ASHTANGA PRANAYAMA
I. TERMINOLOGY
ANTARA KUMBHAKA Suspension of breath after full inhalation
BAHYA KUMBHAKA Suspension of breath after full exhalation
BANDHA Bondage or fetter
BHASTRIKA Bellows
BEDHANA Bhid = to pierce, break through
CHANDRA Moon
JALA (As in jalandhara) Net, web, mesh
KUMBHAKA Retention of breath
MULA Root
PURUKA Inhalation
RECHAKA Exhalation
SITALI Sitala = cool
SURYA Sun
UDDIYANA Flying up
II. BANDHAS IN PRANAYAMA
Jalandhara Bandha: During Antara Kumbhaka (inhale retention)
Uddiyana Bandha: During Bahya Kumbhaka (exhale retention)
Mula Bandha: All of the time
III. TECHNIQUES OF PRANAYAMA
1) Rechaka Kumbhaka and Puruka Kumbhaka
2) Puruka Rechaka Kumbhaka
3) Nadi Shodhana
a. Sama Vrtti
b. Visama Vrtti
4) Bhastrika
5) Bhedana
a. Surya Bhedana
b. Chandra Bhedana
6) Sitali
IV. PRACTICE OF PRANAYAMA
TO BEGIN:
3 Ujjayi breaths (with ujjayi breathing, ratio of inhale to exhale is 1 : 1)
Inhale, with the exhale chant AUM
1) RECHAKA AND PURUKA KUMBHAKA
a. Rechaka Kumbhaka
Inhale, exhale then hold breath
Repeat for a total of three breaths
Then immediately begin Puruka Kumbhaka
b. Puruka Kumbhaka
Inhale, hold breath, then exhale
Repeat for a total of three breaths
c. The ratio of the length of the inhalation of breath to the exhalation of breath should be 1 : 1
d. Ratio of the length of the retentions for exhale (rechaka) vs inhale (puruka) is 2 : 3, for example, if the retention after the exhale lasts 6 seconds, the retention after the inhale should last 9 seconds
e. 3 Ujjayi breaths as a transition before next stage of pranayama
2) PURUKA RECHAKA KUMBHAKA
a. 3 breaths with retention after both the inhale and the exhale
b. Ratio of retentions for inhale (puruka) vs exhale (rechaka) should be 5 : 4. for example if the retention after the inhale lasts 10 seconds, the retention after the exhale should last 8 seconds
c. 3 Ujjayi breaths as a transition before next stage of pranayama
3) NADI SHODHANA
a. Sama Vrtti (same action)
1. inhale through both nostrils
2. exhale through left nostril, no retention
3. inhale right, hold 1st retention
4. exhale left, hold 2nd retention
5. inhale left, hold 3rd retention
6. exhale right, hold 4th retention
7. inhale right, hold 5th retention
8. exhale left, hold 6th retention
9. inhale left, hold 7th retention
10. exhale right, hold 8th retention
11. inhale right, hold 9th retention
12. exhale left, hold 10th retention
b. Visama Vrtti (irregular action)
13. inhale right, hold 11th retention
14. exhale right, hold 12th retention
15. inhale right, hold 13th retention
16. exhale right, hold 14th retention
17. inhale right, hold 15th retention
18. exhale right, hold 16th retention
19. inhale right, hold 17th retention
20. exhale left, hold 18th retention
21. inhale left, hold 19th retention
22. exhale left, hold 20th retention
23. inhale left, hold 21st retention
24. exhale left, hold 22nd retention
25. inhale left, hold 23rd retention
26. exhale left, hold 24th retention
27. inhale left, hold 25th retention
28. exhale right, hold 26th retention
29. inhale right, no retention
30. exhale left
c. Ratio of inhalations, exhalations and retentions is 1 : 1 : 1 : 1
d. 3 Ujjayi breaths as a transition before the next stage of pranayama
4) BHASTRIKA
a. In a seated position, hold the tops of the feet and pull them back into the abdomen
b. Slow inhalation
c. Perform a series of rapid, vigorous exhalations followed by reflexive inhalation through both nostrils (50 to 100 cycles)
d. Pull the lower abdomen back strongly during the exhalation, using both uddiyana bandha and mula bandha
e. With the last exhalation, fully empty the lungs
f. Slow inhalation
g. Long retention after inhalation, 20 – 40 seconds
h. Exhale
i. Repeat the inhale, vigorous exhale/reflexive inhale x 100, slow inhale, hold x 20 - 40 seconds, exhale sequence for a total of 3 cycles
j. 3 Ujjayi breaths as a transition before the next stage of pranayama
5) BHEDANA
a. Surya Bhedana
1. Inhale through both nostrils
2. Exhale left, no retention
3. Inhale right, long hold (retentions are for 30 – 60 seconds)
4. Exhale left
5. Inhale right, long hold
6. Exhale left
7. Inhale right, long hold
8. Exhale left
b. Chandra Bhedana
9. Inhale left, long hold
10. Exhale right
11. Inhale left, long hold
12. Exhale right
13. Inhale left, long hold
14. Exhale right
15. Inhale right, no retention
16. Exhale left
c. 3 Ujjayi breaths as a transition before next stage of pranayama
6) SITALI
a. Open the mouth and form the lips into an “O”
b. Curl the tongue and extend it slightly through the lips
c. Inhale through the tongue, short retention (3-6 seconds)
d. Exhale through both nostrils
e. Repeat for a total of three breaths
f. 3 Ujjayi breaths
7) FINISHING
Inhale
Begin chants during exhalation
YOGA CHANTS
Om Narayanam Padmabhuvam Vashistam Shaktim
Tatputra Parasharancha Vyasam Shukam
Gaudapadam Mahantam Govinda Yogaindram
Athasya Shishyam Shri Shankaracharyam
Athasya Padmapadancha Hastamalakancha
Shishyam Tantrotakam Vartekakara Mukyam
Asmat Gurun Santatamanatosmi
(I am always bowed to our teachers—Narayanam, the first teacher, Brahma the Lotus Born, Vashista and his son Shaktim, Vyasa and his son Parasharancha, Gaudapada the Great, Govinda, Lord of Yogis and his disciple Shri Shankaracharya, and his disciples Padmapadancha and Hastamalakancha, and the author Varteka Trotakam)
Vande Gurunam Charanaravinde
Sandarashita Swatma Sukhava Bhode
Nishreyase Jangalikaya Mane
Samsara Halahala Mohashantiye
Abahu Purushakaram
Shankachakra Asi Dharinam
Sahasra Shirasam Swetam
Pranamami Patanjalim OM
(I respectfully bow to the lotus feet of my teacher, who teaches the knowledge of the Self that awakens us to great happiness, who is the Jungle Physician and dispeller of the poison of conditioned existence. Taking the form of aman up to the hands, holding a conch, a discus and a sword, and having a thousand heads of white light, Pantanjali, I bow to you.)
Sahanavavatu Sahanau Bhunaktu Saha Viryam
Karava Vahai Tejas Vinau Adhitamastu
Ma Vidvisha Vaha-i-i
OM Shanti Shanti Shanti
(May wisdom protect and nourish us, let us work together for wisdom, may our study be illuminating, may we never be at discord)
OM Namo Brahmavidibhyo Brahmavidya Sampradaya Karatrobhyo Namo
Vomsharishaibhyo Namo Mahadibhyo Namo Gurubhyaha
Sarva Uplaplava Rahita Prajnanaghana Pratagarthaha
Brahma Iva Aham Asmi
OM Tat Sat
(Salutations to Brahma and the originators of His wisdom, salutations to the sage of our family lineage, salutations to the great teachers. I am Brahma only, perfect consciousness, devoid of al misfortune.)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, March 13, 2008
It took ten tries to land Bakasana B today. Both Julie and Tiffany were there, the two people with whom i made deals with to pay them a dollar for each failed attempt i make. cha ching. So much for the value of the threat of aversive consequences. The Mysore fund and the Seattle fund are rapidly swelling. I landed it pretty well just a couple of days ago too, only took two tries.
Today was my second practice in almost a month. Well, not really. i guess i did a first series practice a week or so ago. When i went a few days ago, it was my first try at second in a while but it went okay. I was doing fine but for some reason couldn't get my right foot hooked around my left in dwi pada sirsasana on my own, so i quit after that. So today was my first full practice. I was able to get dwi pada ok. I even got bound Tittibhasana B, much to my surprise. I thought i was going to be too pleasantly plump to pull it off.
As i was finishing doing my Urdvha Dhanurasana, Tim was showing Rich, his assistant, a couple of back adjustments he gives people sometimes. The things that open your back and often cause the vertabrae to pop. Tim was using another student to show Rich. After they finished, I motioned Rich over and told him to go ahead and try the adjustments on me. He had to get Tim to come over and show it again. The first one didn't do anything but the second one totally caused this zipper like series of pops. Then they tried this funky thing where the you lay on your stomach and they lift up on the skin of your back on each side of the spine to cause that section to release. kind of ouchie for me, very pinchy, but a friend on the next mat over who had them try it really like it.
Had to take my car in for a 100,000 mile service (it's a 2003) and to get a series of minor things looked into. Couldn't afford to get several of them done. The radio, which according to the service guys needs to be replaced to be fully functional, would cost $1000. They have no idea why it does what it does. It shuts off exactly twenty minutes after it's been turned on. If you restart it, it will turn off twenty minutes later. When it first started doing it, it shut off after thirty minutes. I thought it was a clever way they had designed to warn you that you were past due for a scheduled service. But the BMW gear heads say no, it's just haunted. I also needed new tires on the fronts, new brakes and rotors, etc, etc. $2.5K later, i'm driving home with about half of the things fixed. Not the most timely of expenses right now.
Today was my second practice in almost a month. Well, not really. i guess i did a first series practice a week or so ago. When i went a few days ago, it was my first try at second in a while but it went okay. I was doing fine but for some reason couldn't get my right foot hooked around my left in dwi pada sirsasana on my own, so i quit after that. So today was my first full practice. I was able to get dwi pada ok. I even got bound Tittibhasana B, much to my surprise. I thought i was going to be too pleasantly plump to pull it off.
As i was finishing doing my Urdvha Dhanurasana, Tim was showing Rich, his assistant, a couple of back adjustments he gives people sometimes. The things that open your back and often cause the vertabrae to pop. Tim was using another student to show Rich. After they finished, I motioned Rich over and told him to go ahead and try the adjustments on me. He had to get Tim to come over and show it again. The first one didn't do anything but the second one totally caused this zipper like series of pops. Then they tried this funky thing where the you lay on your stomach and they lift up on the skin of your back on each side of the spine to cause that section to release. kind of ouchie for me, very pinchy, but a friend on the next mat over who had them try it really like it.
