Sadly, K. Pattabhi Jois, the proponent of the Ashtanga Vinyasa sequences in the yoga world passed on at 2:30pm todays date in Mysore, India. That would be about 8:30pm or so last night here.
Anyone who has followed me and my teaching knows that Ashtanga was a humongous part of my life for 8 years, moving my way through the 3rd series of Pattabhi or Guruji's yoga. The last few years I've gotten more into the alignment principles of Anusara and Kundalini, but even for a year I was teaching Ashtanga with alignment principles before I finally got away from the practice all together.
Back in 2o00 after having only practiced partial primary series for 3 months I went to Boulder to study with him as he was hosted by Richard Freeman, a fairly famous yoga teacher whom is also from St Louis. This was something most thought was crazy as they had all heard stories of his adjustments in poses and the like, but I went anyway. I figure he's old and I may not have much of a chance, only to find this very vibrant 85 year old who tore through the room with much vigor, adjusting and calling out poses and calling out breaths and making us sweat like we've never sweated before, calling out Bad Man! or Bad Lady! when you tried to skip on a pose or skimp on a pose, then looking you in the eye, giving you a shit eating grin and wink and moving on. Same thing in 2002 in Maui, still a lion of a man and tough as nails.
Maui also led me to Nancy Gilgoff, a little gem of a yoga teacher who physically taught me uddiyana bandha. Amazing stuff and an amazing woman. One of the first three Americans to learn Ashtanga from Guruji, having gone there with her husband and Norman Allen who was featured in Enlighten Up!
Guruji had a smile like you couldn't imagine, just drop you to the floor with it and then you wanted to do whatever he asked, you want my foot where? oh sure, I will put it there! and then he would help you anyway.
His pidgeon English was always endearing as well and surprising how sometimes he wouldn't say a word or speak completely in Sanskrit or Kannada (his native tongue) and you would know exactly what he was saying. Funny how a midwestern raised homosexual who drank a lot (at the time) and thought partying was the end all be all of existence fell for this little bitty old Indian dude and his grandson (who really is hot in person). It still flabergasts me that I changed that quickly, became an almost celibate yogin who did this amazingly hard practice every morning and then taught it to who I taught it to. Most unlikely of folks coming to my classes when they were in Collinsville, but they loved it just as much as I did and still do.
I think that next week I will dedicate my practice to doing ashtanga in his memory. I know he is happy and was happy while alive, but is happy now too and that is why I want to celebrate him and his teachings which began me on this path of self discovery and challenge and changed my life completely, leaving the corporate world and started me moving toward teaching full time, which is a blessing for sure.
Thanks Guruji for so much! I'm sure Sharath, whom is an awesome teacher in his own right, will do you proud. Namaste!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Enlighten Up! the film
Just saw this movie and it had a profound effect on me. With all this drama going on in my life, well in my head, I had lost my connection. Connection to consciousness, god, divine, energy, whatever one wants to call it. And that is my number one reason for being a yogi, for practicing all the types of yoga I have over the years. Right now I'm not even drawn to practice anything and I feel like a million bucks, so thats a testament to the fact that its all in your head. As Patanjali said, yoga is the cessation of fluctuations of the mind, nothing more, nothing less. My mind is not fluctuationg right now at all, and I'm definitely looking forward to a full nights sleep for a change!
So I let go of my connection when I met Brian and allowed the connection he and I had energetically to take over for my own connection to my inner divine, rather than holding on to my own connection and letting the energy between the two of us just add that much more to it. Now, don't get me wrong, its a great thing that connection between he and I, or you and whomever you have it with, but one has to figure out what makes them happy and hold onto it in spite of everything else on the planet.
But aren't we so quick to let go for a chance at love? Sure we are, I am so much proof of that this past couple weeks too! Not saying I don't want to let myself fall in love with him, but at the expense of my own love for myself, never again. At the expense of allowing my own inner divine to shine out through me? never again.
The glow I have has to be my own and when we're together we can echo one anothers glow back to each other or to others around. Never only glowing when we're together. He knows this innately, and its why he was so irritated by me letting mine go. I had to learn it from years of practice and so its still easily forgotten on my part. Soon it will be stuck in there though never to be lost again.
So I must say thanks to him. Send him much love and appreciation. The yoga started the process of my heart opening energetically but without someone to connect that heart energy too I never let it blossom fully and so now that I have allowed it out, I know I can allow it out all the time in any direction. I know I can be loving and compassionate and fully express it when I need to, to a student, to my mother, to my friends, even to strangers. Strangers of which there aren't any really! We are all little reflections of god and only have to learn what makes us happy, what connects us, because then we will begin to shine it out through our face, through our actions, through our entire being. And thats what this is really all about.
