Mind the Struggle

Warning!! 

This a Star Trek: Original Series inspired blog piece

This morning during Mysore practice one of my students was working on Bakasana. There was mention of hovering, of floating, of pressing away form the Earth. Images pertaining to opposing forces lit up my mind.I remember a Star Trek episode where the team beams down onto a planet of miners, digging in the dirt for the benefit of intellectuals dwelling in a city in the clouds. This cloud city  was sustained by some anti-gravity technology that required  a rare mineral that was of course mined by the cave people. This episode The Cloud Minders (3rd season) was classic late 60's social commentary: the uneducated vs. the intellectual, physical labor vs. intellectual energy, poor vs. rich, Etc..The hovering city populated by the fancy people above, and the sweaty grunting cave dwelling Troglodytes on the planets surface below.  

Fancy people
living up in the clouds

Troglodytes
on the
planets
surface

The yogi in Bakasana embodied the internal struggle I am going through to rectify  the play of opposites inside my self. Earth and Heaven, body and mind, sweat and synaptic processing, worker and thinker, school teacher and yogi.

I am struggling with my letting go of my Trogoldyte roots. And yet I do not want to ever let go of my Troglodyte roots. I do not want for one moment to be a Cloud Minder, a better than, a superior. And yet here I sit cross legged at 8:33 AM in my house in a neighborhood that has recently become quite fond of itself. I have a yoga studio upstairs and an Alexander studio in the front room in this nice house in the now fancy location. Me, a 12 year veteran of public school teaching has been awarded the unthinkable luxury of time! Time to write, time to think, time to do  yoga. My dear  friends and former colleagues are at work, in the trenches, teaching  children how to read and write and think, and yet they have no time themselves to read and write and think.. My husband too, is in those same trenches, as I tippy-tap on my little Mac book he is on the front line of  the social inequality war, working for and serving the Hispanic population of Durham NC .He speaks  Spanish and is a translator and interprator, but really he is an advocate for those who have no voice in our school system. He is such a worker bee, and yet in marrying him I have been able to let go of my  full-time job in that public school system and realize a life long dream of being a full-time Alexander Technique teacher. I now have time for my Ashtanga yoga practice and even time for writing about how I feel about having time to write!  

So where is the struggle?

Here is the struggle.....  One of the best things about my Alexander and yoga teaching has always been that I offer the worker bees (myself included in this grouping)  an entry point into the world of self study by being a living example of having a full-time job AND making time for self study. I was a monument, a physical marker to remind my colleagues (and myself) we can partake in the benefits of self study. We belong. 

uh oh.... I am no longer one of them.  I did not hustle off  to the cave at dawn nearly spilling coffee on my made in China Dress Barn  school teacher costume. I worry I am slipping into the realm of the hovering city. I am starting to think I don't really deserve this luxury of time, this reapping of harvest. How have I gotten out of doing lunch duty? Who do I think I am? .... Help I've been assisted into a strong supportive vertical position and I keep hurling myself back to the ground in a heap of something like guilt and somehow shame, with a strong dash of melancholy for the trenches.

Who is the hero?

What is the conflict?

When is time more abundant?

Where is the entry point? 

Why must I see things as black and white , good and evil,  us and them?

How do I define myself now? If I am not the school teacher yogi... who am I?

How is any of this relevant to my yoga practice?

I will tell you.  ... when I figure it out I will tell you.

I have a feeling the relevance boils down to being worthy. I CAN  dwell in the high-faluting city of clouds because my ability to hover is not supplied by the sweat of others. And  I can still be a Troglodyte because I AM that. My ability to dwell in the city of clouds is made possible by the steam rising off my cave dwelling ashtanga yoga doing self. I am the coal miner and the bearer of the  rare and beautiful gems. I am the hero and also the reason the hero must work so damn hard. I am the rising conflict and the resolution. I am what makes the story interesting. I am a complicated force of opposing actions interacting for the greater good. I am the struggle!

What if the struggle is not the problem?  What if the struggle is the answer?

Faulkner on the surface of planet Earth
taking some time to sight see
while in Tel Aviv studying Alexander Technique
I'm so fancy now!!

Ms Faulkner is.....

a) losing a part of her identity to allow for its entirety 

b) missing some details so as to remember the reason

c) Crushing on Mr. Lang

d) Finding her voice

Mr. Spock gets a little action

as does Kirk

October Images Spiders and M&M's

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October Images:  spiders n candy with a football analogy thrown in

SPIDERS

 October is SO beautiful in North Carolina.  All  North Carolininias are  outside taking walks,  riding bikes, talking about the great sunshine and the wonderful weather.  The spiders seem to be  just as pleased with this month as the humans. They are everywhere making  fantatic webs and adding to the  glory that is October in  North Caolina’s  Piedmont. 

