bending

Safe Spaces

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:32:50 -0400

A few yoga teachers were sitting around the local-organic-juice-kirtan-om-nagchampa-zen-freetrade-internet cafe when the idea of safe space came up…

‘When is it that you are aware of how safe your teaching space is?’, asked a pony-tailed Yin teacher while sipping his kale and beet smoothie.

The Americano drinking Bikram teacher with the gauged ears piped up first, ‘The space is safe when I tell them it is safe,’ she stated with a rather fierce smile.

‘When the student tries the first dropback while I am holding the hips, the space is safe’, said the lithe Ashtangi who wasn’t drinking anything, there was a Mysore class in 8 hours.

‘When a students breaks wind, maintains the pose and claims the passing of wind out loud, the space is safe’, replied the poorly tattooed Vinyasa teacher over his heavily cardomomed chai latte.

Teaching Teachers

Sat, 09 May 2009 16:15:25 -0400

My vinyasa class has been going great. I’ve got a group of regulars who show up and are really into the structure of the class. Usually there is a round of sun salutations, then some fun variation of a warrior series followed by whatever the class chooses, arms, back, hips, whatever. Small classes make it easy for a dialogue between the students and teacher and we can kinda go wherever.

Recently the classes have been getting busier and busier with tourist season in full swing. At first I wasn’t bothered, Moab is pretty chill so I didn’t make too many adjustments to the class. The other day though there was a woman who was obviously really experienced. After the class we were talking and it comes out that she teaches at a studio in Washington. No problem until she showed up at my next class. I got all nervous, like I needed to expound everything I knew about all the poses. I didn’t feel confident at all. Of course, none of this was coming from her, all me. I’d never had a member in the class who’d started practicing when I was ditching school to go skate. It made me question my self as a teacher. How can I do this when my experience is still so fresh? I’m more or less a newbie still.

She and I got together to practice for an afternoon. It was great to share ideas and work with someone who had so much experience. She gave a lot of tips and advice and after a bit I felt that her yoga was very different than mine. I like the idea that Schiffman brings up about free form yoga and sometimes I think that I like it because it is a good excuse for not cultivating a traditional foundation, i.e. “i’m lazy so i just do what feels good”.

As we moved into more ‘advanced’ poses, the dialogue between us seemed to open up a lot more. It was intriguing that we had similar ideas on how arm balances can be taught with more wiggle room as one is first learning them. Then she came over and gave me an adjustment during the Up Dog in a vinyasa. Now, in my Up Dog I tense my butt and quads a lot to support my sacrum and low back, which I know are hypermobile. When she moved my hips up a bit there was an audible crunch sound followed by a pop. No pain at all but scary. We both looked pretty shocked.

The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed, my low back was totally seized up. It took 15 minutes of knees to chest to hobble to the shower. I haven’t been really injured like this in a long time. Its frustrating. After almost three weeks of no backbends, sun salutations or climbing, I’ve got a pretty good forward fold now. And now I’m just wondering what kind of teacher I’ll be in 10, 12, 15 more years. Will I still get nervous when another teacher is in my class like I was this morning? Is my practice going to include more prehab forward folds? When will I injure my first student? How will I feel about that?

Spring in Moab

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:02:10 -0400

Its springtime here… kinda. The desert likes to surprise me with weather that hits like a sucker punch to the kidney. One week of brilliant 80 degree sunshine followed by freezing rain and snow that lasts twice as long. Today the Sun is out and all the Jeeper tourists are in town. Jeep Safari week. During ths little festival Moab hosts 4x4 enthusiasts by the thousands. A spectacular transformation from just a month ago when a lot of the shops were still closed.

The Sun is to blame I think. The wildflowers are starting to peek out and the pink blossoms of the Japanese Plum Trees are everywhere (how and why this Eastern flora made it here is beyond me but I won’t complain). I’m affected intensely by the sunshine. I find myself getting up early and planning out my classes for the week. And I am NOT a morning person.

Living in the desert makes on recognize how rhythms and patterns aren’t just for hiphop and quilting. Winter here is empty, cold and close to silent. And now spring is overloaded with sunshine, people and yoga classes.

This abundance has kickstarted a desire to create for me. So I started a new blog chronicling my efforts into handbalancing and am starting a website (still in rough form) and teaching 8 classes a week.

bigbendsyoga.com

animalhands.blogspot.com

Experiments

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:46:00 -0500

“Life is an experience to be carried as far as possible”- Georges Bataille. This was my favorite quote at the end of high school all the way through my 20’s. Bataille was a writer in early 1900’s France. While he recieved a lot of scorn and ridicule from more well known writers, namely Sartre, though posthumously he influenced Foucault and Derrida. His writings dealt with everything from economics to Surrealism. The common theme in almost all of his writings that I have read is an extravagance of the vices. In my early 20’s this was intriguing. Here was a famous intellectual granting permission to experience everything I could get my hands on. Word Up!

Following this quote as a mantra, I learned a whole lot about the possibilities of this body. It is possible to live on nothing but Schlitz and chicken wings for a 3 day weekend. It is possible to walk from Everest Base Camp to Namche Bazaar in a day without food. My body became a vessel for audacious experiments. It is quite resilient, this body. I am still amazed that it still bends and flexes and moves without complaining much. For this I need to thank my corporeal self.

In my experience with drugs and intense physical tests, I have found that a certain detatchment became constant. An ignorance of what I was doing to my body. More specifically what i was doing to myself. This detatchment wasn’t some Zen epiphany, actually it was the opposite. My body was simply a beaker, a litmus paper that ‘I’ could use.

Over the years this detatchment produced a confidence that could only come from the naive. By not tuning into my body, not listening to it, I forgot something. I’m still working on what that is.

