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New post on Matthew Sweeney’s site — about dreams.

The night before last, I dreamt (for the very first time) that I could see my feet in a backbend. It was so exciting! Still makes me happy just to think of it. I could easily reach out and touch my feet. The light in the dream was very bright, and the colors supersaturated. I guess I’m accustomed to my most common dream asana (durvasana), which I’ve dreamt about doing since before I even started to practice yoga. It still pleases me, but is not nearly as exciting as the chakra bandhasana dream.

MS talks about dreams of dying and of flying. I’ve always just assumed everyone flew around in their dreams, and that they often got killed. Recently, though, when I said something about getting shot to death in a dream, I was surprised at how shocked and horrified people seemed at the notion.

Owl has a great post about advanced practice. Self-sufficiency is certainly a hallmark, so it’s interesting to think about the business, and resulting commodification, of “advanced” yoga practice.

Reminded me that I recently filled out a survey sent out by a local yoga studio’s owner. VBG had been teaching there, before his current trip to India. Apparently he decided he wouldn’t be returning, but will be seeking out new digs.

In the meantime, the owner sent out a survey to the Ashtangis, asking if there were particular hours we’d like to see classes; if we’d practice there once VBG is back and, presumably, teaching elsewhere; whether we’d take classes in any other styles.

I was honest: only class hours I’m interested in are Mysore in the morning; no, I won’t practice there if VBG is in another location, and no, I won’t take classes in any other styles. I imagine the other Ashtangis replied similarly. All Ashtanga came off the schedule. She sent us a note inviting us to try other classes with other teachers at the studio.

I understand what she’s trying to do (run a business) but when she asks us to please visit and share our “beautiful practices” at her studio, it gives me the heebie jeebies. Not entirely sure why.

***

Bit of a struggle, practicing this morning. I have a weird krink in my upper arm. Can’t tell if it’s the delt, bicep or tricep insertion — all of the insertion points kind of wind around in there, and it’s hard to sort out. The pain is on pushing movements, so that would suggest tricep or delt, but it’s on the front of the arm, between the delt and bicep, so that makes me wonder about the bicep.

And then there’s the whole issue of how referred pain from the shoulder can make it feel like the pain is in a different place from where the problem actually lies… Sigh.

It’s a common pain, this one, at least to weight lifters: it’s the pain where the bicep and delt meet, and it hurts like hell when you do bench presses.

Anyhow, I recognized it was there from the very first down dog. Tried kind of leaning into it a bit throughout all of primary. Hoping whatever was out of alignment would soften up and readjust.

First four urdhva dhanurasanas were pretty significantly compromised by the pain. On the up side, it forced me to put more into my legs, to make up for only really being able to use one arm. That’s got to be good for leg strength, core strength and balance…

I hung off the Iyengar ropes for a bit, trying, again, to pop everything back into place. Then some gomukhasana. Then some kneeling with my elbows on a chair seat to try to stretch it out.

That was the extent of my rehab, and I was figuring I’d knock off there and give it a rest, when the desire to stretch out into a strong backbend was just too irresistable — I missed the stretched ribcage feeling! I had to give it another try.

Not sure what the deal was — if I “fixed” the problem or just got warm enough that I couldn’t feel the pain, but I had a couple of really terrific urdhva dhanurasanas.

Interesting how that automatically switched practice from “hurt and had to give up in defeat,” to “worked it through and had a terrific practice.” It’s a fine line.

***

Ustrasana.

I have been having some thoughts on ustrasana for the forward bender. Ustrasana is nothing for natural backbenders, I imagine. But I come to the pose as a forward bender. And it struck me today that I always thought the pose essentially an arch that was supported by the contraction of the butt/hamstrings and the thoracic spine.

Figure you take a forward bender and put them through a couple/few years of primary. Everything is about adjusting the hammies and scooting around with the thoracic spine to get more extension.

Then hand the person ustrasana. Surely you support the pose from underneath, by a contraction of the hamstrings/butt and thoracic spine — pushing up with a contraction into these areas, no?

