So what happens when you write about making peace with your practice being just where it is? You get given the next two poses the very next morning.
I’m not saying that I have mastered bujapidasana by any means, but Cary saw fit to show me kurmasana and supta kurmasana today. And when I spoke to her after practice I told her “Noah said in Goa that the role of your yoga teacher is to always leave you feeling slightly overwhelmed. So you’re doing a good job.” I went on to tell her about the very unattractive character trait I developed in Goa which I can only liken to a foot-stomping 5 year-old, mid-tantrum. The chitta vritti went something like this…
Why is she getting that new pose today? She only just started practicing a few months ago. I’ve been going up to buja since August and I still didn’t get Kurmasana…So what about me? WHAT ABOUT MEEEEE?
See? 5 years old. Not exactly my finest hour, but as I wrote last night, at the end of two weeks I did finally start to make peace with where I was at, and this feeling has definitely deepened over the past couple of weeks. When I told Cary about this she said that it’s funny but as a teacher, even if you don’t know that that’s what it is, you can feel that sort of energy, and it tells you that the person still has a lot of work to do. So she and Kino are completely on the same wavelength here – the work to be done is not about the form of the asana, but the inner work. Hence the fact that last night I wrote that I had let the inner-tantrums go, and today, despite a still (very) imperfect rendition of bujapidasana, I was finally moved on. After EIGHT months! Footnote: that’s 8 months of mostly absent practice. But still.
So what now, onwards and upwards? Not exactly. Just practice practice, and hopefully at some stage, all is coming.
A couple of weekends ago I went up to Union Yoga in Edinburgh to take a weekend workshop with Kino MacGregor. Having been obsessed with studying with her since I first came across this video last year (recorded at Purple Valley) I had pretty high expectations – and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed.
Though I confess, the night before I went I was looking at a load of photos on her facebook page and suddenly experienced this overwhelming sense that I was really not going to like her, with her perfect practice, her wonderful husband, her great success…I think that’s called straight-forward jealousy! I also have this in-built defence mechanism when it comes to looking forward to something too much: if I think it’s going to be amazing, something in me wants to lower all expectations so that I don’t end up disappointed if it doesn’t turn out to be great. But as soon as Kino started speaking on the Friday night I just loved everything that came out of her mouth, the way she had of explaining everything, and I knew that the weekend wasn’t going to be a let-down. I also loved that during her asana demo, she was not robotically perfect. There were slight wobbles, there was a bind she couldn’t quite get (probably Marichyasana E or something similarly crazy!) but it all showed that despite being awesome and amazing, she is still human.
It’s hard to sum up a lot of what Kino talked about on the Friday evening and over the course of the other workshops, as she speaks in such a way that it’s impossible to take notes without missing what comes next. I’m really hoping that the weekend will be released as part of her podcast series though as I got so much out of it. Even where there were things I‘d heard her say before on other podcasts, I still learnt more from hearing her speak at length. Here are just a few of the things I managed to note down from what she said:
Yoga doesn’t ask you to be peaceful until you are peaceful. Experience the anger, the jealousy, the ego, and work through it – if you back off from it when the emotion arises, you won’t ever be able to work through it and come out the other side.
This is really interesting for me because for a long time I have experienced overwhelming anger during triang mukha. When it peaked a few months ago I almost yelled during an adjustment, and avoided practice for a few days afterwards. I definitely always dread the pose but just recently the emotion has moved on from feeling angry into crying – thankfully in the space of 5 breaths the tears don’t actually start, but I find myself starting to shake as I almost hit the point where they do. So according to Kino, if I stick with it, soon (I hope!) or at some point, the emotion will be dealt with and I won’t experience it there anymore.
The depth of an asana is not represented by the form itself, but by the inner work that is going on…The benchmark of your practice is not the depth of the asana, but by how you behave in your interactions with other people, and how you go about your daily life.
