our-yoga

A couple of days ago, Eddie Stern published what I thought was a very well-written response to the now-infamous NYT article by Deb Schoeneman about... gosh, what exactly was it about? Something about doing Ashtanga and getting tight asses? My memory is getting pretty short these days: Could there be a connection between right-brain-functioning and left-knee-health? No good, no good...

Anyway, as I was saying, Eddie Stern published a reply to that article. You can read the whole article here. There is one part of Eddie's piece that really speaks to me. If you have read that NYT article, you might remember that at one point, Schoeneman remarks that "It [Ashtanga Yoga] is widely believed to have been created for adolescent boys and tends to attract former drug addicts and Type A personalities…”

Responding to Schoeneman's remark, Eddie quotes his friend Margaret Loeb, who writes:

"In a world with ADD and sensory dis-integration as not only discreet pathologies but symptoms of an over stimulating culture, Ashtanga yoga offers brilliant tools to gain mastery, focus and mental stability.  The fact that the achievement would suit young boys, former addicts and type A personalities is not testimony to its failure but rather to its success. There is in fact abundant evidence that yoga reduces anxiety, improves cardiac functioning, posture and mental focus. For many people who do yoga, without it they would be more likely to use drugs, more likely to need therapy, more likely to have difficulty managing their emotions.  The physical benefits of yoga are a bonus."

I am quite impressed by Loeb's remarks here. I think she has succeeded in putting into words what I have felt quite strongly the whole time. I'm not sure if I'm a type A personality, but I certainly have an anxious streak, and I really wouldn't be surprised if somebody were to tell me that I probably have an addictive/OCD streak as well (although I have never been tested for any of these things). Ashtanga, as most of you know, gets quite a bit of bad press in the yoga world for being an allegedly asana-oriented practice that feeds the ego (and not much else). And it doesn't help that the people who tend to be drawn to Ashtanga (the Type A personalities, especially) are probably the last people on earth to need an ego boost. Or so the argument goes.

What is perhaps less obvious is that the practice, with its intensely physical and all-consuming nature, serves to innoculate type A or addictive or OCD personalities against other things; things which can do a whole lot more harm to bodies and psyches than being obsessed with, say, binding in Marichyasana D. The practice allows people who would otherwise have a tendency to direct their minds and bodies in destructive directions to channel these energies towards something tangibly constructive which they can relate to and grasp on their emotional level; something like asana. 

And of course, in the process of so doing, one might just acquire a tight-ass as a bonus. Tight asses, by the way, are way over-rated: for one thing, having a tight ass really gets in the way of back-bending. If you don't believe me, just try scrunching and tightening up your ass the next time you try to get up into Urdhva Dhanuarasana. Then try the same pose with a softer ass. Feel the difference.        

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This morning, I did full primary and second up to Ardha Matsyendrasana. Why no Karandavasana? Well, my SI joint has been feeling dodgy the last few days. In particular, during full primary on Saturday morning, I felt this twinge in my right SI joint area as I was getting into Kurmasana, and for the rest of the day, my back just felt wrong. I couldn't sit for more than half an hour without feeling my lower back stiffen up.

So this morning, I decided to work slowly from primary. I paid special attention to the first few postures, especially the Suryas. In particular, in Surya B, I tried to apply a few of the things that PakistaniAshtangi recently shared from her workshop with Dena Kingsberg (I'm quoting directly from PakistaniAshtangi's notes here):

(1) "Go deep (and I mean deep) into a squat in the Utkatasana bit – this will help develop strength in the legs needed for standing up from UD, while also developing your ability to do Pasasana (by stretching the Achilles tendons) – then come up from the deep squat to lift the hands overhead, and come up far enough so that your back becomes comfortable (i.e. not scrunched, no butt sticking out), and neck comes up last. When folding over on the next out-breath don’t straighten your legs until your torso is flat against your legs, then straighten the legs. When jumping back, land with arms straight so you can set up your Chaturanga by rolling the shoulders back, lifting the heart, and squeeze the bandhas tight, then lower to chaturanga."

(2) "In upward dog: Keep feet pretty close together, no more than hip width apart (though Dena actually does it with her feet touching to get the maximum effect). When you protect the lower back with your bandhas this will, apparently, minimize strain and pain in lower back and make the other, stiffer parts of the back bend. All toes should press into the floor, and there should be a tension, a stretch, pulling your toes one way and your chest/upper body the other way – which is really important, Dena talked a lot about stretching things in two directions, the tension between two ends of a pose. Only that way will you get the backbend you want."

I discovered that paying attention to all these things really helps you to get so much more out of Surya B. By the time I finished standing, I felt strong enough to go through primary. I tried to apply the same things that Dena emphasized in Surya B to the updog portion of the vinyasas: I realized that I have a tendency to just kind of move quickly through the updogs without paying too much attention to the posture. I discovered this morning that emphasizing the concept of there being an active tension (pulling toes one way, upper body/chest the other way) really makes a difference in stretching and lengthening the front body in between the many forward bends of primary.

When I got to Kurmasana, I paid close attention to getting into the postures without trying to push or yank my way into position. To my pleasant surprise, there were no unpleasant sensations in Kurmasana. I even managed to sit up and get into Supta Kurmasana via Dwi Pada Sirsasana without incident.

