tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36446350698885729682024-02-02T10:23:14.493+00:00Life...On and Off the Matyoga in the real world.daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-83294828561400920662013-11-04T15:27:00.000+00:002013-11-04T15:28:38.040+00:00On why I am not a yoga teacher.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Because I don't like to offend anybody, I want to start with a disclaimer: everything I say that follows, applies to ME and my yoga practice, and my path...it's not my intention to diss others or what they decide to do and when. OK, with that out of the way shall we begin?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stiff lady...beach yoga in 2010</td></tr>
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When I first got really into yoga (by which I mean when I started practicing ashtanga, as opposed to going to one or two generic classes a week), the lovely girls I worked with started suggesting I might become a yoga teacher as my next career move...as did some of my friends, my hairdresser, the beautician I visited, and countless other people I spoke to or met. I suppose it seemed like a natural suggestion (and solution) given that I had grown disenchanted with my chosen area of work, and couldn't see what my next step would be - and alongside this, I had grown more and more enamoured of the yoga world. So, simple! Right? But for me, this answer was very definitely (at that point) wrong...as a new ashtangi, it was likely that my colleagues and non-yoga friends began to take me for some sort of "expert" as I was practicing 6 days a week, and pretty keen on reading anything I could find about yoga (in my first years it was a case of eat, sleep, breathe yoga). But if those people had been in the room when I practiced they'd have seen that I was very much a beginner, working my way (slowly) through the Primary series, unable to stand on my head, weak and not particularly flexible, to say nothing of the concentration battles that raged daily in my head (I typically spent the majority of my practice feeling cross with/completely jealous of the person on the mat next to me), my inability to "find" my bandhas, the struggle I had following the correct breath count through the trickier postures. I might have been "yoga girl" in the eyes of the unitiated, but I knew the truth: I was just an ashtanga baby.</div>
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And as time went on, and I continued to practice, I found that alongside my regular practice I also enjoyed going on yoga holidays and practicing with different authorised teachers. In 2012 I was booked to go to Purple Valley with Kino and Tim for the second time, when I received an unbelievably exciting email from Tim asking if I might like to help with a little assisting during the course of the workshop. All sorts of things went on in my head, and I realised that I really really wanted to be invited to be an assistant, and was a bit gutted when my own teacher didn't match the offer (not even to help get me prepared for assisting in Goa!), but continued her programme of inviting other students to assist her when she felt that they were ready for it. I had some unholy thoughts about how my lack of natural bendiness was holding me back, and how unfair it seemed, but still, I knew I didn't want to teach, regardless of my response to this situation. So I went to Goa to take the course with Kino & Tim, and despite being really anxious about it I felt enormously priveliged to have Tim teach me some simple assists, to get to stand at the front of the room with my teachers during the opening chant, and to learn the enormous difference it can make to your own practice to spend an hour beforehand gently assisting others in downward dog, in uttitha hasta padangustasana, in padangustasana (if I was feeling brave), to nitice the difference in other peoples' bodies, in their breath, in their reaction to me coming to help them. I found my breath was deeper and more calm, that when I was told I could start my practice, having a spot picked for me by Kino in the middle of the room, that I was more centred and inward focussed. I found more compassion for those practicing around me, but during this time I also felt (again) like an ashtanga baby - I knew so little, how could I ever know enough to teach, or even to assist?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beside Kino during the opening chant</td></tr>
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Fast forward four(ish) years from the start of my ashtanga days, and (as I have already written about), I found myself searching again for my next career move. And the idea of teacher training, which had vaguelly occured to me at previous times, floated back up to the surface. A teacher I adore (and enormously respect) was very encouraging when I enquired about taking their course, and several potential obstacles to me taking the training fell away, leaving me in a huge quandry. The thing for me was that although I kept feeling drawn towards this particular training, I was craving routine in my work, something that would help stabilise my days, give me some straight-forward work schedule, not to mention a stable income. And what about teaching? Well, working at the yoga studio as I do, I feel like almost the odd one out that I am not also a yoga teacher. And at some point in the past year I recognised that there is a little bit of me that enjoys the surprise when people assume that I am teaching, and I tell them I'm not. But a bigger bit of me sees that what might seem like a sweet and easy job from the outside is in many cases an uphill battle.</div>
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I see how tough it is for those who have just finished their training to establish themselves - teaching classes in the evenings and weekends, frantically trying to rearrange their whole schedule if they get offered a cover class that clashes with their day-job; I see how many teachers there are, and how few of them can actually make a decent living from it. I also see people who don't (in my opinion) have enough experience beginning to teach, and hard as I try not to make judgements, I don't feel that comfortable with it.</div>
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But then I also see my teacher, who is awake early enough each day to cycle to the studio and to have his practice finished by 6.30am; he then teaches until 10.30am 5 days a week, staying fully present in the room even if there is only one student still practicing at the tail end of his teaching slot. I see the teacher who is running the training, able to offer something different every time I attend her class, always choosing appropriate and touching music, and words, and sequences for the day, for the attendees who happen to show up that day, for the phase of the moon or the season. </div>
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And I see me: struggling and suffering with my practice but yes, still practicing after almost 5 years - when I spent the whole of my first year convinced this would be a "fad". On the one hand, when I look at my teachers, I see that I could never be worthy of this. And that the only way I want to teach would be if I could become as great and as dedicated as each of them are. And I see that what I need, and what I want, is to have a yoga practice. And I want it to be just mine, and for it to to be my challenge, my comfort, my therapy. And I'm not willing to share that just yet. For it to also become my work would change things so substantially, and I would worry that in some ways it would spoil it for me forever. Even just to take the teacher training to further my own knowledge, which is what I was intending all along, felt like it might take my practice in a direction it's not quite ready for at the moment. And in any case, if we all become teachers, who is there left to be the students? ;) </div>
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I admit I was very flattered at the positive response from the teacher to the idea of me taking the training, and to those who tell me they think I would make a good teacher. But after a huge amount of thought, and really focussing on what it is that I want to do (rather than just looking at what I <i>could</i> do), I decided not to take the training, and to focus on my practice, and on looking for a job. And after letting the teacher know, I immediately knew that I had made the right decision for me, for now, and while I thought fondly of the other new trainees on what I knew was their first weekend last week, I knew I was doing the right thing in not joining them.</div>
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So while we should never say never, what I know for sure is that for me, for now, I am happy to remain a student...and an ashtanga baby. </div>
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daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-74977530665631704132013-10-20T12:40:00.001+01:002013-10-20T12:40:52.583+01:00Stay where you are.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Monday will mark one year to the day since I set off for Goa, to begin my adventure of living and working at Purple Valley for the full season. I've already marked 6 months since I returned, so now this is another landmark which gives me cause to stop and think about the experience, or more this time about what has happened since I returned hom.</div>
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And I'm not going to lie: it has't exactly been a barrel of laughs. </div>
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There have been lots of good things, of course, and the main one of these, the constant, is having moved in with the Frenchman immediately on my return. Although in hindsight, not going back to <i>my</i> home at ALL (except to collect a few bags of clothes, moving out only via the tube, and one bag at a time) probably made the transition a lot trickier than if I had at least returned to my familiar surroundings for a month or two. Though to be honest, who knows...But that's the past, and now here I am, happily cohabiting, figuring out the stuff you figure out when you're both in your 30s and trying to shape your life around another adult human with (strong) preferences and ways of living, so that's all good fun ;)</div>
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What has really been the biggest challenge for me is no less than trying to find my place in the world. yup, the biggie. I shouldn't really be surprised by this, given that, if we rewind (easy to do on this blog as the posts are so sparse!) in April 2011 I found myself not working, and instead of panicking I elected to take a "grown-up gap year" to figure out what I wanted to do next. A decade working in various roles within clothing and design businesses, but somehow never moving "up", just sideways, had left me dissatisfied, and I longed for a job that I could be passionate about - something I had probably romanticised but nevertheless I missed. I had ended up in a dead-end street and had no idea where to go next, so the etch-a-sketch approach (shake it all up and start again) seemed like the wisest move. I was toying with various ideas for re-training, going to college, moving in a completely different direction -the problem was that nothing was coming naturally to me in terms of <i>which</i> new direction. So my year off became instead a plan to temp, and then head to Mysore for 3 months to following Spring. And I got the reception job at the shiny yoga centre, had a bit of an existential crisis but overall was happy enough, and I got to spend time in Goa, Mysore and Thailand between January and April 2012. </div>
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The fly in the ointment (in some ways) was being offered the Guest Manager job at PV, which happened shortly before I returned from Thailand. This is an "invited" position rather than something you apply for, so while I was flattered I was pretty sure I wasn't going to take it as, let's not forget, my plan was to come back to London and find a "proper" job. Doing something PROPER. And normal. And probably not related to yoga. But then again this seemed like such a wonderful opportunity, so after agonising a bit I accepted the role, and of course I met the Frenchman not a week later, and after over four years of being thoroughly single I fell madly in love (another fly in the ointment) but still, I left for Goa on 21st October 2012. My feeling was that if our relationship was supposed to survive, then this was as good a test as any and, thanks to regular emails, skype and a visit in February, we made it through, and when he collected me from the airport on my return we went straight back to his flat and that was that.</div>
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Work wise, I had a few shifts lined up back at shiny yoga HQ, and a gig to do some social media work part-time, so I didn't have to stress immediately. But somehow, over 6 months and several disappointing job interviews later, I am still doing these two things, and a fixed and stable job is no closer to happening. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have not one but two part-time jobs, and both have their benefits, but with my vata tendencies I crave a fixed routine, and really I need the discipline of having somewhere I need to be, and fixed working hours, not to mention wishing I didn't have to work evenings and weekends. So in it's own way, it's really tough. And even tougher is the disappointment that comes from having interviewed for a handful of jobs which I felt I was really well suited for, only to be told that they hired somebody they already knew, or they felt that I would get bored and move on quickly because I was very ambitious...to say nothing of the applications I have spent time on only to hear nothing back. Make no mistake, it is tough out there.</div>
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And all the while, I mostly paint on my happy face, and when people ask me if I'm going back to Goa again, or why am I not, I tell them I don't want to leave the Frenchman again, which is of course true, but really the reason is this: coming home was too fucking difficult. And it still is.</div>
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This weekend the Frenchman has been away, and I have been emailing back and forth with my beloved co-guest manager from last year as she made the long journey from Sweden to Goa to do her second season. Knowing that two out of our team of four would be returning this year makes it feel a lot harder knowing that I will not be there. It's almost surreal knowing that she is there now, as I sit in London writing this, and that she is settling in and helping to get the centre ready for the first retreat which begins next weekend. And the ways things currently stand I'm not even going to be able to afford to go and visit during the season. </div>
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I don't use the word lightly, but I have spent the past 6 months dipping in and out of depression, and the Frenchman has had a lot of tears to put up with. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world (finances aside) for me to take off somewhere again, to have applied for Mysore or agreed to go back to Goa, rather than sticking it out here and trying to put some roots down. But at the age of 35 there are other things I want, and a stable and happy relationship is one of them, and fulfilling and satisfying work is another. Going away again would jeopardise the first one, and make the second move even further out of my reach. Even in my yoga practice (hell, this is a yoga blog afterall) I have not only stayed in one place since coming back from Goa, but my teacher took away (gradually) the new poses I had been given by various teachers during my time there, so now I am back doing primary and second through to kapotasana, and suffering on a daily basis. Clearly the universe has one big lesson for me: it's time to sit with what you have, and not run away from it again. Because how can you build anything stable when you keep moving around?</div>
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So this weekend I decided that it is time to bring an end to this navel-gazing, feeling sorry for myself, wishing things were different and being overwhelmed by the things I need to do. I spent yesterday alone, and mostly in contemplation, starting the day with my first ever castor oil bath, eating grounding foods, going for a long walk in the rain, and picking up an old favourite book of mine to read when I stopped off for coffee - Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das. And given that I had already been thinking over this blog post, and how staying still is the hardest thing, what should I read a few pages in, but this:<br />
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<span style="color: purple;">"...an Indian master, when asked what advice he had for Westerners seeking enlightenment, said:</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>'Stay where you are' </b></span></div>
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So, for now at least, that is exactly what I intend to do.</div>
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daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-56591549075960078192013-02-02T10:46:00.000+00:002013-10-20T12:43:35.321+01:00Onwards.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the most frequently asked questions from guests here is about how amazing it is to practice with every single teacher on the schedule - 6 months of back to back (to back...) workshops. And yes it *is* amazing, and an incredible opportunity that I am enormously grateful for, but stop and imagine for a moment that this is what happens with your practice....</div>
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You meet a new teacher. You get two weeks of pretty intensive practice with them, meet a whole new group of people who you have a few days to settle in with and then grow used to sharing a practice space with, you hang out and chat together, share meals, sometimes go to the beach or out and about together, you take afternoon technique workshops and start getting in the groove with the teacher, the group, the assistant...and then after two weeks of practice you take Friday led primary together and then it's over. Everybody starts talking about what time their flight leaves, where they go next, the places they might visit, their plans for next year, and then they get their traveling outfits on and they are gone - and you are the one helping to organise their departure. Meanwhile a whole new group begins arriving, often crossing over in the middle, and your emotional response to the departing group, teachers and the sangha you have all spent two weeks building up has to be put aside to offer a big sincere welcome to the people climbing wearily up the stairs having travelled half-way across the world to begin a big adventure. And you spend the day helping them settle in, you shake hands with the newly arrived teacher, you have a few hours to rest and make your weekly skype call to your sweetheart who is waiting for you back at home, then you head back to the retreat and try not to completely mess up the welcome speech thanks to your nerves, and afterwards you try to calm down and eat some palak paneer while fielding questions and any late arrivals before you head to bed...ready for the yoga alarm to go off the next morning when you head down to the shala, so familiar and yet once again unfamiliar; a apace awaiting a whole new group energy, a new teacher, a new feeling.</div>
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Imagine it. </div>
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No, <i>really</i> imagine it. A little bit challenging, non?</div>
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And yet (and yet) right at this moment, in the midst of the busiest handover day of the season, I feel nothing but calm and happy to be here. Yes there is a small degree of tiredness, and this morning I woke up longing for a cuddle with my 3 and 5 year old nieces, and now I sit writing this and waiting for my boyfriend to wake up back in London so that we can speak, but I am so outrageously grateful in this moment that any tiredness is worth it. </div>
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Of course it goes without saying that in a period of intense practice like this that there will be ups and downs, peaks and troughs, and as one of my co-workers said the other day in some ways we practice here in <i>spite </i>of all of the teachers passing through the shala. But after going through a period where I felt frustrated, exhausted and generally a little bored with my practice I am now in a period of profound calmness and clarity. I just got to spend two weeks with my teachers Kino & Tim, so having spent the past 2 years coming here as a guest for their retreat, this time around I got to take part in exchange for the time spent looking after the guests and my teachers themselves, and it was a pretty experience for me. I could sit here now and tell you all about how my backbends are, how kapotasana is going, or what either of them taught me in terms of my physical practice over the past two weeks, but it's more a case of what I was able to gain from further deepening my experience with them both, with the profound (or utterly banal) recognition of my own patterns (both healthy and unhealthy, mental and physical). And within this time there were a few important things I came to realise...</div>
