Tradition

This system is inherently catered to the individual while being one-size-fits-all, because in the end, we are all the same.

I practice ashtanga yoga in Mysore, at the main shala.  Sharath is my teacher.  

I have the honor of assisting  him and working with 80 or so of the lovely aspiring yogis who come to the shala each morning. I have the privilege of attending conference and laughing at Sharath's little jokes about fear and pain and opening.

Many of us who have dedicated our lives, or at the very least our mornings, to this practice have come to see the brilliance that is the series of postures.  Not only the poses, but the vinyasas and the nuances of breath and drishti. For the poses I have completed, I frequently notice the importance of the order and the importance of establishing each in the physical body before moving on. 

and I've seen Sharath throw these rules out the window.

I've seen him allow a man with pins in has back to practice full primary without binding in marichi d or supta kurmasana.  I've seen him allow a woman with only fear in her way move onto to intermediate (thus giving her the emotional encouragement she needed to stand up from backbends). I've seen him stop a flexible student for no reason other than a lack of stability. as well as for a blatant display of disrespect.

The series of ashtanga yoga is a system that serves as a base and a structure for an experience of transformation.  an experience of yoga. 

Sharath tells us weekly that asana is not what is important.  It doesn't matter what series you practice or how good you are at handstands. "That doesn't make you a big yogi," he is fond of reminding us. All he really wants is for us to love God, "any god you like." 

and he wants to be available for as many of us as he physically can; he gives more to us than seems possible or sane. To protect us he has created some general guidelines for progression in the series or asana (guidelines which he occasionally tosses, when they don't work for specific student) but guidelines that often make us stop and face things in our bodies or in ourselves that we might rather ignore. challenges or stiffness (in muscle and spirit) that we might choose to try to force open.

and Sharath doesn't care if we get more poses.  I have seen that he is happiest with his students who try and struggle and SMILE, and they aren't always the ones with the prettiest postures.

Sharath is real with us.  He acknowledges that pain happens. and in the same moment he tells us his own stories of injury and stepping back, of practicing primary for months to rehabilitate injury, of backing off of backbends or taking it easy when teaching.  and he tells us that pain is opening.  NOT that pain is the way to opening or a necessary part of the process, but that suffering will happen and that we will survive and learn from it.  that we shouldn't give up just because it gets hard or painful.

It is a subtle message delivered in abbreviated English.  

pain is opening. tapas is a vehicle for growth.

Change, opening, development and transformation all are accompanied by some level of discomfort,  whether it is in the fibers of the physical body or in our hearts and minds.  

Implying that the postures we do determine our experience of yoga is a gross misunderstanding of the practice.  Thinking that we have to practice to a certain point or continue to move forward, physically, without confronting our limitations is completely missing the point. As we change and grow, the practice changes and allows us new challenges.  If (when) we hit a wall, then that is where we can do our work.  It doesn't matter if it is half way though primary or at the end of fourth.

This is the tradition of ashtanga yoga.
It is not what order poses come in.
or how well you have to do them to move on.
or how many people are in the room when you practice.

It is the willingness to face yourself and trust your teacher. to face your ego. to accept the work you have to do.

Venn windows on the scale.

How appropriate that today is Valentine's Day.

As you know, if you read this long winded blog regularly (and by regularly, I mean whenever I irregularly post), you know that I faced some heartbreak this year.  I was in this really great phase where practice was king!  Sharath and Mysore were my priority. I was happy and confident. I knew what my priorities were and how to meet my goals... and in walked someone who made me push against the walls of my window, begging it to stay put.  Someone whose dot was pretty firmly (and cheerfully) placed far, far from my window of comfort. I did not want to accept that maybe there were challenges to face aside from practice and getting back to Mysore.

We are uniquely singular beings, each with our own challenges and obstacles. We each land on the scale in a very particualr, individual way.  I think that we tend to find our friends, our confidants, our lovers and our partners in crime by finding others who have similarly placed windows.  Our relationships are like Venn diagrams on the sliding scale.  Some people line up easily and we can settle in with them and learn from them and love them easily.  

and some people don't.  
With some people our windows only slightly overlap, so we have to push to the limits of our own productive comfort zone to involve them in our lives.  and sometimes we step out of our comfort zone entirely for their sakes, only to eventually relinquish our position and move back into our own space. 

It doesn't mean we don't love them and appreciate them for all that they are, it just means the experiences that serve them don't serve us. Heartbreakingly, one or the other (or both) is pushing our limits to the point that we can't meet in the shared space.  Other times we want to push our limits and can't, or don't push our limits because we don't think we can.

Blah. What a mess.

Sometimes stretching to the extreme of asceticism, where there are no Venn diagrams at all seems like the easiest choice.

But really, I think it is in the space of the overlap that there is the most potential.  It is at the edges of our window of productive experience that we find the most growth.  We will probably be the most comfortable right, square in the middle.  But we will challenge ourselves most effectively by playing the line between productive and destructive.  