Through it all, I think that being mindful of one's breath and movement and paying attention to the bandhas really help to make the practice safe and productive. Speaking of bandhas, I just read Kino's latest blog post. She was teaching her workshop in Chicago last week, and met Richard Freeman (who, incidentally, was conducting a Teacher's Intensive in Chicago at the same time) for coffee and attended his yoga philosophy class. In this class, Freeman discusses Shankaracharya's views on mula banda. Here's Kino's notes on Freeman's talk:


"Mula Bandha – 114

yanmulam sarvabhutanam yanmulam cittabandharam/
mulabandhah sada sevyo yogyo’sau rajayoginam

That which is the root of all existence and on which the cessation of the mind is based is called mulabandha, which should always be served since it is fit for raja-yogis.

Richard says that mula bandha is the cessation of thought so it cannot be something you think or try to do. It is more of a seva, which means service or to attend to and the idea is that mula bandha is treated like a deity and you do seva to the deity at the sacred temple sitting deep within the pelvis. The balancing of energies on the pelvic floor is the way to consecrate the temple and then the goddess serpent Kundalini will stand up when she wants to. The voyeur of the ego prevents the goddess from awakening because you have to invite her as the sacred flame at the root of the pelvic floor so that she inhabits the temple. Mula bandha according to Richard is not a mechanical thing but more like a devotional experience. He suggested doing a bhakti puja to Ganapti in the pelvis to get mula bandha and to invite the god into the temple at the base of the pelvic floor. In the form of the goddess, “sri” is her name. Then with a cheeky smile Richard said that this is the secret part of the lineage and that he shouldn’t have even told us this. I thought for a moment about not sharing his definition of mula bandha but I decided to share it anyway. I hope I haven’t committed an Ashtanga crime."

I find all this really fascinating, especially the idea that mula bandha isn't actually something you do or engage. The idea, as I understand it, is that our daily practice is a daily act of service and devotion to this sacred power that we all possess deep within the pelvis. Over the course of consistent practice, the kundalini will arise of its own volition "when she wants to." Seen in this light, we don't actually try to achieve anything through the practice; the practice is more like the actions of plowing the soil of our being, planting the seeds and watering them consistently. The fruit (kundalini) will arise when the time is ripe. Or, as Guruji would say, "Do your practice, and all is coming."

Speaking of Kino's workshop, on a more personal note, I can't help noting that I was at her Chicago workshop around this time last year. I just couldn't find the time (or money) to go this year, because I am already doing quite a bit of traveling in the next few weeks for academic purposes. You know, when I read about her encounter with Richard Freeman, I couldn't help wondering: What if I had gone to her Chicago workshop last week? If I had, perhaps I would also have had the good fortune of meeting Freeman myself too, if I were thick-skinned enough to shamelessly hang around Kino, and maybe "shadow"/borderline-stalk her to that Starbucks at the time when she met Freeman (hmm... you didn't know I am a yogic stalker, did you? :-)). Well, you know, maybe I could just hang around for a few minutes outside the Starbucks, and then "coincidentally" show up at the Starbucks ("Hey, Kino, you're here too! What a coincidence! Oh, aren't you Richard Freeman? I'm such a great fan of your book (although I haven't actually read it...")). Oh well, I just realized how ridiculous all this is starting to sound. Well, now you know what a ridiculous person I am... 
   

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In a recent interview that was published on Elephant Journal, David Robson answers a few common questions about Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. One of these questions is:


"ii. You need to be physically fit already to practice Ashtanga, fact or fiction?

David: It is a demanding practice and I don’t believe anyone should start by doing the entire primary series. To just do a led class, I think it could be pretty hard for most people and most beginners. Things like age, overall health, strength and flexibility may impact how quickly someone learns the practice, but these factors become insignificant over time. You have to take the time to let your body adapt to the practice and you gradually build up at your own pace. The mysore-style teaching format is really the perfect way for a beginner to learn yoga, as it starts from scratch and develops according to the abilities of the individual. I totally believe that anyone can practice and take benefit from Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga."

I think David's response is short and sweet, and gets to the gist of what Ashtanga is about. But as I was reading his response, something else occurred to me: What about people who come to the practice with chronic medical conditions? I'm thinking of conditions like lupus, asthma, diabetes, certain heart conditions, HIV/AIDS, etc. Personally, I'm confident that a regular Ashtanga practice done at a pace that is appropriate to the condition of the individual would help with these conditions in the long term. However, from my own experience with working with a few such individuals, I have discovered that in such cases, the problem isn't so much a physical problem as a psychological one: The individual concerned may not readily see the value of committing to a practice that takes time to develop and deliver results. This is especially problematic when the individual expects yoga to be a therapy that can specifically and quickly target his or her specific ailment almost like a laser beam, and improve (or at least significantly alleviate) the condition quickly.

But as David mentions, in order for Ashtanga practice to be effective, you have to do it regularly, "take the time to let your body adapt to the practice", and gradually build the practice up at your own pace. In other words, as we Ashtangis all know, the practice is not a quick fix for anything: One has to have patience, and the results will come when they do. But in my limited experience in working with people with chronic conditions, it seems to me that such individuals tend to expect results fairly quickly. And really, who can blame them for that, given the suffering and anguish they have already gone through with other treatment modalities, and given a western medical culture that promises quick fixes and straightforward solutions for practically everything under the sun ("take this drug, and you will be better right away", or "undergo this or that procedure or surgery, and that part of your body will soon be good as new")? I could be wrong about this, but I don't think Ashtanga practice can credibly promise to, say, lower one's blood sugar by x number of points, or fix that heart condition that one has been suffering from for so many years within x number of months. As I said, I could be wrong about this, but I just don't think that Ashtanga's therapeutic effects always manifest themselves in this immediate way.