Well, no.

In fact, ustrasana is a kind of suspension bridge. Push the hips forward and then release, release, release the butt and hammies. The pose then suspends from the hip flexors. And release, release, release the thoracic spine: the pose suspends from the poas, which ties in at the T12. But where you can really feel the suspension is through the lower ribs. So it feel like you are suspended thusly.

This suspension thing is really important for me to feel. It was very scary at first to let go of the contraction in the butt and hamstrings — I felt like I would injure myself if I didn’t push the pose up from underneath.

Turns out, though, the forward motion of the thighs/hips unfurls the psoas, which is super strong, and able to hold the suspension bridge of the upper body no problem. Here’s my picture: the forward motion is the yellow line, and the arc of the psoas is the red line.

Obviously, I am still reading my visual thinking book.

***

Credit where credit it due: My picture of ustrasana comes from Arjuna’s terrific site.

Still weird in the arms, but…

End of March

End of May

Ideal Performance State

Check this out.

So what do you think:

Regardless of our profession or activity, adaptation is what separates peak performers from the rest. The way we think about pressure influences the way we feel and the way we react. Conversely, acting is adapting. If we act confidently and relaxed, our body tells our brain “no problem here” and we start feeling calm and controlled. The better we become at acting out the emotions we need to feel, the better we can adapt to pressure.

Sounds a lot like Ashtanga practice, yes? Interestingly, it also sounds like a high performer in a business organization.

***

I’m no fan of books about Washington, but I am strangely fascinated by what I’m hearing about Scott McClellan’s book.

Here’s an amusing item from a blog on my RSS feed:

Uh-oh. Scott McClellan has written a book. It’s called What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

The headline at CNN reads, “White House ‘puzzled’ by ex-spokesman’s book bashing Bush.”

Perhaps those of us in the reality-based community can help them out: Bush is the worst president in US history.

Okay, that’s pretty funny.

Here’s an excerpt from the book. Fascinating. Either McClellan is a very good writer, or he had an excellent editor (or both). I’ve never actually thought much about whether press spokespeople need to be able to write well — I’ve always assumed being thick-skinned and evasive was the main criteria for success…

And though no one has a crystal ball, it’s not asking too much that a well-considered understanding of the circumstances and history of Iraq and the Middle East should have been brought into the decision-making process. The responsibility to provide this understanding belonged to the president’s advisers, and they failed to fulfill it. Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently the only adviser who even tried to raise doubts about the wisdom of war. The rest of the foreign policy team seemed to be preoccupied with regime change or, in the case of Condi Rice, seemingly more interested in accommodating the president’s instincts and ideas than in questioning them or educating him.

I am so interested to read about Colin Powell. He always seemed like a man of integrity who got put in an awful position. How I’d love to hear his side of the story — but of course that won’t happen. On the one hand, that seems regrettable; on the other, well, what good would come of it? McClellan will now be smeared by the White House, his integrity and honesty called into question, the political spin machine put to work to diminish what he’s written, etc. The same thing would happen to Powell, and to what end? Everyone comes out looking bad.

***

Quick practice note

Hard to get up for practice this morning. Allergies, maybe, or an oncoming cold? Very unmotivated and headachey. Still, on the second side of pasasana I was rewarded with the loudest, spine-shakingest craaaaack ever. If I’d been a cartoon character, I’d have slowly split in two and fallen apart. Left sacrum release in a big way. Unfortunately, The Cop was asleep. The crack would have been a bodily noise for the records — right up there with the very best of his loudest, longest burps. And as a special extra prize, when I got into padmasana, my left knee, which usually pops up more than the right, was on the floor.

Cool.

Practice in the quiet, familiar space of the yoga room. Took almost all of the session to finally start really breathing again.

Travel makes me stop breathing. New places; loud noises; the city; being somewhere different; strange food; unfamiliar noises; odd smells; being lost in a new environment; a different schedule; strangers; social events; staying in a hotel; trying to find cabs; attending a conference.

