Let's assume my practice is Primary and up to Kapotasana, and that I throw in Supta Vajrasana because I'm thinking of it as essentially part of Kapo.
I say, let's assume, because last summer Matthew and then Kate let me do exactly that: Primary and up to Kapotasana. None of the intermediate poses were "given," exactly, not in the traditional sense. All the same, I'm not worried about that, simply being clear.
Some days, it is enough to just do the practice, not add things, take detours, even stop to feel out the sensations from a particularly intense pose. Breathe, move, do.
This was one of those days; I was a bit tired and unfocused, just couldn't get the "Yay practice" thing going, and so really just breathed, moved, got it done. This is a thing that people who practice more often tend to understand better than people who practice say 1-2 times a week. Some days one is just not HOT for it.
So in Kapotasana, I dropped back, walked in, barely bumped the toes, took five, pressed up, took five, took a vinyasa and then set up my lotus. Do it and move on.
I immediately felt some guilt for not "working the backbend," but it also felt good to finally just do the pose, not to analyze it after, not to work it after.
A weird guilty freedom.
Five wheels, burning in the quads, three dropbacks, each with a "launch forward" to kneeling, head coming up last.
When I'm hot for it again, I'll go back to dropbacks with feet flat, to practice coming up, feet flat.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Just another Monday night.
Which of course means it's Intro to Intermediate show. I'll be able to do this class next week, and then I'm off (teaching an art history class at night) until the end of June.
Hip flexors are beginning to play; more often and in more places. Bigger Shalabhasana. Easier, larger arch in Dhanurasanas and Bhekasana. I feel the hip flexors begin to pull open as I "surf up" into Urdhva Mukha Svanasana.
It IS all in the camel thunderbolt.
Ustrasana, with some extra breaths in it, can become a mighty hangback! Kapotasana, again, was hands to almost but not quite feet, solo, and then adjusted to a toe grab. This is becoming ordinary, which I'm very excited about, because you know how long and hard I've fought with that pose. Ordinariness has not been one of the qualities I've been able to summon with that one. So that rules.
Eka Pada was some tighter, but I'm abandoning all prep: jump in, take it back, sit for five (to work the stretch). Fold for five. Press up, leg horizontal, for five (again, to develop the stretch).
Dwi Pada remains evasive. This is fine.
The Tittibhasana sequence has been absolute fire of late, a thing of beauty. But as it and the backbends have developed, it's become much harder to just kick up and hold the balance in Pincha Mayurasana. I forward rolled out of it tonight, which I think I've done probably four times in the past TWO YEARS. That's damn uncommon!
So be it; things change and develop and fade and are wonderful.
Teacher had me and the other guy try to heft a seated lotus up ONTO our arms, sort of Karanda push-ups, rather than Karanda lower-downs. Now we all know that's crazy, because when you LAND Karanda, you land it HIGH on the arms, not LOW, or else you're sitting on your butt. We tried it anyway, and I was able to heft it off the floor, up onto both elbows, but not far, and not to my chest. The quads BURN as the knees push toward each other--this was amusing. Hey Intermediate, are you ALL about the quads or what? Funny stuff.
Five wheels, three dropbacks. Hanging back is starting to really happen right at the hips, and the hip flexors are giving me this broad, front-body-wide yellow light cracking sensation, which is positively magnificent.
My March dropbacks were largely sensory in the low back, the scrunching. Now it's front body, a cracking open, a big brilliant sort of earthquake there. It is coming.
I must declare, as Susan elsewhere pointed out, agreement with "the system" on this one. Dropbacks, then Kapo. Makes it easier. Teaches what's needed.
Hip flexors are beginning to play; more often and in more places. Bigger Shalabhasana. Easier, larger arch in Dhanurasanas and Bhekasana. I feel the hip flexors begin to pull open as I "surf up" into Urdhva Mukha Svanasana.
It IS all in the camel thunderbolt.
Ustrasana, with some extra breaths in it, can become a mighty hangback! Kapotasana, again, was hands to almost but not quite feet, solo, and then adjusted to a toe grab. This is becoming ordinary, which I'm very excited about, because you know how long and hard I've fought with that pose. Ordinariness has not been one of the qualities I've been able to summon with that one. So that rules.
Eka Pada was some tighter, but I'm abandoning all prep: jump in, take it back, sit for five (to work the stretch). Fold for five. Press up, leg horizontal, for five (again, to develop the stretch).
Dwi Pada remains evasive. This is fine.
The Tittibhasana sequence has been absolute fire of late, a thing of beauty. But as it and the backbends have developed, it's become much harder to just kick up and hold the balance in Pincha Mayurasana. I forward rolled out of it tonight, which I think I've done probably four times in the past TWO YEARS. That's damn uncommon!
So be it; things change and develop and fade and are wonderful.
Teacher had me and the other guy try to heft a seated lotus up ONTO our arms, sort of Karanda push-ups, rather than Karanda lower-downs. Now we all know that's crazy, because when you LAND Karanda, you land it HIGH on the arms, not LOW, or else you're sitting on your butt. We tried it anyway, and I was able to heft it off the floor, up onto both elbows, but not far, and not to my chest. The quads BURN as the knees push toward each other--this was amusing. Hey Intermediate, are you ALL about the quads or what? Funny stuff.
Five wheels, three dropbacks. Hanging back is starting to really happen right at the hips, and the hip flexors are giving me this broad, front-body-wide yellow light cracking sensation, which is positively magnificent.
My March dropbacks were largely sensory in the low back, the scrunching. Now it's front body, a cracking open, a big brilliant sort of earthquake there. It is coming.
I must declare, as Susan elsewhere pointed out, agreement with "the system" on this one. Dropbacks, then Kapo. Makes it easier. Teaches what's needed.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Popping noises galore, and Standing up from a Backbend, Round One
Ever since I started doing the post-Kapo catpaw dropbacks last week, I've been popping and cracking everywhere: the sternum, the hips all over the place, the sacrum and its connection with the spine proper. Not constantly, but now and then I'll do something like twist in a seated position while watching a movie and KAAA-RACK, goes something in the low back. Or I'll lean back from typing here and KER-POP goes something in the rib-sternum connections. It's interesting.
Standing up from a backbend, round one. For the record, I've never stood from a backbend on my own. Grimmly's vids had me inspired, last week, to take my hands off the floor, to just sort of "jump them up," to see if I could do it. I could not.
This morning (a.m. for a change!) I was outside in the back yard, and it was fantastically beautiful, with violets and dandelions and blue skies and warmth. Primary, Intermediate to Kapo. No feet. So be it. Three Kapo hangbacks, and then hands to big toes, and a good Kapo B. Again, so be it. Opening hip flexors is all that is.
Supta Vajrasana solo, with rug rolled under the sacrum. Doable, but neither as fun nor as complete as assisted. Five wheels, three dropbacks (heels up on each one). Each time I dropped back, I made myself rock and push and tiptoe until I launched myself up and over and basically into an Ustrasana dropover, from which I then levered up.
I'd been told--some posts ago, by a flexy backbender--that coming to knees is OK as long as head comes up last. It did. So there is my "standing from a backbend," first round. The intensity in the hip flexors is EASILY the equal of dropping back, itself, and so I expect, with a summer of practices coming up, that this flexibility will develop and then drop-and-stand will all become easier and more accessible.
Onward!
Standing up from a backbend, round one. For the record, I've never stood from a backbend on my own. Grimmly's vids had me inspired, last week, to take my hands off the floor, to just sort of "jump them up," to see if I could do it. I could not.
This morning (a.m. for a change!) I was outside in the back yard, and it was fantastically beautiful, with violets and dandelions and blue skies and warmth. Primary, Intermediate to Kapo. No feet. So be it. Three Kapo hangbacks, and then hands to big toes, and a good Kapo B. Again, so be it. Opening hip flexors is all that is.
Supta Vajrasana solo, with rug rolled under the sacrum. Doable, but neither as fun nor as complete as assisted. Five wheels, three dropbacks (heels up on each one). Each time I dropped back, I made myself rock and push and tiptoe until I launched myself up and over and basically into an Ustrasana dropover, from which I then levered up.
I'd been told--some posts ago, by a flexy backbender--that coming to knees is OK as long as head comes up last. It did. So there is my "standing from a backbend," first round. The intensity in the hip flexors is EASILY the equal of dropping back, itself, and so I expect, with a summer of practices coming up, that this flexibility will develop and then drop-and-stand will all become easier and more accessible.
Onward!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Got it! Just the right turn of phrase for this (basically, yoga/practice philosphy, past/present).
One line elsewhere, and not about this, from the Owl (she writes chewy things; am I the only one who has stuff from her rattling around in my head for days at a time til they land?).
"Sufficient suffering to create sustained desire to quiet the mind."
This, posted elsewhere, is a perhaps tongue-in-cheek "ingredient" for how one sustains a home practice. And so be it. But as soon as I read this, it set off what I've been trying to wrap my head around for a few days, in digesting a comment from the Owl.
That is NOT why I started practicing. AHA! What a moment!
Oh I had sufficient suffering, and then some, but I never derived "quiet the mind" as a solution (I hadn't read my Sutras at that point; in fact I didn't know what Yoga Sutras even were). That only came YEARS later, when I did dig into the Sutras and find out that this business about "quiet the mind" wasn't just some jargon that yoga teachers said in classes.
It doesn't matter what I thought I wanted: I approached yoga as climbing, so I probably wanted (and certainly got) sweat and endorphins. Quiet, but not as a goal, more as a side effect.
The quest was more about transformation, that's the word I would have consciously used. But quiet was often the effect, and I got it while not looking for it.
What would it be to practice with THAT in mind, to actually SEEK quiet? (hold for now all tangents about having what we seek and how being present is totality, blah blah blah, hold all that please)
Watch me think this through (I've already thought it, so watch me map the thinking):
1. Seeking quiet. Asana practice as about quieting.
2. Poses are given, or not. This doesn't make me more quiet; it perhaps, and especially at the start, makes me less quiet. Hi, Kapotasana.
3. To "get the pose," then, is to GET THE QUIET of the pose.
Sit with that until it totally remakes what it is to "do asana." Or am I the only one that's working for?
"Sufficient suffering to create sustained desire to quiet the mind."
This, posted elsewhere, is a perhaps tongue-in-cheek "ingredient" for how one sustains a home practice. And so be it. But as soon as I read this, it set off what I've been trying to wrap my head around for a few days, in digesting a comment from the Owl.
