our-yoga

There are so many insightful points that Kiri Miller brings up in her paper on virtual transmission and visceral practice, that I find myself still having lots of things to say, despite having written an entire post about the cybershala yesterday. So I guess I'll just keep saying what I have to say, until the well runs dry, so to speak... actually, knock on wood! May the well of blogging wisdom at Yoga in the Dragon's Den never run dry... Om.

One interesting issue that Miller brings up in her paper is the issue of possibly "cheating" on one's teacher in Ashtanga. I am putting "cheating" in quotation marks, because I want to leave it an open question as to whether one can actually cheat on one's teacher. Miller writes:

"Watching these videos also gave me the uncomfortable feeling that I might be cheating on my teacher. Ashtanga students are not supposed to start experimenting with advanced asana of their own accord. On the other hand, the structured nature of ashtanga makes it particularly well suited to independent practice, amateur-to-amateur pedagogy, and online discourse among a dispersed community of practitioners."

Indeed, the issue of possibly "cheating" on one's teacher opens the door to the possibility of another, broader kind of "cheating": "Cheating" on the tradition as a whole by learning and doing the practice wholly outside the traditional context of a face-to-face teacher-student relationship. As with the first kind of "cheating" (cheating on one's teacher), I am also leaving it an open question here as to whether one can actually "cheat" on the tradition. Anyway, Kiri cites Grimmly as a possible example of this form of "cheating":

"Grimmly is an ashtanga student without a teacher—an impossible contradiction to many practitioners, but one that is getting more possible all the time... As Grimmly developed his home practice, some of his choices posed challenges to ashtanga orthodoxy. For instance, when Grimmly blogged about his decision to begin learning the second series of asana, one commenter told him that he should not be learning any intermediate asana before he could stand up from a backbend: “Then and only then you start to add intermediate to your existing primary. Your teacher would give you each new asana as he saw your progress. . . . Traditionally in India, yoga has been learned from teacher to student, not from a book or video. It’s really not right to decide to give yourself postures.”

Before I go on, I should say this for the record: I am not accusing anybody of anything. First, I think that Grimmly is a great yogi. I really feel that his personal story of how he started out as an overweight 43 year old man who basically taught himself yoga, and changed his entire life and worldview, is an inspiration to all. I certainly would never accuse him of being a cheater in any way. Nor am I accusing Miller of accusing Grimmly of being a cheater.

Now that we have that out of the way, I would nevertheless like to pose a couple of questions here:

(1) Is it possible to "cheat" on one's teacher in Ashtanga? If it is possible, what exactly is so bad or wrong about such "cheating"?

(2) Is it possible to "cheat" on the tradition as a whole? If it is possible, what exactly is so bad or wrong about such "cheating"?

Let's think about (1). It seems to me that the notion of "cheating" on one's Ashtanga teacher involves, at its core, a certain sense that one has shown disrespect for one's teacher by learning or experimenting with postures the teacher has not officially "given" one. There also seems to be some blurriness with this notion of "cheating". For one, it does seem that "cheating" on a less senior teacher by"getting" postures from a more senior teacher is more kosher than the other way around. A prime example of this would be something like this: Suppose I were to be given a certain number of postures (say, second up to kapotasana) by a particular teacher. And then I go to Mysore, and I am given more postures by Sharath (say, second up to dwipada sirsasana: I'm not saying this is going to happen, I'm just giving an example...). And then I go back to my "home" shala, and practice second up to dwipada, using the fact that Sharath has given me the postures as justification to do so. In this case, even if I were "cheating" on my original teacher, it wouldn't be as "bad" as if I had "gotten" the postures from a teacher that is less senior than my original teacher, right?

I apologize if all this is very convoluted and wordy. I try not to write like this most of the time. But anyway, back to my example. Maybe you'll think that my example is not a good one. After all, Sharath is... Sharath. He represents the Source of the lineage right now. How can getting postures from him constitute "cheating" on anybody? Well, maybe not... But if we consider Guruji as being (so far) the one and only guru of the Ashtanga lineage, then Sharath is just a senior teacher. So if we substitute "Sharath" in my example above with "Tim Miller" or "Kino MacGregor" or with whatever your favorite senior teacher is, the question I am asking is still pertinent. The question then, is: If you get new postures at a workshop/intensive/whatever from Kino/Tim Miller/insert-your-favorite-senior-teacher-here, and then go back to your home shala and practice these postures in the presence of your original teacher, this "cheating" wouldn't be as bad as if you had "gotten" the postures from a teacher that is less senior than your original teacher, right?

