our-yoga

As you can tell, I haven't posted much on this blog (or any other blog) lately. Have I been busy? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. I have been reading quite a bit lately, and busy turning my attention inwards in that way. Specifically, I have been rereading Heidegger's Being and Time (the last time I read it was many years ago, in grad school) in preparation for my class on Existentialism in the spring, which I will be teaching for the first time. I can't really explain it well, but there's just something about reading B&T that makes me very pensive and contemplative and inward-turning, causing me to minimize my present-at-hand relations with the world. And you have to admit that writing a blog is a very present-at-hand kind of activity, at least for me. Oh, I guess I haven't explained what "present-at-hand" is. But in order to explain what presence-at-hand means, I would have to get into a present-at-hand relationship with presence-at-hand (does this give you a hint of its nature?). And I don't feel like doing this now.

Suffice to say that there is just something about reading a text very carefully, deliberately and slowly that causes a kind of inward turning in the reader; or at any rate, in this reader. There does not seem to be much to show for all this inward turning, at least for now. But well, it is what it is.

But I do have a couple of cool things to say about practice. As of right now, I'm still doing half-primary plus second up to Pincha Mayurasana. There hasn't been much to say about practice for most of the last few weeks; for the most part, it's just been showing up at the mat, doing one's best, and then getting on with one's day.

But in the last couple of days, a couple of pretty cool things have transpired on the mat. Firstly, my breath has been very long and expansive in Kapotasana these last couple of days, where it is usually rushed. I don't want to jinx myself by writing about this here, but two expansive-breath-Kapotasana-days are so rare to come by in my practice (actually, I can't remember the last time my breath was expansive in Kapo for two days in a row), I must be doing something right. Maybe it's the Heidegger? ;-)  

The other significant practice development is that I have been successfully binding in Titthibhasana B the last couple of days. It's really nothing to write home (or write here) about; it's just barely clasping the fingers. But still. I hope this means that my shoulders are finally opening up.

Alright, that's all I have to say for now. More later.

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These days, it seems like the only thing I really have to say about my practice is my backbending. Perhaps I should start a weekly (or maybe even twice-weekly) State of the Backbend post to record the ongoing process of my backbend practice. We'll see.

So here's how my backbending has been going this week. Over the last week or so in Kapotasana, I have been trying to lengthen and create space in my spine at the same time as I am walking my hands towards my feet. Basically, this involves landing on my hands first. Then (1) inhale, tilt the ASIS forward while at the same time lifting the stomach and ribcage. Then (2) exhale, walk a little. Then repeat steps (1) and (2) somewhere between five to ten times, until I grab my heels.

I guess you could say that from a purely mechanical perspective, this amounts to doing Kapo B first before doing Kapo A (or more precisely, doing Kapo B, then Kapo A, then Kapo B again before finally exiting the posture). Besides lengthening and creating more space in the spine, this way of getting into Kapo A also seems to cause the breath to be longer and slightly more relaxed while in Kapo A. Or perhaps spinal lengthening and the length of the breath are related.

Anyway, I won't offer too much more commentary on it. I'm just writing this post to record and register what has been going on in my backbend practice.

A few days ago, Micqui over at Ashtangi Angel wrote a blog post about the relationship between shoulder-blade alignment and backbending. In that post, she also mentions what she calls a "Lino style" drop back. I was unfamiliar with what such a dropback would look like, so I asked her to explain. Here's how she describes this way of dropping back:

"...you start with your hands supporting your lumbar spine, then you slowly move them down the legs, walking, walking, until you get to your calfs, so you're still holding the calfs (calves?) then you let go, rotate them medially and down you go. You end up only about a foot of the ground when walking down so it seems less scary :)"

A reader of this blog also very helpfully emailed me a video of Michael Gannon assisting a student in such a dropback (thank you!). Here is the video:

Anybody have any thoughts about this?     

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Practice this morning was... actually, I can't quite find one or two adjectives to describe how it was, so I guess I'll just describe what happened. Well, here's what happened. First, in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, I found myself dancing all over the place. The excessive amount of dancing today may have something to do with certain extraneous thoughts I may have been having in my head at the time, or it may not. Who knows? In any case, I kept dancing so much and losing balance on the first side (the side where you balance on your left foot with your right foot off the ground) that at one point, I almost started yelling at myself. I did not end up, because it would have been pretty silly: Just who would I be yelling at, anyway? A specific body part (which one?)?

