our-yoga

I just watched this recent video by David Garrigues, in which he talks about the place of pain and injury in Ashtanga yoga. He starts by talking about aligning the shoulder girder properly to prevent shoulder injuries. But he then switches gears and declares that there is a certain karmic component to injury; as he puts it, "you cannot have a long intense relationship with Ashtanga yoga without some kind of injury happening." Injury may arise in the course of your Ashtanga career due to moments of carelessness, genetic weaknesses, or the presence of certain lifestyle factors that impinge upon your practice, or other factors that are simply beyond our control. Whatever the case may be, we should not think that it is "wrong" to be hurt, or that being injured in the course of practice is somehow a yogic sin. David also brings up some funny Guruji stories about injury and pain; I won't go into the details here. I'll leave you to listen to them for yourself in the video.


I just read this very detailed report of Sharath's latest conference (Sunday January 20th). Here's something from the report that really struck a chord with me:

"One student asked Sharath what one is to do if they cannot afford to come study in India, but want to have and maintain a dedicated practice. I loved his answer to this question. We can afford cell phones and nice meals, nice clothes, etc but we cannot afford yoga? He spoke of so many of his students who make tremendous sacrifices to come study with him each year, bringing their children, sacrificing many things to ‘find’ the money to come to India and study with him b/c they want to learn the truth of what is yoga, they want to learn this practice properly under his guidance. If so many of these people can do, everyone can do. So many families coming now brining their children, uprooting their lives to come learn proper practice, to understand this yoga, to show their dedication for this practice, this lineage – if parents can make such tremendous sacrifices and bring their children, it is possible for anyone to do. He chuckled and advised someone to skip one meal per day for some time until they saved enough for the trip."  

Hmm... now I can't help but wonder what Sharath would say about not being able to come study in India because of immigration and career issues? I have a few pictures in my head as to what he might say, but I'm not going to put it out here just yet, since I don't know him personally, and it is rude (not to mention fruitless) to guess what people would say to your personal situation when you don't know them personally. But I can't help wondering, nonetheless...

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I just watched the above video by Kiki, in which she talks about some useful ways to modify the practice to work with and help to heal wrist injury.  If you are working with injuries or other issues in the wrists, you might find this useful.

Not being a very experienced practitioner, I don't have any specific anatomy or posture tips to offer for practicing with injuries. What I would like to do instead is to say a few things about the psychology of injury in yoga, specifically Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. A lot has been written about the common injuries that Ashtangis have sustained in the course of practice, and how to go about treating those injuries and/or modifying one's practice to work with those injuries. All this is valuable and useful information, of course. But I have noticed that very little has been written about what I call the psychology of injury, i.e. the mindsets and attitudes that Ashtangis with injuries tend to adopt. I'm not talking about the mindsets and attitudes that lead to injury: We are more or less familiar with this (ego, pushing too far beyond one's limits, neglecting to listen to certain signs from the body, etc, etc.). What I am interested in talking about are the mindsets and attitudes that Ashtangis tend to have when they have an injury. I have noticed that very little has been written about this area. I'm not sure why this is. But I personally think this is an important area to discuss and think about. After all, according to yogic philosophy, the mind and the body are ultimately one entity. If this is so, then what goes on in the mind inevitably manifests in the body. This being the case, it seems to me that the sort of attitude or mindset one adopts when one is working with an injury will have a direct impact on how effectively one heals from the injury.

Since I hurt my knee more than a month ago, I have had the good fortune of communicating with a few Ashtanga teachers who have worked with injuries at one time or another in their practice careers. They have offered me a lot of helpful advice and specific suggestions. Through my discussions with them, I have noticed that Ashtangis who sustain injuries in the course of their practice tend to adopt one of two attitudes towards their injury:

(A) The Badge of Glory Attitude: As the name suggests, Ashtangis who adopt such an attitude display their injuries almost proudly, as signs that they are super-dedicated or devoted to the practice; so dedicated that they quite literally sacrifice their bodies to the practice. I must admit that while I have heard lots of stories about such Ashtangis, I have never actually personally met such an Ashtangi. Maybe they don't exist anymore. I don't know. But if the stories I hear are reliable, then such Ashtangis have at least existed at one time or another.

(B) Shame/Embarrassment: Quite a few Ashtangis are either reluctant to talk to others about their injury, or keep their injuries secret altogether, because they feel shame and/or are embarrassed about their injury. Why are they ashamed or embarrassed? According to one of the teachers I communicated with, this may be because they are embarrassed about being seen as "not evolved enough" to be able to practice without sustaining injuries. Perhaps they are also embarrassed/ashamed about adding to Ashtanga's bad rep: They are embarrassed/ashamed about becoming another example of why Ashtanga is a dangerous/injury-inducing practice ("What? You busted your knee/shoulders/broke your back doing Ashtanga? See, I told you this is a dangerous style of yoga to practice, but you wouldn't listen, etc., etc."). I can personally attest to the presence of such attitudes of shame/embarrassment among Ashtangis: I struggle with these feelings myself.

As you probably figured, neither (A) nor (B) is a productive or healthy attitude to have towards injuries. (A) causes one to not listen to one's body during practice, and to do things that might well lead to more injury in the future. It may also give people the impression that Ashtangis are supposed to have a gung-ho attitude towards injury ("If you're not breaking your leg, you're not working hard enough!"), and may either lead people new to the practice to do things that are harmful to themselves, or turn people away from Ashtanga altogether.

