our-yoga

I haven't been able to motivate myself to blog for the last week or so. Why? Because I have re-discovered the evils of online chess! A little back story here: I used to play online chess on yahoo many years ago, but stopped doing so because frankly, yahoo's interface and the netiquette of the players suck. But just a few days ago, I discovered chess.com. The rest, as they say, is history... damn, this online chess thing is truly addictive! I found myself playing every spare moment I got, compromising even my precious sleep.

Thankfully, I didn't compromise my practice. But it definitely had a very direct effect on my practice. Yesterday morning, as I raised my arms above my head for the second Surya A, I felt this "pop" sensation (the bad kind) in my right trapezius. Oh shit, I thought. I had this before: The last time this happened (last summer), I had to lay off chaturanga and most weight-bearing postures for a month. But I decided to move slowly through the practice anyway, and see just how bad the damage was this time. I got through the entire practice alright without modifying any postures, but there was this persistent soreness in the right trapezius the rest of the day. After some reflection, I realized that playing too much online chess was probably the culprit here. You see, when I play chess online, my right hand is perched on the mouse the entire time, and my right elbow is bent and suspended at a right angle. For some reason, the power that is used to hold my right arm rigidly in this position comes all the way from the back of my shoulders (i.e. the trapezius). Which results in a lot of tightness.... huh, who knew you could get injured playing chess?

Anyway, I did my practice again this morning. I took slightly longer breaths in downward dog, playing close attention to externally rotating my upper arms while in the posture in order to release the trapezius. It seems to be working: I am feeling a lot less sore today.

D over at Savasana Addict has written a heartfelt and honest post about her feelings of guilt over being a "card-carrying Ashtangi" (I don't mean this in a stereotyping kind of way, but to my mind, anybody who has made the necessary adjustments and sacrifices to make the trip to Mysore qualifies as a card-carrying Ashtangi) while eating meat at the same time.

Her post resonates a lot with me, not least because of our similar cultural backgrounds: We are both ethnic Chinese who hail from this beautiful tropical island called Singapore. As you may or may not know, Chinese food (especially the Singaporean incarnation of it) is very, very omnivoric in nature. When I was growing up, I had this perception that the only people who don't eat meat are: (1) Buddhist monks and nuns, (2) people who have certain medical conditions, and (3) people who are simply "out of it." I mean, who else in their right mind would refuse, say, Hainanese chicken rice?

Well, me, I guess. I have been vegetarian for about three years now. It all started because of this Ashtanga thing. Well, more precisely, it started when I began studying with my teacher in Milwaukee (PJ Heffernan). Before that, many people have tried in their own gentle (or not-so-gentle) ways to get me to consider not eating meat. I basically listened to them politely, and then went on with my merry meat-eating ways. I'm still not sure what clicked in me to cause me to make the change when I was studying with PJ; I basically quit meat within a couple of months. If I have to pinpoint one particular cause of this change, I would say it was probably PJ's powerful personality (it's hard to describe his personality here; you have to meet him to know what I'm talking about...).

Anyway, it seems to me that, even outside of Ashtanga circles, eating (or not eating) meat is a topic that can lead to interesting discussions. At the coffeeshop here in Idaho that I hang out and do my work at, there are a bunch of Saudi students who are also regulars. A few of them have learned that I am vegetarian, and have asked me out of curiosity why I have chosen to forgo the delights of meat (I'm guessing that Saudi cuisine is probably also very meat-heavy). One of them, in particular, is a big, muscle-bound body-builder. When I honestly told him that I chose not to eat meat because not doing so allows me to feel lighter and more energy-efficient (I decided not to tell him about PJ), he looked at me in a funny kind of way (he might be thinking I have lost it), and tried, as gently as he could, to suggest that if cooked in certain ways and eaten in certain limited quantities, it is possible to eat meat and still maintain a certain lightness of being. I politely listened to what he had to say, replied with "interesting, I'll think about this", and then went on with my non-meat-eating ways.

But well, he might have a point there. I recently half-jokingly told a friend that the one occasion on which I might consider making an exception to not eating meat is if I ever find myself in a dim sum restaurant, because I honestly don't see how one can properly partake in dim sum without eating shrimp dumplings. But we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I see that this post is quickly going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I guess I probably should sign off here, so you won't have to endure too much more of this rambling. More later.        