As any first batch (4:30 am) Mysore ashtanga practitioner will tell you, we are playing a fine line line between productive austerity and madness. But 4:30 happens to be right in the middle of sharath's window of comfort, so we do it for him.  With practice, with my teacher, it's easy to accept these experiences at the edge of what I can productively experience. I have a faith in the practice that gives me the strength to do this and hold steady.

With everyone else, I'm not so good at it.  I am still struggling to determine my own borders as they are shifted and warped, sliding and expanding along this scale of experience. but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  Hopefully soon I'll be closer to figuring out how it's going to work when I start taking into consideration the overlap of others' windows and my desire to live in shared space.

The next thing I learned:

The window is not fixed.

It is not so simple as figuring out what suits and what doesn't and sticking with it.

For a time, I let an outside party convince me that the only way to be a genuine yogi was to live at the austerity end of the scale. I found that by pushing my little dot toward the end of discipline, my window followed.  Sometimes I was living outside my window and it was very uncomfortable, but sometimes I would manage to keep my little dot right on the edge of my window of productive behavior and I would feel immense growth happening.  and then I'd step out of the window toward unproductive austerity and I'd become an asshole and my Dad would tell me I'd lost my sense of humor (side note, I think maybe parents are the only ones who have potential to see our windows and our positioning clearly).

Once I regained my senses (and independence) I started to investigate the position of my window.  I knew the things that had been wonderfully challenging and growth provoking and I began to see the things that might have been needlessly discarded or avoided.  My window began to settle into a more normal point on the scale. Maybe not he middle, but not at the crazy far end.  I became more comfortable with my life, regained my awareness of who I am, regrew lost confidence and let go of unnecessary worries.

and I carried on living my life.

I met new people. I went to knew places.  I tried new things.

And damnit if my window didn't move again. It slid out from under me. 

Once I saw it, I realized that its never as easy as settling into a pattern that doesn't change, setting standards and expectations that can be maintained year after year. Normal(ish) people have jobs, families, and goals that require them to face the inevitable change as it comes, but gradually. As a student of ashtanga yoga (in Myosre) before anything else, I have different struggles to learn from.

This system and lifestyle teaches you lessons in fits and starts, there's nothing gradual about it.

So it took me a little while to see that I can't just settle into a pattern for living and wait for gradual change.  My window swings dramatically with every move and every change in priorities, be it practicing in the shala, saving money, teaching, or giving my time to the people I love when they need it.  It's not possible to find a steady balance that can be maintained year in and year out.  If we insist of maintaining the position of our dot on the scale, we'll find ourselves unproductively outside out window.  The challenge of this lifestyle, the reason it's unattractive to so many, is the lack of constants.  The window swings and the constant of "home" or family and friends, or work, or even food, changes and we have to be flexible enough (and brave enough) to shift with it.

As always, there is one thing that doesn't change with all the other shifts of life. Sometimes it feels so hard to hold on to, but we know its worth it.  Practice.  
My practice is with me every step, every shift and movement.  and I am finding that as long as I hold onto my practice, it will inevitably pull me toward the center of my window of personal growth experience.  It will reign me in from moving toward chaos; it will help me see what austerities don't serve me.  

As always, my practice is there, keeping my steady in the center of my own shifting world.

Continuing with that train of thought...

Sometimes I figure things out that are so obvious, I surprise myself.  That seems to be how it works, the simplest answers (and realities) are often the hardest to see. But I've been really challenging myself to open my eyes to my reality and I've seen a few things.

And the sliding scale helps me make sense of them.

The first is that we all live on this scale.  Most people live somewhere in the middle.  But not all of us. Different choices and challenges will register differently, as discipline or chaos, for each of us depending on our samskaras and whatever it is we are meant to face in this life. What may look like chaos to you (say... living in a developing nation), registers as discipline for me.

And in addition to each of us having different standards for what is austerity and what is wrecklessness, we each need a different balance of the two.  Some people need to live life off the cuff and learn from that.  Some people need to settle into responsibility and face those challenges.

Basically, each of us has a very unique window of experience on the sliding scale.  We are each intensely unique beings trying to work through our own karma and our own lessons.    We can't expect our lessons to teach others the same things because we have no way of knowing where on the scale another persons window is, or where in (or out of!) their own window their little dot has settled.  And when we try to help each other and advise each other, the best we can do is share what we've learned from the experiences that have helped us grow. If we insist that what works for us will work for them then we'll do more harm then good.

Sometimes I am amazed that we can help each other at all.

The sliding scale

On a scale from ascetic to heroin addict, some consider me an aspiring yogi.