That is NOT why I started practicing. AHA! What a moment!
Oh I had sufficient suffering, and then some, but I never derived "quiet the mind" as a solution (I hadn't read my Sutras at that point; in fact I didn't know what Yoga Sutras even were). That only came YEARS later, when I did dig into the Sutras and find out that this business about "quiet the mind" wasn't just some jargon that yoga teachers said in classes.
It doesn't matter what I thought I wanted: I approached yoga as climbing, so I probably wanted (and certainly got) sweat and endorphins. Quiet, but not as a goal, more as a side effect.
The quest was more about transformation, that's the word I would have consciously used. But quiet was often the effect, and I got it while not looking for it.
What would it be to practice with THAT in mind, to actually SEEK quiet? (hold for now all tangents about having what we seek and how being present is totality, blah blah blah, hold all that please)
Watch me think this through (I've already thought it, so watch me map the thinking):
1. Seeking quiet. Asana practice as about quieting.
2. Poses are given, or not. This doesn't make me more quiet; it perhaps, and especially at the start, makes me less quiet. Hi, Kapotasana.
3. To "get the pose," then, is to GET THE QUIET of the pose.
Sit with that until it totally remakes what it is to "do asana." Or am I the only one that's working for?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Supta Vajrasana, vinyasa, Kapotasana, back sensations
Monday night saw me do two things I didn't know were coming (well, three actually):
1. I took off from Pasasana and held--for like three breaths--a tucked pressup (knees in air, not on arms, arms bent, face not on floor). Just hangin' out there. It was like early stuff written by Jason back in the day. Shucks! This also happened after both Krounchasanas. It had receded by the Bakasanas. It completely suprised me and actually it cracked me up.
2. Supta Vajrasana, with toes bound, and almost a full arch back to the floor. It was really nice having someone assist (my self-assist at the Y never pins my knees well enough). My elbows were not touching the floor, but I couldn't BOTH touch my head down and keep the toes. A spectator said I was about an inch away. So that's super cool. I'm not sure how it translates in my Kapo, but it's cool.
3. I did Kapo by myself; down, walked in, bumped the toes, counted five, pressed bent-armedly up, held for five, launched upward. Ahhh.
TODAY's Kapotasana (which, as usual, is at the end of a full Primary and ten poses of Intermediate), I did twice. The first time was at the end of my asana practice, and I got stuck, forehead and feet, and couldn't get the toes. The side grab made this worse, not better (it runs into some weird tightness in the shoulder as I rotate outward). No good.
So I did three of my catpaw Kapo dropbacks, each one lower than the last, pressing the arms straight. I took ten breaths in the third one. The hip flexors got this big beautiful cranking stretch, and I found that I HAD to engage the inner rotation of the thighs, powerfully, in order to keep the low back safe.
Then I decided to Kapo again.
I hung back a bit deeper, a bit longer, with hands to forehead. Dropped back; hands landed, head was quite clear. Good. The walk-in was easier, and I spidered it. Hands crept forward toward feet, by fingers, creeping and crawling like happy little spiders. And QUICKLY. This was not my usual elephant-plod of pick hand up and then plunk it down before my head lands. There was PLAY in the spinal bend.
It was like, "hands walk in, arch gradually lowers." Then, thighs engage and hands press down, and arch LIFTS. Then some more spidering in, and then sinking, and then LIFT. I've NEVER felt that in Kapo before. Something like it when I described it as "lifting the triangle from the top," but really, not like this.
Then my fingers ran not just to, BUT OVER, my toes. Ran right up them, climbed over, and dug into the divots between them and the foot. This amazed me. It was, well, suprisingly undifficult! I won't call it "easy." That was as far as I took the pose, and I think now I could have taken it even further, a bit! I actually LOWERED my elbows down, took five, and then walked the fingers BARELY off the toes and pressed up, took five, and rose. Again, Undifficult!
It was an awakening moment. Ahhh, so THAT is something like what REAL Kapotasana feels like!
For the record, over the summer, toe-divots are as deep as I have been TAKEN in that pose. I have NEVER BEFORE, without help, gotten that deep in Kapo.
But let us dress this down some as well:
I have some serious intense sensation in my spine. I did my five wheels after the Kapos, but did one hangback from standing, and no drops (they are still some ballistic and I wasn't in the mood to crank into the spine THAT MUCH on a Tuesday with a whole practice week remaining).
I could feel energy/fascia moving around in the right hip and glute ALL OVER the practice. That goes for Monday night's Intermediate, too. Stuff is MOVING in there. Transformation is coming, and transformation in the hips is DANGEROUS BUSINESS. SI joints are in there; spinal discs are being squeezed and such. The musculature that provides stability while walking is in there.
This is NOT a place to be cranking into new territory at full charge. Much care must be taken. Not that I'm going to back into fear and anxiety, but I really have to proceed with caution. Proceed, of course, but with full attention. Breath, bandhas, inner thigh rotation, ribs away, backbending lessons.
After upward facing dog, which always stretches it a bit, Trikonasana is where I first feel right-glute-hip action. Any twist; seated or standing. The Hanumanasana I've been adding after the Prasaritas (for about three weeks now). Half-lotus forward fold from standing. Any Janu Sirsasana (those are currently DELICIOUS hip openers for me). ALL Marichyasanas. Baddha Konasana if I hold it long enough to get it out of the adductors. There is unbelievable release in the opposite hip, during the swing-to-the-side position of Supta Padangusthasana. Pasanana gets ALL OVER the right hip; BOTH SIDES of it do. The Dhanurasanas are particularly intense there, and all backbends which follow them.
The Kapo dropbacks, as I've said before, FINALLY really move the stretch from the outer hip to the hip flexors proper. After those, my wheels are right-hip-stress free.
The second Kapo was a miracle, really. But it's not that I don't believe it; it's that I DO. I realized that I STILL haven't really gotten it into my head that it's a pose I can do. So when it comes (and it took a BIG step toward me today), it's a deep, deep change. And this is for my SHALLOW little TOE-Kapo. There is still all KINDS of work to be done with it.
I'm going to revisit "rest" later; as Owl once said, one of the keys to integrating deep backbending is MORE REST and FOR LONGER.
I am pleased with all things asana, and I'm totally chilled out after, as the semester ends and grading piles up. It's easier for me now than it used to be; less complaining, fewer inaccurate expectations.
We shall see, in the morning, how my spine feels. I find that I am very glad to have all of Primary's forward folds, and heating vinyasa, before I do my backbending.
1. I took off from Pasasana and held--for like three breaths--a tucked pressup (knees in air, not on arms, arms bent, face not on floor). Just hangin' out there. It was like early stuff written by Jason back in the day. Shucks! This also happened after both Krounchasanas. It had receded by the Bakasanas. It completely suprised me and actually it cracked me up.
2. Supta Vajrasana, with toes bound, and almost a full arch back to the floor. It was really nice having someone assist (my self-assist at the Y never pins my knees well enough). My elbows were not touching the floor, but I couldn't BOTH touch my head down and keep the toes. A spectator said I was about an inch away. So that's super cool. I'm not sure how it translates in my Kapo, but it's cool.
3. I did Kapo by myself; down, walked in, bumped the toes, counted five, pressed bent-armedly up, held for five, launched upward. Ahhh.
TODAY's Kapotasana (which, as usual, is at the end of a full Primary and ten poses of Intermediate), I did twice. The first time was at the end of my asana practice, and I got stuck, forehead and feet, and couldn't get the toes. The side grab made this worse, not better (it runs into some weird tightness in the shoulder as I rotate outward). No good.
So I did three of my catpaw Kapo dropbacks, each one lower than the last, pressing the arms straight. I took ten breaths in the third one. The hip flexors got this big beautiful cranking stretch, and I found that I HAD to engage the inner rotation of the thighs, powerfully, in order to keep the low back safe.
Then I decided to Kapo again.
I hung back a bit deeper, a bit longer, with hands to forehead. Dropped back; hands landed, head was quite clear. Good. The walk-in was easier, and I spidered it. Hands crept forward toward feet, by fingers, creeping and crawling like happy little spiders. And QUICKLY. This was not my usual elephant-plod of pick hand up and then plunk it down before my head lands. There was PLAY in the spinal bend.
It was like, "hands walk in, arch gradually lowers." Then, thighs engage and hands press down, and arch LIFTS. Then some more spidering in, and then sinking, and then LIFT. I've NEVER felt that in Kapo before. Something like it when I described it as "lifting the triangle from the top," but really, not like this.
Then my fingers ran not just to, BUT OVER, my toes. Ran right up them, climbed over, and dug into the divots between them and the foot. This amazed me. It was, well, suprisingly undifficult! I won't call it "easy." That was as far as I took the pose, and I think now I could have taken it even further, a bit! I actually LOWERED my elbows down, took five, and then walked the fingers BARELY off the toes and pressed up, took five, and rose. Again, Undifficult!
It was an awakening moment. Ahhh, so THAT is something like what REAL Kapotasana feels like!
For the record, over the summer, toe-divots are as deep as I have been TAKEN in that pose. I have NEVER BEFORE, without help, gotten that deep in Kapo.
But let us dress this down some as well:
I have some serious intense sensation in my spine. I did my five wheels after the Kapos, but did one hangback from standing, and no drops (they are still some ballistic and I wasn't in the mood to crank into the spine THAT MUCH on a Tuesday with a whole practice week remaining).
I could feel energy/fascia moving around in the right hip and glute ALL OVER the practice. That goes for Monday night's Intermediate, too. Stuff is MOVING in there. Transformation is coming, and transformation in the hips is DANGEROUS BUSINESS. SI joints are in there; spinal discs are being squeezed and such. The musculature that provides stability while walking is in there.
This is NOT a place to be cranking into new territory at full charge. Much care must be taken. Not that I'm going to back into fear and anxiety, but I really have to proceed with caution. Proceed, of course, but with full attention. Breath, bandhas, inner thigh rotation, ribs away, backbending lessons.
After upward facing dog, which always stretches it a bit, Trikonasana is where I first feel right-glute-hip action. Any twist; seated or standing. The Hanumanasana I've been adding after the Prasaritas (for about three weeks now). Half-lotus forward fold from standing. Any Janu Sirsasana (those are currently DELICIOUS hip openers for me). ALL Marichyasanas. Baddha Konasana if I hold it long enough to get it out of the adductors. There is unbelievable release in the opposite hip, during the swing-to-the-side position of Supta Padangusthasana. Pasanana gets ALL OVER the right hip; BOTH SIDES of it do. The Dhanurasanas are particularly intense there, and all backbends which follow them.
