I haven't posted in a while...

So here it goes, I have no idea what I want to write, just that I want to write.

There is much going on in my mind lately, should I add a class here? there? should I drop this class? should I quit teaching and just get a job and focus on my practice? (decided no on that one btw, I really hate everything except teaching yoga) should I move? do I really want to move with the fact that I want to go back to India in the fall and don't want a lease to worry about? should I move to a whole other state? or country? should I go live in a cave and say fuck society? what should I do with myself????

I really don't know. India kinda fucked me up. Not in a bad way at all, but in a way that made me know I've been complacent in the design of my future, so I need to figure out what I want to do with myself.

Ok, I know I want to focus on teaching Ashtanga Yoga, it is amazing and has changed my life. I know it can be applied as a therapeutic practice, a challenging practice, a workout, a deep, deep way to connect to ones inner self. So, I want to teach Mysore style, yes that I do... I add on one Mysore style class Sunday mornings, its been going for 4 weeks and is doing very well, for a brand new class especially.

I love this style of teaching. So I like teaching some other classes that are led so that people can get that as well, the breath count, the sequence, all of that, but Mysore style is it.

I really, really want to go back to India for two months in the fall/winter to study further with Sharath, possibly take an extra couple weeks to go north and see the Ganga and the Himalayas, both of which I'm drawn to desperately, they over there say I've lived there in another life.

So, I've started the moving forward in life, and I'm okay with that for now but am still in the mood for more and more and more. More what? More teaching right now, adding on a few more classes would be good for me so if you know of any place, let me know! lol, Also, maybe more in other areas too. Maybe explore some dating? Maybe going on a few more trips than usual? Maybe, maybe, maybe...

Maybe a lot of things. I'm open and want to see what it is that my little heart desires, join me for the ride?

India pt. 2

Yes, I'm calling this India part 2, not because I'm going to write more about India, although I could do that, but mostly because I believe India is still working it's magic on my life.

I still feel like I'm walking and doing most things in a daze, or not a daze, I'm coherent, but more like I'm watching a movie, observing all these things happening to this guy in the film, he looks a lot like me but more blonde and thinner, maybe a bit better looking too...lol.

So, I'm trying to figure out what that means. I felt that way much of the time in India, like I was observing this guy schlep about, to eat lunch, to take a shower, to have a nap, to meet friends for an outing, to bed. The only time I never felt like I was watching myself, but felt like I was actually the doer and be er of the situation was when I was walking to the shala in the morning, that walk was sacred to me most mornings. It was quiet, other than the one time I woke the dogs up and they barked at me half the way in, but then when I walked up the steps, left my shoes on the porch and walked into the foyer to either wait or be called in to practice, at that point, when Sharath said "One More" and pointed to me to come in, that's when the observer took over and the rest of my day was viewed through his lense.

Right now, and a large part of today, I felt completely present and not in this state, so maybe it's something that will change eventually much like my getting use to being here again, with time.

So, now I'm living my life back in the routine, almost exactly the same routine that I grew into before I left. Yes, I'm saying that with a little vitriol, meaning I love teaching and love teaching Ashtanga most, so when I'm doing that and counting the breaths (which I've been doing since I got home) I feel the most happy, comfortable and at peace with myself that I do all the rest of the day. So what can I do to shake things up? Teach more? Where? Go on a float trip? (that I'm doing in a couple weeks) Go away for a weekend somewhere new? Yes, that sounds good. Move? Yes, I want to move, somewhere new here? Somewhere completely new and start all over again? Maybe...

I don't know, but this an invite to the universe to shake things up, maybe not violently and with smoother edges than it had last week, please? But yes, I'm ready for new things, new blood, new paths to tread, new corners to stick my nose into, just plain new stuff!

So, if you read this, consider yourself invited to join me for the ride, or to facilitate something new, we're all in this together, so let's act like it!!!

India

Ok, it's been a while since I've written, but I didn't have a computer after Seabrook left so I'm home now, and I'm starting to feel "normal" again, unfortunately lol, so I'm writing now.

I think I've mostly kept you all updated on many fronts, on here a bit, on Facebook a lot and since I've been back I filled some of you in, a bit.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to just sit down and talk about what the experience was like, because it's something that sticks with you and slowly integrates, but integrates in a way (so far anyway) that is very personal and private and not something there may even be words to share it with. So I'll do my best to tell a story, or share an anecdote as they come up in normal conversation and just in life in general.