If I am right about all this, then there seems to be a disconnect between what Ashtanga practice can do, and what individuals who come into the practice with certain chronic conditions expect from the practice. To put it very bluntly, these individuals have expectations that Ashtanga practice may or may not be able to fulfill. And I don't mean this in a bad way: I believe we all have expectations in one form or another going into almost everything in life. It's part of what it is to be human to expect clear-cut results from our investments of time, effort or money. The trouble, as I see it, is that Ashtanga does not deliver on our expectations in a linear, straightforward manner, and I suspect that the last thing that individuals who come into the practice seeking relief from chronic conditions want to hear is that the practice takes time to manifest results.    


As of right now, I don't know how to go about bridging this disconnect. Maybe I need to find a way to "sell" the benefits of Ashtanga better, instead of just telling people bluntly that things take time. I don't know.

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In the last couple of weeks, I have been devoting more attention to backbends in my daily practice. In particular, I have been working on opening the front body more in dropbacks. For the longest time, whenever I get to the dropbacks, my mind always consciously or unconsciously says to itself, "Ah, dropbacks! Last set of intense poses before the sweet release of the finishing sequence. Quickly do the dropbacks and standups, and get them over with!" As a result of this way of thinking, I always had the tendency to kind of just rush through dropping back and standing up, with the result that they are usually kind of sloppy. 

In the last couple of weeks, however, instead of simply rushing through the dropbacks and trying to get them over with, I have been spending more quality time with them, by doing more with less: Less dropping all the way to the ground, and more hanging back and opening. Instead of just ritualistically dropping all the way to the ground and coming back up three times, I have been doing three hangbacks and then only dropping back all the way to the ground on the fourth and final time, walking my hands to touch (and hopefully, one hand, grab) my heels. This is what Kino does at the mysore sessions at her workshops. It's a good way of building strength and flexibility in the front body, especially in the psoas and in the quads, especially if you keep your knees extended (or as extended as possible) the whole time. Keeping the knees extended (or as extended as you can make them) has the effect of really getting the backbend into the quads and the psoas.

Seen from the outside, hanging back instead of dropping back may look less intense, and it may look like one is doing less work. But looks are deceiving: By engaging the psoas and the quads and opening the front body more, one is actually moving more intently from the center than if one were to simply drop back for the sake of dropping back. This brings to mind something David Garrigues wrote a couple of months ago:

"Generally speaking in our daily practice we can get sucked in by the lure of our fantasy about the forms of the asanas in sequences... In our fantasy of what we will look like and how good it will feel we overextend ourselves in our efforts to achieve what we consider to be the end goal or final pose. Our excursions take us too far away from the center where the skeletal support is, where our breath really does lead the way– where we make optimal use of our muscles and organs and where our brains are situated properly to minimize reality obscuring ego striving.

For example, to go for a drop back and be unheeding of the position of the skeleton in order to get your hands to the floor is a long term mistake. In the short term there might be a thrill, a sense of accomplishment and a sense of maximizing progress. a feeling like you are working at the edge so you will improve and be an intense student... How strict are you going to be? How close to center are you going to stay? How many props (please note: only if necessary and desired and under certain, specific conditions) are you willing to use to remain close to center, close to principles?—We want to explore the foundational principles of the positions and see how those principles will always lead back to that central asana that has so many important names—but actually is unnameable—"

David's words here are priceless: Definitely something to constantly ponder and come back to.

On a slightly different note, it has recently occurred to me that asana practice has many similarities to artistic interpretation. Just as the same piece of music played by two different musicians can give rise to two different works of art, no two individuals will ever realize the same asana in the exact same way. For instance, Urdhva Dhanurasana expressed in my body will never be the same as Urdhva Dhanurasana expressed in your body.

Actually, this difference in interpretation also shows up in the way different yogis assimilate the same yogic insight. Take for instance, David's words above about moving from the center. Two different yogis may both perfectly understand these words. Yet they will both apply these words differently to their own bodies, and adapt them to fit the needs of their minds and bodies in order to make these words work for their bodies. The first yogi may have longer psoas and quad muscles, and may be able to go deeper into the posture, or even drop back all the way to the ground right away and still move from the center. The second yogi, by contrast, may have tighter psoas and quad muscles, and may need to not drop back all the way in order to work more from the center. In this way, we can say that the two bodies "interpret" the words differently. Indeed, this interpretation difference is necessary in order for the asana practice to be fruitful and productive for each individual.     

Just my two cents', as always. :-)

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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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In his recent post, Steve over at The Confluence Countdown writes:

"I don’t believe that the lesson of yoga is to learn that I’m perfect the way I am or to accept my place in the world or anything of the kind.

It’s a modern form of Tapasya, an attempt to burn away “the bad fat,” as we read in Guruji’s Yoga Mala, in both its literal and figurative forms. It’s hard. It’s rough. It’s grueling.

And, apparently, I still suck at it."

Much of what Steve says here resonates with me. I also agree that the purpose of yoga isn't to learn that I am perfect as I am; or maybe I am perfect, but to get to that perfection, I need to burn away a little "bad fat." Which is what the practice is for. And it takes a while (actually, according to Guruji, it takes Dirga Kala--a long, long while) to burn away that bad fat. And in the process, one gets to see the badness of that bad fat in all its glory (ego, assholeness, etc.).

