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.

ARMAGEDDON, part deux

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

TTFN

Off to Maryland for a week. Lacrosse camp, then a tourney.

Blood on the Mat

At practice, my teacher will watch me sometimes struggle over and over with something I'm not getting, getting more and more aggravated, swearing sotto voce, eventually wearing myself out. Then he'll wander over and remind me that to achieve a state of yoga, one needs to act or perform with a state of dispassion, with non-attachment.

Yesterday, I was doing my umpteenth try at Karandavasana. After toppling over once again, I noticed a smudge of red on my rug. Hmm. That's blood. My rug had worn a raw spot on my elbow, enough that I was bleeding a little. That's cool, that's a mark of valor, right? I'm not too attached, see, my elbow is becoming detached.

Yesterday was a do over day. I couldn't get in a number of the second series poses on my first attempt. Bakasana B, Dwi Pada, Tittibhasana B, Karanda, all took at least two tries to get into, some of them a lot more. That got old real quick. I had this new plan where I would stop practice whenever I got to a pose that I couldn't do. The down side was that I was eventually able to do each of them, so I had to keep going. Karanda was the least successful. I'm satisfied if I can land it, but once again, my landing consisted of bouncing off of the ground and rebounding back up onto the arms. Not one of the more accepted approaches. Tim even came over to remark that he'd never seen that particular strategy before. Just goes to show how little he watches me. I've done that a bunch of times.

I did get towed back into my ankles for Kapotasana but it wasn't as easy and carefree as the other times. Not sure what was different but I had a lot more compression in my low back as the hands got pulled back. No pain and I haven't developed soreness afterwards but it was definitely at the edge of what I was willing to go for.


I may get a practice tomorrow but probably not. I work tonight so I can't get there until 9:00. My wife made me a doctors appointment for 11:00 though, so even if I do get in an abbreviated practice, I'll be going to the doctor all sweaty and what not from practice. I don't know what the appointment is for, I think it could be a general physical. I had one of those once and I was fine, so why do I need to do another one? It's about time for me to have to start doing all of those health maintenance tests, like regular prostate exams, colonoscopies, all that good stuff. Can't wait.

Laxboy didn't play and his team got beat pretty good. They had to call a goalie up from the fifth grade team to play in his place. The kid got used pretty good. There's a huge physical difference between fifth graders and eighth graders, so I thought the kid was heroic for even agreeing to do it. Hopefully Jake will have healed enough to be able to play on the east coast tournament he has in a couple of weeks. He's milking the injury for all he can in terms of missing school but we're not going for it any more.

Have to go to sign out rounds and pick up the beeper. I have coverage for the ER tonight, so no telling how things will go

Today, I got almost as far on my own (after research) as Iyengar in the bottom left picture. Then, with assistance, I got as far as the bottom right pic.

I knew going into the back bending part of second that I was going to be able to get to the heels. The feel was there. Everything prior to that had been going about as good as I can do it. I was real close in Samakonasana. Never been that close. My calves were down. When I finally sat back and let my butt go down, my legs looked pretty close to 170 degrees. It was a good one. I got down on both sides in Hanumanasana. That one, at the risk of calling in hamstring jinxes, is gradually coming back. I also had my best pasasana to date. I got a finger or two up to my wrist on the first side and on the other side, I was barely off the floor with one heel.

It should be clear by now, that great for me is often not even doing poses correctly. It's just doing it or them better than I usually can. Some classes are high points because I manage to do just one thing better than I ever have, finally clearing some long standing physical or psychological hurdle. Today, I was hitting my all time best on a number of the second series poses.

After rocking thru Kapotasana, I let myself think ahead to Karandavasana. If I could just land Karandavasana, never mind anything else, this would by far be my best class ever. Needless to say, I plateaued. I got Bakasana B, but it took me a few tries. I did an acceptable Dwi Pada Sirsasana but my legs slipped down my arms when I tried to vinyasa out and my feet hit the floor before I could get them back.