I've decided that I'll be going back to Mysore in November/December to study with Sharath some more. There are no authorized or certified teachers in our area, I'm pretty much one of the only two who've been over there to do the deeper work in this system, in St. Louis anyway, there are a few in Chicago and maybe some other areas semi close, but not here. Since I don't have a teacher I really absorbed everything Sharath told me or shared with me and do my best to utilize it in my practice and have decided that I'll be the authorized teacher in the area, eventually, and so need to travel over there at least once a season to stay fresh in his mind as a practitioner, but also to keep the learning fresh in my being. As I learn, you all benefit from it as well. I'm not sure how it'll all come out tomorrow at my first class since I've returned but we'll see, it'll be a surprise for us all!

I did finish the primary series over there, under his tutelage and have actually been having amazing practices since I've been home. When you finish primary series in India you start to work on deep back bending before the closing sequence, to balance out the forward bending, and that is what I'm working on at home. If you come to my classes you know we do three or so back bends before a deep forward bend and then the inversions of the closing sequence, well when you're there you learn the stand up from your third back bend and and then drop back, then you do that a couple more times, then someone is meant to be helping you do half drop backs to open up the spine more and then you work towards grabbing or "catching" as Sharath calls it, your ankles and yes from the drop back...

Since I've been home I've been able to stand up and drop back but today I practiced with a friend who just did a teaching immersion with Kino MacGregor and she was able to help me do the half drop backs, which was awesome.

Before I left I had a meeting with Sharath about my practice and how to proceed, he asked me when I was coming back I said I hoped to in the fall and he said just do primary and work on the back bending all summer, to get my spine opened up and the energy flowing, the nervous system good and toned, then when I come back he'll start me on the intermediate series, if I was coming back later he said maybe he would have me work on Pashasana, the first posture of intermediate series. So that is what I'm doing. When you have as talented a teacher as he is as your teacher you listen to them. He knows my stuff and where it is in my body and mind, so I trust him.

I'm missing aspects of India but am feeling more at home again here, although I will say this. People here are scattered, all caught up in their head and act frazzled all the time, but folks, life here is fairly simple and easy flowing, so get over that shit! In India life is crazy, there is everything, yes literally everything, happening all at once and yet the people stay calm, focused and present. They are resolved to their karma and believe there is nothing they can do about it so just stay focused on the task at hand, in the present, not worrying about things they can't do anything about until they get to them, like we do, but present, right where they are at that very moment.

So we need to work on this. Come to yoga class, but for gods sake start studying the deeper aspects of the philosophy and put it into play in your life, learn how to be present and observing of what's in front of you at that time and deal with that and only that then, then the next thing, then the next...etc...

Well, that's enough for now. I have to go catch up on RuPaul's Drag Races' newest season and watch the first episode of Game of Thrones before the new episodes of each in the next few days, but I'm also tired and ready to chill before teaching at the farmers market tomorrow and teacher training all afternoon.

So take care, and be present!

Supta Kurmasana

So, I think that finally, after 14 years of practicing this system of Ashtanga Yoga, minus 4 years in there, coming back to it and, again, finally making my way to its source in Mysore, India, I may be understanding this yoga path.

So when I arrived after I'd had so much trouble getting here, 52.5 hours worth of travel specifically, my back wasn't happy and had seized up in the lumbar region, sacrum as well, or so it seemed.

I did my first class, which was on a Sunday and on Sundays here all classes are led ones, not my favorite, but I got to Marichasana D and Sharath attempted to get me into it and couldn't. Maybe a little close, but no, not really lol...

So the next day in the typical Mysore style class I came in last person of the day and went into the practice with great focus and made it through Marichasana D on my own, he even came by and asked me if I got it and one of his assistants had seen me, so I referred him to the assistant for confirmation that I in fact had. So he went into his office and I continued onward through the series. He stopped me at supta kurmasana, which was fine. I wasn't used to the heat and it was killing me, my body wasn't opening up so much just yet and I was fine with it. And I since restarting the system I hadn't been able to bind in said posture yet anyway, so technically I wasn't supposed to move past it.

