I've Moved!

Hello cyberspace Ashtanga community!

It's been almost exactly four years since I posted anything in this space. So much has happened in the intervening years. I've never stopped writing. It's just that my writing energy has been directed towards other projects.
...and I no longer live in Gainesville, so the name doesn't quite fit anymore.

I moved to beautiful Asheville, North Carolina where, with my partner and our good friend, we are planting seeds for a Mysore community. Slowly, slowly, the seeds are sprouting.
But before I left Gainesville, I put everything else on hold for six months and completed the wonderful program at the Florida School of Massage.
Now in Asheville, I'm incorporating a deeper understanding of anatomy and kinesiology from both an analytical perspective and a visceral perspective into what I can offer as a Mysore teacher.
I love the work. Things are good.

Now though, having settled into a new place, I'm writing again in a public way. If you enjoyed reading here and want to follow my new projects, you can follow my new blogs here:
http://www.themovementpuzzle.com/what-is-the-the-movement-puzzle/
and
http://www.ashtangayogaasheville.com/blog/

Love to you all!
-Christine

What did you learn?

My time in Mysore is almost up.  My last practice was this morning and it was a good one, focused, unruffled.

Already I've had a couple people ask what I've learned here.  The short answer is that I don't know yet.  I'll find out what lessons have really stuck once I've transitioned through the reentry process.  I suspect that lessons that were planted here as seeds will sprout up in unexpected moments for some time to come.

However, there are a couple threads that are as much reminders as new lessons that have woven themselves throughout much of the month here.
Here are a few:

1) talk less
2) the poses are a tool, a way in to learn to quiet the mind, not an end in themselves.
3) stay where you are for a whole breath, especially if it's uncomfortable--this is as true in life as it is in asana
4) the fastest way to quiet the mind is to avoid getting it all riled up in the first place--see #1...talk less

...and I'll end this last post from Mysore with some great quotes from Sharath:

"Always we should think, we are not supreme."

"You've come here to learn, not to flirt with yoga."

"In this life, you need 4-wheel drive because the terrain is always changing.  Sometimes you are on-road.  Sometimes you are off-road."

Being a Tourist

My time in India is almost up.  My last Mysore practice is tomorrow morning, then led classes Friday and Sunday mornings, then I'm on a plane home Monday morning.  It's been a great experience overall, but I will be happy to return home to see my husband and to have a real shower that doesn't involve a bucket.

I've tried to keep this trip focused.  I'm here primarily to practice and study, so I've limited the number of touristy things that I've done.  There were a few non-yoga related things that I wanted to see and do while I was here though.

So here's what I've been up to in between asana practice, chanting, Yoga Sutra class, and Sanskrit class...sorry no pictures...it seems there are some unresolveable issues with my camera.  I've included some links though.  If you're interested you can check them out.

There was a really nice self-guided audio tour of Mysore Palace which filled in a lot of history of the area for me.  It also made me smile to walk through the palace and think of Krishnamacharya teaching yoga to little Pattabhi Jois in that palace all those years ago.

The walk up the 1008 steps to the temple at Chamundi Hill was one of my favorite touristy activities.  I climbed the steps with another girl early on a Saturday morning when it was still quiet and cool.  The locals were stretching at the bottom of the hill getting ready to jog the steps.

The Mysore Zoo was also a lot of fun.  I was impressed with the number of species of crocodile, caiman, and snakes that they had....a number of species that I had never seen in a zoo before.  It was pretty cool to see a king cobra and a green anaconda...behind glass of course.

The Green Hotel was also fun to visit.  It's a much smaller palace with it's own history built for some of Mysore's princesses.  They've turned it into a hotel with an attached restaurant.  They had an amazing buffet dinner there one Friday evening.

Kukkarahalli Lake is the one spot that I haven't been to yet, but am hoping to go.  They have limited hours (early morning and evening only) and I am usually in practice or at a class when the walking path around the lake is open.  Our class on the Yoga Sutra has ended though, so I'm hoping to make it over to the lake on Friday evening and walk the ~3 mile path around the lake.  I'm really curious to see what kind of plant life is growing in the more natural areas.