When I got to Karanda, I sat for a second and tried to get the feel back. To no avail. I didn't really get the landing. I hit my arms but slipped off. I was able to bounce my knees and snug the lotus back onto the arms. The form was sucky though. I had to be forcefully pulled up from the tuck and couldn't even vinyasa out. Oh well. I was still completely stoked about the class. I decided to give Karanda another try so that I could at least try what Jason long ago recommended. I wanted to do a partial lower and try to get it back up. Since my lowers to date have barely been in control, I don't have a good sense of when my knees get to the horizontal or even lower. I need to work on getting them down as far as I can while staying in control and then get them back up. I asked the teacher to tell me when I got them to the horizontal plane. I did get them there but that is right past the edge of where I was able to control it and I blew out of it. At least now I have a point of reference to lower to and come back from.

Jason was back at practice today. The guy is tougher than woodpecker lips. He had his other knee operated on a few days ago. Back in the studio with sutures still in his knee. He was behind the pillar so I couldn't see much of him but I think he was doing a lot bandha work. I looked up at one point and saw the person across the room from me paused in mid drop back, looking over at Jason with a quizzical look on her face. I glanced over to see what caught her attention. He was in this weird hand stand with his operated leg extended up but his other leg held out to the side in this weird bent chicken wing kind of position. Ardha Kukkupada Vrkshasana?

My son managed to totally wreck his lacrosse season yesterday. He was over at a friend's house and somehow managed to open a slice in his lower leg that took 18 stitches to close. He's his school team's only goalie and their first playoff game is tomorrow. His competitive club team is scheduled to make a trip to Maryland to play in a tournament against the east coast kids the second week in June. That's when his stitches are due to come out. He had also gotten a friend of his to join him at the Johns Hopkins lacrosse camp the week prior to the tournament. I don't know if he'll be able to do any of that now. "But dad, I didn't mean to." God, I hate those words.

I went to the Sunday morning led second series today. It wasn't the comfort fest that last week's led first series was. Tim started off by asking if anyone knew what significance today had in Christian religions. Not one person had a clue. Buncha heathens all of us. He informed us that today was the Feast of the Pentecost. When we all nodded like unknowing fools, he went on. It's the fiftieth day after Easter and ten days after the Ascension. Yeah, yeah, sure, I remember learning about that once, I think. And? Having been to Tim's classes for a while, I knew there had to be some kind of practice related hook coming for him to go into this kind of detail. He went on to explain that on this day, the Holy Spirit came down and baptized the apostles. With fire. Oohhh. Snap. We get it now. We're gonna sweat today.

Tim used to do a number of backbending research poses before doing Kapotasana. Sometime, a year or so ago, that fell by the wayside and he would just bull through Kapo, even when people requested research. Today we did the research. That was fine by me. I've been trying to get a deeper Kapotasana. The only way I'm going to get close to the heels right now is if I've done the research for the shoulders and groins. Without doing research right before the pose, I think I can get to mid foot, maybe on a really good day getting up to the joint that sticks out below the little toe. With research, I can sometimes get a finger joint or two onto or over the heel. My first attempt today, without assistance, was disappointing, mid foot at best. I went into it a second time when I knew he'd have to come over and help. He got my fingers over the heels. Still a far cry from the ankle grab I had last week but I'll take it.

Most of the rest of the class was acceptable. I dithered a bit too much before Bakasana B, so right as I was launching he called five. I also wasn't real stable in Karanda. Both of the times that I tried it on my own, I over tilted right after I got into lotus and had to come down.

We had done a fair number of forearm balances in the Saturday Improv class, so maybe my shoulders were tired. Who knows? Today felt like one of those days when I'd have enough center to be able to lower my knees down with control, but I never got that far. The Improv yesterday was taught by one of my favorite teachers from when I first started at the studio, Kim Toledo. She's been out of the loop for the last several years raising two small children. I've been to classes where she practiced, but this was the first time she's taught a class that I've been to in a long time, maybe four years. She has the practice that I have always most wanted to emulate. She is extremely graceful in her movements, something that doesn't typify my practice at all. Even when she hasn't been around, when I'm doing stuff and trying to make it better, I think of how to make what I do seem more fluid, like her practice.