So for the next two and a half weeks I've been stuck at that posture. I decided when I arrived here I was going to surrender to Sharath and embrace him as my teacher and so I was, and in that room you can't go past where he tells you to stop anyway, it's just not allowed. But I was doing fine with it the first week, then the second week I began to get frustrated. This week Monday and Tuesday (today is Wednesday) I was so close, so close.

One day Nnadi, one of Sharath's assistants helped me get into it but I couldn't hold it, too sweaty, then yesterday he helped me again and put my hand towel in my palm so that I could get the traction to maintain it, and I was able to. Felt amazing too! Then I came out, all happy with myself and started backbending, leading into the closing sequence. Sharath saw me at my first lift up, and when I lowered down he caught my eye and said "you did supta kurma?" "Yes," I said. "Do it again now, so I can see." So I promptly went into kurmasana and then started transitioning into supta kurmasana where his assistant Ganapati came and started getting me into it, then quickly I saw brown feet move into what little vision I had and realized Sharath had come and moved him out of the way and was doing the surgery himself...lol.

He got me there, he's very skillful and better at adjusting than anyone I've ever seen or felt, but again, I was too sweaty and couldnt' hold it. He last week had admitted his frustration with me not getting this pose and even said he wanted me to get it, so was personally going to help me with it, and so it became a mission with him. But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon I went and had trigger point therapy where I found out my right QL was tigher and shorter than my left and so the guy proceeded to use the technique to release my right one and gave me exercises to do that would correct the problem in two weeks. So that in mind I went to practice this morning and found much more space in my torso, front and back, which was nice, so I made my way through the series of postures as I know them and realized that I was going to get into the pose today, maybe even by myself.

Now Sharath, whether by design or not, positioned me right in front of the dais he sits on when not moving around the room and so when I was in navasana I realized he was there, and he was reading the paper, but never to let that fool you, he still knows everything going on in that room. So I made my way into kurmasana, ahhh, it felt nice with all that space, then I began the transition, and got to a point and off the stage he comes and gets behind me to move my bones into place. He got my shoulders deeply under my legs and then made me move my arm back on my own, not the normal way, but he obviously wanted to see how far I could get them, then bound my fingers, and yes I was holding them tightly, then moved my legs behind my head with his leg in between them so I could squeeze it with mine and make the bind tighter (very nice adjustment trick) and I held it and he yelled "Pass!" " go onto Garbha Pindasana after vinyasa." So I did, he stopped me at supta padangusthasana so that I didn't do too much with the new space, telling me "slowly, slowly... we open you."

But the elation and release I felt is really what this was all about. I had been stuck at that posture and was dealing with physical feelings, emotional feeling and energetic blocks that I had never even realized were there, but this process showed me a lot about that, and now I state I think I actually understand why this system is taught the way it is, amazing!

>So when I come back and teach, know that if I stop you in your practice, it's not at all because I'm being mean, it's completely so that you can get into that space and work through the issue, mental or energetic, that is causing that tightness or that block and release it, let it go, get rid of it and move on in life!

Saturday, our day off..

