Diary of a yoga nobodhi

Tuesday 27th September 2005

Sitting down to reflect on and record the experiences of this morning’s practice has ended up once again in a page of disconnected, crossed-out, failed attempts to describe nothing of great consequence. Although asana practice continues to call me to the mat for regular meetings, there are few revelations, surprises, breakthroughs or great insights to note lately. Instead, practice is stable and satisfying, business as usual, and is providing ongoing physical, mental and emotional maintenance while the rest of my life rises up to challenge and inspire me.

At other times the tables have been turned – those times when daily life has just kept ticking on over with mundane business as usual, while morning practice has provided the excitement and promise of a continuing journey into edgy, new, foreign territory.
The balance swings to and fro.
And today there’s not much more to say.

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Tuesday 20th September 2005


I’ve let go of all my unrealistic expectations around the Ashtanga practice. I don’t think I can even say with integrity that I practice “Ashtanga” any more.
What I do practice is yoga.
And part of my yoga practice is a morning asana session to keep my body well, to centre and balance my mind, and to increase my sensitivity to the finer vibrations of my being.

I get to the mat, gently stretch my joints until they yawn open. I do a minimum of 5A’s and 5Bs starting slowly at first, often stepping the first few rounds. Those first Surja Namaskars are like a big lazy yawn that wakes up my body, opening it up to receive the carefully controlled flood of energy that the practice will generate. I use the Surja Namaskars to develop the connection between my breath and my energetic core where the Ujjiyi breathing and bandha focus are drawn together into one force. It’s so nice when the focus is strong and intensely binding.
That’s the greatest gift Ashtanga has given me.

I do the standing poses, usually all of them, and usually with Samakonasana and Hanumanasana inserted after Prasaritta Padottanasana. There are some days when I modify the poses, and some days when I insert non-Primary poses like Ardha Chandrasana and Virabhadrasana III, but mostly I stick to the time-tested Primary formula.
After standing poses I tend to digress depending on what’s going on. Pesky back injuries over the last few months have forced me to stay away from forward bends so I’ve had to be a bit more creative with what I do after the standing poses. Funny how the poses that help my back are second series backbends like Shalabhasana, Dhanurasana, Ustrasana, Eka Pada RajaKapotasana etc. I’ve really missed doing the forward bends, but you just have to make the best of whatever situation you’re in. I've realised I can still do a really good practice without them – and practice I shall, until they come back.

Out of sheer curiosity I very carefully tried out a couple of forward bends today just to check if they’d come back while I wasn’t looking. But they hadn’t. That nasty nerve from my lumbar to my right hip just about electrocuted me as I moved into Paschimottanasana and the surrounding area went into momentary shock. My back sort of gasped, so I had to back off and accept that it may take some time and gentle encouragement before the forward bends feel safe again.

No surprise that backbends are a relief – soothing but always challenging.
For me they’re challenging, not so much because of the physical challenges, but more the mental ones. You know you can always take them a step further, either by moving into them a bit deeper or by doing one more repetition when you feel like stopping. It’s usually the mind that sabotages me, or a fear based resistance that I come up against that seems to have crystallised and buried itself in my psyche. Most days I give in to it through habit, holding a couple of backbends for a good length of time naiively pretending I’ve done my backbending quota for the day. But there are some days when I break through the inert resistance, I walk my hands in closer than ever to my feet in Urdhva Dhanurasana, push at the boundaries, get up and drop back once, twice, sometimes three or four times if it’s an exceptional day.
It’s like getting a screwdriver into a little crack - the crack in my hard resistance, that's waiting for the key to wedge it open. When I go way beyond my comfy quota of backbends, either in quality or quantity, it’s like opening up that crack and letting the light flood in to dissolve the dark stains of habit.

I did lots of backbends today, and finished with one dropback – just one, and maybe I could have done more.
Did all the inversions then wrapped up the practice with a lovely twisting Padmasana where one arm wraps behind so the hand can hold the foot. This pose felt so good, that I held it on each side for a few minutes. It's a good alternative to Yoga Mudra when you can't bend forward.

All up it was a very satisfying practice – well paced, well sequenced, well executed, quite an intelligent practice.

And I’m even starting to feel OK about bowing out of the Ashtanga loop. It’s taken quite a bit of time to make peace with this change. I've felt a secret grief for the loss of the pure practice I’d come to love, feelings of inadequacy at not being “serious” enough or disciplined enough to stick with it through the tough times, feelings of confusion at being cast adrift into asana no-man’s land, feelings of sadness that I’m no longer one of the “shala tribe”.
Has the relationship really ended? Will we ever get back together again? Am I over it?

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