(B) is not a productive attitude to have either. If one is embarrassed and reluctant to talk about one's injuries, one might end up suffering in silence, making what is already a difficult experience more unnecessarily difficult. It is also harder for such an individual to seek help. Perhaps more importantly, injury can be a valuable learning experience both for the individual and for others who may benefit from hearing about experiences of injury healing. If one does not talk about injury out of shame or embarrassment, one deprives oneself and others of a valuable learning experience.

Please don't get me wrong: I am not saying all this to chastise or single out people who choose not to speak about their injuries. I'm not trying to start any kind of "Let's Talk about Injury Until the Cows Come Home Movement". Nor am I trying to start any kind of witch-hunt, or anything like that. Your body and mind (and mouth) are yours and yours alone, and it is totally up to the individual to decide what is the best course of action to take. I am just observing, based on my own experience, that neither (A) nor (B) are productive attitudes to have, because both of them ultimately do no good to either the practitioner or to others around him or her.

What, then, might be a more productive attitude to adopt towards injury? Here's a suggestion:

(C) Acceptance of injury as part of the process leading towards wholeness: One of the teachers that I communicated with was able to use the asana practice to heal a knee injury over a couple of years of careful and patient practice. He shared the following with me:

"It was a long process that took a lot of awareness and had many ups and downs.  The challenge for me was that as it started to feel better, I would inevitably begin to push beyond my limits and suffer a setback.  The pain can be a real indicator that wakes up awareness of an area.  So, much of my work was first and foremost in the area of awareness.  I had to learn not only how to be aware of my limits, but to discern the different muscles, tendons, and other tissues that were at play in a certain movement.  For me it was anything involving a half lotus.
In my case, I had to specifically learn how to stretch and lengthen the adductor group and the quadricep group in these poses while engaging the hip flexors.  It was just a gradual process of learning to discern what to engage and what to stretch and doing my best not to confuse the two.  Over the course of a couple of years, it was like going from blind to sighted with regards to that particular part of my body...  It was a real lesson in listening to my body.  What I didn't do was to skip poses.  I would instead allow as long as I needed to get into poses, and modify if necessary or not go as deep as I was used to going...

This, in my opinion was key to my recovery since it allowed me to address the underlying imbalance (short adductors and quadriceps) that I believe caused the injury in the first place.  This approach is not for everyone, and it took a lot of time and patience.  I often times doubted my process and had fear and anxiety around it, but it was faith in guruji's advice that kept me going.  I don't believe there should be any shame in injury or getting surgery.  These pains and injuries that come up are part of a much larger process leading towards wholeness.  I believe that these imbalances live in our body and cause tremendous suffering either consciously or unconsciously by the ways in which they limit our life experience.  It would be nice if we were tuned in enough to move towards harmony and balance without the injuries and pain, but at least in my case, I have had to learn the hard way periodically.  However,  I am always grateful for the chance to grow and learn and I believe that I am better off having addressed these imbalances."

Before I go on, I should issue a little disclaimer here: I included a lot of details that are specific to this particular teacher's injury-healing process, because I feel that these details are needed in order to convey the depth of his process. However, I must emphasize that none of the above is intended to be any kind of medical advice and/or specific advice on how to practice. As the teacher himself stated above, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to practice issues: This is especially true when one is working with injury. Please be advised accordingly.     

Having said this, I think the gist of this teacher's account lies in the insight that injury and pain are necessary parts of the journey of practice for many people (including yours truly). If one happens to be one of the fortunate practitioners who never have to work with pain and injury through the course of the practice journey, that's great (such a person would probably have to be somebody who has practiced yoga for many lifetimes before this one). But if you are, ahem, a mere mortal like me, take heart: Injury is not the end of the world, or the end of your practice. It is, in many ways, a new beginning.

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"Reality is a Question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems--but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at first in the back row, and gradually moving up, row by row, until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions; the illusion dissolves--or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality..."

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

I guess I seem to be blogging more now that it's summer; as you might have noticed, this is my second blog post today. I don't have any particular reason for quoting Rushdie here; it just so happens that I am reading Midnight's Children right now, and this particular passage jumps out at me. Midnight is the second Rushdie novel that I have read thus far, the first being The Satanic Verses. I have to say that although both novels are written in that distinctive self-referential voice that is Rushdie's, Midnight is very different in character from The Satanic Verses. I don't really know how to capture this difference in a couple of sentences, and I don't feel like writing a long post right now on what this difference really is, either, so I'll leave it at this. Maybe I'll write more about this when I finish Midnight. We'll see.

In the meantime, let me tell you an interesting true yoga story that recently happened to me. I had a spontaneous lotus teaching moment yesterday afternoon. I was about to leave my office when I started chatting with a colleague who occupies the office across from mine. We started talking about possible summer plans, and what we each had been up to lately. He told me that he had recently taken up meditation, and had injured his ankle while meditating. This is roughly how the conversation unfolded from this point:

Colleague: "Yeah, you don't believe it is possible to injure yourself while meditating, do you?" [Chuckles]

Nobel: "Actually, I do. Were you trying to get into the lotus posture, by any chance?"

Colleague: [Nods his head, smiles sheepishly, and then was suddenly surprised] "How did you know that?" [Note to reader: Many people at work do not know that I practice yoga (I generally adhere to the doctrine of the separation of yoga and work).]  

I then explained to my colleague that I have been practicing yoga for a few years, and know of many incidents of people who have injured their knees and ankles trying to crank themselves into the lotus posture (I did not mention that I had also suffered a knee injury before; I figured that might be too much information at that moment.).

And then the teacher in me took over: I went on to explain to my colleague how, in order to do lotus productively and safely, one must first work on opening the external hip rotators, so that the work of the posture comes from the hips, and not from the knees or ankles. I also mentioned how it took me about six months from the time I first started yoga to get to the point where I was just able to barely do a loose lotus.

