up through the fear, and in spite of the fear, we rise.

So after 7 months, yes, I finally am able to kick up into handstand against a wall. But each time I do it (or, so often, don't) I still have to move through my fear. Each time is as intimidating as the first time I faced that wall. And each time I don't make it (and there are still so many!), I am still deeply confronted by the feeling of failure, and frustration. Even when we are successful, fear is not finished with us. It is a part of life, and it is here to stay.

So, what is a girl to do? Each time, I have to breathe, and keep on breathing and move on, moving either buoyed by my success or depressed my failure, but moving inexorably nonetheless. Leaving it to try another day. Coming back to my centre and remembering that I am not here to measure myself against what I can or cannot do, but what I tried to achieve. Reminding myself that you never know who you truly are until you know yourself in the face of a challenge. That is a tree facing downwards. That is Yoga.

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