Actually, I suspect that this is one of the main sticking points that separates Ashtangis from other yogis. If one does the Ashtanga practice daily, one cannot help but see all that "bad fat". And once you see the bad fat, you can't ignore it; which means that you will almost inevitably think that you "suck." I'm guessing that's probably why so many Ashtangis come across as being self-critical, even self-judgmental, in their writings: Writings on many an Ashtanga blog are filled with reports about how one's practice on or off the mat is still lacking in this or that area, and how this or that area needs more work.

I, of course, am a constant contributor to such writing. So much so, that not too long ago, a commenter on one of my posts remarked that devout Ashtangis are not peaceful and very judgmental. I have to say that there's something very funny about being accused of being devout (maybe yoga is a kind of religion, after all) and not peaceful: It's a little bit like being accused of not being happy... I mean, what do you want me to do, be more happy?

In any case, I don't think Ashtangis write like this in order to be intentionally unpeaceful and judgmental. It's the stuff that the practice forces you to see in yourself; and if your writing is "real", it will reflect this stuff. Stuff which induces in you a perpetual sense of "sucking." I think David Garrigues made pretty much the same point when he said something to the effect somewhere that the practice induces a constant sense of disappointment and failure. And perhaps failure and disappointment aren't such bad things if you face them down on a daily basis: They simply become the fabric of your existence and a constant reminder of how much work there is to be done. To use a very cliched expression, it is what it is.

So if everything I just said is correct, then Ashtangis are suckers for sucking: We know that every day's practice is going to leave us with a sense of sucking, but that doesn't stop us from showing up on the mat everyday, and sucking anyway. And sucking is okay. Woody Allen famously said that 80% of success is showing up. Well, I think if he practices Ashtanga, he would be saying, "99% of success is showing up and sucking."  If you don't suck (or think you don't, at any rate), then, well... then you probably don't need to practice Ashtanga. Yay!

In other news: Anybody know what happened to Susan? It appears that after posting her latest post earlier today, her blog kind of disappeared. I mean, the blog is still there, but it seems to have been emptied/deleted of all its posts. Susan, if you are out there reading this, can you respond (comment on this post, or otherwise get in touch with me)? I don't mean to sound self-important or anything, but I would really hate to lose touch with a fellow Ashtanga blogger whose writings I really enjoy.    

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Yesterday (Saturday), I went to morning mysore practice at my friends Derek and Brenda's studio in downtown Fargo, ND. Derek and Brenda have been running this mysore class, which meets once a week (Saturday morning at 9 a.m.), for close to 4 months now. Now that I'm talking about it, I should also give it a little plug: If you are ever in Northwest Minnesota/North Dakota on a Saturday morning (why would you be? But that's a question for another day...), please think about stopping by and practicing here. I try to go whenever I can make it; since I mostly practice at home, it is quite a treat to be able to go practice with others at least occasionally. I always feel that I build up more heat and tapas when I am practicing alongside others.

After practice, I chatted with Derek for a little bit. Brenda and he just had a baby girl a couple of weeks ago, and Derek was sharing with me about how they have been sleeping rather irregularly, waking up whenever the baby wakes up (I'm guessing that those of you out there who have children might be able to relate to this...), and squeezing in an hour or even a half-hour of practice when the baby takes a nap. He also said that they might even bring the baby to morning mysore in a couple of months. Now that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? I mean, when was the last time you saw a baby in mysore class? :-) And just imagine what the earliest memories of this baby would be when she grows up... ("My earliest memories are of mom and dad bringing me to this funny room smelling of incense, where people do funny things like jump back and forth, fold themselves into half, and put their legs behind their heads. And then there's this little picture of this little old Indian guy (Guruji) at the front of the room...")

Anyway, as I was listening to Derek, it also really struck me how his present practice experience really brings into sharp relief the nature of the practice. If you have been practicing Ashtanga for a little while, you will know that it is only a little bit of an exaggeration to say that Ashtanga yoga is the yoga of "no": The practice confronts you with limitations everywhere you turn. Whether you are a relative "newbie" who is working on the standing postures or whether you are an "advanced" practitioner in the depths of third or fourth series, there is plenty in the practice to challenge you physically, mentally and emotionally: By bringing your body to places that you did not previously imagine it capable of going, subjecting it to postures that you may not even have previously imagined it capable of attaining, your ability to maintain equanimity and a spirit of humble acceptance is also being pushed to the limit.

The demanding nature of the practice becomes even more apparent in times of transition or major life changes: These can range from physical practice-related issues such as injuries or pain, to big life changes such as having a new member of the family. During these times, the limitations that the practice throws at one becomes even more pronounced: Over and above the inherently challenging nature of the practice itself, one also has to work with the pain or discomfort imposed by these changes.

So why do so many of us continue with the practice in the face of all of these challenges both inherent to and outside the practice? Well... one possible answer is that we are all suckers for pain and punishment: Perhaps it is really true that dedicated, "hardcore" Ashtangis are all a bunch of sadomasochists; a bunch whose numbers are increasing all the time, by the looks of it (as they say, "A sucker is born every minute")...

But I personally prefer to believe that there is much more to this practice than just enduring pain and punishment. In particular, I like to think that there is great value to be found in voluntarily and courageously confronting our limitations on a daily basis. In her latest post, Magnolia Zuniga shares this quote from the I-Ching:

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An interesting conversation has sprung up in the comment thread to Grimmly's recent post about places to practice. In the post, after showing us a video from the recent Ashtanga Yoga Confluence, Grimmly goes on to remark:

"I don't know though, cringed a bit at the shots of the resort [where the Confluence was held], just as uncomfortable with that as with the sardine packed shala in Mysore.

