our-yoga

Earlier today, I was chatting with a friend at the coffeeshop that I normally hang out and do my work at. He was telling me that he went to bed at 4:30 this morning (I won't tell you why he did that, out of respect for his privacy). I replied that that was the exact time I got out of bed. Which is not exactly true, strictly speaking; I did sit in bed for a few minutes before I finally succeeded in lifting my ass out of bed (seriously, somebody needs to come up with a vinyasa count for getting out of bed in the morning: Ekam, turn body over; Dwe, swing legs over bed; Inhale, exhale there; Trini, stand up...). But I decided I did not need to overwhelm my friend with so much information. "In any case," I continued, "this means that at least one of us is conscious at any given moment of the day. Interesting, no?" Which drew a chuckle from my friend.

This little conversation with my friend brought my attention to one interesting fact: With the exception of trips here and there to study with various teachers, it has been more than three years since I have practiced at home, without the benefit of frequent practice at a shala, and the benefits of continued regular attention from a teacher that this brings. How have I been able to keep up this demanding practice throughout all the inevitable physical, mental, and emotional ups and downs that accompany the journey of practice? Two things stand out to me right off the top of my head:  

(1) Keeping to the vinyasa count to the best of my ability: One benefit of practicing regularly (once a week, in my case) to Sharath's led primary CD is that, over time, you start to get the vinyasa count down. For instance, in the seated postures of primary, you jump through into the pose on the first side on "Sapta", and after doing both sides, you end up on "Vimsatihi" with many postures. In the last few weeks, I have actually been counting the vinyasa count in my head as I move through the postures. I have found that doing this helps to keep me focused and prevent too many extraneous thought (i.e. monkey mind) from intruding. There is something about counting that prevents one from faffing and/or obsessing too much over postures. This is true even if I do end up giving myself one or two more breaths to get into Marichyasana D and Garbha Pindasana. Esepecially the former: I have yet to personally see anybody who can get into Mari D and bind in Sapta without taking one or two extra breaths. But I guess this is not the point: I think the idea behind keeping to the vinyasa count is that it reminds you that the practice is really a flow, and that you just have to keep on moving and breathing.

(2) Keeping in mind my teachers: Most of the time, I do this without even consciously trying to do so. For instance, in the first couple of downward dogs in Surya A, I sometimes find myself imagining one of my teachers (say, Kino) adjusting me. I often also find myself imagining one of my teachers squishing me in Paschimottanasana. I can't help thinking that it is little things like that that show that the practice is ultimately a communal experience; one feels the power of the Ashtanga community even if one is practicing by oneself most of the time. I also suppose that people who have met Guruji and formed a personal connection with him might imagine Guruji adjusting them or talking to them in his heavily South-Indian-accented English ("Why fearing, you?") during the course of their daily practices. But since I have never met Guruji, I can't know this for sure. By the way, this is also one of the reasons why I did not post anything on this blog yesterday (Guru Purnima): Although I certainly owe much to Guruji for being able to do this practice, I can't honestly say that I have a personal connection to him, and writing an homage to somebody I have never met just seems a little disingenuous.

Anyway... I don't really have much else to say here. I just thought I'd record a few practice thoughts here (For what? For posterity? Are a bunch of aliens going to dig this up and read it a few thousand years from now, when I am gone? :-)) before I eat some dinner and watch my nightly dose of Battlestar Galactica (I'm starting season 4 tonight... yay!).

Oh, and just in case this interests you, I made a couple of observations while playing chess with a friend earlier today: Isn't it interesting that the most powerful piece in chess is a woman (i.e. the queen)? Isn't it even more interesting that if you find the enemy queen very close to your king, somebody very bad is probably going to happen to you (i.e. an impending checkmate)? Moral of the story: Having a woman close to you is trouble... unless she is on your side!

P.S. If you think this is a sexist observation, let me know, and I will consider (although I cannot promise) keeping such observations strictly to myself from now on. 