So, in the Ashtanga tradition we take Saturdays off, to rub ourselves down with oil which helps to relieve tension in our muscles and our mind as well, to have a full day of integration of the insights that come from our practice. I believe also to have the day to practice feeling okay without doing the physical practice, which can be a crutch to our well being. If you practice yoga you know that it makes you feel better, it does. But you also may never take a day off from the asana practice to be able to practice those good feelings just by using the power of your mind, which all said is what yoga is anyway, right? Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah=yoga is the cessation of fluctuations of the mind. So we're using the asana practice to calm the nervous system down so that we can enact the practice of the yamas and niyamas, google them, I may write about them some day but their interpretation is neverending through the eyes of many different individuals, so I'll save my opinion for another time. So today, I slowly woke up, or rather my bowels which move very quickly and frequently here, woke me up and I lay down for a bit longer after answering their call. The sun was just coming up, which by our standards in Missouri is late at almost 7am, but it was lovely. The women were just starting to sweep their front stoops, the birds were calling their neverending call, a sound I can't explain as we just have nothing to compare it to (but it's lovley), and so I finally got up, did a neti pot, put oil in my mouth to pull with, got on Facebook, answered some messages, meditated, did pranayama, chanted to Lakshmi for abundance,did my castor oil bath, showered, washed a few shirts while I was in there chilled for a bit then left to meet a friend for breakfast at Khushi, thinking I would get a chai beforehand. I was sitting on the steps at Khushi waiting for him and decided to write in my journal. What I realized while writing there was that everyone here seems to be so distraught and dealing with all of their shit, so quickly, almost as soon as you get here. Here, we are so outside our comfort zone that our emotions, thoughts, our very inner being is so close to the surface and we're just not used to that. At home we sit very deeply in our comfort zone and when you're there your emotions allow themselves to get buried, sometimes fairly deeply and so we have to postulate, or take a few days to see how we feel about things as they come up. Here, very much outside our comfort zone, they sit near the surface and when something comes up, out the words and feelings come very much before we've given anything a second thought, so we feel odd because in the west we just aren't used to dealing with them like this. So now I'm thinking of how to maintain this closeness and intouchness with my emotions and even with my body when I get home. Do I move? Somewhere new in St. Louis, or completely away from St. Louis? Do I shave my head and become a monk, or maybe never cut my hair again and become a monk? Do I get lots of tattoos and peircings? Get my point? It's about taking myself outside my comfort zone, daily, not just sporadically as we tend to do in the midwest, if at all, but daily. This too can be part of my yoga practice and should be as far as I'm concerned. I make my students uncomfortable daily, so I have to do this with myself as well. One person suggested I start a Sanskrit study group once I'm back, to keep my studies of this lovely, ancient language going, but to spark the beginnings of their interest in it. One thing I'll probable also do is change all or most of classes to the Ashtanga practice, which is something I can't not teach, even though I'm not authorized or certified (yet), what else can I do? What makes you uncomfortable? Do you avoid it completely, or embrace it and dive in? One thing I love about the Lululemon company is their manifesto, which consists of many one liners about embracing life more fully, but the one I've always resonated with the most is Do Something Once A Day That Scares You... Do you?

India, so far...

So I've been here for two weeks, having taken four days to get here because of flight delays and new flights arranged, overnight hotel stays in Germany, then flying backwards to the UK, sitting at Heathrow for 6 hours then finally flying to Bangalore, only to take the cruelest 4 hour cab ride of any humans life...lol.

At first I was so overwhelmed by all the noise, all the smells, but more than anything all the people that I almost thought I would turn around and go home. But thankfully I didn't. I went in to register for classes the first day I got here and Sharath graciously let me start early, which helped. The yoga integrated me into the place more than I would even have guessed.

Everything here is cheap, dirt cheap by Americans standards because our penny is worth about 60 cents, depending on who's changing the money for you it can even be more than that, or less if you're at the airport! So, eating out, taking rickshaws and just about everything else is very affordable and it becomes easy to overdo it, especially eating in my case.

Sharath first day noticed how much eating I'd been doing and said "only one meal a day." Now, anyone who knows me knows this is a virtual impossibility because I love eating more even than yoga. But I got his point, mindlessly eating wasn't going to serve my practice, so I started paying attention to when I was really hungry and when it was just I'm bored so let's eat, or I'm overwhelmed by this place, let's pacify ourself by eating, or even what the hell else is there to do other than eat?!? lol

My waist is actually quite a bit thinner in those two weeks, most likely due to the intensity of the yoga practice in this place where it originates from and the shear amount of people practicing with me, when I'm used to being alone at home all the time, but even more so probably because of the heat. I sweat like I may never sweat at home, or ever have. But really the energy in that room is just intense and can really pull some shit out of you.

Speaking of that, Seabrook and I, who are sharing a space while here, are both having our shit coming out, a lot. Which is fine, this is what we're here for, to transform ourselves. And boy is it ever deeper than anything at home. Westerners have been coming here since the 70's to do this work with this particular practice and so the energetic intention of self-healing and transformation is just in the place, not just the shala, but damn in the whole area. We've had a few disagreements, but for the most part we know this is what's going to happen and have to embrace it and need to quit saying sorry since it's going to keep happening until we go home, maybe even after we get home, who knows!