This was something she talked about a lot over the course of the weekend, that the yoga is not found within the achievement of an asana, but by the journey you go on to achieve it. This was music to my ears, as I do feel like I have such struggles with certain poses that I wonder if I will ever understand them – are you listening, bujapidasana? Funnily enough while she was helping me with buja this week, Cary mentioned “the journey you are having with this pose” so I guess she and Kino are singing from the same song-sheet on this point. It also helps a little with my frustrations and paranoia about the way I am going about learning the primary series – though this is a whole other topic by itself! Maybe I should expand on it later, but I spent much of my time in Goa feeling annoyed and paranoid about the fact that I only practice up to buja whilst many other people I see do full primary, having learnt it all in one chunk. I made peace with this before I came home from Noah’s retreat (in his last conference he said “as long as you are being challenged and are finishing on an asana that you can’t really do, then you are doing the right thing for you”) but felt it again a little in Edinburgh, surrounded by people who certainly couldn’t achieve every pose but were doing full primary regardless. I just feel sometimes like maybe I am wasting my time, having been practicing just to buja since August last year (with very sporadic practice until this year, I admit) waiting to be given the next pose, when others around me sail through primary despite not being able to achieve the poses either. This point of Kino’s made me feel a lot better about this, that by going through the learning process of struggling to achieve the asanas I have difficulty with means that I am experiencing a whole lot of the real yoga!
To strengthen the point, she came back to this during one of the later workshops, where she said:
If we try to achieve anything in one go we deny ourselves the journey and she then quoted a saying that “there is no happy ending without a happy journey”.
The thing I really love about Kino is that (although you don’t believe it to look at her) she says that none of this came naturally to her, that it took her a year to be able to push up into a headstand, five years to be able to do handstands, and that everything that you see today in these very impressive demonstrations has come about simply by practice, practice and more practice over the course of ten years.
She also suggested that we use Guruji’s dedication to teaching as our inspiration to keep trying to achieve what at first seems impossible. Before the first Westerners came in the 1970’s, Pattabhi Jois taught for many many years with only a handful of students. She told the story that people would ask him why he continued during that time, and he said “I only need one student to be a teacher.” The suggestion was that if he could remain that dedicated to keep teaching through those decades with only a few disinterested students, we could keep trying every day until eventually we would be able to lift up off the ground in utpluthih.
Aside from all of the talking, the weekend consisted of 5 classes: the demonstration and talk on Friday evening, a full led primary and inversions workshop on Saturday, and a Mysore class and backbend workshop on the Sunday.
I was nervous about the led class as I have only ever done full primary a handful of times. I even had my friend help me work out how to get into kurmasana on our hotel carpet before we left for the class! But I needn’t have worried, I’m sure there were plenty of people in the group who had less experience of the full series than I do, and Kino gives very good explanations during each pose.
What was funny was that during the led class, the first one I’ve taken since Noah’s in Goa, I could hear not one but three teachers: Kino, Noah and Cary. Kino told us to find enough trust to transfer the weight forward into the pelvis in prasarita padottanasana, bringing my head much nearer to the ground and changing the feeling of it completely. Cary was there with the adjustment she keeps making to me in trikonasana which I have never understood but seemed to be able to replicate without her being there. Noah told me to push into my foot in Marichyasana and it completely opened up the hip and changed the feeling of the pose…
And as for the headstand, I can’t even begin to explain. Since I started ashtanga I have been struggling with it, and more often than not at the shala I don’t practice it at all. I can go up against the wall, sometimes not even touching the wall, and if there is a teacher helping me I can stay up in the middle of the room, but there’s always been something preventing me lifting up by myself when there is no support. People always say it is fear, but all I know is that I can walk my feet in but can’t work out how to lift them unless I am being supported. I asked Noah about it and he said “Now that is called a mental crutch”. Thanks, Noahji, but tell me something I don’t know - I was hoping for a solution!! I hadn’t even asked Cary for help with it, for fear that I’d actually have to do it. So when we arrived at the led class and the staff took our mats to lay out, I was pleased when they put me beside the wall, thinking that I could go up against it if Kino didn’t come round to help me. And when we got to the pose, I walked my legs in, up onto tippy-toes like normal, then I just thought let’s give it a go…only to find that instead of being stapled to the floor as usual, my toes came up and I tucked my bent knees in and off the ground! Next step, I raised my legs, wobbly as anything, and was shocked to find that instead of rolling right over my head, breaking my neck & meeting a sticky end I stayed upright! Not for long as it turned out, as I was so massively overwhelmed I was crying and violently shaking to the extent that I came down after the count of 10. Because the mats were so close I was really worried that my tears were going to be affecting my friend who was right beside me (though she later said she had no idea) so instead of letting it all out I tried to keep my emotions a bit in check.