Something very nice happened in Kapotasana. Today was one of the rare days when my breath in Kapo was (relatively) long, even, and unhurried. It almost felt like I could pull a Kino, and actually talk in an even tone while in the posture (have you ever seen that video where she talks you through Kapo while doing Kapo herself? If you haven't, you can see it here.).

In any case, my breath felt so even and relatively relaxed that I ended up staying in Kapo for a few extra breaths, just to see how staying in it longer would feel like (not bad). I also noticed that my inhale was longer than my exhale, and tried to lengthen the exhale; but I also tried not to try too hard, because with something like the breath, if you try too hard to make it one way, you might end up creating strain in the body and the nervous system.

Some time ago (it may have been last week, but I cannot be sure), somebody (I can't remember who) wrote a blog post on the question of whether Ashtanga blogging has "jumped the shark." I was going to to go read and maybe comment on that post, but it got taken down before I could do either (did somebody with clout in the blogosphere get offended?). But like a shark that would not stop swimming (are you laughing yet?), this question has stayed in my mind ever since. So, at the risk of offending somebody myself (like I have never offended anybody...), I have decided to blog about it myself.  

In any case, this is how Wikipedia defines "jumping the shark":

'In its initial usage, it referred to the point in a television program's history when the program had outlived its freshness and viewers had begun to feel that the show's writers were out of new ideas, often after great effort was made to revive interest in the show by the writers, producers, or network.

The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment when a brand, design, or creative effort's evolution loses the essential qualities that initially defined its success and declines, ultimately, into irrelevance.'

Wikipedia also adds that this turning point usually occurs after a particular episode/installment/blog post where the show/magazine/blog's writers resort to some type of gimmick in order to try to keep viewers'/readers' interest (and fail).

Well, so much for pseudo-jumping-the-shark scholarship. The million dollar question here, of course, is: Has the Ashtanga blogosphere actually jumped the shark?

I'm not sure. I can only say a few obvious things here. I have recently found myself blogging less (say, once every few days, rather than everyday). There are a couple of things that can explain this reduced frequency in blogging: (1) While there is always news in the Ashtanga world to blog about (or at least report on), I don't find myself having much desire to do this (this is a blog, not a newspaper); (2) If I don't blog about things in the larger Ashtanga world (or the yoga world at large), I can always blog about my own practice. But while there is probably something I can say about my practice every single day, if I bother to sit down and think about it (like I just did in the earlier part of this post), I don't feel that it is necessary or even desirable to put my own practice under a microscope and dissect it for all the yoga world to see on a daily basis.

I could also, if I want to, turn this blog into a sort of space where I blog in general about all things "spiritual", whatever that means. But then it will probably become this toothless entity that talks about everything and nothing at the same time. And who wants that?

So I guess what I'm saying is this: If there is a connection between a reduced frequency in blogging and the quality of the blog itself (and by extension, to the quality of the blogosphere to which the blog belongs), then perhaps it is true that Ashtanga blogging has jumped the shark. By the way, I have also noticed that a few prominent Ashtanga bloggers have also seemed to reduce the frequency of their blogging. I'm not sure what their reasons are for this reduction, so I shall say no further. But I can at least have the dubious comfort of not being alone in my... plight (?).

But perhaps frequency has nothing at all to do with the matter at hand. Perhaps we are blogging less, but continuing to produce blog posts of high-quality ("Yoga in the Dragon's Den... a reliable producer of high-quality blog posts since 2010!" Cue catchy-sounding jingle.). Well, I don't know about that...

Before I stop ranting and let you go, I'll like to leave you with one more thought: Is Ashtanga blogging even supposed to be a creative endeavor in the first place? Although I like to think so in my more grandiose moments, in my more sober moments (which are not many), I have this nagging feeling that all Ashtanga blogging is is an informal extension of our practice: The Ashtanga blog is supposed to serve as a sort of honest mirror/journal of things that come up in the course of practice. People read the blog, comment/respond to it, and from there, the Ashtanga blogosphere is formed. Seen in this light, any creative activity is at most a byproduct of this honest reflection and journaling. And if Ashtanga blogging is not a creative endeavor, how can there be a shark to jump over?  

Ah well... What do I  know?