Had to take my car in for a 100,000 mile service (it's a 2003) and to get a series of minor things looked into. Couldn't afford to get several of them done. The radio, which according to the service guys needs to be replaced to be fully functional, would cost $1000. They have no idea why it does what it does. It shuts off exactly twenty minutes after it's been turned on. If you restart it, it will turn off twenty minutes later. When it first started doing it, it shut off after thirty minutes. I thought it was a clever way they had designed to warn you that you were past due for a scheduled service. But the BMW gear heads say no, it's just haunted. I also needed new tires on the fronts, new brakes and rotors, etc, etc. $2.5K later, i'm driving home with about half of the things fixed. Not the most timely of expenses right now.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Arrggh!!, Not more photos!!!
I don't intend to do this 'photos of me and family' often. I promise. I'm just sitting here at work with an under-filled schedule, a lot of free time, a disc with scanned in photos on it and a congenital inability to be idle. These are some of the earliest known images of Okrgr. If they are embarrassing, well not embarassing but just look kind of dorky, it's just reward for being mean and shallow yesterday.
First, the kids. From a couple of years ago
Penance
Now me, very early me
For the Owl, later me, hating life in my little Lord Fauntleroy's
Lastly, for Carl, my stick. Notice, mine's bigger
I don't intend to do this 'photos of me and family' often. I promise. I'm just sitting here at work with an under-filled schedule, a lot of free time, a disc with scanned in photos on it and a congenital inability to be idle. These are some of the earliest known images of Okrgr. If they are embarrassing, well not embarassing but just look kind of dorky, it's just reward for being mean and shallow yesterday.
First, the kids. From a couple of years ago
Penance
Now me, very early me
For the Owl, later me, hating life in my little Lord Fauntleroy's
Lastly, for Carl, my stick. Notice, mine's bigger
Old and Tired
I dumped on my son yesterday. There are occasions where I am able to step back, weigh out consequences and decide to let small things that bug me drop. Such situations are too few unfortunately. Yesterday i just didn't have the resources left to do it.
My wife, our household financial overseer, had told me we were too close to the red line. We had a bunch of upcoming expenses: three tax quarterly payments in 6 months, several cross country trips for sports activities and camps, impending car fixer upper things, replacing worn out and broken things around the house, etc. To cover things, I picked up a number of extra call shifts for the next several weeks.
Last week's load was maybe a bit too much work. i picked up several calls for that week alone. I ended up working tuesday night, thursday night and saturday day and night. since i picked up the week day calls at the last minute, i also worked the day before each shift and the morning after, as those had already been scheduled with patients. I did fine thru the first two calls but was pretty worn out by the time i finished on saturday. All the little annoyances with our new charting system had worn me down and exposed my worst tendencies.
Some of this extra work was done to help cover the expense of my son's upcoming lacrosse trips on a travel team. After I got back from work, I watched his practice yesterday and he was just kind of jacking around. He hasn't done one single extra thing to get better outside of his team practices. He'd rather play Halo or World of Warcraft. After practice in the morning, he left his bag in my wife's car. I guess he just expected that she would drop it off at home for him, unasked, so that he could get it for a private practice session that had been set up with his school coach later that afternoon. When it came time for going to practice, it became apparant that he had no gear. It was all in his mom's car. That just set me off. I practically killed myself, working over a hundred hours last week to help him with lacrosse (well, to pay all those other bills too, but at the time, it was all to pay for his lacrosse) and he couldn't even keep track of his gear and missed a private training session. After dropping off his friends, i kept jabbing away at how disappointed I was in his effort. I didn't do the "angry" thing so much, just the "you're never going to make it like this" rigamarole. On and on. "You know how many times your sister has forgotten her volleyball gear? NONE. Never. What does that tell you?" That kind of stuff. I guess we're equally disappointed in each other now. Bad dad. Guess I'm not as good at sleep deprivation as I used to be.
Yoga? No, not lately. Mis-aligned stars or something. Not one full practice since mid February. That's why there's only pictures of babies and dogs up.
I dumped on my son yesterday. There are occasions where I am able to step back, weigh out consequences and decide to let small things that bug me drop. Such situations are too few unfortunately. Yesterday i just didn't have the resources left to do it.
My wife, our household financial overseer, had told me we were too close to the red line. We had a bunch of upcoming expenses: three tax quarterly payments in 6 months, several cross country trips for sports activities and camps, impending car fixer upper things, replacing worn out and broken things around the house, etc. To cover things, I picked up a number of extra call shifts for the next several weeks.
Last week's load was maybe a bit too much work. i picked up several calls for that week alone. I ended up working tuesday night, thursday night and saturday day and night. since i picked up the week day calls at the last minute, i also worked the day before each shift and the morning after, as those had already been scheduled with patients. I did fine thru the first two calls but was pretty worn out by the time i finished on saturday. All the little annoyances with our new charting system had worn me down and exposed my worst tendencies.
Some of this extra work was done to help cover the expense of my son's upcoming lacrosse trips on a travel team. After I got back from work, I watched his practice yesterday and he was just kind of jacking around. He hasn't done one single extra thing to get better outside of his team practices. He'd rather play Halo or World of Warcraft. After practice in the morning, he left his bag in my wife's car. I guess he just expected that she would drop it off at home for him, unasked, so that he could get it for a private practice session that had been set up with his school coach later that afternoon. When it came time for going to practice, it became apparant that he had no gear. It was all in his mom's car. That just set me off. I practically killed myself, working over a hundred hours last week to help him with lacrosse (well, to pay all those other bills too, but at the time, it was all to pay for his lacrosse) and he couldn't even keep track of his gear and missed a private training session. After dropping off his friends, i kept jabbing away at how disappointed I was in his effort. I didn't do the "angry" thing so much, just the "you're never going to make it like this" rigamarole. On and on. "You know how many times your sister has forgotten her volleyball gear? NONE. Never. What does that tell you?" That kind of stuff. I guess we're equally disappointed in each other now. Bad dad. Guess I'm not as good at sleep deprivation as I used to be.
Yoga? No, not lately. Mis-aligned stars or something. Not one full practice since mid February. That's why there's only pictures of babies and dogs up.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Coming Out, Everybody's Doing It Now
Our old multi-function printer had gradually become enfeebled, losing each of its functions one by one. The last one, printing, finally went by the wayside last week, so I had to go out and find a new one. Having canvased every single variation of consumer electronics stores in our area, I finally managed to make a decision and today plunked down a hundred bucks for a new AIO scanner, printer, copier and popcorn maker. In an initial testing of the fruits of my shopping labors, a scanning in of some of our family photos, some more embarassing than others.
For Eor: The "Unbreakable" paste lid
For AnnaBelle: Our Akitas
For Boodiba: My Brother and I
Our old multi-function printer had gradually become enfeebled, losing each of its functions one by one. The last one, printing, finally went by the wayside last week, so I had to go out and find a new one. Having canvased every single variation of consumer electronics stores in our area, I finally managed to make a decision and today plunked down a hundred bucks for a new AIO scanner, printer, copier and popcorn maker. In an initial testing of the fruits of my shopping labors, a scanning in of some of our family photos, some more embarassing than others.
For Eor: The "Unbreakable" paste lid
For AnnaBelle: Our Akitas
For Boodiba: My Brother and I
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Pox of the Out-of-Towners
It's been raining in San Diego ever since all those visitors trundled off. They seem to have blessed us with their normal winter weather, just like a visiting pet leaves your home infested with its fleas and vermin. I never even saw some of them and i still get to slosh my way to my car each morning. Not sure who is to blame. Doubt it was Eor, since if it was from him, it would just be cold and foggy. Likewise, JLafitte is probably in the clear. New Orleans can be insufferable, but i don't think that it's due to cold winter rains. So, that leaves those New Yorkers and Carl. Carl from Seattle. Where it rains every day. It's the precipitatory antithesis of San Diego. But, it could be the women. I hear it's snowing in NYC, so maybe they did drop this winter crap on us. Share the pain kind of thing. Give us back our sun you interlopers!!
My plans for the future were rudely disrupted by a couple of Georgia rednecks. I was all set to turn in those early retirement papers and, bam, they end up being the sole winners of that big 270 million dollar lotta paycheck. I could have lived with a split payout. Greedy crackers. So now, I have to keep delivering babies and taking out uteruses. I don't mind work, I like what I do. But our work setting has become a pretty unpleasant place the last few weeks. We're doing a major change in how we document what we do, going from the time honored paper charting approach to a completely electronic record. The change over is on a national scale, not just getting a few workstations into a mom and pop sized practice. Given the scale of the project, even the simplest of tasks are ridiculously complex and arcane. The possibility of effecting any changes to make the system more user friendly are essentially non-existant. So, until the next lotto run up, I have to deal with it.
I'm going to do one of those shameless idea stealing things once i get a new all-in-one printer for our house. I want to put up some blast from the past photos like i had seen on someone's blog. That would allow me to post something potentially interesting or entertaining without having to think and type in coherent sentences, something that has always been a challenge for me. Our current scanner has been on the fritz for about a year and a half, so i can't do it now. Next week's project perhaps.
Back to L&D. None of the other docs on call is a "normal" doc, just me. I'm on with a resident and a per diem md, so theoretically, I'm the one who best knows how to solve charting issues. That sux butt.
It's been raining in San Diego ever since all those visitors trundled off. They seem to have blessed us with their normal winter weather, just like a visiting pet leaves your home infested with its fleas and vermin. I never even saw some of them and i still get to slosh my way to my car each morning. Not sure who is to blame. Doubt it was Eor, since if it was from him, it would just be cold and foggy. Likewise, JLafitte is probably in the clear. New Orleans can be insufferable, but i don't think that it's due to cold winter rains. So, that leaves those New Yorkers and Carl. Carl from Seattle. Where it rains every day. It's the precipitatory antithesis of San Diego. But, it could be the women. I hear it's snowing in NYC, so maybe they did drop this winter crap on us. Share the pain kind of thing. Give us back our sun you interlopers!!
