Posted in ashtanga yoga on 09/20/2007 10:11 am by karen
Yeah, I started the ezBoard thread about whether it is a good idea to practice six days a week. It’s the Ashtanga tradition, but it’s debatable whether an exercise scientist would think it’s a good idea to work out that much. And then the Ashtangis will debate about whether practice is a work out. Sigh. Thankfully, my zen practice has enabled me to hold two opposing views simultaneously.
If I actually think about practice rationally, the story goes like this: Your practice takes about an hour and 45 minutes per day. That’s an enormous amount of time to spend on something day in and day out. Luckily, I don’t spend much time thinking about it rationally. Quite honestly, practice is so early that by the time I get myself to work, do some work, then pause and perhaps have an opportunity to think about practice, well, it all just seems like a dream. And if I think about practice at night, I’m just eager to get back to it, because enough time has passed since that pleasant dream I vaguely remember.
So why do I like a six-day-a-week practice?
Obsessive personality. That one is pretty self-explanatory.
My body needs to get cracked and “re-set” every morning or else I am all stiff and contracted.
My mind feels more settled after practice. And I need it, because work (and life in general) is usually kind of insane.
I believe that if I don’t do something pretty physically demanding every day, I will get fat. I used to actually worry about this rather a lot, and now that I practice six days a week, I don’t have to think about it anymore.
I’ll improve.
I’m gonna die some day so I might as well get in as much practicing as possible before that happens.
If I quit, I’m going to have to find something else to do for almost two hours every day, and probably nothing I can pick would be as good as yoga.
The six-day-a-week practice guarantees that I will have some really good days and some totally sucky days, and it’s important to practice equanimity in the face of both.
I don’t want to muck up SKPJ’s research design. I want to see what happens when you do a 6 day week out of devotion to the system. And you can define “devotion” as scientific curiosity if the usual definition seems too namby pamby…
It’s freaking hard. Physically. And even more difficult mentally. Because I have to give up, once and for all, the fantasy that it’s possible or necessary or even a good idea to have perfect or pleasant or always-progressing practices — and just do it anyhow.
