On my #yogijourney
So I came across this article that was in my yoga facebook group: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/3-reasons-ashtanga-is-the-most-hated-style-of-yoga-hanna-bier/
It basically described how the style of yoga I practiced, being the yoga of no, and the yoga of pain, is clearly least-loved among all forms of yoga, and why. And I had feelings about reading it, which I instinctively wanted to post up on my facebook wall. But then I started writing the status to go with it, and I just felt like, if I'm going to be talking about my feelings, I'd rather put it somewhere people would care. Just, why did I instinctively feel the need to put it up somewhere I knew (believed) it could get likes? For validation? Was I putting it up there to inform people about my style of yoga? Really? When the title of the article was, and I shit you know, about why it was the most hated type of yoga there was? I didn't feel like it would reach out to people. It was more of a circle-jerk thing. Because the only people who'd read that are those who already love ashtanga, and for that feeling of validation you get when you read that yep, that is exactly why you're in love with it. So it wasn't an inclusion thing. It was an exclusionary thing. and i felt that it ultimately would've defeated any purpose I would have had, to put it out there for more people to try.
I am a yogi, and I've been practicing Ashtanga for close to two years now. For all of you who are Ashtangis here and are curious: I'm still on Primary. Close to completing it, but only because my kind teacher has a kind-of different and personal approach to the series. I still can't bind on my own in Marichyasanas C and D. I hate those goddamned twist-binds. I can't do a full Supta Kurmasana just yet. I haven't gotten down mastering Garbhapindasana and the 9 rolls-up and down, and I sure as hell cannot come up to Kukkutasana afterwards. My transitions are wank and I can barely get up on Tittibhasana, much less keep it up into transitioning into Bakasana. But I've pretty much made it to Setu Banddhasana, save for those modifications.
(I know. For an outsider it probably sounds like a whole lot of gibberish. I never even thought I'd be able to learn sanskrit, for all that I hated reading it.)
My teacher has helped me grow so much. And while practice is a teacher in its own way, I feel like having a teacher who knows you in and out through practice really goes a long way. I've been with the same teacher since I started, and it's only because she knows me and how I get towards my practice that she's let me do more poses than a stricter, more traditional teacher would have allowed. I think it's because she knows that I need to feel my growth somewhere, and that the longer I stew in one pose without feeling my progress anywhere, I'd just get discouraged and may decide to drop it altogether. She knows I'm more afraid of being cramped in small spaces, so she makes sure to keep me in just a little bit longer in kurmasana, every single time. She knows I need more help going down in dropbacks than I do going back up, because I'm more scared of not knowing where I'm going than going back the way I came. And she knows when to reel me back in -- I'd been trying to go for handstands (and was succeeding, too), for reasons reasons -- and she told me, come back to primary, work on my transitions, and it put me right back in the moment.
(my god, i'm a rambler)
Practice is its own (i'm making hand gestures here to depict that it's a mass and form and living being, and principle, whathaveyou, because there are no words). It's really something else. I think the article was right about Ashtanga in that it's not a physical practice. Well, yeah, it is, because there are poses, and you sweat and cry through them and get frustrated and victorious and it's a journey like nothing else, but where it takes you, mentally, is not for the faint of heart.
It forces you to confront yourself with things you'd buried in the back of your mind because you fucking didn't want to think about them. But when you're literally a human pretzel with nothing but the silence of the room and your breath for company, you start to hear yourself clearly, and eventually you realize there is nowhere to freaking run from your own voice, from yourself.
And let's be honest. The past few years have been fucking hard. I can be in autopilot and momentarily forget that I am still in fucking limbo and do my job and earn that paper, but when I get down on that mat, there is no autopilot.
Getting down in the mat is hitting that reset button. You start at the very beggining, and work back up to where you last were. And everything you found difficult before, you see along the way. There's no other way to get there. First, you'll see shortcuts, and you'll take them. But eventually, you realize these shortcuts are detours and they lead nowhere, because you can cheat on this pose here, but because it's foundational, unless you do it right, you won't be able to unlock the other poses down the road.
And because you have to make meaning out of this madness, you begin to see this pattern everywhere else in your life. Like how you might be taking the easy road because you're lazy and substantial compliance is really all you need to put up there. Or maybe your journey is telling you that goddamn, maybe the reason I can't do this is I'm too freaking heavy to lift myself so I need to lose weight, and so you do. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a big lifechanging orgasmic epiphany -- just getting to be in touch with your body again is a feat in and of itself.
But bottomline is, Ashtanga on the very surface, is physical. But all the heavy lifting, it's mental and psychological. You change because your mind grows, and you learn to be open to more kinds of people and more kinds of experiences, uncomfortable and strange as they may be. You realize phrases like "childhood pain is in your hips" aren't all that strange, or "the tightness in your lower back is due to financial instability." You know, because mind-body connection and psychology, and being open.
You start out taking so many pictures, documenting your journey, and later on, realize you don't need to take pictures of your poses anymore, because how do you take a picture of your change in perspective?
So, yeah. I started out this journal entry because I had a lot of feelings, and a lot to say. And in ways, I think I always will have a lot to say about yoga, and ashtanga, and how much i love it and how I'll always come back to my mat. And I don't need validation or likes for that, because the only validation I need is from myself. Sounds awfully cliche, doesn't it? Being cliche isn't really so bad.
