My husband and I have been together long enough that when we find ourselves ready to dig into an argument, we have learned that it is best to cut the tension with some humor. Our favorite line for diffusing our most heated discussions is "I don't know who you are anymore." That pretty much sums up my feelings about myself at the moment. I think this is supposed to be a good thing. At least, this is what I am telling myself. But, I am having trouble finding the humor.
In January, when news that Sharath Jois Rangaswamy, the grandson of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and the paramaguru of the Asthanga yoga lineage, was headed to Los Angeles in May to lead the Ashtanga community in one week of practice, I was thrilled. I registered for the entire week within the first two days it became possible to do so. I focused on cleaning up those areas of my practice that needed attention so that I would be ready come May. A fool's errand, as the saying goes, but a necessary lesson for me to learn, which I did learn in the best possible way that lessons are always learned, the hard way.
By the time Sharath arrived in Los Angeles, I was nursing a shoulder injury. Practicing with an injury is a very humbling experience. If one is smart about an injury, one adjusts elements of one's practice to accommodate the injury. This meant that I did not practice all six days. It also meant that my practice did not feel the same. In other words, my shoulder took center stage. At its core, Ashtanga is a meditative practice. It is movement with breath. When difficulty arises in the practice, we are trained to return to the breath. Everything else is mere distraction. To practice with injury, then, requires that we make peace with the injury. Ahimsa, to do no harm. This is the first moral restraint, the first of the five Yamas, the first limb of the eight limbs of the Ashtanga yoga practice. In short, be kind, be gentle, check your ego at the door.
At the end of the week, there were other injuries to surmount. These were not physical in nature, and they persist. They continue to wreck havoc on my practice because they have caused me to question the very nature of how this practice is taught in the West. This is an essential and very personal part of my journey, to be sure. I am questioning everything that I have been doing for the last 10 years. Hence the feeling that I do not know who I am anymore.
Last week, I took the opportunity to hear Dominic Corigliano speak about his many years as a student of Pattabhi Jois, this in the early days when Westerners were finding their way to practice with Jois in India. Corigliano has been a student of Ashtanga yoga for about 40 years. He is in the same camp as David Williams, Nancy Gilgoff, Tim Miller, and David Swenson. The focus of his talk was about the responsibility of influence. In addition to everything else that the Ashtanga yoga practice is, it is a kinesthetic practice. Practitioners learn the practice through the action of the practice, and the teacher learns about his/her students by becoming very intimate participants of that action. In many ways, the teacher is a co-creator of a student's practice. According to Corigliano, suggestion, therefore, becomes a very potent tool. Conversely, any tool can be a weapon.
Student-teacher relationships are fraught with complexity. The common bond is our humanity, replete with our strengths and weaknesses, our idiosyncratic tendencies both good and not so good. Influence. Suggestion. These are real challenges for teacher and student. It is a two-way street. Sometimes, the veil needs to be lifted, so we can get a view of the horizon again. Sometimes when the veil comes off, the horizon is no longer recognizable, and then, we are lost. That is how it feels to me right now, anyway. When Rebecca Solnit wrote that to be lost is to be fully present, she was not joking.
I do not know who I am anymore. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but truth often cuts close to the bone. The French philosopher and writer Andre Gide once said that we must lose sight of the shore if we are to discover new oceans. Fear of the unknown is a very primal fear. It puts us face-to-face with who we think we are. This usually means, things have to change in order for us to move forward. In today's paper, I read a fascinating article about the efforts some grain farmers are making not too far from where I live to build a drought-tolerant grain hub. These farmers are working to create fields of wheat--and rye and other nutrient-rich grains--to sustain us while our climate readjusts. The success of these 21st century farmers, who are part of the Tehachapi grain project, rests, a bit ironically, on the adoption of older farming methods. This means, no chemicals, the use of landrace seeds, consideration of issues like sustainability and seed security at the start, and the choice of dry farming or farming with very little irrigation.
The journalist, a food writer for the Los Angeles Times named Amy Scattergood--a great name for someone writing about seeds, by the way--ends the article with the following:
"The country near Weiser's fields in Tehachapi can look like the landscape of the moon. But there's a symmetry to jump-starting a grain hub there, amid the wind farms, apple orchards and desert chapels, like walking backward to get where you're going."
