So. I did
my dirty laundry this morning...
....during Ashtanga practice.
Now I
will air it.
Usually when my yoga home
practice lapses into an occasional one-armed Down Dog with the other hand
scratching my cat's chin (Down-Dog!-Kitty-Rules! pose) or my Drishti
becomes an overlong and vacuous gaze into space, I figure it's
all part of what is discovered, what one "finds" on the
mat—experiences of all kinds. No problem.
However, when I focus on the
rhythm of a washing machine cycle or the hum of my iPhone on
"mute"—as carefully as I ordinarily attend to my Ujjaiyi
breath, I usually end up off the
mat. A problem.
So I
stopped, listened, gauging the stage of the wash cycle and if/when to hang the
clothes outside, went downstairs, put my yoga clothes in a
basket, and hung them outside on this lovely summer day.
Yoga clothes are related to my practice...
Now where
was I? It must be time for breakfast.
It's true I am describing the
state of my home practice today—not
yesterday and not tomorrow.
I remind
myself that these are merely distracted moments on (and off) the mat, despite
the fact that for the past week, I have been yielding to the impulse to shorten
and go easy with my practice.
Did I say
my dirty laundry?
Am I
losing the energy to practice?
Is this
the end of practice as I know it?
Have I
really become THAT old?
I doubt
it.
Of a few things—I am more
certain.
Tomorrow I will go to Lewis’
weekly led Ashtanga class. I will feel the support of a teacher and a group,
enjoy a healthy sweat, leave happily, and remember how much I love this
practice.
I will do light home practice for
a while. It's a scary prospect: l may lose my brand new—ever—biceps,
become less limber, and worst of all—lose some poses. “I must move forward!” is zinging my brain.
Once again I will come home to acceptance and surrender. Making Progress is
a state of mind where I trade the wisdom, vitality, fluidity, and (often) joy
of the moment for a conditioned idea of what the present and future should be.
Sigh! It’s a sweet homecoming.
I will read what Rolf Naujokat says
in the book Guruji:
But sometimes you see people, they just do half primary, they are so
aware and in the moment with it and it's so beautiful, going in and out
with the breath, and some are hurrying through advanced series and look like a
horse with a carrot. Realization can happen with asana or
without asana because it's already there.... The moment there is
devotion toward God, the first step takes you there directly. ...Yoga is...a
tool that removes the veil of dust off our inner being.
I will discover wisdom for
students in Kino MacGregor's article about Ashtanga teachers in elephant, by substituting the word
"students" for "teachers":
Ideally, Mysore Style teachers have gone through a kind of
deeply individual journey where the obstacles to true practice have presented
themselves and the teachers have used the practice itself to work through these
difficulties. Sometimes people have a beautiful practice just because they are
good at asana, but they have not experienced a healing journey through the
practice.
I will go to Richard Freeman’s book,
The Mirror of Yoga and find:
So within our yoga practice, again an again we have to make a
compassionate offering into the intelligence of our very own ego. We have to
practice in such a way that we allow insight into the union of the body and
mind, the inhale and the exhale…so that we experience our own merging into what
we naturally perceive as our background—all that we see that is separate from
ourselves.
I will continue to be Yogi Vagabhanda
until I find “my” teacher or s/he finds me. I have been an itinerant Mysore
yogi for about a year now (since my teachers Naomi Worth and John Bultman left
town), and I've done dozens of workshops and classes on both coasts with just
about every Ashtanga teacher you could name. Dear Teacher, I’m ready when you are!
I will continue my home practice.
I will watch and see where it leads: cleaner laundry and the road to Mysore?