"You can do lotus?" My colleague asked (I think he sounded impressed, but I cannot be sure). I said yes, and then proceeded to show him (on the floor of his office, no less) a bunch of preparatory poses (pigeon, double pigeon, etc.) that he can work on in order to get his hips to open enough to be able to do lotus safely. And then, on the spur of the moment, I added, "And once you feel your hips open enough (which could take a few weeks or even months), you can then try half lotus." So saying, I brought my right foot into my left hip crease. "And then, " I continued, "you can work yourself into full lotus." So saying, I brought the left foot onto my right thigh. And I found myself sitting in lotus in jeans on the floor of his office. Which might already be rather unusual, in and of itself. What's even more interesting is that this is the first time since my knee injury a couple of years ago that I have spontaneously gotten into a full lotus outside of my yoga practice, while wearing street clothes. To be sure, my lotus wasn't very deep: I didn't feel that I was warm enough to attempt the usual deep lotus that I do during practice, so I kept the lotus loose. But even so, I am grateful for how much my knee has healed to permit me to do even this.

Anyway, I got out of lotus after a few breaths, and got back on my feet. My colleague thanked me for the hip-opening tips, and I went on my way.

Well.... I hope you like this little story. More later.

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I have a bad feeling that this is going to be one of those posts that contribute to the popular (mis?)conception of  Ashtangis as self-torturing pain junkies who delight in inflicting pain on themselves. I hope I don't contribute too much to Ashtanga's already bad rep in this area. But everything that I'm about to describe here actually happened yesterday and during this morning's practice. So I can at least say that I am being honest, if nothing else.

Before I go on to tell the story proper, I think it would be useful for me to give you a little background story. I am going through a rather nerve-wracking and angst-provoking time in my life right now: I don't particularly feel like going into the details here (although I might when all this is over, however it turns out), so you'll have to bear with me for being a little vague about things here. Suffice to say that I am waiting for a couple of things to fall through (or not), and I'll know in a couple of days whether they do. Right now, there is nothing to do except wait. And wait some more. And in the meantime, continue to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, do the practice, blog, and try to stay sane the whole time. I have tried reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, but honestly, it hasn't been helping much. He's just too harsh and rational about this whole being in the present moment thing for my state of mind right now. For example, at one point in his book, in response to somebody who said, "Surely we need hope to keep us going, and hope is always hope that things will turn out better in the future. So doesn't having hope imply not being in the present moment?" To this, Tolle replied that if one is fully present in the moment, one doesn't need hope: When one is able to fully savor the present moment, what use is there for hope for the future? I'm paraphrasing, as I don't have the book on me right now, but I'm pretty sure I captured the essence of his reply. I don't know about you, but I think this is kind of harsh. I mean, it does make for a certain logical kind of sense: If you are fully, fully present, you won't need to hope for anything in the future. But I think it is no exaggeration to say that we humans are hardwired by centuries of cultural conditioning to hope for a better future when things get rough. And, to borrow a phrase from Marx, perhaps Tolle is saying that hope is the opium of the un-present masses, just as religion was the opium of the masses on Marx's view. And maybe it's just me, but isn't it a little bit cruel to deny a frail mortal like me even the opium of hope in a time like this? Well, I'm guessing that Tolle will disagree here; he'll probably say that I need to go "cold turkey" and use this difficult time in my life as an opportunity to rid myself once and for all of the opium of hope. Whatever. Go to hell. (Yikes! What did I just say?)

To add insult to possible injury, I was talking with a friend yesterday about my present situation. He listened for a while, and then suggested that I take a bigger-picture view of things as they are right now. Even though things are not going quite as I would like them to go, there are many blessings in my life: Good health, a yoga practice, etc. He then proceeded to point out that material possessions and worldly position are really quite insignificant in the light of this bigger picture. Wow... this is what happens when one reads Eckhart Tolle: Even your friends start to sound like him. 

But here's another ironic twist: As much as a certain part of me refuses to buy into any of Tolle's talk about being in the present, the Ashtanga practice seems to be the one thing that is actually fostering such presence in my life right now. This morning, I woke up with a rather funky mood. My whole body felt stiff and heavy, and I did not feel like practicing at all. Well, okay, I asked myself, what are you going to do then? Go back to sleep? But I somehow knew more sleep was probably not going to make me feel much better: If anything, I'll probably end up feeling even heavier and stiffer a couple of hours down the road. So I gingerly rolled out my Mysore rug, and started moving through the practice. As I got into primary series, an idea suddenly struck me: The last couple of days, I had been re-reading Matthew Sweeney's Astanga Yoga As It Is, and familiarizing myself with the Sanskrit vinyasa count of the postures and transitions in primary. It's pretty funny to say this, but as much of an Ashtangeek as I am, I have actually never gotten the exact Sanskrit vinyasa count in the seated postures of primary down pat. I figured that now would be the time to rectify this gap in my Ashtanga career :-) Anyway, as I got into primary this morning, I suddenly thought it would be kind of cool to recite the vinyasa count mentally to myself as I did each of the postures. So on I went: Sapta, inhale and jump into posture. Ashtau, exhale and hold for five breaths. Nawa, inhale and exhale there. Desa, inhale lift up. Ekadesa. exhale into chaturanga. And so and so forth. And since Sweeney does the traditional long count, he doesn't "reset" the count to Sapta on the second side of the posture, but continues with the count on the first side. So I get to count all the way up to Ekonavimsatihi (I really love the sound of this particular word!) and then Vimsatihi, which is when you exhale into downdog before starting from Sapta again and jumping into the next posture of the series.