Realizing our own divinity. Sat Nam
So I let go of my connection when I met Brian and allowed the connection he and I had energetically to take over for my own connection to my inner divine, rather than holding on to my own connection and letting the energy between the two of us just add that much more to it. Now, don't get me wrong, its a great thing that connection between he and I, or you and whomever you have it with, but one has to figure out what makes them happy and hold onto it in spite of everything else on the planet.
But aren't we so quick to let go for a chance at love? Sure we are, I am so much proof of that this past couple weeks too! Not saying I don't want to let myself fall in love with him, but at the expense of my own love for myself, never again. At the expense of allowing my own inner divine to shine out through me? never again.
The glow I have has to be my own and when we're together we can echo one anothers glow back to each other or to others around. Never only glowing when we're together. He knows this innately, and its why he was so irritated by me letting mine go. I had to learn it from years of practice and so its still easily forgotten on my part. Soon it will be stuck in there though never to be lost again.
So I must say thanks to him. Send him much love and appreciation. The yoga started the process of my heart opening energetically but without someone to connect that heart energy too I never let it blossom fully and so now that I have allowed it out, I know I can allow it out all the time in any direction. I know I can be loving and compassionate and fully express it when I need to, to a student, to my mother, to my friends, even to strangers. Strangers of which there aren't any really! We are all little reflections of god and only have to learn what makes us happy, what connects us, because then we will begin to shine it out through our face, through our actions, through our entire being. And thats what this is really all about.
Realizing our own divinity. Sat Nam
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Emotions
Spring is a time when emotion tends to run rampant, or so I hear. I'm not usually subject to this phenomenon at least until this year. This year I'm having a major meltdown and am told Mercury is in retrograde on top of that and being a Gemini, ruled by Mercury, my existence as a whole will be majorly affected and turned on its head.
I don't know how much credence I put into that astrology stuff, but I tell you, I'm not having a great time.
After doing so much kundalini lately which has helped balance me, I'm finding it has also stirred up a lot of shit within me. It only took me meeting someone that I was willing to let in to start the landslide, but boy has that landslide started happening. I fear I'll be lost under all the rubble falling on me, mentally at least.
So where is the yoga in all this? I've practiced for 10 years now and am told of all of these great benefits of equanimity and such that are the boons of said practice. So where is my equanimity, my peace of mind, my balance, my ability to not let the emotions control me but to just feel them and observe them? I'm not sure, at all.
I just brings to mind what my friend Michael Faith teaches, everything in his classes revolves around the heart. The energy of the heart, I'm finding anyway, is an amazingly strong thing that is not to be reckoned with! I began the opening thru my Anusara practice and the kundalini only exacerbated that opening til the point now where I'm a mess. Maybe the heart energy really is the strongest thing on the planet, you know like, All You Need Is Love?!? Maybe once you unleash it its just that powerful and overwhelming so as to not be controlled, even through yogic techniques? If so, I'm fucked because I'm having a major unleashing and I mean major!
Well, maybe not a mess, maybe just falling in love. Falling for someone I don't even know how he feels about me even though others tell me they believe he feels the same, just doesn't want to miss me while he's gone on an upcoming month long trip and therefor is being standoffish. Falling for someone who tells me the trouble he had getting over his ex and how it will be a long time before he can befriend him and yet he keeps spending time with him this week, instead of me! Selfish I know, but this is my blog after all, right?Falling for someone who used to answer my texts almost before I was finished typing them and then a week later can't get an answer at all! Falling for someone whom one night we're making out and arousing each other and then a week later he won't even let me try to arouse him because he doesn't want to be intimate with me before he leaves because it will be easier.
What does he think intimate is? Intimate is the walks we've taken, the talks we've had, the kisses we've shared, the day we spent text flirting all day long. Sex, poo on sex (dont' get me wrong, I like it and want it), give me the rest!