The "unruly" is the important part of my label as an ascetic and as Sharath would remind me, I'm not a big yogi.  Most people consider my life as a traveling student of ashtanga yoga to be pretty disciplined, practicing in the wee hours (debatable middle of the night), ethical vegetarianism, and a steady, if not absolute avoidance of seriously mood altering substances (coffee doesn't count, no coffee: no prana).  To some, my self administered discipline is borderline excessive.  But to others, I'm a far cry from the potential asceticism life offers.

The productive window of behavior on that scale of discipline to chaos is a challenge to gauge.  It is in this challenge, this constant daily struggle to determine what actions fuel my growth and which ones box me in, that is the real yoga.

I used to think that the yoga happened in the attempt to push my box from the center of the sliding scale toward the ascetic end. The more austere my life became, the more successful I was as a wannabe yogi.  At least, I was told that this was how it works.

Turns out that's not true.

We each have a window of experience that serves us.  And within this window, we are but a single point.  

Correction: along this scale we are but a single point.

Ideally, we live our lives within the window of experience, along the scale of discipline to chaos, that challenges us and reigns us in as necessary for our growth from darkness to light.

But sometimes we misjudge.  Sometimes we get in over our heads or fail to challenge ourselves. These are the times when we have managed to stray too far in one direction or another. We've stepped out of our window of productive experience.  We recognize this mistake instinctively.  
Sometimes it's as a result of someone else's influence.  
Sometimes it's as a result of thinking that if one thing made us happy, more of it is would make us more happy! 
Sometimes it's out of laziness.

Whatever the reason, we find ourselves at a point of unproductivity. It is at these points that we are required (often by friend and family, but really only ever ourselves) to move back toward a place of growth. 
But damnit all if that isn't a hard thing to figure out on our own.

That's why we practice. Whatever your practice is. If it brings you back to a place of productivity, then it is your yoga.

More on this later...

Welcome, Madame.

This will be my first attempt at bogging on an iPad mini. 

Thus far it is a success.

I fear that I will have to abandon my fondness for emotional capitalization (or lack of capitalization) with the autocorrect that remains necessary as I get used to this tiny, touch sensitive key board.
(I also fear that the inconvenience of accessing the parentheses will cause me to reduce the amount that I uses them, with debatable effect)

INDIA!
Yes, I have returned. 

I arrived a week or so ago to Mysore, eager to practice and see some much missed faces.  And when the most-missed face looked at me like a nutter and said "no, not possible" to my request to practice for one week, I promptly decided to abandon all the missed  faced and bugger off to Hampi for a bit of a preemptive holiday.
As it turns out, Hampi is lovely.  Covered in cool rocks and hippie cafes, I am glad for the motivation and the opportunity to get my traveling feet a bit wet, since going to Mysore feels more like going home than like traveling these days.

This weekend I head to Purple Valley. I can not express how happy I am about it, visiting my most beloved Mel, getting a new teaching experience, and experiencing Goa for Christmas and New Years. I have just been informed that Asia's biggest electronic music festival will be taking place just before the new year, maybe I'll hit it up on my night off.

...but don't get crazy.

wait, I said what?

what was that about starting new things and being inspired to make the most out of my last few weeks?  let's not misunderstand, now.

Yes, I am feeling inspired these days.  Yes, I am really diving headlong into some new(ish) activities and attitudes in the hopes of setting up a behavior pattern that I will carry with me when I leave this place and this daily structure. Yes, I am welcoming new ideas and giving them each a pretty thorough try (or at least a solid consideration).

but these are activites.  these are hobbies or interests, or even ways of approaching free time (and sometimes not so free time).  these new(ish) things are energetic and attitudinal. or maybe they are as concrete as the world's tiniest guitar. but they are dependent on me. and me alone.

I am not, even remotely, interested in starting something new, in being adventurous, in taking risks and making changes in the relationships in my life.

Now is not the time. don't. get. crazy.

I am realizing that this seems like the time for that sort of thing.  for those "last opportunities for honest confessions of emotion" I spoke of recently.  I congratulated myself on my lack of inclination toward the manic tendencies that occur at the crossroads of moving (going?) away and times of increased inspiration. 
When someone we care about (or think we might care about! if only we had more time to figure it out!) leaves us (or we leave them), seemingly indefinitely, we want to be sure we have done all we can.  We want to know that we told them how we felt.  We don't want to look back on anything with regret, right?  that's seizing the day! as we all romantically want to do.

but you know what? that's just silly.

What good is it going to do to change it now?  to confess some secret longing and hope that it is reciprocated?  not a damn bit.

as far as people go, now is the time to let things be as they are.  Start something new if you can take it with you. friendships can come with you.  young relationships that require nurturing and growth and delicate consideration of emotion can not (usually).  The moments before big changes are moments of turmoil and selfishness, not the time to bare your soul to anyone but yourself and whatever it is that drives you forward.

The thing is, if you love them, let them go.  You will always have another chance to tell them and to make a shift in your relationship when the timing makes more sense.  or you won't.  or that time with never come, in which case it won't do any good to tell them now anyway.
and that's okay. you can try again next life.