It's really interesting, but before I knew it, I realized that counting the vinyasa to myself really helped to remove all extraneous thoughts from my mind. Who knew that one could pull an Eckhart Tolle simply by doing the vinyasa count? Maybe one day, when all this shit that I am presently going through is over (I know, I know, I'm not being present again, but whatever...), I'll teach a workshop titled, "Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and Eckhart Tolle: How to use the Traditional Vinyasa Count to bring greater presence into your practice". Maybe you come? :-)

Another, less pleasant thing also happened during practice this morning. My upper back muscles, especially the Trapezius, goes through periods of tightness. Such tightness tends to recur during periods of stress or anxiety. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been feeling this tightness from time to time whenever I sit in front of my computer or when I am reading. These past couple of mornings, I have been feeling the tightness during practice itself, especially when I lift my legs to put them behind my head in Supta Kurmasana. But I thought that if I moved into and out of the pose carefully, I'll probably be fine. And in a sense, I was right. Nothing major happened in Supta Kurmasana this morning. But something major did happen as I rolled over into my second Chakrasana (the one following Setu Bandhasana). As I rolled my legs over my head to go into downdog, I felt this sharp pulling sensation in my trapezius. Somehow, I still managed to land my feet in downdog. But I knew the damage had been done. Damn... no more Chakrasana (and probably also no more putting legs behind head in Supta Kurmasana) for the next few days, or maybe even for the next few weeks. We'll see. Anyway, my traps have been aching since then. In fact, they are aching right now, even as I am typing these words. I am doing a whole bunch of gentle trapezius stretches throughout the day to relieve the soreness. But the funny thing is, even this pain has its upside: It is making me more present in my body, and causing me to fixate less on the other things in my life that are causing great anxiety. I guess this says something about my state of mind, when I am actually at a point where I actually prefer physical pain to mental anxiety. I hope this doesn't mean that I need to go see a psychiatrist or something. Scary. Anyway, I guess I'll sign off here. More later.

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Happy Moon Day, Ashtangis! If you are not an Ashtangi, and are reading this, Happy Moon Day anyway! For those you who are Ashtangis, I hope you are taking a well-deserved break from your Ashtangic labors, and indulging in whatever it is that you indulge on days when you do not have to (who said you have to, anyway?) spend one and a half to two hours bending yourself into all kinds of funny shapes. Hmm, really: What do Ashtangis do with the couple of extra hours that they have on Moon Days? Here are a few options that come to mind:

(a) Sleep a couple extra hours;

(b) Play video games (Somebody should seriously come up with a Wii version of Ashtanga for hardcore Ashtanga OCD folks; that way, if you, say, can't grab your heels in Kapotasana in your regular practice on the mat, you can try to "achieve" it on Wii. True, it's not the same as nailing the posture on the mat, but hey, you got to take what you can get :-));

(c) Read books (on Ashtanga or other subjects);

(d) Spend more time blogging (or spend more time reading Ashtanga blogs like this one :-));

(e) Have coffee or tea (with oneself or with others);

(f) Have sex (with oneself or with others);

(g) Some of the above;

(h) None of the above.

Actually, this looks like good material for a poll! So let's do it. In the right hand corner of this blog, you will see a poll with these eight options. As usual, polling is anonymous; not even I will know what you choose. So feel free to choose honestly, and to your heart's content.

Recently, it seems that a certain corner of the Ashtanga/yoga blogosphere has been abuzz with intimations of Ashtanga infidelity: This blogger has courageously confessed to Ashtanga that she is "seeing other yoga". Hmm... I'm pretty sure I know what Guruji would say about this:

Interesting. Let me start by talking about the Ferrari analogy. Honestly, speaking from my own experience, I'm not entirely sure that I would describe Ashtanga as a Ferrari (or any other kind of sports car). Maybe there is a certain "turbo" element to the whole thing, at least from the outside: Those jumpbacks and jumpthroughs sure look pretty impressive and "turbo-charged" to an onlooker. But this is just an appearance; and appearances, as we know, are deceptive. Beneath the facade of speed and panache lies a long, painstaking process; a process marked by many plateaus (brought about by physical limitations, pains, or injury), punctuated by the occasional spurts of "progress" or "achievement" (i.e. you "master" a particular pose, get a new one, do an "old" one with greater ease and less effort, or get one-tenth of an inch deeper in a challenging pose).

I guess I'll say this: If Ashtanga is a sports car, it is a very high-maintenance sports car, one that breaks down quite a lot. In fact, if what I said above about plateaus in the practice is any indication of what most Ashtangis' practices are like, I would go so far as to say that breakages are the norm rather than the exception in the practice. So why bother to practice? Why not choose an "easier", "lower-maintenance" vehicle? In order to answer this question, we need to consider another, related question: What should we do when we encounter breakages (plateaus, injuries, pains) in the practice? What is the most productive attitude to take toward these breakages? Even though he doesn't practice Ashtanga (at least not that I know of), Eckhart Tolle actually has something to say about this. He writes:

"Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what the situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly... For example, you probably won't be able to enjoy changing the flat tire on your car in the middle of nowhere and in pouring rain, let alone be enthusiastic about it, but you can bring acceptance to it. Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which then flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, that subtle energy vibration, is consciousness, and one of the ways in which it enters this world is through surrendered action, one aspect of which is acceptance."

