Pausing to say "Hello"

Hello.

As you might have noticed, I've been on an extended, unannounced holiday from this blog. It was totally unplanned - a few days' break led to a few weeks' break led to a few months' break. How does Blogger even work now?! They've changed the backend completely. Wow. Guess I've been away for THAT long.

I have no other reason than I didn't feel like writing. So I didn't.

It wasn't like I was short on material either... From my last post in July till now, I've had one kitchen drama after another (and the kitchen is STILL incomplete, mind you), my siblings came to visit me in the dam, I went to Berlin to watch a friend run the Berlin Marathon for the first time, I went to Ljubljana in Slovenia and shot in the most magical Hobbitville forest, I went to visit some of my best friends in London after the births of their gorgeous babies, I was getting out and actually socializing for the first time in ages, even meeting boys and going out on dates and navigating the minefield that is "the dating game" (I hate it, by the way. Boys today are just too complicated), I've had visitors from out-of-town coming and going from my flat, I've been practicing ashtanga yoga a little bit, then I've not been practicing ashtanga yoga at all, then I've got back on my mat again and I'm still trying to find the balance between managing yoga and life, and life and yoga.

And y'know... I was just getting out there and "living life". And I guess I was getting out of my head a little, experiencing life without processing too much (or possibly maybe TRYING not to process too much!) I guess if this were a movie, this would be the part where a montage of different scenes from the past few months flies past in fast-forward. HAHA.

I definitely needed that blog-break. Not to say that I'll be back to regular writing again, but as with all things, it's always good to stop what you're doing, take a step back and put things in perspective again. When it came to writing about yoga, I felt like all I was doing was moaning about asana. "Wah wah wah, I can't do this and wah wah wah, I can't do that". I was boring myself to tears. I think I was/am also coming to a point where I don't particularly feel the need to share everything that's going on in my head about my practice. It helped me internalize stuff to blab about it before, but maybe it's coz my practice is taking a more inward turn that I haven't felt the need to talk about it. Also, I'd been going down the same stop-start-stop pattern in my practice that I wasn't even sure what to make of it anymore.

So... I just gave it a break. A break from all that writing and thinking and navel-gazing about it. And I think out of all that time-off to JUST BE, and get out and do stuff without thinking... Now that I'm finally sitting down to think about it, I'm gonna mix it up a little bit with my practice. Sticking to a 5 or 6-day practice a week is just not do-able in my current situation. Not if I also want to have more of a social life, or enough hours of sleep a night especially when work starts to go balls-to-the-wall busy again. And I'm done with feeling guilty and beating myself up on it when I can't stick to that practice schedule no matter what the reason (or excuse) may be. At this point, I'm gonna allow myself a 3 or 4-day practice a week (maybe less sometimes) and say "yes" to more social events. 2011 is my year of "speaking my truth" anyway, and the whole point of turning up on the mat, for me at least, is tuning in to a more mindful/ conscious way of living and not sticking to dogma for dogma's sake. And right now, it feels like this is what I need.

It makes me a happier person, and that's a good enough reason for me.

I guess that's the conundrum of being a modern-day yogi. I felt myself always having to choose between "life or yoga?" or "work or yoga"? (and I refer to "yoga" in the asana sense of "making it to practice") It shouldn't even have to come to this double bind, but I guess life just throws stuff your way and you just deal with it the best you can.

I'd much rather be caught in the RyGos double bind. Mm-hmm.

Girls in Yoga Pants...?

I think I'm gonna be sick.

There's a site for Girls in Yoga Pants now? I find this partially horrific and partially funny.

What will they think of next?

[UPDATE:] To even this out, someone on Twitter sent me a link for Men Doing Yoga. Hahaha!

[UPDATE 2:] I also just got another link for men and yoga in my inbox. Why, HELLOOOOOOOOOO! Yoga Dudes. It's probably also not fair of me to much prefer/ be less horrified with the yoga dudes links than with the yoga girls in pants link. I think it's coz the yoga girls are all cam-whoring as opposed to the dudes shots which are pretty artfully done. Y'know...? (or does this sound like I'm rationalizing now...?) HAHAHA!

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Disaster Area

Amidst this rubble lies a kitchen in hiding.



Part 2 of renovations = kitchen installation. I am living through this and can't wait for it to be over. Ugh.






Everything in this truck is basically sitting in my living room now. It's not that big of a kitchen; it's all packaging. And I'm dorkily thinking of the massive carbon footprint this one little kitchen has already left behind.