The Improv was a fun one. She did the request approach. Nothing too wild was asked for. Someone did ask for Natarajasana, which I hate. I'd much rather work on doing eka pada raja kapotasana or raja kapotasana than trying to get the foot while balancing in Natarajasana. Too much going on at one time.

Friday was a full practice for me. I got there early, right when pranayama was starting. I ended up having about two and a half hours to do stuff. I did first and my second poses and as much research as I could fit in. I ended up, once again, only doing three simple backbends and blowing off the rest of the backbending sequence and closing poses. I had worked pretty hard and was feeling tired and just didn't want to push on. I don't think Tim adjusted me once until I got to Bhekasana. That pose is kind of a given adjustment, if he or the other person are anywhere near. If you want to dodge an adjustment in it, you have to be crafty in timing when you go into it so that you can be done before they get over to you. Earlier, when I was starting back on my second poses, I wanted no part of an adjustment there. Now things are less melodramatic and most of my former range of motion is coming back, so I didn't mind the help. Tim helped me with my first Kapotasana. I usually do one go with out any research. Then I do all that backbending research crap I listed in the previous pose. I then give it an 'after' try. The research is usually good for a shift in hand position of at least half of my foot length. Tim came over to help and the other adjuster, Andrew, came as well. Andrew is the one who got me to my ankles last week. They were going to wishbone me. Tim pulled me in enough to get my fingers securely over the heels, but not thumbs and not even close to the ankles. When I came up, I wanted to say something to Andrew about having lost so much distance in just one week, but I didn't think Tim would take it the right way. In the past, like just last summer, to get my fingers over my heels would normally have been an alert the press kind of an accomplishment. Whining about not grabbing ankles would have been the epitome of hubris on my part.

I did land my Karandavasana. Twice. Don't know if I've ever done that before. The first time was a little crash-landie, but I was in there and stable. I held it and waited for someone to notice. No one did. I cleared my throat. And waited. I cleared my throat loudly. And waited. And then I gave up and rolled out onto my butt. "What a waste" I thought, "No way I'm gonna be able to that again." I had to give it another try though. As my knees came onto my arms, I almost rocked backwards to lose it but but managed to get my weight forward and settled in. By then, Andrew had come over and he helped me back up. I guess my arms had had it because my elbows splayed out and my hands slipped inward, making stability in Pincha hard. I held it Pincha just long enough to dismount and finished up the last two poses. All in all, it was apractice I was quite happy with. I did a lot and was pretty worked.

Well, one of those endless 'details about practice' postings. I have to go check a wound that's bleeding so I can't fill in with interesting anecdotes or stories about my kids and whatnot. Next time.

When Enough Just Isn't Enough

At various times, I do these extras. I doubt I ever do them all. When I'm only doing first or only doing second, I tend to do most of the ones that go with each series. Lately, if I'm doing both first and second, I do less. I don't have enough energy to do most of them. Some of these poses I don't really DO, I just attempt to do. Many of the names are sanskrit neologisms, made up names. I know I've gotten some of the names wrong because I can't remember exactly what name Tim made up for them.

1) samakonasana and hanumanasana, after the prasaritas
2) press up to tuck handstand vs do bakasana A, after utkatasana
3) eka pada bakasana A, after virabhadrasana B
4) viranchyasana B, after janu C
5) handstands, after each navasana
6) urdhva kukkutasana C, after garbha pindasana
7) kandasana, after baddha konasana (done only occasionally)
8) press up with wide spread legs, after supta konasana