The Kapo dropbacks, as I've said before, FINALLY really move the stretch from the outer hip to the hip flexors proper. After those, my wheels are right-hip-stress free.
The second Kapo was a miracle, really. But it's not that I don't believe it; it's that I DO. I realized that I STILL haven't really gotten it into my head that it's a pose I can do. So when it comes (and it took a BIG step toward me today), it's a deep, deep change. And this is for my SHALLOW little TOE-Kapo. There is still all KINDS of work to be done with it.
I'm going to revisit "rest" later; as Owl once said, one of the keys to integrating deep backbending is MORE REST and FOR LONGER.
I am pleased with all things asana, and I'm totally chilled out after, as the semester ends and grading piles up. It's easier for me now than it used to be; less complaining, fewer inaccurate expectations.
We shall see, in the morning, how my spine feels. I find that I am very glad to have all of Primary's forward folds, and heating vinyasa, before I do my backbending.
Monday, April 20, 2009
A hangback and a wheel: photographic evidence!
This is a hangback from earlier this evening (Monday). Please note the totally coincidental shining heart chakra :) It's not the deepest I can do, but it's a substantial hang back for me. I build it by moving the hands from the hips to the chest to the face to the forehead and then over. This is about 10 breaths worth. If I hang longer, I can get deeper, can get the hip flexors to surrender a bit more. The following photo is the post-heels-up-dropback from this hangback. I did not move the hands from their landing point:
I can walk in from a wheel which looks like this. My pressup wheel is actually less distant from hands to feet, than this is.
So then! Feel free to comment, discuss, otherwise relate.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Recent events, daily life, the future, etc.
1) On Saturday night at around 7:30 I got a random phone call that turned out to be a phone interview. It lasted for 75 actually quite enjoyable, conversive minutes. For a tenure-track position. I'm one of 6 candidates; 3 will be invited to campus.
2) Some time around right now is the end of the 8th month of the house pregnancy. This means that pretty much any day, this rocket might get lit. If I thought it was possible to understand the state of mind it is to live in this, I'd try explaining it.
3) I teach this week and next week and then it's finals week. My summer session class runs May 13-Jun 24. The second summer session class begins on June 29 and runs to the first week of August. It is hoped that these two classes will pay off my summer debts.
4) If I get a tenure-track job in September, I move. What does THAT make of the future? If I don't get a tenure-track job in September, I teach locally for four months, to finish my visiting position, and then I'm an uninsured adjunct again, doing home child care. What does THAT make of the future?
5) Does a serious and sustained (and timely) effort at Kapotasana fit this scope? As a POSE, no, of course not, that's ridiculous. But as a PRACTICE, yes, quite possibly.
6) This is my partner's final year of tenure-track before the submission of the tenure folder, which is due in May. A decision (tenured: you stay, or not tenured: you go in disgrace) will be announced next year at this time. She has also been offered, in the meantime, the role of assistant dean, for one year only. Not to be cheezy in my citations, but, they tenure deans, don't they?
7) Move? Stay? Continue craving an oceanside state? Close family, tight finances? Long-distance family, better finances? Housing market? The becoming (and I mean that in the Nietzschean sense) parents? See how completely--and in a way, marvelously--WILD this territory is? See how stability is really BOTH AND SIMULTANEOUSLY unquestionable and THOROUGHLY non-existent?
It's not traumatic, as it was in 2007-08 when it didn't pan out. I had gotten into such a "write it, send it, forget about it" groove in my job applications that my reaction to the phone call was a shade (and a thin one) away from "What? Who is this? What the hell are you talking about?" but I surfed it and it was fine.
It's the weirdest, most fabulous time.
2) Some time around right now is the end of the 8th month of the house pregnancy. This means that pretty much any day, this rocket might get lit. If I thought it was possible to understand the state of mind it is to live in this, I'd try explaining it.
3) I teach this week and next week and then it's finals week. My summer session class runs May 13-Jun 24. The second summer session class begins on June 29 and runs to the first week of August. It is hoped that these two classes will pay off my summer debts.
4) If I get a tenure-track job in September, I move. What does THAT make of the future? If I don't get a tenure-track job in September, I teach locally for four months, to finish my visiting position, and then I'm an uninsured adjunct again, doing home child care. What does THAT make of the future?
5) Does a serious and sustained (and timely) effort at Kapotasana fit this scope? As a POSE, no, of course not, that's ridiculous. But as a PRACTICE, yes, quite possibly.
6) This is my partner's final year of tenure-track before the submission of the tenure folder, which is due in May. A decision (tenured: you stay, or not tenured: you go in disgrace) will be announced next year at this time. She has also been offered, in the meantime, the role of assistant dean, for one year only. Not to be cheezy in my citations, but, they tenure deans, don't they?
7) Move? Stay? Continue craving an oceanside state? Close family, tight finances? Long-distance family, better finances? Housing market? The becoming (and I mean that in the Nietzschean sense) parents? See how completely--and in a way, marvelously--WILD this territory is? See how stability is really BOTH AND SIMULTANEOUSLY unquestionable and THOROUGHLY non-existent?
It's not traumatic, as it was in 2007-08 when it didn't pan out. I had gotten into such a "write it, send it, forget about it" groove in my job applications that my reaction to the phone call was a shade (and a thin one) away from "What? Who is this? What the hell are you talking about?" but I surfed it and it was fine.
It's the weirdest, most fabulous time.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Verification re: hip flexors, and vinyasa class experiments
Saturday mornings at 8 am, I can be found on the mat for a 90 minute vinyasa class. It's well-attended and not uncommon to see 20 people in there, and it's largely for the extroversion energy that I go. Also, I get to toss in advanced poses, if I want, and so it's something of an asana playground.
The usual pattern is pieces of sun salutations, developing into standing flows, often made from warrior poses, side angles, half-moons and sometimes Dighasana ("Warrior 3") and/or halfmoons and/or standing splits and/or balance sequences involving Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and/or Dancer's pose (not the overhead full expression). From there, there's often but not always an arm-balance sequence or transition, and then some various lunges and/or hip openers, and often but not always some ab work. Usually the room is too full to teach mixed level students an inversion, but those who can, do. It's heavy on improv.
Today I got some verification that my hip flexors are the goal for my more advanced backbending. We did Camel, twice, which for me means Ustrasana and then Kapotasana. Again, I dropped back, easy, straightened arms somewhat, and did not get the feet. So I tried walking the hands "outside" to try the side grab. No go. As my hands walk outside, my back rises, and the quads engage, but the hip flexors DO NOT RELEASE and so I can't drop in order to get a deeper backbend.
This reminded me of being in Boston when K was pulling me up from Kapo A to Kapo B, and I was quite literally PAWING THE FLOOR to stay down there. There isn't enough bend in my front body (hi, hip flexors!) to hold that deep of a backbend.
This is the OTHER legacy of rock climbing before one takes up a yoga practice. It's not that the rock climbing somehow magically tightens your backbends. It's that all that scrunching SNUGS UP ONE'S HIP FLEXORS. Sure, you press flat to the wall and get your external rotation going, and your high-stepping, and you get "open hips" but you NEVER backbend on a climb.
Therefore, the Kapo cat-paw-dropbacks. Or, today's asana practice.
I tossed in various advanced poses today:
Vasisthasana, both sides, twice. I take side plank, extend the top foot out in front of me (which is actually "to the side" because I'm sideways), and THEN take it up. Not TOO hard. Must energize bottom leg massively so as to balance and not to sink, in the hip.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana, lowering from tripod headstand. Both sides. I was able to lower, take my head up and do the pose for five, but I just could NOT pick it back up to a tripod headstand. That takes some SERIOUS power.
Hanumanasana, as part of a low lunge hip-flexor-busting sequence. I like to fold forward and grab a wrist beyond the front foot. But the more productive version, of course, is to sit up, rotate the back thigh inward, and try to sit back as much as possible. Gets all over the flexors of the back hip.
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, as part of a "pigeon lunge" sequence which concluded the sequence above. I sat up in it (no fold forward; that wasn't what I wanted today) and got the sit bones as down as I could, and then took the back foot up, and hooked it inside the same-side elbow, then connecting the hands. I was able to take opposite WRISTS today, and taking the foot with an overhead grab was so, SO CLOSE.
Between this and deep lunging (with arms extended overhead) and the split and the sheer heat of the room (it gets up to the high 70s in there, and 80 or above in warm weather), my hip flexors got a fantastic, sustained stretch. In physical terms, they are the key to Kapo (Kapo is perhaps moreso a psychological and emotional pose).
I know--because I get adjusted in Kapo, to my feet, on Monday nights--that if I had regular adjustments, I could really build that pose much, much more quickly than I will on my own, but so be it. Three hours in any direction to a Mysore room. And I find that I'm jealous of cybershalafolk who DO have access to a room. But again, so be it. What does that matter? Is it a race?
The usual pattern is pieces of sun salutations, developing into standing flows, often made from warrior poses, side angles, half-moons and sometimes Dighasana ("Warrior 3") and/or halfmoons and/or standing splits and/or balance sequences involving Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and/or Dancer's pose (not the overhead full expression). From there, there's often but not always an arm-balance sequence or transition, and then some various lunges and/or hip openers, and often but not always some ab work. Usually the room is too full to teach mixed level students an inversion, but those who can, do. It's heavy on improv.
Today I got some verification that my hip flexors are the goal for my more advanced backbending. We did Camel, twice, which for me means Ustrasana and then Kapotasana. Again, I dropped back, easy, straightened arms somewhat, and did not get the feet. So I tried walking the hands "outside" to try the side grab. No go. As my hands walk outside, my back rises, and the quads engage, but the hip flexors DO NOT RELEASE and so I can't drop in order to get a deeper backbend.
This reminded me of being in Boston when K was pulling me up from Kapo A to Kapo B, and I was quite literally PAWING THE FLOOR to stay down there. There isn't enough bend in my front body (hi, hip flexors!) to hold that deep of a backbend.
This is the OTHER legacy of rock climbing before one takes up a yoga practice. It's not that the rock climbing somehow magically tightens your backbends. It's that all that scrunching SNUGS UP ONE'S HIP FLEXORS. Sure, you press flat to the wall and get your external rotation going, and your high-stepping, and you get "open hips" but you NEVER backbend on a climb.
Therefore, the Kapo cat-paw-dropbacks. Or, today's asana practice.