Links below to all of these places if you're curious...

Mysore_Palace

Chamundi Hills

The Mysore Zoo

The Green Hotel

Kukkarahalli Lake

What do you eat?

The one recurring question that folks have asked about my trip to India is all about the food...so what about the food?

It's an interesting question.  The focus of my trip is the study of yoga and setting the practice that I do in context.  This trip is not travel for the sake of travel but rather a time to set aside competing users of my energy and make practice the focus of my days.  That said, I need to eat in a way that supports practice.

It's interesting to me to see just how well I can "read" my body and then eat according to what I need rather than just what I'm in the habit of eating.  At home, I eat lots of vegetables, especially green, leafy ones, some fruit, small amounts of whole grain carbs, and small amounts of protein.  This is just what works best for my body.  I tend toward feeling heavy and need to each very light to feel at my best.  I eat no meat, very little dairy and very rarely eat eggs at home as these things tend to make me feel as if I've swallowed lead weights.  I also tend to eat 3-4 smallish meals spread out through the day at home.  That just seems to work best for keeping energy up and avoiding a growling stomach, which I find very distracting and hard to ignore.

...but here?  ...very different.  I have a late practice time here.  I actually start my practice at about 8:30 am.  As much as I love the quiet of early morning practice, it's been really nice to get a full night's sleep most nights.  It means that I don't usually eat anything until around 10:30 or 11 am though....and depending on how crowded the place is where I'm eating, it could be noon.  So, I've transitioned to what feels best to my body here, which is one big meal (brunch) in the late morning after practice.  I usually choose western type breakfast food.  Spicy Indian food is just not appetizing to me for breakfast.  I've also had to really up the amount of protein that I eat.  I had some of my lightest ever primary series practices during the first week of my stay, but by the end of the first week, I was just feeling far too fuzzy and spacey.  I switched to eating more dairy and some eggs and immediately felt better, grounded and focused.
There are a couple really nice breakfast places run by western expats that cater to the needs of westerners for things like a piece of toast, plain coffee, or tea with no sugar.  Although, on a day with a led class, when I will finish my practice earlier, I can make it to the roof top breakfast at my apartment building, where I eat a mix of Indian and western food and have traditional Indian chai.

Lunch is usually much smaller, usually Indian food, mostly vegetables, with some veggie protein, some rice and chapatis.  There are a couple of local Indian families who run little lunch cafes out of their homes...best. chapatis. ever!  Once a week, a really lovely Taiwanese women hosts a lunch buffet at her home...amazing food!

Dinner is usually very light.  Sometimes a banana smoothie at a local home-cafe.  Sometimes a piece of banana bread or plain bread with homemade almond butter from the guy who runs a little shop across from the shala.     I also buy his homemade granola which makes a nice snack in the afternoon if I've done a lot of walking around town and am feeling hungry.

...and of course I visit the chocolate man's little shop...wouldn't want to be without chocolate for too long!  :-)

Immersion

I have two primary reasons for making this trip to Mysore.

Firstly, setting aside the money and time for this trip is my way of thanking the Jois family for keeping this practice alive and sharing it.  This practice has changed my life and continues to alter my life course.  I'm a far better person with this practice in my life.

Secondly, spending a month in Mysore helps to put my daily practice in context.  Although the practice can be done by anyone (except lazy people!), its roots are not in the west.  Immersing myself in the culture which birthed the practice that I do, adds color and depth to my understanding of the practice.  I will likely not understand all the ways in which this trip has shifted my understanding of the practice for months or years to come.

In conference this morning, Sharath reminded us that asana is the foundation of our spiritual practice.  It is a tool that we use to learn to be stable.  I like that word, "stable"...not floaty, not flashy, not strong, not flexible...STABLE.  I especially liked this quote (this one's for you Bob!):
      Sharath said, "Body bending or body not bending, this is not important.  You did  
      the practice; that is important."

