Can we even talk about yoga? That seems to be a question that’s going around. I wonder about it often. Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.
Yes.
But. Maybe some of what we cannot speak actually resides in the cracks of what yogis write, interstitial, oblique. Kind of like catching a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror. Like when you go here, or here, or here.
Sure, we can talk about the pure mechanics, which is certainly potentially helpful to other practitioners, but what about the ineffable? Cody wrote a cool entry about presentations of the self via blogging yesterday, and Carl made a comment I keep thinking about:
Sometimes it’s better to consider blogging as the same sort of expression as a baby’s screams. A baby screams because its world suddenly halts upon something its mind can’t wholly process. To go on, it has to find a way to regurgitate it all so someone else can see what’s going on. Adults are usually mature enough to not scream but there is still a need to plop everything on the table so others can see what’s there.
I think his observation is hilarious and embarrassing and probably right on. Does blogging help or hinder practice? Hard to say. Maybe it doesn’t affect it at all. I recall reading that people often ditch their blogs once they are well into second series, but I don’t know if that has to do with the Ashtanga practice or if most bloggers knock off around year 2 or 3.
***
Re: speaking up or lurking on ezBoard
Some interesting discussion about this topic as well. There was a big cranky thread that ran for a while, probably started by a troll, and it got the board going pretty good. Now that it’s winding down, there are questions about why people spoke up, why people didn’t speak up, etc.
I had rather a lot to say on the thread, because I got sucked into it. I don’t feel bad one way or another. Some threads get me going and I respond, and some get me going and I don’t. It does feed into a project I’ve been practicing at work, though, which I think of as “judicious not-speaking.”
I work at an organization that has millions of meetings and is very democratic, so everyone is always voicing their opinion. On the one hand, that makes for a nice environment, on the other, it can be tedious. I think we’re in a habit of everyone feeling compelled to speak up, as if speaking up is the only possible mode of participation. So I’ve been sitting back and figuring out what I can not say in meetings. And counting that as a contribution. Generally speaking, we tend to generate too many discussions about details and what-ifs, and then there’s discussion about solutions for things that might never happen, etc. And everyone wants to say something to prove they’re valuable. I think it may be time to start subtracting discussion points. Not sure how this experiment will turn out, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s exhausting to always be trying to think up something to say. And probably not even remotely productive.
***
Practice was hard today. Actually, scratch that. It was fine. I’m getting deeper into everything and that makes for a more intense physical experience.
As ever, the drama starts at ustrasana. Stomach ache? Check. Fear? Ready. Volleyball Guy came over at laghu vajrasana and said, “Good,” when I finished it. And then he added, “Do it two more times.” Whaaa! I used to work at bookstores in Boston and I remember one of my coworkers commenting on the fact that customers would ask for a book that was displayed right in front of them. She said she thought customers went blind when they came in, because their senses were overwhelmed with the volume of books before them. I was totally blind in the laghu vajrasana/kapotasana portion of practice. Definitely did not have my wits about me. At which point, I realized that that is why Volleyball Guy is my teacher: so he can guide me across the street and keep me from getting hit by a car. All I was thinking about was my barfiness level and the fact that I couldn’t get my breathing calmed down.
After each pose, he waits. Like an umpire brushing off the plate to be polite to the catcher. A gesture, but really just enough time to brush off the plate. Then it’s time to move along. I realized that my barfiness was not going to subside, and my breathing was not going to really get much better, so off I launched into the next pose. Same thing with the next. And off we went into dropbacks. I had to abandon any hope of doing the poses with my wits gathered and stomach settled, so I just threw myself into it. What’s the greeting at the gates of Dante’s Inferno? Abandon all hope, you who enter here? Yeah, that’s it. Need such a gate at the start of ustrasana/laghu v/kapotasana. 
Urdhva dhanurasana felt quite nice, and Volleyball Guy did the assist where he stands at my head and uses a strap to pull up tight under my shoulders to straighten my arms. I feel where the issue is: left shoulder, and right chest. It is a breakthrough for me to be able to pinpoint where the tightness is. And then I kind of realized that when I give in more to being taught, I can let Volleyball Guy be the superego of the pose, and I can just feel around blindly to try to fathom what’s going on in me.
I think I’ve known this before in glimpses, but I saw it again today.
