Day 3 - Vanity

Okay, let’s be clear what’s inspiring me most to start this is purely vanity. A lot of you may have met me or remember me as some skinny, little, bendy punk, which I was, but I was also young. My body was still more boyish than manly. But now in my early 30’s (okay enough remarks that I’m not old - I’m not saying I’m old), my body has changed - a lot. I’m no longer that skinny punk that bends at will. I’ve got some mass, in fact 30 pounds more than when I was in my early 20’s. I’m not saying I would trade bodies, because I feel and look healthier than I did back then, but I wouldn’t mind losing a few (if you know what I mean). So more than anything I am motivated for probably the same reason the majority of students who come to class are - to look good.

Now, I’m not saying that I equate yoga as fitness (nor am I saying I don’t). I think yoga as my life is so much more than a good physical physique. If it weren’t for yoga, my mind and heart would be an uncarved block of wood, but with yoga I feel like I am carving my life to be a beautiful piece of art. You won’t hear me say, “I didn’t get to do yoga today,” (referring to not getting on the mat) because I feel every moment of my life I’m doing yoga. But right now, I’m getting on my mat - whether I want to or not because I don’t feel as great in my body, my weight or even my asanas, and that I’d like to change that, and I can.

Day 3, I didn’t want to get on my mat, but I did. I wasn’t as focused, but I still did it. I did my Backbends DVD with some modifications. I felt good, but I notice that I am still engaging with my mat like it is both an obligation (not my desire) and taking away from other things, again I realize those “things” are nothing important but just keeping busy. I will say that the physical transformations I think are starting off as the easiest. Maybe because it happens for a limited period of time under focused conditions, where as speech is always, emotions are hard to keep under control and food is so social. Anyway, I find myself understanding more when my teacher would complain that he didn’t have the same body from when he was 25.

In Honor

I got an email yesterday informing me that Sri K. Pattabhi Jois passed away. He was one of the great Indian yoga teachers of modern time and his physical absence will be greatly missed. He affected my life greatly and thousands, if not millions of other’s lives. I think it is ironic that I find myself starting my challenge of being on the mat, the very discipline that Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga gave me, which Guruji (Pattabhi) inspired in me. He liked to say, “Yoga is 99% practice, and 1% theory.” Here I am back to practicing. I’d like to honor his life and teachings and my practice for the next month to Guruji.                                           

 

Day 2 - Still Committed

We woke this morning to find that one of our cars was broken into last night (well not quite broken into, since the doors were unlocked), and both of our ipods were stolen from the center console. Of course this is noticed when my wife is rushing to get out the door and drive the boys to school and I am with the baby. I can’t do anything, but react, and my first reaction was blame, anger. Why would I immediately blame my wife? It’s not like she put a huge sign on the back of the car that read “ipods inside car, take them.” Did I learn to react like that? Maybe I a mimicking my step-father’s response to things gone wrong - to always find the blame on someone else. Or was it my own issues with trust, since I have had ipods stolen before and don’t trust that things outside my own care will be handled properly? Well, the good news is I quickly moved through all that emotion. It was brief.

With all that brewing, I put the baby down (thankfully he was tired and ready for his nap) and got my mat out. My wife called to talk about the theft. What was there to talk about? Unfortunately, I was more rude than compassionate and said, “I had to get off the phone. I want to practice.” Two days ago, I would of stayed on the phone. I would of talked to keep busy. I find this the worst feature of cell phones, we use them to just keep busy. I always find myself calling someone just to talk when I am driving and I realize that I may be home and my wife calls me when she’s driving. Instead of doing things I talk, gossip, have good ideas, get pissed, fall more in-love. The spectrum of possibilities is immense, but what I’m not doing is being productive. So, I’m off the phone and on my mat.

A million reasons not to be on my mat. I’m stiff. I have a sore throat. I have emails. I have phone calls. I have to shower. I have to eat. The recycling needs to get out to the curb, and of course, the baby is sleeping which means I could do all of those things. But I resist. I stay on my mat. I put in my Leg Conditioning DVD. I breathe, stay focused and move. My body starts warming up. I’m sweating. I feel looser in my legs and back. I feel good. No I feel great! I finish and sit for a few minutes and think about everything. My own habits and how hard they are to shift. 

I get off my mat and realize that I didn’t have less time, but I made more time. My mat is the place where I become more efficient, more energized, more capable of doing everything else in my day. I finished and did the recycling, took my shower, ate, emailed and wrote this all before the baby woke-up. I have to remember that there is time for everything if I make the time.