In addition to morning asana practice, I've just finished the second week of a class on the Yoga Sutra.  The beginning Sanskrit class and Hatha Yoga Pradipika class started on Thursday.  I'm absorbing as much as I can.
I especially loved this exchange from class today when discussing the 3 types of pain referred to in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.  One type of pain translates into "suffering caused by animals".  A student asks our teacher, "does that mean like mosquitos?"  "Yes," says our teacher.  "It means like mosquito bites, bee stings, lion attacks..."
Oh, right...lion attacks....definitely adds some color and context.   ;-)

In non-yoga related immersion news, I took an Indian cooking class at the famed Anu's Bamboo Hut yesterday. We made palak paneer, aloo mutter, and pineapple kesari bhath...yum!  I'm thinking we'll have to have a potluck for students & friends when I return so I can try out the new recipes!!

Mysore adventures in which Sharath demos karandavasana and we have conference

So still no pictures...I did find the panasonic store yesterday which was suggested as the most likely place nearby to carry camera memory cards for cameras, but they were closed on Saturday.  I'll try again on Monday or Tuesday...fingers crossed that they have the memory card that I need and that fixes the camera problem...and if so, then there will be pictures!

I did have a nice restful Saturday otherwise.  While the panasonic shop was closed, the shop run by the "chocolate man" was open!  The "chocolate man" runs a local small chocolate-making operation out of his house and sells at a small street-side shop.  Anyone who knows me knows that I don't last long without chocolate so finding the "chocolate man" was definitely on my Mysore-to-do list.  I picked up some chocolate and spent the afternoon resting and catching up on some chores (paid some bills online, etc.)

I had a nice led primary this morning and then had great fun watching the led intermediate class after.  The highlight of led intermediate was Sharath demonstrating karandavasana.  A girl in the center row was making a valient effort at landing her karanda while Sharath watched.  He nodded is head when she came down, briskly unwrapped his towel from his waste, and motioned her off her mat.  Sharath put his towel down on her mat and said "I will show you karandavasana."  It was like the whole room held their collective breath.  He set his arms, cleanly flipped himself into the pose, curled down, paused his knees over his arms, counted, came up, and transitioned out.  Then he turned to pick up his towel and said to her with a smile, "you do!"  and the whole room let out their held breath and laughed...fun times!

There was conference with Sharath after the led intermediate finished.  I will leave it to others to write a more detailed conference report.  What I personally took away from it was a well-timed reminder to carefully manage how I spend my non-practice energy.
The short version: some things are darma/necessary.  Some things are not necessary.  Drop the unnecessary things as much as you can.  You'll see clearer, act with more care, and have more energy...as you won't have been wasting it.  So which things are necessary and which are not?  Sit quietly and pay attention, you likely already know the answer to that question.

Led

My first led primary with Sharath was yesterday morning...so much fun!  We are packed mat to mat in order to fit everyone.  I had an awkward spot next to a wall and occasionally bumped knees with the girl next to me, but really, it's easy enough to work around those sorts of logistics.

Sharath set a nice slow and steady pace that I was able to ride out until the end.  His amused reminders to "Don't hurry." and "Why hurry?" make me smile.  "Why hurry" indeed...where is it we think we're going to get to anyway?...and who exactly do we think we're cheating if we rush through pose or transition?

Sorry, there have been no pictures thus far.  The camera is not talking to the nexus and I'm having an issue with the way that the pictures are stored on the camera.  A nice member of the Ashtanga-community-in-Mysore facebook group has pointed me in the direction of a camera store not too far away.  So, that is today's adventure.  I'm headed out this morning to see if I can find the camera store and get a memory card for the camera...fingers crossed I can find the store and that they have what  need.

I still haven't managed to shake this cold, so haven't ventured out much beyond shala activities.  Hoping to get some rest after I go looking for the camera store today.