My plans for the future were rudely disrupted by a couple of Georgia rednecks. I was all set to turn in those early retirement papers and, bam, they end up being the sole winners of that big 270 million dollar lotta paycheck. I could have lived with a split payout. Greedy crackers. So now, I have to keep delivering babies and taking out uteruses. I don't mind work, I like what I do. But our work setting has become a pretty unpleasant place the last few weeks. We're doing a major change in how we document what we do, going from the time honored paper charting approach to a completely electronic record. The change over is on a national scale, not just getting a few workstations into a mom and pop sized practice. Given the scale of the project, even the simplest of tasks are ridiculously complex and arcane. The possibility of effecting any changes to make the system more user friendly are essentially non-existant. So, until the next lotto run up, I have to deal with it.
I'm going to do one of those shameless idea stealing things once i get a new all-in-one printer for our house. I want to put up some blast from the past photos like i had seen on someone's blog. That would allow me to post something potentially interesting or entertaining without having to think and type in coherent sentences, something that has always been a challenge for me. Our current scanner has been on the fritz for about a year and a half, so i can't do it now. Next week's project perhaps.
Back to L&D. None of the other docs on call is a "normal" doc, just me. I'm on with a resident and a per diem md, so theoretically, I'm the one who best knows how to solve charting issues. That sux butt.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Empty Nest
The last of the visiting bloggers leaves in a couple of hours. Eor came mid-week last week, but was only here long enough for some bending and brunching, then had to go back to the City. JLafitte headed up north on Friday for another week of west coast action with the LA crowd. I think he'll be going to classes with OvO. The ashtanginis, Anna and Linda, left yesterday evening, redeye-ing it back home to NYC after a week in the sun spread between Del Mar and LA. Carl, the sole remaining scribe, flies back to the mist this evening. He's getting in one more class this afternoon, the Intro to 2nd class with my wife at 4:30, then it's off to the airport. Thrifty man he, he used all ten of the classes on the card. I tried to get him one more go out into the surf today. I dug my old wetsuit out of the garage and gave it to him to try on after he got all the old spider nests and mouse poop off of it. He tried it but then handed it back, indicating that it was too tight in some places, like the crotch. Thanks Carl, you testiculus maximus you.
Carl and I went to led first series this morning. I think we both got a little more worked than we expected. I hadn't done first in something like three weeks, so i had regressed a fair amount in a couple of things, like Supta K. I must have also put on some poundage, because i had to work to get my arms thru in Garbha Pindasana, even after slathering all available sweat onto my legs and arms. After the class, Carl said that he had definitely felt the previous day's surfing session. Jois' Dictum: Ashtanga makes everything else better, everything else makes ashtanga harder.
So now comes the post-sybaritic pause, the return to reality check. Play is over, back to the babies, back to the socks, back to the computer monitors, back to the briefs, etc. It will probably be easier for me, as i don't have to leave our weather and I don't have to endure a long trip home right before going back to work. On the flip side, I don't get to go to happening places like NYC, Seattle, New Orleans or San Francisco. Like Steve Martin in "My Blue Heaven", I'm embedded in suburbia. It all balances out.
The last of the visiting bloggers leaves in a couple of hours. Eor came mid-week last week, but was only here long enough for some bending and brunching, then had to go back to the City. JLafitte headed up north on Friday for another week of west coast action with the LA crowd. I think he'll be going to classes with OvO. The ashtanginis, Anna and Linda, left yesterday evening, redeye-ing it back home to NYC after a week in the sun spread between Del Mar and LA. Carl, the sole remaining scribe, flies back to the mist this evening. He's getting in one more class this afternoon, the Intro to 2nd class with my wife at 4:30, then it's off to the airport. Thrifty man he, he used all ten of the classes on the card. I tried to get him one more go out into the surf today. I dug my old wetsuit out of the garage and gave it to him to try on after he got all the old spider nests and mouse poop off of it. He tried it but then handed it back, indicating that it was too tight in some places, like the crotch. Thanks Carl, you testiculus maximus you.
Carl and I went to led first series this morning. I think we both got a little more worked than we expected. I hadn't done first in something like three weeks, so i had regressed a fair amount in a couple of things, like Supta K. I must have also put on some poundage, because i had to work to get my arms thru in Garbha Pindasana, even after slathering all available sweat onto my legs and arms. After the class, Carl said that he had definitely felt the previous day's surfing session. Jois' Dictum: Ashtanga makes everything else better, everything else makes ashtanga harder.
So now comes the post-sybaritic pause, the return to reality check. Play is over, back to the babies, back to the socks, back to the computer monitors, back to the briefs, etc. It will probably be easier for me, as i don't have to leave our weather and I don't have to endure a long trip home right before going back to work. On the flip side, I don't get to go to happening places like NYC, Seattle, New Orleans or San Francisco. Like Steve Martin in "My Blue Heaven", I'm embedded in suburbia. It all balances out.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Carl, Don't Trust Me Ever Again
I'm a bad man. I had promised Carl that I would come pick him up at his hotel and bring him to the pranayama class. The class starts a little after 6 AM and he would have otherwise had to walk about a mile uphill at 5:15 to make it there. I hopped out of bed in plenty of time, but I guess I got into daydream-land while in the shower, envisioning the great practice I was bound to have. I knew I had screwed up when I walked out the door. "Oops! It's not supposed to be that light out." I turned on the car and saw the clock read 5:56. Since I'm one of those neurotic types who keeps their car clock set about seven or eight minutes ahead of the real time, I knew I really had about twenty minutes to get him there, if the class really didn't start until 6:15. I got to his hotel in about 15 minutes, reasonably good time with no tickets. I screwed up trying to beat a light though and lost some time just shy of the shala. I dropped him off to scurry up to the studio but he didn't make it in time. They had already started and were about half way thru the second pranayam. Young innocent that he was, he went ahead and sat down and joined in. No problems.
This had been an unusual week of practice for me. The typical pattern for me is to get gradually better with each successive class, if they are done within a day or so of each other. I expected my first class back from snowboarding to suck wind. I was somewhat sore from the snowboarding and I had driven for six hours the night before. The class actually was a great one, for me. I managed all the hard stuff pretty well and even almost grabbed ankles (assisted) in Chakra Bandhasana after backbending drop backs. But from there, the rest of the week's practices went parivrrta, all bassackwards. Each following practice was a little worse. Went from landing Bakasana B on the first try to taking six tries to giving up today after eight or nine flops. Thank god Tiffany and Julie weren't there or I would have had to go to the ATM.
Yesterday's practice wasn't notable for much for me. The other guys had some fun though. Carl went to the Valentine's Day improv and had his heart opened. Tim did lots of backbending stuff. I think Carl had a good time doing stuff that was new to him, Natarajasana, Anjanayasana, Vamadevasana (I think that's what he was describing). In the Mysore class, Stu got wishboned in Kapotasana, one of the best feeling adjustments known to man. He's also been stoked about being helped to his heels in that pose, which he claimed he wasn't able to do.
We all practiced together today. They did the party line first series and I thought I'd give second another try. Shouldn't have. I was very defocused. Just zoned out several times. I kept to my internal punitive rule system in which I have to quit if I don't make it into a given pose. Since I lost the battle with my heavy butt in Bakasana B, I went to backbending after Ardha Matsyendrasana. My original goal this week had been to get better enough each day that I would be able to get back over at least once in my tic tocs. As sad as this sounds, I was really counting on having Boodiba there to motivate me to get it. Sometimes those external motivation games do the trick for me. I didn't do that bad with it but still didn't get past halfway sticking point. I got my heels after drop backs, with Tim's hearty assistance, but didn't get the heels down. It was an unfulfilling practice in a lot of ways early on, but the finish brought my mood around 180 degrees.
I waited outside the studio, drinking coffee while looking at the snow on the nearby hills, while I waited for Carl to get done. Man, those two guys are polar opposites. Stuart flies through and he finished in a little over an hour. Tim came by to do drop backs with him. "Finished already?" he asked, "Some kind of new land speed record." Carl is much more measured. He's the one person I've seen who takes longer than I do to get through a class. I'm usually the last one out of the room when I have the chance to do a full Mysore and not have to rush off to work. He was still going today when I got up from a long Savasana. Carl and I had some coffee and talked a bit, then we went home. Stuart was just getting ready to head out to go north to LA for a week. After he left, I did some honeydo-es, then grabbed the kids and we all went go-karting. Carl almost passed on it, preferring to work on the computer, but we all called him a pussy from Seattle and he went for the hook. After the post-practice infusion of speed on the track, we then had a yogic lunch of bacon and cheese fries, buffalo wings and cheeseburgers. In the car, we listened to my son replaying all the songs from the Tenacious D DVD that had curse words in them (as in, all the songs).
I'm in a much better mood today than yesterday. Just felt a cloud of gloom. I guess the rainy weather can affect us more than we know sometimes. Since we never get it much here, we don't know to watch out for it. Carl is probably immune to it.
He is planning on a surf lesson tomorrow morning, so i need to work on him for a while with shark and sting ray stories. I'm once again abandoning him though, forcing him to walk the mile or so the beach for the class, as I will be with my kids at their sports things. He'll do well catching waves. He's an athletic guy. I had hoped to be able to film it for him but that didn't come thru.
I hope to be able to see everyone who came out again sometime and I hope everyone has a safe trip back home. Best of luck to Annabelle on your upcoming exam. Be the bar!
I'm a bad man. I had promised Carl that I would come pick him up at his hotel and bring him to the pranayama class. The class starts a little after 6 AM and he would have otherwise had to walk about a mile uphill at 5:15 to make it there. I hopped out of bed in plenty of time, but I guess I got into daydream-land while in the shower, envisioning the great practice I was bound to have. I knew I had screwed up when I walked out the door. "Oops! It's not supposed to be that light out." I turned on the car and saw the clock read 5:56. Since I'm one of those neurotic types who keeps their car clock set about seven or eight minutes ahead of the real time, I knew I really had about twenty minutes to get him there, if the class really didn't start until 6:15. I got to his hotel in about 15 minutes, reasonably good time with no tickets. I screwed up trying to beat a light though and lost some time just shy of the shala. I dropped him off to scurry up to the studio but he didn't make it in time. They had already started and were about half way thru the second pranayam. Young innocent that he was, he went ahead and sat down and joined in. No problems.
This had been an unusual week of practice for me. The typical pattern for me is to get gradually better with each successive class, if they are done within a day or so of each other. I expected my first class back from snowboarding to suck wind. I was somewhat sore from the snowboarding and I had driven for six hours the night before. The class actually was a great one, for me. I managed all the hard stuff pretty well and even almost grabbed ankles (assisted) in Chakra Bandhasana after backbending drop backs. But from there, the rest of the week's practices went parivrrta, all bassackwards. Each following practice was a little worse. Went from landing Bakasana B on the first try to taking six tries to giving up today after eight or nine flops. Thank god Tiffany and Julie weren't there or I would have had to go to the ATM.
