Sensation junkies

Last night, in a visiting-relative-paid taxi over the bridge I had that happy little feeling that makes me want to stay in New York forever.  I love riding in taxis at night in New York, especially when we are going fast (relatively) in one direction so I can see the street breeze by, or, when we are crossing the bridge and all the lights from the city turn into a dream.  It is the same feeling on an open road (again, in a car) with one of "those" songs and the sun baking your arm.  Or riding on a motor bike and dropping your head back so you can look up at the trees and the sky.  It is the feeling of being somewhere/being not somewhere.  It is the feeling of flying over a town in a dream.  You are there, but you aren't because your feet aren't on the ground.  

It occurs to me that much of New York (although this must be obvious) costs way more money than many people can afford right now.  And it isn't God that is magically changing the economy.  (Future president/any person of influence, please do something different because this shit sucks!)  So for the time being and perhaps forever I'll have to live vicariously through the New York dream of movies like "Sex and the City".  Great.

A note on other sensations of being alive:

Post-headstand balasana, my torso feels like it has an exoskeleton that is cracking at the seams.  Some days I feel shattered.  It feels like one by one, each rib is lighting up in the joint where it connects to the spine.  And when it lights, it ignites an electric shock down my spine.  Every breath shatters glass.  And then I realize that I have a dialogue running in my head and it is so loud that I wonder if anyone else can hear or if I have been talking out loud.  I wonder how long I've been here with my forehead on the floor.  And then it is over.

Back Bending the "Right" Way

Where do you feel it after practice:  your thighs or your back?

Both.

Hmm.

I had a chance to talk shop with my favorite local Iyengar teacher, Cory Washburn.  Before everyone starts to panic, rest assured, I'm not drinking the kool-aide, just gleaning another perspective on practice.  And when I say another perspective, I don't mean Iyengar versus Ashtanga, I mean another yoga practitioner who happens to care a lot about precise alignment.  I really feel that a little insight here and there can go along way.  When there is too much info, I start to short circuit with all the many things to think about.  However, once in awhile, I'm ready to take something new in.  

My homework this week:  Think about lengthening my hamstrings away from my calves, opening the backs of the knees.  So actually, I should have sore hamstrings.  I'll need some time to figure out what this feels like.  Will certainly report back.

Took yesterday off and practiced primary today.  Felt so tired and heavy.  Maybe I'm eating too much?  I just feel off.  I think part of it is PMS.  Where does it talk about this in Yoga Mala?

Just begun reading "Enlightenment for Idiots".  Three things that bother me about this "genre".

1.  Why are only women writing? (Holy Cow; Eat, Pray, Love, Fear; and Yoga in New Jersey)

2.  Why all this emphasis on relationships? (Fear and Yoga in New Jersey; Eat, Pray, Love)

3.  Why is it that main characters as yoga teachers have to be flakes that can't get anything together? (Fear and Yoga in New Jersey; Eat, Pray, Love)

Why does this bother me?

1.  Am I a cliche?

2.  Does my life revolve around men?

3.  Am I a flake that can't get anything together?

Pain, The Anatomy of

The ceiling was white. A fluorescent light glowed eerily. Rain pummeled the window and the terrace outside.

"AH! Ha ha ha ha... Oh my god!" I yelped giddily. I stared up at the ceiling and then into the eyes of a young Indian woman wielding a rectangular piece of paper.

"Pain." She nodded with a smile. I turned to look at the other woman.

"Hair very thick, much pain..." She agreed with a look that said she felt for me...maybe.

"OOOHHH!" I stared back to the fluorescent light. "Much pain." With each rip, I floated up to the light, up to the ceiling, and then back down again for the radiating pain of the next clump of hair to be ripped out without remorse.

Pain. Two women simultaneously ripping hair from your body is a good time to meditate on the subject. I was getting a bikini and full leg wax. With each rip, I explored what it meant to feel pain. It started with the knowledge that the pain was coming. Then the tension before the rip. Then you feel the hair being pulled from the roots with one quick (or slow, tedious) yank. The skin flies back. The sensation begins. The women slap the area. More hot wax overlaps and burns the last area they waxed. And then again. And again. And again.

No matter where the pain is happening, it manifests to a few different areas. A dull ache in the shoulders. A searing behind the ears. A pressure in the jaw, wedged under the tongue. I keep asking myself "does this really hurt?" And finally, "come on relax! No one has ever died from a bikini wax..."

According to Wikipedia:

"Pain is an unpleasant sensation. It is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”. Nociception (sometimes also called nociperception) is a measurable physiological event of a type usually associated with pain. Scientifically, pain (a subjective experience) is separate and distinct from nociception, the system which carries information about inflammation, damage or near-damage in tissue, to the spinal cord and brain. Nociception frequently occurs without pain being felt and can convey information without conscious awareness. Conversely, but less frequently, a sensation of pain can exist in the absence of nociception. Pain is part of the body's defense system: it triggers mental problem-solving strategies that seek to end the painful experience, and it promotes learning, making repetition of the painful situation less likely. The nociceptive system transmits signals that usually trigger the sensation of pain, it is a critical component of the body's ability to react to damaging stimuli and it is part of a rapid-warning relay instructing the central nervous system to initiate reactions for minimizing injury."