It basically described how the style of yoga I practiced, being the yoga of no, and the yoga of pain, is clearly least-loved among all forms of yoga, and why. And I had feelings about reading it, which I instinctively wanted to post up on my facebook wall. But then I started writing the status to go with it, and I just felt like, if I'm going to be talking about my feelings, I'd rather put it somewhere people would care. Just, why did I instinctively feel the need to put it up somewhere I knew (believed) it could get likes? For validation? Was I putting it up there to inform people about my style of yoga? Really? When the title of the article was, and I shit you know, about why it was the most hated type of yoga there was? I didn't feel like it would reach out to people. It was more of a circle-jerk thing. Because the only people who'd read that are those who already love ashtanga, and for that feeling of validation you get when you read that yep, that is exactly why you're in love with it. So it wasn't an inclusion thing. It was an exclusionary thing. and i felt that it ultimately would've defeated any purpose I would have had, to put it out there for more people to try.
I am a yogi, and I've been practicing Ashtanga for close to two years now. For all of you who are Ashtangis here and are curious: I'm still on Primary. Close to completing it, but only because my kind teacher has a kind-of different and personal approach to the series. I still can't bind on my own in Marichyasanas C and D. I hate those goddamned twist-binds. I can't do a full Supta Kurmasana just yet. I haven't gotten down mastering Garbhapindasana and the 9 rolls-up and down, and I sure as hell cannot come up to Kukkutasana afterwards. My transitions are wank and I can barely get up on Tittibhasana, much less keep it up into transitioning into Bakasana. But I've pretty much made it to Setu Banddhasana, save for those modifications.
(I know. For an outsider it probably sounds like a whole lot of gibberish. I never even thought I'd be able to learn sanskrit, for all that I hated reading it.)
My teacher has helped me grow so much. And while practice is a teacher in its own way, I feel like having a teacher who knows you in and out through practice really goes a long way. I've been with the same teacher since I started, and it's only because she knows me and how I get towards my practice that she's let me do more poses than a stricter, more traditional teacher would have allowed. I think it's because she knows that I need to feel my growth somewhere, and that the longer I stew in one pose without feeling my progress anywhere, I'd just get discouraged and may decide to drop it altogether. She knows I'm more afraid of being cramped in small spaces, so she makes sure to keep me in just a little bit longer in kurmasana, every single time. She knows I need more help going down in dropbacks than I do going back up, because I'm more scared of not knowing where I'm going than going back the way I came. And she knows when to reel me back in -- I'd been trying to go for handstands (and was succeeding, too), for reasons reasons -- and she told me, come back to primary, work on my transitions, and it put me right back in the moment.
(my god, i'm a rambler)
Practice is its own (i'm making hand gestures here to depict that it's a mass and form and living being, and principle, whathaveyou, because there are no words). It's really something else. I think the article was right about Ashtanga in that it's not a physical practice. Well, yeah, it is, because there are poses, and you sweat and cry through them and get frustrated and victorious and it's a journey like nothing else, but where it takes you, mentally, is not for the faint of heart.
It forces you to confront yourself with things you'd buried in the back of your mind because you fucking didn't want to think about them. But when you're literally a human pretzel with nothing but the silence of the room and your breath for company, you start to hear yourself clearly, and eventually you realize there is nowhere to freaking run from your own voice, from yourself.
And let's be honest. The past few years have been fucking hard. I can be in autopilot and momentarily forget that I am still in fucking limbo and do my job and earn that paper, but when I get down on that mat, there is no autopilot.
Getting down in the mat is hitting that reset button. You start at the very beggining, and work back up to where you last were. And everything you found difficult before, you see along the way. There's no other way to get there. First, you'll see shortcuts, and you'll take them. But eventually, you realize these shortcuts are detours and they lead nowhere, because you can cheat on this pose here, but because it's foundational, unless you do it right, you won't be able to unlock the other poses down the road.
And because you have to make meaning out of this madness, you begin to see this pattern everywhere else in your life. Like how you might be taking the easy road because you're lazy and substantial compliance is really all you need to put up there. Or maybe your journey is telling you that goddamn, maybe the reason I can't do this is I'm too freaking heavy to lift myself so I need to lose weight, and so you do. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a big lifechanging orgasmic epiphany -- just getting to be in touch with your body again is a feat in and of itself.
But bottomline is, Ashtanga on the very surface, is physical. But all the heavy lifting, it's mental and psychological. You change because your mind grows, and you learn to be open to more kinds of people and more kinds of experiences, uncomfortable and strange as they may be. You realize phrases like "childhood pain is in your hips" aren't all that strange, or "the tightness in your lower back is due to financial instability." You know, because mind-body connection and psychology, and being open.
You start out taking so many pictures, documenting your journey, and later on, realize you don't need to take pictures of your poses anymore, because how do you take a picture of your change in perspective?
So, yeah. I started out this journal entry because I had a lot of feelings, and a lot to say. And in ways, I think I always will have a lot to say about yoga, and ashtanga, and how much i love it and how I'll always come back to my mat. And I don't need validation or likes for that, because the only validation I need is from myself. Sounds awfully cliche, doesn't it? Being cliche isn't really so bad.