Day 1 - Commitments

As I approach my 15 years of practicing and 14 years of teaching, I’m looking back with a sense of curiosity - Do I still have the same discipline I did back then? Surely, my life is much different. I a married with a family and a career, where as then I was 19/20, living at my parent’s with no bills or responsibilities. Okay, so being a 19 year old male yogi wasn’t quite the trend back then, but I chose sobriety, veganism, and of course my practice. My practice was everything and I defined yoga by the accomplishments on the mat. I would even say I was a fundamentalist when it came to asana. I had such will power and determination to wake every morning between 4 and 6 and practice and meditate (I found seated meditation the most challenging commitment I made, and even though I did half a dozen 10-day meditation courses in 2 years, I still struggled on my own to sit for an hour or two a day). But now, here I am wondering do I still have that discipline to get up, to get on my mat, to keep the commitment that I desire?

So Day 1 of my discipline to get on my mat and practice like I once did, to give it the time of day. What I have realized in creating this challenge for myself is so many other things that I want to commit to that I once valued or could do. So here’s my list so far: I want to practice asana, have a seated meditation, examine my use of language (no cursing, tone of my voice like yelling), look at anger and patience, diet, alcohol, and mostly following through. Getting inspired is not my issue, but maintaining the inspiration is. At one time I was so disciplined (to what I might now think was to a fault), but now with my life I almost find it is easier to keep the status qua than change with a family (2 step-sons 12 & 9, and my own son who is 10 months), my wife’s yoga studio and my own traveling schedule. But I don’t want to think that as my views of yoga have grown and developed and I feel much healthier, that I have also lost a huge part of what yoga means to me and my ability to empower myself at will to keep a challenge. So Day 1.

After dropping the boys at school, coming home and putting the baby down for a nap, instead of taking my time procrastinating on the computer, eating and drinking coffee, I immediately got my Abs & Arms DVD out and did it. Is it narcissistic of me to do my own class (maybe, but no more than blogging - okay a whole other blog right there)? It was great to be in my breath, focused and moving. My wife put her mat down and joined me and instead of talking, which would of been so easy to do, I resisted and kept breathing and maintained my focus. The practice was great! And now to my other commitments - no swearing on the golf course today.

First Steps

Is there a point in life when things stop being new? As adults do we lose the gift that children get every day, the gift of wonder and newness? I watch my 9 month old and everything he does is new. From crawling to stepping, to foods, to even his head hitting the wall and to watch him test it again to understand “head, wall.” It is an amazing source of discovery that in our world seems harder and harder to get. I read recently if there are any places to go on Earth where no one else has ever been. The answers were mostly places in Antarctica. Think about when the America’s, Africa or Asia were discovered by Europeans. When the Earth was no longer flat but round or gravity was understood. Are we robbed of firsts or are we unable to think that the opportunity for a first is always present?
My dad made an interesting comment to me the other day. He thanked me for the weekend he spent with my son, his grandson. He said, “It’s not easy to have a first at 60.” I thought true but sad. Why can’t everything be a first? I watch the dissatisfaction people have with their marriages or jobs and they think, “a new spouse or job will make it all better.” I used to think that. I used to think it was everything else around me that made me, but now I think differently. Now I invoke the greatest gift yoga has taught me, the power of what, how, why, when and where I choose.
Try this for the next week. Everyday wake up and think about the things in your life, maybe your spouse, job, family, friends...and instead of thinking of all of them as obligations or responsibilities, instead choose to love them. Choose to see them as gifts in your life. Choose them everyday because then you will get to have first loves, first jobs, first friends, firsts steps everyday.

I am Patriotic

I’ve just listened to the now President Obama deliver his inaugural speech. I sat with my wife and six month old with tears in my eyes for the future beauty in our lives. A promise not only for us, but also for our children and their children. We feel the hope as we look out over the 2 million people gathered in Washington and the millions more around the world watching with anticipation of hope rather than fear. It’s time for a real change and it’s happening now.

In President Obama’s speech he had a central theme that connected us – our country, America. I think it is fair to say that for the last 7 years or so, being an American across the world has not been a desired identity. Not only across the world, but if you disagreed with American politics within America then you were seen as unpatriotic. But now, President Obama brings pride and hope in being an American and a reclamation to what it means to be American and patriotic.

