Peter Sanson workshops rule!

Peter Sanson was here for 4 days, doing a workshop. I had heard great things about him, and was interested to see what he was like.  Well for once, everyone is right.  He's wonderful.  If you ever get a chance, go study with him.  His Mysore classes were good, great adjustments, not too strong, just insightful. He would not let anyone away with sloppiness in practice, so would berate you in good humour. But it was the talk that he gave yesterday that really blew me away. I'll try and remember the gist of what he said, but this is just my recollection, so don't take it as gospel.

He started off by telling us how he first experienced ashtanga in Mysore.  Guruji took a look at him and told him that he would teach him privately, upsatirs above the old shala.  There was just Peter and one other Indian woman.  Guruji taught him very slowly.  First week was surya a.  second week, surya b. Then slowly the standing postures. Only when Guruji thought that Peter could get a good grasp on a posture was he moved on to the next posture. And that is how he learnt the forst 4 series.  Slowly, one posture at a time, from Guruji. Amazing. Peter was saying he now believes that it was a blessing to have learnt ashtanga this way, as it is a safe way for the body to open up. He believes that people are now racing through the series, grasping at postures.  That is why so many people are injured, or exhausted.  This is what really connected with me.  He described the practice as  a prana building exercise.  The whole time during your practice, you need to be aware of your prana/energy levels.  As soon as you feel your prana dipping, you need to stop.   Otherwise you won't be able to sustain this practice for life, you'll have to stop, as you can't do the rest of your life and an exhausting practice.  If you feel your prana building, than you know that you're on the right track.  He believes that 7 years per series is a good average. Feel steady and at ease in each posture before moving to the next. It really struck a cord with me. So today in practice, I made that my focus. Steady, deep breath.  Staying connected to my energy.  And you know, it worked. Usually by the time that I get to bakasana b I'm ready to collapse in a heap, find it hard to breathe. Not today.  Sure kapotasana could hardly be described as peaceful, but overall my energy was great.  It felt like a very different practice.  I  felt fantastic after.  Sometimes after doing practice, particularly once I started 2nd, I can feel almost jittery high.  All that nerve cleansing I guess. But today was just prana flowing through. Clear nadis. Fantastic.  

 Another point he made was that every day he's excited to start his practice.  Excited to see how his first sun salute will be. And that is how to approach your practice.  Don't be mentally racing ahead, thinking of what's coming. Start at the beginning.  Stay in the present, with the breath. And also he reminded us that the sun salutes are about  paying repect, a humbling practice.  So thank you Peter.  You've given me back the beauty of my practice

Out of the slump

Well, it took a while.  I wasn't even sure if I was ever going to come out of it.  I was pretty low for the last month, that's why I didn't blog.  I don't know if it was sadness after being back in SF, or just a hormonal thing...or just life.  But I was pretty down. My practice wasn't inspiring me - at all.  I was dragging my ass through it.  I was doubting my relationship with the BF,doubting nearly everything in my life.  And trying not to deal with it.  I didn't want to acknowledge it.  I was afraid of spiralling down a slippery slope into depression.  So I soldiered on. And I know that this is going against a lot of new age psychology, but I do believe that we can be too navel gazing.  That we attach too much importance to our thoughts and feelings.  They're transient.  Ok, I know that I can't speak for everyone, and I'm not trying to.  I'm talking about me. And my experience is that I over-analyze things.  Eternally asking "why".  Some of that is healthy, too much and you'll turn into a  basket case.  I know. I've done it.  So this time, I continued on with life.  Didn't stop to ask "why....how....when".  I had faith I guess that this will pass. 

  Reading back over that, I can see that others might misinterpret.  I'm not advocating denying anything is wrong, just that there are times that the best option is to sit it out.  Stop navel gazing.  Stop thinking that we have a  right to be happy all the time.  We don't. So deal with it.

On a lighter note, my practice is back on track.  After a few weeks of dragging myself through, I'm finally enjoying it.  Part of the reason is that we finally have a  Mysore programme up and running in this country! Yahoo!  Unfortunately, I live about 90km away, so am only going to go three times a  week. But that's cool. I do enjoy home practice, but definitely enjoy/need the group energy of  a Mysore class.  That buoys me up for the rest of my practices.  I don't get that many adjustments in a class, but it's fun to do assisted backbending again. I haven't quite mastered the art of grabbing my ankles by myself, so I haven't done that in a  while.  But even without an teacher, it's jut so nice to be practicing with others again.  I fly through my practice on those days. And it's kind of enjoyable getting up at 5am, being on the road at 5.30.  But this could be the newbie's enthusiasm, I might be feeling quite different in a couple of months.  But for the moment, I really like sitting in my car, listening to Jai Uttal, with my cup of tea beside me.  I feel like a yoga secret police  Undercover, going to my saddhana, while others are heading in to the office.  That was a  shock actually.  I thought I'd have the roads to myself, but no, the commuters are already on the move.  At 5.30am!!! Shocking. I tell you, I have a lot of respect for the ashtangi's that do their morning practice, then head in for a  full days work.  I've never held an office job, never done the whole 9-5 thing. Respect to those that do. 