Yesterday's practice wasn't notable for much for me. The other guys had some fun though. Carl went to the Valentine's Day improv and had his heart opened. Tim did lots of backbending stuff. I think Carl had a good time doing stuff that was new to him, Natarajasana, Anjanayasana, Vamadevasana (I think that's what he was describing). In the Mysore class, Stu got wishboned in Kapotasana, one of the best feeling adjustments known to man. He's also been stoked about being helped to his heels in that pose, which he claimed he wasn't able to do.
We all practiced together today. They did the party line first series and I thought I'd give second another try. Shouldn't have. I was very defocused. Just zoned out several times. I kept to my internal punitive rule system in which I have to quit if I don't make it into a given pose. Since I lost the battle with my heavy butt in Bakasana B, I went to backbending after Ardha Matsyendrasana. My original goal this week had been to get better enough each day that I would be able to get back over at least once in my tic tocs. As sad as this sounds, I was really counting on having Boodiba there to motivate me to get it. Sometimes those external motivation games do the trick for me. I didn't do that bad with it but still didn't get past halfway sticking point. I got my heels after drop backs, with Tim's hearty assistance, but didn't get the heels down. It was an unfulfilling practice in a lot of ways early on, but the finish brought my mood around 180 degrees.
I waited outside the studio, drinking coffee while looking at the snow on the nearby hills, while I waited for Carl to get done. Man, those two guys are polar opposites. Stuart flies through and he finished in a little over an hour. Tim came by to do drop backs with him. "Finished already?" he asked, "Some kind of new land speed record." Carl is much more measured. He's the one person I've seen who takes longer than I do to get through a class. I'm usually the last one out of the room when I have the chance to do a full Mysore and not have to rush off to work. He was still going today when I got up from a long Savasana. Carl and I had some coffee and talked a bit, then we went home. Stuart was just getting ready to head out to go north to LA for a week. After he left, I did some honeydo-es, then grabbed the kids and we all went go-karting. Carl almost passed on it, preferring to work on the computer, but we all called him a pussy from Seattle and he went for the hook. After the post-practice infusion of speed on the track, we then had a yogic lunch of bacon and cheese fries, buffalo wings and cheeseburgers. In the car, we listened to my son replaying all the songs from the Tenacious D DVD that had curse words in them (as in, all the songs).
I'm in a much better mood today than yesterday. Just felt a cloud of gloom. I guess the rainy weather can affect us more than we know sometimes. Since we never get it much here, we don't know to watch out for it. Carl is probably immune to it.
He is planning on a surf lesson tomorrow morning, so i need to work on him for a while with shark and sting ray stories. I'm once again abandoning him though, forcing him to walk the mile or so the beach for the class, as I will be with my kids at their sports things. He'll do well catching waves. He's an athletic guy. I had hoped to be able to film it for him but that didn't come thru.
I hope to be able to see everyone who came out again sometime and I hope everyone has a safe trip back home. Best of luck to Annabelle on your upcoming exam. Be the bar!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Bloggerpalooza Went Bloggerkaplewie
Bloggerpalooza (sound of air rushing out of a balloon). The idea was to have as many ashtanga bloggers as possible meet up out here in San Diego. We had all kinds of acting up planned: video pose offs, tequila tastings, a party or two, sleep overs. it was gonna be fun.
It started when I harangued Boodiba into coming out here for a relatively cut rate ashtanga vacation when it looked like her usual winter Mysore trip wasn't going to pan out. Her shala mate Annabelle also bought into my pitch and they made plans for a week out here. Pretty quickly, the wisdom of spending a normally frigid week in February in balmy San Diego doing yoga and hanging out with previously only imagined web personas struck a few other bloggers and it grew into a near event.
But. What would the world be like without buts? But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Unfortunately, these plans for the gathering of ashtanga bloggers weren't that well laid. First crack in the dike was the fact that most of the San Diego bloggers already had out of town plans for that week. Mike (laproxdoc) was going to Costa Rica, Tiffany had to go to Vegas for a work thing, Julie, the ashtanga.net head mofo, had a week of skiing planned with her family.
Just me and the out of towners? No probs. I can handle that. I'm tons o' fun. (stifled snort of derision from my wife). Anyways, turns out, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Literally. After years of promising but not delivering, I had promised my son we would finally go snowboarding together. They get out of school for a week each winter for this, so we were going to go then. Never occurred to me to check and see if the dates overlapped with everyone else's trip. Why would they? So, when I finally got around to sitting down and making the ski trip arrangements, imagine my surprise. Well, I could handle that. We were only going to go for four or five days. Maybe I could split the week I had off, half skiing with Jake and half hanging with the ashtangis.
Then things really turned south. The day the ladies were supposed to fly out from NYC, a fire occurred in Annabelle's apartment and she had to cancel her flight to sort things out at home and throw together a flight out the next day. Boodiba, who doesn't drive, had to come out alone and make her way from the airport to Del Mar on her own. I have no idea what that kind of taxi ride costs but I’m sure it was enough to put a damper on the mood of an already darkening trip.
I wasn't there for the first four days of the week that everyone was here. When I got back in town late Tuesday night, I quickly read over the blogs. Somehow, it had gone from south to shit. A couple of unsatisfying/unpleasant experiences at the shala seem to have turned the ashtanginis off to practicing there. Plus, this was a working holiday for Annabelle. She was commuting to LA to meet with her bar exam advisor. So she ended up opting to practice at home or at studios up in LA. I'm really bummed out about Linda's experience here. I've known people whom Tim didn't hit the right chord with, but reading things over in her blog, I can't help think that things would have gone better if I had been here like I had originally talked up. I enjoy my shala so much. And I enjoyed studying at her shala too. It just doesn't seem right that she and Annabelle wouldn't get the same kind of enjoyment at our place that I have.
Things sort of dominoed into everyone else's experience, because at least a part of the anticipation for this kind of get together was about the potential interaction with each other. When I went to practice Wednesday morning, only three bloggers were there: Eeyore, Carl and JLaffite. Eeyore finished up ahead of me, so I went over and said Hi as he was rolling up his mat to go. He gave me his number to try later that day but he was flying out at 4pm so we didn't manage to link up for a real talk. It's too bad. He's definitely one persona I really wanted to get to know as a person. He even had the cajones to sign in as Eeyore. Maybe the next time I get up to San Fran. Maybe we'll get around to doing that weird naked yoga he goes off about.
I have been able to spend some good time with Carl and JL. We had pizza and some wine at our place last night (more guilt on my part, I poured with a heavy hand). They wanted to try surfing but today was rainy and windy, so we just hung out at my place after practice. Carl got suckered into playing Halo after watching my son and his friends spend hours zomby-ing out with the Xbox. My daughter, who is pretty good at guitar hero, wanted me to get JL to play her. JL has a masters in music performance. He has played professionally and now teaches guitar in college. "Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar. I'll kick his ass!" she said. He did give it a go later today, and did reasonably well, but she would have kicked his ass.
Not sure if anything will develop tomorrow, the last day most of these folks are here. I'm a little reluctant to push on getting everyone together because I can't tell if that's what everyone wants to do. I feel a bit guilty and pretty bummed that the trip didn't work out as originally planned for all the people who came so far.
I'm going to practice in the morning and then I'm going go-karting with the kids. I had told JL and Carl I'd try to help get them a surf lesson if the wave conditions improved but Kiran, my wife, is now in bed sick, so I'll likely have all of the kid care responsibilities tomorrow.
Funny how far afield things can get. It's the nature of expectations I guess.
What am I supposed to do with all this tequila we were going to taste?
Late addendum: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, our house didn't burn down.
Bloggerpalooza (sound of air rushing out of a balloon). The idea was to have as many ashtanga bloggers as possible meet up out here in San Diego. We had all kinds of acting up planned: video pose offs, tequila tastings, a party or two, sleep overs. it was gonna be fun.
It started when I harangued Boodiba into coming out here for a relatively cut rate ashtanga vacation when it looked like her usual winter Mysore trip wasn't going to pan out. Her shala mate Annabelle also bought into my pitch and they made plans for a week out here. Pretty quickly, the wisdom of spending a normally frigid week in February in balmy San Diego doing yoga and hanging out with previously only imagined web personas struck a few other bloggers and it grew into a near event.
But. What would the world be like without buts? But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Unfortunately, these plans for the gathering of ashtanga bloggers weren't that well laid. First crack in the dike was the fact that most of the San Diego bloggers already had out of town plans for that week. Mike (laproxdoc) was going to Costa Rica, Tiffany had to go to Vegas for a work thing, Julie, the ashtanga.net head mofo, had a week of skiing planned with her family.
Just me and the out of towners? No probs. I can handle that. I'm tons o' fun. (stifled snort of derision from my wife). Anyways, turns out, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Literally. After years of promising but not delivering, I had promised my son we would finally go snowboarding together. They get out of school for a week each winter for this, so we were going to go then. Never occurred to me to check and see if the dates overlapped with everyone else's trip. Why would they? So, when I finally got around to sitting down and making the ski trip arrangements, imagine my surprise. Well, I could handle that. We were only going to go for four or five days. Maybe I could split the week I had off, half skiing with Jake and half hanging with the ashtangis.
Then things really turned south. The day the ladies were supposed to fly out from NYC, a fire occurred in Annabelle's apartment and she had to cancel her flight to sort things out at home and throw together a flight out the next day. Boodiba, who doesn't drive, had to come out alone and make her way from the airport to Del Mar on her own. I have no idea what that kind of taxi ride costs but I’m sure it was enough to put a damper on the mood of an already darkening trip.
I wasn't there for the first four days of the week that everyone was here. When I got back in town late Tuesday night, I quickly read over the blogs. Somehow, it had gone from south to shit. A couple of unsatisfying/unpleasant experiences at the shala seem to have turned the ashtanginis off to practicing there. Plus, this was a working holiday for Annabelle. She was commuting to LA to meet with her bar exam advisor. So she ended up opting to practice at home or at studios up in LA. I'm really bummed out about Linda's experience here. I've known people whom Tim didn't hit the right chord with, but reading things over in her blog, I can't help think that things would have gone better if I had been here like I had originally talked up. I enjoy my shala so much. And I enjoyed studying at her shala too. It just doesn't seem right that she and Annabelle wouldn't get the same kind of enjoyment at our place that I have.