How weird that this should happen in Edinburgh of all places. I was a bit weirded out about coming here in the first place as the city holds such strong memories for me; my ex-boyfriend lives here and the only times I had been previously were to visit him. When I booked the weekend (saying that “only Kino could get me to go back”) I had crazy dreams that night and was so worried that being back there would re-open the wounds. But the fact of the matter is, my life has changed extraordinarily since I was last there.
Lying in savasana I realised that this weekend in Edinburgh was like the closing of the circle: 1 year ago exactly I was just starting ashtanga at Purple Valley with Jeff & Harmony, arriving there with a broken heart and a crushed spirit, and wanting desperately to be happy again. Now here I was, voluntarily back in the city I couldn’t even bear to hear the name of back then, realising that I am probably happier now than I’ve ever been in my life.
This evening I went to a kirtan class, and although I feel like it probably “should” clear my mind, I tend to think a lot while I am chanting. But somehow the thoughts seem clearer, and I am to be able to work things out while I am thinking, without getting caught up in familiar patterns. While I was there today, I decided that I wanted to write this post when I got home but I’ll warn you now, it’s going to be unashamedly sentimental and I’m going to try and tug at your heartstrings. Ready?
This is my beautiful niece who is now two and a half. Until she was born I didn’t really understand how much you could love a child who is not your own. I am hopelessly in love with her and what she did for our family when she arrived as the first baby, the first niece, the first grandchild, in July 2007 cannot be underestimated. She helped to turn our family from one that not very nice things happened to, to one blessed with a beautiful, exuberant, intelligent and hugely charismatic little girl. She loves my parents almost as much as they love her, and my brother adores being an Uncle. So why am I telling you all of this?
Just before Christmas, my sister bumped into a lady she met through one of the various baby groups she had attended when my niece was born. My sister hadn’t seen this mum around for a while, and soon discovered why. Her little girl, Stella, who is the same age as my niece, my diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer when she was 17 months old. I’m not an expert on the condition but from what I have read, Neuroblastoma is pretty much as bad as it can get for a child of that age. Her chances of survival with the treatment available in the UK are just 20%. To bring her chances up to 80% the family were campaigning to send Stella to the US for antibody therapy not available in England. The major drawback was the price: £250,000.
Hearing about this from somebody even loosely connected to my niece obviously touched everybody in my family. After I had donated some money, I posted the link on twitter and was thrilled when one of my online friends in American donated (thank you M). Then while I was in India I had an email from my parents saying that they were organising a quiz for Stella’s appeal (all I could think was, I'm so lucky my parents are good people). Although they attend a lot of quizzes my parents had never organised one before, but soon they were making plans to borrow tables and chairs to accommodate 30 teams of 8 people each – that’s 240 people! Despite feeling very stressed on the day and worried about keeping that many people entertained, everybody pulled together and it all went well (although sadly I couldn’t be there). The end result was fantastic – not only did everybody have lots of fun, but when the sums were done they had collected £2,500 – or as my Dad put it, 1% of the total. Of course that’s fantastic, but there is still a long way to go. The curent total stands at just over £15,000. Having completed treatment here in the UK (as it says on her website: "70 days of aggressive chemotherapy; major surgery to remove the primary tumour; a stem cell rescue that wipes out her bone marrow, three weeks of radio therapy and six months of oral chemotherapy") Stella is actually in America starting treatment as we speak, and the family have been allowed to start it when only a fraction of the money has been raised. So now the pressure is really on…
I appreciate that there are many, many stories like this and other causes which you might feel are more deserving of your money because they will help more people. Afterall, this is a lot of money needed to help “just” one little girl. But I know, and I am sure most of you do too, that is that one little girl was your little girl, or your niece, or your best friend’s baby, or your neighbour, you would do whatever you possibly could to keep her here. The alternative is impossible to contemplate.
So what occurred to me during my class this evening was that if everybody who read this blog, all of the people in my beautiful worldwide cyber sangha donated just the cost of a regular yoga class, whether that is $15, £10, €7: whatever it may be, then that could be your little dose of karma yoga for the day. And if you feel like it, maybe you could leave a comment and tell me that you’ve done it, or label your donation in some way, or else stay completely anonymous. The choice is yours. I’m making my karmayoga donation this evening and holding both of my baby nieces in my heart while I do so, thinking there but for the grace of God…
And you can read full details about Stella, her treatment and the campaign here: http://www.forstella.org/
I also think it's important to point out that none of the money they are raising is to cover travel or living expenses for the 6 months that Stella and her Mum will be in Philadelphia for the treatment.