It's me I know, I have some warped and twisted hangup that yoga is a private, solitary practice that belongs in forests or on mountainsides, deer parks and yes, caves, ever the romantic. And if you haven't got a cave handy then you make one yourself in some corner of your abode. A householder you may be but for an hour or so (or four) you get to be a cave yogi too."

Very interesting. And then, presumably in order to support his views on solitary home practice, Grimmly goes on to quote the following passages from Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda and the Hathayogapradipika commentary by Jyotsna of Brahmananda:

'3.1 Places to practice Yoga
The following places are superior; a place with plenty of water, a fertile place, a place where there is a bank of a holy river, where there are no crowds, a clean solitary place _ such places are superior. in such a place yoga can be practiced'.
Krishnamacharya Yoga Makaranda p33.
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12. He who practices Hatha-Yoga should live alone in a small math (monastery) situated in a place free from rocks, water and fire to the extent of a bow's length and in a virtuous and well-ruled kingdom.

13. The math should have a small door, and should be without any windows; it should be level and without any holes; it should be neither too high, too low nor too long. It should be very clean, being well smeared with cow dung (a natural antiseptic) and free from all insects. Outside it should be attractive with a small hall and a raised seat and a well and surrounded by a wall. These are the characteristics of a yoga-matha as laid down by the Siddha-s who have practiced hatha-yoga.

14 living in such a monastery (the Yogin), being free in mind of all cares, should practice only yoga all the time, in the way taught by his Guru.'
 The Hathayogapradipka commentary by Jyotsna of Brahmananda

Well... I realized that I basically just reproduced the whole of Grimmly's post here, except the Confluence video! Shows how original my blogging is these days, doesn't it? :-)

In any case, I really don't know what to make of these passages from the Yoga Makaranda and the HYP commentary. First, consider that passage about living  in a virtuous and well-ruled kingdom... Do I live in a virtuous and well-ruled kingdom? Well, probably not; not if by "virtuous and well-ruled", you mean something like a zero percent crime rate. In any case, is a "kingdom" that is "ruled" by a Democratic administration more virtuous than a Republican one? Or maybe, if you happen to live in the United Kingdom (no pun intended), you would presumably be asking the same question about the Tories versus Labour. Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is: What the heck is a "virtuous and well-ruled kingdom"? And if I don't happen to live in a virtuous and well-ruled kingdom, what do I do? Move to another kingdom? Start an armed revolution, and install a virtuous and well-ruled kingdom in its place? Wait... doesn't that violate Ahimsa? I'm really clueless here.

And then there is that passage about the cow dung... seriously? Smearing cow dung around your practice mat/mysore rug? (Need I say more?)

Well, if you think all these musings here sound very silly, well, they are! Because whenever one takes an ancient text and tries to interpret and implement its instructions literally, one ends with silly consequences, at the very least. Or one might end up with worse and more tragic consequences, if one is enough of a fundamentalist... (This coming from an Ashtanga Fundamentalist? Go figure.)

Now think about this: If it is silly to interpret the passages about the well-ruled kingdom and cowdung literally, might it not also be silly to interpret literally the part about living and practicing alone in a solitary place free from crowds?

Might it not be that perhaps, just perhaps, the Makaranda and the HYP are not supposed to be interpreted literally? Maybe "solitary place" does not refer to a physical location where you go to be literally alone; maybe it refers to a state of mind? Could it be that with the right concentration (think drishti), one can be solitary even in a very packed mysore room or resort room (or even in Mysore itself)? Conversely, if one lacks the right concentration, one might very well find oneself beset by all kinds of unsolitary thoughts even in the solitude of the deepest cave.

I must clarify that none of this is meant to say that one kind of practice place is "better" or "more appropriate" than others. Due to my circumstances, I have a mostly solitary home practice. And I know that Grimmly also has a solitary home practice, and has benefited many people through his blogging (and videos) of his practice. (I have a suspicion, though, that Grimmly's solitary practice is more voluntary in nature than mine, which is more or less imposed by circumstances, but this is beside the point here...). But I wouldn't say that my practice (or Grimmly's) is "better" or "more concentrated" (or more "drishtified", if there is such a word) than the practice of somebody who goes to a shala. Ultimately, I think it is the intention of the practitioner that makes all the difference. This brings to mind the following lines from Kipling:

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

If you substitute "talk" with "practice" and "crowds" with "a crowded shala/Mysore/resort room" in the first line, you'll get the picture: perhaps equanimity/drishti/whatever belongs not to the person who can only practice in one kind of place, but who can practice and keep his or her equanimity/drishti/whatever wherever he or she happens to find himself or herself in.

Just my two cents', as always.         

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Earlier today, I went for my twice-a-month acupuncture session. The acupuncturist who was working with me today had just completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training, and we chatted briefly about yoga while she was inserting needles into various parts of my physical body (can't remember the last time I had a yoga conversation with somebody who was sticking needles into me...). She is still in the process of finding a yoga style that works for her personal practice, and she had learnt from the other acupuncturist that I practice Ashtanga, so she took this opportunity to find out more about Ashtanga from me. Here's how part of the conversation unfolded:

Acupuncturist: I heard somewhere that Ashtanga was originally developed as a practice for teenage boys who are physically strong and have lots of energy, and that because of this, it is not suitable for those of us who are not teenage boys to practice Ashtanga daily.

Nobel: Uh, yes, it is true that people do say that. But the idea behind Ashtanga isn't that people need to be able to do full primary the very first time they step into a shala. If you learn Ashtanga in a traditional mysore class, you are taught a couple of postures each time you are there, and you basically do as many (or as few) postures as you can, according to your capacity. Some people eventually do full primary or beyond, some people do half-primary, others are somewhere in between. Whichever way, it's fine. You do whatever you can. 