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Last night, I had a very interesting dream. In the dream, I was in Mysore, practicing at KPJAYI. Sharath came over and told me to do Kapotasana. And I did; I got on my knees, arched over, reached my arms back. The front of my body lengthened spontaneously like the longest rubber band in the universe, and my right hand grabbed my right ankle with the greatest ease, as if my spine didn't even exist. My left hand didn't quite get that far; it kind of touched my left heel, but didn't go any further. (Which, by the way, is kind of the way it is in my waking life; because of my mild scoliosis, my backbending has always been uneven; one side of the spine is more flexible than the other. When I do Kapo in waking life, I'm able to grab the right heel/ankle with my right hand, but I usually have to walk the left hand a couple of inches to grab the heel/ankle). Anyway, Sharath was standing by watching as I did all that. He smiled and said, "Very good! You try again tomorrow!" And went away.

Isn't it weird that I should dream about Sharath even though I have never met him in real life? Actually, I have also dreamt about Guruji in the past (whom I never met). Sometimes, I wonder if this may have something to do with why I got into Ashtanga rather than any other style of yoga; maybe I dream about Guruji and Sharath because I feel a certain kind of affinity to what they teach. But I'm really just speculating here; I'm no dream-reader...

Anyway, when I woke up this morning, I thought about Sharath's "You try again tomorrow!" And then I thought, "Well, isn't this tomorrow?" But as I haven't attempted Kapo in two months (I cut back down to primary only when I moved here to Idaho, and am slowly building my second series practice back up), I decided that I would just do my practice as usual, and see how my body feels when I get to second before I decide whether to attempt Kapo today.

So I did that; started with the Suryas, went through standing and then full primary before doing the first few postures of second. And then I decided to try Laghu Vajrasana (which I also haven't attempted in two months). If I have become so weak that I can't even get up from Laghu, there won't be any point in trying to do Kapo, I thought to myself (oh, btw, you might be interested in reading this little post about Laghu that I wrote some time ago). I lowered myself into Laghu, breathed five times, and then, the moment of truth... my legs engaged, and I came back up. Yay! Now, Kapo. I got on my knees, took a few breaths to try to open the upper back, and then reached back, all the while trying to get my body to recall that sensation of utmost ease I had in the dream. No such luck; my right hand grabbed my right ankle, followed by the left, but I definitely felt my spine. But I was happy that Kapo is still there after two months of not doing it. So I did Kapo A, then Kapo B, then got back up. I then did the next posture in second series (Supta Vajrasana, which is always difficult to do without a partner), then went into finishing backbends. 

So yeah, I thought I'd write about my practice in this post, since I haven't done this in a while. And besides, having a dream about practice is probably a good omen for writing about practice, no? :-) But I have to go take care of other things in my waking life now. More later.

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This, at least, is my preliminary conclusion after this morning's practice. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been thinking and talking a lot of politics this past week on this blog. I wonder if this has affected my backbending: Getting into Kapotasana was grueling this morning. Despite hanging for eight to ten breaths, it still took a tremendous amount of effort to get my hands to my heels. Of course, I suppose I could have just not tried to go for the heels and taken it a little easier on myself this morning; but there's just something about Kapo as far as I'm concerned: Once I get my hands anywhere on my foot, there's this powerful drive (is this ego, I wonder?) to walk my hands, inch by grueling inch, until they grab the heels.

What has difficulty in doing Kapotasana got to do with politics, you may ask? Well, here's one theory: People tend to store a lot of tension in their psoas, which results in tight psoas, which results in difficult backbending. And talking and thinking about politics brings up a lot of anger and anxiety, which might lead to more tension and tightness in the psoas.

But this theory doesn't seem to hold water in my case. Bhekasana, which demands a lot from the psoas, came really easily to me this morning. Got both my heels to the ground just like that. So maybe it's not the psoas that is being tightened by all that politics; maybe it's someplace somewhere higher up in the body, like the upper or middle back? I don't know, one way or the other. Just thinking aloud here. Or maybe politics has nothing to do with any of this at all; maybe the body (and mind) is just more stiff on certain days. Oh well. 

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During practice this morning, I tried speaking to the cockatiels again while holding my heels in Kapo. I didn't say anything profound, just some rather inane things like "Hello birds, where are you?" I did this, because I recently came up with this theory that if I can speak in complete sentences (albeit rather short and probably creepy-sounding ones, if anybody were around to hear them) in a more or less even tone while in the depths of Kapo, then my breath must be pretty even, and I must not be doing too badly in the pose. Maybe I should even give this thing I do a name: The bird-speaking test for proficiency in Kapotasana.  