I tossed in various advanced poses today:
Vasisthasana, both sides, twice. I take side plank, extend the top foot out in front of me (which is actually "to the side" because I'm sideways), and THEN take it up. Not TOO hard. Must energize bottom leg massively so as to balance and not to sink, in the hip.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana, lowering from tripod headstand. Both sides. I was able to lower, take my head up and do the pose for five, but I just could NOT pick it back up to a tripod headstand. That takes some SERIOUS power.
Hanumanasana, as part of a low lunge hip-flexor-busting sequence. I like to fold forward and grab a wrist beyond the front foot. But the more productive version, of course, is to sit up, rotate the back thigh inward, and try to sit back as much as possible. Gets all over the flexors of the back hip.
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, as part of a "pigeon lunge" sequence which concluded the sequence above. I sat up in it (no fold forward; that wasn't what I wanted today) and got the sit bones as down as I could, and then took the back foot up, and hooked it inside the same-side elbow, then connecting the hands. I was able to take opposite WRISTS today, and taking the foot with an overhead grab was so, SO CLOSE.
Between this and deep lunging (with arms extended overhead) and the split and the sheer heat of the room (it gets up to the high 70s in there, and 80 or above in warm weather), my hip flexors got a fantastic, sustained stretch. In physical terms, they are the key to Kapo (Kapo is perhaps moreso a psychological and emotional pose).
I know--because I get adjusted in Kapo, to my feet, on Monday nights--that if I had regular adjustments, I could really build that pose much, much more quickly than I will on my own, but so be it. Three hours in any direction to a Mysore room. And I find that I'm jealous of cybershalafolk who DO have access to a room. But again, so be it. What does that matter? Is it a race?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Quickly: Kapo, you marvelous mystery, you.
Again, Primary to Kapo, four of what are coming to be called my cat-paw Kapo hangbacks, five wheels, three dropbacks, closing.
Yes, that is a lot of backbending, I agree.
I took Kapo about a foot and a half from the wall, and dropped back right to the wedge where floor meets wall, and it was hands-and-head at once, like in a slightly clumsy dropback into the wheel from standing. Now, I'm of the opinion that some months ago, I was clearly hitting hands first. WTF with this hands-and-head show? But while I was puzzled, I decided not to walk in (which has been disappointing) but simply to press up for five from there. It worked, the inner thighs turned to flaming steel, and then I was able to raise my hands, STILL arching back, put my hands "in my pockets," as they say, and then RAISE the whole torso. Like God's own Laghuvajrasana or something. That's totally uncommon; NEVER happens.
So I was puzzled by the bad of it and I was puzzled by the good of it.
What a fantastic mystery that pose is.
Anyway, on to four cat-paw Kapo hangs. They're not really hangs (although they are); I think of them more as controlled, calm dropbacks from kneeling, the MAIN IDEA being to press the arms straight for five. That's MUCH more important to me than hanging back in the air, because I want EXTENSION of those hip flexors, not endurance (or, I want endurance so secondarily to extension, that it's as if I'm not interested in it).
And I got it!
Yesterday I got to just-under-knees height by the fourth Kapo hang-drop.
Today I got my fingertips to the FLOOR (hands still to wall). Now that may seem unremarkable, but I then pressed my arms straight from there, and let me say, as the Texans do, BOY HOWDY does that get into the hip flexors. I had to MAXIMALLY engage the inner thighs just to be able to do it. Blazing stretch across the front hips, deep bend in the lumbar spine. Downright reminiscent of Matthew, and later Kate, bending me into Kapo barehanded over the summer.
Again the formula is this:
1. Kneel, in my case about 16 inches from a wall.
2. Arch back, hands to hips; hands to chest; hands to chin; hands to forehead. Hang if you want (I did, for probably 10 breaths or more). Extend arms straight.
3. Drop back, and (it must be) CAT PAW SOFT, hands to wall. No wall walking.
4. PRESS ARMS STRAIGHT. This is the money shot of the whole sequence.
5. Take five breaths (or more, but I take five) and then the THIGHS lift you off. No pushing the wall.
6. Hands come up overhead, arms straight as long as possible, then namaste, then sit. Recover in seated for 10 breaths or so. Repeat, if you like.
It is massive, massive intensity in the front thighs. My breathing got challenged--steady still, but under a bit of duress--in the deepest of my four bends today. It's the closest I've come to my summer Kapo adjustments, EVER. And I think it's my doorway to Kapo. I can imagine hands flat on the floor, and pressing arms straight. I can imagine seeing my feet, as the initial hang back develops. I can imagine seizing the feet from the air.
I believe that I SEE THE LIGHT at the end of this freakin' insane TUNNEL.
(Ah, but you say, that light is the train of Bakasana B, of Eka Pada Sirsasana, of Dwi Pada, of Tittibhasana C, of Karandavasana, of Mayurasana/Nakrasana....yes, yes, it's true, all of it's true, but as someone once told me, Intermediate plays to my strengths AFTER KAPO).
I may begin playing with coming to standing in my Urdhva Dhanurasanas. After the four cat-paw Kapo's, my wheels are clean and strong. Time to add some difficulty, right?
Yes, that is a lot of backbending, I agree.
I took Kapo about a foot and a half from the wall, and dropped back right to the wedge where floor meets wall, and it was hands-and-head at once, like in a slightly clumsy dropback into the wheel from standing. Now, I'm of the opinion that some months ago, I was clearly hitting hands first. WTF with this hands-and-head show? But while I was puzzled, I decided not to walk in (which has been disappointing) but simply to press up for five from there. It worked, the inner thighs turned to flaming steel, and then I was able to raise my hands, STILL arching back, put my hands "in my pockets," as they say, and then RAISE the whole torso. Like God's own Laghuvajrasana or something. That's totally uncommon; NEVER happens.
So I was puzzled by the bad of it and I was puzzled by the good of it.
What a fantastic mystery that pose is.
Anyway, on to four cat-paw Kapo hangs. They're not really hangs (although they are); I think of them more as controlled, calm dropbacks from kneeling, the MAIN IDEA being to press the arms straight for five. That's MUCH more important to me than hanging back in the air, because I want EXTENSION of those hip flexors, not endurance (or, I want endurance so secondarily to extension, that it's as if I'm not interested in it).
And I got it!
Yesterday I got to just-under-knees height by the fourth Kapo hang-drop.
Today I got my fingertips to the FLOOR (hands still to wall). Now that may seem unremarkable, but I then pressed my arms straight from there, and let me say, as the Texans do, BOY HOWDY does that get into the hip flexors. I had to MAXIMALLY engage the inner thighs just to be able to do it. Blazing stretch across the front hips, deep bend in the lumbar spine. Downright reminiscent of Matthew, and later Kate, bending me into Kapo barehanded over the summer.
Again the formula is this:
1. Kneel, in my case about 16 inches from a wall.
2. Arch back, hands to hips; hands to chest; hands to chin; hands to forehead. Hang if you want (I did, for probably 10 breaths or more). Extend arms straight.
3. Drop back, and (it must be) CAT PAW SOFT, hands to wall. No wall walking.
4. PRESS ARMS STRAIGHT. This is the money shot of the whole sequence.
5. Take five breaths (or more, but I take five) and then the THIGHS lift you off. No pushing the wall.
6. Hands come up overhead, arms straight as long as possible, then namaste, then sit. Recover in seated for 10 breaths or so. Repeat, if you like.
It is massive, massive intensity in the front thighs. My breathing got challenged--steady still, but under a bit of duress--in the deepest of my four bends today. It's the closest I've come to my summer Kapo adjustments, EVER. And I think it's my doorway to Kapo. I can imagine hands flat on the floor, and pressing arms straight. I can imagine seeing my feet, as the initial hang back develops. I can imagine seizing the feet from the air.
I believe that I SEE THE LIGHT at the end of this freakin' insane TUNNEL.
(Ah, but you say, that light is the train of Bakasana B, of Eka Pada Sirsasana, of Dwi Pada, of Tittibhasana C, of Karandavasana, of Mayurasana/Nakrasana....yes, yes, it's true, all of it's true, but as someone once told me, Intermediate plays to my strengths AFTER KAPO).
I may begin playing with coming to standing in my Urdhva Dhanurasanas. After the four cat-paw Kapo's, my wheels are clean and strong. Time to add some difficulty, right?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Depression, brilliant practice, Bhuja, Kapo, backbends.
Man, what a menu!
On and off--and much less intensely now than about a week ago--money depression has been kicking me around.
In the middle of standing poses today, I owned up to it. Yep, that's depression. I'm bummed about stuff (the equation is debt, shaky income, visiting position with no set future, inability to change past decisions, future chronically uncertain, incipit big bummer here). And when I owned up to it, it got better. I was doing standing half-lotus forward fold, and it didn't matter if I got it right or not. Pressure released, all over the place, psychologically-emotionally-physically. So I kept going, and pose after pose wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I took breaths when I wanted them. I did all the vinyasa. It was fine, and it was fine because it didn't matter, it didn't HAVE to be the best part of the day, which repaired all of school/cash/bureaucracy's stress.
This is what I was asking for--obtusely--last post.
To be, as Jason once put it, bored. To attain boredom. Or, more like, to attain nonchalance.
I decided that, since I'm a teacher, I would take today to teach the student (also myself) the jump into Bhujapidasana. I've done it before, but usually I overshoot my hands, put my feet on the floor, and then lean back, taking the feet up. It looks like a jump in, and no teacher has corrected me on it. But today, I wanted to get the touchless jump in. So I did it about ten times, abandoning the landing if both feet touched (my left foot tends to BARELY graze the floor, and that, I let go; if both touched, however, I discounted it and tried again).
It was very challenging to hit it and not roll backwards. Also, it's harder to get the legs way up on the shoulders, which I can guarantee if I put the feet down. So be it. I did Bhujapidasana with the legs a bit crooked (lower on right than on left) and it was fine. Five breaths, chin to mat, extend, low Titti (I know, optional, but I like it), jump back. I tucked and floated then chaturanga'd, rather than landing in Bakasana first (I like that, too).
I entered Kurmasana the same way, and had my best Supta Kurmasana in recent memory, with eight fingers meeting on my mid-back and the ankles REALLY bound, nice and deep. I came up in a certain Dwi Pada, better than my regular Dwi Pada when I do Intermediate. It was fabulous.
This was completely suprising, totally unexpected, and with the exception of mentioning it here, I let it go.