So this past weekend in Ojai I went to some more teacher training. It was billed as a time to drop into oneself. Not really knowing what I was getting into, I put together 6 vinyasa series emphasizing my love of backbends and arm balances. In my mind, dropping into myself meant deep asanas and a lot of sweat. Its hard for me to think I can find something if I’m not struggling. I was pleasantly surprised at the yin sequence that opened the weekend.

Batailles quote in my head meant intensity, extravagance and pushing boundaries. Experience was not casual. My yoga practice started to mimic this notion. I spend a lot of time on my hands or bent backwards and I don’t know why. And though my practice tends to be very yang, there has been a constant nudging towards stillness and quiet. Recently standing balance poses have been grabbing my attention. Spinal stability is becoming more of an issue than spinal flexion.Still, I don’t know why.

Kira set up an experiment for us. We had lifesized outlines of our bodies next to us during a free flow asana session. Of course, I set up immediately for some arm balances and then I waited a bit. I felt real strange just sitting there reining in the urge to lift into galavasana. I did notice something in my hands though. A swelling in the palms that runs up my inner arms to the front of my chest just under the ribs. After a few times pressing up onto my hands the feeling abated and I fell into a lot of forward folds.

Yoga as experiment really appeals to me. Each pose is endless. Crow for example, bent arms, straight arms, knees resting on the arms, knees lifted by the core, fingers forward, sideways or backwards, hips below the shoulders, hips even with the shoulders. The physical representation is endless, I’m going to guess the ‘other’ representations would be endless as well.

winter revisited

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:58:55 -0500

its rather apparent now that i have a had a real tough winter. lots of money issues, getting dumped, parents aging and just plain loneliness took a toll on me that i was not aware of until it was too late.

i’ve spent the last week trying to sort out this mess and get going again. what happened? why did i crash so hard after doing so well? damn yab/yum. the first thing i did was get back into yoga. the primary series to be exact, the order and structure of ashtanga really allowed me to focus amidst all this emotional distress. and during this series i did find something. i’ve been aware of the lopsidedness of my practice, arm balances and backbends but ignorant of why this is so. i was getting really frustrated in the balancing poses of the primary series, so i would just go into arm and back stuff.

it started to dawn on me that standing on one foot is scary for me. the subtle dynamics draw me into my body and urge a less intense introspection than i am used to. i like the big ‘a-ha!’ moments, like when i find stability in peacock or a floating chatturanga. the little things, my weight shifting from big toe to heel in tree don’t catch my attention. i don’t think its that important.

so this winter, when my company didn’t have the money to pay me i didn’t look at the little things this may effect. i had savings and i knew that in the long run it’d all work out fine but i couldn’t see how my little stressors snowballed. most of this money stress lead to hanging out in my house a lot because i was saving money. in turn, i called someone a lot. i was bored and looking forward to something. over a few weeks this became overwhelming for both of us. all my weight was on my big toe and she saw me getting ready to fall.

at the same time i simply stopped practicing. i stopped paying attention to my alignment. i was standing there in tree with my butt sticking out, my base leg all bent and leaning way over. no awareness.

and then it all came down. my stress about money slowly transferred to a relationship and it died before i knew it. i never thought i’d let something like that happen. it felt like my whole reason for coming to moab just fell apart. the job crumbled and i never found that community i know now i really need. and then my backbends got real stiff.

i’ve written before about the generousity of backbends but i’ve never really experienced how taxing that can be. my body is simply set up for backbends and after getting some reading tips from arturo i’m starting to see how that correlates to my personal life,emotionally, financially, etc. it seems that my nature is to be patient, to give, to be there for struggling lovers or for struggling companies ( i just now decided to push for the money owed). this sounds real yin to me but it manifests in a real yang practice. which on its own can be unhealthy, obviously. a super intense physical practice while tending towards an emotionally draining personal life.

though i’m still sad, things feel a lot better. i feel a lot better. relationships are risky but i am not going to just run from them. hoefully i can learn not to repeat the same mistakes, namely pay attention to stressors and keep them from getting entangled. more important, working on the standing poses. probably not dancer though.

familiarity

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:07:00 -0500

so its been quite awhile since i’ve posted. i’d love to say how i’ve just been so busy climbing, skiing and yogaing but that has nothing to do with it. really i’ve been super unmotivated for a bit. and when i am unmotivated there is usually something else going on. so after a few phone calls with some friends i got to learn something…. the holidays suck for me. i have been real down for a few months now, just kind of basting myself in some melodramatic gloom. and now, after some talks with friends, i find that i do this practically every winter.

huh

in a way thats real comforting to know. this melancholy really is not an effect of some current event. it has nothing to do with getting a phone call from that girl nor does it have to do with last months pay coming in late. it has everything to do with some internal cycle i am just now becoming aware of.

but it kinda sucks too. oh shit, its gonna come back again. there will be more winters. so i’ll just head south of the equator come october every year. great plan. i’ll get to travel again, stay warm, aaahhh. yup, i’ll just run away from it like i did for 5 years after college.

no, i am too familiar with it now to try and escape it. so for a few years now i’ve worked on it through therapy, meditation, yoga and relationships. or at least told myself thats what i’m doing. excluding therapy, that safe, private place where one can be utterly vulnerable, i have tried to push bad emotions away, not letting them taint my relationships or my yoga practice. i’d tell myself ‘you know this will damage your connection with (insert lady name here) and your working on (insert fancy handbalancy backbend here) so just keep it to yourself. you’ll be fine.’ my previous experience with this stuff will get me through it. it feels kinda like hiking. i’d be sauntering about, enjoying myself and peeking down into a valley. ‘thats where those rattlesnakes and swamps are so i’d avoid them. i’ve been down there before, its not that safe.’ but its the familiarity that get me in trouble. knowing that its dangerous gives me some resolve that in case i do happen to slip a little bit and end up lower on the slope, i can get myself out.