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I thought I'll write a quick post about the state of my practice, even though I really don't have too much to say about it. The last couple of days haven't been the best, energy-wise: Yesterday morning, in particular, I actually felt a little tired and run-down during practice, especially during the standing postures. But I kind of just noted the run-down feeling in my mind (Run-down feeling: Check!), and then went on with the rest of the practice anyway (full primary and second up to Supta Vajrasana). When I looked at my cellphone at the end of practice, I saw that the whole thing had taken just an hour and thirty-two minutes. Not bad for feeling tired and run-down ;-)

I have this habit of looking at the time at the end of practice (just before taking rest) to see how long my practice on any given day takes. Sometimes, this makes me feel like I'm running some kind of marathon. But I think there is something to be said for keeping the practice at a good clip. I mean, you certainly don't want to rush the breath unduly just to have a speedy practice. But you also don't want the practice to be so leisurely that you open yourself up to temptations to faff or obsess about particular postures, or do other things that are extraneous to the practice. Hence it is a good idea to try to maintain a certain pace and to keep the practice at a good clip. Kristen recently blogged about how it's a good idea to do led primary to Sharath's video (actually, I think it doesn't have to be Sharath; any teacher who counts consistently would do the trick) so that one can be sure one is keeping up the pace. Can't agree more. I do Sharath's led CD at least once a week, and I think this has a positive impact on my pace during the rest of the week as well. I still tend to give myself extra breaths to get into certain poses (Mari D, for instance), but by and large, I feel that, with Sharath's count in the back of my mind as the template, I am much less likely to faff or to obsess over this or that posture. I just do whatever I have to do in the present moment in accordance with the vinyasa count as best as I can, then move on to the next thing. As it is with the practice, so it is with life.    

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I would like to add a couple of addenda to my two previous posts. Randa has read both posts, and has requested that I clarify them:

(1) It is not true that pranayama is practiced in the padmasana in the three finishing lotus postures (as I said in this post). The duration of the breath, as she counts it (and, I take it, as Lino counts it as well) is indeed longer than the duration of Sharath's count, but there is no breath retention involved. That was purely my impression: Because my breath was not long enough, I had to hold my breath for one or two seconds at the end of each inhalation and each exhalation. Hence my impression that there was pranayama involved. This is important to clarify, as Randa wants me to make it clear that there is no pranayama involved here.

(2) As for the matter of the vinyasa count for lifting up and jumping back (see this post), Randa has this to say: "you inhale in the pose then on the exhale place your hands to be ready to lift up".

I don't suppose everybody is going to agree on everything, but the least I can do here is to make it clear what people are saying, and not misrepresent them. Which, hopefully, I have managed to do with these addenda.

I also see that a few other people have left comments pertaining to these issues in these two previous posts. Thank you for doing so. I'll probably reply to you tomorrow: I'm too beat right now after driving the whole day to get back here to Idaho. In the meantime, perhaps you may find these addenda useful? :-)

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I did full primary to Sharath's led primary CD this morning. There is something very calming about doing the practice to his precise count, from the dedication to Guruji that he chants at the beginning, to his beautiful enunciation of the cadence of the opening and closing mantras, and perhaps most importantly, simply letting his vinyasa count guide and move my practice along. No thinking needed, just breathe and do whatever asanas is called out in the moment.

As I was doing the asanas to Sharath's count this morning, a thought occurred to me: There is a very interesting sense in which the practice is not linear, but cyclical. As many of us who have been doing this practice for some time know, Ashtanga has often been criticized by detractors for being very linear in nature, both with regard to the linear progression of the way the postures build on one another, and also with regard to the linear nature of the way the asanas are supposedly performed: Forward bending, backbending, even twisting seems to presuppose fixed lines of motion through space. Which may be why Anusara, with its emphasis on spirals, is more appealing to a lot of people, at least until the fall from grace of Juan Amigos earlier this year...