Things sort of dominoed into everyone else's experience, because at least a part of the anticipation for this kind of get together was about the potential interaction with each other. When I went to practice Wednesday morning, only three bloggers were there: Eeyore, Carl and JLaffite. Eeyore finished up ahead of me, so I went over and said Hi as he was rolling up his mat to go. He gave me his number to try later that day but he was flying out at 4pm so we didn't manage to link up for a real talk. It's too bad. He's definitely one persona I really wanted to get to know as a person. He even had the cajones to sign in as Eeyore. Maybe the next time I get up to San Fran. Maybe we'll get around to doing that weird naked yoga he goes off about.
I have been able to spend some good time with Carl and JL. We had pizza and some wine at our place last night (more guilt on my part, I poured with a heavy hand). They wanted to try surfing but today was rainy and windy, so we just hung out at my place after practice. Carl got suckered into playing Halo after watching my son and his friends spend hours zomby-ing out with the Xbox. My daughter, who is pretty good at guitar hero, wanted me to get JL to play her. JL has a masters in music performance. He has played professionally and now teaches guitar in college. "Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar. I'll kick his ass!" she said. He did give it a go later today, and did reasonably well, but she would have kicked his ass.
Not sure if anything will develop tomorrow, the last day most of these folks are here. I'm a little reluctant to push on getting everyone together because I can't tell if that's what everyone wants to do. I feel a bit guilty and pretty bummed that the trip didn't work out as originally planned for all the people who came so far.
I'm going to practice in the morning and then I'm going go-karting with the kids. I had told JL and Carl I'd try to help get them a surf lesson if the wave conditions improved but Kiran, my wife, is now in bed sick, so I'll likely have all of the kid care responsibilities tomorrow.
Funny how far afield things can get. It's the nature of expectations I guess.
What am I supposed to do with all this tequila we were going to taste?
Late addendum: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, our house didn't burn down.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Lottery of Life
So far, we still have a roof. Today will be the crux though.
It was a little hectic yesterday, in part because, as is usual in these kinds of things, it was hard to know what was really happening. While the authorities do seem vastly better organized with this fire than they were during the huge fire four years ago, in these kinds of fires, things change so quickly that even with the media right on site with cameras, it was hard to keep on top of where the fire was going, what areas were at risk, who was supposed to evacuate and most importantly, what roads were closed or open.
I ended up going to practice yesterday morning. I had dropped my youngest off at her 5:00 swim practice. It was still dark, so I had no idea that there was a significant firestorm heading our way. After practice, i realized i would need to go back home before heading to work because i had forgotten to bring my shoes and socks. When i stopped by the house, my wife was packing the car and getting the kids ready to go. there had been an evacuation order given for our area. She headed out to palm springs with the kids to ride this out in cleaner air.
I hung around to pack up a few more things and see how it developed. While our house faces east, the direction that the fire was coming from, you couldn't see much except smoke. It was thick enough to be able to look directly at the sun at mid-day and see a faint orange disk. At ground level, it looked like a foggy day. It wasn't as bad indoors though. There was a fair amount of ash in the air. We have a miniature pool out back and it was looking like the black lagoon, with probably a half an inch of soot, leaves and other debris covering the bed of the pool.
The day before, the winds had blown a patio umbrella out of its table, shattering the glass table top in the process, and deposited the umbrella upside down in the pool.
With all of the confusion about how close the fires may be, the last report claiming they were about 6 miles out, and with my wife calling me every 20 minutes out of concern, i decided in mid afternoon to pull out and join them in palm springs. As i exited our area, there were a covey of police cars preventing others from entering our neighborhood. I figured that was a sign i was going in the right direction. I hit the freeway along the coast and it totally stalled out. everybody was also trying to head north. Since the other main North/South freeway was closed by the fire, it was a very slow slog. After about a half an hour trip that gained me four or five miles, i pulled off and tried to get a hotel room. Turns out, there were no remaining rooms in the entire north county. As i got back into the car, one of the reporters in a helicopter advised that there were in fact no fires at all near the area that was earlier cited as an imminent risk to our area. So, rather than sit in traffic to drive north 30 or 40 miles to find a hotel room where i could stress out in ignorance, i decide to head back home and see how it went.
I had to semi-sneak in thru a back road. Once home, it was getting into evening and the winds died down significantly. The advantage of the dark is that i could see if there were any flames nearby. I kept climbing up the hill near our home to get a better vantage. According to the TV reports, the fire front had forked around the area of our neighborhood, following the river valleys west, giving us a free pass for the night.
I called a few of the local yogis, most of whom also had to evacuate. Almost one half of this county was given some sort of evacuation order or request. For reference, this county is three times larger in area than Rhode Island. One of them in a safe area kindly offered to put me up if needed. So far, it remains a generous but unneeded offer.
Today, unfortunately, the winds have picked back up to the very strong level. Even though the tracks of the fires were around and away from us, with higher winds, anything can happen.
I'll try to figure out some way to put up some pictures, but i don't have any really dramatic ones. just shots of a disgustingly dirty pool and smoke filled horizons.
So far, we still have a roof. Today will be the crux though.
It was a little hectic yesterday, in part because, as is usual in these kinds of things, it was hard to know what was really happening. While the authorities do seem vastly better organized with this fire than they were during the huge fire four years ago, in these kinds of fires, things change so quickly that even with the media right on site with cameras, it was hard to keep on top of where the fire was going, what areas were at risk, who was supposed to evacuate and most importantly, what roads were closed or open.
I ended up going to practice yesterday morning. I had dropped my youngest off at her 5:00 swim practice. It was still dark, so I had no idea that there was a significant firestorm heading our way. After practice, i realized i would need to go back home before heading to work because i had forgotten to bring my shoes and socks. When i stopped by the house, my wife was packing the car and getting the kids ready to go. there had been an evacuation order given for our area. She headed out to palm springs with the kids to ride this out in cleaner air.
I hung around to pack up a few more things and see how it developed. While our house faces east, the direction that the fire was coming from, you couldn't see much except smoke. It was thick enough to be able to look directly at the sun at mid-day and see a faint orange disk. At ground level, it looked like a foggy day. It wasn't as bad indoors though. There was a fair amount of ash in the air. We have a miniature pool out back and it was looking like the black lagoon, with probably a half an inch of soot, leaves and other debris covering the bed of the pool.
The day before, the winds had blown a patio umbrella out of its table, shattering the glass table top in the process, and deposited the umbrella upside down in the pool.
With all of the confusion about how close the fires may be, the last report claiming they were about 6 miles out, and with my wife calling me every 20 minutes out of concern, i decided in mid afternoon to pull out and join them in palm springs. As i exited our area, there were a covey of police cars preventing others from entering our neighborhood. I figured that was a sign i was going in the right direction. I hit the freeway along the coast and it totally stalled out. everybody was also trying to head north. Since the other main North/South freeway was closed by the fire, it was a very slow slog. After about a half an hour trip that gained me four or five miles, i pulled off and tried to get a hotel room. Turns out, there were no remaining rooms in the entire north county. As i got back into the car, one of the reporters in a helicopter advised that there were in fact no fires at all near the area that was earlier cited as an imminent risk to our area. So, rather than sit in traffic to drive north 30 or 40 miles to find a hotel room where i could stress out in ignorance, i decide to head back home and see how it went.
I had to semi-sneak in thru a back road. Once home, it was getting into evening and the winds died down significantly. The advantage of the dark is that i could see if there were any flames nearby. I kept climbing up the hill near our home to get a better vantage. According to the TV reports, the fire front had forked around the area of our neighborhood, following the river valleys west, giving us a free pass for the night.
I called a few of the local yogis, most of whom also had to evacuate. Almost one half of this county was given some sort of evacuation order or request. For reference, this county is three times larger in area than Rhode Island. One of them in a safe area kindly offered to put me up if needed. So far, it remains a generous but unneeded offer.
Today, unfortunately, the winds have picked back up to the very strong level. Even though the tracks of the fires were around and away from us, with higher winds, anything can happen.
I'll try to figure out some way to put up some pictures, but i don't have any really dramatic ones. just shots of a disgustingly dirty pool and smoke filled horizons.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Kubler-Ross Ashtanga
Previously, i have been in denial. yesterday, i went thru anger. today, i was initially thinking, "there's not much i can do, so the hell with it. can't stress on that crap". i figured i'd moved right on to acceptance. i didn't even do any research during class. just did the poses. problem was, i kept thinking about what i wrote yesterday, the issues, etc. and i kept getting angrier. by the time i had my "i'm as competant as anyone else" delusions once again shattered in the life process known as Karandavasana, i was so mad i wanted to hit someone. so i quit and laid down. screw the rest of it.
I guess i forgot that the stages take a little while and there's a few more before acceptance comes into play. I never liked her anyway.
But, i felt better lying in savasana. near my mat, a mom had her toddler with her and was playing with him. I heard my name, "that's John" and figured he must have pointed at me or something. I was going to maintian my hissy snit and just keep to myself, but realized that would be a total ass thing to do, so i looked over. sure enough, he was looking over at me, trying to suss out if i was a source of fun or if i was a threat. i reached over, picked up my hair tie and shot it over at him. he thought that was cool and went running around the room, going from mat to mat, showing it to mom and dad. so then i wasn't as mad.
after class, a friend was in the entry way. she had suddenly become nauseated. on her way to the bathroom to throw up, she asked me to cover her 12:30 class. "But I'm angry. I'm in a bad mood!!", I wanted to say. I taught the class. And the class was fun. it was in some empty office space at a big insurance company office building. Only about ten people. Most of them in the early stages of learning yoga. I probably worked them with more rigor than they were used too. I got enough looks to hint at that. i think overall that it worked out though. and i left in a good mood.
as lax remonstrated in yesterday's comments section, too much thinking. and, for sure, i was today. All i could think about during practice was some of the stuff from yesterday. No mas, for now. The rest of that crap is just crap.
Previously, i have been in denial. yesterday, i went thru anger. today, i was initially thinking, "there's not much i can do, so the hell with it. can't stress on that crap". i figured i'd moved right on to acceptance. i didn't even do any research during class. just did the poses. problem was, i kept thinking about what i wrote yesterday, the issues, etc. and i kept getting angrier. by the time i had my "i'm as competant as anyone else" delusions once again shattered in the life process known as Karandavasana, i was so mad i wanted to hit someone. so i quit and laid down. screw the rest of it.