and thats what happened. i slipped a little. i became a tad complacent and took some time off from yoga. i walked downhill a bit but figured this trail will take me back up soon. without filling my time with something i do to take care myself i started focusing on all sorts of things out of my control and then obsessing about them. i’m not sure if any of you have ever been in a relationship but let me share a secret with you… if you want to get out of a relationship, focus on nothing but why your partner would want to leave you, then pretend like you’re doing something else with your time. presto!

so because of my then current focus i didn’t really want to come up the slope yet, there wasn’t much up there for me. next thing i know i wake up and there are some rattlesnakes real close to me. dammit, i thought, well, at least i can get myself out of here. thats the other great thing about being familiar with something, it gives you the confidence to deal with situations. you have the know how to take care of yourself. the downside though is that the situation is always new, old tools won’t always work and my tools are pretty old. moreover, getting out on my own meant getting out alone.

when i get down like this, i go to real dark places in my head. everything i’ve worked towards; emotions, work, asana, writing, all get undermined. ideas of self-harm spring up, immediately followed by very understanding but stern, no, that isn’t allowed. so i dwell in this state for awhile, usually alienating people i care about simply cause i’m too frightened to ask for help. and then i’m out of the snakepit but with a few less people nearby.

so this time i tried to make some new tools. i killed a few rattlesnakes and packed them up. i sent a letter revealing some stuff about me that i’ve been to scared to share. this letter helped start a conversation where i actually told someone i needed her help right now. and i got it. my imagination told me she’d have better things to do, she told me she wanted to stay on the phone.

last night i went to a yoga class. a real small one, 3 people. the instructor told us we’d be doing a series based on a shiva rea practice that focuses on the emotions that come up in certain asanas. great, some uberflowy, tranced out bullshit. yeah i was in a good spot. there were going to be mantras involved, ugh. totally open to new experiences. the mantras were in english and coupled with certain postures, ‘i am loving (insert whatever you want here), ‘i am receiving (something), and some others that i don’t remember, nor do i remember the asanas linked with the mantra. i do remember feeling totally absorbed in the practice. i haven’t done a lot of yoga for awhile, but i’ve been craving backbends for obvious reasons so when we went from pigeon to king pigeon i was totally tranced out. all the little familiarities felt welcoming and compassionate. what i do remember though was thinking of all the times i’ve had people tell me that sometimes they start crying during asana. how emotions are stored in the body and then released without warning. coming out of king pigeon i felt myself crying for the first time in a yoga class.

vulnerability is big theme for me and my practice. i forget though that sharing experiences from the past is the safest, most shielded way to be vulnerable. those experiences helped build me but they are dead now, memories. being able to maintain openness and trust when things are raining down is what i think of being vulnerable.

so next winter i need a plan, no escaping or hiding. no solo hikes to snakepits.

i got stung

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:16:00 -0500

it happened! i couldn’t believe it, i was in diegos class at the crib and we were practicing forearm balances. these are real hard for me. i injured my shoulder awhile ago and it just hasn’t been the same. i was near the wall and holding myself for a few breaths when he said to try out scorpion. a few days prior uschi had us working scorpion as well so i had some familiarity with it.

it was funny, the tips i had received from the various lulu ladies all started coming together with this pose. my heart started to scoop and i felt my fingers rooting intensely. it felt like i was there for awhile, my toes tapped my head and i let out a long exhale. a few breaths later i recognized what i was doing, i was in scorpion, not touching a wall! then i fell over.

before getting to ojai, i had checked out all the teachers websites. i have to say, i had quite a reaction to diego. i had all sorts of presumptions lined up, just another pretty boy yogi. so of course when i stepped on my mat i was feeling a bit smug. as if this man couldn’t be a good teacher because of a photo of him wearing a mobster hat. the class was very intense. lots of strong, powerful movements interspersed with different pranayama techniques.

the asana sequencing was similar to my home practice so i enjoyed that. but it was his demeanor that truly clicked with me. he held the space with a subtle strength and compassion that i couldn’t deny. with or without a mobster hat. i was constantly cracking a smile at myself for being so judgemental. diego was my favorite at the crib along with schiffman.

and i held scorpion. back in june at the teacher training we were all asked about our goal pose. that one asana we really want to get. hearing a yoga teacher openly wondering about our goals was a relief. there are some fun contradictions in a lot of eastern philosophy. ‘the path is the goal’, ‘strive for no striving’, ‘cultivate nonattachment, but do not become attached to not being attached’. kiras question allowed me to feel like a person, a person with struggles.

my goal pose was scorpion. five months prior, there i was in the lulu studio stating my desire to attain scorpion and then there i was in the same studio in scorpion. that idiosyncrasy is for another post. i got it. all weekend, whenever i had the chance, i’d inform people of my achievement. and then something real weird happened.

for the past two weeks since the crib, i’ve done yoga once. yup, once. my home practice has totally fallen off and the four classes i have taught were not very inspiring. at first, i marked it off to the weather, then i told myself there just aren’t any teachers around here. then i just stopped putting energy into my lack of practice.

last night i was getting kinda agitated, i noticed i have been in an irritable mood for over a week now. i sat down in baddha konasana and felt a bit better so i started some introspective thinking (introspective thinking is the 21st century method of vipassana, just so you know). ‘i always do this’ i said to myself. ‘i get into something, yoga, climbing, bowmaking, travel, relationships, blogging, whatever with a goal in mind. a target. a place i need to get. then i get there and i am done.’ and here it is with yoga. i held scorpion for a bit, felt great about it and then, kerplunk, no need for yoga anymore. i sat there for a bit, did some seated poses and went to bed feeling pretty uneasy.