Registration and Practice

I successfully registered at the shala with Sharath on Monday afternoon and started practice yesterday morning.

Registration was intimidating!  I filled out yet another form and handed over photocopy of passport and visa page, plus another passport photo to the woman who was directing registration.  She asked each person whether they were a beginner or whether they were practicing.  If we answered that we were practicing, then we were asked who our teacher is.  When I answered her questions, she gave me a nod and sent me in to Sharath's office to register with him.
Again, I went through the same questions with Sharath:
"Are you a beginner or are you practicing."
"I'm practicing."
"With whom?"
"David Keil"
This answer was received with a nod of acceptance and I was entered into the computer, paid, and was given a shala card.
Whew!

Practice was lovely.  I woke up yesterday with an awful cold.  It wasn't entirely a surprise.  I was half expecting a cold as that's what usually happens if I lose some sleep and my immune system is a little off.  Practice was a great help in clearing the congestion and giving me some energy back.  I took it easy in the afternoon and got some rest.

I had another really lovely practice this morning.  It's fun to return to primary and work some of the bits that I tend to gloss over when I only do it once a week.

A beginning Yoga Sutra study class begins tonight at the shala, so looking forward to getting a greater depth of understanding of the sutra.

Orienting

I wasn't able to register at the shala yesterday as it was a moon day and they weren't registering new folks until the next day. In all the crossing of time zones, I had completely forgotten the moon day!  I'm hoping to register at the shala this afternoon and begin practice tomorrow morning.

I had breakfast at the rooftop cafe on top of the hotel where I'm staying this morning.  There's a great view of the neighborhood from there.  I will take the camera up at some point and get some pictures.

I met a nice Ashtangi from Italy at breakfast who gave me a walking tour of a bit more of the area, so am starting to feel more oriented. We stopped by the coconut stand, among other places, and I drank my first coconut...yum!

I watched someone's dog chase a cow up the street; the cow tried to swish him away with her tail.

My first chanting session at the shala was this afternoon...apparently I can come to chanting without having registered at the shala for practice yet...the rules are very fluid and somewhat mysterious....
In addition to learning specific chants, we practice chanting each of the names in the primary series and the numbers from 1 to 30.  This is fantastic!  I enjoy learning new chants, but I'd really like to tidy up my pronunciation of the poses and numbers that I say everyday.  Good stuff!

Landed

Whew!  I'm here, albeit a bit discombobulated.  The first flight left Gainesville on Friday Feb. 8 at 1:30 and I arrived at my hotel/apartment at about 9:30 am Sunday morning Mysore time.

Wifi is down today at the place I'm staying, so I wandered around the area until I found someone who looked like an Ashtangi and asked to be pointed in the direction of an internet cafe...using a very slooow computer now, but feeling connected to the world again!

A few random first impressions:  the toll just on the road to Mysore just outside the airport says "Happy Traveling" (or something similar...should have written it down) instead of the boring "Paid"

Once the sun started to come up on the drive from the Bangalore airport to Mysore I realized that what looked like an orange plastic lobster dangling from the driver's rearview mirror was actually an orange plastic Hanuman (the monkey god)...that made so much more sense than the lobster.

Later this afternoon, I go to register at the shala.  First practice should be tomorrow morning assuming I've done everything I'm supposed as far as registration goes.

More to come...hoping for a good night's sleep...it's 10 and a half hours ahead of Gainesville time here...

Building Heat

You know how you can order your food medium-hot, take a few bites, and think, "this isn't that hot".  Maybe it's Indian food, or Thai food, or Jamaican food.  And then it starts to creep up a bit.  With a few more bites, the heat builds on itself.  And you think, "actually, this is pretty spicy, but it's good".  And you finish your meal and then think, "that was really good.  It was spicy!...and I think I'll just have a glass of milk to cool things down a little.

That's spending a week practicing with my teacher doing most of second. 