Dhanurasana remains more comfortable than it historically has been. Ustrasana was deeper in the hip flexor bend (is that the standing hangbacks at work?). Kapo, however, was much the same. Easy drop, hard walk in, no toes. All kinds of electric tension in both the front hip and the outside hip, and the glute, all on the right side. No complaints anywhere else. I sat up and thought about it.
So then I did a backbending exercise that I think I will keep until Kapo and I are good and friendly. It's basically a Kapo version of Sweeney's hangback:
1. I took a kneeling position with a wall behind me, about 16 inches (where my elbows would be if my hands were on my toes).
2. I arched back, hands on hips, then hands to chest, then hands to forehead, then extended out, really pushing the thighs forward and together, asking the hip flexors to permit more depth.
3. KITTEN-SOFT, I put the hands on the wall. Then I pushed the arms totally straight and took five breaths. Then I asked the thighs to take my hands off the wall, and they did.
4. Returning to start position, I repeated this three more times, eventually putting my hands to the wall over a FOOT lower than where I'd started. The press-arms-straight element REALLY cranks the bend into the hip flexors. My aim is to do this until my hands are on the floor, and even, if I can, to do it with my fingers on my toes. It's the Sharath method, too: arms straight.
I measured (with my leg to the wall) approximately the distance I'd covered. I began about hip high, and by the fourth rep, was putting my hands just under knee-high.
I then did my Urdhva Dhanurasanas, and got NO complaints from the right hip flexors or the glutes (FINALLY!). The wheels were big and strong and easier than they've been in forever. The wrist barely hurts. This is brilliant news.
Then I dropped back three times, more easily achieving a 90 degree bend back, but having to rely on gravity and fight to get deep enough to drop comfortably. I did two with feet flat, and almost head-to-matted but didn't. The third one, I popped my heels out of sheer survival instinct. Those dropbacks were crazy intense.
But I think the fact that the 90 degree bend came more quickly (and I mean in like two breaths) is evidence that hangbacks and arms-straight are going to crack the hip flexors until they're accustomed, comfortably, to deeper backbending.
I should say here:
What I wanted when I was doing the Kapo hangbacks was to take the PANIC out of the glutes on the right side. There was this electricity, that I felt regularly when I was trying to crack half-lotus into the right glutes, years ago. Resistance, anxiety, panic. I wanted not a DEEPER backbend today, but a CALMER one. That's what brought the hanging-back into the picture, and it worked.
And I think if Kapo comes, it will come not because I MASTER deep backbends, but because I CHILL in deep backbends.
There, novel over.
On and off--and much less intensely now than about a week ago--money depression has been kicking me around.
In the middle of standing poses today, I owned up to it. Yep, that's depression. I'm bummed about stuff (the equation is debt, shaky income, visiting position with no set future, inability to change past decisions, future chronically uncertain, incipit big bummer here). And when I owned up to it, it got better. I was doing standing half-lotus forward fold, and it didn't matter if I got it right or not. Pressure released, all over the place, psychologically-emotionally-physically. So I kept going, and pose after pose wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I took breaths when I wanted them. I did all the vinyasa. It was fine, and it was fine because it didn't matter, it didn't HAVE to be the best part of the day, which repaired all of school/cash/bureaucracy's stress.
This is what I was asking for--obtusely--last post.
To be, as Jason once put it, bored. To attain boredom. Or, more like, to attain nonchalance.
I decided that, since I'm a teacher, I would take today to teach the student (also myself) the jump into Bhujapidasana. I've done it before, but usually I overshoot my hands, put my feet on the floor, and then lean back, taking the feet up. It looks like a jump in, and no teacher has corrected me on it. But today, I wanted to get the touchless jump in. So I did it about ten times, abandoning the landing if both feet touched (my left foot tends to BARELY graze the floor, and that, I let go; if both touched, however, I discounted it and tried again).
It was very challenging to hit it and not roll backwards. Also, it's harder to get the legs way up on the shoulders, which I can guarantee if I put the feet down. So be it. I did Bhujapidasana with the legs a bit crooked (lower on right than on left) and it was fine. Five breaths, chin to mat, extend, low Titti (I know, optional, but I like it), jump back. I tucked and floated then chaturanga'd, rather than landing in Bakasana first (I like that, too).
I entered Kurmasana the same way, and had my best Supta Kurmasana in recent memory, with eight fingers meeting on my mid-back and the ankles REALLY bound, nice and deep. I came up in a certain Dwi Pada, better than my regular Dwi Pada when I do Intermediate. It was fabulous.
This was completely suprising, totally unexpected, and with the exception of mentioning it here, I let it go.
Dhanurasana remains more comfortable than it historically has been. Ustrasana was deeper in the hip flexor bend (is that the standing hangbacks at work?). Kapo, however, was much the same. Easy drop, hard walk in, no toes. All kinds of electric tension in both the front hip and the outside hip, and the glute, all on the right side. No complaints anywhere else. I sat up and thought about it.
So then I did a backbending exercise that I think I will keep until Kapo and I are good and friendly. It's basically a Kapo version of Sweeney's hangback:
1. I took a kneeling position with a wall behind me, about 16 inches (where my elbows would be if my hands were on my toes).
2. I arched back, hands on hips, then hands to chest, then hands to forehead, then extended out, really pushing the thighs forward and together, asking the hip flexors to permit more depth.
3. KITTEN-SOFT, I put the hands on the wall. Then I pushed the arms totally straight and took five breaths. Then I asked the thighs to take my hands off the wall, and they did.
4. Returning to start position, I repeated this three more times, eventually putting my hands to the wall over a FOOT lower than where I'd started. The press-arms-straight element REALLY cranks the bend into the hip flexors. My aim is to do this until my hands are on the floor, and even, if I can, to do it with my fingers on my toes. It's the Sharath method, too: arms straight.
I measured (with my leg to the wall) approximately the distance I'd covered. I began about hip high, and by the fourth rep, was putting my hands just under knee-high.
I then did my Urdhva Dhanurasanas, and got NO complaints from the right hip flexors or the glutes (FINALLY!). The wheels were big and strong and easier than they've been in forever. The wrist barely hurts. This is brilliant news.
Then I dropped back three times, more easily achieving a 90 degree bend back, but having to rely on gravity and fight to get deep enough to drop comfortably. I did two with feet flat, and almost head-to-matted but didn't. The third one, I popped my heels out of sheer survival instinct. Those dropbacks were crazy intense.
But I think the fact that the 90 degree bend came more quickly (and I mean in like two breaths) is evidence that hangbacks and arms-straight are going to crack the hip flexors until they're accustomed, comfortably, to deeper backbending.
I should say here:
What I wanted when I was doing the Kapo hangbacks was to take the PANIC out of the glutes on the right side. There was this electricity, that I felt regularly when I was trying to crack half-lotus into the right glutes, years ago. Resistance, anxiety, panic. I wanted not a DEEPER backbend today, but a CALMER one. That's what brought the hanging-back into the picture, and it worked.
And I think if Kapo comes, it will come not because I MASTER deep backbends, but because I CHILL in deep backbends.
There, novel over.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Progress; Chilling; no wait; what?
Warm weather--despite the two-week-long span of the high 50s to mid 60s in this part of the world--is coming.
It is well known in the asana universe that warm weather, bigger poses brings. More open hamstrings, deeper backbends, you name it. Warm weather brings it. In the summer of 2006, I taught myself Kurmasana over the summer. That was one of my at-the-time "almost!!" poses and during that span of warm weather, I obtained it.
And so, facing what I have called a few times, "the hardest pose in the universe," thre's some anxiety in my summer about Kapotasana. Let us not waste time about which pose is the hardest one; the hardest one for you to do is the one. This is my hardest one (and sure, I haven't "done" Karandavasana, but that's just playtime for me, wherease Kapo is fairly serious business, and has been for TWO YEARS).
Progress. Will there be progress, or not? And the followup, how much progress? Is it as Matthew said ("the standard is the heels") or is it as K intimated (being able to touch toes and breathe might just be enough)? Or is it something else?
One wishes not only to SEE the future, but to DETERMINE it. This summer, I will blah-blah-blah!
I'm really tempted not to play this game; I certainly don't need any performance anxiety about what I can or cannot do. But what would it be, to CHILL on this backbend when there's SO MUCH chitchat right now about backbending in the cybershala?
See how I don't want to be LEFT BEHIND?
And in a whisper, in a voice from the belly, one might hear: "left behind? how exactly is one 'left behind'? is this an Edgar Allan Poe story where the house is the head? are we one person, the cybershala? since when are all bodies the same? since when does Kapo become some sort of 'finish line'?"
See how mad it all gets? I think this is why I don't viddy my backbends (apologies to Anthony Burgess).
So, indeed: no, wait; what?
Hip flexors, side grab, verticality, hanging back, Venki standing, blah.
In a way, I don't want to participate in ANY of this. I'm nervous that the backbend will come; I'm afraid that it won't. I don't know what or what kind of improvements have been made in it since July, since August, last year. I both want to know and I don't. I both want validation of my backbending-quest and I don't. I both want teaching and I don't.
What happens, in my next Mysore room? Do I get more advice on these poses? Do I get an OK, a green light? Do I get taken to some deeper part of my feet? What do I expect? What SHOULD I expect, and if "nothing," surely you know that's easier to SAY than to DO, yes?
I think that I might concentrate on rest, on "consciously relaxing," after the asana. I can see madness and frustration (or its corollary, adrenalized reward, which is the same, just in the other direction) in chasing this pose.
It is well known in the asana universe that warm weather, bigger poses brings. More open hamstrings, deeper backbends, you name it. Warm weather brings it. In the summer of 2006, I taught myself Kurmasana over the summer. That was one of my at-the-time "almost!!" poses and during that span of warm weather, I obtained it.
And so, facing what I have called a few times, "the hardest pose in the universe," thre's some anxiety in my summer about Kapotasana. Let us not waste time about which pose is the hardest one; the hardest one for you to do is the one. This is my hardest one (and sure, I haven't "done" Karandavasana, but that's just playtime for me, wherease Kapo is fairly serious business, and has been for TWO YEARS).
Progress. Will there be progress, or not? And the followup, how much progress? Is it as Matthew said ("the standard is the heels") or is it as K intimated (being able to touch toes and breathe might just be enough)? Or is it something else?
One wishes not only to SEE the future, but to DETERMINE it. This summer, I will blah-blah-blah!