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Since I haven't posted for a week (why have I been so unmotivated to blog lately?), I suppose I'll start by saying a couple of things about my practice here. My strained trapezius (see previous post) is recovering slowly but steadily. I had to cut out chakrasana for a couple of weeks; a few days ago, I "regained" this beautiful transition pose. After not being able to do the pose for a couple of weeks, the sensation of rolling through the pose smoothly without the least bit of pain or strain on the upper back feels simply heavenly. It feels like getting to know and feel the pose all over again. From reading Ashtanga blogs over the past couple of years, I know that there are lots of Ashtangis out there who really dislike chakrasana: Many people think that it is very flashy and "show-offy", but is ultimately a useless pose that doesn't serve much purpose except get you from a supine position to downdog in a flashy, "show-offy" kind of way...

Well, I'm not going to mount any kind of defense of chakrasana here. I really don't know enough about the ins and outs and origins of chakrasana to say anything much about it. But I'll just say this: If something feels good, and also has the added advantage of making you look "cool" or "glamorous" or whatnot, why not do it? As it stands, very few postures in the primary series are really cool-looking or glamorous anyway; so why not take what you can get? :-)

But back to my injury recovery. As I was saying, I've pretty much re-introduced everything, except for the fact that I am still modifying chaturanga: I basically bend my elbows to whatever extent possible to lower into the pose, and then bring my knees to the ground to rise up into a modified updog. It seems that it will take a little longer for my arms to be able to bear weight with my elbows fully bent. The interesting thing is that, weight-bearing postures with arms straight (Bhujapidasana, Kukkutasana, etc.) are not a problem at all. Oh well. It is what it is.

Enough of my practice for now. I understand that there are folks in the blogosphere who think that blogging in detail about practice is not cool, not enlightened, or not-whatever. But with us Ashtangis, the physical practice is the starting point of the yoga journey. If one doesn't talk about the practice at least some of the time, one would risk throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, wouldn't one?

But maybe it is not a good idea to bore you with extended talking about the practice. Well, let's talk about something else that we do everyday: The opening and closing chants in Ashtanga. Over the weekend, I had a little discussion with a friend about the relationship between my Buddhist practice and my Ashtanga Yoga practice. One thing that came up was the issue of whether doing the opening and closing chants conflicts with the spirit of the Buddhist practice, which is essentially a practice that does not endorse the worshiping of gods or particular figures. I explained that the purpose of the opening chant is not to worship Patanjali, but to acknowledge, honor and offer thanks to him for making it possible for us to practice this wonderful yoga, and that the purpose of the closing chant is for us to set a clear intention to use this practice to do good in the world once we get off the mat. I'm not writing this because I feel any particular need to justify my practices, but maybe some of you out there may also face this kind of inquiry from curious friends. And maybe my experience here may be useful to you here in this regard.

Earlier today, I also read this article on Elephant Journal about making sense of Ashtanga chants. The author, Rocco Marinelli, argues that doing the opening and closing chants is not just a matter of going through the motions and getting it over with; what you feel when you do the chants can make a big difference to your experience of the practice. He writes:

"The opening chant is a prayer of gratitude and cultivating these feelings leads to more positive emotions. It sets a foundation of mindfulness and compassion on which we practice. We pause to give thanks to our teachers and to reflect on the poison of conditioned existence. Complementing this is the closing chant when we should be cultivating loving kindness and compassion.

It’s one thing to read a translation and to understand the words, but to recite it in class and to feel its meaning can be more difficult. If we become self-conscious because of a fear of correct pronunciation, we can feel ill at ease, doubt may kick in, rendering the chant vacuous...

The words we chant have as much effect on our mind as asana does to our body. They stretch the brain like utthanasana (forward bend) stretches the hamstrings. In that sense, if we’re not feeling anything as we chant then we’re not practicing at our edge."

Marinelli then goes on to suggest a Memory Palace visualization technique that involves bringing up certain images while doing the chant; images that can help us to cultivate these feelings of gratitude and loving kindness. Personally, I find this technique to be rather cumbersome and unwieldy; the whole idea of having to visualize particular images with particular lines of the opening chant strikes me as being rather tedious and mentally exhausting! But maybe it'll work for you: Read the end of his article for details about how to use this technique.

But I definitely agree with Marinelli's general point that "[t]he words we chant have as much effect on our mind as asana does to our body." Although time-wise, the opening and closing chants take up a much shorter proportion of our practice than the performance of the asanas, they are no less important on this account: They remind us that we did not invent the practice, and that the practice is ultimately more than just physical exercise, that we have a responsibility to use the practice and its benefits in a way that bring happiness to all living beings rather than the opposite. Easier said than done, I must say, but I suppose the chants are there to remind us to keep trying :-)          

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

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

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

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

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

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

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