A few years ago, I remember celebrating the 4th of July at a yoga retreat and the teacher talked about how this is our America just as much theirs (referring to the Bush administration and Republican values), yet we all felt so anti-American. How were we to celebrate the independence of America? Were we patriotic? What does that mean? Why can’t disagreeing with the patterns and behaviors of a politic mean that you are not a member of the country? After all, aren’t we a democracy rather than a dictatorship?

Yoga has an agenda and part of that agenda is not inventing things that already exist, but reclaiming them in new ways and perspectives. We’ve all felt the transformations of yoga in our bodies and the spill over into our diets, philosophies, views and consciousness. We started reclaiming ourselves the moment we began yoga, but we must constantly be willing to reclaim ourselves as we advance our yoga.

It is hard to look at yourself and who you are, who’ve you become, and be willing to constantly redefine yourself. It’s like a marriage. The problem with marriage is not the institution of it, since it is actually one of the most beautiful unions, but rather the marriage represents an ending rather than a beginning. We found and developed the love and now that we are married we don’t have to cultivate it anymore. Except the very reason a marriage works and lasts is because each person chooses to recommit, to redefine, to reclaim their love everyday. It is not the obligation of the certificate (which is legal) that holds a marriage together, but the constant choice to define your love. Well your life is no different. Everyday you have to wake up and be willing to reclaim who you are, even if that means you have to shift the perspective because who’ve you become is no longer in alignment to what you believe or value.

I feel very proud to be an American right now. I’m very proud to be a yogi because like our President reminded me today I need to look at myself everyday and reclaim myself and my own constitution as the my conscious choices to be better, not just for me but for my wife and child and all of our futures.

Life's Flood

I’ve always envied those people, both men and women, who cry. It was something that seemed impossible to me. I don’t know if it was me holding on to some macho notion of what it meant to be a man, even though I was 19 teaching yoga and spending the majority of my time in the company of married housewives. But I wanted to cry. I would try to squeeze out a tear at movies, while reading, in the appropriate “cry here/now” situation, but never with success. I watched my friends, partners and teachers cry. It not only seemed like such a release, but also that they were feeling life in more ways and deeper ways.

The word for tear in Sanskrit is aksha, which is the same word for eye, like in pratyaksha (senses) or literally in front of the eyes. It is said that Shiva’s tear, rudraksha, creates life. The tear is the bindu, a point, but much more the shape of a drop (3-D) than a point (2-D). That initial tear is filled with Shiva’s juice, rasa, or emotions. In Indian aesthetics art has 9 (originally 8) essential emotive qualities called rasa: erotic, comic, compassionate, ferocious, fearful, heroic, disgustful, wonder, and peaceful. The same aesthetic philosophy becomes a school of yoga called Alamkaradhvani. The original tear is filled with all the qualities that make life an art. The verbal root ras, where rasa comes from means to roar, yell, cry out, scream. The eye creates the tear, which acts like a lens to perceive and taste life.

I was taught that life happens in the tears. I would sit at retreats and the other students all around me would have these breakdowns. I felt like I wanted to have what they were having. I didn’t want the transformations I was having (which I was at exponential rates). I wanted to have that cathartic meltdown everyone else was having as my transformation. Only I never did. Did I have to live a life of hardship, self-abnegation, or torture myself? Why was I barren? Was this something I had to learn or was it more who I am?

Now I hate using age as an excuse. Sometimes it is true that age matters. You just experience more as you live. Yet, age doesn’t mean that you can’t be good at something simply because you are young. But age has seemed to be a big factor for me. In my own aging, I have grown up. I have experienced many of the hardships of life, but more the joys that come with living. I have lost relationships, friends, and businesses. People I know have died, life has been filled with terror and now the economy looms towards a depression. I have lived with the responsibilities of taking care of others and all the hardships and stresses that come with such responsibilities.

I’ve found my tears, but not because of the hardships, but because of the greatest joys. The loves of my life is where my tears formed. My wife, baby and stepsons have brought me tears – full cathartic meltdowns (it’s true I have it on video). After the birth of my son, life changed. It got juicier and I started to taste (rasa) and see (aksha) in deeper and more ways. And the tears started flowing and flooding. Now, when I am at the movies, reading, or simply experiencing the joys and pains of others my eyes swell with life. I not only know there is a point (bindu) but I see it, feel it and taste it every day in the joys that surround me. My yoga never denies the hardships, but my yoga sees the joys as the creative power of my transformations.