Feb 7. Effort Without Tension

It comes up all the time, the question about balancing Santosha (contentment) with effort.  Came up at conference last week-end.  I do believe it’s at the crux of human evolution, yes?  How do we aspire for change (wait a minute: change is inevitable, do we need to aspire?) while being happy with things as they are.

I am feeling that it serves me best this year, and the last few years, to take it easy.  But the funny thing about this practice, is that you get hurt if you don’t stay awake and working throughout.  It’s such a trip, and just like the effort of making things happen in life, slowly slowly, with acceptance of what is, and yet some goal is there.  There’s got to be some dangling carrot.

The effort lies in making the space:  the consistency of waking up and taking practice most days, getting to bed early enough so I have the energy for it, eating clean foods so that I am light enough for it.  But once I get to the practice, I really can’t try so hard.  If I push in the wrong way, the way that is sourced from some sense of need, it just hurts.  It’s got to FEEL GOOD.  That’s what I’m saying.  I am no longer in a place where I would desire to spend my mornings doing something that isn’t enjoyable. 

Here I am on a 2-month mission to Mysore.  It’s easy to get all worked up.  After all these years, and so many trips, I have to say, I’ve seen some asana come and go.  My shoulders are super stiff this year.  I think its from teaching, but could it also be from…heartache?  At this point, it is just never about the physical bod.  Things have gone too deep now. The layers or emotion and mental patterning are inescapable now.

What I see is this:

If I come at the practice like something’s got to happen today—it’s no fun.  It’s all angst.  If I come at the practice like an explorer, with a true sense of curiosity, it’s light, fun, and interesting.  If I go into that room at that ridiculous hour, 4 hours of sleep, constipated, mosquito bitten, people’s arms and legs on all sides, Sharath’s sharp eye on the room, maintaining a willingness to meet whatever happens with acceptance, well I’m doing pretty darn good if I can keep that up for 2 months time.  I guess it was just too easy for me to be happy at 7AM so we had to up the game this year.  And won’t I be enlightened if I can come back Boston and keep up the willingness, the gratitude, the Sound-of-Music style Positivity?

So perhaps the goal of this yoga, then, is to change the mind not the body, eh?  I think back to meeting Ragunath Swami in Mumbai.  He just beams.  He just sits there and beams, while the organization he heads changes the world.  

Feb 5, 2:30AM Wake-Up Call

The neighbors begin making dinner around 8:00.  This can involve the usual domestic bickering in Kannada.  The kitchen window is about 6 feet from my bedroom window.  We are both on the second floor (which, in India, is actually the first floor, because the first floor is the ground floor. And I can never get it straight.)  Smoke comes billowing out, sizzling of curry leaf and coconut oil, the grind of the mixie.  A “mixie” you should know is the world’s greatest blender cum food processor.  This integral kitchen appliance comes with 3 stainless steel carafes: dry grinder, wet grinder, and chutney maker.  I have always wanted to bring one home, but this would involve a convertor for the wall plug and is likely to break itself, or forever alter the electrical health of my kitchen circuit. 

            The goings-on of my neighbor’s late dinner is all good, but for the fact that I go for Lights Out at 7:30PM.  No talking after 6, no food after 3.  Am I a nun?  No, just a yoga student at “first batch.”  First batch, for about maybe 75 of us, means be at the yoga shala by 4AM.

            I have been able to avoid this honor for the past 2 years through an elaborate arranging of travel schedule to arrive at the time of year when the class is full and newcomers are getting later start times. This year, on my first day of practice, I happened to be in a spot next to Sharath’s chair.  He leaned over, and in a conspiratorial tone said” Next week you come 4:30. Some students are leaving.” 

            Rather than my usual face-falling response, I was positive and even thankful.  That was one of my goals this year, to be happy for whatever ridiculous time I have to wake up.  Damn that spot next to the chair.