I guess i forgot that the stages take a little while and there's a few more before acceptance comes into play. I never liked her anyway.
But, i felt better lying in savasana. near my mat, a mom had her toddler with her and was playing with him. I heard my name, "that's John" and figured he must have pointed at me or something. I was going to maintian my hissy snit and just keep to myself, but realized that would be a total ass thing to do, so i looked over. sure enough, he was looking over at me, trying to suss out if i was a source of fun or if i was a threat. i reached over, picked up my hair tie and shot it over at him. he thought that was cool and went running around the room, going from mat to mat, showing it to mom and dad. so then i wasn't as mad.
after class, a friend was in the entry way. she had suddenly become nauseated. on her way to the bathroom to throw up, she asked me to cover her 12:30 class. "But I'm angry. I'm in a bad mood!!", I wanted to say. I taught the class. And the class was fun. it was in some empty office space at a big insurance company office building. Only about ten people. Most of them in the early stages of learning yoga. I probably worked them with more rigor than they were used too. I got enough looks to hint at that. i think overall that it worked out though. and i left in a good mood.
as lax remonstrated in yesterday's comments section, too much thinking. and, for sure, i was today. All i could think about during practice was some of the stuff from yesterday. No mas, for now. The rest of that crap is just crap.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
What's It All About, Alfie?
Anybody here not know why we do ashtanga? To get the next pose. Right? Anybody disagree? Raise your mouse. You lie. We may wish it were for all that other stuff, but in the nitty-gritty real world we all sweat in, it's about quantitative evaluation. You do better, you get more poses. You don't get poses, you're not good enough to get them. The simplicity is attractive. It's honest, understandable and it works. We get into it, get motivated, do more and maybe inadvertently gather other benefits as well. But, for most, and probably all of us, the true motivator is: what's next.
So, why blather about this? Well, I was trying to assess if it's possible for me to get a pose. Ever. Regardless of what i am able to do athletically. There are factors that could make progression, and therefore satisfaction, impossible. Namely, access.
Obviously, poses are given in Mysore classes. At our studio, Mysore classes with the teacher who gives out poses are on Monday thru Friday, only. so that eliminates one sixth of my chances right there (working with the theoretic six practice per week regimen). Another quirk of ashtanga is that classes aren't held on moon days. presume 2 moon days per month, which will fall on Mysore class days 71% of the time. Also, the norm is to not give poses on Tuesdays, an inauspicious day (Mars' day) in Hindu culture. Scratch another four days. So, where am i so far? 30 days minus 8-9 weekend days, minus four Tuesdays, minus 1.4 moon days, that's 13.4 days gone already. Ok, the big kahuna, being a senior teacher, usually is out of town on a weekend teaching junket twice a month. Typically, he used to be gone from Thursday thru Sunday. Lately, however, he has been out for Monday too (travel recovery day?). so that's another six days per month lost to me. Two thirds of the month is already history and i haven't even entered the studio yet.
I'm one of those 'normal' people, the pretenders, one who actually has a day job that limits my ability to make it to Mysore classes. At our studio, the Mysore classes are from 7-9am on M-W-F and are from 9-11am on T&Th. Since my typical day on call starts at either 7:30a or 8:00a, the only time i can get to a M-W-F class is if i am in clinic in the morning. On those days, I can schedule my clinic to start at 10:00 and work thru lunch to make up for the late start. The only time I can make it to Mysore on T & Th is if i work overnight the night before. I get off a bit after 8, drive up and usually can make it to the studio right at or shortly after the class starts, presuming no last minute crash c-sections, etc. So, if i am to make it to Mysore, i have to either be in clinic on a M-W-F, or I have to have been on call Wed night.
Looking over the last few months, I was on call on a Wednesday night only once each month, so that takes away another three days. I was in clinic in the morning no more than twice in a given month on M-W-F. So, that gives me 2-3 days in an average month in which i might see and be seen by my teacher in a Mysore setting.
I've got two chances a month, essentially, to practice and show enough worth to be advanced. and some months, it's not even that many. There are usually many other practice chances, usually led classes, Saturday classes, or the second Mysore class, led by another teacher. Not classes in which I could "progress" though.
So, what's it all about? Self delusion. I don't think teachers think you're a real student, a serious student, one who they might think about progressing, when you're only there twice a month.
Now, this shouldn't be misconstrued as a whiny, "i deserve to be given a pose but I'm being unfairly passed over" thing. I know that I'm not doing the poses near the end of my practice well. and may not ever be able to do so. This is more a diatribe about how we can fool ourselves into thinking that we're like every one else, all the daily practice people, when, we're not. we're the de facto strap hangers, the carpet baggers. we have a place and more power to us for whatever we can accomplish, but, no matter what our ability, we won't ever be able to do what comparable daily Mysore people do, because we won't get the chance.
it still beats going home and playing internet poker.
Anybody here not know why we do ashtanga? To get the next pose. Right? Anybody disagree? Raise your mouse. You lie. We may wish it were for all that other stuff, but in the nitty-gritty real world we all sweat in, it's about quantitative evaluation. You do better, you get more poses. You don't get poses, you're not good enough to get them. The simplicity is attractive. It's honest, understandable and it works. We get into it, get motivated, do more and maybe inadvertently gather other benefits as well. But, for most, and probably all of us, the true motivator is: what's next.
So, why blather about this? Well, I was trying to assess if it's possible for me to get a pose. Ever. Regardless of what i am able to do athletically. There are factors that could make progression, and therefore satisfaction, impossible. Namely, access.
Obviously, poses are given in Mysore classes. At our studio, Mysore classes with the teacher who gives out poses are on Monday thru Friday, only. so that eliminates one sixth of my chances right there (working with the theoretic six practice per week regimen). Another quirk of ashtanga is that classes aren't held on moon days. presume 2 moon days per month, which will fall on Mysore class days 71% of the time. Also, the norm is to not give poses on Tuesdays, an inauspicious day (Mars' day) in Hindu culture. Scratch another four days. So, where am i so far? 30 days minus 8-9 weekend days, minus four Tuesdays, minus 1.4 moon days, that's 13.4 days gone already. Ok, the big kahuna, being a senior teacher, usually is out of town on a weekend teaching junket twice a month. Typically, he used to be gone from Thursday thru Sunday. Lately, however, he has been out for Monday too (travel recovery day?). so that's another six days per month lost to me. Two thirds of the month is already history and i haven't even entered the studio yet.
I'm one of those 'normal' people, the pretenders, one who actually has a day job that limits my ability to make it to Mysore classes. At our studio, the Mysore classes are from 7-9am on M-W-F and are from 9-11am on T&Th. Since my typical day on call starts at either 7:30a or 8:00a, the only time i can get to a M-W-F class is if i am in clinic in the morning. On those days, I can schedule my clinic to start at 10:00 and work thru lunch to make up for the late start. The only time I can make it to Mysore on T & Th is if i work overnight the night before. I get off a bit after 8, drive up and usually can make it to the studio right at or shortly after the class starts, presuming no last minute crash c-sections, etc. So, if i am to make it to Mysore, i have to either be in clinic on a M-W-F, or I have to have been on call Wed night.
Looking over the last few months, I was on call on a Wednesday night only once each month, so that takes away another three days. I was in clinic in the morning no more than twice in a given month on M-W-F. So, that gives me 2-3 days in an average month in which i might see and be seen by my teacher in a Mysore setting.
I've got two chances a month, essentially, to practice and show enough worth to be advanced. and some months, it's not even that many. There are usually many other practice chances, usually led classes, Saturday classes, or the second Mysore class, led by another teacher. Not classes in which I could "progress" though.
So, what's it all about? Self delusion. I don't think teachers think you're a real student, a serious student, one who they might think about progressing, when you're only there twice a month.
Now, this shouldn't be misconstrued as a whiny, "i deserve to be given a pose but I'm being unfairly passed over" thing. I know that I'm not doing the poses near the end of my practice well. and may not ever be able to do so. This is more a diatribe about how we can fool ourselves into thinking that we're like every one else, all the daily practice people, when, we're not. we're the de facto strap hangers, the carpet baggers. we have a place and more power to us for whatever we can accomplish, but, no matter what our ability, we won't ever be able to do what comparable daily Mysore people do, because we won't get the chance.
it still beats going home and playing internet poker.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Pies to Die For
I'm going to take a cue from my e-friend lax and let people come here to get these recipes. these are recipes for a couple of ice box pies that are perfect for summer evening backyard barbeques and what not. both require very little in the way of ingredients or skill. just a bit of work for the chocolate one to get everything blended and smooth
French Silk Pie
i opted to use the link my sister gave me, rather than just post the typed out recipe, because i thought the readers'comments on the web site about making the pie were pretty good. one note, my mom, who we got this recipe from, used a deeper dish pie crust, so she would double the recipe. the recipe actually calls for an eight inch pie crust, not the typical 9 incher. so if you use a 9 incher, i would suggest doubling the recipe. this suggestion was also made by several of the ppl on the recipe web site. if you do double the recipe to make sure you have enough, you could also have a few small three inch mini-pie crusts nearby that you could use to make mini pies with any extra filling. the key is to beat and blend this stuff a lot. the recipe calls for one egg at a time with a five minute blend after each egg. it does take that long but the effort is well worth it. this is maybe the richest pie i've ever had.
Key Lime Pie
Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix the crust ingredients and line the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Cool
Filling
4 egg yolks, beaten well
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup fresh lime juice
Whipped cream sweetened
Grated Lime
In a bowl gradually add the milk to the well beaten eggs and mix well. Add the lime juice. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and freeze. Remove 10 minutes before serving. Top with whipped cream and garnish with grated lime.
My comments: for me the crux of this one is the crust. i grew up in the pre-cuisinart era and we hand to use a rolling pin to smash up the graham crackers to get the stuff for the crust. after we walked fifteen miles in the mud and snow to the neighbor's hen house to steal the eggs and milk the condensed cows. it sucked, but, i felt involved with my crust. i strongly, strongly advise against buying a pre-made graham cracker crust and recommend that you make your own with this recipe. it will look much messier and be much harder to do than just pouring the filling into some perfect manufactured crust from the store. but the buttery richness of the real home made crust perfectly accents the tartness of the pie. it's a world of difference. as for those purists out there, sure you could use key limes, but imo, they are too bitter. we just used either sqeezed lime juice or those Real Lime things, the little plastic limes filled with lime juice thatthey have in the produce section of most stores. i don't know, maybe now a days, in the era of global fruit production, maybe there is not an out of season time for limes and you can get them year round. back then, nearly in the mcCarthy era, we had to use what we could get when we could get it. try it with both some time, key limes and normal limes, and see which you like better.