On Tuesday I started taking classes with Jayashree and her husband, chanting the Yoga Sutras and then discussing philosophy. It's amazing, I love it. Her energy just radiates, and today he started the class and she walked in a bit later and I could just feel her as she walked by, I have a lot of love for her. This trip I am taking the Sanskrit classes at the shala that also include disseminating the Hatha Yoga Pradapika, but I know that the next trip will be about just sucking up the knowledge these people have in them and going with it, not that I don't love the shala classes, but I know she's my teacher on this subject, much as Sharath is my teacher in the yoga.

Speaking of that, so when I got here I'd spent about 52.5 hours traveling here, miserable. And my body had locked up with that, especially my sacrum and lumbar spine, so in my first class he stopped me at Marichasana D because I couldn't even get close to realizing it in my body. The next day though I opened up enough to get it and he stopped me at supta kurmasana, which I am still being stopped at on my second week. Today I held the bind in it, having gotten there with help of one of his assistants but he didn't see. He had been personally helping me until today and said when I could hold it, even with help, I'd be able to move on. So, tomorrow being a led class I don't know if I'll get it or not, I'm much better in the Mysore style classes where I can move at my own pace with my own breath, so we'll see how it goes. My goal is to at least get through the primary series and working on standing up and dropping back at the end before closing sequence.

I say that and at the same time I know that I am not overly concerned with that goal. I am here to realize this practice as a sadhana, a spiritual practice, that I can take with me for life and use as a way to connect to source on those days when my mind isn't necessarily able to get there on it's own. I think it's happening, I feel closer and closer each day to source. But then again maybe that is part of being here, maybe it's just having had that intention for this journey, who knows, but the work is working and I'm loving it more and more.

There is so much more to tell, kirtan with Mark Robberds, Abhyanga (Ayurvedic oil massage) with two men working on me at once, all of the lovely people I've met, either who I already knew from Facebook or just met here because there are so many awesome people here, just tons more stuff. And maybe I will write them as they come to me, probably more after I get home and start integrating this experience, but not now. This is a good start...see you all soon.

Surrender

Surrender, or as Abraham would name it, allow...

Sounds awful to most of us thinkers out there. Surrender, letting go, allowing, all sounds like complacency to us, right?

I'm coming to find out that it's where the real juice is. So you focus on what you what so hard and then it doesn't come, doesn't come, doesn't come. Then you're like this visualizing shit doesn't work, it's a bunch of crap.

Ever think you've thought about it so much that you've gone into the feeling place of not having it rather than the feeling place of having it? The feeling place is where you want to be, and when it feels good that's the direction you want to move in in your life, when it doesn't feel so good, maybe not.

I'm told by my therapist I'm an INTJ, the T standing for thinking. And you can't be a thinker and a feeler. But lately I'm moving into a place of feeling. Abraham teaches to notice how you feel and when you get that, what were you thinking about? If you were feeling good and thinking about something you're looking forward to, then great. If you were feeling bad and thinking about it, you're in the place of lack of it and it ain't coming your way, period. So think a thought that makes you feel better, and then another one and another one...and so on.

So how does this all apply to surrender? I have no fucking clue, other than that allowing, letting go of your attachment to the outcome of a situation, or surrendering to whatever the universe has in store for you is the way Abraham says to manifest those things.

I'm talking almost daily to my friend who is already in India, practicing at the shala, having experiences that I'm excited to start having myself and it seems the whole theme of Mysore, maybe of all of India, is surrender. I'm like what?!? I have to deal with this there too, wtf!!! lol, of course I'm being a bit dramatic for the humour of it. Yes I like to spell humour the British way, they spoke English first I figure they got it down.

So, surrender. India will take you and give you all the experiences you long for, BUT they will never be in the way you're attached to them happening. Sounds awful right? Nah, I'm getting used to this, since fall I've been getting good at allowing the universe to deliver things to me as it will, rather than being upset because it happened to come some other way, that maybe caused me a little extra growth and expansion as a spiritual being having a human experience. Maybe even more than a little.

Wow, so chilling out, allowing things the way they are and even making peace with it is the way to go? Yeah, it would seem so, sorry if you're attached to having things the way you would have them. Me, I'd rather have them come whatever way they get here and see how the contrast of their delivery affects me. I think of it as a fine tuning of self, or Self.

Now, I say all this and sound like I'm so well adjusted and blah, blah, blah, but it will happen and I'll act like someone shot me in the heart with an arrow and whine and moan about it. Or not, lately anyway, not so much.

How do you deal with stuff?