so i get into things with goal in mind. and if i make that goal, i’m done. which i guess is the essence of all those eastern contradictions. i can quote zen koans, sit in vipassana for a few hours and do some intense backbends at will (not scorpion, tried it this morning. hilarious.) but thats where i get stuck. i feel like i am at a classic plateau: intellectually, i get it. i can explain it and extoll its virtues, but i’m hung up on the doing. i think there is something more about the being that i am missing.

it feels good to write this, to get this out. for the most part, i’ve been self-taught in my yoga practice, in my climbing, bowmaking, definitely in my relationships and travel. introspection and self-confidence are wavering into solipsism. learning from books and random classes has done me real well. though listening to diego talk about his self taught journey is inspiring, i just don’t have it right now. i think its time for a teacher. kira? diego? kali? any of you wanna move to utah?

potential

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:18:00 -0400

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

still inspired

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:05:00 -0400

wow. thats all i could think as i stared at my new puppy shitting on the passenger seat of my car in traffic. i was about to yell at him, i rarely lose my temper but stinky puppy shit does something to me, just as another driver honked and yelled at me… ‘what the fuck?!’ he screamed. i almost broadsided him, distracted by puppy poo. i looked back at the puppy and he was just staring at me. no idea he did something ‘wrong’. i on the other hand knew then that it was i that did something wrong, i put him in the car to run errands and put off taking him for a walk to help keep my car clean. that lapse of responsibility almost smashed two vehicles. no more errands today, have to clean my car. on the drive home i was laughing in my very stinky car and the pups face just staring at me wondering whats going on.

my pop called as i was finishing cleaning the car. i told him the story and he loved it, just laughed and laughed. my mom did the same thing. my pop went on to tell me a similar story involving my little brother, cody and my dads dog, k9. cody went to pick up k9 from the vet. he put the dog in the car and just drove home. k9, a big german shepherd, shit everywhere. my brother was pissed. very, very pissed.

cody and i, though close, were very different. looks, demeanor, habits, just plain different. near the end of his life we had begun talking on the phone three or four times a week. he was extremely depressed and deep in his addiction. despite those facts, i am totally grateful that we had those conversations. i had spent a lot of time travelling so contact was difficult and sporadic. at the time of these conversations though i would grow impatient. it was hard to hear someone wanting help, asking for it, but not doing anything for themselves. he spoke of his heartbreak, of his anger towards our parents, suicide came up often. i listened and just told him the only thing i knew, i told him i loved him. and that i doubt i’d do well if he died. guilt tripping him into living.

i’d been working with addicted youth for years and this was something i was familiar with. what i was not ready for was the emotional bond. with clients, of course i care about them and truly want to see them succeed, but it is not even comparable to the bond with my brother. i put alot of expectations on myself that were not only unrealistic but would prove to be detrimental to my well-being after he died.

the last time i spoke with cody was on july 25th, 2004, our fathers birthday, 6 weeks prior to his death. by this time, i had grown very tired of our conversations, i was drained. his safety was constantly on my mind, but, like him, i was too afraid to do anything about it. a year before his death i went home for afew months to try to get him into rehab. an amazing failure. i did not have the strength to try again. there were a few times when i actually said to myself ‘why doesn’t he just kill himself? at least then he’d be doing something.’ that statement sits like a burning tumor on my heart.

on the 3rd of september, 2004, my email was loaded with messages from family and friends that i have not heard from in a long time. at this point i was without a cell phone and in and out of contact working 4 week trips with outward bound. i can’t remember who i talked to first, mom or dad, the phones were busy for awhile. i started crying when i finally spoke to one of them. i am not sure if i had a feeling or a premonition or if the sounds of my parents distress said it all.

he o.d.’d on a mix of prescrition meds. those were his favorites. my dad found him. i was in boston and instead of going straight home i went to nyc to be with a few of my closest friends for a few days. i was scared shitless of going home.during that stay in nyc i avoided alcohol and tried to find something, anything positive or worth learning from this experience. all i learned was that i could cry, lots.

when i finally went, it sucked. it sucked for a long time. a few months after his death my buddy’s wife described me as an emotional catastrophe. i was falling apart, no, i had fell apart. i wasn’t doing well.

7 months after cody died i got into therapy. i had a great therapist who guided me to a healthier self. about a year into the therapy i began seeing the positives. i began learning from his death. its is awkward to say this, his death is both the worst catastrophe that i have ever experienced and the most sublime gift i have ever been given. after his death i was forced to deal with emotions and memories i had hidden for a long time. in doing so i remembered something about myself. that i am not an atheist. i had spent years arguing and defending my adamant defiance of the spiritual as i daydreamed of returning to nepal one day to go back to that monastery. my daydreams at one point involved me standing on my hands, contorting my self into differents shapes as i would breath to create heat. no joke. and this was 2 years before i tried yoga. convincing yourself you are an atheist when you are not does not a happy person make.

his death, cody james murphy carrozza, pushed me towards all the lovely parts of myself that i was too timid, too macho, too ignorant, to embrace. when i say my brothers death is my biggest inspiration, i get funny looks sometimes. when i don’t get funny looks, i feel the funniness. i would never admit that before.

so i get it sometimes when i injure myself and someone tells me i can learn from it. i get it when my puppy shits everywhere and i can either flip out or clean my whole truck (it looks great now). i get it when i think that 4 years ago today the most special, most important, most inspiring person in my life left my life allowing more space for love and growth and joy.

he and i were so different and if given the chance, i’d bring that difference back. those chances aren’t given, instead i was given the chance to truly step up to the person i want to be. i want to be loving, strong, forgiving, fun and old. i want to get really old. i want to live for my brother because i think dying for someone is kind of a copout. ‘i’d die for you’, so what? so if i die for someone that means i don’t have to work anymore. i don’t have to show them all my best attributes. i don’t have to show them my weakest, most disliked actions. i don’t have to show them that i am willing to continue to work on myself. i think it’d easier to just give up.