For both of these pies, let them set for at least several hours in the freezer before trying to serve them. and warn your guests that the key lime is really tart and that the french silk is considered a controlled substance with the same level of addiction potential as prescription drugs like oxycontin, percocet and viagra.
and leave the whipped cream off. that's for poofters. these are serious stand alone desserts.
I'm going to take a cue from my e-friend lax and let people come here to get these recipes. these are recipes for a couple of ice box pies that are perfect for summer evening backyard barbeques and what not. both require very little in the way of ingredients or skill. just a bit of work for the chocolate one to get everything blended and smooth
French Silk Pie
i opted to use the link my sister gave me, rather than just post the typed out recipe, because i thought the readers'comments on the web site about making the pie were pretty good. one note, my mom, who we got this recipe from, used a deeper dish pie crust, so she would double the recipe. the recipe actually calls for an eight inch pie crust, not the typical 9 incher. so if you use a 9 incher, i would suggest doubling the recipe. this suggestion was also made by several of the ppl on the recipe web site. if you do double the recipe to make sure you have enough, you could also have a few small three inch mini-pie crusts nearby that you could use to make mini pies with any extra filling. the key is to beat and blend this stuff a lot. the recipe calls for one egg at a time with a five minute blend after each egg. it does take that long but the effort is well worth it. this is maybe the richest pie i've ever had.
Key Lime Pie
Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix the crust ingredients and line the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Cool
Filling
4 egg yolks, beaten well
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup fresh lime juice
Whipped cream sweetened
Grated Lime
In a bowl gradually add the milk to the well beaten eggs and mix well. Add the lime juice. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and freeze. Remove 10 minutes before serving. Top with whipped cream and garnish with grated lime.
My comments: for me the crux of this one is the crust. i grew up in the pre-cuisinart era and we hand to use a rolling pin to smash up the graham crackers to get the stuff for the crust. after we walked fifteen miles in the mud and snow to the neighbor's hen house to steal the eggs and milk the condensed cows. it sucked, but, i felt involved with my crust. i strongly, strongly advise against buying a pre-made graham cracker crust and recommend that you make your own with this recipe. it will look much messier and be much harder to do than just pouring the filling into some perfect manufactured crust from the store. but the buttery richness of the real home made crust perfectly accents the tartness of the pie. it's a world of difference. as for those purists out there, sure you could use key limes, but imo, they are too bitter. we just used either sqeezed lime juice or those Real Lime things, the little plastic limes filled with lime juice thatthey have in the produce section of most stores. i don't know, maybe now a days, in the era of global fruit production, maybe there is not an out of season time for limes and you can get them year round. back then, nearly in the mcCarthy era, we had to use what we could get when we could get it. try it with both some time, key limes and normal limes, and see which you like better.
For both of these pies, let them set for at least several hours in the freezer before trying to serve them. and warn your guests that the key lime is really tart and that the french silk is considered a controlled substance with the same level of addiction potential as prescription drugs like oxycontin, percocet and viagra.
and leave the whipped cream off. that's for poofters. these are serious stand alone desserts.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Magical Light
I had one of those wonderful post practice euphorias yesterday. It had rained all day but was just clearing as i drove home. it was about 7 to 7:30 pm and the clearing was to the west. this allowed the sun to come in at a really low angle, lighting everything up under the still dark clouds. there's something special about that particular kind of light. I remember it very well from my youth. those of you who live in places where afternoon and evening rains are a common thing will likely think nothing of it, but those of us who live in the great western desert, where brown and grey are the predominant colors of the natural landscape and where it almost never rains, tend to just stand and gape at the effect that that kind of light has. the area of vermont that i'm in is known as the green mountains. that was never truer than last night. driving home, i was just hypnotized by the vibrancy of the views. add in the post practice calm and i was just in another world. at one point, driving down a ten mile backroad to get to my main route, i looked down and saw that i was tooling along almost ten miles below the speed limit. that was the most enjoyable drive i think i've ever had. there's a school of art called plein-air, in which the artists work outdoors to capture the effect of natural light. i'd love to see if artists could capture the kind of light that i saw as the sun came in and lit up those fields and hills.
i did my second series poses last night. I was the only one doing second, everyone else was doing led first. I was somewhat anxious starting off. you never know ahead of time if this will be one of those good practices or if it will be your day to stink up the place. being an outsider and then doing a different series from everyone else, it would look extremely bad to flail in the poses. i did okay, i didn't do anything all that well, but i didn't bring shame on my teacher either. i did a lot of my usual break taking, finding spots here and there to recover my breath. i sensed that the teacher encourages her students to try to keep to a disciplined approach in their practices, not futzing about, not taking extra breaths, not making long transitions into and out of poses. she was kind enough to let me do it the way i do, lazy as it is.
while there was nothing stand out about the poses i did, i think i focused better than i might usually. somewhere along the line of her led first series class, she decided to make it a more improv type thing and shifted away from straight first series. i heard her say at one point that she was going to skip marichy B. i don't remember anything else about what they were doing until i was moving into my closing poses. then, i heard her talking them through eka pada bhekasana. that kind of woke me up and i looked over to see what was going on. i gathered she had been going thru a modified intro to second, but i didn't pick up on it until the very end. usually, with my tendency to focus externally, i would have been more attuned to what they were doing than what i was doing.
maybe that better focus and doing second series helped lead to that all too rare post-practice feeling of happiness or whatever it is. definitely the kind of thing that brings you back for more.
the boy and i head back home today. i woke up with the light. he's luxuriating in the chance to sleep in.
as they say at the end of the madeline stories: that's all there is, there isn't any more
I had one of those wonderful post practice euphorias yesterday. It had rained all day but was just clearing as i drove home. it was about 7 to 7:30 pm and the clearing was to the west. this allowed the sun to come in at a really low angle, lighting everything up under the still dark clouds. there's something special about that particular kind of light. I remember it very well from my youth. those of you who live in places where afternoon and evening rains are a common thing will likely think nothing of it, but those of us who live in the great western desert, where brown and grey are the predominant colors of the natural landscape and where it almost never rains, tend to just stand and gape at the effect that that kind of light has. the area of vermont that i'm in is known as the green mountains. that was never truer than last night. driving home, i was just hypnotized by the vibrancy of the views. add in the post practice calm and i was just in another world. at one point, driving down a ten mile backroad to get to my main route, i looked down and saw that i was tooling along almost ten miles below the speed limit. that was the most enjoyable drive i think i've ever had. there's a school of art called plein-air, in which the artists work outdoors to capture the effect of natural light. i'd love to see if artists could capture the kind of light that i saw as the sun came in and lit up those fields and hills.
i did my second series poses last night. I was the only one doing second, everyone else was doing led first. I was somewhat anxious starting off. you never know ahead of time if this will be one of those good practices or if it will be your day to stink up the place. being an outsider and then doing a different series from everyone else, it would look extremely bad to flail in the poses. i did okay, i didn't do anything all that well, but i didn't bring shame on my teacher either. i did a lot of my usual break taking, finding spots here and there to recover my breath. i sensed that the teacher encourages her students to try to keep to a disciplined approach in their practices, not futzing about, not taking extra breaths, not making long transitions into and out of poses. she was kind enough to let me do it the way i do, lazy as it is.
while there was nothing stand out about the poses i did, i think i focused better than i might usually. somewhere along the line of her led first series class, she decided to make it a more improv type thing and shifted away from straight first series. i heard her say at one point that she was going to skip marichy B. i don't remember anything else about what they were doing until i was moving into my closing poses. then, i heard her talking them through eka pada bhekasana. that kind of woke me up and i looked over to see what was going on. i gathered she had been going thru a modified intro to second, but i didn't pick up on it until the very end. usually, with my tendency to focus externally, i would have been more attuned to what they were doing than what i was doing.
maybe that better focus and doing second series helped lead to that all too rare post-practice feeling of happiness or whatever it is. definitely the kind of thing that brings you back for more.
the boy and i head back home today. i woke up with the light. he's luxuriating in the chance to sleep in.
as they say at the end of the madeline stories: that's all there is, there isn't any more
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
A Crime Against Humanity
Had to go to a laundromat to wash some of the lacrosse boy's stuff while we're on this road trip going from one lax camp to another. Talk about going down into the rabbit hole, $4.50 for one load of wash? GTFOOH!! Is this a widespread thing? i mean, you can buy a whole washing machine for about $600. Granted, the place did have free Wi-Fi (Wash-n-Wi-Fi), but i shudder to think what kind of bill my family would ring up. There's only five of us, but somehow there's at least two to three loads of wash a day.
We were in Santa Barbara last week for a team camp. My son's team was head and shoulders above the skill level of the other teams . That speaks well for them and their coach but in the long run they risk perceiving that they are god's gift to lacrosse. They had a bit of a reality check when they played in a baltimore area tournament in June. Prior to that, they hadn't lost a game in three years. In that tourney, they went 3-2-1. They played well but could tell that they had some things they need to do to be as good as the best teams.
While in SB, I went to the Ashtanga Yoga Shala to practice with steve and michelle. We had met them at one of Tim's Mt. Shasta retreats. Wonderful couple and really great teachers too. Kiran also spent one day at Damien's studio. He's the nephew of the guy i studied with when i was in the Washington DC area. It's a small ashtanga world.
Amazingly, despite being in the backwoods of Vermont for this week's lacrosse camp, there's an authorized teacher about 40 miles from here, christine hoar. She has really full classes, which is surprising given the very rural setting. The classes are led first series in the evening but she has said that if people want to do other series instead, they're welcome to do so. I didn't want to do that and be the only one so I've only done first so far.