To illustrate what Tolle is saying here, let's apply his insight to a common occurrence in the practice: Injury. Sometimes, despite our best efforts at alignment/healthy movement or listening to our bodies, we still get injured in the course of the practice, because bodies are physical things, and physical things break. One could react to the injury by resisting it, asking "Why? Why me?!", and then proceed to either (a) try to deny the existence of the injury by simply pushing through the pain, or (b) give up the practice altogether. As anybody who has worked with injury in the practice knows, neither (a) nor (b) are productive responses. (a) is not productive, because it subjects one to more unnecessary pain, and can possibly aggravate the injury. (b) is also not productive, because although not practicing might mean no pain (at least temporarily), whatever it is that caused the injury in the first place is not being addressed, and the movement pattern that caused it will continue to lurk in the mind/body, setting the stage for possibly more pain and injury in the future. Here, one can't help recalling Tim Miller's famous words: "Avoidance is not the answer."

A more productive response would be one of acceptance. In this state, one tries one's best to practice with the injury, either by modifying and/or moving around the pain, even if doing so is not pleasant physically and mentally. By doing so, one not only allows healing to take place on a physical level; one also becomes able to understand the mind/body connection better with regard to this part of the body, and is able to bring the light of consciousness to bear on this part of the body. In so doing, one is able to gradually undo the deep-seated samskaric pattern that led to pain and injury in the first place, leading to healing on a deeper level.

When we understand that the most productive attitude to take towards pain and injury (and, for that matter, any kind of plateau-inducing phenomenon) in the practice is one of acceptance and surrender, the question of "Why bother to practice?" also answers itself: Although there are many obstacles and plateaus in the practice, these obstacles and plateaus are what make the practice "real" and meaningful. Working through these obstacles and plateaus presents a valuable opportunity to practice the surrender and acceptance which lie at the very heart of yoga. Indeed, I think we can even go as far as to say that these obstacles and plateaus constitute the raison d'etre of the practice: Without obstacles and plateaus and the surrenderful attitudes of acceptance that they demand, we may just as well be training to become gymnasts or acrobats. Or ninjas. Now don't get me wrong; ninjas are way cool. In fact, my childhood dream was (and probably still is) to become a ninja when I grow up. But we'll see...

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I was just reading this recent article that the NYT wrote about Eddie Stern and his Broome street shala/temple. It made me think of my last visit to NYC, in December 2009. I was visiting in the city for a few days, and I would go to Eddie's shala to do my practice first thing every morning. By the time I got there every morning (between 6 to 6:30 a.m.), there were already many other Ashtangis who were there and way into their practices. The energy in the room was intense yet relaxed at the same time. Everybody was super-focused on their individual practices, yet, at the same time, because everybody knew what exactly they had to do (and knew that Eddie and his capable assistant were watching over them), there was this feeling of being able to give oneself over completely to the practice. Good times those were, as Yoda might say (I seem to be in a Yoda state of mind these past couple of days :-)).

I also watched the video interview with Eddie that is embedded in the article. Good stuff. There were a few things Eddie said that really resonated with me:

(1) "I don't even now feel qualified to teach yoga. I'm doing my practicing and exploring."

Well, if somebody like Eddie Stern can say that, then I don't feel so bad about my lack of success thus far in the yoga business, being the neophyte that I am :-) But seriously, what's the hurry? I honestly feel very privileged and fortunate to be able to do my own practice at my own pace without having the responsibility of teaching others. And there's a lot to learn yet. If this sounds a little selfish, well, maybe it is. But being selfish is not a crime.

(2) "I look around on the streets, and I look at people in their 60s and 70s and 80s, and I think to myself, 'How do I want to be when I get to be that age?'"

This really hit the nail on the head for me. Actually, it was this thought that really got me into yoga back in grad school. I stumbled upon yoga in grad school when I went into a power yoga class in the campus gym more or less by accident (for the not-so-glorious details of this story, see this post).

Soon after I started yoga, I found myself looking at many of my professors and asking myself, "Is this what I want to be like in 20 or 30 years?" I looked at their physical conditions (which, frankly speaking, left much to be desired), and compared their physical conditions with those of senior teachers like David Swenson or Richard Freeman. And it seemed pretty obvious, at least to me, who I would rather be like 20 or 30 years down the road.

Now, before you start accusing me of being ageist or physical-condition-ist (or whatever "ist" there is out there in this very politically correct society in which we live; honestly, political correctness can be so stifling at times. But this is something for another post...), let me bring your attention to something else that Eddie says in the video:

(3) "Yoga is both physical and spiritual... [People say] 'I want to be super fit, I want to wear great clothes, I want to be beautiful and forever young.' Okay, fine, let those things be there. But infuse those things with some deeper purpose: You want to have a fit body, so you can do good work in the world."

This, again, hits the nail on the head for me. This was also one of those things about yoga that really attracted me to it when I first started practicing. At that time, I had started noticing (at least in the part of this country that I lived in) that many people (especially so-called intellectual types) have a very curious two-fold attitude towards the physical body and physical wellness. On the one hand, they seem to be more or less resigned to the fact that, because they are so dedicated to their professional careers or whatever it is that they are doing for a living, their bodies are bound to break down before their time, and there's nothing they can do about it. On the other hand, they also seem to regard with suspicion anybody who is fit or healthy or has a nice body: It's almost as if they think that if you have the time to be fit and have a nice body, you must not be working hard enough in your professional career. Or maybe all this is just my perception of people's attitudes from listening to the way many so-called intellectual types speak rather disdainfully of anything physical. You may disagree with my observation here.

At any rate, at least for me, yoga offered a way to resolve this false dilemma: You owe it to yourself to become strong and healthy if you want to be "successful" and do good in the world, both for yourself and others. I think B.K.S Iyengar said pretty much the same thing somewhere in Light on Yoga; to paraphrase, I think he said that asana functions to develop a strong and healthy body that you can then dedicate to the service of God.  