9) virasana, ardha virasana, urdhva moola ardha virasana, supta virasana (in our studio, virasana/supta virasana is a normal part of second series, the part of the korunta eaten by the ants), done before bhekasana
10) back bending research (usually done after the first attempt at kapotasana)
10a) adho mukha pincha mayurasana
10b) adho mukha pincha mayurasana with extended arms, A, B & C
10c) salamba viparita dandasana (viparita dandasana with feet against the wall)
10d) salamba eka pada viparita dandasana (one foot on the wall, the other on the floor)
10e) viparita dandasana
10f) eka pada viparita dandasana
10g) salamba eka pada raja kapotasana (lunge with the forward leg, the knee of the back leg on the floor against the wall and lower leg up on the wall, hands reaching back to the foot)
10h) urdhva hasta raja kapotasana (lying on floor with the lower abd/chest against the wall, arching back, possibly bending legs and grasping knees)
11) urdhva kukkutasana D (urdhva kukkutasana from handstand), done after the ashtau up from kapotasana
12) poorna matsyendrasana, done after ardha matsyendrasana
13) eka pada sirsasana research, done after matsyendrasana
13a) adho mukha eka pada raja kapotasana
13b) parsva adho mukha eka pada raja kapotasana
13c) parivrtta adho mukha eka pada raja kapotasana
13d) supta eka pada raja kapotasana (lie on back and bring bent knee to same shoulder and foot of the bent knee to the other shoulder)
14) kasyapasana, sitting up into eka pada sirsasana (the typical entry for eka pada sirsasana at our studio)
15) sayansana, done after pincha mayurasana (rarely)
16) vrshikasana, done after karandavasana, from forearm base
17) urdhva sirsasana, after ardha sirsasana

The Who am I Meme

1. I grew up in Oklahoma, but I've never worn a pair of cowboy boots or owned a cowboy hat, I hate country music and have ridden a horse maybe four times in my life.

2. I can do a caesarean section in less time than some people need to do a circumcision.

3. I've taken off in a lot more airplanes than I've landed in.

4. I'm a convict.

5. I've only had white cars. Ever.

6. I have a history of rodent abuse.

7. I once worked in the zoo.

8. While I know many people and am friendly with almost all of them, I have few friends.

9. I've always wondered about number 8.

10. My love for my wife and my kids is enough for me. Screw number 8.

yes, that's ten. i don't like to obey the rules that much (#11). as noted in other places, most blogs that i read have already done this or have been asked, so the chain slows down here. I wonder how back trace-able these meme things are? can you actually walk your way back thru the different layers of tag lists to find the originator?

have to give this embedding thing a try. here's a video i hadn't seen yet. it has one of tim's first yoga teachers, gary lapodota. they're doing the knee poppers from fourth series and raja kapotasana. if anyone can make out what guruji says after he tries to cram tim into raja kapotasana, post it in the comments. my audio is pretty sucky

The Cure for What Ails You

Led first series. Who knew? No research. No added-on 'fun' poses. Just the basics. It worked for me anyway. Had a really good class Sunday morning. It all felt quite do-able. Granted, I got there an hour early. I got off of work at 8:00 and class wasn't until 10:00. The kids were fine at home. So, I went to the studio early. I watched the folks in the second series class do some of the harder poses. Then I sat down and did my little pre-class stretch out.

THe class wasn't too crowded. Tim is away on one of his weekend workshops, to Nova Scotia this time. As the teacher who led our class said, "Wherever that is." When he's away, the numbers drop off a lot. The room was nice and warm though, thanks to the efforts of the second series class. There were a number of people I've never seen before. And they all seemed to have strong practices--Bhujapidasana to Tittibhasana to Bakasana capabilities.

For my practice, there was nothing I felt bad about. It all felt pretty good. I finally managed to get a legitimate Supta K. Not a toe tucker but a legitimate ankle cross. It took me a little bit of futzing about to get into it but , i finally got it back.

Have to keep this post on the short side. I've been called to the OR.

What Is the Point

Today was so bad, if I wasn' there, I woulda left.

Untitled

No practice today. I did go yesterday. That made it six in a row. Just like the big kids do every week. I opted to just do first series. Mostly, I was being lazy. I could have gone on to do second. I finished first series and still had about 50 minutes to go. I had worked the night before though and just didn't feel like doing everything. I decided to use the remaining time and energy to work on back bending.


After each back bend, I made myself walk it in further. After the first couple of hand shifts, I had to start lifting my heels to be able to get the hands in closer. I could eventually get the heels back down. To do so, I had to really lift up through my shoulders. It's was getting pretty edgy by number 6 though. I don't think I was able to get the heels down on that one and there was a lot of compression building in my lumbar area. I wanted to know how close/far my hands were from my heels. I can't see my heels, so I can only presume. It "feels" like they'd be close but that kind of thing is usually wishful thinking. Prior to that last attempt, I checked to see where on my mysore rug my feet were positioned. When I did the back bend, I looked to see where my hands were (I have a striped rug, so I can use the different colored stripes to mark where I end up). They were about a foot apart I guess.