I was explaining  to a student to not puff open the bottom of her rib cage in samasthithi.  Words were flying out of my mouth … and then the image of the Golden Orb Spider and her special web came to me and saved me from all of the words.

“Like the spider that makes her web like this”

I zig zaggged a web on her lower ribs. She got it. She is a gardener, a grower of vegetables and spices. I wouldn't use the spider web image on every student, but I  had a feeling this yogi would get it.

Not only did she get it, she took this picture and sent it to me later that same day! 

Golden Orb Spider in yogis garden

image of a Golden Orb Spider webbing together the lower ribs

If  picture is worth a thousand words ... I'm done here!

(and yet, I go on!)

CANDY

 This analogy was first used  by me in a led class when a student asked me to explain mulabandah. I had my mouth full of sanskrit, and could hardly even think let alone verbally explain mulabandah in any language, while leading a primary series.  So I threw out a hail mary pass (there is the football analogy) in the form of this image--your torso is a bag of M&Ms with a little opening in the bottom... Mulabandha is the act of sealing up that hole with thought. “Don’t let your candies fall out  of the little hole in the bottom of your M & M's bag.. Seal the  bottom of the bag, with your mind“.

.

m&m torso with little hole in bottom of bag
m&ms falling out of bag

husband actual at the Nasher  Museum of Art experiencing Utkatasana in a recent art exhibit!

VOTE

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DG CETWARI

 

Garrigues 4th visit to

Ashtanga Yoga Club Durham 

November 16^th 17^th and 18^th

^{in the spirit of AYCD's donation based approach}

^{this workshop is being offered on sliding scale}

^{$175.00-$225.00}

^{email suzanne to reserve your space: suzyruth2@yahoo.com}

David Garrigues is the director of the Ashtanga Yoga School of Philadelphia. He is one of a few teachers in the US certified to teach Ashtanga Yoga by Yoga Master Sri K Pattabhi Jois. As an Ashtanga Ambassador he bases his teachings on the idea that 'Anyone can take practice.' said by Sri K Pattabhi Jois. He is dedicated to sharing the beauty and soul of Ashtanga Yoga with everyone.

David's mission is to be part of an ever wider circle of people who are dedicated to exploring the living, contemporary, lineage of Ashtanga Yoga. He wants to join with enthusiastic people who are open and committed to learning and applying the teachings in ways that promote physical, psychological, and spiritual growth in themselves and others.

This workshop will be a lively, inspirational, and in-depth investigation into asana practice and theory. The various classes will help improve understanding of how asana is the practice of awakening the entire 'inner field' of the body, a process that shows us how to be more joyous, safe, and effective in the yoga. We'll study foundational principles that help us think creatively about how to make progress in and refine each asana within the context of the given sequence. 

We'll explore the subtleties of Vinyasa to:

1. *Improve the transitions into and out of postures
2. *Discover the root alignment principles
3. *Explore how we can remain conscious, alert, and grounded in the 'immovable spot'
4. *Perfect the “crouch and spring”
5. *Invigorate the postures by tuning into and illuminating, the fiery pillar of light, the vertical centerline, the glorious Pranic axis of the body
6. *Expand and free the Shakti, the creative power, by learning how to utilize Mula, Uddiyana, and Jalandhara bandhas properly
7. *Experience how the flow of life force along the central axis can become a continual fountain, an ever-renewing source, of psychological growth, insight and self-knowledge.   

Types of classes:

1. Mysore Style Class

Intended for those students who have a regular practice in the Ashtanga system. 

Receive helpful, inspiring individual instruction in a group setting. David has been conducting daily Mysore classes for more than 15 years. He shares his knowledge generously with care, passion, and precision!  

2. Pranayama Class

We'll work with basic pranayama including ujjayi (victorious breath), viloma (interrupting the breath), and khumbhaka (retaining the breath), and also explore a portion of the Ashtanga pranayama sequence as taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. 

3. Chanting Yoga Sutra's and Lectures

Chanting the Yoga Sutras is an excellent way to experience the sound vibrations of the Sanskrit language as a means to deepening your understanding of the eight limbs.  See below for the lecture topics.  These sessions will hopefully inspire each of us to go further in our daily asana practice and to appreciate how the Ashtanga vinyasa practice is powerfully centered within the greater context of Yoga.  

