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When I got to Volleyball Guy’s this morning, he handed me a couple of photos. Volleyball Guy loves to take photos. And then he gives you the ones that you’re in. Which gives us all an opportunity to be very self-satisfied (my pincha mayurasana photo is on the fridge–I know, I’m a dork) or rather horrified.

Today I received pictures of me in utthita hasta padangusthasana B. My form looks pretty good, but my leg is just at 90 degrees. Now, I am not terribly attached to UHP, in general. I don’t dread it and I don’t love it. It just is what it is. But now, after seeing the photo, I know I’m going to be eager to push on how high I get my leg. Okay, fine. So be it.

The other photo was of me in ardha baddha padmottanasana–with my bad knee in lotus, no less. Is my head down, and my back extended? Oh, hell, no! Nope, I’ve got a seriously curved back as I try not to press into my knee, and the whole thing looks laughably tentative. But I’ll hand it to him–Volleyball Guy’s photo shows me exactly where I need to go to work this pose properly (once my knee is a little more healed up). He’s kind of an evil genius, I think.

Again today, I jumped to ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana after dandasana. And then, as usual, I realized it and went back to paschimottanasana and purvottanasana. Maybe Guruji would be willing to change the sequence if I ask nicely? There are probably psychological assessments that can be made about people according to which poses they forget or get out of sequence.

Navasana was good today. As I rolled up into handstand (with a spot, Jody!), I felt my bandhas engage in a way I have never felt before. It was like the bandhas were running the show on their own. Much easier than momentum or brute force, which are my usual methods. And the bandha mania continued. Whereas I usually poop out after the first handstand or two, today I managed four very solid roll-ups and roll-downs, and I even managed to stick each handstand at the top quite solidly (usually I’m shaky after two), with Volleyball Guy counting on the last one and slowing down his count and stepping back away from me in order to drag the whole thing out.

Bhujapidasana is bhujapidasana. Meaning, I get my feet through without touching and then I fall on my head. But the fall grows increasingly…uh, graceful… Seriously, though, I can imagine finally not falling on my head. One of these days. And kurmasana is coming along very nicely. It doesn’t happen every single time, but often lately I can feel my lower back opening and relaxing in this posture, whereas before, it was always pretty stressful on my lower back.

My Gift from the Universe is at home from school with a headache she’s had since last night. She works at a retail clothing store, and I stopped in after work last night to see her. I saw her leaning across the counter to help a little old lady who was picking out a wristwatch for her granddaughter. My Gift was totally engaged with this little lady, and so sweet and helpful. She reminded me of my favorite zen monks–how they are always so engaged with what is before them, and their spirits so sweet and shiny. A pleasure to see in the midst of the holiday shopping. I was very proud.

Home practice today. The Cop is kind and turned the heat up when he got up, about 20 minutes before me, so the house was nice and toasty. We had a bunch of paperwork to look after this morning–a few last details that need to be addressed for the new house, so by the time he left, I was feeling a little scattered. Not really focused for practice.

So I turned the heat up even more and put on Sharath’s CD. If I couldn’t take myself through practice, I figured Sharath could. And what I learned this morning is that I tend to turn the end of each sitting pose into the start of the jumpback. Sharath counts so that you finish the posture on the fifth breath, then inhale back up to sitting, exhale, then inhale to start the jumpback, exhale to chaturanga. Left to my own devices, I tend to inhale back to sitting/start the jumpback, exhale to chaturanga. No exhale/inhale in the middle.

I tried to pay attention to the way Sharath was counting the breaths, even though I spaced out and did the transitions my usual way a few times. I figure I’ll keep this in the back of my mind tomorrow at Volleyball Guy’s and see if I can make some adjustments. I suspect that extra exhale/inhale would give me more energy for pulling up for the jumpback.

So I’ll see how it goes tomorrow, and perhaps use Sharath’s CD for home practice for a bit–let him teach me a thing or two.

In other news, the sleeping-without-curling-up-to-see-if-that-relaxes-my-hamstrings experiment has been declared a success. These days, my hamstrings feel comfy after just one or two suryas. Now I’m going to see if I can relax my upper back more as I sleep. Sleep Your Way To Better Backbends. I think I have a winner there. It’s weird, to think I have to try to relax as I sleep, but there you have it. I’m a tight sleeper, I guess.

Well, my week off flew by, and now it’s back to work. But first, practice at Volleyball Guy’s.

It was freezing this morning. Okay, maybe not freezing like places where it snows, places outside the desert–but for me, it’s freezing. Like 36 degrees or something. And the garage door wouldn’t open. So I called The Cop, who was driving to work, and he talked me through turning off the automatic release and just opening the garage door the old fashioned way. Which was kind of cool–it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. You know, all these “conveniences,” like automatic garage door openers, really do allow people to live almost completely sedentary lives. Maybe not such a convenience, ultimately.