Sensing that was as far as I was going to get on my own, I did the unassisted stand ups and drop backs then had the teacher help with the assisted variety. I usually don't do the assisted ones, primarily due to sloth but also because I haven't felt they would add much to what I was doing on my own. When I did them yesterday, I felt as loose there as I ever have. After the last drop back, I tried to move my hands in more, hoping the teacher would get the hint that I was trying to get in position to go for an ankle. I had to lift way up on my toes. The teacher said, "You're getting really close" but did not try to get me in the rest of the way. That told me I wasn't really that close. When I came up, I asked him how close I was. He held his fingers about a foot apart. Crap. I was hoping for a few inches.

In reading some blogs, I've learned that there are those who can grab their ankles in back bending but who don't claim to have a great kapotasana. I've even seen a few people who had what I initially thought were very flat back bends be pulled in to their ankles. Given that, I understood that ankle grabbing from urdhva dhanurasana does not carry having an incredibly bendy back as a pre-requisite. I figured if I could be pulled in to my ankles in Kapotasana, surely I could get my ankles from backbend too. Not yet anyway.

I was able to get my supta K. Sort of. I usually bind my hands first, then go for the ankle cross. I guess I was so worked up about getting that left foot under the right that I totally forgot to do the hand binding. I got the feet in, mentally thought to myself, "Yeah!", then realized my hands were lying loosely on the floor. I tried to get them together but there was no way. So, I had to uncross my feet and go back and do the hands first. By that time, the teacher was there and I guess he presumed I was incapable, so he grabbed my hands and pulled them in to bind. I couldn't really just let go and then rebind on my own, so I kept them together and tried again to get the feet crossed. I did get my left toe under, just the toe but that's enough to count. Given the hand assist, technically I still haven't gotten it on my own though.

The whole practice felt much more like the one I had last Wednesday, lots of ease. Most of the poses were on. When I did the Samakonasana and Hanumanasana sequence that we do after the Prasaritas (samakonasana, hanumanasana right side, samakonasana, hanumanasana left side, samakonasana), I got pretty close for me on Samakonasana. I was able to touch down on both sides in Hanumanasana. Usually I can get down on the left but the right is still very fearful for me. It always will be. I hurt my hamstring doing Hanumanasana on that side at a time when I had been getting all the way down and even folding forward without too much in the way of histrionics. Losing some of the fear definitely makes the whole practice more peaceful. It's been a while since I had that post-practice calmness. Still no euphoria, but I'll take the calm.

Had to work early today and I am on tonight, so no practice for a while. Tomorrow's screwed secondary to voodoo. I might have a chance to go on Thursday and/or Friday though. This is starting to add up, $15 a shot. I wonder if I can convert to a monthly rate for this month. Then I could go the rest of the month for free. Or maybe that would jinx me. Maybe I should just keep paying the daily rate and keep doing first series and I'll get to practice as much as normal people.

Start Making Sense

If anybody 'gets' this yoga stuff, clue me in. My best 2nd series practice this week was the one I did on Wednesday. Prior to that try, I hadn't done second in months. I had really only been doing all of first for maybe three weeks. I did a combined practice that day, so I was relatively low on gas going into the second series poses. And yet, I did great, for me. I did fine in Pasasana, where before I was sometimes barely getting fingertips, I did an ok Kapotasana, I landed Bakasana B, I bound in Tittibhasana B and I lowered into Karandavasana with a measure of control. Life is good, no?