But I digress. As I was saying, it occurred to me this morning that Ashtanga is not linear, but is in fact cyclical in nature. We can see this if we pay attention to the vinyasa count. Everything "resets" itself at Ekam, so that in the seated postures of primary, you always jump into a posture at Supta. This cyclical nature is even more obvious in the finishing sequence: In the three Urdhva Dhanurasanas, for instance, one lifts up into the backbend at Nawa, brings the head back down to the ground at Desa, and then lifts back up into the backbend at Nawa again. I mean, you would think that if the intention were for the practice to be truly linear in nature, one would be lifting into the second backbend at Eka-desa, and into the third backbend at Trayo-desa...

The same pattern can also be seen in the shoulderstand sequence. Halasana is at Ashtau, if I remember correctly. And the next pose, Karnapidasana, remains at Ashtau. Again, this seems to suggest a cyclical, not linear progression.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into the nature of the practice from the way the vinyasa count goes. Maybe the vinyasa count doesn't really say anything about the nature of the practice one way or the other. But I can't help feeling that I'm on to something here. Am I? If I'm not (and you have good reason to believe I'm not), just let me know. I'm okay with being wrong :-)  

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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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I just read David Robson's latest post on Elephant Journal about doing the practice to the correct vinyasa count. If you practice the primary series to the correct vinyasa count, you can actually complete the practice in an hour and five minutes (those of you who have practiced to Sharath's led primary CD, or better yet, have done led primary in Mysore with Sharath, will know what I'm talking about here).

But trying to do the practice to the correct vinyasa count is such a humbling experience. Well, at least for me, it is. For me, the attempt to keep up with the vinyasa count reveals with brutal honesty how I often consciously or unconsciously "cheat" in the practice by taking extra breaths to get into more challenging postures or to do fancy stuff like floating or jumping back with straight legs (yes, these things cause you to "cheat" in the practice, because most mortals--well, at least this particular mortal--have to take at least one extra breath to do such fancy stuff, which messes up the vinyasa count). In this sense, the vinyasa count really calls me out; it's saying to me, "No fancy bullshit, my friend: Just do the practice!"

But back to Robson's article. It's such a great article. I learnt so much from his words. The following passages really stand out to me:

"...more struggle often seems to create an opportunity for more mindfulness. My practice is just as often about the discrepancies in the vinyasa as much as it is the times I actually match the count. Both experiences are mired in citta, and can provide the same opportunities for observation and non-attachment.

However, while I don’t have to be able to do floating jump backs, or get into Marichyasana D in one breath to gain the benefits of the practice, I do have to try as hard as I can—whether I can do it or not, the vinyasa count does matter. The count keeps me focused on the breath and in the present moment. And it is only by striving to match the vinyasa that the deep, internal heat of tapas, and its corresponding purification, will come.

In Ashtanga we work at our personal edge every day. That work is to balance sincere effort with ease and surrender. The vinyasa frames our experience during practice, limiting our focus to the prescribed breath and movement. But we also need to apply non-attachment, vairagya, to the experiences that practice yields.

I believe that the unattainable quality of the vinyasa count and the never-ending difficulty of the poses are designed to cultivate softness as much as strength. We need the ideal, the strong rules of the practice to direct and focus our energy. And we also need to accept the results of our efforts, whatever they are, with equanimity. When both sincere effort and non-attachment are present in our practice, correct vinyasa might just happen."

I totally agree with Robson here, especially that last paragraph. Very often during the practice, I tend to get a bit too attached to the physical outcomes of the postures. When that happens, a lot of chitta vrtti is aroused ("What?! How come I can only just barely catch my fingers in Supta Kurmasana today? Oh no, am I getting fat?! But I practice everyday, and do my best to limit my intake of potato chips. Why is this still happening to me? Why?!..."). Keeping to the vinyasa count is the practice's way of telling us that none of any of this really matters. Just breathe and move, and all is coming. It's like this with the practice. And it's also like this with life. In a word: Vairagyabhyam. Non-attachment.

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