(4) When asked by the interviewer, "Have you ever had any kind of serious injury?" Eddie nonchalantly replied, "Serious? No, no..." And then went on to add, "I once had a rib popped out of place for three years, but I survived." 

Three years?! Whoa... that's some courage and faith in the practice. I mean, if you were to tell anybody on the street that yoga might give you an injury that's going to take three years to heal, I can bet almost anything that that person would probably gasp in horror, and then say, "Well... why do yoga, then?" Of course, there's also the possibility that that person might be William J. Broad; in which case, you will have another one of those wrecking-your-body articles coming (picture this upcoming NYT article: "Ashtanga can pop your ribs like popcorn").

Anyway, I would love to be able to ask Eddie how he managed to find the strength and the courage to continue practicing through something like this for three years. I'm not saying this to glorify injury. But the fact of the matter is that despite their best efforts, many Ashtangis will face pain or injury at some point in their practice careers. So rather than pretend that pain and injury is this bogeyman that one can avoid if one were "careful" enough or "evolved" enough, it might be more productive to talk about what to do when (notice I said "when", not "if") one does face pain or injury. And it seems that Eddie might have some useful insights to offer in this area.

Oh, and speaking of pain and injury, my SI joint is feeling quite a bit better (see previous post). It turns out that paying more attention to rotating the thighs inward during upward dog helps a lot. Who knew?  

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I just read Kino's latest article, which was published in Elephant Journal. At one point in her article, she speaks very clearly and illuminatingly about the place of pain, suffering and potential injury in the Ashtanga tradition. She also addresses that recently-infamous NYT article (you know what I'm talking about; no need to link to it here :-)). Kino writes:

"Yoga is an ancient spiritual tradition, of which the practice of physical postures, known as asanas, are just one component. In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras asana is in fact only one out of the full eight limbs of practice. Recent dialogue within the yoga community, most notably in the New York Times article on yoga-related injuries, presents the notion that yoga might be potentially discounted because of the risk of physical injury. Yet this fails to take into account the spiritual journey to the heart of each student’s essential nature that is at center of the yoga practice itself. A true student of yoga is a sincere spiritual seeker and is willing to go through the work of pain, suffering and potential injury if that road ultimately leads to liberation, happiness, healing and freedom. My teacher Sri K. Pattabhi Jois said that if you experienced an injury during your physical yoga practice the only real way to heal that injury was through more yoga. He also said that if you quit your practice after having experienced that injury that it would stay with you for a long time, perhaps the rest of your life. If pain can be avoided by students learning their lessons the easy way through an open heart, healthy alignment and accepting attitude that is the fastest road. However, when pain and injury arise it is crucial that you do not run from them nor allow their presence to rule your experience of your body, your practice and your life.


There is a mind-body connection that underlies the practice of physical postures. Yoga is more of a body awareness technique than a physical exercise routine. In fact the main purpose of all the postures is to prepare your body and mind for deeper states of realization. When you try to feel and awaken a forgotten area of the body for the first time it is often hard to rouse. Yoga students must use the posture to dig deeper into the layers of the body and reach through memories, emotions, thoughts and anything else to touch the heart of their human soul with all its foibles and vulnerabilities. In the path of yoga it is essential that when pain arises you do not run from it, reacting to the pain from a purely psychological perspective and throw out the whole tradition based on fear. In fact, when you do experience pain it is sometimes a better teacher of the inner work that happens along the path of yoga. Any injuries that arise can be used to learn a deeper lesson about life so that then actually the path of yoga is truly working from a broader perspective.

Editor’s note: that said, fear and pain can be two different things. If a yoga posture is hurting you, this can be dangerous. Needless to say, we hope! Being macho and pushing through is not the message here. ~ ed.

When you accept yoga as a spiritual path the notion of the need for “safety” is challenged. You have the confidence to let yourself fall with the full faith that one day you will catch yourself in the air. Think of the yogi as a brave warrior going on a long and epic journey to the center of the soul. Just as in every heroic epic there are fearsome, painful and worrying battles that test the limits of the hero’s ability, so too in yoga are there challenging, difficult and nearly impossible postures that test the limits of your body and mind. But if you are the hero who is committed to the whole journey, then you also have the heart to see the experience all the way through to the end and win your final freedom."

I hope you find Kino's words here to be as enlightening as I have I found them.

And now I'm going to go off on a little rant here. If you don't like rants, please feel free to just skip this paragraph altogether. I feel compelled to say something here about that Editor's note that popped up in the middle of Kino's words. While I'm sure the editors have perfectly good intentions in inserting that note, there's a part of me that can't help feeling that it is (a) rather disrespectful to Kino, and (b) rather insulting to the discerning ability of the reader. First, if somebody were giving a speech, for instance, you wouldn't think of interrupting her speech to deliver your own commentary on it, would you? Moreover, what Kino is saying here seems sensible enough: It's not as if she's asking people to go throw themselves over a cliff! Besides, I'm pretty sure Elephant Journal has published articles with much more questionable content before: I don't seem to recall the esteemed editors inserting any editor's notes in those cases. So why the double standard here? Why do our esteemed editors suddenly feel the need here to be self-appointed arbiters of public yoga safety standards? In any case, isn't this unceremonious insertion of editor's notes at odds with Elephant Journal's professed policy of openness and being embracing of diverse viewpoints?

End of rant. Thank you for bearing with (or not bearing with) this rant. Yoga in the Dragon's Den will presently resume its usual friendly, non-ranty, (hopefully) non-preachy voice. 