            But here I am on week 3, and the middle of the night practice is working me over in ways I may not have expected. Other than the obvious digestive disturbances, lack of snacks and dinners, and sleep, there is something else going on altogether.  I am feeling my zest for life diminishing.  As intent as I am on remaining positive, this is hard to do when tired.  It seems no amount of napping makes up for the sleep of the night.  It seems no amount of prayer makes up for the simple, blessed feeling of being well rested.

            So I reflect on the opportunities we all have in our lives at home to get enough rest, and live sane lives.  Sharath spoke at conference this week-end about his passion for the practice.  All these people come here wanting to learn the yoga and he is teaching from 4:30AM until 11ish.  He wakes at 1 to do his own asana before teaching.  This, he says, is something he doesn’t even think about.  It is like eating or brushing the teeth.  I totally get that.  I get up at 4 at home to get the practice in before teaching, and that used to seem like quite the sacrifice.  If there is anything I take from this winter’s trip to Mysore, it’s how lucky I am for that extra 1.5hrs of rest.  And the quiet which I can sometimes enjoy at 8PM in the city of Boston (its not quiet, but compared to here…). 

            It does make me think about the things we let slide in life when we get tired.  I think for the lay person, it is often the yoga practice. 

It makes me think of the vices we reach for when we are sliding.  Here, its food.  Smoking would result in a hacking cough, drinking in diarrhea.  When I’m tired, I think food will give me energy, but because waking in the night has disturbed my body’s natural appetites and rhythms, I don’t digest well and food makes me tired.  I find myself on Ayurvedic herbs, trying to retain a disciplined eating routine, and feeling like I have met my match this year in Mysore.  “The practice,” as usual for me, is not the asana but everything that is required to support the fun part, the asana.

I am looking forward to looking back on this 2 months and reflecting on what one can learn by practicing yoga in the middle of the night.

Jan 29- The Winds

A nice lady here, self-practitioner, first time to mysore, asked a good question.  A common one.  With a good attitude and some frustration she asked:

OK, what is up with nobody speaking of alignment in Mysore?”

My friend Tasia Whitmore noted that when she assisted Sharath, he advised her to:  fix their feet, and the rest of the alignment will come.

I noted that there is an alignment principle, one that supercedes the mind.  The alignment of a dynamic, vinyasa practice like Ashtanga comes from the pure movements of Prana.  The systems of Yoga and Ayurveda both describe the 5 Pranas, which are patterns of movement inherent in the body.  When the mind proposes to run the show, we get into trouble. 

While asana certainly does provide shapes for the Prana to move within, in beneficial ways, too much mind-emphasis can actually rupture these natural currents.  Prana rides the waves of the breath, which is why the only instruction given is generally, deep breathing with sound.  If you keep it moving in rhythm with the breath, all is well. 

I know for some western minds, this is hard to believe.  There is a sense that we must DO something.  At this stage of my game, not obsessing over the movements of mind and watching for the all-the-time-happening movements of Prana is what I am Doing.  On and off the mat.  The name of the game is letting it be, trusting it, relaxing into it.  The Prana.  Its mysterious in the beginning, requires building a relationship with the subtle body in a way that implies some groundwork has been layed.  I believe it is a natural progression of the practice.

If a yoga system can short-circuit the mind rather than give it full plates of food all the time (read: information), then it would seem we have an opportunity to come into a healthy, dynamic sense of ourselves through the practice.  Like I said before, there are booby traps.  Over-emphasis of alignment, safety-obsessed practice (and maybe some teachers need to teach mostly safety because their classes are too big), can be a booby trap.  

On Yatra, we had the treat of a lunch date with Dr Robert Svoboda in Mumbai.  When asked how he feels about the different styles and representations of Yoga in the West, he replied something like: It is my hope that the focus on Yoga in the west will shift more towards the concept of Prana, and less on the idea of styles and complicated representations ,which may not be correct.

Amen to that.

So I keep writing about, thinking about, and feeling for Prana.  The winds of my existence.