Back to the Golden Gate of memories

Ah where have I been? I hear you ask.  Well, last week I left this Emerald Isle to travel to the Golden Gate city -i.e San Francisco.  I used to live there, but haven't been back in 5 years. It was amazing to be back.  I lived there for 4 years, and that was when I was party girl. Drinking, smoking weed, other narcotics too many and too incriminating to name... Basically I was having a  great time.  I was in my early twenties and lived a wild party life. It was a magical time in my life, lots of sunshine, smiles, happy days. But it was also a  dark time in my life, as I was very confused about my future, and actually, very confused about my present.  I was in a relationship that, looking back on it, was quite destructive.  But I was young and in love and believed that love conquered all. That love lasts. But not all love does, or is meant to. Sometimes you just need to learn when to let go. I held on for too long, couldn't accept that we wouldn't be together forever, even though part of me knew that the love was fading.  But I clung on, wouldn't let go.  We had huge fights, crazy fights.  I started to doubt my sanity. I became quite depressed.  Life seemed to be this huge mystery that I couldn't unravel.  Eventually I left to go traveling.  Put my stuff in storage, thinking I'd come back after. I went traveling with the boy, but we just continued fighting our way across Asia.  When we came home to Ireland we were still hanging on, until one night we had a huge fight, and the next morning as he dropped me home,he simply said "We can't do this anymore. We can't go on.". I'll never forget that moment.  I was slightly hungover, slightly numb, so jokingly said "well, I guess we'd better break up then". As soon as I said it, the reality of those words crashed down on me, and I realized that we were breaking up.  I was sobbing getting out of the car, he was crying as well.  I walked up the driveway to my house nearly doubled over with the pain.  I didn't know how I was going to survive the pain.  It was physical.  An inability to breathe.  It was so horrible.  He stayed in Ireland for a  while longer, then he went back to SF.  I knew that my time there was done. It took me a good while longer to get over that pain.  To accept that my best friend was gone from my life.  I felt so alone.  That's when I started practicing yoga.  Some part of me recognized that I needed something to ground me.  To take me out of myself. Make me see that I wasn't alone, that I was connected to something.  Not floating in space by myself. And thats why I practice yoga.  Not to be able to put my legs behind my head, but to keep me connected.  Thats what I hold on to these days.  And it works.  Gradually over the 6 years I've been practicing, my moods have evened out, I've stabilized - although I still have my freak-outs, as my BF will testify.  Bless him.  

So it was funny going back to a city where I associate the 'old' me - the party girl, slightly depressed, confused me.  It was a flood of memories.  Bitter sweet. I used to live up near lower Haight, that was my 'hood. Being around there was strange.  If I could have peeled back the curtain of Time, and told the younger me one thing, it would be 'don't worry. It's going to be ok.  Relax and enjoy.'  When I was living there I used to say that I wished I could skim forward a few chapters in the book of my life.  Just to know that everything would be ok.  I felt that I'd be able to handle the confusion if I just knew that it would all turn out ok. And it is ok.   It's better than ok.  Life has been good to me.  

It was funny going to SF as a yogi.  Instead of going to bed at 6am, I was getting up at 6 to go to practice.  I went to the AYSF which is lovely, if you're in the city I'd definitely recommend checking them out.  Met a girl I had met in Mysore a couple of years ago - I love the small ashtanga world.  I also went to an Anna Forrest workshop and attended a vinyassa class with Rusty Wells.  Both  of them fun and informative, but as always happens when I practice a style other than ashtanga, it re-affirmed my love for our practice.  The sheer simpicity and depth of the practice blows me away.