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I was just watching David Garrigues' latest blog post, and the two videos that he has embedded in the post. Wow, the man is like a walking Encyclopedic Ashtanga Exclamation Mark! I really want to go study with him someday. I hear that he is now in Kovalam teaching a workshop. While I, of course, am here in this snowbound tundra of the upper midwest. Why, oh why does everybody seem to be in India except me?

But lamenting and complaining isn't going to get me anywhere. So I'm going to try to say something useful here. Back to David G's post. I've only seen the first video (I plan to save the second one for when I have a little more time later today). In the post and the video, David talks about the relation between receptivity and effort in the practice, and how breath helps us to become more receptive in the midst of effort.

In the first video, he talks about one very common experience that many Ashtangis have: You are in a vinyasa, inhaling up into upward dog. And then suddenly, in the middle of updog, you discover that your lungs are full, and you just can't inhale any further! What do you do? Stop breathing? David's answer is surprisingly commonsensical: Take an extra breath (duh!). When the questioner asks further, "But should we try to finish updog in one breath?" David's answer was, "Yes, but you need to work on the ability to do so."

The idea, as I understand it, is to do your best to follow the vinyasa breath count, but not to force it. Due to many different reasons, every breath that we take will naturally be different in length and duration. And for the same reasons, every updog and downdog will also feel different. It certainly won't help matters to try so hard to make your breath so long that it starts to feel unnatural and forced.

But as I was watching the video, it also occurred to me that even though every updog and downdog is different, there is also a certain distinctive kind of feeling that accompanies both updog and downdog. Here's how I think of it: Doing yoga is kind of like withdrawing into the bottom of a well. Whenever I do updog, it kind of feels like I am using the inhalation to float up to the top of the well to get some fresh air. And when I go into downdog, I feel like I am going back into the bottom of the well to reground and recenter myself for the flight "up" into updog and into the next posture in the sequence. At any rate, this is the image that occurs to me as I was watching David's explanation in his video.

There is something else in David's post that really speaks to me. He writes:

"The deepest person within each of us knows the larger, more comprehensive nature of things beyond the limited appearance of things that the ego and senses apprehend. Learning to identify ourselves with this greater perspective is the subject of receptivity. When we use our ego and senses to become aware in an inward direction, we will find that there is a sort of knowing that has its own direction, its own intelligence, its own necessity to fulfill something through us. And so in a practical, on-the-mat way, receptivity is the sustained effort to give up control enough to receive the wisdom that lies within our inmost core. And then to follow the direction of this wisdom with as much trust as we put in our ego and our ideas and feelings of how we control or shape our lives through our choices."

Notice that David does not say that we should get rid of our ego (like this is even possible). Rather, he says that we should "use our ego and senses to become aware in an inward direction", to "find that there is a sort of knowing that has its own direction, its own intelligence, its own necessity to fulfill something through us." It is in the nature of ego to want to extend and to achieve, to want to make this or that "mine", "my own." Anybody who has ever over-extended or injured himself in the course of practice knows where this can lead :-)

But I think David is suggesting that perhaps we can harness this same extending, achieving drive of the ego, and shine its light inwards and use it to attain greater self-understanding. In other words, the same ego that can over-extend outwards can also be made to turn inward and help us to understand our minds and bodies better. Recently, a teacher gave me some interesting advice in working with my knee. He wrote,

"...do allow yourself the coming time to learn what your knee likes to do (rather than what you like your knee to do for you) and in that process expect no linear line ahead. you'll most likely be surprised of what you can do, as well as of what you cannot do. also, your knee will be sensitive to weather, sleep, diet, emotion and so forth."

The first time I read these lines, I almost cracked up. It reminds me of something a former U.S. President once said ("Ask not what your knee can do for you--ask what you can do for your knee!"). Very simple, commonsensical advice, really, but not always easy to follow. But I think the same idea as what David was talking about in his post applies here: Rather than allow the ego to indiscriminately extend outwards, try to get the ego to listen and find out what the body needs, and work accordingly.

Alright... I think I'll sign off here. Can't write much more without overextending myself and violating blogging drishti (I guess the same rules apply to Ashtanga blogging as to practice :-)). As always, if you have anything to say, I'll love to hear from you.          

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I have been reading with great interest Kino's account of Sharath's January 1st conference in Mysore. By the way, Claudia has recently written a wonderful post discussing her thoughts on this conference. Check it out. There is one part of Kino's account that I find really interesting. Kino writes:

'First you stabilize the mind because if the mind is not in your control it will be like a monkey, a drunken monkey, that is jumping everywhere. First you need to control your mind and for that you need discipline and this comes from the practice of asana...

Sharath continued, “Asana is the foundation for all spiritual building, if the foundation is strong then the building will be strong. Mind transformation will happen when you do asanas. For others it looks like physical, it is only when you go inside and practice asana for many years then only can you realize how spiritual it really is.” An analogy that Sharath likes to discuss this process is about a sailor who sails without diving doesn’t know the beauty of the ocean, the diver sees the beautiful fish and animals. If you just go on the ocean, on the surface then you never get anything, your mind becomes imagination, but there is no self-practice and no realization within. When you dive inside the sea then you will come to the conclusion that “this” is yoga with asana practice. He says, “You can relish the purity of this practice.”'

When I first read these two paragraphs, two thoughts occurred to me: One of them is what we might call a "proper" thought; the other one might be called an "improper thought." (talk about having a drunken jumping monkey mind...)