In A Long Way to the Floor, the author tells a story of how our "fight or flight" instinct comes into play during practice. Something brings us "pain" and then we begin to breathe fast, our bodies tense, and we squirm to get out of the pose as quickly as possible. But when we can relax, the pose is like a warm bath.

But what is pain? As I lied there, I could decide what to do with the sensation. Fight, or flight? I had to choose "neither". I had to find a way to step out of the instinct. I was paying these women to do this to me. I had to relax. I wouldn't die. But what is pain?

The ceiling was white. The florescent light was...fluorescent. The pain had a color. Down from bellow the navel, the pain had a long way to travel up my brain. Was the color I just felt purple with silver? Was it green with pale pink? My body and mind were lost in a boat in the ocean.

If this excruciating pain was something that I was willing to sit through, why did I panic in situations that didn't bring the same kind of pain? Like in back bends or hamstring stretches? My house mate and I talked about this for a while. She said pain is something that you are taught how to handle as a child. When something happens to you, you react to how your parents teach you to react. When you fall, you don't scream until a few seconds after the fact. As a child, you waited until your parents screamed, "OOOOhhhh!" and then you opened your mouth and yelled. Or, they smiled at you and said, "you're okay!" and you nodded and said, "I'm okay."

According to the Mayo Clinic's website,

"how you interpret pain messages and tolerate pain can be affected by your:
Emotional and psychological state
Memories of past pain experiences
Upbringing
Attitude
Expectations
Beliefs and values
Age
Sex
Social and cultural influences"

We're dealing with a lot of pain here as students in Mysore. There is the physical pain from asanas, sore muscles, injuries, or stomach problems. There is also the emotional pain from missing family, friends, or significant others. The pain of being lonely.

Pain isn't just one sensation. It has many different feels, from a dull pulse, to a cold sliding sensation. In practice, what pain should we stay with, what pain should we shy away from? In uthplutih, I was in so much "pain" that I was convinced I could not stay up more than 10 breaths. Now, I've realized that it is actually being really uncomfortable with working hard that kept me giving up.

Other times, the "pain" is debilitating. A while back, I went to drop back, and I could feel a small rock stuck in my back. All the muscles seized. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. But even this pain wasn't so much a "hurt" as it was paralyzing. But it was so paralyzing that I felt it intensely in everything I did for a month.

The job was three quarters done when I said, "okay, its good...Next time we finish." Did it hurt too much. No. But I think my brain had had enough of trying to relax into the pain. I had no more energy left with which to do it. One of the women leaves to get more strips. The other continues with the one she has left. As she waits for the wax to cool on my leg, she looks at me and says, "Today is festival. You are my puja!" We both laugh, and she rips the strip taking hundreds of hair from the outside of my calf with it.

They had finished the waxing. I lookeed down the runway to see to women threading the tiny stray hairs using thread between their fingers and teeth. "Madam, " they motioned down. "Is okay?"

Thinking, thinking

Sharath: "Too much thinking" (taps temple)

Me: "What?"

Sharaht: "Back bends easy no thinking."

Me: "huh!"

Sharath: "Now take ankles"

Me: "huuuuhn!"

Really works, too...

This is an excerpt by Charles Benson from Mysore Style Photographs by Graeme Montgomery

Thinking, thinking, always thinking. My entire practice was us here *points to head*. Its funny how we do not see ourselves how we really are. For instance, physically, I don't really know what I look like or how I take up space. I run into walls sometimes. In practice today I kept telling myself "this is so hard" and "I feel so weak". And in the next breath something inside me said "you are crazy. You do this everyday. you are very strong. You are here doing it. This is all in your mind. Just breathe. Just breathe."

This little check in held me off for a while, until back bending. Things can often run, but can't hide. Back bends are very honest. Everything was fine until ankle grabbing. I just gave up. Sharath took me to my calves and was inching my hands up to my knees, he was pushing my elbows toward each other, but I was struggling. My feet were turned out very far, my knees were bent. And then I just let go and stood up. I gave up. "Bad day" I told him as I sat down to get squished.

Now that I think about it, I was thinking through the entire practice. Not thoughts about how I looked or about people around me. No, these were thoughts deep inside my muscles and bones. Who am I ? Where am I going? What am I doing? What am I going to do? etc. All these thoughts were swimming in my body and when I went into the ultimate back bend, there wasn't enough space to stretch because all the thoughts were floating around making the skin over my front body tight.