So anyhow, I traveled from the freezing dark morning to the warm confines of Volleyball Guy’s place. Where I was greeted by Returning Guy, Sanskrit Scholar and The Other Dave. That’s it–just a few of us today. And everyone a more advanced practitioner than I. Which was great. Everyone went along on their own, and there was not the usual crowded room full of people learning, of people striving.

As has been my recent habit, I forgot paschimottanasana and purvottanasana in my subconscious desire to face off with the dreaded ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana. I realized it at the end of trianga mukhaikapada paschimottanasana. No! I wasn’t going to miss purvottanasana again! So I doubled back and started in on paschimottanasana. “Uh, Karen…?” I heard Volleyball Guy say. I explained my strange sequence, he nodded, and on I went.

Today was a “pay attention to breathing” day. I really held out for a relaxed breath every single time. Which made me realize that I tend to start building up a head of steam (i.e., breathing faster and less deeply) once I hit the Janus. So I practiced a little discipline and slowed them all down. Which left me not feeling queasy for once when I got to backbends.

And I stuck with the insistence on calmness throughout backbends. Which makes them much more pleasant. So now my plan is to practice great calm as I return to work. Any anxiety I manifest at work is entirely useless and pretty damn unpleasant. I think I will give it up.

I had a message from my publisher last night. Everything is set to get the third book out at the beginning of the year. The other poets (3) who the press will publish in 2006 are all people whose work I respect, which feels really good. I had great plans to do a lot of writing this past week, and as it turns out, I managed to get a new book underway. It is hard to be patient when poems are kind of percolating inside–I always feel like I want to force the issue. But I waited it out, and by the end of the day yesterday I found that I am in very good shape, writing-wise. Once again it is demonstrated that I don’t need to exert my will, that if I just am patient and open, creativity will manifest. Duh. How many times, I wonder, will I need to learn this lesson?

So I had this bright idea that I would do Mysore this morning, instead of led. Uh, yeah, that was the plan, until I slept in until 8. Alright, led it is.

Class was packed. As I was going in, Volleyball Guy came over and gave me a big hug. It was nice. Welcoming. And surprising. He’s not a terribly demonstrative guy.

Practice was very hot, due to the crush of practitioners. I had a little trouble focusing at first–everything felt so festive that I kept glancing around. It seemed like the fun thing to do. I was thrilled in prasarita padottanasana B and C to be able to get my head on the floor, no problem. But then my glancing caught up to me, in prasarita C. Suddenly, everything started to spin. Oh great, I thought, I’m gonna faint. So I tried focusing my drishti properly and tuned in to my breathing, and everything got back to normal. I wondered how I’d fare in parsvottanasana, which for some inexplicable reason is a pose that almost inevitably makes me feel woozy, but apparently I’d used up all my swooning potential on prasarita C.

From there on, practice rocked. One of those warm, easy practices, where every bind is a cinch, all forward bends are easy and feel great–you know, the way practice should always be

My knee feels kind of crappy. Achey and not resilient, but I’m trying not to focus on that too much. It’s something that’s just going to have to play itself out.

Dropbacks are coming along nicely–I’m not hating backbends as vehemently as I was a few weeks ago. I think I may have a love-hate relationship with backbends as I continue my practice. I can easily imagine times when I will be psyched to practice them and find lots of pleasure in them. Conversely, it’s pretty easy for me to dread and hate them. For now, though, I am learning more and more how to contract my quads to pull myself up from urdhva dhanurasana (with a spot, of course). This way of working my quads is not at all like anything I’ve ever experienced in weight training, running, martial arts, cardio machining, climbing, or any other sport or activity I’ve ever done. It’s like a weird contraction that happens at the inserts, rather than the belly of the muscle, it seems. I have no idea how to conceptualize it, but I imagine if I keep practicing it, I will eventually “figure it out.” Maybe not with my mind, but with my body. Not my usual MO, but hey, it’s always good to try something new…

Nice warm, crowded practice this morning. A bunch of folks from Volleyball Guy’s went to Bikram yesterday, as a holiday treat. I can’t seem to get psyched up for that. Not sure why. Well, I could say it was because I was busy cooking, which is true–but the fact of the matter is, I didn’t want to go anyhow. Apparently I have a prejudice against Bikram. I’m a bit perplexed by my close-mindedness.

I had a fun holiday practice yesterday, though. A practice of things I just enjoy doing–primarily inversions. But first off, some favorite poses I don’t get to play with these days, like vasisthasana and astavakrasana. I practiced the navasana to handstand transition, then did a bunch of “timbering,” which I find highly entertaining, but which the dog seems to find quite alarming. Then the seven headstands from second series a few times. Pincha mayurasana. All the favorites. It is very strange to do a practice of all poses one likes. It’s rather like eating too much sugar–delightful but a little cloying.