So how long is it since my last post? I'm coming to realise that for me, there are a lot of similarities between practicing yoga and writing. I really really want to do both things, but somehow I will find every excuse under the sun to avoid them.
As anyone who has kept up with this blog will see, I am at best sporadic at keeping it going – at worst, I break my promises! "One post on David Swenson, more to follow" which never materialised – and as for my retreat blogging? The less said about that the better. In my defence, while I was away in India I seemed to come out in a rash (well, substitute an appropriate India-related malady) every time I went in the computer room. I took reams and reams of notes during conference, and wrote other bits and pieces about how I was feeling about everything and what I was going through with my mental and physical journey, planning to write it all up when I got back. But I found the notes all slightly overwhelming, it was going to take so long to make any sense of it, and I came home to a week-long bout of jet lag, followed by a week-long stinking cold, all the while trying to adjust to being back at work after 3 weeks off. And even though I have had other things to blog about since I came back, and keep having tons of ideas and things I want to say, I am overwhelmed by the weight of the “backlog” I have created for myself catching up on my ashtanga retreat.
My practice goes in much the same way. I go through enthusiastic phases, and phases where I resist getting on my mat and would rather be anywhere but there. I have reached the point in the (not too distant) past where it seemed too overwhelming to go back to square one after a break from regular practice. Most of the time I would rather talk about yoga than actually do it: oh in theory I love to practice, or should that be would love to practice, but the time spent thinking/reading/talking (not writing!) about yoga vs. actual mat-time is pitiful. But this last week, I have made it to Mysore classes on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday. I have started to feel a change in my practice, in my approach to the early starts, and I have definitely seen a change in the way my teacher is with me now that I am seen to be practicing more. During a very lovely elongated breakfast and lunch on Sunday (with fellow bloggers Helen, Globie & Susananda), Susan said something about not being able to stop once you start practicing, because your body feels so sore without it. Having been an erratic practitioner over the past year, I am more accustomed to my body hurting because of it, but this week I realised that that has changed. I had been avoiding practice on Monday & Tuesday this week, because of a huge adverse reaction I had to an adjustment on Sunday (It was in triang mukha – which always makes me angry for some reason, I had a strong adjustment and found myself completely livid – it was all I could do not to scream and or smack my poor lovely teacher!). Anyway so Monday & Tuesday was a bit of gentle stretching, but through the day at work my back and shoulders just felt so sore, and I came to realise that the only thing that would help was a proper practice. So on Wednesday I set the alarm for 5.20 and off I went, and it really really helped my back. The biggest newsflash was that I was no more tired by the end of the working day than I ever am: so today I went again. And I think (hope) that I might have cracked it now. If I can get to Mysore classes a couple of weekdays plus Sundays I just know I will start to feel the benefit.
The point was, today I realised that writing and yoga are quite similar for me. Right now, yoga is my “thing”. Those who have known me a long time remember when writing was my thing – for about four years in my mid twenties I was writing a novel, and had reached about 40,000 words when I just lost the faith and gave up. It horrifies me to thing of all of the hours I put into it, and that I just gave up so easily. But much as I am doing with my blog now, I would get so caught up in writing one section and getting it perfect, that I could be on 7 edits of a chapter before I moved on to the next one. My writing teacher was constantly saying “Just get it down, keep moving forward, don’t lose your momentum!” and much as I wanted to do it, I always seemed to fall behind somehow. So while I’m busy trying to write a well formed essay every time I post on my blog, those that I enjoy the most (and envy!) are either short, snappy and regularly updated like Skippetty Street (not to mention funny, cute AND informative, Jaime I should hate you!!), or more stream of conscience style. I need to remember my writing teacher’s words and just get on with it – or as Jaime often reminds me “Don’t think, just do!!”
But the other thing I have realised is that the two things can actually feed into one another: through yoga, I have the opportunity to write again. My problem is actually having too much to say now that I have a ready-formed topic, whereas when I was trying to create a work of fiction my imagination would frequently go AWOL. So if I lose the yoga, I lose the writing again. This post was all so clear in my mind and it has taken on a bit of a different form but I think what I’m getting at is that I am going to try and take a step forward with both things, writing and yoga, and even if they are only little baby steps I’m going to keep on taking them until they turn into big strides.