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One was that I remembered what it means to find your teachers. Before their arrival I felt that I had a hundred questions I needed to have answered, whether I should be moving forward with my practice more, or taking less postures, or splitting off from primary, or giving up completely, but on day one in the shala with Kino every question just fell away. And then over the time they were here I started to feel desperately that I needed to have a conversation about my practice, just to be completely sure about where I was <i>at</i>, and when I asked then were incredibly generous with their time and gave me far far more than I ever could have hoped for. And after sitting down to talk and being told by Tim, very kindly, that in fact my practice is not actually that long, and that he can see now reason whatsoever to split me right now, I accepted 100% that he is right, and I stopped feeling sorry for myself about it. And when Kino explained that being able to jump into bakasana B or not is almost irrelevant in terms of moving forward, but the fact that I'm having a nervous system response to trying it <i>is</i>, I accepted that I am at exactly the right place in my asana practice. </div>
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And then I explained to Tim that after having a huge emotional response (read: in-shala sobbing) to his kapo assist one day, and deciding that I was too stiff to be assisted the following day, that I had discovered that in fact I was able to make a choice to NOT freak out when he helped me with backbends. In the moment that he instructed me to bend my knees deeply in assisted half-backs and he took my head to the floor, and then he had me walk in deeply on my last dropback as he straightened out my feet and then pushed on my hips for me to push back against him, I suddenly recognised that the hysterical (noisy & uncontrollable) breathing patterns I usually settled into when he was assisting me were a <b>choice.</b> And I can choose not to start them, I just had to trust him, and relax into it, and to engage in my core (of course!) and my legs, and just fucking surrender...and then it was all OK. And as I told him this Tim smiled, fist-bumped me and told me that that was the whole point of second series. That we learn to control our emotional responses, our nervous system responses, on our mat so that when we come up against difficult situations in life we learn to surrender, breathe, and work though them without becoming a shaking wreck. This was in fact exactly what Kino told me when I spoke to her about kapotsana back in London back in September, but at that point I was still consumed by the hysteria and couldn't see a way to control it, so the concept was nothing but abstract at that stage. </div>
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After this conversation with Kino and Tim I felt incredibly settled and calm, and that once again all of my questions had fallen away. They have each given me so much, so generously in terms of teaching and input, that I am left inspired to get back on my mat tomorrow morning and to continue to recognise the insights that my asana practice brings to my mental processes off the mat, and although it is very sad to say goodbye to them and the lovely group I shared the last two weeks with (and of course there were a few tears) I feel nothing but happy and peaceful as we welcome a new group to the shala to begin again tomorrow.</div>
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daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-4559058951861581172013-01-19T06:44:00.000+00:002013-01-19T06:44:00.179+00:00Marking the halfway point<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's hard to articulate at the halfway point how I am feeling about the experience of spending 6 months in Goa.</div>
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Actually I think I am right now at a turning point. The past two weeks were massively challenging, practicing with a teacher who I had a strong aversion to, who the assistant noticed (kindly) that I was "closed off to", who seemed not to assist me too much aside from giving me 2 new postures on day 1 and wanting to give me more (which I turned down), who pushed my buttons (and reminded me of my issues around food) by suggesting that nobody eat dinner, whose pranayama exercise brought me to endless tears of homesickness which seemed to be a kind of incurably upsetting childhood nostalgia, who somehow seemed to facilitate all sorts of dark moods and a close-on hatred of my practice to bubble up out of me...it was tough. But I realise as I sit here in a patch of sunshine in my room, drinking camomile tea and listening to Nina Simone, gearing up for a major full-power day as a group of 50 people arrive to be told that their teacher is delayed by the snow in London and will be a day late, that these turning points don't always appear as happy and comfortable moments. Perhaps the experience of aversion will teach me more than the strong attraction I feel with other teachers ever has done, or more accurately perhaps a combination of the two factors will somehow provide me with more than one of these factors alone ever could. I know for certain that I have been behaving at times in a way that I would not like if I looked on it from the outside, reacting (and overreacting) to things in front of me, not taking challenges calmly and in my stride, wallowing in my physical exhaustion, resenting others at times instead of working on compassion. I have been eating in a way that fuels the dramatic energy spikes and dips, spending my free time hooked up to the computer or indulging in idle chat instead of reading, writing, going out into Goa and seeing more of the area, learning to drive a scooter, sewing, taking time to keep in touch with my loved ones - these are the things on my neglected mental to-do list, while there always seems to be time to watch another episode of Mad Men. </div>
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But as we enter the second half of the season, and as <em>my</em> teachers arrive (a little later than planned) I think it is time to finally throw myself into this experience. Instead of criticising myself for how I have behaved, acted and filled my time up until now I will try to look at it objectively and without judgement, and just look forwards - to how things could be from this point onwards. So here's to the second half of the season...</div>
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daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-6440754383668026122012-09-19T15:20:00.001+01:002012-09-19T15:20:07.762+01:00Work in progress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So, times have changed and I have to say that right now I barely recognise my life. But last week I met somebody at my yoga teacher's leaving party who knew my name having recognised me from this blog, and told me that reading it was what led her to seek out the aforementioned teacher. Nice feeling, huh? And it did lead me to wonder a little about blogging, and whether there was time and space for me to have another think about it.</div>
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But for anyone who might possibly read this and <i>isn't </i>also my twitter/facebook/actual real-life friend (is there anyone??) things are changing, biiiiig time. Since coming home from Thailand in April I continued working in the yoga centre, but shortly after returning I received a very exciting offer to go back to Purple Valley in Goa for the whole of next season and help to look after the guests. Erm, yes please? </div>
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And then having accepted the job, through a combination of factors I ended up finding a new teacher, who (in a thoroughly appropriate way, I promise) I am head-over-heels crazy about. And then shortly afterwards I started dating, and somehow managed to meet somebody quite wonderful who is now also practicing ashtanga, with my teacher, and is similarly hooked. My practice has changed a lot too, but that's to be expected I suppose as life changes around me at a pace I barely even recognise. </div>
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I try not to be <i>too</i> smug, but some days that's a struggle. And other days I'm just so exhausted from my practice and the tinges of anxiety that threaten about the upcoming 6-month trip that I just don't have it in me to be smug. </div>
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I'm remembering to be grateful.</div>
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I'm working on just being in the moment. </div>
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It's a work in progress, shall we say.</div>
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daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-984914275802954542012-04-09T10:18:00.000+01:002012-04-09T10:18:46.375+01:00Oh so predictable.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite a little bit of me (maybe a large bit of me) hoping that heading to Mysore for 2 months would lead to me blogging super-regularly, dissecting my experience and sharing it online (just in case there is <em>anyone</em> even still out there wondering what I have to say), it turns out it wasn't to be.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mysore was (I say this in past tense, having left Gokulam on Friday evening after 9 magical weeks practicing at the shala with Sharath) a life-changing, mind-expanding, shape-shifting and unforgettable experience. But something about it, and something about the person I realised that I am whilst I was there, made me understand completely why oh so many people before me have headed this way and resolutely STFU once they arrived. So yes, it's a giant cliche, but it turns out that Mysore knocked the desire to blog (or indeed to read other blogs, with the exception of a select few) right out of me. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ho hum. Now I am in heavenly Koh Samui for a week of down-time before two MORE weeks with Kino and Tim, before I head home to London and put it all back together again. Maybe at some point I'll feel the desire to start sharing my thoughts again, I'm certainly not saying that I won't, but for now this is where I am (literally and metaphorically). </div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I'll just say this; over the past (nearly) three months that I have been in India I have realised that life grows ever sweeter the more you focus on just letting things happen as they should. And for now, that includes me keeping a little quiet in the blogging world. Now if you'll excuse me I need to head back out into the sunshine...life is tough, right?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6rhnWOIb5pxC66b0C0Crcqqo5aUfZ6XGmKG9JdssKZ-HDctqlloVWE8nxKMvW5auBkh58EgnIP-6R4d4ayQ0JKbMCM6Tr9RUIcLy7yJApbDPjOSLVOxK_iT7aWF_Lvvb1__7yqlMvw4/s1600/DSCN1087.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6rhnWOIb5pxC66b0C0Crcqqo5aUfZ6XGmKG9JdssKZ-HDctqlloVWE8nxKMvW5auBkh58EgnIP-6R4d4ayQ0JKbMCM6Tr9RUIcLy7yJApbDPjOSLVOxK_iT7aWF_Lvvb1__7yqlMvw4/s400/DSCN1087.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-53206074991179027252012-02-26T13:52:00.000+00:002012-02-26T13:52:31.199+00:00A challenging Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Led primary hurt today – physically and mentally. My ribs hurt, perhaps a tweak from assisted dropbacks on Thursday, Friday was ladies’ holiday so today was my first practice since then, and taking a deep breath induced a small flash of pain. I saw an open spot, congratulated myself once again on how stress-free this whole “getting a good spot” is, only to realise too late (like that kid’s party game, once all of the chairs had been taken away) that my mat was now covering not just one but a whole confluence of bumps and ridges – and massive ones at that. With my feet at different heights as we chanted the opening mantra the Pollyanna in me wanted this distraction to take my mind away from the breathing pain. And for the first standing postures I suppose it did, but all I could think was that I wanted – no <i>needed</i> – to leave. But how would you leave a led class in the shala without it becoming a major incident? You can’t, that’s how, so I knew I just had to suck it up and get on with it. So up to a point that’s what I did, but reaching bujapidasana the pain reached a crescendo – it is located on my left side, somewhere between the side of my body and the base of my shoulder blade, and tipping forward to the floor induced a flash of pain, followed by the realisation that I still had to get out of the posture after 5 breaths. I have no idea why it was so painful <i>there</i>, but it truly was – and coming out was the most difficult part. I vinyasa-ed to start kurmasana, realising that there would be some challenge here too, but I slid down into kurmasana with relatively little discomfort, only to find that while I could still hitch my feet behind my head by raising them up with my shoulders, I couldn’t catch the bind with my hands. For the first time in two years I was unable to do the pose (so screamed my ego), and not only that but I was in agony. I stayed prone on the mat, and as I moved into baddha konasana hot tears came. I stopped, skipped the vinyasa, held my sore ribs and quietly cried, and my sweet neighbour (I don’t know you, but thank you) stopped to make sure I was alright, and somehow I made it to the end of the primary series, limped outside for a coconut then headed home feeling miserable. I self-medicated with a delicious breakfast, coffee and some ibuprofen, cancelled my big jolly lunch-plans, and headed off for an early conference. And what should happen but the Boss was in a super-light mood. He had the packed-out room (admittedly the easiest crowd in the world once he takes the floor) laughing frequently, at one point doing an impersonation of somebody singing mantras with a guitar (instead of chanting them with correct breath and intonation). But more than that, somehow so many of the things he said today resonated with me so clearly that on the spot I made choices about how I want to live my life and things I want to change. He reiterated today:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: magenta;"><b>Yoga is a four wheel drive car; one day life is up, the next day down, and only with yoga can we cope in all terrains.</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Somehow this, or other topics that came up today, made me realise a few things that I needed to look at in my life. These seem intangible now I come to try and write them down, to spell them out, but perhaps that isn’t the point; I don’t need to share every thought, just to say that something in the way that this gentle man speaks sends a laser pointer of focus in to my own thoughts and understanding of my life, and gives me a direction, a feeling of which way to move on.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One particular thing did stick in my mind. “Always we say ‘oh look at him, he is wrong, he must not do this, she is doing that incorrectly’, but we do not look at ourselves to see what we must change.” Oh yeah...I gotcha. This is probably my specialist subject. But self-awareness is the first step, so I’m there...and now I need to start really looking at it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I realised too that questions asked in conference seem to follow one of two themes. First is the philosophical/historical question (which to a certain extent says: listen to what I know, then tell me about it). The second, probably the more common, says “I do this: please tell me it’s OK?” We travel all of this way, we give up our lives, maybe our jobs, our families, a lot of our comforts (and certainly a lot of money), and we want this man to answer all of our questions. We want him to tell us that what <i>we</i> do, whether it’s choosing to practice sports alongside yoga, or to also take martial arts, or to eat meat, or drink milk, or to spend more time with our children than on our asana practice (his answer to the last one: “of course”), somehow we need to hear him say that it’s OK. And most of the time, of course, he does not. We feel that we need to ask, in all likelihood, because we already question these things ourselves, and yet we think that he will make it all alright. But the ongoing answer to any question posed during conference is just as we know it will be; take practice, be sincere, don’t mix it up or try to copy-write yoga, or say that you know best. Practice with sincerity, with your teacher, for a long time, and don’t think that saying you are a yogi makes you a yogi. The same applies for having a certificate. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But all in all conference was sweet, and light, and just what I needed to contrast with my practice. And as the day went by I got over myself, I kept the ibuprofen topped up, and of course no matter how crappy this morning felt, tomorrow is another day.</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-30841543199473145022012-02-19T15:05:00.000+00:002012-02-19T15:05:00.531+00:00As week three in Mysore begins...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">On a daily basis I see that although what I “get” in terms of direct hands-on adjustment, or verbal correction is totally minimal, still I am learning so much. How is this possible – <i>learning</i> without <i>teaching</i>? I suppose to say that suggests that teaching only happens in one way: I tell you, I move your body, I help you. When in fact teaching in this method, through this lineage - it seems to <i>happen</i> in this room. Sharath talked in conference the first day I arrived about how in the West yoga is seen as something you “do”, but when you are really understanding and practicing yoga it is something which happens inside of you. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">We were also reminded by Kino towards the end of the retreat that this practice is not somewhere you go to to get something tangible from another person “it’s not about what you get, it’s about where you go”. She described reliance on a teacher as being like a key to open a door. You need the key initially but over time, as you become grounded in the practice, you don’t need that support in the same way. She said that the purpose of the teacher is to “hold the space” that opens the door to the lineage – sometimes through adjustment or instruction, sometimes just through an energy that they bring. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It’s not until I looked back at my notes that I saw that what Kino was describing is exactly what I have been experiencing the past two weeks. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">At most, Sharath told me “no no no, this is not correct” in my first led class (relating to my hand and arm position in uttitha parsvakonasana), he told me to go back when I was futzing around before dropping back, one day he told me that I was too slow, and he did his funny disapproval grunt when I went into a warm-up bridge before a backbend one day (and I won’t be doing that again!). In two weeks, c’est tout. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bougainvillea love-in </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But I am far (far) from voicing any concern about this. My first two practices were just a sweaty blur, I couldn’t honestly say what went on whilst I was in that room. I was in a state of overwhelm. Then each day since that has started to come into focus a little more. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I had a eureka moment in realising last week that internal rotation is EVERYTHING. When teachers notice or correct the turning out of the feet through vinyasas, it seems to me that this is why...I think I have probably been guilty of this myself, but realising that when I inwardly rotate my thighs and engage my feet throughout my upward dog (and take care not to allow them to splay out), I have a strong feeling of engagement throughout my lower back and hips (instead of "escaping it" - just like if you lift the heels when backbending you somehow escape the icky place you don't want to go). Turning straight over my feet (instead of letting them roll over the sides) keeps the rotation firm. As I move into downward dog I notice that I also want to inwardly rotate my arms, engaging the shoulders strongly to keep the foundation strong.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Another eureka moment came a few days later in realising that I can (and must) engage my quads throughout the practice, pulling up the legs strongly in most of the standing poses – especially in trikonasana which my teacher has been adjusting me in consistently for two years and trying to help me understand the action I need to find. In working alone, in true self-practice, but in this space held by Sharath, I think I am somehow finding the answers to some of these ongoing questions. The reason I’m saying all of this is not because I want to tell <i>you</i> to do the same, or even because I think I have discovered something impressive, or clever, or even if it would feel the same or as monumental to anybody else. I suppose I am just keen to express the place I find myself in, almost three years to the day since I first discovered this practice, moving from the gross to the subtle, finding that in the right space that the <i>practice is the teacher</i>, but of course that comes about only because <i>this</i> place and space is so charged, so magical somehow, and (I have no doubt) also because Sharath is here, preserving this lineage, watching over us as we work through and make these discoveries - sometimes with help, sometimes for ourselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So maybe another day I’ll find the time to write more about the more general experience of being here: the strange shock of arrival, the settling in, my inability to avoid the constant possibility of socialising, the food, the people; the utterly insane dreams I have every.single.night; the perceived insanity of led classes, and the moment where everything crystallised into one perfect moment of stillness and ease in urdhva padmasana; the fear struck in my heart sitting in the foyer on my first few days realising that I could ignore the fact that “One more!” was finally referring to me. Maybe another day I’ll find the time for all of that, but not tonight.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I couldn't put it better myself.</i></td></tr>