For the record, I don't know what the Official Ashtanga Policy is on speaking to animals (or speaking to anything, really) during practice. I don't know if the Ashtanga police will arrest me (or maybe, let me get away with just a citation) for such incorrect method. But I really think there is some truth to this theory of mine: I mean, if you can't communicate with birds during a pose that is named after a bird, well, what good is your yoga practice? :-)

It also just occurred to me that this is one of the little advantages of practicing at home: If I try doing this in a shala, people will quite definitely think I'm nuts. In a shala, the problem will be compounded by the fact that there are no birds there. Which means I will probably have to try speaking to my neighbor while in Kapo ("Hello, so-and-so, what are you having for breakfast after practice?"...).  Which would quite definitely be creepy.

That said, however, there are good reasons for practicing in a shala. Especially if you are seriously thinking about making the transition from a led practice to Mysore style practice. Speaking of which, Kino just made a video about this topic:

I think Kino admirably answers the question in a way that is thoughtful and sensitive to where the student who posed the question is probably coming from: A place of uncertainty, of thinking about taking what seems to be a big step into unknown territory. If somebody were to pose the same question to me, I would probably say something along the lines of, "Sure! Of course you are ready! Mysore Style is traditionally supposed to be the way people learn Ashtanga anyway. So how can you not be ready? You are never more ready, nor will you ever be more ready, than you are right now!"

Which sounds like a nice, pat answer on the face of it, but is probably a bit disingenuous, since I myself did not learn Ashtanga the traditional Mysore way; for more details, see this post. Which is also why I think Kino's suggestion (give it your best shot and really commit to it for one month, and then see what it does to you) would probably do a much better job of reaching the student where he or she is (as opposed to where I would like he or she to be) and setting that student's mind at ease.


A recent post over at the Babarazzi discusses a rather bizarre but perhaps understandable phenomenon: Some yoga teachers in this country (I'm not naming any names here) have adopted this interesting practice of de-culturing or whitewashing yoga; as in, washing it of its Sanskrit nomenclature and other hocus-pocus elements, thus making it supposedly more friendly to white people... well, I mean to say, some white people.

If you read this blog regularly, you probably know where I stand on this issue, so I won't rehash my views here (Is a white-washed Ashtanga Fundamentalist still an Ashtanga Fundamentalist? That's a hard one...). I'm just going to say two things here:

(1) If Americans white-wash yoga in America, wouldn't people in other parts of the world follow suit? The Chinese will then start yellow-washing yoga, Africans, I'm guessing, will also start black-washing yoga, and maybe people in the middle east will then start brown-washing yoga... actually, I have this feeling that the Chinese will probably be quite happy to keep yoga as it is; in my personal experience, Chinese people and culture have always had this syncretistic, pragmatic attitude towards things foreign to them ("You want me to chant this Vande Gurunam thing before I can take practice? Sure, why not? If it enables me to tap deeper into the benefit of the practice and also look kinda exotic in front of my friends, what's the problem?"). But I can't speak for African or Middle-eastern people. But maybe all of this is not a problem, anyway: If there are white-washed and yellow-washed and black-washed and brown-washed (and whatever-other-color-washed) yogas, wouldn't this make yoga more colorful (literally)? So yeah, go ahead, white-wash away. Just don't make me white-wash along with you. I like my vande gurunam the way it is ;-)

(2) But here's another, possibly more significant problem with this white-washing business: Ever heard of Wonder Bread? If you haven't, it looks like this:

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It seems that I can never say enough about Kapotasana; actually, talking about Kapo seems to be becoming my default thing to do when I find myself running out of yoga-related things to blog about... well, actually, there are a few very interesting things happening at work right now that are yoga-related in a very bizarre kind of way. But I try as much as possible not to talk about work directly on this blog, and I have yet to find a way to talk about these interesting things indirectly. So... let's just talk about Kapo.

I recently wrote about how Kapo seems to be becoming more difficult for me, probably as a result of the shoulder-strengthening/tightening effects of adding the three leg-behind-head postures to my second series practice. It turns out that the solution to this issue is, quite simply, patience and time. And I mean this in two ways. First, as many of you out there who do second series know, the shoulder-tightening effects of the LBH postures and the arm-balances (i.e. the infamous Karandavasana) is supposed to be temporary, and one should, ideally, get back the depth of one's backbend in time. So if one just continues to practice jusdiciously and carefully, the shoulders or whatever-it-is-that-is-tight should open up with patience and time.