Acupuncturist: That's interesting. I'm the kind of person who tires easily. Which is why I think that perhaps the thing for me to do is to alternate between doing a powerful practice such as Ashtanga one day, and doing a more gentle restorative practice the next day, and so on. That way, I can build up strength and energy without over-straining myself.

Nobel: I think that's a good way to go. I think I might be the opposite of you, energy-wise. Several years ago, I went to a restorative class in the morning, and felt very lethargic and tired the rest of the day. I feel that Ashtanga gives me that morning energy boost that no other practice has been able to give me. Actually, come to think of it, I probably practice Ashtanga more for the energy boost than for any other reason. The postures are really secondary, in this sense. And samadhi? Well, it comes when it comes. No point thinking too much about it.

The conversation pretty much ended at this point. I decided that, given the context, it would be very inappropriate for me to try to sell Ashtanga too much (if nothing else, you don't want to even remotely come across as being pushy when you are lying more or less spread-eagled, and somebody is hovering over you with needles!). So she proceeded to stick the rest of the needles into me, and left me to "be with the universe." Actually, I have come to enjoy being with the universe with needles stuck inside of me. It actually feels like a sort of restorative practice in and of itself.

But back to the conversation. From this conversation, I learned a couple of things. First, I am reminded that many people out there in the "greater yoga world" hold the view that Ashtanga is something that should only be practiced by teenage boys; I have heard this view years ago, but since I "move" mostly within Ashtanga circles these days, it's been a while since I've heard anybody articulate it. The cynical part of me always thinks that people who hold this view are really thinking: Since yoga is hardly the sport of choice for teenage boys in the west, Ashtanga is too rigorous for any real-life yogi, and therefore should not be practiced if you want to stay in one piece, stay sane, etc. Well, I don't know, there may actually be some truth to this. I sometimes feel that I may be a little bit insane...

Through this conversation, I also learned what the main thing is that brings me to the mat every morning: The energy boost that comes from the practice. No matter how tired I feel when I get up in the morning, I always feel so much more energized by the time I finish the practice. To me, the practice is like an energy-creating machine: I go into it with little or no energy, give out so much energy while doing the practice, and yet always come out at the other end with more energy than when I started. How is this possible? Pretty amazing, don't you think? If nothing else, it shows that you don't have to be a teenage boy to experience the power of this practice.

What's perhaps even more amazing is that if I did not have this conversation, I probably would never have thought to articulate the reasons that bring me to the mat every morning. Isn't it amazing how conversation can serve as a mirror into your thoughts and your inner life in this way?

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Practice this morning was great. Still modifying most of my half-lotus postures, except Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana and Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana; the idea is to work on getting into these postures slowly, taking as much time and as many breaths as are needed, and try to move into them by using the external rotators and the adductors rather than just muscling into them; the general idea is to initiate the action from the hips/core rather than from the knee. I figured that if I can teach my body how to get into these first two half-lotus postures effectively and safely, I can then apply the same lessons to all the other half-lotus and lotus postures in primary and second. This approach seems promising so far. I'll write more about this as things develop.  

On the backbend front, there are some interesting developments. Over the last week or so, as I bring my mind's eye to focus more on opening in the mid-back, I have been able to get deeper into Kapotasana. This morning, I managed to grab that area where the Achilles Tendon ends and the calve begins on both legs (is there a name for this part of the lower leg?).

That's the thing about asana practice sometimes; you "lose" something, but "get" something and "progress" in another area. Interesting, don't you think?

But there is really no such thing as a bad practice in Ashtanga. We have a tendency to judge and differentiate between "good" practice days and "bad" practice days. "Good" days are commonly thought of as days on which the practice flows smoothly and seamlessly, when one's breaths and movements are (relatively) smooth and unencumbered, and one's mind is not full of "monkey thoughts". "Bad" days are, well, everything that good days are not. But in the bigger scheme of things, even so-called "bad" days are actually good days. I think Guruji once said, "The only bad practice is no practice." In his latest post, Patrick expresses this very nicely when he writes:

"And in this way, devotional practice is regular practice, because there's nothing to gain or lose. I still get sore (annamaya) but it's the energy management (pranamaya; and with it, hints of emotional management) that really happens. Annamaya contains, runs with, alongside, pranamaya, and it's more and more, now emotional energy that is cracked out of fascia, anger at my household situation, mourning about my father earlier this year, anxiety about the holiday travel with my family's chronic weird communication and suburbanity, other things. Practice is not ABOUT these things, but I am about these things, and I learn this in practice. I see my own noise better. I hear the jam band that is my emotional/physical/energetic state, over the bass note of practice's equanimity."

"I see my own noise better"... I like that. Do we become better people when we are able to see our own noises better? I think the answer is yes, according to the Official Yoga Party Line. If you are able to see your own noises better, you will be able to achieve a certain level of detachment/distance/separation from your own noises, and you will then be able to make more conscious, "yogic" decisions, rather than simply react to those noises. Problem solved. 

Several years ago, at an asana intensive, Nicki Doane approached what I think is the same point from a slightly different direction. She said something to this effect, "If one has a beautiful asana practice, but is an asshole off the mat, then one is merely doing gymnastics."