It was pretty cool how they used the vertical lift to get it all upstairs through the window though. And that crane in the middle of the road was lifting the stone counter top. Fun muscle man action. :D







Soon soon... This mess too, shall pass.

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Broken Leg? Do Your Practice!!

My friend Mel posted this on Facebook, so I reposted it on Facebook, and it's now making the Facebook rounds of every Ashtangi I know.

It's too good not to share here too.

As Sharath says, "Anybody can practice ashtanga yoga. Except lazy people."

Broken femur? DO YOUR PRACTICE!! Here's how this hero modified his Primary series (and part of Second).



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Of Moving House and Visiting Teachers

Between work and dealing with the builder and figuring out what to get and what goes where in the new house and oh yeah, I moved in this weekend finally... I haven't actually had time to post updates! I don't think I've even shared a single photo of the new place here yet. I might just start posting random photo updates just coz that's faster and time isn't what I've got much of these days... (I actually started writing this post a week ago and haven't been able to finish it!!)

Oh yeah, and did I tell you Clayton Horton was also in town? He was here the last 2 weeks actually, and it's been great FINALLY having daily Mysore sessions at the shala. I'm totally lapping this up.

An observation I've made: I cannot function on 6 hours sleep, followed by a 2-hour practice, followed by a full-on 8 to 10-hour day at work. I used to make the joke that my yoga practice was the hardest thing I had to do of the day and since I'd be done with it by 8am, the world would seem all good after that. Unfortunately, I've realized that with what my job entails, I'm no longer sure if my practice is the hardest thing I do of the day. So you can imagine after Week #2 of Clayton in town, it's starting to kick my ass. I'm exhausted and miss the little afternoon naps I could take in Mysore to recover!

The first week Clayton was here, he also did a 3-day teachers' intensive. It counts for Yoga Alliance's 30hr continuing education credit. So glad I took some time off my day job just to reconnect with yoga and other yogis too! The first half of each day was spent discussing philosophy, and the second half of the day was spent on breaking down the Primary series and going through the various adjustments for it. It's been AGES since I've taught, and my adjustments are completely rusty now, I might need to start a little yoga-playgroup going to refresh my adjustments! Or maybe ask to assist my teacher at the shala... Too many things I want to do, so little time! Guess it'll have to happen AFTER the move and doing up the house. ;)

In the first couple days of Mysore classes, I was still getting back into my body and only doing Primary series. Like all teachers trained in the traditional Pattabhi Jois way, Clayton wanted to see me stand up from backbends, then dropback and stand up again 3 times before moving me onto Intermediate. I was totally crap the first few days - wobbly and crashing and hurling onto my knees... And then after a couple days, suddenly my body remembered what it had to do and everything clicked into place and it happened. WEIRD. I can't explain it except... er, muscle memory?

And since then he's been watching me do each pose at a time in Intermediate. He asked where I was up to, then said "Let's start with Pasasana". The next day after Pasasana, I lay down to do backbends then he told me to continue through to Bhekasana. And the day after that to go to Parsva Dhanurasana. And we're now up to Laghuvajrasana. I'm pretty happy hanging out here at this pose and working my way through it (my regular teacher M gave me Kapotasana about a week before Clayton arrived, but I am so totally not ready for it at all!) I've been so completely exhausted the past couple days of practice, I've been coasting my way through it, ie., not really putting in 100% effort. Conserving energy! I have my whole life to figure this out, I'm not gonna kill myself to try and impress a visiting teacher... ;)

There's something about this teacher-student relationship in Ashtanga that I find compelling. The student learning to submit to teacher - I totally get the humility and respect it takes to do this. Interestingly, I used to be of the theory that "you are your best teacher"... But I'm now going through the phase where I feel you can't really say you're your best teacher until you've had enough time and training with a GOOD teacher, who can spot your weaknesses and imbalances and guide you to where you need to be/ what you need to work on. Only when you've been shown the way and can feel it from within can you tap into that again when you're on your own.

A good teacher doesn't just help you physically on an asana level either...a good teacher can tell from the way you breathe how this can affect you energetically, or how it can affect your Vata/ Pitta/ Kapha doshas... (just from the quality of the breath, length of the breath, inhales versus exhales, at what point in the vinyasa you breathe and how this affects you, etc.) I realized this just from being in the same room as Clayton, seeing what he picks up on in different people's practices, including mine. Such wisdom comes from years of experience and a depth of study on various subjects.