Friday

6-8pm Light on Ashtanga Yoga:

Subtleties of Breathing and the Asanas of Surya Namaskara

Saturday

8-10am Mysore-style practice

10-11am Pranayama

11:30-1:00pm Chanting & Discussion: 

Ashtanga's Dynamic Dimension

Sunday

8-10am Led Primary Series

10-11am Pranayama

11:30-1:00pm  Chanting & Discussion: 

Secrets of Mudra: Bandha Control is Mind Control

1:00-2:00pm Coffee and food items downstairs

Sign up has begun for ashtangis able to commit to the whole event in its entirety.

In the spirit of AYCD's donation based approach we are offering this workshop on a sliding scale basis.

 $175.00- $225.00 for the entire weekend all classes

 Partial participation sign up will begin in a few weeks 

Direct Instruction on Mysore Style Social Skills

Being strong as an ox and stubborn as a mule has many advantages. In the Mysore room my strength has granted me access to many poses that others must develop from scratch, and my stubbornness has kept me doing Ashtanga for over 20 years, many of those years I have been without a teacher. When given the choice between exacting protocol and feral, I lean towards feral, and without a teacher I not only leaned towards my preference, it started to take over.
I was raised an athlete, I have been in an intimate relationship with gravity as it pertains to my body and  sport for many decades now.Ahh...here's the rub...., the Mysore room is not a gymnasium, and it is not the weight room, nor is it the track. Each of those venues has a set of social skills that the athlete partaking in the sport learns and embodies. I know the social skills of those venues. I learned them from my coaches and from the other athletes as we all grew into the correct way of interacting with the sport at hand.  And then came the Mysore room.

My first Mysore room was me and three friends, it was just us, it was entirely ours. One of us would adjust and the other three would practice. We would call our teacher Annie Pace (then Grover) once every few weeks to check in, and ask questions. We were very serious, but we were also friends. There was talking,  laughing, adjusting each other, admiring of a new yoga top.......
This went on for over five years. Then we opened up a yoga studio and the rules changed a bit, but we were still us. This went on for ten years. And this is how I came to be in such desperate need of direct instruction of the social skills that apply to the Mysore room. Help I am a Mysore style Ashtanga yoga teacher and I can't shut up.

Cut to the present day... about three weeks ago.
I get a call from David. Our teacher /student relationship stakes have been raised, I am now one of only three people  in his teacher apprentice program, it is rigorous and not just physically. He called to get clear on some things, and one of those things was the way I conduct myself in the Mysore room. Very awkward when the  "King" himself has to tell you how to act in front of him. He had spoken with me about my talking, my too much interactions with other yogis, my need to focus on myself on my own mat while we were in the Mysore room. He had done this MANY times in the Mysore room, but now I am getting a stronger message because the asanas are not there to be some sort of excuse for me to look around. The asanas are not there for me to hide my habit of poorly trained  dristi gobbling. Basically, David is asking me if I really want to be in his teacher apprentice program or if I want to continue to disregard his Mysore room protocol. Wow, it is uncomfortable to held responsible for  my behavior.


Last week I went to  a Five Day Mysore Intensive taught by David at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My main focus was on the Mysore room protocol, the code of conduct that David had gone over with me on the phone. The night before going off for the intensive my husband was reading The Mahabharata to me,  when he read this passage he stopped in the middle of it and said,"Oh this is for you in the Mysore room!"

So as to not get off topic replace: king with teacher, King with DG, and God with Guru.

 A little back story: A king in hiding, is getting some pointers on how behave while in the presence of another King.

"In the proximity of a king, you will have to keep in mind a few important rules. Being a king yourself, you will not have known them. Only a commoner serving a king could realise that  it is a knife-edge existence. Far happier are those who never see their king except when he passes along, riding an elephant, in a procession. One who serves a king is serving an embodiment of God and must adjust his distance suitably. Never enter the King's presence without announcing yourself and seeking his permission. Never occupy a seat at the court which may rouse the envy of another. Don't offer any counsel unasked. Don't talk unnecessarily or carry gossip, but remain silent and alert at all times. Never give any occasion for him to repeat a command. In the King's presence one should be gentle in speech and avoid vehemence and the expression of anger or contempt. On should not laugh too loudly nor display undue gravity. One should not dress like the King, nor gesticulate while speaking, nor mention outside what has transpired in the King's presence. Be available to the call of the King but don't be obtrusive." Thus Dauyma went on expounding the code to be followed by a courtier.