I suppose one way to respond to Nicki's words might be, "Well, what's wrong with doing gymnastics? It's at least good to look at, if nothing else. Think about it: Any asshole can be an asshole, but it takes something to be a gymnastic asshole..." But of course, being the nice Asian guy that I was (and hopefully, still am), it did not occur to me at that time to muster such a comeback. Sidenote: I will seriously pay a lot of money to see the expression on Nicki's face if somebody were to muster such a comeback. If you are planning on doing this soon, please let me know :-)

Hmm... that wasn't very nice, Nobel. I wonder what's wrong with me today; I've been in a rather subversive mood the whole day. But anyway, I guess what I was trying to say (before I got sucked into that subversive digression) is that according to the Official Yoga Party Line, what Nicki is implying is that if one hopes to get more out of the asana practice than mere gymnastics, one needs to do something more with the asana practice than simply strive for physical perfection. Or, as Kino would say, one must "make the transition from a fitness oriented approach to yoga into a devotional one."

Sounds good. But maybe things aren't that simple... What do I mean? Well, in the course of making that transition to a devotional approach to the practice, one often has to radically change one's lifestyle habits and schedule. These changes do not just affect oneself: They also affect people close to oneself. For instance, your significant other may start noticing that you are no longer willing to stay up late to, say, watch movies or hang out or partake in other, uh, more intimate activities. Or you may start turning down perfectly legitimate requests from your friends to help them out with certain things at certain hours of the day, because you either have decided to set aside those hours for practice, or you have decided that you need to be getting certain of your own stuff done by a certain time if you are to get to bed by a certain hour so that you can get up and do your practice at a certain hour tomorrow. (How do I know about all these things, you may ask?...)

And might it not be possible that the friends and loved one/s you have turned down in the course of this transition might see you as an asshole for being this way? Oh well, maybe you don't have this problem. Good, good... But what if you are one of these unfortunate souls who do face this kind of dilemma?

On one level, it is probably things like this that have rightly or wrongly earned Ashtangis the reputation of being uptight/anal/dogmatic/judgmental/whatever type A personalities. So, one solution is obviously to "let go", "get a life', and don't be so uptight/anal/dogmatic/judgmental/whatever. Well, okay, but I can't help feeling that one can only "let go" so much before one throws out the proverbial baby with the bathwater (sorry, can't find a less violent metaphor...).

Anyway, I think this is becoming one of those posts where I'm not quite sure where I'm going, or how I'm going to end. So I may as well end now, while I'm still semi-lucid. But I guess you can see that there is some kind of a paradox here, which is something like this: In the course of trying to move towards a devotional approach to the practice (which would, if everything goes according to plan, make one less of an asshole), one becomes the asshole that one is trying not to become. Interesting, don't you think?   

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Recently, I've been thinking about a few things relating to the breath in practice. First, I've been thinking about length and duration: How long should the inhalation be relative to the exhalation? I've also been thinking about volume: How loudly (or softly) should one breathe during practice?

Sharath has recently said some very illuminating things about the length and duration of the breath in practice. In her report on the December 18th conference in Mysore, Suzy writes that Sharath has this to say about the breath during practice:

"In practice the inhale and exhale should be the same duration – you have to bring that rhythm in you. Some people do very shallow breathing – the breath doesn’t go inside. If you do relaxed breathing so that the breath does go inside, this activates jatar agni (digestive fire). If you have pain in your lower back or pelvis, if you do deep breathing into that area, this is how the body heals."

I think this is one of the clearest and most lucid explanations that I have read in a while about the relationship between the breath and healing in asana practice (Thanks for posting this, Suzy :-)).

There is actually another, related reason for maintaining inhalation and exhalation at equal length. My teacher in Milwaukee once observed that people who are new to the practice have a tendency to have short, abrupt inhalations and long, forceful exhalations: These practitioners appear to be "sucking" in the inhalation, and then expelling the air through a longer, forceful exhalation.

Actually, I don't think it's just new practitioners who do this: "Old" practitioners also tend to lapse into this breathing pattern when they encounter challenging postures in the practice (Kapotasana is a prime example; I'm speaking from experience, of course :-)). In any case, my teacher observes that one who breathes this way ends up releasing more prana than one takes in: As a result, more prana is "lost" to the surroundings than taken in, and the practice tends to leave the practitioner more tired than refreshed. Because of this, it is important to make a conscious effort to keep the inhalation the same length as the exhalation, so that one does not lose energy while breathing.

And then there is the question of volume: How loudly or softly should one breathe during practice? This seems to me to be a less clear-cut matter. Many of us have probably heard funny (or not-so-funny) stories about Ashtangis who have loud Darth Vader breaths that can be heard a mile away (okay, I'm exaggerating, but probably not by too much...). In the course of my, uh, practice career, I have also had the dubious fortune of practicing beside a few such individuals. Actually, I don't really know how loud my own breathing is, so I probably shouldn't be judging anybody here...

In any case, I have a couple of questions here. Is there anything bad or wrong with breathing like Darth Vader, other than the possibility of annoying one's shalamates and becoming the butt of shala jokes? Is breathing loudly in any way deleterious to one's practice on a physical or prana level? Or--to borrow a turn of phrase that has become very popular in the yoga blogosphere lately--can breathing loudly wreck your body?

If you have anything to share about this, I'll love to hear from you. 

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I have been following with great interest some of the discussion that has arisen in the Ashtanga blogosphere as a result of the recent publication of Kiri Miller's paper, "Virtual Transmission, Visceral Practice: Dance Central and the Cybershala", on her blog. Many thanks to Grimmly for posting the cybershala part of the paper on his blog, and bringing this very intriguing paper to my attention.