within every extreme lies the seed of its opposite.

thats him, cody james murphy carrozza 61380-090304

inspiration

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:13:00 -0400

where does it come from? how do i remain inspired? because i get bored so quickly. its hard to commit to practicing things when i am not inspired. forward folds, taxes, washing my car, monogamy, low fat mayonaisse. so i read books, lots and lots of books. ganga white, katsuki sekida, baldwin, sutras, how-to’s, how not to’s. i go to classes as well. the idea of the sangha is very important to me. i like being around people. the words in the books and the energy of the sangha keep me excited and balanced.

balance, now theres a loaded word thats being tossed around these days. balance, how can i remain so? i can not. i shift constantly. emotionally, physically, yogically (?), always in flux. my ashtanga practice has suffered due to my lack of inspiration and imbalance. i have never committed the primary series to memory because it bores me. as i stated in a previous entry, i like the arm balances and backbends a lot. so i put together sequences of other poses that inspire me.

if you’re thinking that due to this my practice might be suffering, you are right. i have attempted to do wide legged forward folds everyday, it didn’t last. instead i went into it and wondered if i could lift myself in sirsasana 2.

the other night i got caught in the youtube. i was looking for hamstring stretches. not like i needed to find some, i just needed an excuse not to do them right then. after a few vids of forward folds i became unbelievably bored. so instead of getting up and doing something, i typed in ‘arm balances’. oh whoa is me, the beast of boredom got me! after a few of these i typed in ‘handstand’. very very bad idea. lots of the vids were of bboys/breakdancers. this one guy, timmyconditioning, would hold his inversions for well over two minutes. i was watching this and scowling, thinking to myself ‘he doesn’t do yoga, he shouldn’t be able to do this. i should.’ totally forgetting how much i respect and love breakdancing.

ego. hows that for a loaded term. how much time have i spent contemplating eradicating my ego? i don’t know, but i bet its more than i have spent trying handstand. i was getting jealous. jealous of some dude who could stand on his hands in the uk. luckily i caught myself. i was giving myself a headache with my unintentional scowl. i read his bio and watched some more of his vids. he was amazing.

inspiration, thats what his post was supposed to be about. where does it come from? i thought of a class that uschi taught awhile ago. she was talking about getting into your dark side. i remember thinking ‘where is my dark side?’ ‘am i so deep in it i am ignorant of it?’ ‘or am i too far removed to recognize it?’ well, i am definitely not too far removed from it as the above paragraph explains. i am still teetering back and forth. getting angry and frustrated for no reason sometimes. sometimes forgiving and thanking for no reason either. i don’t where i am at right now, but the jealousy i felt, the threat to my ego, totally inspired me.

after watching the internet for waaaayy too long, i started trying some of these handstands. at 2:30 in the am. i was sore the next day and still thinking about what i had seen. that night, last night, i got back from a yoga class feeling relaxed and warmed up. i unrolled my mat and went through a bunch of arm balances.

eka pada bakasana

i ended up trying a few poses i had never attempted. one footed crow was one of them. i was totally surprised that i could get into it. and then surprised again at how hard it was to come out.

galavasana

poses i had done before felt fuller and came to me with more ease than before.

cousin it trying locust.

and for the first time i was able to hold locust for awhile.

afterwards i felt great. i felt strong. something i have never felt nor believed myself to be. i felt, well, like i accomplished something, i had attained a goal. feelings that aren’t always favored among yogi’s, yet essential. i am finding that its ok to strive for an asana. mainly because in that striving so much of myself is laid bare. the dark corners that i try to ignore become the places that i have to hang out in for awhile. i get to sit and chat with my jealousy. my ideas of inferiority and i have some tea, though i always serve it too hot. sometimes i can talk my away around this dark stuff but usually i need to do something about it. like trying crow with one foot extended.

sometime ago i was reading about taoism and the yin/yang symbol. for some reason the only thing i remember is this little quote about the symbol

‘within every extreme lies the seed of it opposite’

i like that.

kali face koundinyasana

flexibility... more than physical

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:27:00 -0400

i truly enjoy what my body can do. i have been blessed with a naturally flexible body. i have known this for a while now. i’ve been that guy who can put his foot behind his head or step way too high on the wall to tie his shoe. and then i started yoga a year ago. bang! wow, i had no clue what this body’s potential would be. immensely open hips, shoulders that turn so far around and a spine willing to bring my toes to my forehead. a new toy!! what else can it do?

like most people who get something they want, i immediately put my new toy to use. and like some people, i used my new toy too much. the hips lost some strength, the shoulders found new ways to recognize pain and the spine… wow, the spine. after backbending, i would get headaches, cramps would come from nowhere in muscles i had long forgotten about. and this was just the beginning.

the idea of heart opening really intrigued me. that is why i dove into the backbends. i was seeking emotional flexibility as well. how could i better serve my clients? can i make myself a more giving and accepting lover? if i learn to open more, won’t i then be in a better place to receive? the more i explored this the more i learned about my own history and patterns of emotion.

as it turns out, emotional flexibility was something i already had. just as i was given open, flexible hips, i was given an ability to listen and care rather deeply for people. something like empathy. and just as i jumped into backbending without heed to warming up and maintaining awareness to prevent injury, i had been extremely flexible in my relationships without maintaining awareness to prevent, well, a whole lotta bullshit. many, many times i would compromise and listen without stating where i was at. without giving myself a chance to be listened to.

this created habits and patterns that were out of balance, much like my physical yoga practice with the asanas. heart opening, physically and emotionally, comes naturally to me. preparing myself for the unknown outcome does not.