But there is also a second, more immediate sense in which one can apply patience and time to the practice of Kapotasana at a time like this: Simply hang in the posture for a few breaths (or more) longer, rather than dive for the feet right away. This is what I have been doing over the last week or so. On most days, I would hang for up to 10 breaths and bring as much awareness as possible to the mid/upper back at the same time. I would only go for the feet when I can see at least one of my feet in my field of vision (ideally, I should be able to see both of my feet all the time, but I think my mild scoliosis causes my back to open up unevenly, so that one side of the back opens up more than the other. At any rate, this is my theory...).

The interesting thing about hanging in the posture longer like this is that when I actually go for the feet, I can pretty much get the heels right away, without having to grab the toes or mid-soles first and then walk the hands to the heels. I have also noticed that hanging in the posture longer allows me to lengthen and stabilize the breath more, so I am not huffing and puffing like a cow (although I am still not as at ease as Kino was in that video I posted last week...).

Yesterday, I even tried speaking to the cockatiels while holding my heels in Kapo, and I am pleased to report that my voice actually came out sounding quite normal and even. Which is a big improvement from a couple of years ago... I can still remember when I first started doing Kapo a couple of years ago: I was in the posture at my teacher's shala in Milwaukee. Somebody on the other side of the room saw me in the pose and said to me, "Nice work!" I said "Thank you!" in response, and was horrified when my voice came out as this weird-sounding croak (who knew that Kapo can turn you into a frog?). Which elicited a big laugh from everybody in the room. Yes, I sometimes double as the class clown when I'm in a shala (usually without intending to...)

So yeah, patience and time is the solution to tightness in Kapo (and probably to many other things as well...).   

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Over the last couple of weeks, as I added the leg-behind-head postures to my practice, I have also almost simultaneously discovered that Kapotasana seems to have gotten more difficult for me. It just seems to take a more lot effort to get my hands to my heels in the pose; I'm not sure if this is due to tighter shoulders, not enough engagement in the thighs and front body, or something else altogether that I am as yet unaware of. In any case, I have heard quite a few stories of Ashtangis getting less deep in Kapo because of the shoulder-strengthening/tightening effect that doing the second half of second series (the LBH postures and the arm balances such as Karandavasana) tends to have on the body. According to these same Ashtangis, the effect is supposed to be temporary, and one should, ideally, get back the depth of one's backbend in time. Of course, in yoga terms, "temporary" could be Dirgha Kala--long, long time. Oh well...

Of course, if you are familiar with the concept of Vairagyabhyam (non-attachment), you will know that getting or not getting one's heels in Kapo (or getting anything physically, really) is not the goal of the practice; the goal, if there is one, is to try one's best, smile (or shrug), and then move on to the next posture in the sequence in accordance with the vinyasa count. And try again tomorrow, and see what happens. And then rinse, repeat, and try yet again the day after tomorrow.

However, it is one thing to lecture other people (or even lecture myself) about vairagyabhyam; actually putting it into practice during practice is quite another. Despite my most rational efforts to remind myself of the virtue of vairagyabhyam, I still find myself trying very hard to get my deepest Kapotasana every single time I get to that pose. I know, I know, I totally suffer from Kapo-attachment/obsession, even though I try not to let on on this blog that I do. Well, now you know...

Anyway, earlier today, I had to break my no-watching-Kapo-videos rule. I guess I should tell you something about this bizarre rule: I impose this rule on myself, because I have this idea that if I watch Kapo videos, I will tend to form an image in my mind of the person in the video doing Kapo when it comes time for me to actually do Kapo during my own practice. It's hard enough to do this formidable posture in my own body. Why make it harder by also picturing somebody else doing the same posture at the same damned time that I am doing it?

Especially if that somebody else goes by the name of Kino MacGregor. Anyway, as I was saying, earlier today, I finally had to break my no-watching-Kapo-videos rule, because I really needed to get some ideas as to why my Kapo is getting harder to do, and see if there is any way to make it, well, less hard. So I went Youtubing, and the first video that came up on my list was Kino's recent video. Damn! Now I know I probably won't be able to make any Kapo videos for Dirgha Kala (not that I would want to...): In the video below, Kino goes into Kapo, grabs her heels, and talks you through it the whole time like she is taking a stroll through the park. I would be huffing and puffing like a (sacred?) cow. But as always, Kino does have some very useful advice for the posture. Two points are particularly pertinent:

(1) Firm the thighs, and ground the knees firmly into the ground to set up a firm foundation for the posture. This also takes pressure away from the lumbar spine.