While breaking down Laghuvajrasana with me one day, I had a moment of realization, that AHA! moment when I understood why some teachers put such a focus on learning to dropback and stand back up again before moving students onto the Intermediate series. It became totally apparent in Laghuvajrasana that day when Clayton was explaining how to use the inhale to come back up from the floor again (I still can't go all the way down to touch my head to the floor. If I do this, I get stuck and can't come back up). It's a totally similar movement/ action to standing up from a backbend!! It's using that inhale, pressing the hips up and forwards that's similar. Sounds easier than it is, of course.

A great thing that's spun off from his workshop series is there's a group of us who enjoy the regular morning practices so much to the point where we were bummed that the shala still only opens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for morning Mysore classes. So we asked if the shala was STILL not gonna open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, could we start a self-practice group on those mornings instead? And TA-DAH! We got a set of keys to share between us. :)

This morning, there were 5 of us in self-practice including Clayton (he flew off to Barcelona today and wasn't teaching; just practising). This little group feels really promising, hope we get to keep this up!

I have to say I've really enjoyed having a visiting teacher for a solid long stretch. 2 weeks is a luxury! Usually most workshops happen over a weekend or the teacher visits for a week... But having 2 solid weeks with the same teacher really helps expand one's practice just that little bit more. And the whole shala just feels a lot more inspired too.

So now maybe I need to start working on my next post - the before and after shots of the apartment!! Mind you, there's still sweet f**k all in the living room except for a TV. I'm thinking of having a ghetto-style housewarming party where everyone has a picnic on the floor (nope, the sofa hasn't arrived yet). And since the kitchen doesn't get installed until 2 weeks' time... People will just have to order takeaway pizzas or bring their own food. Hehe. Fun times!! :)


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What the Governator Taught Me About Laghuvajrasana

Yes, I'm referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, that BEEFCAAAAAAAAKE megalomaniac sex-fiend? Yessiree, he taught me something about yoga.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

A couple weeks ago, I went to a screening of "Pumping Iron". It's a cult-classic documentary from the late '70s about the world of bodybuilding. And of course, it stars good old Arnie, pre-Hollywood fame. He was already the 5-time Mr. Universe/ Olympia winner by this time and was defending his 1975 title for the last time before retiring from bodybuilding. A 24-year old Lou Ferrigno, aka The Incredible Hulk, also makes an appearance as the "pipsqueak" upstart who hopes to take the title from old-man-Arnie (or rather, Lou's dad seems more intent on this).


I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this. It is a HILARIOUS documentary that gives a good glimpse into the mindset of what it takes for world domination. At least in the bodybuilding world. And actually, maybe this same narcissistic god-complex is required to make it in Hollywood too. And maybe also in politics, if Arnie's behaviour and later accomplishments in life are anything to go by.

There are some priceless gems spouted out of Arnie that make you go "WTF?!? This guy ACTUALLY became the Governor of California and was seriously considering running for President?!" Case in point, my favourite WTF moment when he was talking about how bodybuilding made him feel:

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"It's as satisfying to me as, uh, coming is, you know? As, ah, having sex with a woman and coming. And so can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like, uh, getting the feeling of coming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of coming at home, I'm getting the feeling of coming backstage when I pump up, when I pose in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am coming day and night. I mean, it's terrific. Right? So you know, I am in heaven."
- Arnie

... ... ...

I mean, seriously right?!? I was in hysterics with a good LOL. (Especially considering the whole fiasco with his housemaid in the past month)

Anyway, while doubled over in laughter, Arnie also said something else that made me recall what my yoga teacher was telling me about building up my leg strength for Laghuvajrasana. She said that I should go down and come up a few times, going down lower each time, or at least training myself to keep dipping down lower each time before holding there for the final 5 counts. If I don't do this, my body will never get used to how it should be pushing itself lower to the ground.

Arnie basically said the same thing about doing reps in training. He said his competitor would do 10 reps of something, but he would go beyond this, doing an extra few more... coz "the last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That's what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they'll go through the pain no matter what happens."

OK, so maybe only the first sentence in that quote is applicable. The rest is completely egotistical, unyogic and totally not applying Ahimsa to one's self.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Well, at least I got something out of that, right? Basically - don't be a wuss. To get the hang of Laghu, I should just rinse-and-repeat like my teacher and Arnie say. From a physical point-of-view, at least I know what good I'm doing.

Yeah Arnie, I'm gonna be a champion, just like you! *cough*

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