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</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-46876818240764180242012-02-07T04:02:00.001+00:002012-02-19T15:08:05.532+00:00Briefly..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Once in a while I <i>am</i> capable of brevity (apparently).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I landed in Mysore late on Saturday after *that* car ride from Bangalore - four a half hours of the craziest driving, during which I went through every emotion on the planet, from pure joy to total despair, wondering why on earth I ever decided to make this trip, thinking I was going to die, realising that in the end there was no getting out of it and that I just had to suck it up and experience it (yeah yeah, it's all yoga, I know). My arrival and first morning were awash with tears as I wondered just how and why I ended up here, I cried through my first shower, I ran round the corner to my friend's apartment where she fed me while I cried some more, and then once I was done eating and crying she took me to my first conference with Sharath and the social whirlwind that is Gokulam began. That first day I was passed from one sweet friend to another, so as it turned out I was out from 8am to 7pm and had many adventures in the time in between. Yesterday I had my first practice in the shala and yet more social and culinary adventures to fill the day. There is so much to say about how I feel having arrived here, and <i>so</i> much to say about the past two weeks in Goa and how much I learned and experienced with the wonderful Tim and Kino, but somehow I just can't summon the energy to do any of that right now - hopefully as I feel myself growing more settled here the words will come. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">But for now I just wanted to say a quick hello from Mysore, that I'm alive and well and figuring out how things work, and that I'm so so grateful for having so many wonderful friends here - some from home, some from retreats I have taken in the past, some friends I hadn't met yet, but on every corner I run into somebody I know. I have a feeling that this is going to be a big part of the whole experience. Speaking of which, I'm just waiting on Susan for breakfast before heading off on a moonday outing to Mysore palace and into the city, but first I need to run some beetroot and banana bread over to K's apartment in exchange for some home-made vegan chikoo ice-cream. Life is pretty tough, isn't it?</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-2904946021673905672012-01-24T07:20:00.002+00:002012-01-24T07:23:00.105+00:00Never enough time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So once more I find myself in Goa for my annual pilgrimage to Purple Valley, this being my 4<sup>th</sup> trip in as many seasons (but my first visit was in year zero as it was here that I started ashtanga...so 4 trips equals three years of practice). I’m here with the same teachers as last year, Kino & Tim, but instead of heading straight home from here after two weeks this time I will head to Mysore for my first trip there. The other significant difference about this trip is that back in November I received an email from Tim asking if I would like to assist him and Kino in the shala here...so after leaping up and down and feeling like I’d won the lottery I replied that yes of course, I would be honoured to do so. I count myself especially lucky to be asked as this is my first experience of assisting, and despite my huge resistance (to the point of vehement opposition) to the idea of ever teaching it was a huge honour that Tim and Kino asked, which was apparently based on my having practiced with them both a number of times and them wanting to introduce me to a whole other dimension of the practice (plus of course needing all the hands they can get with our group of 50-ish students).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Three days in to the practice and assisting I am already finding some of those lessons. There are two of us assisting at the moment, me and my friend A who also works here. She completed a teacher training at the end of last year she can help a little more than I can. I assist first for around an hour (6.30-7.30), she practices first and then we switch, and I finish my practice around 9.30. On day one Tim gave me some whispered gems (which for the sake of discretion I can’t share) which made me giggle, and showed me how to assist downward dog. I did a lot of dogs that day. Then Kino told me to assist anyone in UHP who couldn’t get their chin to their leg. I stood looking mystified for a moment before she realised I didn’t know how to assist, so she showed me, and then I tried it on a few poor unsuspecting practitioners...and I totally buggered it up. The following afternoon A and I had a session with Tim where he talked us through a few different downward dog adjustments (and anyone who’s been lucky enough to practice with Tim knows that his version of this assist rocks...) with the main version being using my chest to work the hips up and back, in other words lying the whole body over the practitioner, holding the front of their knees to gently coax them straight. Then he talked us through the UHP assist, thank goodness, and we had to do the assists on him, then on each other, and by the next day I must have done about 10 of them to much better effect.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The interesting part for me is how assisting makes me feel, and how it affects my practice. I feel like in three days, even only assisting one or two poses, I have already learned so much. Tim said that by watching somebody’s sun salutations you can really learn everything you need to know about their practice. Through adjusting them you can feel those who resist you, those who struggle to find an even breath, those to whom their whole body seems alien (and of course those on the other end of the spectrum with smooth breath, strength and flexibility and who seem at home in their bodies). Immediately after finishing up as I unroll my mat in the middle of the busy room, I go straight into a very internal, focussed space. My breath is deep and even. There is a level of calmness I am unaccustomed to. I feel confident in my practice, and that (mostly) my fellow practitioners accept my help (as I have already had some lovely post-practice thank yous), but I also feel a humbleness. My body is warm and open. On previous visits I have worked myself up on the first day of practice, leaving the shala in tears because I’m so happy and overwhelmed to be here. But this time? No drama. My first practice was incredibly flexible and deep, heels popping up in kurmasana (which almost never happens), spying my feet in my backbends from the floor before being terrorised by Tim (yes, I did the death-rattle breathing just a little, but I also got the hug). Monday’s practice was a little stiff and sore, the pay-off for Sunday’s pixie-dust coated practice, and I had a day of awesome Kino-help, a lot more assists than on the previous day (when I assised until almost 8 and then practiced mostly unassisted until the end), culminating in backbending with her. As it was a moonday (but different rules apply on retreats, right?) she was going more gently with the assisted backbending, so I was hoping to have her rather than Tim, who I know always takes me to my edge and beyond. I dropped back by myself and she was helping my neighbour with something, and after doing a little rocking and giving up she told me to stay in the backbend, push right up onto my fingertips (making a sort of stand with my fingers and thumb) and then she gave me the slightest pull on the hips and I came to stand. I laughed, saying that it was less scary then I thought it was going to be, so she said let’s do that again – we did three like that, and I realised that this new technique of course means I need to transfer the weight into my legs to be able to try and go up on my fingertips, which Kino was having me do by myself. I love how you think you have heard it all and then somebody comes along and gives you a whole new technique...anyway I did backbending with Kino again today, and I tried as much as possible to do it by myself, I feel like I’m coming up by myself from about three quarters of the way up (according to Cary before I left I was coming up myself from about half-way down), but right now I’m scrunching up the muscles in my lower back and clenching my bum and thighs to try and move the weight forward. She says that’s OK for now as long as there is no pain, but that I need to focus on pushing my knees forward, and maybe taking my feet wider when I go back. Apparently I have proper duck feet and a super narrow stance, which makes it much harder (as I told her, I don’t like to make things easy for myself...). Having missed out on giving me the backbend treatment Tim instead decided to make me do chakrasana after uttana padasana about fifteen times (and I’m not even exaggerating!) despite me insisting that I really can’t do it...and yes, I got bad lady’d there, and elsewhere in my practice today.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Actually this wasn’t intended to be a practice report but look what just happened...what I was meaning to write more about was how the days are just so packed that I barely even have time to relax let alone to blog, or just to write for myself about how I’m processing my time here. I know this doesn’t exactly sound like the toughest schedule, but the days so far have gone like this...</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Day 1:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">6.30 – 7.45 – assisting</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">7.45 – 9.45 – practice</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Breakfast</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Shower</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Half an hour of emailing</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Lunch</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Adjustment lesson with tim</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Afternoon workshop</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dinner</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Err – that was the whole day. The second day I had a massage between breakfast and lunch, and an hour’s nap instead of the adjustment lesson, but so far I haven’t even been down to the pool, left the compound to go to Villa Blanche, or even drunk any coffee yet (which could be why I spent to whole of Tim’s breath workshop painfully falling asleep whilst sitting up). I know woe is me and all that, but somehow I need to shoe-horn time in to write, to be by myself, and yet to enjoy socialising and being around people too. My room-mate said that at Yoga Plus in Crete (where she has been going for ten years) it’s called “sitting on a rock”, and that here there’s not really anywhere to do it. Apparently the other downside to it is that you’re the weirdo who sits on a rock, but still, I would like to be able to achieve <i>some</i> sort of balance. Mind you from what I hear of Mysore it can be even more difficult there to carve out some time. But I’m not talking about finding time for two hours meditation a day (though my ayurvedic doctor has prescribed me twenty minutes twice a day which I should probably at least start trying to do), I’m talking about managing to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing and maybe to email my mum and dad and let them know how I’m getting on (and to write of course). Talk about first world problems eh? </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FcOMRFbedVok2BF604NxjZy32SaoGgHrreHWsDBEtHH3JeBz0yvWei1nDswyORqCZyepTNGxwWyiUuTecx8cnI4HD-55InNg9MhDbhzjSxSJSjVPxOVN6CH4m8pQsSq2e9uh_-SiRQE/s1600/never-enough-time-calvin-and-hobbes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FcOMRFbedVok2BF604NxjZy32SaoGgHrreHWsDBEtHH3JeBz0yvWei1nDswyORqCZyepTNGxwWyiUuTecx8cnI4HD-55InNg9MhDbhzjSxSJSjVPxOVN6CH4m8pQsSq2e9uh_-SiRQE/s320/never-enough-time-calvin-and-hobbes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This pretty much sums it up...</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Scheduling moans aside, I feel so grateful to be working with these amazing teachers once again, and to be given the opportunity to help out a little and learn so much more about myself and the practice in the process. Spending three hours in the shala each morning is definitely taking it out of me, my legs are aching and my right bicep is very sore (people <i>really</i> drop their weight into you in UHP don’t they?!) but I also feel strong and calm in my practice. I’m not stressing so much about what’s going on around me as I normally would, and with a few minor exceptions I am able to view my fellow practitioners with compassion and see that each of us have our own struggles, and our own take on the practice but we all can benefit from it to the degree that we offer our dedication and surrender. Now if I could just find the time for some outings for cake and ice-cream to retox, I think this trip would just about count as perfect so far <span style="font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">p.s. I just sat writing this with my teachers sat beside me at the wifi table...which feels kind of weird ;) </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-78883605201443723752012-01-01T22:23:00.001+00:002012-01-01T22:28:18.216+00:00New Year ritual<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This year at the age of 33, for the first time ever in my life, I spent the evening of 31st December alone and was very very happy to do so. It was enough really just to be home alone, contented and without any need for a big New Year hoop-la (although <i><b>yes</b></i> I was playing with my new kindle, and <i>yes</i> it might just possibly be the end of the civilised world as we know it, but also I think I am already in love with it), but then I read <a href="http://realizingmysore.blogspot.com/2011/12/embracing-change-new-year-2012.html">this</a> and got a little inspired.<br />
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So here is what I am letting go of.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUozsw3itxT47hvhNEi76PFC6Lka8FpZYIpwc66qQm0bakud0okWm5_mSSxF_eAbS5uyfh8xM7Q8Q99q-ZVSbqANUCBU0Y9t4pJjRFk_QzzdHIVvMrf-KzcIAvcWe42qJ-RJrBbLOKYc/s1600/IMG_3367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUozsw3itxT47hvhNEi76PFC6Lka8FpZYIpwc66qQm0bakud0okWm5_mSSxF_eAbS5uyfh8xM7Q8Q99q-ZVSbqANUCBU0Y9t4pJjRFk_QzzdHIVvMrf-KzcIAvcWe42qJ-RJrBbLOKYc/s320/IMG_3367.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYL-j_Umr7RLeVGMHgMP895fw8X8GEcoomufFvD0Dxfob36BKWR3M0wN0BF-dupzrp0Lh2oOlU1lKKcJpje0ZC8JOv8PGu7kIKzRAFKvrozzocOLyUoBwey22Ef5tE4UgX299Qlpd4I0/s1600/IMG_3363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYL-j_Umr7RLeVGMHgMP895fw8X8GEcoomufFvD0Dxfob36BKWR3M0wN0BF-dupzrp0Lh2oOlU1lKKcJpje0ZC8JOv8PGu7kIKzRAFKvrozzocOLyUoBwey22Ef5tE4UgX299Qlpd4I0/s320/IMG_3363.JPG" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQQgTIr7-Q0VhBKqXVkjDW9iY2hfKBrQk6gKAQgnVjXNkyUNyJ4u0Uh0cA2v6gsNBUKDF8JW2O8r6yZcOEHt1Dh35UF9YQnvQ4g6kVFiywKl5ySprglzxAVnSJD8HpeLQioR6iURSPkg/s1600/IMG_3360.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQQgTIr7-Q0VhBKqXVkjDW9iY2hfKBrQk6gKAQgnVjXNkyUNyJ4u0Uh0cA2v6gsNBUKDF8JW2O8r6yZcOEHt1Dh35UF9YQnvQ4g6kVFiywKl5ySprglzxAVnSJD8HpeLQioR6iURSPkg/s320/IMG_3360.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><br />
Happy 2012, and may we all let go of those things which do not serve us.</div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-66457639753626817812011-12-18T13:30:00.000+00:002011-12-18T13:30:25.073+00:00The role of my teacher<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">This morning after backbending on the floor (and finding that for the first time since I first spotted my feet a few weeks ago, today they were just a vague glimpse of pink) I stood to prepare for dropbacks, and after a couple of half-hearted warm-up hangbacks, I sat down to take my forward bend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The room was quiet, and unbeknownst to me C was watching me from her perch on the other side of the room. As I sat down she called out "MEL! get up!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I tried to explain across the room (until she came over to my mat) that on Friday I went to see the osteopath, and after the adjustments he gave me (and the nauseating noises which accompanied them) he advised me to not practice for 2 or 3 days, and to very definitely back off the backbending for at least 3 or 4 days. "But did you have an injury when you went?" C asked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When I gave her a head-wobble as my answer (i.e. I had a slight twinge in my lower back which bothered me only in shoulder-stand, halasana and any legs over-head poses - so not really an injury) she said "If you went with an injury that's one thing, but if you just went along on a whim because your job allows you to see an osteopath, then I don't go along with that advice." I giggled (a <i>lot</i>). Then I stood up. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By this stage I was giggling so much that I could barely control my first dropback. She had completely<i> </i>got the measure of me....so going straight to the top of the list today of the numerous roles of a mysore teacher is...</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;"><b>...calling you out on your bullshit.</b></span></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-43085911766703486812011-12-08T12:06:00.000+00:002011-12-08T12:06:22.537+00:00Blogging dilemma<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">So, just a petit post for a petit dilemma (which, incidentally, I prefer to spell with an n, but apparently is with a double m. Who knew?!). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I may have mentioned ;) I will be heading off to India in the Spring for my fourth trip to Goa and my first trip to Mysore, a trip of just under three months. And (considering how shite I am at committing to regular blogging when I say this) I am debating what to do about writing whilst I am there. The matter of blog secrecy/openness has oft before been debated - and whilst it's obvious that my blog is not private, nor do I attempt to conceal my identity, nor do I openly discuss it's existence with my family or friends outside of the yoga world. I have once posted a link to it on facebook thanks to the new privacy features but it almost gave me palpitations to do so. But I can't help but feel that at least some of what I want to share from Mysore would be interesting to my family who will (I <i>know</i>) be hanging on any and every bit of news they can get out of me while I'm away. But letting them in on the blog secret now would mean admitting to having fibbed about it's existence in the past, not to mention an immediate censorship of what I post here (including going back and hiding old posts I'd prefer not to share). So do I create a whole new blog for my trip? What if people don't find it - or worse - mention the existence of this blog when they do?? The thought of two separate bogs - one more yoga related and one just about the trip has occurred to me but seriously, how likely is that to happen? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thank god I don't have to live a double-life for real, I think the stress would kill me....Talk about first world problems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">p.s. am in backbending bootcamp. Had to do about ten dropbacks today and still no solo standing....le sigh.</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-27486625359557754052011-12-02T12:26:00.000+00:002011-12-02T12:26:56.948+00:00Nothing's changed and everything's different<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">It's maybe untrue to say that "nothing's changed" but given that the topic of my last post was hitting the two year mark with my teacher, this past week I've been noticing the extent to which my practice has changed. I am doing exactly the same asanas I was doing this time last year, but everything is completely different - I have started to experience the practice on an energetic level to some extent and it feels like it is starting to feel like it's been transformed, and that it's transforming me. True, I'm also in the midst of ayurvedic treatment, taking herbs and doing practices which are supposed to heal me and open my heart (and are in fact merrily fucking with my head) but I seem to be finding life a series of almost unbearably sweet days with the odd overwhelmingly disastrous tear-ridden thrown in for good measure. And I feel like when it comes to practice if these feelings continue, where I can find an immense sense of grounding with the energy WHOOSHING down and pinning me to the earth, whilst bouncing off itself and sending my flying with grace and ease, then I couldn't care less if I never get given another asana. I think the "secret" to this change is this: three years. My first year was all about figuring out the practice (and how to fit it into my life and find a teacher). My second year was about claiming the primary series, asana by asana, and my third year seems to have been about solidifying and beginning, in some small way, to understand what all of this craziness is really here for. I'm just scratching the surface, but I have greater respect for this system day by day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And on the subject of unbearable sweetness, and inspired by <a href="http://sereneflavor.com/">Serene Flavor</a>'s occasional happy life lists (and memories of the weekly "What we Like" lists in Just Seventeen magazine...) these things are currently making me happy (in no particular order)...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li>Hearing Blue by Joni Mitchell over a lovely impromptu catch-up breakfast and coming home to download it and listen on repeat. Favourite tracks...A Case of You and California. Listening to it transports me to the imaginary life where I live in an attic in Paris and drink black coffee and smoke cigarettes (see also: Madeleine Peyroux).</li>