Other than yoga, my time in SF was spent catching up with friends that still live there, lots of shopping - the weak dollar is very much in our favour, sorry! - eating and drinking.  It's a wonderful city, and there was a part of me that didn't want to leave, but the bigger part of me was ready to come home.  It's where my heart is now.  Where I'm happy.  

fuzzy wuzzy I am

Wow, it's been nearly a week since I last blogged.  Bad lady.  Well, after my elephant-poo-like practices last week, I managed to get my ass in gear on Thursday. I started my practice with an almost combative frame of mind.  I was going to conquer this damn mind of mine. And I succeeded - well, I succeeded in getting through my practice without drifting off, and that was the aim.  And after a  week of stiff practices, my body and mind settled in to it.  I also practiced Friday, even though it was a  moon day, just to make up for the lousy week.  Yesterday was good as well, I practiced, grabbing heels in kapo, but LBH's were very stiff.  I went to a backbending workshop yesterday also, and it was fun.  Did stuff like eka pada rajakapotasana which felt great- strangely.

Today's practice was so-so.  I went for dinner with the parents last night, and had a couple glasses of wine.  Normally that would be ok, but I think in conjunction with the 2 strong practices I had done, my body was over -stimulated and I slept fitfully last night. So I felt very groggy getting up. Monday is my 'kriya' day - I do vaman and neti before pranayama and practice, so that helped me to waken up.  But even after that and my practice and a yummy breakfast- blueberries, blackberries, grapes and plum with muesli and granola mix and my favourite yoghurt ever, and a cup of chai, in case you're wondering!- I still feel fuzzy. Yuck.  

monkey mind

Practice today sucked.  I felt like a big lump of elephant poo.  And that's presuming that elephant poo doesn't feel great at all.  At all at all.  Why?? I don't know.  I had thought that my body might be feeling better a couple of days after the workshop, but no, still stiff. But more importantly my focus was all over the place.  I just couldn't get into the zone at all. My monkey mind was chattering away.  And I let it.  When will I learn?  Why is it so difficult?  It's days like these that I really wish there was a  shala here to practice in.  I miss practicing with other people.  That energy.  Not allowing myself to sit on my mat and let minutes tick by, so that I don't have any time to do the LBH poses or dropbacks.  Bad lady. I know that no practice is a 'waste of time' but today really felt like it.  Should have stayed in bed and gotten the extra zzzzz's.  Maybe than I wouldn't be feeling so cranky.

And writing about it is frustrating me even more, so I'm going to sign out. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.  Sucky sucky day.

Body is sore. Mind is too strong.

Ooohh I hurt.  I went to a workshop yesterday, with a teacher a really like.  He's not an ashtangi, although he did practice it for a  while.  He also comes from an Iyengar background, and he now has his own version of the 2. It could be called vinyassa, but I feel that doesn't do it justice as it is an incredbly precise, fluid practice that he teaches.  We started off by doing about 10 sunsalutes, then moving into uttanasana from down dog, then back to down dog, and repeated that twice more.  Each time different things emphasised.  And thats how it continued.  We actually did only a few standing poses, but each sequence linked them in a different order, and we did a lot of sequences. It was interesting because depending on how the poses were linked, different things were revealed in the postures. Such as?  Well, moving into trikonasana from warrior 2, really emphasised the opening in the chest, whilst moving into trikonasana from ardha chandrasana emphaisised the stability of the legs and the extension of the arms. After the standing we did handstands, then into backbends, then padmasana lifts, balancing poses then core work.  He had started off the workshop saying that there was going to be little talk, lot of work.  He wasn't kidding. 

I really enjoyed it, but don't know if I'll hurry back into another. It really messed with my practice today, and while it was an excellent workshop, there wasn't much I could take for my practice, or for my teaching.  I woke up today thinking, "oh, I'm not sore at all today.  I'm so tough...". But then I started my practice, and the first sunsalute was a joke.  Hamstrings screamed, I nearly collapsed in my first chatturanga, up dog was tight. No grace or elegance there at all. And I didn't rise to the challenge of just staying with my breath, as my body felt too heavy and lumpen to even assimilate the postures.  But I know that is just my mind mis-leading me, because in actual fact even the LBH's were ok. Funny the power of the mind.  I was convinced my practice would be heavy and unwieldy, and it was. I gave up on it. Bad lady.  I didn't stay in the present, and let my practice unfold. Instead, I projected how I thought my practice would be and stuck to that vision.  

I think my challenge is to quieten down my mind and focus. Not letting the mind run away from me.  I'm not very good at letting things unfold.  I like certainty. I guess that's the Tauras and the dragon in me.  I struggle with it.

rhyme & reason

I love this poem.  It makes a lot of sense when I'm looking back over my life. I can see the truth in it.  So when I'm going through a kind of blue patch, like now, I think of this, and know there is a rhyme and reason.  I don't know what's up with me, part of it is hormonal, for sure, but I also just feel a  bit low. I can be a  melancholy person, so I tend to wallow.  But then there are things like this poem that remind me to have faith.

Rumi - Guest House
"This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."