So here I am in Goa, using a computer in the communal room at Purple Valley yoga retreat with so many lines running down th escreen and letters rubbed off the keyboard I will apologise now for appalling typing and spellling. I arrived late on 1st January to begin 2 weeks with Noah Williams and I have so enjoyed reading other people's accounts of intensive courses that (at the moment) I am planning to blog as much as I can, while balancing this with the need to get away from technology! I took loads of notes yesterday so I'll see how I go, but forgive me if my posts are a bit more stream of conscience than normal...
Day 1 was actually a bit of a struggle. It's really hard not to compare to "last time" and think about the people who I met here, the teachers, the vibe - all of which are very different this time around. I wish in a way I'd kept a diary when I was here before, as I'm sure I felt just as lost on day 1 (if not more so). The major difference is that last time my expectations were so different: I was here to get over my broken life, as long as I didn't have a breakdown I would consider the trip a success. This time the focus is so different, it's more about getting my practice back, working on my practice, refining the things I don't do well (or easily). I'm not spending my whole time trying to figure out how I will fit this into my life (and if I want to) which is how I felt before, and I know now how tough it is to integrate the practice when you get back to the real world. In a way I hope that will make the expericence all the more powerful, because I can reference it against my real-life as opposed to seeing it in the bubble of the retreat setting.
I have a whole list of notes for what I intended to put in this first post but I have limited time on the computer so I'd better make it brief ;) Yesterday morning there were 2 led classes, full primary at 6.30 and half primary for beginners at 8.30. My plan was to go to the early class (as I don't practice full primary I like teh opportunity to see it and try it all once in a while) but I cleverly managed to set my alarm wrong - it was set for 6am, but only for Monday-Friday . Luckily I woke at 7.15, made it to the second class and was glad I did...it was really tough!! If I was a complete beginner I honestly think I'd have had heart failure (or a nervous breakdown): 5 suryanamaskar A's, 5 B's (normally that gets cut in led?) then prinary up to navasana, no modifications, vinyasas on both sides, no skipping (with 1 exception - the 2nd revolved triangle). In other words, almost the same as my usual practice, but then we cut straight from navasana to the closing 3 postures, no backbends, no closing and I sort of missed it! Then in the afternoon we had conference, and I wrote 12 pages of notes (yes, I am a yogadork). I am planning to write some of that stuff up but I got a huge amount out of it, I got to see more of my new teacher and he told some really sweet & funny Guruji stories (always a big hit, as soon as the Guruji accent comes out you know you're going to make the ashtangis giggle) but there's one thing I must share now as Noah spoke to me about it this morning. I've always disliked led classes, I never feel like I connect with my breath or my pactice, it's always a rush to keep up, and I feel like it is wrong to feel that way.
But yesterday Noah talked about led classes with Guruji in the last years of his life, and he talked about how they didn't even hold any of the asanas in later years - because the function of a led class is to learn the vinyasas and when to breath. That is it. I told him this morning it was a relief to be told that as I'd felt a bit guilty about not liking led, and he told me he hates them too! And they are just there to learn the count, and where to breath. As he put it, it's not really yoga in a led class because your focus is all external.
Now I really have to go as I've overrun my time slot on the computer. More later (I hope). If I take 12 pages of notes every day at conference though I'm never going to have the time to write about it, let alone to write about my practice too, not when there's so many hours of eating and lounging about to be done too!!
Like most other people, I am finding myself getting a bit stressed and strung out in the pre-Christmas madness. If you could play out my internal dialogue it would go a bit like this: "If I go and collect my Indian visa in the afternoon then I can stop by and pick up my brother-in-law's present I have on hold then I need to get the christmas card for my nieces and then I can catch the post then that should give me time to leave work on time for the Christmas party and then I can work late tomorrow to try and get through the backlog..." and all this while I'm eating breakfast.
While I was observing all of these thoughts I was struck with a realisation: everything I have to be stressed about is something else I have to be grateful for. Running around trying to find appropriate gifts for everyone? I have a family and friends who I love. Stressed at work and trying to get everything done before Christmas? I have a job, and one in which I am (at last) busy. Worrying that I'm not prepared for my trip to India? I am so lucky that I'm in a position to be going away.
The prospect of not being stressed in the run-up to Christmas would probably mean that my life was very different. True it's hard to find time for yoga (let alone sleep) when things are like this but knowing that in just over two weeks I will be in Goa and practicing every day makes this a lot easier to accept. So that is all for today, a short & sweet post to remind myself of everything I have to be grateful for.