That’s what practice every day at the same time and in the same place solves for.

At the Kwan Um school, when you are first learning koans, your teacher teaches you that hitting your hand against a table or floor can be used as an “answer,” as a means to cut off discriminative thinking (or at least as an attempt). The hit brings you back to zero; it clears the slate.

So it is with morning practice. I am familiar with the yoga room; I am conditioned to breathe there. Deep breaths, unaffected by daily dramas, or by the circumstances of the moment or the day or the week. What incredible freedom.

Strange to finally get back to the breath, only to recognize how constrained it was during my trip. I practiced while I was there, but it wasn’t quite the same. I couldn’t quite wipe the slate clean, because I wasn’t in the daily practice place where I can actually SEE (day after day after day) the slate.

Using the iPhone to blog from the airport. It’s slow going, for sure. One fingered typing and a keypad that blocks a good deal of the screen. As is the case with anything, some practice will make it all seem normal. By the end of the week, this ought to feel pretty comfortable. Or maybe by the end of this post.

Green tea soy latte. Mmmm. My Gift told me they were good, and I am trying my first one. A little syrupy sweet, truth be told, but gosh, I love anything with matcha tea powder in it.

Practice this morning was abbreviated so I could get to the airport on time. As is the case when one doesn’t get much sleep (I woke to a nightmare of being stalked by my Indian father, who intended to kill me due to my somehow besmirching the family honor), practice was very light and flexy.

I did suryas, standing (including the balance poses at the end), then moved to pasasana and the intermediate poses. I expected it to be harrowing, what with skipping all of primary and starting practice an hour earlier than usual. But. As it turned out, everything felt easy and light. Nice.

Urdhva dhanurasana, sore ribs and all, is something I look forward to more and more. Slowly cracking open.

Okay, enough practice report.

Over the next couple of days, I want to try using Jott to literally phone my blog entries in. Tempted to try it for this entry, but there is too much background noise. Plus I’d feel like an ass, dictating my thoughts in public.

Right now, a woman is singing the happy birthday song into her phone. Perhaps my self-consciousness is misplaced.

Lovely Sunday practice, with a weird little undertone from the upcoming conference presentation. When I have something scary coming up (yes, public speaking certainly fits into the “scary” category), I tend to have all of my thoughts stop at the event — kind of like the future doesn’t exist past that scary conference session on Tuesday. Fine.

Practice was clear and happy. I can do an abbreviated practice tomorrow morning, in order to get to the airport on time. And then Tuesday is a moon day, so no practice ahead of the session. Kind of a mixed blessing. The practice grounds me, but the super-distracted feeling of a pre-scary-event practice can be kind of exhausting.

Anyhow, this morning was lovely. Easy to concentrate, easy to let go of everything. There is always something, though, isn’t there? Who knows what will replace the conference session once the conference session is over…

Towards the end of practice, I had the sweetest sense of the purpose of practice. These insights, it must be noted, are definitely helped along by an easy, light backbending experience. Anyhow, it struck me that practice has helped me learn to manage my own frustration, impatience and greed. It has helped me learn to manage my “God, you suck at this” inner monolog — even as it gave me plenty of things to suck at. And it’s taught me to appreciate incremental progress, but to also be ready to accept if progress is gone the very next day.

Practice every day. All is coming. Indeed.

Ujjayi breath was a cavern this morning, far bigger than me. My thoughts, untethered, kind of rolled around in there and dispersed. No stickiness at all.

Is the rib pain of second series really the intercostals? I keep thinking thoracic diaphragm.

The Chinese master Dongshan once taught, “Concerning realization, through the body, of going beyond Buddha, I would like to talk a little.”

A monk said, “What is this talk?”

Dongshan said, “When I talk, you don’t hear it.”

The monk asked, “Can you hear it, Master?”

Then Dongshan replied, “Wait until I don’t talk, then you will hear it.”