I feel like I am in the desert right now, and my horizon resembles the landscape of the moon, meaning, things look bleak. But I am comforted by Amy Scattergood's suggestion--a powerful one--that what feels like backward motion may really be what is necessary to take me where I need to go.
In January, when news that Sharath Jois Rangaswamy, the grandson of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and the paramaguru of the Asthanga yoga lineage, was headed to Los Angeles in May to lead the Ashtanga community in one week of practice, I was thrilled. I registered for the entire week within the first two days it became possible to do so. I focused on cleaning up those areas of my practice that needed attention so that I would be ready come May. A fool's errand, as the saying goes, but a necessary lesson for me to learn, which I did learn in the best possible way that lessons are always learned, the hard way.
By the time Sharath arrived in Los Angeles, I was nursing a shoulder injury. Practicing with an injury is a very humbling experience. If one is smart about an injury, one adjusts elements of one's practice to accommodate the injury. This meant that I did not practice all six days. It also meant that my practice did not feel the same. In other words, my shoulder took center stage. At its core, Ashtanga is a meditative practice. It is movement with breath. When difficulty arises in the practice, we are trained to return to the breath. Everything else is mere distraction. To practice with injury, then, requires that we make peace with the injury. Ahimsa, to do no harm. This is the first moral restraint, the first of the five Yamas, the first limb of the eight limbs of the Ashtanga yoga practice. In short, be kind, be gentle, check your ego at the door.
At the end of the week, there were other injuries to surmount. These were not physical in nature, and they persist. They continue to wreck havoc on my practice because they have caused me to question the very nature of how this practice is taught in the West. This is an essential and very personal part of my journey, to be sure. I am questioning everything that I have been doing for the last 10 years. Hence the feeling that I do not know who I am anymore.
Last week, I took the opportunity to hear Dominic Corigliano speak about his many years as a student of Pattabhi Jois, this in the early days when Westerners were finding their way to practice with Jois in India. Corigliano has been a student of Ashtanga yoga for about 40 years. He is in the same camp as David Williams, Nancy Gilgoff, Tim Miller, and David Swenson. The focus of his talk was about the responsibility of influence. In addition to everything else that the Ashtanga yoga practice is, it is a kinesthetic practice. Practitioners learn the practice through the action of the practice, and the teacher learns about his/her students by becoming very intimate participants of that action. In many ways, the teacher is a co-creator of a student's practice. According to Corigliano, suggestion, therefore, becomes a very potent tool. Conversely, any tool can be a weapon.
Student-teacher relationships are fraught with complexity. The common bond is our humanity, replete with our strengths and weaknesses, our idiosyncratic tendencies both good and not so good. Influence. Suggestion. These are real challenges for teacher and student. It is a two-way street. Sometimes, the veil needs to be lifted, so we can get a view of the horizon again. Sometimes when the veil comes off, the horizon is no longer recognizable, and then, we are lost. That is how it feels to me right now, anyway. When Rebecca Solnit wrote that to be lost is to be fully present, she was not joking.
I do not know who I am anymore. A bit dramatic, perhaps, but truth often cuts close to the bone. The French philosopher and writer Andre Gide once said that we must lose sight of the shore if we are to discover new oceans. Fear of the unknown is a very primal fear. It puts us face-to-face with who we think we are. This usually means, things have to change in order for us to move forward. In today's paper, I read a fascinating article about the efforts some grain farmers are making not too far from where I live to build a drought-tolerant grain hub. These farmers are working to create fields of wheat--and rye and other nutrient-rich grains--to sustain us while our climate readjusts. The success of these 21st century farmers, who are part of the Tehachapi grain project, rests, a bit ironically, on the adoption of older farming methods. This means, no chemicals, the use of landrace seeds, consideration of issues like sustainability and seed security at the start, and the choice of dry farming or farming with very little irrigation.
The journalist, a food writer for the Los Angeles Times named Amy Scattergood--a great name for someone writing about seeds, by the way--ends the article with the following:
"The country near Weiser's fields in Tehachapi can look like the landscape of the moon. But there's a symmetry to jump-starting a grain hub there, amid the wind farms, apple orchards and desert chapels, like walking backward to get where you're going."
I feel like I am in the desert right now, and my horizon resembles the landscape of the moon, meaning, things look bleak. But I am comforted by Amy Scattergood's suggestion--a powerful one--that what feels like backward motion may really be what is necessary to take me where I need to go.
Comments
Post a Comment