Why isn't this "cheating" as bad? There are several possible answers. It may be because the senior teacher is commonly seen to be somebody who is more experienced as a teacher than your less senior original teacher. Whereas if you were to "get" postures from Youtube that you had not been given by any teacher, and practice them on your own, that would be a different story. Because Youtube is not a teacher. And what is wrong with learning postures from Youtube rather than from a teacher? Well, there is the question of safety: If you practice a new posture by yourself, your chances of getting hurt are probably higher, all other things being equal.

But maybe it's not just a question of safety. After all, who can guarantee that any teacher, no matter how senior, will be able to ensure that you perform a posture in complete safety? Perhaps the real issue is that if you "get" postures from Youtube rather than from a teacher, then the transmission of the posture is not done in accordance with tradition (which supposedly holds that yoga should be taught face-to-face, from a teacher to a student).

Which brings us to (2). And this is where the "Grimmly phenomenon" comes in. Grimmly, as we know, has drawn considerable flak from traditionalist Ashtangis for having learnt at least the first two series of Ashtanga all by himself, from books and videos. The charge of these traditionalists, as I understand it, is that Grimmly has gone against tradition by learning Ashtanga and giving himself postures from books and videos rather than by going to a "proper" shala and receiving instruction the "proper", "traditional" way. Ah, Grimmly, why you so improper?! Do you not fear the might of the Ashtanga police? :-)

But seriously, supposing that Grimmly has indeed flouted tradition or "cheated" on it (is it possible, by the way, to cheat on something that you may not even have a relationship with in the first place? Something to think about, no?)... Supposing that he has, what would be so wrong with it? Could there not be possible scenarios in which such "cheating" is okay, maybe even the right thing to do? Think about this fantastic scenario: Suppose all Ashtangis in the world today were to suddenly drop dead from some mysterious illness tomorrow (and that includes me, unfortunately. Actually, come to think of it, it would probably also include you; you must be an Ashtangeek to actually have the patience to read this super-long convoluted post...). Also suppose that, by some unfortunate coincidence, a big earthquake were to happen in Mysore tomorrow, and the KPJAYI were to be buried under tons of rubble, so that all knowledge of Ashtanga were to be lost to all humanity.

Now imagine that, a thousand years from now, a group of archeologists were to go to what is now Mysore, and unearth the remains of what was once KPJAYI. These archeologists will then discover pictures of Guruji and Sharath (they will probably also discover a coconut stand that was demolished just before the earthquake, but that's another story...). Along with these pictures, they will also discover copies of Yoga Mala, and come to realize that a wonderful thing called Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga existed a thousand years ago, before all humanity lost knowledge of it and became a whole bunch of sedentary overweight couch potatoes...

Anyway, suppose one of these archeologists decides that something so wonderful as this Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga should never be lost to humanity again. So this archeologist decides to teach himself Ashtanga from Yoga Mala. Now, would this archeologist now be "cheating" on the tradition, since he is teaching himself Ashtanga through a book, and not through a live teacher? I'm guessing the answer is no, but maybe I'll leave this up to you to decide.

Whew! This has been a super-long, very convoluted post. If you made it this far, I really, really thank you for putting up with my all-over-the-place writing style. Well, if you have any thoughts on (1) or (2), I'll love to hear from you, as always.

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Recently, the Ashtanga blogosphere has been abuzz with conversations that center around a couple of themes: (1) Does practicing Primary Series alone make for a "balanced" practice? Is keeping people at primary for too long causing imbalances in their bodies, imbalances which will eventually result in injuries? (2) What makes a traditional Ashtanga practice traditional? Or, as the Confluence Countdown so cleverly puts it, What makes a practice ‘Ashtanga enough’ to be Ashtanga? 

(1) and (2) are related, for many reasons. One possible reason is that if you are worrying about (1), you are also probably worrying about (2) as well. For instance, if you have come to the conclusion that doing Primary Series alone is not a balanced practice for you, given the present condition of your body, and are experimenting with second series postures on your own (or are even "seeing other yogas"), but are not prepared to stop calling yourself a traditional Ashtangi, then you may be concerned about whether your present practice consisting of your "self-given" postures (I know a lot of people out there don't like the words "given" and "give", but I'll stick with these, because these are the words that come to mind right now; I'm not feeling mentally nimble enough today to try to find more appropriate words. Yes, today is a "bad mind day". I hope you will excuse me...) would make the cut as a "traditional practice." So, there may be a certain kind of guilt involved here: Let me call this "Tradition Guilt."  