I'm really tempted not to play this game; I certainly don't need any performance anxiety about what I can or cannot do. But what would it be, to CHILL on this backbend when there's SO MUCH chitchat right now about backbending in the cybershala?
See how I don't want to be LEFT BEHIND?
And in a whisper, in a voice from the belly, one might hear: "left behind? how exactly is one 'left behind'? is this an Edgar Allan Poe story where the house is the head? are we one person, the cybershala? since when are all bodies the same? since when does Kapo become some sort of 'finish line'?"
See how mad it all gets? I think this is why I don't viddy my backbends (apologies to Anthony Burgess).
So, indeed: no, wait; what?
Hip flexors, side grab, verticality, hanging back, Venki standing, blah.
In a way, I don't want to participate in ANY of this. I'm nervous that the backbend will come; I'm afraid that it won't. I don't know what or what kind of improvements have been made in it since July, since August, last year. I both want to know and I don't. I both want validation of my backbending-quest and I don't. I both want teaching and I don't.
What happens, in my next Mysore room? Do I get more advice on these poses? Do I get an OK, a green light? Do I get taken to some deeper part of my feet? What do I expect? What SHOULD I expect, and if "nothing," surely you know that's easier to SAY than to DO, yes?
I think that I might concentrate on rest, on "consciously relaxing," after the asana. I can see madness and frustration (or its corollary, adrenalized reward, which is the same, just in the other direction) in chasing this pose.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Borrowing a borrowed standing backbend sequence.
From Karen from Linda from Venkatesh:
1 minute's time, in various positions, right? Standing backbend, feet touch, hands on hips, then standing backbend, hands-hips, feet-hip-width and aiming for 90 degrees, and then the same pair, arms extended, yes?
Here's my experience thus far:
I did this post-Urdhva Dhanurasana on Friday, and liked it. 20 breaths each (with rests in Uttanasana), which I figure should be an easy minute. Breathing is harder in BOTH arms-extended variations, but I'm practically certain I hit a 90 degree bend (or more, even).
The hip flexors get (on me, anyway) a better stretch in the hands-on-hips variations, and I find that I need to pull in more stabilizing STRENGTH when my arms are overhead, to keep the lumbar from taking too much bend.
I also did this pre-8-am-vinyasa class this morning, and also liked it.
12 breaths per (time was short), and less bend than post-Primary (duh), but still very chewy and interesting. Encourages the ribs to move up and the legs to remain straight; those are the two aspects I like best about it.
1 minute's time, in various positions, right? Standing backbend, feet touch, hands on hips, then standing backbend, hands-hips, feet-hip-width and aiming for 90 degrees, and then the same pair, arms extended, yes?
Here's my experience thus far:
I did this post-Urdhva Dhanurasana on Friday, and liked it. 20 breaths each (with rests in Uttanasana), which I figure should be an easy minute. Breathing is harder in BOTH arms-extended variations, but I'm practically certain I hit a 90 degree bend (or more, even).
The hip flexors get (on me, anyway) a better stretch in the hands-on-hips variations, and I find that I need to pull in more stabilizing STRENGTH when my arms are overhead, to keep the lumbar from taking too much bend.
I also did this pre-8-am-vinyasa class this morning, and also liked it.
12 breaths per (time was short), and less bend than post-Primary (duh), but still very chewy and interesting. Encourages the ribs to move up and the legs to remain straight; those are the two aspects I like best about it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
And now, back on target: Hip flexors!
I'd taken a few days off after depression about money (that's all I ever get depressed about) and it's fascinating (to me anyway) to analyze how that works, but I think it's dead boring for everyone else, and so:
83 poses today: Primary and up to Supta Vajrasana (which, again, I include because it's coming along and thus will change my Kapo, NOT because I'm done with Kapo, at all).
I was tired and not hell-bent on practice, but I think it's good to practice in that state because it's, let's admit it, common.
Poses had retreated a little bit in some places, with a couple days off, but were remarkably consistent in others. All bound twists, both standing and seated, were deep. I easily wrist-bound Marichyasana C. Got a really nice handful of fingers going left in Pasasana, and can ALMOST touch the heels down, get the feet flat, going right.
My endurance in the seven-backbend-dash of Intermediate is getting better. Dhanurasana is starting to get comfortable, as are the Parsvas. I'm not totally "at limit" in my hip flexors after the Parsvas, and so Ustrasana is more comfortable and easier to feel (less sensation blurring the perception) and this leads also to a more "precise" Kapotasana, if that makes any sense.
I couldn't get my toes in Kapo today, not even a tap. I know they are RIGHT THERE, but I just couldn't do it. However, I did take 5 breaths in my impersonation of Kapo B, and I did pop up to kneeling again, and I was satisfied with being able to do the "vinyasa frame" even if I wasn't up to par in the middle--the pose--itself.
The foot bench under which I usually put my Supta Vajrasana knees, is too high. The knees come way up, and I just can NOT get the elbows to clear the floor. I notice that on Monday nights when I get a human adjustment, I can get closer to clear. It's getting easy to bind the feet and keep them, however. Something's going on in that pose, and so I'm going to keep it added.
Three wheels, with intense emotions coming out of the right glute, but no pain. Three hangbacks (10 breaths per) with no drops (for the same reason).
My low back felt better than usual, after practice. Not that dropbacks are too much, but they're in that "liminal phase" where you have to keep chasing them in order to get them to come. On days you don't chase, you don't get the pose.
Do other ashtangis think of poses in this way, or is that just me?
It was good; tomorrow, I intend to do it all again!
Hip flexor discovery: I did a sort of wall-propped Bhekasana yesterday. Turn, with back toward wall. Slide one shin up along said wall, with knee on floor. It's like a wall-supported low lunge, with one foot pressed up toward your butt, against the wall.
What I do from there is slide the hips forward, and try to put the top of my head on the wall, increasing the backbend as flexibility permits.
This is an OUTSTANDING measurement of hip flexor/quad flexibility. What I found out is that I can barely move the hips forward, when the right shin is up against the wall, but that I have something like THREE INCHES of movement, head to wall, when the left shin is up against it.
This is a difference that will have to be resolved. And this wall-supported lunge is definitely going to be part of my "evening practice."
83 poses today: Primary and up to Supta Vajrasana (which, again, I include because it's coming along and thus will change my Kapo, NOT because I'm done with Kapo, at all).
I was tired and not hell-bent on practice, but I think it's good to practice in that state because it's, let's admit it, common.
Poses had retreated a little bit in some places, with a couple days off, but were remarkably consistent in others. All bound twists, both standing and seated, were deep. I easily wrist-bound Marichyasana C. Got a really nice handful of fingers going left in Pasasana, and can ALMOST touch the heels down, get the feet flat, going right.
My endurance in the seven-backbend-dash of Intermediate is getting better. Dhanurasana is starting to get comfortable, as are the Parsvas. I'm not totally "at limit" in my hip flexors after the Parsvas, and so Ustrasana is more comfortable and easier to feel (less sensation blurring the perception) and this leads also to a more "precise" Kapotasana, if that makes any sense.
I couldn't get my toes in Kapo today, not even a tap. I know they are RIGHT THERE, but I just couldn't do it. However, I did take 5 breaths in my impersonation of Kapo B, and I did pop up to kneeling again, and I was satisfied with being able to do the "vinyasa frame" even if I wasn't up to par in the middle--the pose--itself.
The foot bench under which I usually put my Supta Vajrasana knees, is too high. The knees come way up, and I just can NOT get the elbows to clear the floor. I notice that on Monday nights when I get a human adjustment, I can get closer to clear. It's getting easy to bind the feet and keep them, however. Something's going on in that pose, and so I'm going to keep it added.
Three wheels, with intense emotions coming out of the right glute, but no pain. Three hangbacks (10 breaths per) with no drops (for the same reason).
My low back felt better than usual, after practice. Not that dropbacks are too much, but they're in that "liminal phase" where you have to keep chasing them in order to get them to come. On days you don't chase, you don't get the pose.
Do other ashtangis think of poses in this way, or is that just me?
It was good; tomorrow, I intend to do it all again!
Hip flexor discovery: I did a sort of wall-propped Bhekasana yesterday. Turn, with back toward wall. Slide one shin up along said wall, with knee on floor. It's like a wall-supported low lunge, with one foot pressed up toward your butt, against the wall.
What I do from there is slide the hips forward, and try to put the top of my head on the wall, increasing the backbend as flexibility permits.
This is an OUTSTANDING measurement of hip flexor/quad flexibility. What I found out is that I can barely move the hips forward, when the right shin is up against the wall, but that I have something like THREE INCHES of movement, head to wall, when the left shin is up against it.
This is a difference that will have to be resolved. And this wall-supported lunge is definitely going to be part of my "evening practice."
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Cracking the long-held top-secret news.
Ok, followers and readers (the few of you I know there are), here's the official announcement, in this location anyway, of the long-held top-secret news.
With an estimated arrival date of late May, my partner and I are expecting a kid.
Said child is male, is apparently in great shape so far, and kicks like a herd of running horses.
This, among other things, explains--or should explain--comments I have made about inabilities to get to summer workshops and an anonymous "increase in stress" I've been referring to since about October.
Astrologically speaking, he's due to be a Gemini, but if he comes at all early, he'll be a Taurus (like me).
My partner and I are both, ancestrally, northern Europeans. Together, with my English/Irish/Swedish and her Scottish/Euro mix, we're basically the UK with mutt elements from Western Europe. We expect a curly-haired blondish redhead with blue eyes. Of course, I'm adopted, so who knows, there may be suprising genes to be had.
Practice? Who can tell. Although, however, if Jason and Tara can maintain practices with a now 4-year-old, I'm sure I can do this as well.
It should be one heck of a summer.
With an estimated arrival date of late May, my partner and I are expecting a kid.
Said child is male, is apparently in great shape so far, and kicks like a herd of running horses.
This, among other things, explains--or should explain--comments I have made about inabilities to get to summer workshops and an anonymous "increase in stress" I've been referring to since about October.
Astrologically speaking, he's due to be a Gemini, but if he comes at all early, he'll be a Taurus (like me).
My partner and I are both, ancestrally, northern Europeans. Together, with my English/Irish/Swedish and her Scottish/Euro mix, we're basically the UK with mutt elements from Western Europe. We expect a curly-haired blondish redhead with blue eyes. Of course, I'm adopted, so who knows, there may be suprising genes to be had.
Practice? Who can tell. Although, however, if Jason and Tara can maintain practices with a now 4-year-old, I'm sure I can do this as well.