(2) Allow the belly/abdominal muscles to release, and draw them up and away from the pelvis.

Now, why do I have this bad feeling that I am not going to be able to get this image of Kino going leisurely into Kapo out of my mind when it comes time to do Kapo during tomorrow's practice? Well, we'll see what happens then... Oh, and by the way, here's the video. Enjoy.

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Something very interesting (or very dangerous, if you happen to be a bird) happened during practice this morning. To get the full import of what I'm about to share, a little background story is in order: A few days ago, my fiancee got into one of her periodic bouts of furniture-rearrangement-frenzies. This latest one ended with her moving a few pretty big pieces of furniture into what used to be my practice/Buddhist prayer room. Which means that what used to be my practice/prayer room isn't so good for practice anymore. Hmm... I really don't get this craze for furniture rearrangement that some people get into. But well, whatever rocks one's boat, I guess :-)

Because of this new furniture configuration in my apartment, I started doing my practice in the living room yesterday. Another little background story: I also have a pair of pet cockatiels. They are very cute and interesting birds. Because of the round shape of their eyes, I sometimes, in my more grandiose moments, think that they may be aliens disguised as cockatiels, sent to earth to monitor my yoga practice. At the end of the day, when nobody's watching, they get out of their cockatiel outfits and go into a cleverly concealed little spaceship (this, I suspect, is disguised as that little stainless steel kettle in the corner of the kitchen counter, next to the stove... I mean, do you really think it is a coincidence that some of the latest stainless steel kettles from Europe look suspiciously like flying saucers?), from which they send dispatches to Patanjali detailing the latest yoga adventures of World Famous Ashtangi Nobel.

But I'm being very grandiose and self-important here. So I'll stop being that way. So as I was saying, I have a couple of pet cockatiels. This morning, just before I started practice, my fiancee decided to let them out of the cage in the living room just before she left for work, so they can fly around the house and get some activity (I think she thinks they have been putting on weight lately, and need some exercise). I had serious misgivings about this decision (you'll soon see why), but I think some wise guy once said, "Thou shalt not disagree with thy significant other before she leaves for work in the morning." So I left it at that.

So I rolled out my Mysore rug in the living room, and started doing my practice. The birds were pretty chill for most of the practice. They flew a couple of rounds around the living room and kitchen, and then decided to perch atop the kitchen cabinet, from where they could get a good bird's eye view--no pun intended--of my asana practice, so that they could file a good detailed practice report to Patanjali later in the day. And then, the moment I got into second series, they decided on a different plan of action. As I planted my heels on the ground and started twisting myself into Pasasana, they landed beside my mat and started waddling around (observing how deep my Pasasana twist is?). And for the next few postures (Krouchasana and the first few backbends of second up to Laghu Vajrasana), they continued waddling around the perimeter of the Mysore rug. Sometimes, they would come up onto the rug for a few moments to get a better closeup look at my alignment. Which made me a little worried that I might crush them by accident. But I was too into the flow of the practice to feel like getting up, picking them up (sometimes, they might not even want to be picked up) and then walking them back to the cage. So I continued to practice, all the while trying to be cognizant of their positions relative to my position on the mat.

And then when I got into Kapotasana, I felt this little soft feathery thing nibbling at my right knee; from what I could remember of the birds' positions before I got into the posture, I knew that it was Thelma, the grey cockatiel. I'm guessing she's probably thinking, "What are you doing? Why are you trying to become a bird?!" She looks like this:

Anyway, I hope you find this latest practice (mis)adventure of mine interesting. Got to go now. More later.    

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This post is a response to Steve's recent post on this topic over at the Confluence Countdown.

First, allow me, as a non-native English speaker, to bring your attention to a linguistic/semantic issue here: The trouble with the word "hurt" is that it encompasses an entire universe of physical and mental phenomena, all of which probably have nothing very much in common with each other, other than their propensity to induce some kind of noticeably strong unpleasant sensation in you. For instance, when you get passed over by your boss for a promotion--or, in an Ashtanga context, when you get passed over by your teacher for that next pose in the series--it "hurts." And when you are doing a pose that gets into your psoas really deeply, that burning sensation also "hurts." And then again, when--Shiva forbid--you tear your hamstring at the attachment and walk funny for six months or more, that "hurts" too.  Of course, the "hurt" in each of these cases refers to a different kind of thing with different causes, and may be good or bad for you.