I've heard of this posture also being called chakrasana. A chakra is an energy center.. You have a few of them running up your spine. Each one is associated with different aspects of your being. Sometimes you are really open and your chakras are really clear, but usually, you have some sort of issue in one or another (we're only human, right?). So you could imagine that in this back bend, all the chakras are opening up like huge pours. But imagine that the chakras are clogged and that was me today feeling them getting squeezed. But these are very difficult pimples. the kind that look like they are ready, but you couldn't get them just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I pulled up my mat and weaved through the other students who were practicing. I opened the door to the women's dressing room, which was completely dark. I rolled out my mat, rolled out my body and felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I wasn't in physical pain. Well, if we are human, than we are physical, and so I suppose that technically, all pain is physical pain, but this was not a pain that I would go to a chiropractor for. The feeling that you get in your throat when you're about to cry is what I felt in my back. A dull ache filled with water that you know you must release.

I wouldn't recommend ashtanga yoga to anyone. It is hard, it is painful. (I once read that David Swenson would never tell anyone to practice ashtanga, but that if people came for it, he would teach it. I didn't understand that until today.) It isn't about asanas or getting the perfect body. What happens is that you are given a pipe cleaner and a bunch of fun looking poses. So you do the poses and when you're not looking, the pipe cleaner goes about cleaning out any baggage you have stored in your body and in your mind. Sometimes you notice a little but don't really mind, sometimes you don't notice at all. But then there are those times that you wake up and realize that the poses were just a trick and now you are completely vulnerable and stuck in a posture and the pipe cleaner gets to reach all those places you don't ever want to face. Its like when you go to the doctor and they tell you to look the other way but you know the bastard is trying to give you a shot in the arm. Sometimes this practice is like volunteering for a bad trip on LSD.

Practice is really easy when you're not thinking. It is really easy on days when you are happy. On days you are not, those are the days when you need it the most. I think Sharath knows this. I think he can see what we are going through by the way we are inhabiting our bodies. That is the magic of ashtanga. You are doing the same thing every day, but every day your body is so completely different. Sharath has been back bending me almost every day for 2 months. He had to feel the massive change this week in my body.

You've seen those commercials about depression. There is that one "cymbalta" commercial where they talk about how depression hurts. "Depression hurts, cymbalta can help". It is true. Our bodies store different emotions.

Many yoga teachers tell students that we store memories in our hips. But we store other things in other places. Int that Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy book I told you about a couple days ago, Maehle says that anger is stored in the hamstrings, extreme stiffness is because of mental rigidity, extreme flexibility is an inability to take a position in life and to set boundaries, and emotional pain is stored in the heart. (Symbol of heart chakra on right). The more you get into ashtanga, the more you'll hear about people crying in back bends. Maehle says that the emotional pain stored there leads to the crying. I thought of this as I sat on my mat with the dull ache of crying in my throat.

Maele writes:

"Since our body is our vehicle and the storehouse of our past, we want to practice asana to the point where it serves us well, while releasing and letting go of the past that is stored in it."

Sharath is right. Thinking makes back bending hard. Some days it is easy to let go of our thoughts. Other days I feel like I'm being dragged behind a carriage led by 12 horses. So what to do? "Practice, practice, all is coming."

"I met a man. We made juice."

I have hilarious friends.

After Emma tells us the story of a juice stand she found in the center earlier that day, Rachel and I discussed the psychology and behavior of what we refer to as the "latin lover". A latin lover is a man whose origin is a spanish or portugese speaking country in the Americas and also in Europe. He is characterized by overt sexuality performed in an over-the-top kind of way. It is not that they are hitting on you. Its just that that is how they talk to women. Example:

Rachel was studying in South America. One of her friends placed his hand to his chest and pretended to rip out his heart. It did not end there. He then proceeded to extend the imaginary heart that he had "dislodged" to her. At this point he looked into her eyes and said, "for you". Rachel was amazed to find that when she looked down at the offer, his hand was pumping to the beat of an imaginary heart.

Priceless.

But back to yoga. I'm trying to sort out this new time thing. I've been waking up at 3:30 and thats all I can say about it. I am a zombie. The end.

I've been trying out some new drop back techniques.
1. Hands in prayer, lift chest and go. (the classic)
2. Hands at low back, lift and rock back, last second hands down. (new technique inspired by Alex. it works)
3. Hands by your shoulders like you're going "woa!", open chest like a cloud, hover and hands down. (new technique inspired by Nuno and Elissa. Sounds weird, but really delicious)

I just heard about this meditation called "one year to live". Basically you live as if you have one year to live and are going to die on day 365. I think Emma said she read a book on it, or it was her friend...Anyway, yes, this is a good thing. So what would I do today if I were to die in one year?

Other popular topics of conversation this week:
1. The prevelance of first-urine-of-the-day drinking last year. The trend spread like a wild fire.
2. The strange brown goop that many students here swear by. You stick your finger in this jar full ayurvedic dynamite and eat it. Apparetnly it makes you fly.
3. Back pain. Back pain. Back pain. Everyone has back pain. Kapotasana (pictured). Ankle grabbing.

A shout out to Alex, who has slowly overcome her 2nd series-inspired back pain and is now dropping back like a slinky down the stairs.

So tired, must nap. On roof. With sun. I thought I might multi-task and do a tan and a nap. Very productive around here.