Actually, you may suffer from Tradition Guilt even if you have been given the postures you are practicing now by your teacher. Suppose that, even though you haven't mastered the so-called "gateway poses" in primary (binding in Mari D, binding in Supta K, being able to drop back and stand up on your own, etc.), your teacher decides to move you on to second series anyway, because he or she believes that keeping you too long in primary would exacerbate certain pre-existing imbalances in your body. But suppose, further, that other supposedly more "tradition-observing" Ashtangis get wind of you and your teacher's un-traditional activities. The Ashtanga police are called, and all hell breaks loose. If you are a blogger and have been blogging about your, ahem, un-traditional activities on your blog, your comment threads will be besieged by these well-meaning tradition-observing folks, who are concerned that you and your teacher have strayed from the path of tradition and will soon burn in the fires of Ashtanga Hell. They therefore see it as their sacred duty to offer you their counsel and try to bring you back from the brink of eternal Ashtanga damnation. If you are even a little faint of heart, you might find yourself moved by their appeals; you might then start questioning your own practice (and also your teacher's judgment), and may thus suffer from Tradition Guilt over possibly not following tradition.

Is Tradition Guilt a justified kind of guilt to suffer from? Damn, this is such an awkward way of putting the question: I really am having a bad mind day. But I hope you get what I'm trying to say here... Many people in this day and age will argue that guilt is a useless and unproductive emotion, and that no guilt is ever justified. Well... maybe, I don't know, one way or the other. But the fact of the matter is that I suspect that many people out there do suffer from this Tradition Guilt, whether they want to admit it or not.

If you are such a sufferer, there's some good news here: I hereby absolve you!

On what authority do I thus absolve you? You may ask. Well, none whatsoever; I'm a nobody in the Ashtanga world. But let me just give you my two cents' on this whole Tradition debate: It's pretty silly, really. Now, I'm not saying that tradition is not important in the Ashtanga practice; it is. But I think too many people are trying too hard to pin down what tradition is by appealing to the minutiae of the practice: If you do x, y, and z, and don't do a, b, and c, then you are not following tradition. If you take x number of breaths in Y-asana instead of taking y number of breaths, then you are not following tradition. If you do posture sequence B without first mastering posture sequence A, which Sacred Ashtanga text C strictly proscribes on pain of eternal hellfire, then you are not following tradition. And so and so forth. Ultimately, I feel that tradition is like water; it fits into many containers, but the minute you try to say that it is the shape of any one container, you lose its essence. 

So what is tradition? Well, I don't have a one-word answer (or even a two-word answer) to this question. But I think it has something to do with this parampara thing, this notion of being able to trace what you do in some coherent fashion to Guruji. A recent commenter on the above-mentioned post at the Confluence Countdown puts it very nicely:

'The lineage of learning must be traced back to Guruji. This doesn’t mean your teacher needs to be authorized, as that’s not always a possibility. However, somewhere along the line, you need to be able to link it back to Guruji in a straight line. Even if it means you learned to practice at home with a video or a book (yikes!). Who is instructing? Who was their teacher? And their teacher… and so on. At some point, there needs to be personal contact directly with a teacher. If not, it may be Asthanga Vinyasa, but I wouldn’t classify it as “traditional.” Looking at the definition of traditional we get: existing in or as part of a tradition, where tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation); long-established.'

One important thing we can glean from these words is this: A practice isn't "traditional" just because it has been practiced for a very long time by a group of people. In other words, just because practice sequence A has been around for a hundred years while practice sequence B has only been around for ten years doesn't mean that practice sequence A is more traditional than B. The deciding factor here is not length of time the practice sequence has existed. What is important is whether you can trace what you are practicing back to Guruji in a more or less linear fashion. If you can, then your practice is traditional. If you can't, then, well... it's not.

I'm guessing that some people (or maybe even many people) out there would be rather unsatisfied with this understanding of tradition. It might seem a bit nebulous and vague. It certainly doesn't lend itself well to the kind of finger-pointing that many so-called traditionalists like to engage in, because even if I am doing second series before I can stand up from dropping back, if I have a way of linearly tracing what I am doing back to Guruji, then I pass the tradition test. And so do you, even though your practice may be very, very different from mine. Which means there is more than one way to be traditional, because many practices which seem very different when seen "from the outside", so to speak, can ultimately all be traced back to one source. Which probably doesn't sit well with the sort of mind that likes to be able to make quick judgments about whether things are this or that (or neither). But, to use a very cliched turn of phrase, it is what it is. Why should tradition fit itself within our narrow mental constructs?

Wow, I just procrastinated away half an afternoon writing this post... Why do I do this? Am I addicted to blogging? Am I writing this blog, or is this blog somehow an organic being that is pulling things out of my mind and putting it here? Hmm... what do I know? Anyway, I better go get some "real work" done now. In the meantime, if you have anything to say, I'll love to hear from you.

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