In the teaching, I try not to say too much because Robert is right, better to say nothing than to create an incorrect representation.  Let the students figure it out for themselves.  Let the winds lead the way.

That’s how we do it here in Mysore.  

Jan 23. Why Paining?

            Namarupa Yatris Bobbie Jo and Steve’s postings on injuries, (www.theconfluencecountdown.com) including the words of a few old-timers, has got me thinking.  As a full-time Mysore teacher, I am no stranger to pain.  The practice first teaches how to move with integrity, to avoid pain, and then one needs to learn how to learn to move others with that same consciousness, again to avoid pain.  If the mind steps out of line while I am adjusting, as it often does, pain will be there.  Pain reminds me: Kate, you are missing the point.

Teaching aside, here in Mysore, on my first week of full practice at 4AM, I’ve been meditating on pain anyhow.  As you might imagine.

Its not like I’m getting adjustments.  So, I am seeing the main difference here is the quality of my effort.

Whenever I am wondering about the yoga, I take it back to what I have learned from the sutras.  Two points come to mind:

* Practice requires a long time, and consistent effort. 

* Future suffering can be avoided.

My last post mentioned the realization: I am wise enough now to moderate the quality of my efforts.  Effort must be consistent, sustainable.  After 15 years, and seeing postures come and go, and come again- for myself and others- I take it all in stride.  The performance of a posture, well it’s a real treat.  But the proof of the pudding is this:  what is the benefit?

Kate’s Misplaced Effort Indicators:

*thinking about what the posture looks like on the outside

*allowing mulabandha to flap in the breeze in order to make some shape happen

*worrying that I “won’t be able to do it”

DO WHAT, DUDE?  That is the question this week.  Why paining?  For what benefit?  I get pain when I work too hard.  Simple. 

It’s so easy to do here, with the full power vibes of the room.  If I can see the striving before it starts, I can pause and ask:  What is the intention of the present effort?  Isn’t yoga supposed to bring us to the now?  If Ipay attention, and notice the 3 points listed above, I am likely to avoid future suffering.

I’d like to quote what Nancy Gilgoff always answers when asked about whether Ashtanga hurts people: “It’s not the practice, it’s the practitioner.”

Thus far, I have noticed in myself and in many students, that incorrect effort is a result of this weird (cultural) feeling that “I am not OK as I am.  I must bust my ass to be better.”  Ashtanga, coupled with this attitude, will break us.  Seasoned practitioners of Ashtanga, as I see it, have come to know a rare sense of humility, and contentment.  Awake students will gravitate towards these old-timers.  Working to the point of injury is not the point, and yet has one benefit: injury breaks the pattern.  Be it Karmic, physical, or mental  (one might argue these 3 beget each other), the systematic nature of the practice will change the pattern. 

New mind is making.

Jan 21. No Fear No Fun.

Sweating it out in a full conference at the shala yesterday.  300 people heat it up pretty quick.  But it worth it to hear Sharath say: If there is no fear, there is no fun.  Of course, that’s why those of us who are drawn to this practice go through all the craziness of waking up at odd hours and doing physical work that pushes us to the brink.  Its fun!  It’s a rush! It builds Prana!

Which is why we need to work the adrenal energy carefully, take rest at the appropriate times, and not run around like crazy all day afterwards.  At conference, Sharath had us all do a few rounds of Nadi Shodhana together (which sounded like a whole lot of congestion with 300 people who aren’t used to the dust and diesel here- hear the wheeze of enthusiastic beginners recovering from head cold).  This practice, he told, is safe for all to do after Padmasana, and before rest. We also clarified that we don’t take Savasana, which means corpse pose, but Sukhasana which means happy pose. I always just called it Rest to avoid this dilemma.

I did it today, something I used to do all the time before I was teaching directly after practice.  The practice was grounding and nice-feeling.  It truly is a great way to settle the energies, and harness some of that Prana, let it sink in.  Jumping up after a few minutes and starting the day is not a wise way to follow the practice, I’d say.  So then I went home quietly and laid down, one of the many joys of yogacation.