Doing primary on my own on day 6 of that week is the glass of milk.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Curiouser and curiouser...didn't sleep...gave up the effort at 4:30.  I couldn't face second series; did primary.  I couldn't face the opening up and wanted a security blanket.  When nothing else can quiet the mental hamster wheel and sooth the body, primary can.  Its gentle stretches down the hips, free anger and self-pity to dissolve.  Where does jealousy live in the body?

It still astonishes me when I look in from the outside, that something that used to waste me fully, the primary series, now soothes.  The pose within that series that took the most time to settle in my body and brain, supta kurmasana, now feels like pouring cold water on an over-heated nervous system.  Steam still results, but nerves cool down.

When I head to Mysore in February, it will be the first time in more than 7 years, that I will experience practicing only primary, with no second as my daily practice.  This is my first trip and I have no expectations of practicing anything else.  I am curious what that will feel like.  The intermediate sequence has asked that I open, and then open, and then open again.  Finally, it's starting to feel like that opening might be tethered to some kind of central core.  More stability would still be most welcome.  Who wouldn't want it to be just a little bit harder to get knocked off their center.  I'm wondering if 4 weeks of primary series practice will provide some needed grounding, or if India itself and the experience of Mysore will provide the nerve-cleansing aspect despite moving through a daily sequence of primary poses.

Ebbs and Flows

Amid the ebbs and flows of a year, it's sometimes nice to step back and assess.  This has been a year of deep change for me; both practice and life have shifted.  Practice works to peel back the layers of story one by one.  I've had the feeling lately, that practice has really gotten it's hooks in this year and took a couple layers off all in one go.  The result is more vulnerability, honesty, and curiosity.  How many more layers?  How deep do the stories go?

 

There is maybe a natural feeling of ending and beginning as the days get shorter.  Culturally, we're surrounded by reminders that our calender year is ending soon.  It fascinates me to see the variety of expressions of how we meet this season.

 

I remember a few years back when the stand-up comic and writer, Julia Sweeney wrote a fake Christmas letter.  And yet, while I cried with laughter at the absurdity of the fake family story unfolding, as Julia read the “letter” aloud, I was struck somewhere deep by how much more real it sounded than most of the annual Christmas letters I receive or the annual Christmas letter that I write.

So, although, I will still write a tally of my family's here and there of the year and send it out to the usual list, I have also written a second letter, with perhaps a bit more baring of softness, a bit more soul, and a little less story....though I could still pull out those photos of our family vacation... 

Dear Friends and Family,

I could say that I hope you’re all well and I do, but what does that mean.  We all define wellness so differently.  As for me, I’m still catching my breath.  It’s been a year.  I’ve been up and down so many times I’ve lost track now of which is which.
 

Amidst moments of fury, I found a current of strength that I never knew existed.  I am myself and enough, just as I am.  What a thing to know fully and viscerally!  So where is the good or bad?   

Amidst moments of angst, I found the love of true friends.  The greatest gift is human connection without platitudes or posturing, a quiet understanding of the fallibility of people and a constant running current of support. 

It is in the raw, unguarded moments that bonds are forged.  By acknowledging my own mistakes and unawareness, my heart has been stretched in a way that makes so much more room for compassion.  We each have our own sharp points and rough spots.  In honest recognition of our own pains and strengths, there is no room left to judge where others sit.  We sit where we are.

So, do I wish you a happy new year then?  Perhaps.  It’s hard to say what “happy” is.  Maybe the best thing to say is that, in the coming new year, I wish you strength and the love of good friends, while in the eye of the storm.

India Bound

It's been radio silence on the blog for a bit...  I've been writing quite a lot actually, just not here, and not about yoga.  Although really, it's all about yoga as I can no longer separate "the yoga" from "the anything else".  ...so really it's just that the writing has stayed in the notebook, perhaps percolating for later public consumption.

Amidst the writing and the working has been some future schedule navigation.  I'm in a perpetual process of evolving my time to be spent in increasing bouts on things that I find nourishing and in decreasing blocks on things that I don't.