But that's precisely my point. What kind of hurt are we talking about here? In a sense, it may not matter. Anybody who has attended any of David Williams' workshops will know his more-or-less famous words, "If it hurts, you're doing it wrong." Plain and simple. Well, if Williams is right (and why shouldn't he be? After all, he was one of the first westerners to go to Mysore and study with Guruji, and he's been practicing longer than I have been alive), then my practice is seriously wrong, because I cannot in all honesty say that my practice has never hurt before.

But now that I know that I am doing it wrong (or at least, have done it wrong before), what am I going to do about it? One option is to quit Ashtanga forever, and maybe take up one of the new trendy yogas that Steve has outlined in this recent post. But I'm not quite ready to do this yet (maybe when I turn 60, instead of doing the rishi series, I will switch to one of these new trendy yogas; if they're still new and trendy at that time, of course :-)). So what to do? Well, the only thing to do, as I see it, is to talk asana: Go into the specifics of the physical practice, and see how to make it not hurt (or at least hurt less). I'll start with something Steve says in his post. He writes:

"Which of us hasn’t had a teacher stand on us in Baddha Konasana? What about that last little stretch in Marichyasana D or Supta Kurmasana? And, judging from the noise folks make in Kapotasana, I suspect it isn’t exactly pleasant." 

Wow, this is quite a lot to chew on. Well, first, I've actually never had a teacher stand on me in Baddha Konasana. So I can't say anything about this. What about that "last little stretch" in Mari D and Supta K? Well, speaking from my own experience, I have found that if one wants to get deeper in either of these postures, it's actually more productive to work on either the hip-opening postures that come before these postures in primary, or spend more time working on hip-openers outside of the practice altogether (longer holds in Baddha Konasana, double-pigeon, etc.). I have found that pursuing either of these strategies is ultimately more productive (and less hurt-inducing) than trying to "inch" one's way into that last little stretch while in the posture itself.

What about Kapotasana? Ha, now we're talking about a whole world of hurt. First, I'm not a natural backbender; Kino once told me half-jokingly that Ashtangis can broadly be divided into two types: people with open hips and stiff backs, and people with open backs and stiff hips. I fall into the former type. Not being a natural backbender, I have to work pretty hard in backbends to get the hips far enough forward so that I can get into the psoas rather than just the lower back, and get my upper and middle back to open so that more of the backbending comes from my upper and middle back rather than solely from my lumbar spine.

Nowhere is this work more apparent than in Kapotasana. Although I have been doing Kapotasana for almost two years now, I still have to "hang" for a few breaths before I dive for my feet in Kapo (depending on the condition of my spine on a particular day, "few" can be anywhere from three to five to ten breaths). The sensation of waiting for whatever it is in the spine that needs to open to open is not exactly pleasant, but I wouldn't categorize it as "hurt" either.  It's just... not pleasant. And it's probably not pleasant because it's not a position that my usually-hunched-forward-over-a-computer-or-steering-wheel body finds natural.

But I did go through a period when Kapotasana hurt. Like hell. Here's the whole story. I was first given Kapo by my teacher at his shala in Milwaukee. Within a few weeks, he managed to assist me into grabbing my heels. At that time, I had yet to be able to stand up from dropping back (I guess my teacher isn't traditional in this way). And then something in my lower back started to hurt, and my teacher suggested that I stop doing Kapo for a few weeks, and work on really being able to stand up from dropping back. His theory was that my inability to stand up indicated a lack of strength/stability somewhere in the spine, and that lack of strength/stability was causing my lower back to hurt. Sounds like a very reasonable theory, I thought. So I stopped doing Kapo for a few weeks, and focused my attention on dropping back and standing up. After a few weeks, I started doing Kapo again. After another couple of weeks, I was able to grab my heels on my own, by first landing my hands on the ground, and then walking them until they grab the heels.