Note: I work much more in the practice here because I don’t have to run around after.  This is why we all come here.  It’s a great opportunity and if I have realized one thing so far on this trip, it is that I am wise enough now to moderate the quality of my effort.  I caught myself trying too hard today, and came right off that trip.  I was not that smart a few years ago.

Jan 14. Hot Babes in Yoga Tights.

My path becomes more moderate every year now.  Though I have been traveling to India almost annually for 15 years now, I never had a Guru experience, lived in an ashram, or subscribed to any specific spiritual pathway.  Robert likes to tell the Swamis:  Kate’s father was a priest and her mother was a nun.  I’m Irish, what can I say?  My parents, whom I respect more than any other, did their time in an organized, group-minded spiritual community.  This resulted in their children, myself and elder brother, to be raised NOT to repeat this experience.  At age 19, when I first landed in a nunnery, a Buddhist village in France, I cried and cried.  If I meant it, meant it at all, this god-questing I had known since age 13, I would stay here and be a Buddhist nun. 

Only I didn’t want to.  I was just starting college, just finding my way through the free-wheeling land of American hippies in the 90s.  We took hand drums into the woods, rolled joints, rolled kegs of beer to bonfires, and sang bhajans.  It required a lot less discipline than ashram life.  I’ve always been attached to making my own schedule.

Soon after the nunnery, I found this yoga path.  A proscribed sequence of asanas that I could sink my teeth into.  The need for a teacher to take me further into the practice brought me back to India, and here I am.  Again and again.  I’ve never questioned that the yoga tradition is a path to god.  One that’s got plenty of texts to explain different ways of getting there, and plenty of practices to change the state of my present experience.  Though I didn’t really know why I was it doing for so many years, I knew I was deeply interested.  It has become downright meaningful, I’ll tell you that.  Anything repeated daily with intention for so many years will take on meaning.  Yet somehow, this yoga path gives me a firm container to work in, while allowing me to make all my own choices and support the discipline in my own way. 

Problem: the yoga scene is getting more and more booby traps all the time.  Mysore presently affords us all of the usual sex, drugs, alcohol, pricey hair products and bad foods one could ask for.  The world of sense-gratification still requires effort and one must keep the mind focused on the goal.  I’m not sure a lot of us here know what the goal is.  Looking back, I sure didn’t in the beginning.  It would seem this is what Sharath keeps reminding us by harping on the Yamas and Niyamas at conference, on duty and the importance of family life.  I feel like he really just wants us to behave ourselves and be gentle people.  The most rudimentary, and yet the most challenging.  If we all just accepted this humble goal, things would be a lot less confusing.  Not only in the Mysore scene, but all over.  Let’s behave ourselves and be good people.  Doesn’t that sound glamorous?  Wouldn’t we rather be hot babes in yoga tights doing advanced shit?

The more years go by, and I find myself coming here again- every time same but different- and seeking the company of ones like my parents and Robert Moses, I am humbled.  It’s the simple stuff that requires the most mental effort.  Somehow I ended up a hot babe in yoga tights by default.  That happens to all the ashtangis.

Jan 13. Life After Yatra.

We crossed parts of South India in 2, 12-passenger vans.  Ken played his harmonium in the backseat, I slept with my head bobbing, mouth open, Robert told stories about his Guru, his travels in India, meetings with holy men and posers alike over the last 40 years.  It’s an unlikely path, and I can see how heartening it is for Robert to be among like-minded folks and also, to share with us his dharma of turning westerners onto the blessings of India’s spiritual traditions.

I’m in withdrawal here in Mysore.  Life after Yatra means I have to sit myself down to do the chantings and puja.  It’s all on me, after the early early morning asana is finished, to keep the focus throughout as much of the day as possible.  I am resting, enjoying not traveling.  But missing that sense of purpose every day had on the Shakti-Express bus