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Lots of yoga thoughts all coming together these days.

Okay, so what if you find out the practice is wrecking your neck? What if there’s a pose that might “break” you? Traditionalists Fundamentalists might suggest that the practice will NOT wreck your neck, and that there is no pose that could break you. You know, because the practice is perfect. But wait a minute. Is that the answer? Do you take it on faith and keep cranking away?

I consider myself a traditionalist, though — humorously — the Universe has blessed me with a sequence of non-traditional teachers. Volleyball Guy, Muscle Man, Matthew Sweeney, Celeste Lau, and most recently Troy Lucero (aka, The Diver).

You know what I think The Diver saw, within moments of observing my practice? Well, yeah, that I tend to fly upwards out of my hands and feet. But that’s easy, because anyone can see that. No, I think he saw something even better: he saw my devotion to the tradition.

At one point he came over, crouched down, and tipped his head to listen to my breath.

“Are you inhaling to jump through?”

“Uhhhh, yeah…” I said, trying to figure out, at 6 AM, whether I had misperceived everything I’d ever been taught about the breath in jump throughs.

“Try exhaling on the jump throughs.”

What?!?! Have I been doing this wrong? What does Yoga Mala say? What does Lino’s book say? What did VBG teach me? Why didn’t Matthew Sweeney notice this, if I’m doing it wrong?

Oh, my.

Busy, busy mind.

Geez, Karen. Just try it.

Another little lesson came during utthita hasta padangusthasana, when he moved around in front of me in erratic patterns as if he couldn’t decide which student to go help. Then he stopped and asked me if I knew why he’d done it.

“Because people fall over when there’s movement in front of them.”

Yes, that’s why. But he wasn’t doing it to get me to focus MORE. Nope. This was all a lead in for a discussion about drishti. And habits.

Is there a correct placement for drishti? Karen votes “yes.” Do I use it? Yes. Religiously.

Interestingly, drishti is something I cling to because I am very visual. I fly up out of my hands and feet (i.e., have great difficulty staying grounded), and I fly out of my eyes (i.e., I get ungrounded in response to visual stimuli). So I hang on to drishti for dear life.

The Diver asked me to try practicing UHP and letting my eyes go everywhere: all around the room, to objects up close, to objects far away, etc., etc., etc. As he suggested this, I felt a surge of freedom that was quite remarkable. Let my eyes go anywhere? Learn to remain grounded regardless the visual stimuli? Whoa! What kind of flexibility is this?

“Close your eyes,” he said, as I was practicing the flexible drishti.

I did.

Am I doing good? Can I nail this? Am I falling? Do I like this?

Sigh. Just feel it.

He also asked me to change my hands on my feet in forward bends. Including not touching the feet at all. And to toy around with entries into poses so that I wouldn’t be defaulting to automatic.

Suddenly it dawned on me that what he probably saw was someone practicing “by the book.” And he wanted to hold out the suggestion that “by the book” is a habit like any other. A healthier habit than smoking cigarettes, certainly, but a habit nonetheless.

Before I left the shala, he made a point of telling me that the kinds of flexibilities we’d discussed do not preclude a bhakti practice. I felt so energized by this idea that mental flexibility and devotion can go hand in hand. I mean, I know that to be true, but I tend to fall into a kind of automaticity that I cultivate with my nerdish curiousity about technical details.

What I felt when practicing with The Diver was an incredible sense of freedom and joy and inquiry.

It could have gone two ways: I could have felt defensive and angry that he was telling me to do the “wrong” thing, or I could open my mind to the possibility that my practice really *is* mine, if only I can loosen up my mind’s (often) tyrannical fundamentalism.

It was some pretty advanced teaching, and I’m still pretty blown away by it.

***

Okay, so Saturday is led primary at the shala and I’ve been going the past few weeks. Everything was rolling along swimmingly yesterday until we got to purvottanasana. I went up and gah! my left hamstring was… well, it was like it was frozen/cramped. Not a huge pain cramp, but like a frozen sore spot right in the belly of the muscle.

All the rest of primary was fine, but I know I’m gonna feel it again tomorrow when I get to eka pada sirsasana. ‘Cause that’s where it came from.

Candice did some work on the hammy knot, including some deep work with her ELBOW (gulp!). At the end she said, “You should ice that. I worked in pretty deep.” Um, yeah — I noticed!

My right hamstring insert is the weak link usually (thanks to a tae kwon do incident years ago), so it’s surprising to have the left act up. Muscle bellies are easier to heal than inserts, though, so I’m happy.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. In the meantime, some akarna dhanurasana to the rescue.