<li>Re-reading the copy of Chocolat by Joanne Harris that I bought second-hand (and last read) on my travels in Thailand in 2000 and still bears the 200baht price sticker....and trying to not picture the beautiful Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp as I read...)</li>
</ul><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPXv7CKut2hUbQ-bjilV_7E7PKKs1MTkXBwr22crpRQD-tiuBL3VxiJtt8mQAzxHnzUSqBAbg-9Ns-3juoVRFXmuZ4S4cWJCK7NPf9Zkfvbux8XVqA_Iai1eCrKQdbVxnU2tx5yus_04/s1600/IMG_3184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPXv7CKut2hUbQ-bjilV_7E7PKKs1MTkXBwr22crpRQD-tiuBL3VxiJtt8mQAzxHnzUSqBAbg-9Ns-3juoVRFXmuZ4S4cWJCK7NPf9Zkfvbux8XVqA_Iai1eCrKQdbVxnU2tx5yus_04/s320/IMG_3184.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><ul><li>My shiny new epilator. I am <i>way</i> too lazy and disorganised for any sort of leg hair removal that needs doing more than once a week.</li>
<li>Blowing the dust off my sewing machine to make dolls for my nieces for Christmas...crafty, satisfying AND saves money. Win win win.</li>
<li>Navigating my way through my ayurvedic treatment and coming up against some of the craziness that I've been burying for years...or decades. It's not always fun, but finding appreciation in each little change and gain that I can find.</li>
<li>The huge new shopping centre 1 tube stop from my house which it turns out is <i>not</i> the work of the devil (as I first thought) because it means I can stop off for porridge or a pastry and coffee on the way home from practice. On the days when I am less than happy it seems that my mental health can be tipped back into balance by one of these excursions...oh AND there is a Waitrose there. Fully stocked up on rye bread, mung beans and avocados after this morning's excursion....and wheat-free vegan chocolate-chip shortbread biscuits. Oops.</li>
<li>The sweet and possibly naive thrill of anticipation. Sometimes this is the best bit.</li>
<li>Going to work...no really. I'll have worked 39 hours by the end of this week and I am loving being there. Every time I go I end up getting therapy of some sort...whether I'm lying on a couch or not. Reflexology after a 9 hour shift that started at 5.30am on Monday, an impromptu dunno-what healing session in the office to cure my migraine on Wednesday night (and it really did), a conversation with the ayurvedic doctor which turned into therapy....I am so blessed to work in this environment. What's not to love??</li>
</ul><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2NBw1t32zPxghchdGi2ppesbTqIAxx-TRciBL_3JBur9vmslZzMVVHY1Wzmd9zZ-iyvmy8NiN7o_EcdGHxh2n6S4ZWtIuniqoc2r1UWrWEu1QrgsJ15sIkh8QnSfinL8v9Qmb7AHwzY4/s1600/309190_10100699193472520_4923284_64018283_5450688_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2NBw1t32zPxghchdGi2ppesbTqIAxx-TRciBL_3JBur9vmslZzMVVHY1Wzmd9zZ-iyvmy8NiN7o_EcdGHxh2n6S4ZWtIuniqoc2r1UWrWEu1QrgsJ15sIkh8QnSfinL8v9Qmb7AHwzY4/s320/309190_10100699193472520_4923284_64018283_5450688_n.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>On my break at work. I look pretty miserable don't I?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Knowing that my trip to Mysore is oh so close, but appreciating every moment of the here and now.</div><br />
That should do for now.</div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-40200492393907184662011-11-22T14:03:00.002+00:002011-11-22T14:07:58.259+00:00Two years on<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">And so much has changed. Two years ago today <a href="http://lifeonandoffthemat.blogspot.com/2009/11/are-you-here-for-yoga.html" style="text-align: justify;">I rocked up atYoga Place</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;"> and practiced for the first time with my teacher, and I claimed to know there and then that she was </span><i style="text-align: justify;">my </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;">teacher – I usually have notoriously appalling judgement based on first impressions, so I’m glad this time I was right! And </span><a href="http://lifeonandoffthemat.blogspot.com/2010/12/happy-shalaversary.html" style="text-align: justify;">one year ago today </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;">(coincidentally) I was given setu bandhasana, the last pose of primary. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;">Clearly in my first year of practice with C there were major changes – I arrived practicing up to bujapidasana, unable to stand on my head, with unreliable binds in Mari D and (more to the point) I was practicing a few times a week if that. By the end of year one I had gained a lot of strength and flexibility and a 6-day a week practice, the marichyasanas proved no problem, I was more than happy standing on my head, after many months of fretting and injury (and finally a letting go) I was able to bind supta kurmasana, rock around in garbha, get my knees grounded in baddha konasana, and satisfy my teacher that I was ready to get to the end of primary. Dropbacks were added in a few weeks later, around mid December if I remember rightly, so I am still just under the year for working on those. Of course thinking about today being my shala-versary I got to wondering what has changed in my practice in the last year, and whilst the changes don’t generally come as headline news, they are probably more profound for the fact that they are more subtle. Things that </span><i style="text-align: justify;">have</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;"> changed that would be noticeable to an outsider are that I’ve added in some fancy party tricks: lotus jumpbacks after garbha and utupluthi, getting my legs behind my head from the floor in supta kurmasana, and of course my backbends have changed since a year ago when I was just doing three little urdhva dhanurasanas (and </span><a href="http://susananda.blogspot.com/" style="text-align: justify;">Susan</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;"> would frequently comment that she’d never seen me do backbending, and thus deduced that I was rushing through them and would come to regret it later – and how right she was!!). More subtle changes, or at least one which has come about only very recently but feels like a complete game-changer, is working on getting my </span><i style="text-align: justify;">chin</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: justify;"> to my knee – from my teacher encouraging me to touch the chin (not the nose!) to knee in ardha baddha padmottanasana I found a whole new hinge for forward bending, and am now able to look up towards my toes in the janu sirsasanas and Mari A. My jumpthroughs are coming along, I am now working on Mari D with both hips down, and over the past year I have – of course – been working on dropping back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And what a fucking journey that’s been. Excuse my French, but I think it’s warranted. After the pure joy of my first solo dropback on my <a href="http://lifeonandoffthemat.blogspot.com/2011/04/very-long-overdue-post-purple-valley.html">last day in Goa in March this year</a>, things took a turn back when I accepted that the heaviness of my landing was seriously hurting my wrists. A month or so later I came back to assisted dropbacks, only to injure my lower back on the right side in a poorly judged attempt at dwi pada to get into supta kurmasana, and again the dropbacks went out of the window. Many months later (I lose track...and wasn’t keeping notes) after patient daily work with my teacher, I started to drop back by myself while she worked on helping me stand up. The closest I came to standing so far was to rock up a few inches off a bolster while I was practicing with the very fabulous renegade teacher at shiny yoga HQ, but in my daily work with C we just keep going, no props or tricks, just daily effort.<br />
Then about six weeks ago when my shala fees were due to be paid, I decided to take a little holiday from YP and practice at one of the shiny centres to save some money (as I work there I get almost free classes). At the point that I finished up at YP I felt that I was <i>this </i>close to standing up, and maybe this wasn’t the right time to go away, but I did it just the same. And whaddyaknow, the teacher I went to did very little backbending with me (just three totally assisted down and ups, doing the work for me), I got an attack of the lazy and stopped working on it, and two weeks later when I came back to C (having skipped more days that I was away than I had practiced) my backbends had completely regressed. I felt that the opening I’d gained in my back was lost, and I was once again overwhelmed with fear at the idea of dropping by myself. So C allowed me to work on completely assisted dropbacks, and as the time went on I realised that this enabled me to work <i>more </i>on the standing up – because by the time I got there I wasn’t already whacked out on the terror of having dropped to the floor. After a few weeks of me just loving the assist, she took on a new tactic and started, instead of holding my waist as I dropped, to guide my hands in closer to my feet to increase the backbend. The first day she did this I immediately lifted my heels which I had never done before – a sure sign that this was one of the deepest backbends I’d ever experienced. The desire to freak-out was IMMENSE. But the next day I noticed that my heels wanted to lift, but I didn’t let them. Each day it felt more challenging, but each day when I laid down for my first backbends from the floor I felt this whole new opening – I really felt like I was bending my <i>back </i>which felt new...it felt like it was only my arms and legs holding me back, that if a strap was around my waist suspending me from the ceiling I could hang in a perfect tall backbend. You know, a bit like this:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuKuDlsH1K_7BChlSTb6-hjbPxRAO6jkeaB7jwuNhiwsQ6eNZxV-oLjSDt2dsyBUhq3Gh1OTWLcO-DOycbgTjO0TdUqDisYXqYiKsLl2SULO7to-wfE82KfAL3uod9k_v5Sks98oV9FI/s1600/Urdhva+Dhanurasana.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuKuDlsH1K_7BChlSTb6-hjbPxRAO6jkeaB7jwuNhiwsQ6eNZxV-oLjSDt2dsyBUhq3Gh1OTWLcO-DOycbgTjO0TdUqDisYXqYiKsLl2SULO7to-wfE82KfAL3uod9k_v5Sks98oV9FI/s320/Urdhva+Dhanurasana.png" width="311" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(photo credit<a href="http://whatsthatpose.blogspot.com/search/label/back%20bend"> here)</a></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So as it went, I wasn’t working on my dropbacks, but I was very definitely working on my backbends. And in a different way it <i>was</i> hard work, but of course the one thing I shouldn’t have done was grown comfortable with it, because yesterday Cary came to the top of my mat and said: “you want to try on your own?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I sort of whimpered and so she caught me as I dropped, but without taking my hands in, and after the whole routine had gone the same way, I was left feeling a bit disappointed in myself that I hadn’t really worked on <i>either</i> thing. So with the thought that today was a bit of a special day (even if only in my head), when she asked again today, I said yes. And I landed more gently, and with more control, than I was doing before I stopped dropping back 6 weeks ago. She offered to help me on the next one, but I said I was ok, so I dropped back all three times, and afterwards told her how much better they felt. She agreed that I seemed to have a kind of “bounce” to come back up. On the final dropback she assisted me, took my hands in, I felt the openness in my back, and after five breaths she brought me back up for me to (as usual) groan and creak my way through the squish in paschimottanasana. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And why do I feel the need to report of all this asana-asana-asana? I don’t know, sometimes it feels worthy of sharing, or maybe I just want to mark the day, or to come back out of blogging hibernation (again!!), but really I just want to remind myself that the whole point of this practice is that you can’t just expect huge changes every day, or that you can always do something which challenges you straight away just because you reeeeeally want to. For me the whole point of this practice is the fact that it <i>is </i>every day, and that 364 days a year you might feel nothing is changing until one day – BAM! You nail the thing you’ve need working on. But where does the work come from to have the breakthrough in the first place? Yep, of course, it’s the 364 days when “nothing” happened – the almost imperceptible gains that we make, even if we feel that nothing is ever changing. If you want overnight success then maybe this isn’t the practice for you. But if you are prepared to come up against your fears, your challenges and your limitations day in, day out; come rain, shine, snow, illness, redundancy, bereavement, and any other shit that comes your way, then your mat is ready and waiting for you.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_U9mhetylKWQHQghUfWa0dojGJPYARvReaEqWBX3P4xvsiXpcFH5iFyF9Kk-ULeVCgYJy5Rk51EIDe4xEQqPajHRWdDXhuBq9kG_jFRCxGP1pEASlyD77sg_UtJkgMHWZrBnzty0qsk/s1600/297820_2167229373041_1015888713_2448367_7141015_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_U9mhetylKWQHQghUfWa0dojGJPYARvReaEqWBX3P4xvsiXpcFH5iFyF9Kk-ULeVCgYJy5Rk51EIDe4xEQqPajHRWdDXhuBq9kG_jFRCxGP1pEASlyD77sg_UtJkgMHWZrBnzty0qsk/s320/297820_2167229373041_1015888713_2448367_7141015_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Backbending with Tim in Antwerp this August</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So for today, and every day, I am grateful to all of the teachers who set me on this path and to those friends, fellow-students and teachers who keep me inspired and motivated to stay on it. Peace out.</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-22388379153351949322011-10-23T20:37:00.000+01:002011-10-23T20:37:19.325+01:00At last<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div>"Hi, <br />
<br />
This is your final confirmation to study with sharath at KPJAYI, we have received your online registration form and it has been accepted by us. You can come according to your dates that you have mentioned in your online form. </div><div> </div><div>For now it is sure that Sharath will be teaching until 6th april 2012, so you can study with him till then. </div><div>Do bring this Confirmation print out, you will have to show this on your arrival to register in person at KPJAYI, Mysore. <br />
<br />
If you have any clarifications, please write or call. <br />
<br />
Thank you, <br />
KPJAYI, <br />
Mysore."</div><div> </div><div>This, after a month of waiting and *three* emails to chase. Mysore here I come!</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-5941639234342799532011-10-18T14:34:00.000+01:002011-10-18T14:34:55.828+01:00My grown-up gap year: the view from the halfway point<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I can hardly believe it’s been six months since I found myself free-floating, without employment and in desperate search of a new direction. My solution at the stage, once the panic died down and a sort of clarity emerged, was to give myself some breathing space – and this is when the idea of a “year out” emerged. As I let go of grasping, a sketchy plan emerged: to find some sort of casual work until early Spring, and then to take some time to travel before I came back to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The idea behind it all was that the “answer” would somehow come to me, or would come along thanks to whatever connections I made during the course of the year – this sounds a little simplistic, but I still believe that finding a new direction organically rather than searching, grasping and scratching around for something, <i>anything</i>, is the way to go, even if there is no such thing as one definitive answer. So six months in, how’s it going?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Well clearly having all of this extra time hasn’t allowed for much blogging. As ever the intention is there, the ideas and thoughts are there, but taking the step of translating it to text and sharing it is a bridge too far. The reality is that I have spent the past few months suffering from some sort of exhausting fatigue that can’t be diagnosed as anything in particular, but means that I seem to spend my time divided between practicing, working part-time at the yoga centre reception desk, travelling across London to do either or both of the above, and sleeping (though not necessarily at night-time). I spent many weeks incapable of staying awake throughout a full day, and this coming from the girl who never <i>ever</i> took naps during the day apart from in cases of proper full-on illness. When I finally went to the doctor to get it checked out I told her that my issue was that I was exhausted and had been for months: she asked if I had any idea what could be causing it and my genius answer was: “well, I don’t get enough sleep...” Given that more often than not I work closing shifts at work, finishing after 10pm, taking an hour (at least) to get home, needing a short while to unwind after I come through the door, and then trying to get up around 5 the following morning to practice I suppose it’s not really surprising that I’m bloody knackered all of the time. Plus there’s the lack of routine, as my shifts vary week to week, the fact that I got into a pattern of eating very little of any nutritional value for a few months (another round of <b>toast</b> anyone?? Or maybe a biscuit or TEN?!) and the fact that over the summer I had all-consuming houseguests for 6 weeks out of 8, oh AND I had my car stolen. So that’s the barrage of excuses as to my blog silence..</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But all of this has raised some interesting – or to me, fascinating – mental processes. I have been having regular acupuncture sessions through this whole period, ad hoc to begin with and then for the past month or so I’ve been having them weekly and started to really <i>really</i> get the benefit. My energy levels are rising, people are telling me I look better – brighter, I am eating properly again (is this cause or effect?), my digestion has slowed to more of a normal pace, my breath has grown deeper, my mind has calmed down. But I didn’t get here just through the acupuncture, there is a whole heap of mental processing that's been going hand in hand with it (oh, and I stopped following a vegetarian diet too, but that's another story). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Part-way through the summer I had a random thought, or fear, about one of my close family members where I imagined that I had observed a mental-health condition in them. The fear took a grip on me, I collapsed into immediate non-stop tears, I couldn’t shake the thought, the massive fear, that even if this wasn’t true now, perhaps it would be in years to come. I tried to stop thinking about it and get on with my day. As the days passed the thought came and went, it drifted in and out of my conscious awareness, but I watched every interaction with the person concerned for disproof of it and, when none came, the fear dug it’s way into the fabric of my every thought. Was this before or after my car was stolen and along with it my sense of total independence? I think it was after. I was stunned how much the theft affected me: on discovery of my missing car I was surreally calm, I called my dad and said “my car. It’s gone.” But as time passed and I was reminded that my gap-year and working part-time option meant that I wasn’t in a financial position to replace the car (thank-you insurance company for <i>really </i>testing my equanimity) I felt increasingly vulnerable. Add this to the fear, the huge, looming fear and all that came along with it (the inevitability of those around us ageing, growing sick and eventually leaving us behind) and I found myself walking to the station towards the shala one day a few weeks ago thinking “what’s the point?”. Not just why do I get up at stupid o’clock to practice, that old familiar refrain, but what’s the point of ANY of this? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And then the thought struck me: this is why people have full-time jobs and families and relationships, to distract them from the fears, the HUGE looming fears of the really big stuff. Take away the underlying day-to-day stress of a 9-5 job, the inner chatter involved in maintaining a relationship, and what are we left with the fill the silence? The fears. The big ones.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As luck would have it I was going for acupuncture that same day. When I walked in S told me that I looked different. Different how, I asked? “Rested: grounded” was the answer. Funny that, I said, because my head has been all over the place. Pressed, I just about managed through tears to explain my new theory of why we keep our minds busy, to distract us from the fears (without going into what I was afraid of, feeling somehow that if I say it aloud it will make it true). And through his answer, and our conversation, things started to make a little bit more sense. S said, you know how people often get sick when they go on holiday? They’re all “go go go” and as soon as they stop their bodies crash. That’s like a microcosm of what you’re doing in taking this time out – and I realise, and say to him that I feel like this year <i>should</i> be all chilled and calm and enjoyable, not difficult and challenging and borderline depression-filled, but who says so? Between what he says next and how I respond, I realise then that maybe this is what <i>has</i> to happen, I have to let the world stop spinning in seven different directions at once to listen to the quiet fears that lay buried beneath, and that’s never going to be easy – it’s going to be hard, and messy, and filled with fear and tears and pain, but the end result is that it will come out and I will be better off for it. Sort of like a noisier, longer, vipassana retreat (which I always say I'm too scared of for fear of having to sit with my own insanity for ten days and becoming irrevocably unhinged). And as S so eloquently put it, when we take the time to stop and really listen to what our minds are saying: “We’re all fucking crazy”.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Well that’s the crazy brain stuff. Not the whole six months had been filled with this, though sometimes it feels like I have turned into some kind of invalid who needs to rest and I can’t remember ever not being this way, but at least now I can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I have started a massage course for a few weeks, just a taster really, in Ayurvedic yoga massage and am making my travel plans for January and really enjoying working in the yoga centre. And that seems enough for now, my practice has wobbled a little in recent weeks with some days taken off to sleep, and even the odd incomplete practice where my body seemed to be made of stone, but I am starting to realise more and more that these things hardly matter. I am getting on my mat, I am breathing, I am feeling. And what more can I ask of myself than just that?</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-82225936758982423542011-08-23T21:22:00.001+01:002011-08-23T21:23:51.616+01:00I drank the kool-aid.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">This week (just in case you haven't heard) Sharath is in town. After feeling non-plussed when I took 1 led class with him two years ago (as an almost complete newbie) I was torn between utter terror and major excitement in the run-up to his arrival, but three days in I am absolutely 100% loving the experience, 4.30am alarms and all. In brief, here is why:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He just walks into the room and we all stand in silence. There is no fluff, no precursor, no bullshit. Just his presence, at which silence falls, his quiet removal of his jacket with his back to us, the feeling of anticipation as he faces us and we rise and come to front of our mats, waiting to hear him say "samasthiti" at which point absolute stillness falls. It is nothing short of magical.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The feeling of being surrounded by so many dedicated ashtangis, knowing that they have travelled from far and wide for the same reason is in itself something special.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fact that I know or recognise so many of them makes it all the more special. My twitter friends, most of whom I've met previously, but one very special person who I hadn't, are making the week even greater than the sum of its' parts. Lovely ladies from Dublin who I practiced with at Peter Sanson's workshop, colleagues from shiny yoga HQ, my regular shala-mates, familiar faces from work and previous workshops, seeing all of these people here together in one room reminds me that London is <i>not</i> a big and faceless or lonely place. It also reminds me how we have managed to create an incredible, supportive and loving set of connections in this big and sometimes scary world by connecting through our breath and our intentions. And a very special friend gives the most incredible pre-practice hugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As we all move together, following Sharath's count (sometimes longer than we would wish, sometimes not long enough) I feel the power of moving to somebody else's instruction. It doesn't feel like giving over the power, as it sometimes can, it feels like blissful surrender.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The focus in the room is incredible. It is palpable. The gentle giggles when Sharath makes one of the jokes we all know he will make soften us and reminds us not to take things too seriously.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the people who need him, he is magically there. For those who perhaps don't, to suggest that a week of adjustment-free led practice won't teach you anything would be utterly and completely missing the point. I am yet to feel the touch of his hand on me, but as he walks past and his eyes move over my practice without pausing, my confidence in my strength grows. I am learning so much, just through each breath I take in that room, surrounded by a hundred others who are also learning untold amounts each day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">With every count, every breath, every day, my intention to go to Mysore and practice with Sharath strengthens. He reminds me why I am here, why I turn up on my mat every day. The practice goes by so quickly even if sometimes the count does not.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Each day reminds me how far I have come. Each day I feel stronger, even though I also feel more tired. I am growing through this experience. I am sharing it with my friends. I am leaving the room a different person than the one I am when I arrive. I am filled with the feeling that the world is small, and friendly, and that loving connections are everywhere you look.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I keep the faith in difficult postures where I would usually count quickly and give up: navasana, uttana padasana, sirsasana, ardha sirsasana. In utipluthi, I have a little less faith ;)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The feeling of connectedness as we take our final vinyasa to the top of the mat to recite the closing chant is markedly different than at the opening of our practice. I feel my ankles and feet bonded together, utterly grounded and still. I find my breath to chant, and as I left today I kept Sharath's pronunciation of "lokah samastha" running around my head in a loop. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">As we take a brief savasana the energy in the room is electric. I feel the energy radiating around me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is why he is the guru. In this room, in this way, he teaches with no westernised adaptations. Maybe this isn't for everyone, but I know without question that is is for me. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think we can pretty much say I drank the kool-aid. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlEg-ce5ylrwhSx4T39QXjZ5dBNNd7f9yGU8h79HJ8lzOxiTMmIyKMU45GtaGeU2e51MpslhELJ5mqTftN7lQe97Cx8cvGv1ZJXWb2O8_2zBDliTn8rv6SVW3mCmSe8-LbDkFGin4dz0/s1600/IMG_3126.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlEg-ce5ylrwhSx4T39QXjZ5dBNNd7f9yGU8h79HJ8lzOxiTMmIyKMU45GtaGeU2e51MpslhELJ5mqTftN7lQe97Cx8cvGv1ZJXWb2O8_2zBDliTn8rv6SVW3mCmSe8-LbDkFGin4dz0/s320/IMG_3126.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Been there, done that, got the tshirt.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
</div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-64449591224938777802011-07-27T13:03:00.000+01:002011-07-27T13:03:49.895+01:00The teacher student relationship, dropbacks and a grown-up gap year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">So much time, so little inclination to write here...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Actually that's not quite true; I <i>have</i> the inclination, it just rarely translates to action. There is quite a lot I want to share given that since I last wrote both my life and my practice have been somewhat transformed. I was ruminating on a post about the teacher student relationship last week, which could have been a good'un if I'd got around to it, but the opening of that post was to be this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To the casual observer of this blog (and how could you be anything else, given the scarcity of my posts?) it may seem that I swing from workshop to workshop, gathering experiences and advice and slightly varying technique wherever I go. In actual fact, although I was perhaps guilty of this in my first year of practice (because I was so convinced that I wouldn't stick with this practice that I was keen to soak up as many experiences as I could before I threw in the towel), this is something I try to avoid. Having found a number of travelling or overseas teachers I gel with, I now try to stick with them. After two weeks with Kino and Tim in Goa this year (having twice previously taken weekend workshops with Kino) I am going to see Tim again in August (and possibly September), and then I will see both of them again next year. But actually, yoga holidays aside, I strongly believe in building a relationship with one teacher. There is something so special involved in finding somebody you can work with day in day out, through injury and stiffness, through bendy days and bereavements, through personal triumphs and professional disasters; finding somebody who knows your body, knows your practice, and (it turns out) seems to know your mind is completely invaluable on this path.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had the perfect example of this last week. After months of working on backbending (including three months recovering from an injury which prevented me working on them at all) I made a mental connection one day last week which seemed to provide the missing jigsaw piece. I was on my way to work, walking along the road and the question popped into my head "What am I waiting for?" and immediately I answered my own question: I'm waiting for the floor to be closer when I hang back. Having spent a few weeks (maybe less) dropping back to the floor without assistance in February I knew that the further the "drop", the greater the likelihood of hurting my wrists - which was what led me to stop dropping back all those months ago. But I also immediately knew that the floor isn't going to come any closer via my back: I would have to bend my knees. So there and then I made the decision, that's what I will do tomorrow. Of course "tomorrow" came, and I was knackered - I dragged my body through my practice and was tempted to quit before I even got to seated. But finding renewed energy after the Maris (it's amazing how the marichyasana through to garbha section energises you!) I reached the end of my practice, and as I stood hanging back deeply, telling myself to bend my knees, my teacher called to me from the back of the room "Mel - when you get to that point, BEND your knees." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was the first time she had ever called out to me to encourage me to try and drop back alone: on the very day I had made all of the mental and physical connections I needed to make to do just that.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I dropped back. Not once, but three times, with C bringing me to standing after the third. And then we did assisted hangbacks before I again dropped back alone to hold for 5 breaths, walk in, and be brought back to standing again. Afterwards I spoke to her, and told her that she seemed to have read my mind, and she told me that when you build a relationship with a student over a length of time as we have, you get to be able to read just where they are. And I totally get this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I think this is also the reason that sometimes the day you're given new poses is the day you were going to stay in bed. It's also the reason you s<a href="http://lifeonandoffthemat.blogspot.com/2010/03/suddenly-it-all-makes-sense.html">ometimes get new poses the very day you had accepted your practice exactly where it was</a>. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOsErIwKyn4wqMLXjQi_nnONtVdtAOEvLs1U-cbEWvUaJuekDGehioCQRxmm3rPSb_grYMMP2IUs4tU4qH3KCskgFBlTQuYLohSNNo6hufAHBuOS-GTWfuIyFRiFdvHv9uTeiX90n39k/s1600/197240_10150120880154076_782164075_6241171_261716_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOOsErIwKyn4wqMLXjQi_nnONtVdtAOEvLs1U-cbEWvUaJuekDGehioCQRxmm3rPSb_grYMMP2IUs4tU4qH3KCskgFBlTQuYLohSNNo6hufAHBuOS-GTWfuIyFRiFdvHv9uTeiX90n39k/s320/197240_10150120880154076_782164075_6241171_261716_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Backbending with Tim in Goa</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, so that was something I wanted to write more about, but that'll do for now. My practice is in a really interested phase now, where dropping back has ceased to be surrounded by trauma or drama, I am just doing it (I'm now 4 days in with my solo drop-backs, so I fully expect the drama to return at some point but for now I'm happy it's gone!). I also seem to be gaining so much awareness in my practice, in all kinds of different areas. And of course that is the point of this whole endeavour, it's not the physical "achievement" of any given asana, but the way in which we approach it, and deal with the fear or discomfort or drama that is the real yoga. So I'm happy that I'm doing some good work at the moment. C and I discussed the approaches yesterday, and she said that for some people they jump into the dark first, and work out the details later, whereas I have worked it all out along the way. So in terms of backbending, when I first began I remember not <i>doing </i>anything - I just allowed myself to be moved in certain ways to do the assisted dropbacks, without finding any of the action in my own strength or engagement (it all just came from natural flexibility). For me the fear came quite a lot later, after I had connected with and opened my back and it started to seem like I should try and drop back on my own. But other phases I needed to go through included "finding" my legs in assisted dropbacks, then REALLY finding them in urdhva danurasana - using a block between my feet to stop them turning out has been utterly invaluable for this, and I credit <a href="http://www.claireyoga.com/">Claire Missingham</a> for doing this with me in a vinyasa class and making me realise why I was being told everyday "heels out Mel!". On an intellectual level I needed to get to the point of realising that when I released the fear and dropped to the floor I would actually be doing <i>less</i> work. And one day a few weeks ago laziness crept in, and I started to think that the sooner I could do it the better for that reason alone. So now I'm doing it, but trying to control it is difficult, and I said to C that I feel the same way as I did in the initial days of assisted dbs, that I am just "doing" but still need to find what exactly it is that I'm doing. But yesterday she uttered the immortal words "I'm proud of you" and today she told me that each one just gets better, so hopefully day by day I am finding a tiny degree more control. It's all a process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Off the mat, life is pretty sweet at the moment too.Considering the state I was in back at the beginning of this year, I can scarcely believe how well things turned out. So in April I found myself out of work, and after a couple of months being a lady of leisure (month one: pure bliss! month two: pure boredom and loneliness) a combination of intriguing twists of fate brought me a part-time job working on reception in the largest yoga centre in London. I KNOW!!! It was pretty tough to begin with as there is a huge amount to learn, and being in the front-line as it were you need to be quick, friendly and extremely knowledgeable. I'm now a month and a bit in from my training, and as a general rule, I am absolutely loving it. On Saturday (the hours are pretty anti-social too...) when the next person arrived to relieve me from my shift I had that feeling of "owww, do I really have to go?" - how lucky am I??! The obvious drawback is that working shifts is tough (especially sometimes getting home from work at 11pm and getting up at 5ish to practice the next day - and next month I have a few 5.30am shifts, which mean leaving home at 4.30!), and there are a few challenging dynamics to work through, not to mention the financial aspect of doing a job like this, but the benefits completely outweigh them. And as I'm working only twenty hours a week, I have all this time to just do as I please...I have read so many books, been a lot more social than normal, visited my family, not to mention the extra yoga classes and treatments I can take advantage of at my place of work (half the time I'm there even when I'm not working!). The obvious answer of course would be to switch my mysore practice there as well (which would be far more cost effective) but aside from the fact that I'd have to travel twice as far to practice each day, how could I throw out the relationship I just wrote a whole post about? </div><div style="text-align: justify;">So things are working out pretty well. I'm thrilled that my belief that "something would come up" seems to be working so far, and my loose plan at the moment is to take a whole year out from my previous 9-5 existence, and see where it takes me by April next year. But I have to say, given that I am sitting at home with a coffee writing this post before heading off for afternoon tea and cakes with my fellow new-trainee colleagues, and then possibly taking a class with a highly popular and slightly swoon-worthy teacher this evening: life is pretty sweet.</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-84001193594673768312011-06-14T10:41:00.000+01:002011-06-14T10:41:25.854+01:00Peter Sanson in Dublin - part 2. Time to lighten up!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This post continues from part one which <a href="http://lifeonandoffthemat.blogspot.com/2011/06/peter-sanson-in-dublin.html">you can find here</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Evening practice is all well and good, but the problem usually comes getting up and practicing again the next day. I was a little stiff, and given that I was in the 9.30am slot I decided to get up early enough to eat a little something before I headed to the shala (as it turned out, this was a good move and didn’t adversely affect my practice at all). Eating at 7am to practice at 9.30, (assuming you have healthy digestion ;) seemed to be A-OK (and for me, better than eating nothing at all until I finished practice after 11.30). I had a bit of a logistical issue on Saturday morning as I was due to meet my lovely friend afterwards, but without wanting to traipse all round Dublin carrying my mat and a bag full of wet clothes I decided to trek back to the B&B, then back down into town again. Incidentally, if anyone is planning to visit Ashtanga Yoga Dublin at any stage, the accommodation they recommend on their website isn’t on their doorstep as I had assumed, it’s actually a bus-ride away (or as I discovered soon enough, a 20 minute walk) and the shala itself is in Blackrock, half an hour out of the city. I was then a bit thrown when during my practice, David announced that Peter would be giving a talk at 12.30, causing me a little internal battle about meeting my friend (who was coming aaaaall the way from Belfast just to see me) as I’d have to let her know I’d be rather later than planned. But of course she understood, given that I was in Dublin in the first place for the yogas.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Having given a more detailed practice report in part one, rather than write a super-long blow by blow account of the four practices, I’d like to try and get across some of the experience of practicing with Peter. Of course, this is something you will have to experience for yourself, but if I can in any way pass on the feeling I was left with after studying with him, I hope to inspire others to seek him out (believe me: you SHOULD!).