In her paper, Miller explores how the emergence of the cybershala has shaped the practice of many an Ashtangi. She observes that:

"An overwhelming number of yoga blogs, videos, Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, and other forms of online social media now constitute a “cybershala” of ashtanga yoga practitioners—many who work with teachers regularly, others who are cultivating a practice as “home ashtangis” (cf. Finnegan 1989 on “hidden musicians”). Yoga bloggers face a challenge familiar to ethnomusicologists and dance scholars: how can one communicate kinesthetic, multisensory experiences without bodily presence and a shared sensorium?"

Whatever else one may think, I think it is safe to say that the emergence of the cybershala can be seen as a boon to many a yoga geek. YogaRose, for instance, writes:

"I am quite intrigued by the questions that Miller is raising for Ashtanga practitioners because I live in the middle of the Mitten State. Here in Lansing, Mich., even though there is no dedicated Ashtanga shala, I  have fine access to Ashtanga classes and teachers, and I have friends who are as enamored of the practice as I am. But…I don’t really have anyone to consistently geek it out with, if you know what I mean. And even if I were in New York City or Encinitas, it’s not really fair to ask of anyone to be available — by phone, by email, whatever — when it’s 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep and I want to discuss more research postures for supta kurmasana (sleeping tortoise). (Who has that? Even if your significant other practices, can you really wake them up during your insomnia to talk more Ashtanga?) Anyway, when I started blogging more frequently, I started getting more engaged with the Ashtanga community via blogs, Twitter and Facebook and, yes, YouTube. It was like having a community full of people who understood me — where I didn’t have to justify (like I on occasion have to do with non-ashtangis) how I don’t get bored by doing the same sequence day after day — especially now that I’m practicing six days a week."

I totally relate to what YogaRose is saying here. As a yoga geek/closet-aspiring-yoga bum, I often find myself having many thoughts about the practice. Some of them are about the nuts and bolts of how to work towards particular asanas, others are about how different aspects of the practice relate to different areas of spiritual and emotional matters in daily life. Over the course of the 15 months or so since I began blogging, I have noticed that the cybershala offers a space for sustained contemplation and discussion of things related to the practice in a way that real-life shala culture often doesn't. I could be wrong about this (or it could just be my relatively limited experience of practicing in a "live" shala), but I get the sense that real-life shala culture tends not to be very conducive to discourse about the practice itself. In the shalas that I've been to, people show up, do their practice, and then leave. In such an environment, it may well be several months (if at all) before you even learn the name of the person who practices next to you everyday. This is true, even if you may, ironically, be very intimately acquainted with many aspects of that person's body: For instance, you may have acquired a very thorough knowledge of that person's breathing pattern in particular postures, how he or she moves into and out of particular postures, and (God forbid) even the distinctive smell of that person's body and/or deodorant, so that you probably can identify that person with your eyes closed. But you don't even know that person's name!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that traditional shala culture, by its very nature, encourages the fostering of non-verbal knowledge of the practice over discursive verbal knowledge. Perhaps this has something to do with Guruji's "99 percent practice, 1 percent theory" dictum. In any case, even if you were to stop in the middle of practice to ask the teacher questions, you would more often than not get only very brief answers regarding how to perform particular postures or alignment. It's very, very unlikely that you will get to geek out with the teacher about, say, the pros and cons of doing the straight-legged jump-through versus doing the cross-legged jump-through. Indeed, doing this will probably disturb the peace of the other practitioners and also take the teacher's attention away from other practitioners who need his or her support, and thus constitute bad shala etiquette.

Seen in this light, perhaps the cyber-shala provides a much-needed outlet for Ashtangis like me with a geeky, discursive bent of mind to indulge their geeky impulses; it enables the Ashtanga geek (Ashtangeek?) to discourse endlessly about the myriad ways of getting bound in Supta Kurmasana, or about the many trials and tribulations of second series. I think somebody should do a study on whether Ashtangis with a geeky bent of mind ("Ashtangeeks") are more likely to be active participants in the cybershala... In any case, I think we can say that the cybershala is arguably a boon to the Ashtangeek, for the above reasons.  

But could such a boon contain within itself the seeds of a bane? What do I mean? Well, I just said that the cybershala "enables" the Ashtangeek to geek out endlessly about the intricacies of practice. In doing so, could the cybershala be enabling a particular pattern of behavior that may not be so desirable for the Ashtangeek's sadhana? I don't know if you have had this experience, but I sometimes find myself thinking about particular things that were said in the blogosphere during practice. This is particularly true when I approach postures that are challenging, and that have either been discussed a lot in the blogosphere and/or of which many videos have been made. Some of these thoughts may be useful to the practice, especially if they involve particular pitfalls or alignment details to be mindful of. But I also have to admit that other thoughts may not be so constructive, and may indeed add to the chitta vrtti that already characterizes the mind of the Ashtangeek ("Oh, why do I take so many breaths to get into Kapotasana, where Ashtangi X only took, like two breaths to get his heels in the same posture?", "Why isn't my jumpback to Chatvari position in Surya B as smooth as our friend Ashtangi Y's in her viral Youtube video? Why?!").    

So perhaps, as useful as the cyber-shala may be for the Ashtangeek, dangers also abound, and the Ashtangeek must proceed with caution, lest he or she be sucked into the Dark Side of exceeding the 1 percent theory quota. Maybe I already have done so, given the amount of Ashtanga blogging that I do... Uh oh, could I actually be an Ashtanga Sith Lord?
 

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