One thing that disappoints me in myself is this, I am the biggest proponent that happiness comes from within, trying to teach people that on a daily basis. And I was happy up until Sunday, now I'm just miserable. And why? Why am I allowing someone else affect my yoga, my connection to my inner divinity? The key word being allowing. No one can do this to me, I have to be allowing them to do it, and that puts it back on my shoulders. Where is my inner strength, inner peace? What have I done with it? Again, maybe the heart energy is just that fucking strong, strong enough that even the strongest will (like mine) is affected. And why release that energy in a direction in which I'm feeling almost no reciprocation anymore? Maybe the energy knows better than I do, maybe its being drawn in a way that I've asked for it to? I did ask for a spiritually aware, loving, interesting, super smart, sexy, no nonsense guy who does yoga and/or has some sort of equivilant of an asana practice didn't I? Yes, I did. And the universe pushed it in front of me, only to take it away for a month a few weeks later.
Maybe that month will be the best thing thats happened between us. It will give him time to go away and forget how much I've driven him nuts wanting to be around him all the time, and give me time to create some distance. Maybe enough distance that when he's back I can have some composure and a bit more equanimity with him and myself and just let the things unfold the way they are going to, rather than trying to force anything. Hmmm.
Oh well, just ponderings here. Trying to find the yoga, the balance, within the situation. In a very public forum I realize but maybe thats how to do it? Just put it out there and let the universe come back with some answers. Hopefully, anyway.
Sat Nam
I don't know how much credence I put into that astrology stuff, but I tell you, I'm not having a great time.
After doing so much kundalini lately which has helped balance me, I'm finding it has also stirred up a lot of shit within me. It only took me meeting someone that I was willing to let in to start the landslide, but boy has that landslide started happening. I fear I'll be lost under all the rubble falling on me, mentally at least.
So where is the yoga in all this? I've practiced for 10 years now and am told of all of these great benefits of equanimity and such that are the boons of said practice. So where is my equanimity, my peace of mind, my balance, my ability to not let the emotions control me but to just feel them and observe them? I'm not sure, at all.
I just brings to mind what my friend Michael Faith teaches, everything in his classes revolves around the heart. The energy of the heart, I'm finding anyway, is an amazingly strong thing that is not to be reckoned with! I began the opening thru my Anusara practice and the kundalini only exacerbated that opening til the point now where I'm a mess. Maybe the heart energy really is the strongest thing on the planet, you know like, All You Need Is Love?!? Maybe once you unleash it its just that powerful and overwhelming so as to not be controlled, even through yogic techniques? If so, I'm fucked because I'm having a major unleashing and I mean major!
Well, maybe not a mess, maybe just falling in love. Falling for someone I don't even know how he feels about me even though others tell me they believe he feels the same, just doesn't want to miss me while he's gone on an upcoming month long trip and therefor is being standoffish. Falling for someone who tells me the trouble he had getting over his ex and how it will be a long time before he can befriend him and yet he keeps spending time with him this week, instead of me! Selfish I know, but this is my blog after all, right?Falling for someone who used to answer my texts almost before I was finished typing them and then a week later can't get an answer at all! Falling for someone whom one night we're making out and arousing each other and then a week later he won't even let me try to arouse him because he doesn't want to be intimate with me before he leaves because it will be easier.
What does he think intimate is? Intimate is the walks we've taken, the talks we've had, the kisses we've shared, the day we spent text flirting all day long. Sex, poo on sex (dont' get me wrong, I like it and want it), give me the rest!
One thing that disappoints me in myself is this, I am the biggest proponent that happiness comes from within, trying to teach people that on a daily basis. And I was happy up until Sunday, now I'm just miserable. And why? Why am I allowing someone else affect my yoga, my connection to my inner divinity? The key word being allowing. No one can do this to me, I have to be allowing them to do it, and that puts it back on my shoulders. Where is my inner strength, inner peace? What have I done with it? Again, maybe the heart energy is just that fucking strong, strong enough that even the strongest will (like mine) is affected. And why release that energy in a direction in which I'm feeling almost no reciprocation anymore? Maybe the energy knows better than I do, maybe its being drawn in a way that I've asked for it to? I did ask for a spiritually aware, loving, interesting, super smart, sexy, no nonsense guy who does yoga and/or has some sort of equivilant of an asana practice didn't I? Yes, I did. And the universe pushed it in front of me, only to take it away for a month a few weeks later.
Maybe that month will be the best thing thats happened between us. It will give him time to go away and forget how much I've driven him nuts wanting to be around him all the time, and give me time to create some distance. Maybe enough distance that when he's back I can have some composure and a bit more equanimity with him and myself and just let the things unfold the way they are going to, rather than trying to force anything. Hmmm.
Oh well, just ponderings here. Trying to find the yoga, the balance, within the situation. In a very public forum I realize but maybe thats how to do it? Just put it out there and let the universe come back with some answers. Hopefully, anyway.
Sat Nam
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