• Why do I need direct instruction on the social skills as they pertain to the Mysore room? Some people don't pick up on social cues the way others do, and I am obviously one of those people. The real question, the important question for me is, now that I have been given such instruction will I take it? Can I take it? Now that I am aware that my behavior needs changing, will I shape my behavior accordingly... Do I want this? 
• so many ideas come to me form this: why is not talking, not being loud important.
• can other people really turn in and concentrate on inside of them, what the frack is wrong with me that I always feel like one of the ducks flying in formation, i feel all of us? why can't i just be ONE of the ducks?  I have embodied the team thing so deeply it is hard for me to just be only me.
• how deep is this habit of weak drisit? What aspect of myself is it serving?
• how selfish is this weak dristi? If I can think of my dristi as helpful to others, that will probably help me to change, but I feel so selfish concentrating on  just me.....

There it is... The doormat in the center of the universe! "Help, I have low self esteem and I am taking it out on my fellow ashtangis....."

the worm

the worm is the spice/ the spice is the worm

Jackie-Joyner Kersee

the pose is the vinyasa/ the vinyasa is the pose

you are it/ it is you

During a recent yoga class I teach called, "As much of the Primary Series as we get through to allow for a long closing," I changed it up a bit during navasana and had  the class think about the  pose as the vinyasa and the vinyasa as the pose. So the lifting up and controlling the lift back to your boat WAS the pose and the boat was what we used to get into the next lifting up and controlling down. The linguistic change hopefully fuels a change in thinking so that  the  picking up  between the boats is not  a throw away move, it IS the pose. The vinyasa IS the yoga.


When I was in college I did the heptathlon, a seven-event track and field competition that occurs over two days. Day one: 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meters, day two: long jump, javelin, 800 meters. The events are always in the same order, it is methodical. Well, it can be methodical if  an athlete is willing and able to approach it in this manner. During the  two day event it is fair to say that most of the time and a good bit of the energy is spent between the events, getting the high jumping shoes ready, changing the spikes back over to the long jump spikes so I could be ready for that, making sure I had my shot put  and my lucky towel when it was time to  do the shot put, javelin and javelin shoes on when it was javelin time. Where is my javelin glove? Maybe Amy has it? There was a great deal of equipment to keep up with, and  I was responsible for being in the correct place, at the correct time, with the correct  gear on my body.

During my time as a heptathlete I was always ready for the next event in that I showed up at the correct starting line with the correct gear on my body and/or in my hands, but I squandered the  time in between the events. I realized this error years after I had graduated from college when I read an article about  Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She spoke of the heptathlon far deeper than the usual way people reference it, a two day seven-event  event requiring stamina, mobility, speed and explosive strength blah, blah, blah, but rather JJ-K spoke of the mental focus, the inner strength, the grace and smoothness required for the heptathlon.  I nearly cried. How had I not seen the vinyasa of the heptathlon? I had been fooled by the athleticism of it all, I had thought of it as the events.  JJ-K thought of it as, well as one big entity. She described how she would choose  exactly where to sit in between each event, she would draw a mental map of her course that was to take place between the events. She even chose what she was going to think about in between each event because she knew herself and her  events deeply enough to know what she needed to guard herself against and what she needed to focus on to get the best out of herself. Of course she had her spikes and gloves and equipment all ready, but she also had her entire person hood ready. The vinyasa of her heptathlon was a strong part of what  made her heptathlon such a thing of beauty. The stamina of her heptathlon was not just in her heart and lungs it was in her mind, it was in her entire-ness. Her seven events were glued together by predetermined, well thought out actions that were designed to smooth her out of and into the next event. Her actions and thoughts and gestures in between her events where an integral part of her athleticism, and therefore an integral part of her whole self.

And so here I am a fifty year old woman beginning a new phase in my life; taking on the third series of Ashtanga yoga.  My teacher, David Garrigues lives in Philadelphia so I must get up to study with him every few weeks. When he began to give me poses in the third series he made it clear that  I needed to come up and check-in with him every few weeks, I agreed to this, I wanted to learn those poses. In  July I had been given a big chunk of poses to work on. This  chunk of poses is chock filled with difficult "events", poses that taken individually are tough, and  put together as a group are seemingly impossible, but I worked on them for six weeks and headed on up to Philly for a check-in.

 The highlight of  this most recent check-in  was after the first pose of the third series, Vasishthasana, a wonderful pose that is difficult and exacting and a thing of beauty when done well. David  leaned over  me and says in his enthusiastic, make you feel like you have done something so worthwhile manner, "Whoah!, Good up dog!" I nearly cried.....because, well.... this time, this era, this time around I will not squander the vinyasa. The vinyasa is it. IT is the  internal stamina, it is the grace of mind. The poses, they are nice, they are wonderful, I adore them, but the vinyasa is the thing.

Skip getting a "Whoah, Great updog!" from DG
during a workshop at Ashtanga Yoga Club Durham.
DG had been wanting him to  engage his legs during the vinyasa
from updog to down dog. And Whoah, he did it!