The first week was a little rough, but David has been kind, and the timing of last week's Moon Day on Tuesday was perfect.
I'm settling in now, and getting used to the schedule, the heat, the food and the culture of this little beach town. Foreign languages are all around - Russian, German, you name it (because I can't! I don't recognize most of them!). I'm completely amazed that the locals can understand and even speak at least a little bit of most of these languages - I feel like such a slacker only knowing ONE language!
We've found several restaurants - many vegetarian, a few with ayurvedic options, and some with more western dishes, for a change of pace.
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| Alan Restaurant - a favorite |
I'm here this month partly as a student, and partly as an apprentice, so I've had the privilege to watch David work with the students a bit. Today it struck me that he is asking several students to figure some of this stuff out themselves. To be creative in how they use their bodies and make these shapes. To endeavor to solve these problems independently, and to have trust in themselves to do so.
Its a theme I've discovered over the past year apprenticing with David. He's not into telling us what to do. He wants us to figure it out for ourselves to a certain extent, and he'll let us know if we are getting off track. This can of course be frustrating - ok, infuriating - sometimes, but for me it is just what I have needed - an antidote to complacency.
Our schedule for this month includes only a couple of times per week where David is talking to us - lecturing or instructing - so the content of these sessions is concise, valuable, and universal, meaning it applies to all (or most) students, whichever series or pose they are practicing, or how long they've been practicing.
So....
We heard about the Asana Allies - Drishti, Bandhas, Breath, Vinyasa, and Asana - specifically the Single Asana, Samastitih. These techniques help us to arrive at a perceptual experience of the world and us in it. To percieve the patterns that connect out of random chaos - what is the pattern that connects the individual patterns?
Asana as Yantras - physical shapes to meditate on, made up of lines organized around the joints, and working to make sure these lines are unbroken. Animation of the body around the unbroken line (as in Samastitih) illuminates the line, and illumination of the line frees the breath.
We broke down Surya Namaskar A, clarifying each of the 10 positions as a stopping place - stopping the body and stopping the mind (including a brief look at chaturanga!) And we received a mantra for those of us needing to build strength in the upper body through chaturanga - "Hips Down, Chest up!" :-)
At the core of all this we are aiming to harness Prana, and the main ingredient in Prana? ---- DESIRE
Desire has two broad directions - 1) More of everything! and 2) the opposite - liberation from everything
And we all have a constant struggle to balance these two...pushing and pulling, churning...
David told the story of the Demons and Gods battling over the magical elixir that gives eternal life, and churning the ocean with a great mountain (with Vishnu taking the form of Kurma, a tortoise, to keep the mountain afloat!). The Demons pulling one way, the Gods pulling the other. Before the elixir was released from the bottom of the ocean, there was poison, and then the elixir was released. Don't worry, the Gods won out in the end...
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| After practice...#ashtangabitchslapped |
From fully into it to I can't have it - this is soo typical! Did you ever took the time to practice actual yoga, to use it as a tool to understand who you are and were you are at? Your words show you never actually got a glance of it. It feels like you were expecting a miracle just by following the recipe, like a solution to pollution. You did it all, 6 days a week, the days you are supposed to, like as if it made a difference, the vegan raw lettuce organic diet, etc. What about yourself, did you ever consider who you are, where you came from and what does this all "tradition" + random concepts stated by a load of people in their writings, workshops, etc + a load of gossip around ashtanga yoga that have become mainstream knowledge, actually mean to you, wherever you are from? You are not Mr Jois who came from a small village, I am pretty sure you are not Indian, you weren't born immersed in the culture so is silly to expect this tradition to be fully applicable to you, to actually understand a little of it, to try to embrace you need to use a couple more than two brain cells. Be who you are and if there is something about yoga you like, take it by the hand and walk with it, don't assume is a limousine that will take you to heaven and this method was dropped in this world tailor made to you. You are obviously dealing with Ashtangarexia and looking for the Authorisation, yoga practice is about self development, doesn't have anything to do with a career or a final solution to all problems. If you came to Mysore you obviously didn't hear anything Sharath ever said. I bet you didn't get the Authorisation either otherwise you would have been a happy bunny by now :) Maybe Sharath saw this confusion in you in the mist of 200 other people, maybe he is not that stupid at all. You clearly did not get what tradition means, and you are talking about a yoga practice as religion sometimes and then you quickly turn it into a career. Didn't you get is neither of the two. Next time you get into something, use more than two brain cells, it might save you 6 years and the hassle of making a blog post complaining about it. This is typical human behaviour, ones gets into something blindly and then comes out of it angry and throwing the responsibility elsewhere. Next time, take responsibility for your own actions, try, slowly. See if it works for you. If it doesn't, just step out and understand that whatever there is in this world might not fit everyone, or perhaps use more than two brain cells while doing it and balance it to your own self.
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