The very first class with christine, i was able to figure out that she had studied with nancy gilgoff. some of her verbal cues and a couple of the other things, like the five minute seated meditation before class, are the same as what one of our teachers does with us when ever she has come back from her yearly two weeks at nancy's studio. i guess it's like picking out where someone grew up by hearing their accent. you can sometimes see where a teacher trained by how they do their classes. She give nice secure adjustments and seems pretty dedicated to the approach guruji advises. she's corrected a few of my poses to reflect current technique, i.e. arms forward in balasana instead of back along the sides of the body. i don't like that way, fwiw. i'll ask her about doing second this evening if i get to go. i'm not likely going to be able to do all my extraneous stuff though.
well, got to go and watch the pm session at the camp. My son is the only one from the west coast. in fact, he may be the only one not from the immediate new england area. He's not liking this camp unfortunately. they give a short teaching clinic and then let the kids play a game each half day. other than what they cover in the clinic, the coaches seem to be pretty uninvolved. there's little or no coaching during the games. live and learn. i think he's getting a little burned out on lax now too. it's been a non-stop thing since february. he still has one more travel tourney up to san francisco in early august to play some bay area competetive teams. he should be fully stoked for that trip. these guys do not want to lose to any west coast teams.
pithy, i can't do pithy.
Had to go to a laundromat to wash some of the lacrosse boy's stuff while we're on this road trip going from one lax camp to another. Talk about going down into the rabbit hole, $4.50 for one load of wash? GTFOOH!! Is this a widespread thing? i mean, you can buy a whole washing machine for about $600. Granted, the place did have free Wi-Fi (Wash-n-Wi-Fi), but i shudder to think what kind of bill my family would ring up. There's only five of us, but somehow there's at least two to three loads of wash a day.
We were in Santa Barbara last week for a team camp. My son's team was head and shoulders above the skill level of the other teams . That speaks well for them and their coach but in the long run they risk perceiving that they are god's gift to lacrosse. They had a bit of a reality check when they played in a baltimore area tournament in June. Prior to that, they hadn't lost a game in three years. In that tourney, they went 3-2-1. They played well but could tell that they had some things they need to do to be as good as the best teams.
While in SB, I went to the Ashtanga Yoga Shala to practice with steve and michelle. We had met them at one of Tim's Mt. Shasta retreats. Wonderful couple and really great teachers too. Kiran also spent one day at Damien's studio. He's the nephew of the guy i studied with when i was in the Washington DC area. It's a small ashtanga world.
Amazingly, despite being in the backwoods of Vermont for this week's lacrosse camp, there's an authorized teacher about 40 miles from here, christine hoar. She has really full classes, which is surprising given the very rural setting. The classes are led first series in the evening but she has said that if people want to do other series instead, they're welcome to do so. I didn't want to do that and be the only one so I've only done first so far.
The very first class with christine, i was able to figure out that she had studied with nancy gilgoff. some of her verbal cues and a couple of the other things, like the five minute seated meditation before class, are the same as what one of our teachers does with us when ever she has come back from her yearly two weeks at nancy's studio. i guess it's like picking out where someone grew up by hearing their accent. you can sometimes see where a teacher trained by how they do their classes. She give nice secure adjustments and seems pretty dedicated to the approach guruji advises. she's corrected a few of my poses to reflect current technique, i.e. arms forward in balasana instead of back along the sides of the body. i don't like that way, fwiw. i'll ask her about doing second this evening if i get to go. i'm not likely going to be able to do all my extraneous stuff though.
well, got to go and watch the pm session at the camp. My son is the only one from the west coast. in fact, he may be the only one not from the immediate new england area. He's not liking this camp unfortunately. they give a short teaching clinic and then let the kids play a game each half day. other than what they cover in the clinic, the coaches seem to be pretty uninvolved. there's little or no coaching during the games. live and learn. i think he's getting a little burned out on lax now too. it's been a non-stop thing since february. he still has one more travel tourney up to san francisco in early august to play some bay area competetive teams. he should be fully stoked for that trip. these guys do not want to lose to any west coast teams.
pithy, i can't do pithy.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Rishis and Gods
We had a killer class today in Improv. Before class starts, there's often a collection of people zipping thru a variety of personal warm ups and stretches. This morning, no one was moving really. We were all just sitting there, sluggish and stuporous. Tim asked, "Should we do a Yin yoga class then? Lying around, doing very little?" A couple of people asked for a gentle class. So we did the Rishi poses. It was a blast. I don't get to go that often, but I've never seen him do some of these poses in this class. In fact, I've seen him refuse to do a couple of them when they were specifically requested, like durvasasana and viranchyasana. we didn't do all the rishi poses but here's the list of the ones i remember doing
viswamitrasana
viswamitrasana variation
vasisthasana
vasisthasana variation
kasyapasana
bhairavasana
durvasasana
koundinyasana A
koundinyasana B
astavakrasana
ardha matsyendrasana
marichyasana C
marichyasana D
marichyasana F
poorna matsyendrasana
viranchyasana A
viranchyasana B
hanumanasana
supta trivikrmasana
trivikrmasana
natarajasana
We had a killer class today in Improv. Before class starts, there's often a collection of people zipping thru a variety of personal warm ups and stretches. This morning, no one was moving really. We were all just sitting there, sluggish and stuporous. Tim asked, "Should we do a Yin yoga class then? Lying around, doing very little?" A couple of people asked for a gentle class. So we did the Rishi poses. It was a blast. I don't get to go that often, but I've never seen him do some of these poses in this class. In fact, I've seen him refuse to do a couple of them when they were specifically requested, like durvasasana and viranchyasana. we didn't do all the rishi poses but here's the list of the ones i remember doing
viswamitrasana
viswamitrasana variation
vasisthasana
vasisthasana variation
kasyapasana
bhairavasana
durvasasana
koundinyasana A
koundinyasana B
astavakrasana
ardha matsyendrasana
marichyasana C
marichyasana D
marichyasana F
poorna matsyendrasana
viranchyasana A
viranchyasana B
hanumanasana
supta trivikrmasana
trivikrmasana
natarajasana
Friday, June 22, 2007
Sisterhood of the Traveling Buttfloss
Well, that was awkward. If you read other ashtangi blogs, and if you read this one, then you almost certainly do, there's a thread going on in a couple of them about giving each other underwear. Like most internet threads, it's hard to explain in a rational way how that train of thought got a life of its own, but needless to say, it did. A couple of them even sent each other nether garments. When I mentioned that our studio had some underwear with the studio logo, a couple of these undie fetishers volunteered to have me share the goods with them. I'm all about enabling aberrant behavior.
After practice today, I went over to the basket that has the nasty bits. I guess they restocked it for the teacher training, oops, ashtanga intensive that is currently going on. I mean that's forty more potential pocket books waiting to be lightened. Instead of the one color, one style, one size fits all option that had been there for the last few months, there were now several colors, a couple of different shapes, but still one size fits all. That's okay. All ashtanginis are the same size. I dug around for a few moments, until i realized i was getting a couple of looks from some women who had been standing in the general area, talking after class. I grabbed a handful of stuff and headed for the counter to pay. "Oh, that's an interesting thing for you John", said Amy, the desk person. "Uh, well, see I'm getting them for these people that I don't know from the internet." She, gave me that look and said, "Oh, really. I just thought you were getting them for your wife." "No, see they have this thing where they collect underwear from people who send it to them for no reason and, um, well, anyway how much are those?" She told me and i reached for my wallet. Oops. I'm like ten dollars light. "I can charge this stuff right?" Right then, who walks in and stands right next to me, giving me that same confused, disturbed look? Vanessa, master of the EZBoard universe, world traveler and computer guru for some mega bank consortium, in town for the ashtanga intensive (TT). I quickly shuffled the small pieces of clothing in to an amorphous pile in the vain hope that it could possibly be confused with some kind of an appropriate clothing purchase and asked Amy for a bag. So, she picked up the panties, one by one, carefully folding them so they wouldn't have wrinkles I guess, and gave them to me in a bag. "Those should look good on you John", said Andrew, Tim's Mysore assistant, as he headed out the door. I looked over and gave Vanessa a weak smile, proffering the concept that I bought women's thongs all the time, what's the big deal. Why is it you can never get as small as you feel.
Being the experienced, smart camper that I am, I had attempted to kind of advise the wife that said transaction was in the offing. There's no way I could have bought that stuff without somebody asking her about it. I'm sure I'll still get hammered though. What seemed perfectly reasonable when in the concept phase, in the harsh reality of public scrutiny becomes another self kick to the groin. The things we do for blog people we don't even know.
Well, that was awkward. If you read other ashtangi blogs, and if you read this one, then you almost certainly do, there's a thread going on in a couple of them about giving each other underwear. Like most internet threads, it's hard to explain in a rational way how that train of thought got a life of its own, but needless to say, it did. A couple of them even sent each other nether garments. When I mentioned that our studio had some underwear with the studio logo, a couple of these undie fetishers volunteered to have me share the goods with them. I'm all about enabling aberrant behavior.
After practice today, I went over to the basket that has the nasty bits. I guess they restocked it for the teacher training, oops, ashtanga intensive that is currently going on. I mean that's forty more potential pocket books waiting to be lightened. Instead of the one color, one style, one size fits all option that had been there for the last few months, there were now several colors, a couple of different shapes, but still one size fits all. That's okay. All ashtanginis are the same size. I dug around for a few moments, until i realized i was getting a couple of looks from some women who had been standing in the general area, talking after class. I grabbed a handful of stuff and headed for the counter to pay. "Oh, that's an interesting thing for you John", said Amy, the desk person. "Uh, well, see I'm getting them for these people that I don't know from the internet." She, gave me that look and said, "Oh, really. I just thought you were getting them for your wife." "No, see they have this thing where they collect underwear from people who send it to them for no reason and, um, well, anyway how much are those?" She told me and i reached for my wallet. Oops. I'm like ten dollars light. "I can charge this stuff right?" Right then, who walks in and stands right next to me, giving me that same confused, disturbed look? Vanessa, master of the EZBoard universe, world traveler and computer guru for some mega bank consortium, in town for the ashtanga intensive (TT). I quickly shuffled the small pieces of clothing in to an amorphous pile in the vain hope that it could possibly be confused with some kind of an appropriate clothing purchase and asked Amy for a bag. So, she picked up the panties, one by one, carefully folding them so they wouldn't have wrinkles I guess, and gave them to me in a bag. "Those should look good on you John", said Andrew, Tim's Mysore assistant, as he headed out the door. I looked over and gave Vanessa a weak smile, proffering the concept that I bought women's thongs all the time, what's the big deal. Why is it you can never get as small as you feel.
Being the experienced, smart camper that I am, I had attempted to kind of advise the wife that said transaction was in the offing. There's no way I could have bought that stuff without somebody asking her about it. I'm sure I'll still get hammered though. What seemed perfectly reasonable when in the concept phase, in the harsh reality of public scrutiny becomes another self kick to the groin. The things we do for blog people we don't even know.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
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