It should be one heck of a summer.
Friday, April 3, 2009
A quick yoga philosophy detour.
Quickly, sort of coming off a recent "Dear Blogosphere" post:
1. Is Mysore-style (both teaching and practice) perhaps more about HOW it's done rather than WHAT? ("being ignored" versus "asana flash"?)
2. A room full of one-pointed focus. Yes, right?
3. Do/should adjustments FURTHER PERMIT said focus, breathing, one-pointedness?
and my own follow-up follow-up:
1. I've been ignored, a lot, in Mysore rooms (three of them). It has variously felt like jealousy (hey, hey, touch me, ME) and grace (ahh, no interruptions for my focus).
2. Every room I've ever gone to--because they're all a plane flight from here--feels like a pilgrimage (well, true, I did drive to the one, but it was NINE HOURS).
3. Indeed, the 6 am practice DOES become the heart of the day. At any time, I can summon crisp visual memories, audio memories, on-the-site, of any of those rooms. The sunrise, even the effort memories, muscle memories.
4. I have NEEDED, sort of emotionally/physically craved, certain adjustments. This was, I think, read right off me by the instructors in question, who gave said adjustments. Sometimes, now, distant from those summer days, I feel a little greed guilt over that. My own self-defense, and I know it's this, is that I was drying up on faith in teaching myself said poses.
and a bit more rambling follow-up to those:
1. It used to be that my "present" didn't fit onto the architecture of my past. I couldn't see how this topmost structure fit the base. Now, it feels the other way around. Who put these memories in my head? Surely that is not MY youth, my past. How does it non-correspond? And this isn't an existential "omg I'm not whole" thing, not at all. It's more like a total undoing of narrative causality in life terms, a seeing of how constantly NON-SENSICAL the thread is, and an attendant realization that this non-sense does not UNDO THE THREAD.
2. Some powerful realizations, which I've preached and cognitized about for years, but have not til recently LIVED in experience:
a. Sense (by which I mean "common sense", "that makes sense") is not TRUE.
b. Order is not REAL.
3. A knowledge, a faith, an "inner teacher" as some people put it, a "gut feeling" as others put it, is present. I feel my ego, sometimes, as separate from myself. There's an observer and an actor. I STILL do not buy this "burn the ego" bit. I think of it more as, one winds up watching it. This morning I sat and listened to birds chirp at dawn, and sipped coffee, and I could simultaneously be the sitting body and observe/experience, sort of FROM WITHOUT, the sensations of the sip, the sit, the act of hearing. Experienced meditators will simply nod and perhaps giggle at this, but combined with my past/present narrative causality bit above, this is pretty mindbending stuff for me.
4. Let us all refrain from phrasing such as "the spiritual aspects" when writing about "the yoga" or "the purpose" or "the asana" whatever. I ran into this in trying to send off my Thursday night yoga class. Doesn't it seem terribly obvious that "the spiritual aspects" really means, "I don't know what I'm talking about"?
5. I can imagine answering the question, "How do you do asana X?" with "well you fix the gaze and focus on the breath" FIRST, and even while realizing that the question means, "How do I grab the toe" or "How do I balance this on that" or whatever. Asana porn mechanics. Part of the reason I write asana porn is, firstly, for my own record-keeping (someone once said that a record of years of effort toward Kapotasana would be an interesting read, and so here you go), and secondly, because it ISN'T RIGHT, to write down, what? The metaphysics, the "spiritual aspects" of it? How would you even capture that?
6. How do I live here? The narrative of money, grad school, the whole "I am trapped" narrative, crumbles. True, there is financial need, but now that's just another pose (if you will). It takes tapas, just like regular practice does, and it takes a little detachment, just like regular practice does. There is a certain wonder in living in the Midwest, in a heavily ashtanga-resistant city, in a place where the local studio's workshops are now of the flavor "Yoga for Energy" or "Yoga for Easier Breathing" and such. How the fuck do I know what I'm getting there? My last pilgrimage to a classical room was in August 2008, for four days. My percentage of Mysore-style instruction over total practice years is now under two percent. An actual Mysore (yes, INDIA) trip somehow feels possible and even, on a certain unidentifiable level, INEVITABLE. But I look at practicalities and can't see it. That same gut feeling, inner teacher, however, does. Eh, whatever, it will resolve, and as with more and more things, it will be marvelous and suprising, because the narrative trajectory is imaginary. There's no such thing as "a lifetime."
1. Is Mysore-style (both teaching and practice) perhaps more about HOW it's done rather than WHAT? ("being ignored" versus "asana flash"?)
2. A room full of one-pointed focus. Yes, right?
3. Do/should adjustments FURTHER PERMIT said focus, breathing, one-pointedness?
and my own follow-up follow-up:
1. I've been ignored, a lot, in Mysore rooms (three of them). It has variously felt like jealousy (hey, hey, touch me, ME) and grace (ahh, no interruptions for my focus).
2. Every room I've ever gone to--because they're all a plane flight from here--feels like a pilgrimage (well, true, I did drive to the one, but it was NINE HOURS).
3. Indeed, the 6 am practice DOES become the heart of the day. At any time, I can summon crisp visual memories, audio memories, on-the-site, of any of those rooms. The sunrise, even the effort memories, muscle memories.
4. I have NEEDED, sort of emotionally/physically craved, certain adjustments. This was, I think, read right off me by the instructors in question, who gave said adjustments. Sometimes, now, distant from those summer days, I feel a little greed guilt over that. My own self-defense, and I know it's this, is that I was drying up on faith in teaching myself said poses.
and a bit more rambling follow-up to those:
1. It used to be that my "present" didn't fit onto the architecture of my past. I couldn't see how this topmost structure fit the base. Now, it feels the other way around. Who put these memories in my head? Surely that is not MY youth, my past. How does it non-correspond? And this isn't an existential "omg I'm not whole" thing, not at all. It's more like a total undoing of narrative causality in life terms, a seeing of how constantly NON-SENSICAL the thread is, and an attendant realization that this non-sense does not UNDO THE THREAD.
2. Some powerful realizations, which I've preached and cognitized about for years, but have not til recently LIVED in experience:
a. Sense (by which I mean "common sense", "that makes sense") is not TRUE.
b. Order is not REAL.
3. A knowledge, a faith, an "inner teacher" as some people put it, a "gut feeling" as others put it, is present. I feel my ego, sometimes, as separate from myself. There's an observer and an actor. I STILL do not buy this "burn the ego" bit. I think of it more as, one winds up watching it. This morning I sat and listened to birds chirp at dawn, and sipped coffee, and I could simultaneously be the sitting body and observe/experience, sort of FROM WITHOUT, the sensations of the sip, the sit, the act of hearing. Experienced meditators will simply nod and perhaps giggle at this, but combined with my past/present narrative causality bit above, this is pretty mindbending stuff for me.
4. Let us all refrain from phrasing such as "the spiritual aspects" when writing about "the yoga" or "the purpose" or "the asana" whatever. I ran into this in trying to send off my Thursday night yoga class. Doesn't it seem terribly obvious that "the spiritual aspects" really means, "I don't know what I'm talking about"?
5. I can imagine answering the question, "How do you do asana X?" with "well you fix the gaze and focus on the breath" FIRST, and even while realizing that the question means, "How do I grab the toe" or "How do I balance this on that" or whatever. Asana porn mechanics. Part of the reason I write asana porn is, firstly, for my own record-keeping (someone once said that a record of years of effort toward Kapotasana would be an interesting read, and so here you go), and secondly, because it ISN'T RIGHT, to write down, what? The metaphysics, the "spiritual aspects" of it? How would you even capture that?
6. How do I live here? The narrative of money, grad school, the whole "I am trapped" narrative, crumbles. True, there is financial need, but now that's just another pose (if you will). It takes tapas, just like regular practice does, and it takes a little detachment, just like regular practice does. There is a certain wonder in living in the Midwest, in a heavily ashtanga-resistant city, in a place where the local studio's workshops are now of the flavor "Yoga for Energy" or "Yoga for Easier Breathing" and such. How the fuck do I know what I'm getting there? My last pilgrimage to a classical room was in August 2008, for four days. My percentage of Mysore-style instruction over total practice years is now under two percent. An actual Mysore (yes, INDIA) trip somehow feels possible and even, on a certain unidentifiable level, INEVITABLE. But I look at practicalities and can't see it. That same gut feeling, inner teacher, however, does. Eh, whatever, it will resolve, and as with more and more things, it will be marvelous and suprising, because the narrative trajectory is imaginary. There's no such thing as "a lifetime."
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
I'm bucking the trend and sticking to asana porn.
There is, as you no doubt know, a LOT of chitchat in the ashtangasphere (the digital one anyway) about rest, "what yoga is," and processings of "doing the yoga" in not just an 8-limbed way, but in a sort of wholistic (sic), perhaps even non-systemic, grander than that, way.
This is all very cool and I make certain to read up on all of it.
HOWEVER
I'm sticking to asana porn, because that's currently where my focus on my own practice is. A quick comment about exercise: well, couldn't one say that attention to asana is just about exercise (I got the pose, I didn't)? Of course one can say this, but attention to asana doesn't mean that one's practice is necessarily JUST asana or, extending that, just exercise. This, of course, depends on the practitioner.
I don't divide my asana practice into strictly asana; as I think about it, how do I know what is "simply" asana? If I "wake up" in Janu Sirsasana B, where have I been? Did a moment of samadhi occur? Was there moving meditation? On a certain level, who cares? A game of "I am meditating" is like the surrealist painting which reads "This is not a Pipe." Am I processing or somehow "developing" or working on, my attempts to reduce anger at the world, in asana? Not most of the time, no. Am I somehow "growing" my mostly-vegetarianism? Nope.
What is the "point" of asana, then? Again, practitioner specific. I think we need to accept all answers to this question, at least if we're going to ask it. I do asana primarily because it has always been a fantasy of mine to have utter fluidity in all things. This came in part from the beautiful choreography of ninja movies in the 1980s, and then later from managing crowded frat-party environments; I used to pride myself on making no physical contact, and being able to get 3 full beer cups back to my company, intact. I would duck and move and lay on the "excuse me, thank you" over and over; it was to move and to move people.
Climbing has the same thing; fluidity without a jam, and you intensify the jam-test in order to learn greater fluidity. Asana practice adapts easily to such a model. So does (although I didn't intend it to) dissertation writing or handling bureaucracy. Zen lessons about "put it down" fit in here too. How FLUID can I be, how much flexibility, how many ways into, out of, around, through, a situation, can I manifest? Hell, it even works as a business model.