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So the practice was strong, unBELIEVABLY sweaty (more steamy ashtangis) and we were moved around quite a bit to accommodate the number of people coming and going – I think the maximum practicing over the weekend was just under 50, and the room holds half that, so we had the “One more!” system going on with people waiting out in the hall. The early group (not me, boo...I missed the chanting) were mostly practicing well into second series, and those coming latest were seemingly mostly new practitioners, but the vast majority of other practitioners were either doing full primary (or a bit less, or a bit more) with many Mari D and Supta K assists needed. In a situation like that it’s hard sometimes not to feel a sense of grasping; firstly, that you don’t want the practice, or the weekend to end. With a teacher as inspiring as Peter, who just happens to live on the other side of the world, there’s a feeling of regret that he could never be my regular teacher, coupled with wanting to get the absolute MOST out of the days I had with him (especially given the fact that I had travelled, and made financial sacrifices to be there). And that grasping might lead to the wish for more help, which in turn made me appreciate that although yes, I am working on backbending (and clearly need help and inspiration there), I don’t feel “stuck” anywhere in my practice, and I suppose the only way that I could hope for a complete transformation is if that were the case, and Peter could somehow unstick me. But having gone from beginner, to less-of-a-beginner, I started to realise when I was in Thailand that the learning does platea compared to at the beginning – but that doesn’t mean that you can’t take huge inspiration from a workshop. And when it came to backbending on Saturday, I stood up to start my hangbacks to warm the back, but as part of my faffing I had taken my hair down ready to tie it up again (for anyone who’s never practiced with me, my look at this stage was sweaty-birdsnest) when Peter appeared. I tried to explain that I usually do some work on my own before assisted dropbacks (I didn’t dare try and fix my hair too!!) which he misunderstood, and thought that I meant I was going to dropback on my own, so then we just went straight to assisted. And having had an injury however long ago that I’ve been working at the edge of for months, these were the most pain-free backbends EVER. Not a bad start thank you Mr Sanson.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So after practice, I dashed back to the B&B, dropped off my wet things, picked up my handbag and camera, and then had enough time to walk back to the shala ready for the talk. There was also a talk on the Sunday, and the two days have merged into one a little, so I’ll try and just share some of the essence of what was said.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Essentially it came down to this: this practice is comprised of breath, bandha and drishte (exactly like I said in my last post - ha! Go me!!). Through our practice we are reconnecting circuits and moving the energy around the body – in different ways in each asana – to release and clear the nadis. He defined drishte as looking without tension in the direction of the flow of energy. When Peter first studied with Guruji, he spent many months being taught first the sun salutations, and then the fundamental asana, but he was never shown the next asana until Guruji was satisfied that he had completely mastered the combination of breath, bandha and drishte. He was practicing upstairs in the old shala with one Indian lady while the senior students practiced downstairs, and for many weeks he was taught only surya namaskar, and he was told to repeat it over and over. He joked that somebody asked him recently if they should do 5 As and 5Bs or 5 and 3 – “I got up to 24 of each! I told him, you do 14, this is easy! With no books to check, or websites to look up, he had no idea what was coming next, and just humbly practiced according to what he was told each day. Then as the monsoon came and all of the other westerners left, Peter was moved downstairs to practice with the Indian practitioners, most of whom were therapy cases. He talked about how different the energy was with the Indians compared to the westerners, how clear it was that this was a devotional practice for them, like a puja (but also how when Guruji left the room to make coffee they would all chat, skip poses and generally play up!!). He also talked about some incredible therapy cases which seemed sort of unbelievable (we’re talking: the medical world has given up on someone, they’re wheelchair bound, and in the end they’re doing second series. Huh??) but I understood that if you were there, and saw these things with your own eyes, you would never have any reason to doubt this system, or this Guru.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This was the basis of Peter’s main message: 90% of westerners do too much. We get ahead of ourselves and we focus on the external practice, and in turn we withdraw our attention from what’s going on inside. By practicing mindfully, being completely in the moment, movement to movement, we can bring our focus back to the breath and observe where there is resistance – but this is mostly in our mindset. He talked a lot about finding the appropriate level or amount to do in your practice on any given day – rather than just showing up on your mat and doing the same thing every day, to learn over time to read your energy (which will be affected by the moon, your personal circumstances and health, and many other factors) and to develop a healthy relationship with the practice in this way. He talked about how he finds the practice gives him energy when he approaches it in this way (“every day I surprise myself on the mat; first I do surya namaskar A and then see how I feel, and then maybe I do B... “) and he can then do his work, look after his family, because he has been energised through his practice rather than exhausted by it – it should complement our everyday life, not compromise it. He explained that the main way we can practice in this way (as well as reading our energy) is through using the internal action of the bandhas – if we engage the bandhas throughout the practice we should be able to hold each posture for an infinite number of breaths, whereas if we try to do the same using the muscles of the body we will quickly becoming exhausted. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Reading this paragraph back I realised I have said “in this way” many times, but this is one of the things Peter says a lot: “and in this way, we practice the yoga” so it seemed appropriate to leave it in!)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This all makes sense in the context that Peter was taught; one on one with Guruji over many many years (21 years to be precise – though of course the numbers will have grown in later years). He said that Guruji was able to tell when he was exhausted, and he would just tell him to finish – and there was no arguing with him! He said that it took him many years to be able to discern for himself in the same way when he should finish his practice, and now (clearly) he is able to do the same for others – hence the fact that he stops people as much as he does. And I really appreciate how good this is for us, it’s just that unfortunately for most people I’m guessing it’s not going to happen very often. If a teacher is looking after 20 or 30 people in a mysore environment, they are not able to watch everyone closely enough to understand and know when their energy is gone. And from my own point of view, my biggest challenge is finding a balance between understanding that today I should do less, and just being lazy and backing off something I don’t want to do (i.e. backbends!). From what Peter was saying, it seems to be a skill acquired over a very long period of time to be able to authentically understand your own energy in this way, or perhaps you are very lucky and have a teacher who can do this for you. I did ask a question about this, but of course, questions asked to yoga teachers are never answered in a particularly specific way, so I am left to ponder this and work it out for myself.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In conference on the Sunday, Peter said that he could really see the difference in the practitioners who had been there on Saturday; and I really felt it too. Practice was strong, uber-hot (again) and focussed and I felt over these few days that I really came to find and engage uddiyana bandha. I think this is something which was just the right timing for me to find, and I am incredibly grateful that I was able to meet Peter at this stage where I have started to gain access to the deeper levels of the practice. Backbending on the second day (yes, I’m obsessed...) was utterly fuss-free. I’d been moved to the front row, and was beside someone doing a good chunk of second series who happened to reach back bending at the same time as I did. When we were both lying on our mats preparing for UD he came and stood over us. “That was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so </i>much better today you two, so much better. Now, you come up?” the girl beside me said yes, I laughed. He said he’d help me. So I pushed up into urdhva dhanurasana, and before I had much time to fuss, he’d stood me up. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I have to say, however I feel about dropping back, I ABSOLUTELY *LOVE* this!! Somehow being stood up from a backbend on the floor for some reason just feels like the most fun thing ever – and in that moment I realised that one day, if I really work at it, I may be able to do that by myself, and that this might be the carrot in working on my backbending (as opposed to the stick I use most days). And we went straight from the standing up to assisted hangbacks, and lastly one assisted dropback and stand-up, all of which was over in double-quick time. So Saturday was the most pain-free, Sunday was the most fuss-free....not bad so far. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">After another wonderful talk on the Sunday I was feeling a bit lost. Not only was there just one Mysore practice left (and no talk), I had no plans for the day and the weather had turned grey and cold. I meandered around a bit, bought some lunch and walked back to my B&B with no plan as to what I was going to do next. I ate lunch in my room and then tried to pull myself out of the slump I had gone into, but all I really wanted to do was lie on my bed and cry. It’s funny, when I came back people asked me how my weekend was, and I was torn between saying it was AMAZING (because the practice and teaching really was) and being a bit more honest; it was kind of hard. Don’t get me wrong, I am usually very good at enjoying my own company, but somehow this weekend away was a bit rough on me. I don’t know if it was because it came at the end of a long period of time that I’ve spent largely by myself, feeling more and more isolated, or if it was partly to do with the practice bringing things up due to its intensity. I was attuned to do Reiki a few months ago, and I’ve started to notice that if I treat myself, especially around the hips, I can feel things moving – I did this before going to the Friday evening practice and it spun me out quite a lot, and this seems to be happening quite a lot recently. So I can only hope that this is a period of adjustment, that I am processing some of my “stuff” and that this too shall pass. But still, I found myself in Dublin (well, half an hour from Dublin..), cold and a bit sad and no idea of where to go or what to do. But I realised that I could either stay there until morning, or I could do something to try and shift my mood. So after attempting to do some research on my blackberry (which is totally shite for browsing the internet) I decided to go to the cinema, though I had no idea where in the city to local bus stopped, but I figured I could at least try. And off I went, feeling slightly better for having taken decisive action, and before I knew it I was in the centre of town. Jumping off at what I thought might be the right stop, I spun around and realised that I had stopped EXACTLY outside the cinema I was hoping to find. And the film started in 15 minutes.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And what does an ashtangi in the midst of a deeply intensive and inward-focussed weekend of practice go to see? Well, if she’s smart, The Hangover 2. It was so much fun!! And it was (of course), exactly what I needed – a bit of lightness to pull me out of myself and remind me that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously. A few hours later, feeling fabulous I tripped out of the cinema to find that the miserable weather had been replaced with beautiful evening sunshine, and I realised that even in a very small way, the Universe really is looking out for me.</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-7761870220155718722011-06-13T13:29:00.001+01:002011-06-13T13:31:03.832+01:00Peter Sanson in Dublin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Sometimes in life we get that call, the pull, of something we just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> to do. At this stage in my life I am answering all of those calls, and going with whatever my instinct tells me. And sometimes this means think outside of the box a little.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">On this occasion, that meant that (with a little help from ebay):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6W8pzUYof3vdJdvcvEsF-eGZUF6GtdQas49SLLbLyOypmgUqRYuL7trM45Q9nHfTe9LIax86Qp66ihTxZLWqsjhGH3mC54-m7iXeV1LeZRv3mpSfQtyc9x7DykLcBcHcHU8cPt_HfKM/s1600/IMG_2955.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6W8pzUYof3vdJdvcvEsF-eGZUF6GtdQas49SLLbLyOypmgUqRYuL7trM45Q9nHfTe9LIax86Qp66ihTxZLWqsjhGH3mC54-m7iXeV1LeZRv3mpSfQtyc9x7DykLcBcHcHU8cPt_HfKM/s320/IMG_2955.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>An anglo-concertina, bought when I was 15 and living in my parents loft for the past however-many years, plus:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15yK7hplBpchsOgGfaldtuxP9hS-4jWoqNqNRM3XEzPRwOQaUU8XULUcJILc3pSQ34VYrII6gEbDWaP2w-VKRq3ZtJiwlExTOhN4USWlZLp_Hjt88npJe_ESi67-ich3PvbbirHBEdyg/s1600/IMG_2951.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15yK7hplBpchsOgGfaldtuxP9hS-4jWoqNqNRM3XEzPRwOQaUU8XULUcJILc3pSQ34VYrII6gEbDWaP2w-VKRq3ZtJiwlExTOhN4USWlZLp_Hjt88npJe_ESi67-ich3PvbbirHBEdyg/s320/IMG_2951.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Cherry red DM boots (also bought at about age 15, even though they weren't really my style, and languishing in my parents' loft ever since), plus:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGKTT4ijigT9efnPFm-QpSjyqtszJH3-LoLptwiK_7sibE8g52agoDdLsiy7-pVUcAdRDeVWSmLUAEnNyPORsHW9fGk2DojfyaX_Cf-5Hh760YgS5O3Gs9AAkMmZa1kMsobGkMJE1gkCQ/s1600/IMG_2946.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGKTT4ijigT9efnPFm-QpSjyqtszJH3-LoLptwiK_7sibE8g52agoDdLsiy7-pVUcAdRDeVWSmLUAEnNyPORsHW9fGk2DojfyaX_Cf-5Hh760YgS5O3Gs9AAkMmZa1kMsobGkMJE1gkCQ/s320/IMG_2946.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Two tickets to see Take That, bought on a whim</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Equalled this:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUvbHm3E5Ny5dvQUEoPA9iyjdaqLgRwJ1bXaWxRcSPG0D5QMSdflk7wo2WFWjbSmv1qBPKFyeyyG4PRZ61fU7AEJcC0qcelBYly4nnFOHpeftjCfVAoZqvXDt8Dv8VZffxeFpYcTmEDA/s1600/243136_10150265929159853_670094852_8954173_2101281_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUvbHm3E5Ny5dvQUEoPA9iyjdaqLgRwJ1bXaWxRcSPG0D5QMSdflk7wo2WFWjbSmv1qBPKFyeyyG4PRZ61fU7AEJcC0qcelBYly4nnFOHpeftjCfVAoZqvXDt8Dv8VZffxeFpYcTmEDA/s320/243136_10150265929159853_670094852_8954173_2101281_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dublin Bay. Specifically, four days of practice with Peter Sanson, who I was so bowled over by when I met him in May. After one practice with him I just knew that I had to find a way to practice with him again, so I got onto ebay, converted some of my belongings into cash, and booked my space. It’s been a week now since I was there, and having processed it I’m ready to share what I learned – with a little help from the notes I took while I was away.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKKFNzgaQwoadc9RM7SYuJOp8QO4w-gZ2mi00lzKViMnxl_hSAoH-rPX4NoVz01k0euZWp1lcm0rlmLACoSszPMk1GnLImFnPZPTE2mXxrDHau2KpzCLMvlcNDty5xGjC19vANo_uSoI/s1600/IMG_3005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKKFNzgaQwoadc9RM7SYuJOp8QO4w-gZ2mi00lzKViMnxl_hSAoH-rPX4NoVz01k0euZWp1lcm0rlmLACoSszPMk1GnLImFnPZPTE2mXxrDHau2KpzCLMvlcNDty5xGjC19vANo_uSoI/s400/IMG_3005.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Being in the first timeslot for the Friday evening practice meant that my Surya As and my first few Bs were accompanied by Peter chanting, and I never wanted it to end; his strong, resonant voice filled the room as we all began to practice. I think he explained in London that he chants the ashtanga yoga mantras he was taught by Guruji before he learned any asana, and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete (anyone know what this might be?). Nothing makes you slow your breathing and make every movement so deliberate as the sound of a strong and resonant voice chanting in Sanskrit, but I realised that it would have to end, and that that would be OK too. And when it did end, he told us to come to samasthiti when we finished our next salutation and we chanted the opening mantra together. Unlike often when you visit a teacher and the mantra is different this was just perfect to me, and I was surprised by the amount of sound produced. And for the first hour there were just 12 of us practicing with a certified teacher, and I knew I had made the right decision to come here.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Peter spent much of the first part of the practice with an older man who was breathing like a horse and clearly struggling, and next to him was teacher R (who had flown over to take part and assist for the weekend) and I tried hard not to be distracted by seeing the first teacher I connected with in London practice alongside me. As when I practiced with him in London, Peter teaches quite verbally and with a unique style, walking around the room referring to practitioners as Swami (“up, swami!”), making sure nobody skips over anything they are having trouble with “Ohh – trouble you two. You wait me”, all with the strange (but quite wonderful) mixture of Indian-inflexion and a strong Kiwi accent. After I dropped my leg in UHP he called to me to wait, then sent David (the owner of the shala) over, and despite being a head shorter than me the assist was strong and fantastic. Standing in front of me as I held my leg out for the final 5 breaths Peter reminded me to engage udiayana bandha to lift the leg and I really felt it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Parsvotonasana was assisted too, Peter lifted my hips, telling me to engage mula bandha and I fiddled with the sensations trying to find it until he said “There! That’s it!” leaving me wondering how on earth he knew? The room started to fill up and was unbelievably hot, and as the number of practitioners grew we were packed in more and more tightly. Every inch of floor was either covered in a mat or soaking wet, every inch of my clothing was drenched. For the first time ever in a Mysore room I saw steam rising from the bare torso of the man in front of me and later, more disturbingly, saw it rise from my own body. I was assisted again in supta kurmasana – he called to me to wait for him when I was already in dwi pada to exit, and (this was a first!) I had to reverse it, go back down to the floor, undo the hands and go back to kurmasana. Reverse vinyasa! “Let’s take a look at this...I see what’s happening, this calf is trapped,” he says, rolling my left calf out and popping it behind my head. The extra treat is to be supported through bakasana and the jump-back to exit which is of course way less difficult than attempting it by myself! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I heard others being stopped at supta padangustasana and although I had come fully prepared to be stopped, having seen that he often stops people ealier than their normal practice would end, I went into ego-mode of “why should I get stopped?” whilst simultaneously trying to rush past supta pad to make sure I got past it undisturbed – bad lady! But after I finished the asana I heard “You wait me!” and he came over to do it again with me, and I got the same treatment I’d heard others getting. “Engage uddiyana, lift RIGHT up – don’t use your flexibility to come up” – as in, whole body off the floor if that’s the only way you can touch the head to the leg (needless to say, this is way more feasible when you have a person leaning on your straight leg than when attempting it alone). Then he got me to really relax the straight leg and to breathe super-slowly (“free breathing”) before telling me it was a great start, and we do more tomorrow, but backbending now. Which let me off the hook for dropping back (though I saw others doing assisted dropbacks who didn’t do full primary) but gave me more scope to spend time on urdhva dhanurasana without worrying about overdoing it. On my fifth or sixth one (he kept calling out to people to ask how many they’d done – in Peter’s room, it’s 3 minimum, but 5 or 6 is better) he came over and told me to take my hands slightly wider, but that it was good – and I felt like maybe my errant left foot was straight? Somehow it felt different, and much better, and I had the unwelcome realisation that doing MORE backbends is better than doing less.