Today, after two good nights of rest, I went to led second series. Given the surprisingly capable outings I had had in the days preceding, I had no reason not to expect at least a middlin practice. Instead, it was my worst second series this week. I couldn't land bakasana B, but I don't have that back completely, so no panic buttons there. I did the Eka Pada Sirsasanas but the depth of the leg wasn't what it had been--bad omen for Dwi Pada. Sure enough, for the first time this week, I couldn't keep both legs up. Later, in Tittibhasana, no binding. That was the cruelest cut. I had thought I had lost enough weight that I didn't have to deal with that demon anymore. I couldn't get any more than one digit to interlock and was too sweaty to be able to pull that any further in to get a better bind. Landing Karanda is an increasingly fading memory. Today I stayed up in the pose just fine, but couldn't get any levity on my descent. Lots of knee to arm impacts, leading to some especially nice bruises on my left arm and elbow. That's always good. If I can't do it, I can at least have some wounds to show for it. The rest of it was nothing great, nothing bad. There must be a cosmic expectation meter out there that ensures inverse outcomes commensurate with how people think they will do in yoga. That's what I get for breaking my rule about not doing second again until I can get my first series poses back. Tomorrow, back to first.

Unless I have to take Jake to the doctor. He's cultivating a chest cold. Hurts too much to cough deeply enough to clear his throat. Having some trouble breathing. Of course, there's no way he could manage to go to school tomorrow. Too sick. No problem with doing two different lacrosse practices today, in addition to Pop Warner football tryouts.

I heard that Jason and Tara, a wonderful couple who practice in our studio, are not just going to Portland for six months soon, they are moving there for good. I also heard, less officially, that another couple, again both highly skilled ashtangis, may be moving away too. That's a huge power vacuum. Those four have amazing practices, smooth, powerful, very light. All of them inspire. Things do change.

I started classes at Tim's in June, 2000. My wife and I had a talk the other day about how many, or how few, people are still practicing regularly at Tim's that were there back when we started. Many of the old timers, the studio 'seniors', have developed a degree of facility in their accrued time with Tim. Most of the others I can think of have moved to the top of the skills heap, many of them doing third or being quite capable second series people. In the same time frame, I have managed to achieve a remarkable degree of stasis. I think I got my first second series pose after I had been going to the studio for a couple of years, something like the Fall of 2002. I slowly picked up poses over the following months and years, getting my last pose, Nakrasana, almost two years ago. And I do it well. I think anyway. I just can't do the harder preceding poses all of the time, and have never come close to doing Karandavasana. Probably just as deciding, I don't have the life that is conducive to progression. I think sometimes I am perceived as not wanting to do the work. There is probably an element of that in me, but my perspective is that I am slow because I don't have the opportunity to do the work. When I am there, I do work at it.

I think one of the attractions of Ashtanga for many of us is the open endedness of the asana challenges. No matter what you manage to achieve, there's always the next pose and the next series of poses. I think that has passed me by. I'm reaching, or have reached my asymptote, the point of no improvement, no progression. Then what? I know the inevitable age related regression in ability is ahead of me. But, barring injury, I think that is still a few years away. I'm doing some of my postures as well as I've ever done them, even the some of the more challenging ones. Answering what's next will be something of a mind shift. Can't look at it anymore as what's next posture-wise. If a wall is permanently hit, what do you do next? Pranayama? Meditate? Just do what I do now until I can't anymore and then do what I can then? Wait for the next go round? Well, I guess I could start doing some ab work.

Hope everyone had a nice Mothers' Day. I didn't do much more than get some flowers for my wife. But they were some really nice peonies. You almost never see peonies in florist shops here, so I jumped on them. She bought the gift she wanted a week or so ago. There's a general consensus in my house that's it's better if I'm not involved in the shopping. Going out to eat? No one likes to do that anymore. She spent the day with my youngest at a movie, while my oldest sat at home nursing a headache and watching TV and while I sat watching Jake chase a bunch of balls and whack his buddies with a stick all afternoon. Sick lad that he is. Probably not her most rewarding mother's day ever. We all do love her, so maybe that helps. Sometimes not having to be doing stuff is enough of a gift. That's usually all I ever want for Father's day but I'm probably in the minority in that respect.

At work once again tonight. That's why I get to have a chance, just a chance mind you, to practice tomorrow. I've got a feeling it's not going to happen though. The yoga gods don't normally allow me six in a row. I'll probably be doing pediatric clinic pranayama with the jakester. Have to get it done in the morning, if possible. Wouldn't want him to miss afternoon lacrosse practice. Cough.