So it was nice to get back to regular practice this morning. Chanting Man brought his daughter, who looks to be about 8 or 9 years old. It’s apparent that she practices a good bit. She stayed focused through her whole practice, kept up with her Dad, and Volleyball Guy spotted her on handstands, which was quite charming.

I, on the other hand, forgot dandasana, paschimottanasana, and purvottanasana. I was disappointed when I realized I’d done it, because I particularly love purvottanasana. I think I was distracted by feeling kind of weird in my tummy–no doubt from eating rich food yesterday–and also because I was dreading ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana. I totally blew off the forward bend in ardha baddha padmottansana, so I knew I was gonna be hurting in ABPP. My knee isn’t painful like it was when I first hurt it, but it feels achey and congested. So I’m not feeling good about the idea of cranking on it. *Sigh.*

Happily, though, bhujapidasana, which I swore I would never be able to pull off without dragging my feet on my mat, is now do-able. I even manage to slow myself before my head hits the ground. It’s not pretty, but I’m not concussed, either. I have to use butt momentum to get my head back up off the floor, but these are just details that will work themselves out in time

And now kurmasana is added to the mix. It’s going to take some practice before I get my legs straight, but hey, it seems possible, so that’s something right there.

the cop
my gift from the universe
fat cat and pushy dog

my best friend in CA
my family

seung sahn
dae bong
sokai

volleyball guy and the yoga gang

my team at work

om shanti

Today’s practice was racked with self doubt. Just looked up “racked” to make sure I was spelling it right (wondered if it might be “wracked”) and find that the word derives from the Swedish dialect for “wreck,” and there’s a definition of the original term: “a wind-driven mass of high, often broken clouds.”

Yup, that was my mind this morning, a mass of broken clouds. Why? I have no idea. It started right in, though, as I began my practice. It was a rather forlorn experience, and made me feel alienated from the other folks practicing. A little test of my faith, I have come to decide. A little taste of my own ignorance.

Before I went to Volleyball Guy’s, I read this in the Yoga Sutras: In the Upanishads, ignorance is compared to a veil of illusion that covers the truth and confuses the mind so that it cannot discriminate between reality and appearance.

So I had that bit of suffering today, where I felt all worried about my practice, and mostly about how it appears. I wondered if I should ask Volleyball Guy how I am doing, I wondered if my practice looks awful. I have no idea what got that whole thing going, but it was not very constructive.

And then again, it wasn’t terribly destructive, either. I did my practice, I noticed my knee is feeling pretty darn good (thanks to castor oil and heat, I think), and I absorbed and wasn’t too shaken by my self doubt. Ardha baddha padmottanasana is still out of the question, and the second side of Marichy D is sketchy, but for all intents and purposes, my injured knee is coming along beautifully.

The main lesson seems to be that I have to renew my faith in my practice every so often–that I will have my moments of doubt, of being caught in appearance, and all I can do is ride it out and try to remember that my practice is my own, that it works from inside me. And the appearance stuff, well, I guess it may never go away completely. But I can make a point of keeping it in perspective. Because being inside my practice is a hell of a lot more rewarding than watching it from the outside.

Well, with his CD, actually. Vacation day, but I have to go into the office for two hours to run a webconference that got rescheduled. So I slept in and then had to scramble to figure out the practice situation. The likelihood of my practicing at home after noon is slim, as I know from past experience. Volleyball Guy does led second series on Tuesday nights, but I’ve had some run-ins with second that suggest I am not ready for it (sleepless nights after second series practice, jangly nerves, etc.). So no sense bringing an injured knee to a series I really shouldn’t be messing with anyhow.

Suddenly, a stroke of brilliance. I’d practice with Sharath’s CD. It’s quick, I have someone to count for me, and I won’t spend my time worrying about the conference call, because I’ll be busy trying to keep up with Sharath. Plus, I’ve been very interested in the breath/vinyasas since reading Jenna’s post on the Lino workshop. I mean, I knew the one breath/one vinyasa “rule,” but somehow it kind of got away from me…

Damn, Sharath tears through primary! It’s actually quite enlightening, to move without the extra time and effort. You’d think, at first, that quicker would be easier, since you don’t have as much time to “work” the poses. But somehow that doesn’t turn out to be so.

Here’s what I love about the one breath/one vinyasa mode: your movements are intimately connected with the breath, and that makes for a very clear focus. Plus, not having time to struggle to work deeply into the poses means you have a very springy, athletic practice. Essentially, you don’t have time to exhaust yourself with each posture, so your muscles keep a certain elasticity. Which I find very appealing. I finished up feeling very energetic–not at all spent.