We are dancers, Satchidananda writes in his Sutras translation; we are master swimmers. Indeed, indeed!
Anyway, I promised some asana porn, yea?
Today, in procrastination and a scheduling kerfuffle, found me doing Intermediate to Karandavasana, 5 wheels, 3 dropbacks, and closing. 63 degrees in the house, me in 2 t-shirts and shorts.
Pasasana, bound both sides; one feet flat, one toes up. Krounchasana, face to shin. Shalabhasana, long breaths. Chill. I want more thoracic bend in Bhekasana, but I'll need an adjustment. The back ache from yesterday in the Dhanurasanas subsided. Ustrasana saw me with big internal thigh rotation and long breaths. Laghuvajrasana was a bit easier than usual; yes, as they say, NEVER STOP LOOKING AT YOUR NOSE.
Kapotasana: again, as recently, I have walked in, sunk down, and bumped my left toes. I couldn't maintain toe contact, but I could inhale, stretch, and bump them. It's coming. Five breaths striving for Kapo B, all of which happened in the hip flexors, particularly the right ones. Par for the course.
Supta Vajrasana: knees under futon. Another toe grab that did not come free; this is beginning to acquire me (or the other way around?). This time I concentrated on the arch, taking the elbows OFF the floor if I felt them contact it, and I was happier, but not totally content, with the pose.
I could NOT, today, land Bakasana B. That NEVER happens. The twists were deep; I find that Bharadvajasana can be intensified by pushing the backwards-facing hand palm DOWN. That's the anchor. The more pressure you put on the anchor, the more twist comes. In Ardha Matsyendrasana, my thigh-grab has been deepening (I've been able to grab the foot-arch in that pose for EVER).
I jump clumsily into Eka Pada, but I do it, and I've abandoned my compass pose development posture. Take it up, tuck it back, sit for five (to develop the stretch and the spinal flexors). Fold for five. Lose the LBH on the exit. Currently, this is par for the course, both sides.
Dwi Pada is coming along; I put lefty back first, and then take righty over with the right hand, and as I come over, the left foot slips, and I wind up sort of binding the front of both feet, over my head, and then cranking back on the shoulders to keep the half-bind up there. If I can make it a FIRM ankle lock, like in my Supta K exit of late, it'll all improve. I even got my hands off the floor for about a breath and a half today. Dwi Pada approacheth.
I'm too round in Yoga Nidrasana, but the pose itself is fairly easy to get into. When I was half into it, I did Susan's fun one-foot-to-each-hand sort of bent-knee Kasyapasana grab, and it was cool.
The Tittibhasana sequence is still smoking me to pieces right in the exchange from C (the walk) to D (the come-around-front bind). I can hold D (mostly with willpower) but there's about a 2-breath lag while I organize the feet and hands from C. I wonder if that's par for the course in that pose.
Pincha remains friendly. One leg up, one back, kick, hold. My partner was in and out of the room today, so I came down gentle in forearm stand, not timbering. Also, timbering scares the cats. Let's call it ahimsa.
Karanda: I Pincha'd up, made the half-lotus, and about lost the balance making the full lotus, so I put my head on the floor, crown right to the rug. This allowed me to make lotus, and I tried lowering, with head down, but that resulted in a pitching down of the heavy lotus and an attendant, loud, BUMP onto the buttocks. Hah! So much for THAT! Must press head back up, if lowering to headstand becomes necessary for lotus-binding.
5 Wheels, and no wrist wedge: this ALL happened in the right hip flexors. They stretched and complained at me for all twenty-five breaths. So be it; this is when they transform. They're allowed to complain.
3 dropbacks: well-earned ones, too, and because I was interested in being less ballistic, I took the heels up on each one. All of the landings were soft. On the second one, I came down on my knees and then sort of kipped back and up to a wheel. On the third one, I froze the pose in mid-air, arms extended and on tiptoes, for about a whole breath. That was freakin' cool. Again, straightening the legs reduces the depth, but puts the bend right in the hip flexors. This will be a game I play ALL SUMMER LONG.
A 15-8 closing made it a practice. It was brilliant; made me feel like Intermediate really IS my sequence.
Kapo, for my money, is STILL my hardest pose in Intermediate. It's harder than Karanda, but then, Karanda asks things of my strengths, while Kapo, obviously, works my weak links. Let us see if I still believe this when I try to heft the duck sometime soon.
This is all very cool and I make certain to read up on all of it.
HOWEVER
I'm sticking to asana porn, because that's currently where my focus on my own practice is. A quick comment about exercise: well, couldn't one say that attention to asana is just about exercise (I got the pose, I didn't)? Of course one can say this, but attention to asana doesn't mean that one's practice is necessarily JUST asana or, extending that, just exercise. This, of course, depends on the practitioner.
I don't divide my asana practice into strictly asana; as I think about it, how do I know what is "simply" asana? If I "wake up" in Janu Sirsasana B, where have I been? Did a moment of samadhi occur? Was there moving meditation? On a certain level, who cares? A game of "I am meditating" is like the surrealist painting which reads "This is not a Pipe." Am I processing or somehow "developing" or working on, my attempts to reduce anger at the world, in asana? Not most of the time, no. Am I somehow "growing" my mostly-vegetarianism? Nope.
What is the "point" of asana, then? Again, practitioner specific. I think we need to accept all answers to this question, at least if we're going to ask it. I do asana primarily because it has always been a fantasy of mine to have utter fluidity in all things. This came in part from the beautiful choreography of ninja movies in the 1980s, and then later from managing crowded frat-party environments; I used to pride myself on making no physical contact, and being able to get 3 full beer cups back to my company, intact. I would duck and move and lay on the "excuse me, thank you" over and over; it was to move and to move people.
Climbing has the same thing; fluidity without a jam, and you intensify the jam-test in order to learn greater fluidity. Asana practice adapts easily to such a model. So does (although I didn't intend it to) dissertation writing or handling bureaucracy. Zen lessons about "put it down" fit in here too. How FLUID can I be, how much flexibility, how many ways into, out of, around, through, a situation, can I manifest? Hell, it even works as a business model.
We are dancers, Satchidananda writes in his Sutras translation; we are master swimmers. Indeed, indeed!
Anyway, I promised some asana porn, yea?
Today, in procrastination and a scheduling kerfuffle, found me doing Intermediate to Karandavasana, 5 wheels, 3 dropbacks, and closing. 63 degrees in the house, me in 2 t-shirts and shorts.
Pasasana, bound both sides; one feet flat, one toes up. Krounchasana, face to shin. Shalabhasana, long breaths. Chill. I want more thoracic bend in Bhekasana, but I'll need an adjustment. The back ache from yesterday in the Dhanurasanas subsided. Ustrasana saw me with big internal thigh rotation and long breaths. Laghuvajrasana was a bit easier than usual; yes, as they say, NEVER STOP LOOKING AT YOUR NOSE.
Kapotasana: again, as recently, I have walked in, sunk down, and bumped my left toes. I couldn't maintain toe contact, but I could inhale, stretch, and bump them. It's coming. Five breaths striving for Kapo B, all of which happened in the hip flexors, particularly the right ones. Par for the course.
Supta Vajrasana: knees under futon. Another toe grab that did not come free; this is beginning to acquire me (or the other way around?). This time I concentrated on the arch, taking the elbows OFF the floor if I felt them contact it, and I was happier, but not totally content, with the pose.
I could NOT, today, land Bakasana B. That NEVER happens. The twists were deep; I find that Bharadvajasana can be intensified by pushing the backwards-facing hand palm DOWN. That's the anchor. The more pressure you put on the anchor, the more twist comes. In Ardha Matsyendrasana, my thigh-grab has been deepening (I've been able to grab the foot-arch in that pose for EVER).
I jump clumsily into Eka Pada, but I do it, and I've abandoned my compass pose development posture. Take it up, tuck it back, sit for five (to develop the stretch and the spinal flexors). Fold for five. Lose the LBH on the exit. Currently, this is par for the course, both sides.
Dwi Pada is coming along; I put lefty back first, and then take righty over with the right hand, and as I come over, the left foot slips, and I wind up sort of binding the front of both feet, over my head, and then cranking back on the shoulders to keep the half-bind up there. If I can make it a FIRM ankle lock, like in my Supta K exit of late, it'll all improve. I even got my hands off the floor for about a breath and a half today. Dwi Pada approacheth.
I'm too round in Yoga Nidrasana, but the pose itself is fairly easy to get into. When I was half into it, I did Susan's fun one-foot-to-each-hand sort of bent-knee Kasyapasana grab, and it was cool.
The Tittibhasana sequence is still smoking me to pieces right in the exchange from C (the walk) to D (the come-around-front bind). I can hold D (mostly with willpower) but there's about a 2-breath lag while I organize the feet and hands from C. I wonder if that's par for the course in that pose.
Pincha remains friendly. One leg up, one back, kick, hold. My partner was in and out of the room today, so I came down gentle in forearm stand, not timbering. Also, timbering scares the cats. Let's call it ahimsa.
Karanda: I Pincha'd up, made the half-lotus, and about lost the balance making the full lotus, so I put my head on the floor, crown right to the rug. This allowed me to make lotus, and I tried lowering, with head down, but that resulted in a pitching down of the heavy lotus and an attendant, loud, BUMP onto the buttocks. Hah! So much for THAT! Must press head back up, if lowering to headstand becomes necessary for lotus-binding.
5 Wheels, and no wrist wedge: this ALL happened in the right hip flexors. They stretched and complained at me for all twenty-five breaths. So be it; this is when they transform. They're allowed to complain.
3 dropbacks: well-earned ones, too, and because I was interested in being less ballistic, I took the heels up on each one. All of the landings were soft. On the second one, I came down on my knees and then sort of kipped back and up to a wheel. On the third one, I froze the pose in mid-air, arms extended and on tiptoes, for about a whole breath. That was freakin' cool. Again, straightening the legs reduces the depth, but puts the bend right in the hip flexors. This will be a game I play ALL SUMMER LONG.
A 15-8 closing made it a practice. It was brilliant; made me feel like Intermediate really IS my sequence.
Kapo, for my money, is STILL my hardest pose in Intermediate. It's harder than Karanda, but then, Karanda asks things of my strengths, while Kapo, obviously, works my weak links. Let us see if I still believe this when I try to heft the duck sometime soon.
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