i’ve wondered why this has come to be. i spent time in therapy, i spent time giving therapy. i read about codependency, i read about being in healthy relationships. i got in healthy relationships, i left when i saw them as unhealthy. it wasn’t until i began practicing yoga, not just asana, that i began to stop pondering the why and started pondering the how can i change. i know that i should not try viparita salabasana two days in a row, but i do it anyways. i know i should have walked away from that relationship two days ago. but i still did both. habits and patterns do not go away simply by will. action is necessary. i must be willing to get uncomfortable to allow space to grow and then actively seek these uncomfortable places.

this scared me. i don’t want to stop being emotionally flexible, i like listening. i don’t want to stop letting my feet touch my head, i feel energized. so i finally put into place what my therapist said years ago…. take time for yourself. simple, i thought, too simple for me. backbends are for me, emotions are for me. yet, taking time for myself means taking time for all of myself. sometimes this means putting just as much attention towards childs pose as i do for king pigeon. sometimes it means saying ‘i love you’ and walking away. i can’t force someone to accept what i give anymore than i can force my body into a forearm balance.

yoga is teaching me that by properly warming up, taking time off and utilizing the bandhas, i can protect my body while exploring its potential as opposed to shying from it. emotionally, i am learning similar lessons. my heart may be open, but that does not mean i don’t need to do a little dusting of the ventricles every now and then.

warrior 2 has been my go to pose these past few weeks. solid, grounding with the legs while allowing my hips to open along with my heart. shoulder blades come out and away so i can replenish myself. and the spine gets space as it rises straight up. for me, its the legs, the grounding foundation that gives me ability to remain stable and accepting while maintaining a willingness to accept where this flexibility may take me.

bonsai yoga

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:31:39 -0400

it is really easy for me let myself be dissappointed. i put a bunch of energy into something and just before it is about to blossom, the bloom takes on its own life. it becomes something other than i was expecting. dammit, that is my usual response.

last night was my free class at the rec center here in moab. i had put the sequence together and took it apart 8 or 9 times. i couldn’t fill the time so i added more lunge salutes, the transition from pose x to pose y wasn’t quite right. always something. i posted fliers around town and people actually stopped me in town a few times… ‘are you the guy teaching the free yoga class?’. there is no better way to pump up my ego than by being identified by random attractive people in town.

i got to the studio half an hour early, started stretching and went over the sequence in my head. at 15 til i was on my own. at 10 til a bunch of footsteps made themselves known on the stairs. word up, i thought, here we go. a group of adults came in and looked puzzled, ‘is this the contra dancing?’, ‘uh… no. its a free yoga class.’ ‘oh, free yoga? that sounds good. thanks.’ and out they went. i was rapidly deflating. at 5 til i figured i should just do my own practice here, it is such a nice, big space when you’re the only one.

two people showed up right at 7.thats right, 2. in my head i was waiting for this massive sunflower to bloom, heaps of people excited to try koundinyasana. instead i was given two women eager to have a more or less private lesson. a nice little bonsai bloom.

at first i was a bit put off. i was really nervous and as they placed their mats out in front of i noticed that i was even agitated, directing my frustration at them. ‘whoa’ i thought to myself, ‘you need to knock that shit off right now’. sometimes it takes a stern talking to in order to get myself together.

we started with some centering in baddha konasana, more for me than for them. and then i let them know what i am trying to go for in this class. i can only teach every other week due to my work schedule. the classes are meant to be challenging, arm balances and backbends. i want to offer classes that push our limits a bit so we can start playing with our potential and inspire a home practice. they seemed keen so off we went.

we moved through the opening sequence of namaskar a and c. then a round of standing postures that i had overthought. i thought these would need to be repeated in order to fill the time. after the first round of them i saw that in class the sequence does not follow the same timeframe it did with me in my backyard.

time for some arm balances. this was just plain fun. lots of people in moab go to the pilates class because yoga just isn’t enough of a workout, so i hear. both of these women are climbers, strong, damn strong. this made the arm balances damn fun because there wasn’t a lot of fear. or if there was, their experience on the rock has allowed them to temper that fear. we did more arm balances than i intended mainly because they were so eager to try this. crane came to both of them rather quickly, hurdler or koundinyasana 2 wasn’t far behind. kim lifted herself into it while chelsea was trying to figure out how to contract her abs while laughing. this is my kind of yoga.

the backbends came next and again, we went farther than i intended. both of them were flexible and willing to push it a bit. i started to get nervous again here. i have come across lots of trepidation and caution with backbending and for good reason. this time it was my turn to play with my fear. as a teacher now, should i play with my fears in class? is it possible not to? i thought we could try viparita dandasana. just try it out, upward bow with forearms on the ground. i demonstrated the pose then i explained what happened to me when i first tried it. i had a quick contraction in my erector spinae as i began to straighten my legs. not a cramp, but a very new movement for that muscle that was not appreciated. chelsea experienced something similar. oh no! i injured my first student! she was fine. a few forward folds and a twist and we were lawsuit free.

it was a strange bonding experience. i was surprised that my muscles and hers reacted so similarly. i wondered what would make this so. both climbers? both people? both people trying yoga?

kim was doing great. rooting with her forearms, giving her heart lots of lift, her legs began to eke forward. i was psyched.

we had time for 5 minutes of savasana which i was glad to utilize. this pose taught me a lot this past week. but i am sick of typing right now.