Gee, you’d almost think this guy has some special insight into Ashtanga practice

Okay, off to my vacation day webconference…

As I was unrolling my mat this morning, Sanskrit Scholar, who had also just arrived, leaned over and said, “I have an important question: are you donutszenmom?” I laughed and said yes, but then I felt kind of anxious. I went back in my mind to see if I’d said anything I might regret. Couldn’t really think of anything, but the anxiety was there, and it was weird to feel it. I mean, I was at practice at Volleyball Guy’s, which is an incredibly safe and welcoming place for me, so I am entirely unaccustomed to feeling uncomfortable there.

It is interesting, though, to feel that kind of anxiety. It is familiar, too. I have written for years, primarily poetry, and I’ve have two books published, with a third due in January. I have had to deal with the issues that come up when one writes and publishes personal thoughts. But I have dealt with friends and family. I suddenly had this strong sense of responsibility for the privacy of the people I practice with. I mean, my friends and family are kind of stuck with me and whatever I might say or do or write, but the folks at practice are just there to practice.

So I’ve been thinking a bit about Sanskrit Scholar and the British Director this morning. Both of them are teachers who studied with Volleyball Guy, and both of them were incredibly helpful and welcoming to me when I decided to learn Ashtanga. They helped me muddle my way through primary series, they were (and are) incredibly gracious about my beginner’s attempts, and they are always quick to offer help and moral support. I am incredibly lucky. The British Director was generous enough to tell me that I should grab the opportunity to practice at Volleyball Guy’s, even when that meant she would have one less person in her class. Sanskrit Scholar will stop cold in the middle of her own practice if she sees I need help with a bind.

Sanskrit Scholar has helped me see that I probably shouldn’t be a teacher. The more I see her devotion to her practice and to other people’s practices, the more I realize that though I love Ashtanga, I love it primarily as my own practice. I’m not necessarily into sharing it the way she is. Nothing wrong with that, I think–and I’m happy that watching her has helped me understand my own motivations more clearly.

Practice today was quick and very, very warm. I seem to breathe faster than most folks, and I really try not to take extra breaths in the vinyasas, mostly because I like the flowing movement that gets established when I zip along. And one of the advantages of that quick practice is that I get really, really heated up. I am just sweating away–and I don’t usually even notice it until I sit in padmasana and realize there are rivulets streaming down my face.

Not that I was really in padmasana today. Right knee is not going for full lotus. So I had my moment of utter grief in response to not being able to fold my knee up, and then I went on to have a lovely practice. Not too many people there today–Sanskrit Scholar, Bikram Teacher, Returning Guy, The Other Dave (back after weeks off from a hamstring injury sustained outside of practice) and myself. And since I’m taking this week off from work, I can go back to bed now. How much does that rock?!?!

Just sat down on the floor next to The Cop and said “ow!” My abs, just under my lowest ribs, are killing. And then I figured out why–lolasana. I’ve been working lolasana as a precursor to jumpbacks from sitting poses (versus just putting my hands in front of my knees and jumping back from there). At this point, I can actually get my butt up pretty high from lolasana–just a teeny bit more practice, I think, before I have enough strength to kick my legs back with enough oomph to really get a proper jumpback. Right now I can pull straight up into lolasana, then get my hips back, but then I’ve pretty much used most of my strength. Just a little more practice…

So The Cop and I (well, mostly it was just me got to talking about how the practice brings people to the opposite end of where they start–for instance, I told him that Sanskrit Tattoo Guy can do pristine jumpbacks, and he can navasana-to-handstand and back again with incredible grace and power. The catch, though, is that he is less flexy than some of the superbendy practitioners. It seems like muscular types are good inverters, but challenged by the flexy stuff. And vice versa. So whether you start as a flexy noodle or a strongman, if you practice, practice, practice, eventually you will develop the other end of the spectrum: the flexy will grow strong and coordinated, and the strong will grow flexible.

And the implications, in terms of how one lives in the world, are quite interesting. Zen always talks about “the middle way.” This practice is a terrific example of that, I think–both physically and spiritually.

And in other good news: We got the house! We’ll be moving into our new home right after Christmas. One room, which is supposed to be the formal dining area, will be devoted to yoga and zazen. The Enlightenment Room. It’s a bright room with huge windows and stone floors. I’ll decorated it with plants, Buddhas and incense burners, a mat, a zafu and a zabuton. I’ve been doing home practice in the foyer of our current house. The rest of the house, except for the kitchen, is carpeted–so I have my little space in the tiled foyer, where I roll out my mat next to all the shoes that gather there when The Cop and My Gift from the Universe take their shoes off when they come into the house. It sounds kind of pathetic, I guess–but in fact, it is a rather charming space, and I like having their stuff around me when I practice.