Last week I took 4 workshops with the fabulous David Swenson and was dying to blog about it while it was all fresh in my mind, but life had other ideas for me last week and I haven't had a moment until now. Or more accurately, I have had moments but chose instead to spend them procrastinating instead of getting on with writing...at least now it's been a week the post is likely to be a bit less epic (who was I kidding?!)!
Day 1, workshop 1: Flying, Floating + Handstanding: A Fun-filled exploration of Vinyasa and Arm-balances
One of the greatest challenges of the Ashtanga flow is the vinyasa. In this class David will break the vinyasa down into its components. He likes to refer to this as: “The Physics of Flight”. The class will also explore the elements of handstands and arm-balances. This will all be done through the avenue of partner work. There is always plenty of laughter and fun as well as a depth of information in this class. All levels may attend even if you have never done a handstand before. Alternatives are always given.
First thought - handstands, what the hell was I thinking?? Given my well-documented problems with headstands this seemed a little like trying to climb everest having once tried a climbing wall. I was also pretty put off by the idea of partner-work, but the fear of this was eliminated as I was at the workshop with Sam who I met on twitter (@dottyTeaKettle) - we had egged eachother on to book it via twitter and then met for real at the yoga show in October. Thank you Sam, for helping to make the workshop more fun, less terrifying and for being a great partner :) Second thought - David Swenson, OH MY GOD. I was quite overwhelmed with the idea of this incredible yogi (whose book is my practice bible) being my teacher for the next two days, but having seen some things on youtube of his conferences (as well as his awesome practice of course) meant that I knew vaguely what to expect. As anyone who has ever had the chance to study with Mr Swenson will tell you, he is really very funny. I'm sure us ashtangis are probably an easy crowd, but halfway through this first class I'd laughed enough that I could have been at a comedy show. Of course this also put everyone at their ease, which with the subject matter of the workshop was a good idea.
He kicks off the class asking if anybody has any questions - interesting to do this at the beginning. So we had some discussion about finding time to practice, and he talked about his short forms (which he was careful to say he does not call ashtanga) and joked that the question seemed like a plant as he then told us he has not one but two new DVDs coming out - one with 6 different 20 minutes short forms, and a new primary series which he was just editing in Paris last week. Of course the series hasn't changed but I think he just wanted to update the DVD with a newer version. He also talked about a lady in a workshop once who told him she had found a good answer to the question of finding time and motivation to practice: she had given herself permission to consider it her yoga practice if she took her mat down from the shelf, unrolled it, stood in tadasana and took one breath, rolled her mat back up, and put it back on the shelf. Of course, she never only took one breath, but in allowing herself to do this she got on her mat more often.
David then spoke about how he had never once regretted a practice, but had regretted not practicing (I've heard him talk about this before) but he went on to joke about how our brain knows this but thinks "Maybe today will be the day you do regret practicing," and how we have to continually trick our brains to allow us to get on the mat. He talked about setting realistic goals, and how setting unrealistic goals will just leave you frustrated. Of course I know all of this, and try to integrate it, but sometimes I can't help but get frustrated with myself when I don't get out of bed and onto my mat.
Then somebody asked how do we overcome the fear of doing handstands - quick answer: don't sign up for a handstand workshop. Cue nervous laughter. From the start of the class it became clear that we were split between the gung-ho yogis dying to get up on their hands and the rather more reluctant & fearful ones wondering what they had let themselves in for. He talked then about fear, using an example of his wife being afraid to learn to drive - having lived in NYC she'd had no need, but once they moved to Texas people get in their car to pick up the mail from the end of their drive (I quote). Nobody could understand why she didn't just learn to drive, they all said "there's nothing to be scared of, everybody does it.." but you can't just tell somebody to not be scared. Whether we share the exact same fear of something with others is irrelevant, the fear is very real to us. When his wife found a driving instructor who asked "What is your fear?" her answer was that when she was 15 her father had crashed his car into a tree and died. So the instructor said "I am going to teach you to not crash into a tree." Of course with handstands we're not scared of standing on our hands, we are actually scared of not standing on our hands (so, falling).
He went on to define a handstand. Of course we're all thinking of the moneyshot, the upsidedown posture which he beautifully demonstrated, but he was at pains to point out that a handstand is any time when your weight is on your hands - so it is first encountered when jumping back/forwards in the sun salutations. You could sense some of the Type A personalities chomping at the bit as we went through the stages of jumping through, practicing tranferring weight between our feet and hands, working with a partner for a "turbo assist" (aka grab ass-ana!) but I know I was grateful that the very scary stuff wasn't that prominent for the bulk of the class.
