Pollo Gigante de Plástico!
Posted in ashtanga yoga on 10/26/2009 09:32 am by karenYou can read about the pollo gigante de plastico in the comments section of the previous entry. I love the phrase so much that I had to write a blog entry so I could use it as my title.
I took today off work because I am overworked (poor me!). Haha! It’s my own fault. I get kind of all-or-nothing about stuff, and sometimes I am exhausted by my own enthusiasm. Anyhow, since I didn’t have to go into the office, and since I watched and was inspired by Kino’s DVD, I figured I’d go into the shala and (cover your eyes, traditionalists) do all of intermediate.
It was pretty fun. Really the only thing that hurts is my right leg in foot behind the head poses. If I hadn’t discovered Ashtanga, I might have gone through my whole life without knowing how tight my right hip is. Kapotasana is coming along, as it has been and will continue to do, for probably forever. At this point, I get in by myself and then The Poetess comes by and pushes down on my elbows, at which point, I can grab the balls of my feet.
This is good progress, but I think when it comes to deep backbending, I may always be Pollo Gigante de Plástico! And I mean hard plastic, not the rubbery kind. C’est la vie.
Watching the Kino DVD was heartening, because she didn’t presume you would go from not being able to do a pose to being able to do a pose without breaking the darn thing down into component parts. She has a gaining-strength-for-nakrasana modification that would probably make lots of traditional teachers crazy if they ever saw it in their shala. Luckily, I am free to do those sorts of things at the place where I practice. I’m actually curious, now that I think of it, about how many prep poses someone could do before MM got annoyed. I limit myself to a couple before kapo and a couple before eka pada sirsasana.
Anyhow, the intermediate stuff was fun. I did the karandavasana modifications as Kino demoed on her DVD, including the falling on my butt part, and the climbing back up onto the backs of my arms while in lotus part. Whoa! That’s a hard mountain to climb.
The end of intermediate is fun because it’s strengthy versus bendy, so it makes me feel good about myself. I’m sorry, is that too blunt? 
Even managed a strong muka hasta sirsasana C, which is the headstand that usually makes me shaky.
All in all, an okay practice. I had me some fun, I did some poses, some of them really well, some not — and all are works in progress. The Pollo Gigante is grateful she can do anything at all.
10/26/2009 at 10:59 am
I haven’t watched the old DVDs either, but I imagine them to be screens of lanky white man-gods doing the full expression and beyond. Maybe that’s what this emphasis on gradual work is meant to correct? Sounds like a new classic in the field.
It nice when there’s a balance of goal-oriented inspiration and process-oriented encouragement.
10/26/2009 at 12:41 pm
Petra is hilarious when she is wrestling el Pollo. Eventually, she manages to eat it all and barf it afterwards
10/26/2009 at 3:35 pm
i think Kino is being honest about the development of her own practice. she claimed to have been bendy when she started, but needed to work on her strength. that must be why she shares those insights. i can’t wait until she starts writing about nutrition.
abrazos con pollo (vegetarian of course),
Arturo
10/26/2009 at 4:58 pm
The prep pose thing is interesting – my teacher claims prep before eka pada is sanctioned even in mysore, and showed me loads of them, but I’ll bet he’d have a cow if I threw in the shoulder stretch prep stuff I like to do before kapo. It all seems a bit spurious to me, and that’s partly why I’m enjoying home practice for a while, even though it wasn’t entirely my choice.
10/26/2009 at 5:56 pm
Hi Lew! For some reason, the word “spurious,” used in the context of practice rules, totally cracked me up. I will have to try to use it in the shala when I get a chance!
Owl, I wonder if the perfect-poses aren’t all in our minds (and on the cover of YJ)? When I see the old films, I am always surprised at how HUMAN the practitioners look. I guess a still shot with lighting and makeup and post-production refinishing makes for a different experience than watching a moving human…
Arturo, Yes, Kino seems very open and authentic. Very endearing.
V, Little Petra can fully consume El Pollo Gigante? Haha! Good work, little bullgod! Shatkarma practice!
10/27/2009 at 2:18 am
Yup, she totally can. In fact, the other day my brother gave her a lobster carcass to chew on and five minutes later, when he checked on her, it was gone. He searched the kitchen and when he didn’t find it, decided to take Petra to bed with him in case she started getting really ill.
She was absolutely fine. For being such a small dog, she surely packs a punch!
10/27/2009 at 10:59 am
Yes, this is why I don’t watch yoga videos. That and the narcolepsy thing.
I agree with Lew’s teacher that it’s often totally no problem to do some research on the mat in Mysore. And, as long as you can do them extremely well, quietly and without a wall, it’s no problem to toss in some handstands after backbends. It seems like other people prefer not to faff around… there is so much strong energy in that room that it’s a thrill to just ride it out. It’s kind of a unique zone–practice there is unique and has a different rhythm than elsewhere.
10/27/2009 at 12:36 pm
Hi Karen! or am I addressing Pollo Gigante? Is that your new nickname? I’m jealous!
I love that you tell it like it is: that it makes you feel good about yourself. I get so tired (even of myself) of hearing/reading people being so critical of themselves and self-deprecating. There’s a lot in Ashtanga that makes me feel good about myself. It’s fun. It’s a thrill to feel strong!
Interesting that there are prep poses for Nakrasana. I kind of thought it was just one of those “be ridiculous until it magically happens one day” poses. It was for me! Now I want to know the prep poses! I’m very tempted to get the Kino DVD. Thanks for writing about it.
10/28/2009 at 12:28 pm
“For being such a small dog, she surely packs a punch!”
I always think that people are describing themselves when they describe their pets.
10/28/2009 at 1:20 pm
Hmmm. Last thing I called Waylon was “a big lug.” Are you calling me fat?
10/28/2009 at 8:33 pm
Oh dear! No theory is perfect, especially my theories!
10/29/2009 at 5:01 am
I suffer theory failure quite often.
10/29/2009 at 6:03 pm
But wait…while I would never call you a big lug, perhaps you were feeling “big luggish” when you said it…like, maybe you were remembering your lat pulldowns from yesteryear…think…were you in “I, Muscle Woman” mode when you described Waylon as such?
(While I suffer from theory failure on a regular basis, my even bigger fail is failure…admitting it is always an epic fail in and of its meta self)
10/30/2009 at 5:27 am
I hear you! But once you admit you were wrong, then you’re right again!