And this was when things started to hurt big time. For about two weeks after I began to grab my heels by myself in Kapo, I would wake up every morning with really bad back pain. It was so bad, that I had to slowly crawl out of bed and kind of crawl/walk to the bathroom. At the same time, my teacher was in Mysore, so I couldn't ask him what to do to stop the hurt. One obvious way to stop the hurt is, of course, to simply stop doing Kapo, or maybe not go so deeply into the posture. But I discovered that not going so deeply into the posture actually made the back hurt even more (don't know why). And I was too stubborn/crazy to stop doing the posture altogether; it's things like this that make me think that many Ashtangis (at least this Ashtangi) are crazy egomaniacs; I mean, any normal person would have just freaked out and stopped doing it, right? Maybe even write everything up and send it to the NYT for a wreck-your-body-worthy article. But not this crazy Ashtangi. But even this Ashtangi couldn't endure the indignity of having to crawl out of bed every morning. So I had to find some way of reducing the hurt... no, I didn't take any painkillers or drugs or steroids. Instead, I suddenly thought of a posture sequence that I learnt from Eddie Modestini and Nicki Doane on Maui a few years ago. Eddie and Nicki did not say anything about this sequence's ability to reduce back pain, but somehow, in my pain, my mind/body managed to make the connection between my present hurt and this sequence. Anyway, here's the sequence:

(1) Get into Mandukasana. Stay in Mandukasana for five to ten breaths.

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Did second only up to Karandavasana today. Almost did primary only (I know, the traditional thing to do is to do primary only on Fridays, but I'm not traditional in this way; I do primary only on Saturdays, and rest on Sundays). But I almost did primary only today, because my lower back was feeling really sore for most of yesterday; I was half expecting to have to slowly crawl out of bed this morning because of the soreness; backs, as most of us know, have a tendency to really stiffen during the night when they are sore during the day. Thankfully, this did not happen, and I was able to walk to the bathroom this morning like a, well, normal human being.

But why was my back sore? During yesterday's practice, I tried a little too zealously to get my leg behind my head in Ekapada and Dwipada Sirsasanas, despite pretty obvious signs that my hip wasn't quite open enough: A combination of bad old ego and inattention. For most of yesterday, I felt the soreness when I got up after sitting for more than half an hour; it wasn't quite as bad as when I messed up my SI joint last year, but it was definitely something noticeable. In any case, I was concerned that this would mean that I will have to go back to doing primary only for months... isn't it funny, the kinds of things Ashtangis worry about? I suspect that any other normal human being would be worrying about whether he or she would be able to even walk...

So I was faced with an interesting dilemma during practice this morning. As I got out of Ardha Badha Padmottanasana, I had to decide whether to go into Utkatasana (thus doing primary only) or into Pasasana and with it, second series. I decided that my back wasn't that sore, and that I would probably survive second (perhaps ego played a part in this decision too; how big its part was, I cannot be entirely sure).

Well, I seem to be right so far, knock on wood. It's slightly after two in the afternoon now. My back is still somewhat sore, but not nearly as sore as yesterday. Hopefully, this means it is healing. This is probably because I paid a lot more attention during practice today, especially in the postures that are more likely to stress the SI joint (Pasasana, the leg-behind-head postures, etc.).

Back soreness and SI joint anxieties not withstanding, there are a couple of interesting things to note about this morning's practice:

(1) Going into Kapotasana, I tried Frank's suggestion to take the prayer position higher: elbows together in front of the sternum, instead of prayer hands in front of the sternum. The idea, Frank suggested, is to use the arms as something to press the chest against, and thus bring about greater opening in the thoracic spine. It seemed to work: I didn't have to hang for nearly as many breaths in order to get the opening required to reach back and grab my feet, and then my heels. I'll continue working with this.

(2) In Karandavasana, I did my usual duck landing on the first attempt (just barely managed to land it today, but well, I'll take what I can get :-)). On the second attempt, I tried Frank's suggestion to work on "Half-ways": I got into Pincha Mayurasana, got my feet into lotus, and then, instead of bringing the lotus all the way down to land the duck, I tried to go only as far as I could and still come back up to lotus in Pincha. I found that I was actually able to curl the lotus around the pelvis and bring the lotus down about one-quarter of the way, and still come back up to lotus in Pincha. The idea here is to work on gradually going lower and lower, so that I will eventually be able to touch down in the duck and then come back up. Once I can do that, I can then go on to try touching down and holding the duck for one breath, then two breaths, etc, etc., so that eventually, one day, I will be able to hold the duck for five breaths and come back up. It's the same idea as learning to come up from Laghu Vajrasana, except that one is moving the body in a different direction and using different body parts. Very interesting. I'll keep working on this.

I always feel that a post on Karandavasana feels weirdly incomplete without a spectacular video of somebody doing this infamous pose. So here's the famous Laruga doing the infamous Karandavasana. Gosh, she looks totally effortless doing it. Whereas with me, you can probably hear me breathing from half a mile away when I'm working on this pose :-) But, well, everything is a work in progress. I can only do my best.