"Resistance is useless!"
-The Vogons
Wrapping up a series of thoughts on why I practice and on the gratitude I feel for all that surrounds the practice...
Similes and metaphors abound as we try to describe how and why the practice works. My current experience in practice is shining some light on my physical body as a manifestation of all that takes place in the mental and emotional body.
With each day that we wake up and live our lives, we create patterns, habits, and tendencies. They show up physically even when we are unaware of them or choose to be unaware of them.
Sharath has been quoted quite a bit recently about the importance of starting a yoga practice with asana....and just maybe I am finally starting to understand viscerally what that is all about.
Practice, done with raw honesty, makes us aware.
And then: we have a choice. Change the patterns, habits and the tendencies or face the very physical consequences.
Although practice does have a way of bringing things out and up at a rate that we are capable of working with them, it is still often deeply uncomfortable. I'm finding that a mental and emotional tug-of-war is being reflected physically, as if practice itself is echoing Tim Miller, "Avoidance is not the answer."
I can twist the emotional and mental thoughts that arise to mean anything I'd like. I can create stories that allow complete avoidance of all that arises mentally.
But physically, I can't get away.
That the yoga practice starts with the physical to address everything else is genius. It makes perfect sense.
And for that, I am painfully grateful.
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Gratitude
We never really know what effects the small, and not so small, actions that we take will have.
More than 10 years ago now, I was taking "vinyasa flow" classes at the local yoga studio when one teacher started teaching a once-a-week traditional led Ashtanga primary series class.
I tried the class. It kicked my butt. My life changed forever.
It sounds so melodramatic when we say "this practice changed my life", but anyone of us with a consistent practice knows that it has and did. This practice has a way of reordering our lives and generally for the better. One of my friends recently said "I know this practice will carry me through anything". Yes, it has, and it will.
Fast forward from 10 years back to present time. I moved away from the town where I was first introduced to the Ashtanga practice. I met my teachers. I moved back to the town where I first met my practice. I left the town where my teachers lived. I wanted to explore sharing the practice. I started to teach Mysore classes.
...so here I was back in the town where I was first introduced to this amazing practice and serendipitously, I found the person who first introduced me to this practice, still teaching.
...and from his example I met a true expression of generosity.
He welcomed me into his classes and graciously supported me teaching in this same town as well. I have always felt comfortable enough in his classes to do an honest practice. I have had the wonderful benefits of being absorbed into the Ashtanga community that he is responsible for starting.
This Ashtanga path has kept me energized and honest through many ups and downs. The person responsible for getting me started on this path is taking a break from teaching, after 15 years, so I wanted to write a post to send some waves of gratitude out there for him and for all the teachers that quietly do their thing. They may not make the magazine covers, but they show up, they teach their classes, and they change lives.
Gratitude!
More than 10 years ago now, I was taking "vinyasa flow" classes at the local yoga studio when one teacher started teaching a once-a-week traditional led Ashtanga primary series class.
I tried the class. It kicked my butt. My life changed forever.
It sounds so melodramatic when we say "this practice changed my life", but anyone of us with a consistent practice knows that it has and did. This practice has a way of reordering our lives and generally for the better. One of my friends recently said "I know this practice will carry me through anything". Yes, it has, and it will.
Fast forward from 10 years back to present time. I moved away from the town where I was first introduced to the Ashtanga practice. I met my teachers. I moved back to the town where I first met my practice. I left the town where my teachers lived. I wanted to explore sharing the practice. I started to teach Mysore classes.
...so here I was back in the town where I was first introduced to this amazing practice and serendipitously, I found the person who first introduced me to this practice, still teaching.
...and from his example I met a true expression of generosity.
He welcomed me into his classes and graciously supported me teaching in this same town as well. I have always felt comfortable enough in his classes to do an honest practice. I have had the wonderful benefits of being absorbed into the Ashtanga community that he is responsible for starting.
