potential

i’ve never been a ‘strong’ male. real skinny, not real confrontational, not a fan of contact sports and usually smiling a bit too much. my understanding has for the most of my life been that i am just not very masculine.

it all probably started with my first word. in my late 20’s my aunt informed that on a drive to visit grandma and grandpa i was staring out the window and declared ‘flower’. from there it was all yin…. best friends were always girls, knew more about gem and the holograms than gi joe and in 6th grade i took one of those ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ scams. florist. yes, a florist.

i never really obsessed about it (as i am now) i just submitted to the fact that strength, power and force were ideas that would not enter my life. luckily my pop introduced me to eastern thought at a young age. i was not aware then of what it meant to think ‘nondualistically’.

as i got older i tried ‘manly’ hobbies…. karate, skateboarding, the pounding of malt liquor. heaps of fun, but i still wanted to do other things. things that i didn’t think were what a boy should be doing. at karate, i’d daydream of being a gymnast. though i loved the martial arts, i never wanted to try it out on anyone. i wanted to flip around, tumble, bend and giggle. how many 14 year old boys want to giggle?? i bet all of them. skateboarding was the first activity that really spoke to me. i loved the motion, the body control, the culture. it felt more like dancing to me, which is what i really wanted to do a lot of.

so finally, yoga, this is a yoga blog right? it took me a long time to get over my ideas of what yoga is and give it a try. going to my first class in telluride, colorado was like learning to walk all over again, hard but a must. it was simply something i had to do. my rapidly deteriorating ideals of masculinity enjoyed the physical discipline while the rest of me waited to see what else would come about.

i write a lot about the emotional growth i’ve experienced through yoga. i find that this is because i can’t tell the difference between the spiritual and the emotional. currently, i am not sure there is a difference. its that feeling that was secretly working on my ideas of separate selves, masculine and feminine, strong vs. weak, karate kid vs. dancing dumbo. its hard to write about it now because the whole this vs. that idea is not really a big factor right now but it used to be. and it was asana that helped me here.

i had done a lot of meditating and thinking and reading long before i started the asana. a lot of cerebral masturbation for me. moreover, all the mental play turned out to be a play by my extreme dualistic processing. just another way i was blocking the rest of my self from coming to the forefront.

so far, all i’ve done is show that i have great potential for writing long pieces of exasperated drivel (i studied philosophy in boston, being long winded was a prereq).

anyways, potential, what does any of this have to do with potential? recently, i’ve been working on arm balances, a lot. most of my inspiration comes from people like anna forrest, david swenson, baek and ganga white. the discipline these people possess blows me away. and right now, it is the physical aspects of asana that i am really drawn to. the intense backbends, handstands and, my favorite, warrior 2, are where i am finding my heart in the practice.

i wrote a lot before about how important it is for me to allow heart opening and vulnerability to come forward. where previously i thought that this would only be helpful when dealing with emotions, i am finding that it is just as important to be openly vulnerable with the asanas. it’d be impossible for me to commit to a handstand attempt without accepting the fact that i am scared shitless of collapsing onto my face. and that is actually ok to risk being hurt not only emotionally but physically when i am playing with limits. if i am not open i either sit back and stay ‘safe’ by not attempting anything or i totally ignore the constant advice my body is giving me. sometimes my body hurts a bit. a little of pain is ok for me. in a backbend i might feel a bit more tension here, a little moshpit going on when everything else doing the tango. should i stop and come out? no moshpits allowed right? how about if i play with it for a bit? usually the play lets the moshpit get in sync and soon everythings tangoing towards bow pose. sometimes though the play shows me that the moshpit is turning into a fight. and now the tangoers are watching the fight and have stopped dancing themselves. no more bow pose.

sometimes my body finds something else, like in handstand the other day. its really hard for me to get my hips over my shoulders. my legs are real long and flop over as my lowback sink. i can hold for a bit, but its a bit strenuous and my lowback refuses to play along. it just sits in the corner and pouts while the rest tries to get jiggy. i was trying handstands again and feeling my lowback collapse. i couldn’t figure out how to keep my hips, low back and thighs working together. on the next attempt i lifted in and felt the lowback come out of the corner and join the shenanigans. for a few tries everything was playing together. then no more. i surprised by being fine with the fact that i understood my lowback for a bit and then didn’t. it was ok to not ‘get it’ all the time. anyways by that time i developed a crafty headache.

potential… becoming aware of my weaker spots and rather than ignoring them and bringing them into my practice. so far this is the best recipe i have. and if you are not sure who baek is check out this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTQxwlSc0U0

1:23 and 1:45