asana sequence

baddha konasana for a few minutes

surya namaskar a x5

surya namaskar c x6

utkatasana

virabhadrasana 1

virabhadrasan 2

utthita parsvakonasana

prasarita padottanasana

repeat warriors and side angle on other side facing rear of room and come back to wide legged forward fold

utkatasana

parivritta parsvakonasana

parsvottanasana

horse stance

repeat facing rear of room and come back to horse

utkatasana

crescent moon with quad stretch

deep lunge (both forearms on floor inside of left foot)

crescent moon

plank

quad stretch other side

deep lunge

plank

down dog

malasana

supta bakasana

bakasana

parsva bakasana

koundinyasana 2

pigeon

galavasana

ustrasana

quad torture at wall w/ backbend

bridge

upward bow

upward bow at wall

happy baby

viparita dandasana

supine twist

plow

supported shoulderstand

savasana

back to work

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:22:06 -0400

after not working for almost a month, a lot of my life was in need of some restructuring. bounced checks, cracked windshield, supervisor forgot about my paid time off. word up. i had one day in moab and then off to the wilderness to play with young addicts for 8 days. going to work is easier for me than my off time. i spend 8 days in the high desert sleeping on the ground, making fire with sticks, hiking and ‘counselling’ young drug users. bills, traffic lights, flushable toilets, blogs… all forgotten for 8 days.

my first day back in the field i was anxious still… ‘how am i going to pay my rent? was it a good choice to take a teacher training right after paying for a ridiculously expensive dog?’ money taxes me on more days than the 15th of april.

that same day a client i had met almost a month ago approached me. she is a young woman, 18, with severe bi polar disorder and extremely low self-esteem. her instability manifests in a myriad of ways…. food issues, co-dependent, suicidal tendencies, drug use, lots and lots of self-destructive behaviors. without saying hello she simply asked ‘can we do some yoga?’. so we did some yoga.

i noticed a new anxiety in me. though i had shared yoga with my clients in the past, i now had a wealth of info thanks to the teacher training. i decided to take it real slow and try some heart openers with her as her posture was very poor and i was hoping to share the emotional value of heart opening with her. one staff decided to join in as well.

it turned out to be one of the coolest experiences i’ve had in a long time. this was to be her first time trying yoga. after some hip openers and namaskar c we tried a variation of camel. instead of bringing hands to heels, we clasped our hands behind our back and worked on lifting our hearts higher. this is where i started geeking out. once i started mentioning the importance of the heart chakra i watched myself talk a lot. i was surprised that i felt so strongly about this. i’ve never considered myself a believer of energy work, auras, third eyes, etc. i have been way to intellectualized for that stuff. and now here was this intense commitment to our heart chakra spilling forth. fortunately, she was very receptive to it.

we did some baby backbends. little cobra, swimming locust and bridge. a few twists followed and then some arm balance play. she was able to hold bakasana one her second try for 3 breaths! after almost 45 minutes both she and the staff joining in had had enough.

the next day she again asked to do some yoga. another client joined in as well. and then the next day, another client. on my last day in the field, all but one member of our group had their sleeping pads laid out between the aspens and were standing in warrior 2. this included a 17 year old male who had tried to break his own leg in order to get out of his previous treatment program, a 31 year meth addict that will lose the right to visit his daughters if he can’t stay clean (3 days prior he was planning on jumping off a cliff), all 3 staff and 6 more people who are trying to improve their lives. i had to laugh my way through that session. we all wear the same clothes, basically tan military fatigues. we all become very filthy out there, our faces smudged with the mixing of desert sweat, pine sap and dust. to look at all of us in tree pose warrants a rather boisterous guffaw.

before leaving the field all the clients and staff sit in a circle with the incoming staff and a director and a therapist to give feedback and validations and talk about the week. the 31 year old thanked me for showing him yoga, the rest of the group chimed in with similar statements. i felt myself go red. i was embarassed because i don’t believe yoga cures all. i don’t believe i know enough to teach. and i still don’t believe that i will ever see green light emanating from my chest. i know i am more aware of the emotional confidence that the asanas cultivate in me. and i know that my practice differs from everyone elses, thus i can learn lots from sharing with others. i know that yoga is constantly doing something with me.

back at home my bike has a flat so i drove the two blocks to a yoga class. windshield still cracked, pto going through next payday. pulled money out of savings to pay the bounced checks. it was a really mellow class. lots of forward folds. afterwards the instructor and i were talking when she says ‘when are you gonna start teaching?’ here it goes.

pose X

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:23:00 -0400

my expectations are crafty. they tease and taunt me into trying new poses, foods, countries and crafts that many times have proven to be excellent endeavors. they also convince me to stay in my chair and find another yoga site explaing how to do pose ‘x’ before trying it out myself. these thoughts tell me that though my hips are pretty bendy, those noodly arms aren’t quite ready for that pose, no matter how effortless tara stiles appears. so sometimes (more often than not, but who’s counting?) i give in to these expectations and months go by. i end up forgetting about pose x without ever trying it and then the pose morphs and the expectations run around all over again.

baso was sitting out on the grounds of the monastery, meditating. he was in perfect zazen. the master was walking around and happened to come upon him. ‘what are you doing there? sitting like that?’. baso answered him without breaking his focus, ‘i am practicing zazen’…

last night i completed the den mothers final assignment and this morning decided to give it a run through. it was an adaptation of a sivananda series that will be posted soon. i left a big option near the end. i simply wrote out ‘arm balance playtime’. not sure what i wanted to do with this, i started the series anyways. the standing poses gave me more agitation than usual. trikonasana is proving to be the motherlode of expectations. my hamstrings, oh my hamstrings. i fell into my thoughts and came out of the pose after 3 breaths, same on the other side.