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I moved to the back of the packed-out room for closing and took it super-slow, ending with a looong savasana. But finding that my breath was catching in my throat (as it had been all practice) I took my hands to my throat to do some Reiki, and to my chest and stomach. Twenty minutes later I emerged, went to get changed and then stumbled out of the shala, making my way just around the corner to sit overlooking Dublin Bay whilst I ate an apple. And I can only describe the way I was feeling as totally trippy...it took me another 20 minutes just to eat the apple, slowing down every movement, feeling every sensation, and it almost felt like my head was about to blow apart - the sensation of mindful eating was so intense. In fact, it was exactly how I felt after I practiced with Peter in May, and I have no other way to describe it than it must be his energy in the room when he teaches which causes this feeling. Weird, but very very wonderful. Eventually I peeled myself off the bench and walked out to the main road to wait for the bus back to my B&B (another 20 minutes...there seemed to be a pattern emerging), getting back there a little before 10pm to get ready for bed, and more powerful practices in the morning.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Part two coming soon - no, really it is!</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-40539151135562993962011-05-29T15:56:00.000+01:002011-05-29T15:56:20.846+01:00What are you looking at?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">When we first learn ashtanga, one of the things we are told is that this practice can be boiled down to these things: breath, bandhas and drishti.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The breathing can be difficult for some people to master at first. To find the strength of ujjayi breathing without forcing it; to always move with the breath. I was taught well as a beginner, so this was one of the foundations of my practice. Still, there are days when my breath is ragged, or it catches in my throat, or I feel myself having to "stop" and take a deep breath into my belly, but generally speaking I think I can say: breath? Tick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bandhas are a trickier one. I was told in my first weeks of practice that it takes seven years to learn to use them. Hurrah! I thought, that's me off the hook, I don't have to try! But of course that's not the case, we are supposed to diligently try try and try until one day this will start to make sense. It hasn't come as a lightbulb moment for me, or rather I should say not <i>one</i> lightbulb moment, but a sequence of them, but over maybe the past few months, two years into my ashtanga journey, I have started to find that activation , and to feel the effect it has on various places in my practice. The funny thing is that it seems to appear of it's own volition as I stand in tadasana preparing to take my hands into prayer and begin the chant. And sometimes it just doesn't appear, and that's OK too, but on the days when it floats in during tadasana, I know I can rely on it to be present in a patchy way at least throughout my practice. Anything where the pelvis is open it feels incredibly hard to engage, I suppose this is where it will be easier once I can learn to <i>keep</i> it engaged throughout, rather than having to remember once I am in the asana, and trying to find it again. But it's coming.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Drishti is an interesting one, because at first I thought it was simple - just look where you're told to look. In most asanas (with a few exceptions) remembering the drishti was a bigger challenge at first than actually doing it. But maintaining drishti actually <i>within </i>each asana is one thing (look at your hand, tip of the nose, over your shoulder - how hard can it be?), but what about through the vinyasas? And in surya namaskar A and B? When shalamate SY taught our led class shortly before Cary came back from maternity leave (and I should point out, it was the first time she'd ever done such a thing and she did a GREAT job!), before we began she spoke briefly about drishti. She talked about using nasagrai drishti in upward dog, and focussing on the moments of awareness where we are fully present in the moment, and asking us to notice those moments so that in time they could be expanded throughout the practice (I'm paraphrasing and probably getting that completely wrong). But her reminder helped me, in that it made me aware that I was already very diligent in keeping my focus on the tip of my nose as I came into upward dog. Gold star for Mel! But I said to her afterwards that for me, the point where it all goes hazy is going into downward dog. For me, my practice begins like this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ekam: Raise the arms overhead, look to the thumbs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dve: Fold forward on the exhale into standing forward bend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trini: raise the head, looking at the tip of the nose</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Catvari: jump back into chaturanga, looking - slightly ahead? Never sure if that's correct</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Panaca: up into upward dog, drishti fixed very firmly on the tip of the nose</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sat: ahhhh....this is where it all falls apart. For some reason, rolling over the toes and back into downward dog, my drishti goes a bit swimmy, I lose the focus, and as I go back into downdog with it's uncertain gaze-point I frequently take the opportunity (completely unconsciously, most of the time) to see who just came in the room, to glance at the clock, to see who the assistant is today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In other words, a total drishti violation! Somebody call the ashtanga police!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyYE2YiU0RPprJxc4UgGG5XiE0wYv9IgNQ4ehK_S8OOm5IpGPJEBUEfhSIatNoj840j4GBCDam1lULxZpboww' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Swimmy drishti...not that you can see it in the clip.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A few suryas from my trip to Yoga Thailand last October (that's me in the purple) with Clayton Horton. Vanity requires that I say I think my practice has changed a lot since then ;)</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So one day this week, it occurred to me to try and hold nasagrai drishti from upward dog, right through the transition into downdog and see if I could manage it. I'll admit, the first few times I tried it, I felt literally sea-sick and thought "oh well, at least I tried." But then I carried on, and held the drishti through every surya, through every vinyasa, and found that the swimmy feeling was gone, as was the queasy feeling from my first few attempts. So the next day I did it again, and I managed to maintain my drishti through surya namaskar A and B (actually, B is a little trickier what with all of that lungey business, but I did my best), as well as through every vinyasa, and the results of this minor alteration to my practice have been quite incredible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For starters, I realised just how much I glance around during my practice. Those who practice with me can vouch that I am not one of those people who constantly stops and looks round the room (right Susan?) but it's true I <i>am</i> generally aware of who's there. who got new poses, who fell on their head, who broke the rules...and this level of assessment and judgement of the room affects my practice, and it something I am working on getting over (or I WANT to work on it, but can't seem to figure out how); after all, yoga helps us to become more self-aware, meaning that we don't necessarily stop doing things that are wrong - it just means we notice them more! Keeping that firm focus through the sun salutations leads to a practice which is 100% more focussed than in the past - if not more so. The impact is nothing short of phenomenal. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've also been surprised to realise that I haven't been keeping the vinyasa to one breath per movement until now. Somehow my transition back into downdog stretches out over a number of breaths, even in a vinyasa where I should inhale to up dog, exhale downward dog, inhale jump forward, this has been s-t-r-u-n-g out as I fiddle and faff with my feet, or kick my rumpled up towel flat, or - I don't even know how or why, but it's just something I noticed as I learned to maintain the drishti. And having becoming aware of it, I am now doing my best to maintain the rhythm of breath with movement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">An added fringe benefit which I'll admit surprises me is that it seems to be helping my jumping forwards. I am working on this as Kino teaches it, to jump as far through the hands as you can with legs crossed, then instead of giving up, sitting down or planting the feet, to keep your bum lifted off the mat whilst wriggling until the feet go right through to straight legs. Having accidentally engaged my bandhas before jumping forward the other week I felt like I'd found the magic key to get the feet further through the hands (i know, I know; I've read it/been told it a thousand times, but I had to experience it for myself to understand it) but when you add the drishti? Somehow it helps even more! I don't fully understand why, but there is no doubt in my mind that it does, and my feet are now landing further through my hands than ever before, and I'm actually getting one foot right through on the initial jump a few times each day. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So every day it becomes ever more clear to me how these three things work together: breath, bandhas and drishti. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The challenge comes for me when I get to surya B which I have some issues with that my teacher keeps picking up on (and hence my mind starts to wander too when I get here) but I could happily do surya A all day and all night with perfect drishti and disappear into some some of sense-withdrawal wormhole. And then of course after an ease-to-maintain-focus padangustasana comes trikonasana and all that follows which seem to allow for a bit of looking where you are going, realigning the hips and feet, checking who your mat neighbour is and general loss of focus, so I suppose this is where my work will be next: how to maintain drishti and focus during the transitions between asana until eventually, maybe, I can maintain focus throughout my practice and not be so concerned about what is going on around me. And there was me thinking I had to actively work on not being so judgemental and scattered in my attention, when in actual fact all I had to do was come back to those three things: breath, bandhas and drishti. </div> <br />
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</div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-74951719374243294522011-05-23T16:11:00.000+01:002011-05-23T16:11:11.733+01:00The life and works of daydreamingmel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Once upon a time (not a million years ago) I worked in an office, and my days looked like this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA9FuPtmvuYjQKaZWFN3b6LVYRDyK3Hn9xumyU-FskkRnUY1z0Oat8Iv1iZnOt0iuumLGfjlaneBS0WxpWsttkLZFMLNXuZPo2f59a9INfa8j9DTTKGI0nNqpRKARpyz8eXPplgZIIlXE/s1600/IMG_1942.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA9FuPtmvuYjQKaZWFN3b6LVYRDyK3Hn9xumyU-FskkRnUY1z0Oat8Iv1iZnOt0iuumLGfjlaneBS0WxpWsttkLZFMLNXuZPo2f59a9INfa8j9DTTKGI0nNqpRKARpyz8eXPplgZIIlXE/s400/IMG_1942.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My very grey office of old.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although working in fashion is supposed to be exciting, I was horribly bored a lot of the time. I wasn't being stretched, the work wasn't very fulfilling, and it was only liking my colleagues (and the lack of a suitable alternative) that kept me there for almost three years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then one day I found the <i>perfect*</i> job at a shiny happy company. I worked from home, and my new office looked like this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">*Note to self: there is no such thing as the perfect job: idolising anything without having tried it first is a BAD THING. But if you've been reading for a while, you'll already know this. Anyway, back to the story. My office looked like this...</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3C-yi7zt2nrKEnhQHNOB4Pgv_VZOFZJ55rZDQHBdpwIySWzB7aFNnKwEWEFQbDIQ448M9NHhvujfLwjTLrsJrUkvOA478VaQoUYWssFOwMFeLVPfototqj1SB0Wi7Qqn5FFi3P3MnEc/s1600/IMG_0055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3C-yi7zt2nrKEnhQHNOB4Pgv_VZOFZJ55rZDQHBdpwIySWzB7aFNnKwEWEFQbDIQ448M9NHhvujfLwjTLrsJrUkvOA478VaQoUYWssFOwMFeLVPfototqj1SB0Wi7Qqn5FFi3P3MnEc/s320/IMG_0055.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My home office, it wasn't usually this tidy though!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"> Or some mornings THIS was my office:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQtYT60aH-D8ePv82wz0OuuDQ4CnfWfv5aHPIFpeYkxPdMmwgdaJGC0WqxSa_D2OtUvEytpSNqxNHxmiX4LFlCtuh6tr0uYGYBYOzdVlkyUapzYh9chObwM09hZU9W2rowQlIPJPtsKc/s1600/IMG_0047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQtYT60aH-D8ePv82wz0OuuDQ4CnfWfv5aHPIFpeYkxPdMmwgdaJGC0WqxSa_D2OtUvEytpSNqxNHxmiX4LFlCtuh6tr0uYGYBYOzdVlkyUapzYh9chObwM09hZU9W2rowQlIPJPtsKc/s320/IMG_0047.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A patch of sunshine in my favourite cafe</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"> Or actually more like this:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHxeNWQLZ1XSlUx6ti7DyZx43OnGXbfl0h0hicHa4scEHv1dT033iWnWVtk8lmkrsG-TIXO_fb82gBeyc-LmwH3aEfqL-IijAwAKccF9b2U__hfjUxq4wXGk_EEnDdm1jjhattnZXNC4/s1600/IMG_0174.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHxeNWQLZ1XSlUx6ti7DyZx43OnGXbfl0h0hicHa4scEHv1dT033iWnWVtk8lmkrsG-TIXO_fb82gBeyc-LmwH3aEfqL-IijAwAKccF9b2U__hfjUxq4wXGk_EEnDdm1jjhattnZXNC4/s320/IMG_0174.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sunny Kensington High Street</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNHR_TjJwv6WzpCxZERyxNf-RxwM_CmnJC310GE7KyrFTix9rmwETZk3zRbQV0oAec1nLpHBt4gtni-xaj3CylRvgXWnsltQbR0vMpSEr0BWUkNyrWomogMZoxConm6jNeb76Ocu2l94/s1600/IMG_0176.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDNHR_TjJwv6WzpCxZERyxNf-RxwM_CmnJC310GE7KyrFTix9rmwETZk3zRbQV0oAec1nLpHBt4gtni-xaj3CylRvgXWnsltQbR0vMpSEr0BWUkNyrWomogMZoxConm6jNeb76Ocu2l94/s320/IMG_0176.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The best time of day - a Winter sunset</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRu7c1Igrz8dcdgW5IDP2wFUzH9Swvi8dfmp9TnI2gJWe5QrEdG6SqnFDQ6nCmm6VbpF99zwz31zC6M_AwoRrYj0HSS7MTVIqQhnGQj4IEQHgfa_MGxoO6g6pmyOi4kCd9d67Q4xtKg08/s1600/IMG_0177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRu7c1Igrz8dcdgW5IDP2wFUzH9Swvi8dfmp9TnI2gJWe5QrEdG6SqnFDQ6nCmm6VbpF99zwz31zC6M_AwoRrYj0HSS7MTVIqQhnGQj4IEQHgfa_MGxoO6g6pmyOi4kCd9d67Q4xtKg08/s320/IMG_0177.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Easily one of my favourite buildings in London</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">After years as a battery hen, I was free-range! I saw so many beautiful autumnal sunsets, I spent a night in Brighton and dropped in to a shala there, I fell in love with bits of London I'd never been to before, I learned not to be quite so terrified by driving my car as I watched the great British countryside roll by....</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But it wasn't enough. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And at the end of March I found myself out of work (I've written a LOT more about this in earlier posts in case you want the full story...), having come to the realisation that I wanted something different out of my work. And now, at almost the end of May, I am even more free-range than ever before. Put simply, I haven't earned any money in a while. But a few interesting things have been happening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first is that I did NOT have a freakout. Of course, I had moments of "ohmygodwhatamigoingtodo??", it's only natural to have a few of those. But what didn't happen was a total panicked meltdown. I just had faith that something would come up. This was massively helped by the phonecall I got just hours after the meeting which terminated my contract, asking me to work on a freelance sales basis for a small childrenswear brand my friend used to work for. This took a while to set up, and whilst I am officially doing it now, it's a bit of an in-between time in terms of selling, so there's not a huge amount I can do. And as I work on a commission-only basis, there's nobody calling and demanding to know how many customers I saw this week (good job too, as the answer is: not that many!). But knowing that I at least had the prospect of <i>something</i> only hours after losing my job definitely helped me to keep the faith.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The most interesting thing I have found is that the open-minded approach I found in Goa (where I started to believe that if I wanted to, I really could do ANYTHING - and there's no such thing as a bad idea) has stayed with me. I have come up with some pretty mad-cap ideas (even by my standards) but I have allowed these ideas to flow without judgement, and I have understood that each of these ideas or thoughts is part of a larger process. Take this as an example: one day I heard a rumour that the lease was about to expire on our shala. After the initial panic that it was about to close down, my brain went into a total mad spin where I decided that <b>I </b>could take it on (I told you it was mad!) and I started to make a plan to try and find out the full story. Meanwhile, I decided that if I was going to try such a thing, I really should get some experience and offer to take on some of the volunteer shifts at the shala in exchange for classes. Meanwhile, I found out that the lease story was completely untrue, and was just told to somebody who was complaining about something with regards to the shala and was told it to keep them from moaning (but then they started talking to other people about it). It was just a red herring! But instead of being disappointed I decided to press on with my plan to volunteer, but to do it at a different yoga centre instead which offered more classes (and which I go to from time to time and fork out for said other classes - kirtan, namely!). And what should happen the very day I plan to seek out the contact details to send in my CV? The yoga centre in question advertises for new front of house staff, and I decide that I may as well apply to earn actual <i>money</i> instead of just free classes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And guess what happened? Yep, I start in 2 weeks time. AND it fits in well with the kidswear sales job, which seems to be evolving into something of a (cough,cough - unpaid - for now at least) consultancy role, which is like the job I had for 5 years and LOVED (before the grey days of the fashion office) and is really getting my creative juices flowing. So my days unfold like this: I get up for practice, a little later than I would if I had to be somewhere, then I either head home afterwards for breakfast and chill out for the day, or I go and see some customers or potential customers after breakfast in my favourite cafe, before coming home to do some baking, sewing, blog-reading or - well, whatever I fancy doing really (which generally involves anything except cleaning the flat or writing this blog). It's a tough life :)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another way that I'm following my gut (though maybe it's crazy) is that next weekend I am heading off to Dublin to practice with Peter Sanson who I met in London last month. When I met him I just had the strongest feeling that I HAD to go, so I put some things on ebay and bit the bullet and booked it. I'm not saying that I think my life will change as a consequence of going to Ireland, but I just had an strong feeling (stronger than just that I want to go!) that I should go, so I'm going. After all, my instincts seem to be pretty trustworthy at the moment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am also putting this into perspective. Two months without (much) work seems like an awfully long time on the one hand, but on the other hand it is an absolute luxury, and in years to come I'm sure I will look back on this time with great fondness and gratitude that it happened at all. And whilst I am still having the occasional moment where I wonder how I'm going to pay my car tax or my credit card bill, I <i>have</i> to just keep having faith that these things will work themselves out. Because afterall without faith, what have we got? </div><br />