In that vein, I'm headed to Mysore this spring.  I have confirmation from the shala, plane ticket purchased, visa in hand, and have booked a place to stay.  First practice, barring any flight delays, is Feb. 11.  I'm there through March 10.  If our Mysore travels will overlap at some point, please get in touch.

The trip has been several years in the making and the fact that the planning has finally gotten this far, still seems unreal.  I've been doing this practice for awhile now, nearly 12 years.  Although I feel a certain amount of trepidation, knowing that discomfort is always a part of anything meaningful, I still feel there is nothing more exciting than the thought of spending a month having my practice shaken down to the fundamentals, so that I might find out what I'm really standing on.

Digging and Sifting

My internal calendar runs on the academic year.  I was born and grew up in a "college town" to a high school teacher and a college professor-turned administrator.  As far as I'm concerned, the year begins in late August and ends in early May.  June and July don't really belong to the year.  They are part of the fluid time, where schedules are altered and adjustments made for summer...never mind that in the current college town that I call home, summer temperatures begin in March...  If the year were a breath, June and July would the retention, the pause.

I'm gratefully soaking up the city-wide energy that comes with the students as they return for a new year.  I'm ready for a new year and for the boost in energy.

The past year has been one with which I'm sure I will continue to mark time.  There are many years that bleed together.  You can think of an event that occurred and think, "now what year was that...what that 3 years ago or 4?".  And the answer doesn't really matter as the years themselves passed without ever being defined.  They were.  They happened.  They've passed.  There are other years that serve to mark time in some way.  There are the years I graduated from high school, or college, or grad school and the year I got married.  I'm certain this past year will have etched it's mark, when I have finally been able to move past it.

Much of this past year has been a process of trying to parse out sensation from feeling.  Where does actual sensation end and where does feeling complete with story begin?  Sensation can pass through, if I manage not to grab on, morph it into feeling, and tell myself a story about it.

I've spent the spring and the fluid time sifting sensation from feeling.  They sift like soil samples through a stack of sieves.  The actual, unadulterated sensations sift to the very bottom, through the smallest holes.  They are not identifiable or nameable as anything in particular.  They're left like fine dust at the bottom and can be tossed up into the air where they get caught on currents and possibly dissolve completely.  The feelings with their stories get stuck on the top sieve.  Like roots and rocks, they seem solid.  They seem to have meaning, names.

The lesson from the spring and from the fluid time?  Feelings are unreliable as measures of the truth.  Stories are unreliable.  The mind is a changeling and likes constant entertainment.  It can create complexity, and prana draining drama out of dust, sensation.

I have been steadily digging a deeper and deeper hole, sifting as I go.  The lesson from the spring and from the fluid time?  A hole is not enough.  I'm digging a well.

"The entire world is fabrication of thought. Play of mind is only created by thought. By transcending the mind which is composed of constructed thought, definitely peace will be attained, O Rama!”
-Hatha Yoga Pradipika 4:58

Tantrums and Refueling

I love that Jill Manning refers to her time practicing with her teachers as "refueling".  My time is coming...my teacher arrives in just a few more weeks.
This has been a longish span of time (6 months or so this time) to be on my own for practice.  There is the occasional morning where I'm approaching a tantrum *I-want-my-teacher-now!*

Lone practicing has gotten easier with time and I have found a lot of sweetness in the quiet, early mornings, but it is definitely time for a refueling!

In the meantime, a summer reading of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika for some 1% theory.
Conversation is in "notes" on this page.

Some of my favorite bits from the Asana chapter:
I like the image described in the commentary of asana moving prana to avoid stagnation. As someone who has been working at wetland sites in Florida over the past few years, stagnant water is something very familiar:

“When you practice asana, steadiness develops. Prana moves freely, and there is less chance of disease occurring. Just as stagnant water is the breeding ground for all sorts of creatures, when prana stagnates anywhere in the body, conditions are perfect for bacteria to flourish; prana should move like swift flowing water.”