This Ashtanga path has kept me energized and honest through many ups and downs. The person responsible for getting me started on this path is taking a break from teaching, after 15 years, so I wanted to write a post to send some waves of gratitude out there for him and for all the teachers that quietly do their thing. They may not make the magazine covers, but they show up, they teach their classes, and they change lives.
Gratitude!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Yoga for Strength
Random thoughts on gaining strength...
18 years ago now, when I was 16, I bought a VHS video from a discount bin called 'Yoga for Strength'...I should have known then that I'd end up an Ashtangi...
It's what I came to yoga for, what brought me to the mat for the first time: I wanted to be stronger.
Today, is my first practice back on the mat on my own after a week of practice with my teacher. The theme of last week's practices, yes, strength. I've gotten to an interesting part of the particular sequence that I'm practicing. Just when I'm starting to feel a bit tired and distracted, I'm met by strength pose, after strength pose, after strength pose....be careful what you wish for...
Something I've heard Beryl Bender Birch say at a few workshops that I've done with her is this: "Don't envy flexibility!" She goes on to talk about this a bit more and the subtext is always this: if you think you want someone's physical flexibility, then you have to be prepared to accept the rest of their life too.
It seems a very broad way of thinking about both flexibility and envy.
It's interesting to me because my default is bendy, but not just physically. The physical is also an expression of my default in life...flexible...the one who accommodates, agrees or easily slips out of the way.
When I came to yoga looking for strength, it seems that, although I didn't see it at the time, I was looking for strength in the broader sense as well as the physical. The two are not separate.
After years of Ashtanga practice, I can say that I found what I was looking for.
I have work to do yet balancing my agreeableness with standing up for myself. That work is found daily, in balancing in a steady handstand and then bending it into a deep backbend. It's found in controlling the transition from a strong neutral standing position into a deep backbend and smoothly returning to standing. It's found in the daily striving for a balance between effort and ease in breath regardless of what sort of pretzel is being asked of the body.
A week with my teacher always leaves me sore, tired and awash in gratitude. I remain in awe of what changes this practice can initiate and ever grateful for my teacher who continues to believe that I can be strong even in the moments when I don't yet have the strength to believe it myself.
18 years ago now, when I was 16, I bought a VHS video from a discount bin called 'Yoga for Strength'...I should have known then that I'd end up an Ashtangi...
It's what I came to yoga for, what brought me to the mat for the first time: I wanted to be stronger.
Today, is my first practice back on the mat on my own after a week of practice with my teacher. The theme of last week's practices, yes, strength. I've gotten to an interesting part of the particular sequence that I'm practicing. Just when I'm starting to feel a bit tired and distracted, I'm met by strength pose, after strength pose, after strength pose....be careful what you wish for...
Something I've heard Beryl Bender Birch say at a few workshops that I've done with her is this: "Don't envy flexibility!" She goes on to talk about this a bit more and the subtext is always this: if you think you want someone's physical flexibility, then you have to be prepared to accept the rest of their life too.
It seems a very broad way of thinking about both flexibility and envy.
It's interesting to me because my default is bendy, but not just physically. The physical is also an expression of my default in life...flexible...the one who accommodates, agrees or easily slips out of the way.
When I came to yoga looking for strength, it seems that, although I didn't see it at the time, I was looking for strength in the broader sense as well as the physical. The two are not separate.
After years of Ashtanga practice, I can say that I found what I was looking for.
I have work to do yet balancing my agreeableness with standing up for myself. That work is found daily, in balancing in a steady handstand and then bending it into a deep backbend. It's found in controlling the transition from a strong neutral standing position into a deep backbend and smoothly returning to standing. It's found in the daily striving for a balance between effort and ease in breath regardless of what sort of pretzel is being asked of the body.
A week with my teacher always leaves me sore, tired and awash in gratitude. I remain in awe of what changes this practice can initiate and ever grateful for my teacher who continues to believe that I can be strong even in the moments when I don't yet have the strength to believe it myself.
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