I guess I'll start with the proper thought. If we understand that the purpose of asana is to control the mind by making us "go inside", then we can also understand why there are six series of asanas in Ashtanga, and why the practitioner practices increasingly physically difficult postures as his or her physical flexibility and strength increases with consistent practice. The purpose of doing increasingly difficult postures isn't to show off one's physical prowess or gratify one's ego. Rather, the idea is that mastering something challenging requires one-pointed concentration. This is true whether one is totally new to Ashtanga and is struggling to do five Surya Bs, or whether one is an experienced practitioner working on third series postures. In both cases, the challenge of the asana at hand requires the absolute concentration of the practitioner in that moment. It is this absolute one-pointed concentration that allows one to control the mind and to "go inside." It has (or should have) nothing to do with showing off; in fact, if one is so proficient at a particular posture that it comes so easily to one, so that one can "show off" while doing that posture, then that probably means that one is ready for the next posture. That, at any rate, is my opinion. And this concludes my proper thought.

Being the subversive person that I am, I can never resist improper thoughts. Specifically, I can never seem to resist the temptation to stretch analogies whenever I hear them. As I was reading Sharath's analogy about how the sailor who doesn't dive misses out on the beauty of the ocean while the diver "sees the beautiful fish and animals", I couldn't help wondering: Where do asana injuries come into this picture? After all, when one goes deep sea diving, one doesn't see only beautiful fish and animals. One must also be wary of some not-so-beautiful fish and animals that lurk in the depths, waiting to feast on the unsuspecting Ashtangi/diver. If one is not careful, these animals will smash one's spine or bite one's leg off at the knee (get the analogy here? :-)).

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Earlier today, I read Pakistani Ashtangi's latest post, in which she ponders the questions, "Do I enjoy yoga? Why do I do it?"

Her post really speaks to me: Without being totally conscious of it, I have also recently been asking myself the same questions, particularly after I injured my left knee. There have never been any dramatic moments (I'm generally not the sort to engage in theatrics). But as anybody who has ever worked around an injury in the practice will probably agree, injury presents the practitioner with challenges on two levels:

(I) Pain and limitations on the physical level: There are clear physical limitations (in terms of postures to be modified or even avoided for the time being) on the practice imposed by the injury. Even many postures that are "kosher" to do probably will be accompanied by a certain level of discomfort.

(II) Pain and limitations on the mental/ego level: Along with physical limitations come the effect of these limitations on the ego. The ego always wants to go further than is physically safe (at least mine does); it always thinks it can somehow enable the body to get away with doing this or that inappropriate modification or posture just this once without aggravating the injury. And (at least in my case; I can't speak for anybody else) a big part of the practice then becomes this process of wrangling with the ego and not letting it have its way. In my particular case, it also doesn't help that I probably have a higher pain threshold than many other people. Which means that it is possible for my ego to override even pain where other egos would have just backed off.

I will even come right out and confess that dealing with (II) has been by far the more challenging part of my practice journey over the last month or so than (I).

I wonder if all this is more information than you want to know :-) In any case, over the past month or so, I have found myself asking myself on more than one occasion: Why am I still doing the practice? Why am I practicing, if it seems like only one of two things can come out of the practice on any given day: (1) I listen to my ego, and hurt myself more/take longer to recover (bad), (2) I don't listen to my ego, which crushes my ego (also bad, since as much as I like to be able to say that the ego is not a part of me... well, it is.).

Given (1) or (2), it seems to me that any sane person would probably just say, "Why don't you just take a break from practice, and get more sleep?" There is, of course, an obvious answer to this question. As studies in sports medicine have shown, except in cases where one is so severely injured that one can't move, total bed rest is in some ways just as risky as pushing through pain and injury. After a period of bed rest, the body becomes de-conditioned and thus, more injury-prone. So it is actually healthier both physically and psychologically to practice around an injury than to not practice at all. 

But while this answer makes a lot of sense from a medical point of view, I feel that it still misses some important thing that is really motivating my daily practice. I feel that this answer somehow fails to capture that missing something which gets me on my mat every morning despite my physical limitations. And I think PakistaniAshtangi's post goes a big part of the way to capture what is in my mind. She writes:

"I really enjoy the way it makes me feel, physically and mentally, after practice. Often even during, now that I think about it. Interestingly, and with the risk of getting into over-share territory here, I’ve even had times in Savasana when I was struck by the similarity of that feeling to that of post-orgasm – which says something about how intensely the practice sometimes affects me, physically. There’s a thorough feeling of well being after practice that I don’t quite get from any other physical exertion that I’ve tried. And I think that that physical state is deeply connected to the mental calmness one gets after practice too – it’s like I’ve been run in the washing machine, spun vigorously in there to get the last dirty water out, then shaken out powerfully (like my mum used to do it, snap SNAP!) to straighten out the wrinkles, and hung up to dry all relaxed and content in the bright sunshine. I don’t think I could get one without the other."

The practice definitely gives me a powerful feeling of groundedness and well-being that no other physical exertion (or non-exertion) can offer. In my case, I would also like to add that there is an ironic way in which my injury actually adds to the feeling of groundedness. I think B.K.S. Iyengar says somewhere that asana practice is an inward-looking practice, because the very process of paying attention to one's body and what it is going through takes one's mind away from whatever else might distract it, and grounds it radically in the present moment. I think this is all the more true when one has to work around an injury: How can it not be, if the difference between attention and inattention at any moment might mean the difference between excruciating pain (and more injury) and a productive, healing experience? To practice around an injury is, in this sense, to practice on a knife edge. But the knife edge can also be a gift, since it forces one to pay more attention than one otherwise would have.

Well, thank you for listening in on this monologue. I should probably end this post with a disclaimer: I am not glorifying injury. There are many ways to find this knife edge of mindful awareness, injury being probably the least desirable one.

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