I especially liked this from the commentary for the translation that I'm reading:

"Mind is not static; it is a vibrating mass of conscious energy and is moulded into whatever shape you give it. When a person lives for material pleasure, the mind becomes absorbed in the material reality. If it is absorbed in negative and debauched things, then it becomes that way. If it is absorbed in the subtler experiences then it can come closer to the atma. This is a process which involves the total restructuring of the entire organism right down to the minutest cell.”

Hatha Yoga Pradipika: How to Practice

Week 2 summary and thoughts for the Hatha Yoga Pradipika reading are up on the facebook page for anyone who wants to read along or comment.

Here are some of my favorite bits from the commentary in this section (Chapter 1 vs 1-16iii):

“Believing in one system, following it for a while and then leaving it for another, leads nowhere.”

“Environment plays a major role in influencing the results of sadhana.” “Essentially, Swatmarama is saying that the hermitage should be simple, clean, practical and very natural.” “Let us say that for the average person it is enough to have a room set aside and to devote thirty minutes to sadhana every day.”

“Keep the yamas and niyamas in mind and let them develop naturally.”

Good stuff!

Hatha Yoga Pradipika: 'Swamiji on Hatha Yoga'

So, I was thinking on a new yoga-related reading project and settled on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.  I had a copy.  I hadn't read it.  ...and I was curious about it.

I wanted to dig a little deeper into the reading though than a quick perusal-and-throw-it-back-on-the-shelf.  So, remembering how much fun it was reading Chogam Trungpa with Owl's group, a couple summers back, I threw out the offer for others to read this with me.  I'm extending the invitation to anyone who reads here to join in reading and/or commenting over the summer

The conversation is being held on the Ashtanga-Yoga-Gainesville facebook page.  You can find a reading/discussion schedule there.

Here's an excerpt of my thoughts on the introduction to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika:

"Swamiji who is responsible for the introduction defines Hatha Yoga as “a preparation for higher states of consciousness”.  He refers to the yogi/sage Matsyendranath who noted that “true meditation” needed preparation and a foundation.  Swamiji seems to be suggesting that the preparation and foundation for meditation can be established through the hatha yoga practices.

It’s interesting to me that “pradipika” means “self-illuminating”.  The title can be translated as “Light on Hatha Yoga”, but I think it also suggests a broader meaning, that the hatha yoga practices themselves are self-illuminating.  As Ashtangis, I think we’ve heard this before.  “Practice and all is coming.”…as in: do the practice and the practice itself will begin to help us distinguish illusion from reality.

Swamiji seems firm on a couple points:

1) Most of us cannot begin to control the mind with the mind

2) Most of us could not handle it if we were able to control the mind immediately when we begin practice.  The body at the gross level and energy at the more subtle levels aren’t able to manage that kind of control—we wouldn’t know what to do with it if it happened.

3) Points one and two are why we begin practice with the body."

Breathe and Move with Attention

Tonight was my last dance class for the season.  Just about every Friday evening, you can find me taking modern dance classes at the studio that feeds our local dance company.  We have the summers off, so no more dance until September.

My teaching bio on my web page says this: "The joy of movement without performance and of meditation in motion keeps her practicing"...and it is very much the truth.

I am not a very coordinated dancer.  I often end on the wrong foot and I'm slow at committing the movement to memory.  The incredible feeling of movement in the body makes up for all of that.

It feels wonderful to move to body, to feel the release of deep stretch, and to feel to steadiness of strength.

Sometimes we make practice too complicated, ask too much from it, and expect too much from it.

Most of us were born with full capabilities to breathe and move.  As children, there was no other way to breathe and move than with full attention to the moment.

On a clear day, practice is just a returning to simplicity.  Breathe and move with attention.

Crosspost!

A fun morning talk with fellow Ashtangi Jill Manning at 'citymousetrailingspouse':

http://citymousetrailingspouse.wordpress.com/interview-with-an-ashtangi/