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</div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-67314672137512793102011-05-02T17:47:00.004+01:002011-05-04T10:38:16.738+01:00MIA and total inspiration.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">I know, I know...the bujapidasana bootcamp post I promised never came. And yes, I have pages of notes from my 2 weeks with tim & Kino (which when I read I think "wow! I'm so glad I wrote that down as I don't remember hearing it!"). And yes, my last post was all "woe is me I've got an in injury and feel like crap" but that feeling lasted half a day and lately I've been feeling pretty fabulous about my practice & life in general. But I have to just bash out an off-the-cuff as-it-happened post right now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_mPogvHU5IhzdFoJPUTqkdZ9YJxocWgyCv99wPhkQfCIvNOmD2EYvwHXzJp1hHoF9m0X5fVHROhqRj_5hMY4JvM86Wc2sTWgDZF-a4TNeRBP9H9adzsG0GdcabYAdiXzj-1tmfHP0lHc/s1600/198887_10150120879369076_782164075_6241149_7423885_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_mPogvHU5IhzdFoJPUTqkdZ9YJxocWgyCv99wPhkQfCIvNOmD2EYvwHXzJp1hHoF9m0X5fVHROhqRj_5hMY4JvM86Wc2sTWgDZF-a4TNeRBP9H9adzsG0GdcabYAdiXzj-1tmfHP0lHc/s320/198887_10150120879369076_782164075_6241149_7423885_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bujapidasana bootcamp teaser...</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Being a bank holiday weekend, and our teacher not really back from maternity leave, our shala was closed today, so several of my shala-mates were suggesting different options of where to practice (having a lie-in NOT being an option, especially as tomorrow is the moon day here). Although we are about to lose one of our 2 certified teachers in London and I've yet to visit the one who is leaving, I didn't feel a strong draw to go and try her out. Several reasons really; firstly I feel like I have had a LOT of different teachers lately. Tim and Kino, both fabulous, but both different to each-other, and to my normal teacher, then coming back to London we had two teachers covering C's maternity leave. The first I liked on a personal level but didn't click with the teaching at ALL, the second was returning having taught us all last summer and I lovelovelove. But with another few weeks until C returns fully we have a fabulous shalamate covering the next few weeks, and I already feel like I am entering the flip-out zone of needing to stick with people I know (the shalamate currently assists and is fabulous, so this isn't an issue). But going just for one day to visit yet another different teacher? Nah. Overkill says my brain.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Plus, I seem to have entered a new zone of practice. I don't know if this is because the lower back pain has temporarily suspended my work on dropbacks (I'm just seeing how I feel each day, but generally if I feel it in urdhva dhanurasana, then no dropping back that day), or if it's to do with having now been doing full primary for 5 months or so. But I have gone into this inward focused, deeeeep and amazing version of practice. On any given day I may become completely obsessed with my TOES. Imagine an alien (or a baby maybe) discovering toes for the first time - I notice them as I roll over them, I feel this amazing connection, I put the energy there and just trip out on it. Another day it was keeping my legs engaged and lifted in every posture, especially in upward dog and maintaining the lift in my thighs, and discovering the difference it made to jumping forward. Another day (actually, every day to an extent) it was finding the lift in mula bandha, realising that forward bends come from there and not the hamstrings at all. Point is, I feel like I am surrounded with AHA! moments and profound realisations of the connections my body is making with itself, with the mat, with my mind...and going deeper and deeper inwards, realising (most importantly) that whether or not I drop back, move on, or whatever it is matters not one bit. I have my whole life for this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So it was with this in mind that I decided to go instead to my lovely former evening teacher R on my travelling ashtangi day - not a new teacher,I reasoned, and I love to get back to her if ever I can. Then yesterday I remembered that she was hosting a workshop which I had originally been incredibly excited about; Peter Sanson, an old-school certified teacher from New Zealand was going to be teaching 4 days of mysore practice in a very low-key venue over the long weekend. I had whooped with excitement when I heard he was coming, having heard amazing things about him from my Yoga Thailand roomie, but as the time grew closer (and my employment status being what it is - ie I still don't have a job) plus this clashing with C's planned return from maternity leave, I "sensibly" opted not to book a place. Fast forward to yesterday, and lovely friend J encouraged me to text the teacher and ask if she was teaching in the evening as usual. The reply came straight back: no, but there's space on the workshop if you want to come. So what could I say but yes please and I'll see you there?! She asked me to come at 10am, so even better, I got to sleep in, take a salt bath and do some bed-hanging before I set off across London.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOSVzA_7ElBZM6IC9a9SPpK_iH2kbueOFtoq26RmPYq_aGL9FlG6QHZwqOVQD17hc6d87iUrGT1MhaiQFxegHvkmb_PDlp3MccHjynvXsqpAse9rXDkFvl-q3mLfVWtnHMOZOkCKwEwpc/s1600/IMG00029-20110502-1002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOSVzA_7ElBZM6IC9a9SPpK_iH2kbueOFtoq26RmPYq_aGL9FlG6QHZwqOVQD17hc6d87iUrGT1MhaiQFxegHvkmb_PDlp3MccHjynvXsqpAse9rXDkFvl-q3mLfVWtnHMOZOkCKwEwpc/s320/IMG00029-20110502-1002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So after a restful and relaxed start, I arrived, changed and walked into a very full room, hesitating as to where to lay my mat. As both Peter and R were busy I found a corner to tuck my bag in only to realise that the person I'd put it in front of was an old friend who I met in India last January! She flashed me a big smile, I blew her a kiss, and walked back to find somewhere to practice. Peter walked towards me, took my mat from me, loudly said to a guy in the front row "Swami! You move!" then sort of gave the girl to his right a little kick to get her to move over and unrolled my mat for me - the wrong way up. I was at this point more than a little daunted, I have to say. But there was my spot, right up front, so I got going. Feeling rather shaky I decided not to chant aloud (I always do, no matter what else is going on in the room) but stood with my hands in prayer so thrown that I couldn't even remember the chant. But the anxiety dissipated quickly enough. Peter commanded the room verbally, but not in a distracting way at all. No, it was in a way that made me feel that even if I received not one adjustment, a combination of his energy, the group energy, and the things he said would have led to a transformational practice. "Breathing, no straining; breathing" he said in his thick kiwi accent, tinged with the Indian lilt of one who has spent many many years in Mysore. "Swami, you wait for me", "See, it's easy, you make it so complicated, everybody does!" to the lady doing kapotasana, "oh so good - good! He is too good, no?" with the unaffected indian twang to R and then back to walking around the room, saying seemingly to us all "breathing, breathing, don't lose the connection with the breath, no straining". Meanwhile I was working my way through my surya namaskar with a huge smile on my face, trying not to allow the thought of "why didn't I do the whole weekend? this is amazing!" to take over my thoughts.<br />
<br />
There was something seriously magical happening in that room that it isn't going to be possible to conjure up in words.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I can't remember where I was up to in my practice when he stood in front of me and just put his hand and my back and made some sort of affirmative comment, then the same thing again a little later. I love this, it's a bit like being patted on the head (a la Tim Feldman) but it tells you that they are here, and somehow from the right teacher even that small gesture of laying on hands does something for you. I got the beginning of my first adjustment in UHP, but he asked R to come and take over as he looked after a conveyer-belt of Marichyasana bindings, funnily enough he bossed her about in a forceful way "Here! this one! Now!" but the energy certainly wasn't bossy, or strict, it was just...oh I don't know, amaaaazing. This is probably getting a little tired, me just raving about him but unable to tell you why...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyhoo, having been asked to come and start at 10am when the start-time was 9, while I was still on my standing asanas I realised that many people seemed to be finishing (or close to it). Then somebody left, and was asked were they not staying for the talk? And I heard "Five minutes" and started to panic. It was just before 11am and on my usual schedule I had about another hour of my practice still to run, but were we finishing up in 5 minutes? But 11.00 came and went, and people were still practicing, though as I began my seated asanas I heard Peter telling several people who I knew (or sensed) usually practiced full primary to stop and go onto backbending even though they had only got to navasana (or maybe a little further). So then I had the fear that either he was going to tell me to stop, or that I was going to run out of time, but either way that I wouldn't finish my practice and get to do backbending. But then given my new "I've got my whole life" take on practice, the answer to that of course is "so what?". It was actually kind of funny though, after adjusting two girls to my right in Mari D he told them both to do backbending, One obliged, the other went in search of the water bottle and did garbha pindasana. As she was in kukkutasana he came and stood in front of her and said "What happened? I said backbending! nice try!" but make no mistake, the spirit in which he was stopping people, and calling them out was on the basis that as he said to these two girls "You ran out of steam. Whatever energy you have left, reserve it for your backbending". Why should it be seem as a judgement on your practice if somebody says that to you? I think we all have days like that, so maybe we'd do better to listen to them sometimes instead of forging on through come what may.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Inevitably as the room thinned out, and more and more people took savasana, I started to get more attention. In Mari D I took my wrist on each side and he came to me on the second side and said "You've really got that one, beautiful. Now, boat!". I carried on through my practice. As I reached kurmasana, I took a deep position, my legs squeezing the sides of my ribcage and chin on the floor, knowing that at R's shala, everyone gets adjusted in this pose. In the past I have rushed to put myself into supta k just to show that I can; today I knew not to. But here it started to get funny, he pulled my legs in, took one arm around and then I tried to get involved. No no, he says, wiggling my leg around, I'm trying to bend your leg, you trying to straighten it - so of course what I had to do was just surrender and be adjusted. My left leg was hooked behind my neck "Oh, you love this one here" he said - which, given that I have been trying to figure out how to hook my left leg behind my neck from the floor (though everyone tells me it's barely possible) was interesting. My right leg flipped on top, he told me to take the right arm around, and then he got onto me about tension in my hands, shoulders and breath. The thing is, when you try and try to get something like the bind in supta kurmasana (even though I've been doing it now since last summer, there is still effort involved) you may not even realise there is tension there. But he wiggled my arm, made me loosen up, then told me to breathe: "No: full DEEP breaths...breathing" and I became aware that my breath was a little shallow, and very shaky. I watched it, it deepened it, I smoothed it out. "Now hands to the front," and I brought my hands forward, trying desperately not to slip on the insanely ice-rink like floor (this is not a dedicated yoga room, and every inch of the floor was a skid-pan) and then with his support, I lifted up in dwi pada (first time in - err, practically forever), then went through tittibasana, bakasana and just about jumped back into chaturanga, finishing with my head between his legs. We had a giggle and then he told me to take lotus, so without vinyasa I went into garbha p, he stood in front of me as I sprayed my arms and got into it, super-deep with my hands firmly on my chin and my ears closed with my middle fingers before he walked away and left me to it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In baddha konasana my head was wriggled about like a rag doll. "Too much tension! Let it go! What is this right shoulder doing? so tense here, let go, let go" (more head wiggling, right shoulder poking) - apparently the left shoulder was behaving, but the right one wasn't. I hung out there for a very long time, not really sure if I was being adjusted in A or B (it started as A and sort of became B I think) but it seems that my method of using the elbows to push the thigh down, which I <i>think</i> was as I was taught, was introducing too much tension on my right side. I can't remember now, but I think it was in supta k that the tension was also evident on my right side, so now he had started to notice a pattern. I was instructed to go to upavishta next despite the fact that nobody else in the room was still practicing now, and they were starting to file in and sit ready for the talk. Maximum last-one-left-practicing-anxiety captain!<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After supta padangustasana he came to me and said "do backbending now - take chakrasana" and I thought uh-oh, here we go. Chakrasana FAIL! I go through phases with including or excluding chakrasana attempts in my practice. I know the theory, and I have been helped with it by lots of different teachers, but the fact remains that on my own I just don't get it. But with Peter standing at the top of my mat I put my hands back, took my legs over, and stopped. No no no he says, you're making this too complicated - move over and I'll show you. Take hands and legs over together - haven't you seen how a child does it? And he rocked back and forth a few times to show me, hands and legs going together and knees remaining bent ("while you learn"). My turn. Somehow I managed to bash my cheek-bone with my knee at one point, but he had me do it again and again without attempting to flip, just the action of hands and legs together. Then finally he came and helped me go over, and I landed able to see how you could hop straight into chaturanga from the landing. Replicating this will of course be another matter, but I am definitely going to practice that rolling action of both hands and legs together.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Part of my reservation about going to a different teacher today (initially) was that to feel I had my moneys-worth, I would want to be dropping back, whether my back was screaming at me in pain or not. I know, I know..but sometimes these thoughts are there and we have to acknowledge them. But the lovely thing about having run out of time to finish my practice today meant that this wasn't an option. And given that by now everybody was finished, I took all of the prescribed five (FIVE!) urdhva dhanurasana with absolute focus of one on one assistance from Peter and it was completely amazing. I have often been told by my normal teacher "Heels out mel!" and last month in a vinyasa class I experienced an assisted backbend with completely parallel feet and realised what a huge difference it makes. But I haven't managed to replicate it, and clearly haven't lost the habit - but with C on maternity leave, I haven't been reminded for two months. What Peter pointed out is that by turning my left heel out, my right shoulder is having to do all of the work. Lightbulb moment! Tension in my right shoulder all through my practice, and then in my backbends it is being put under extra strain because of my wonky feet! I should point out that I didn't make this connection myself, he did - but as he moved my left foot, and took my hands wider, I went up into UD and it felt completely different. He stayed with me, moving me further over my shoulders and watching my feet in all 5 backbends, then adjusted me in paschimatomasana, telling me again to watch the tension in my right shoulder, and actually not to hold my fingers at all (my approximation of taking the wrist) but to take the sides of the feet instead, and take the elbows out wide. Again, completely different!<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_k7XtU7VygoIbcsYO3RzOOuXoYpSgzhNDk3Vp1vVzDqQD1OGDnP1FpdSSfBQqpfow72d5_fkJiwKQYYmAuopq4-wwPrc_avjQ93I6nksqKoZr3PQYk_xhuLGBBrLxzHftIr48HLh8TU0/s1600/189859_10150120882244076_782164075_6241216_7463873_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_k7XtU7VygoIbcsYO3RzOOuXoYpSgzhNDk3Vp1vVzDqQD1OGDnP1FpdSSfBQqpfow72d5_fkJiwKQYYmAuopq4-wwPrc_avjQ93I6nksqKoZr3PQYk_xhuLGBBrLxzHftIr48HLh8TU0/s320/189859_10150120882244076_782164075_6241216_7463873_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Baddha padmasana in Goa</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>I was instructed to take a shortened closing (as now it was coming up for 11.30, the planned time for the talk) without headstand, and told to take lotus but not to hurry the closing three postures. So I took baddha padmasana, then a few breaths in padmasana and utipluthi, figuring I'd rather take a slightly longer savasana. As I prepared to jump back from lotus Peter came over and asked if I'd done padmasana yet, I said I'd done it quickly as I was worried about everyone waiting. He told me to take my time, no hurry, and then - and I've never had a teacher do this with me before - he sat in front of me, softened my arms and my hands in the mudra, and then talked me through taking full deep breaths. It was such a beautiful thing; by this stage my breath can be a bot wobbly and uneven, but there's nothing like having a teacher sit and breathe with you to make you aware that it is, and to smooth it out, not to mention the fact that he was taking this time with me while everyone else was already long since finished and done. Utipluthi again he sat in front of me, told me to lift from the bandhas not the arms, and to breathe a little more quickly - I got off lightly with 10 breaths as I'd heard him tell some of the guys to take 25 or even 50, telling them that if you lift from mula bandha (well, he said "here" and I couldn't see him, so I'm <i>assuming</i>) that any number of breaths is possible, telling me that it was beautiful, that I'd done really well, that he was so pleased with me, and now to take rest.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And then shortly afterwards he spoke, just for a short while, and I felt still, and calm, and utterly tranquil. Everything he said made perfect sense, and was mainly focussed on breathing. Meditation not necessary when you have this practice, he said. All limbs of yoga are contained in this practice, he said. Pranayama begins when you take your first breath each day, he said. And I sat, unmoving, and listened, taking his words as my savasana, feeling the spirit of Guruji trasmitted directly through this man who studied with him so long often one to one; from arriving in Mysore as a complete beginner, to gaining an advance B teaching certificate. The added lovely surprise of connecting with an old friend meant that I took up the offer to join Peter, R and some of the others over tea and cake (well, it was only me eating cake...) and spent a wonderful few hours sitting in a nearby cafe having the chance to chat to both teachers, some of the other practitioners, and my friend. And immediately that i got home, I started thinking about what I could sell so that I can go and join Peter on one of the other dates of his European tour.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'll end this stream of conscience post with the words Peter finished with today, which he also quoted in the Guruji book:</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There is one thing that Guruji said that really stuck with me through the years. He pointed to his heart and said, 'There is a small box sitting here. It is Atman. Turn your attention here. That is yoga.' I will never forget that." And he repeated today, "God is right here, in your heart. Concentrate here. That is yoga."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peace out. Workshop LOVE!!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3644635069888572968.post-90173792168873649332011-04-19T20:37:00.002+01:002011-04-19T21:19:17.910+01:00Important things to remember.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">This is not a race. Nor is it a competition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't need to gauge myself against anyone else, nor compare, nor wonder where I fit into some imaginary shala ranking system. I don't have to be jealous of somebody who can do the things that I can't.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have the rest of my life to figure this asana stuff out. I don't need to have perfected it all by next week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">An injury needs to be rested, not pushed through and ignored.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lastly, and most importantly, there is no spiritual benefit to be gained from bending further that the person on the mat next to you.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I know all of this stuff. So why is it so hard to remember sometimes? *Sigh*....yes, I am going through one of <i>those</i> phases. And yes, (surprise surprise), it coincides perfectly with my discussion this morning with our cover teacher that I should stop dropping back while I allow my newly paining SI joint to get better. And how did I hurt it? Oh, through my misadventures with eka pada/dwi pada to get into supta kurmasana, that's how. Hello ego!</div></div>daydreamingmelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12950130144855104385noreply@blogger.com10