…’why are you practicing zazen?’ the master queried. ‘to become enlightened’ baso answered again without losing focus. the master grinned a little…

i let myself drop back into down dog. teaching my hammies a lesson. my head was all over the place… i was still in the training at lulu’s. thinking of that community and the nurturing that went on there. then my mind went wandering again… i was in moab telling myself how there is no community there. how i am there totally for myself and really not looking forward to going back. so i went back to lulus. i did this again and again. thinking of how great it was where i was and how bland it is where i am going. i went to do the ashtanga jump thing into navasana. my left foot dragged and folded upside down. unbelievable. that hasn’t happened to me in months.

…the master sat down and picked up a stone. he spat on it and started polishing it with his robe. ‘master, what are doing?’ baso asked. ‘i am polishing this stone, baso’. ‘master, why?’ the master looked at baso quite earnestly…

i tried the jump through again. this time the right foot dragged along the mat with as much grace as a coat hanger on a chalkboard. i sat there and checked the timer. damn, only 20 minutes into what should be an hour and a half series. my head took off again as my left foot started to swell. i gave up because i couldn’t finish the series, it wasn’t long enough. i’d like to say that i had some revelation. that something amazing happened. in fact, i sat there wondering why something fantastic wasn’t happening. why was my body taking so much away right now? why did i leave ojai, my hometown?

back at lulu’s i had so much fun with yoga. one of my favorite days was the last day when we played with all the arm balances. galavasana had been a pose in my mind for a while. i knew it would come one day when i became stronger and more ‘fit’. when kira began explaining that pose all the expected doubt was still there until i put my right leg across my arms.

this pose falls into the pose x category. it incorporates a bunch of fear for me. starting with standing on one leg in a half lotus. not the most graceful fella when it comes to balance. the forward fold itself is tough enough with these hammies. getting my leg across my arms proved to be a bit easier than i thought with these rubbery hips though. as i was thinking this i naturally started trying pose x again. in the studio i had a hard time doing this pose with my left leg on my arms.

i was in that fuck it mindset so i tossed the left leg across my right thigh. with the right leg bent i began to fold forward. my hands came to the ground as my shin found its place across my petite triceps. the left foot came to life and i watched my toes hook around my right arm. i remembered kira mentioning that here is where the fear sets in, bending the arms can be scary. i really wanted to stay there at lulu’s, listening to kira with all those attractive people to look at but my arms started to bend and my face eked closer to the floor. my hands were pushing down and spreading wide as i let my navel pull back. right here is the hardest point for me, sending that right leg out and up. i had to start with my toes and let the energy draw my leg away rather than push it out from my hip.

…’baso, i am polishing this stone into a mirror.’ ‘master, that is not possible.’ ‘you tell me a stone can not show me my self yet you do nothing but sit there expecting to become enlightened.’

once i felt my leg straighten i noticed a lightness that started in my palms and coursed up to my navel. i found my foundation there, at my navel, suspended almost two feet of the ground. i was aware of how integral the balls of my feet had become and how the toes direct so much of that energy. sure, i can lift my leg higher so it is in line with my spine. and i can root my palms a bit more. and if i do that it’ll look more like this ad on page 48 in LA yoga and less like my self in galavasana.

p.s. baso went on to become a great zen master. supposedly his enlightenment showed up after right after the little story above. and my left foot is still swollen.

opener

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:45:00 -0400

once upon a time i started a blog. it was great. it was used to chronicle my peeking into native american spirituality and primitive skills. alas, it was a short-lived affair. as it turns out, i harbor a deep fear of the CAPS LOCK button. there are other puncuation keys as well that insist i take a typing class. instead, i spent many evenings praying that there would be a digital armageddon and the only survivors would be ballpoints and spiral bounds. so as you read on, forgive my defiance of that button left of ‘a’. in the words of tom waits, i don’t wanna grow up.

teaching yoga. sounds to me like a vacation spot i have been saving up for…..t’ching yaogahh, a small, volcanic island east of lake casitas with no inhabitants. reservations necessary. teaching is something i do. rockclimbing, bow making, hide tanning, tracking, conflict resolution (whatever that is). so it is not much the act of teaching that worries me. it is more the act of teaching something i care about that causes me to tense up. and as something sinks closer and closer to my heart, i become more anxious and more insecure when i think of teaching it. its like baking a cake. if i share that cake with my friends that evening we can all giggle together when its obvious that i used twice the amount of cinnamon and waaaaayyyy too much espresso beans. no worries. if i sent that cake to tara for her wedding though, um, sorry? there are expectations involved that scare me.

most of my emotional and spiritual endeavors can be explained with yoga (all of these endeavors actually, just don’t ask me to explain that much). yoga is something i feel like i ‘get’ every once in awhile, but i don’t know where this getting took place. which teacher? what pose? was it during meditation? i don’t know. thus, when i think about teaching i get worried. luckily though, i am very adept at fooling myself. all i need to do is switch some words around. asana becomes pose, teaching becomes sharing and i’m fine.

in moab there is a space that is free to use as long there is no charge for services. i guess i can start there. though it was suggested to start charging when the time is right. so to temper my flakey ojai way i set a date for when free classes will no longer be available.

during the training, it rarely came into my mind that i am learning this to share. it was a rather selfish experience. i’m looking to gain a better understanding of my own practice. so when we were all expected to share our voices i was surprised at what came out. i had set up a series of sun salutations and arm balances. a series i practice at home and therefore felt comfortable sharing it. that first day i never was called on and was secretly grateful. for our next assignment i was totally burned and skipped it. instead i read the yin section and worked into lotus. i tried it again in the morning and really enjoyed it. i didn’t have a script set up but i did have an intense awareness of how i felt laying in those poses for longer than normal. when given the chance to share some of that, i was pleasantly surprised with what came out.

so in the idea of sharing… here is a photo of me practicing scorpion. any ideas of what should be worked on?

i notice all the bend coming from my low back and my arms are confused. theres a wall in the way as well.

thanks so much for those 10 days. i’ll see you all soon.