We got some great tips about jumping through, about crossing the legs at mid calf, flexing the feet and making yourself as narrow as possible to enable you to jump through. Also think about the ramps that skateboarders use and picture the arc - in other words aim to swing a lot higher and further beyond where you really need to be to get that momentum. For jumping back he talked about using opposition of forces (more on this later - it was the topic of workshop two), leaning forward to swing back, and he also talked about pushing down to enable you to lift up (makes perfect sense in handtstands but also in other balances).Another point he heavily emphasised was with any balances putting your awareness into the point of contact with the floor. This is something I rarely do as I am wobbling away in UHP or attempting a headstand, all of my concentration is on the wobbling and none on the stability of my standing leg. But of all of the information on jumping back the most important point was this:
There are no rewards for jumping back! You will not get a communique from Mysore the day you do it, your kids will not tidy their rooms, you will not become a better or nicer person just because you can jump-back!
His point of course was that people attach self worth to these things, and as he put it: "It's only yoga!" Whether you can jump-through or not will not affect your progression as a yogi, and just because somebody else can jump-through doesn't necessarily mean they have their bandha engaged, they might just be doing it - he gave us a very funny demo of what he calls the Archer - a particular body-type who jumps through with straight legs using a combination of flexibility, strength and a sense of adventure - fundamentally they just fling themselves at it and hope for the best. My favourite part by far was when he had us all in downdog recite "I am a good person!" before we attempted it - and lo & behold my resulting jumpthrough was the best one I did! I don't think that was his point really but who cares, it worked!
I'm sure you're wondering if I'll ever get on to the handstands...well, the point is, the bulk of the two and a half hour workshop was spent on these elements (the floating and vinyasa elements) with the full-on handstanding probably only taking half an hour at the end (maybe less). Of course the fear was still there through the rest of the class, but it became clear that David Swenson has a very clever way of teaching scary stuff. It goes like this. Be wondefully funny and warm to put everyone at their ease. Tell yoga jokes. Break everything down into tiny pieces and build it up slowly so that before they know it, people are doing the thing that scares them most.
Stage 1: Each pair partnered with another twosome and he demo-ed the handstand, using three helpers, one student. Helper #1 acts as the wall (with their back to the student) and helpers #2 and #3 stand either side. Student goes into downdog, helpers lift up the student's legs from the pelvis, the wall grabs the student's ankles and gives them a lift upwards. Helpers 2 & 3 keep hold of the student at either side, one hand in front of the leg and one behind. When you're ready, wall lets go of the ankles and helpers take the legs down. (actually it might be that the helpers let go either side but stayed near, with the wall still holding the student's legs - or that might have been stage 2 & what I've written as part 2 was really part 3...anyway you get the idea).
Stage 2:Start off as above, then when the legs are up, the wall turns to face the student, makes a fist and puts it between the student's thighs, pushing up under their arm with the other hand so that there is a strong upwards force in the wall's arm. Helpers let go of the legs. Student is doing bloody terrifying handstand without realising it.
Stage 3: As stage 1, then the wall bends their legs, takes the whole body weight of the student, straightens legs and sways from side to side ("like a lizard on a rock" - this was the flying part and would supposedly feel really nice).
Stage 1 was terrifying in propsect but actually completely fine in practice.When we had the demo I nearly asked a question about what to do if our arms weren't strong enough, but when you are being assisted like this it doesn't matter. It was pretty amazing to realise that we could do this, even coming from a place of total fear as I was. I wasn't quite ready to try stage 2 (although my wall did turn and do the fist I still had the helpers holding either side too) but stage 3 was where it went a bit wrong. Because I'm tall I couldn't just let my arms swing, and I had a hard time trusting that I was safe swinging about like this. Worse though was when I was the swinger (so to speak!!) - the person I was lifting was fairly heavy in frame compared to me and while we were doing it she was screaming that my shoulder was really pointy, so David came over to see what was going on, and was saying "straighten your legs!!" to me, while I was saying "sorry sorry sorry.." freaking out while she screamed on about my pointy shoulder. It was all a bit traumatic (the man from the book told me off!) though of course I am dramatising....
So in essence that was workshop one, and if you're still reading then you have the stamina of an ashtangi. More installments to come, whether you like it or not!!
