Yoga Half-Nelson

YMCyogA

2009-02-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

Restorative yoga #1 and #2

I have this problem. It’s the “think before you speak” problem.

I have this other problem. It’s the “ Don’t think of pink elephants” problem.

Sometimes your problems can line up is such a way that they compound each other, and ruin a perfectly serviceable moment in your day. Your restorative yoga class, in fact. Of course, sometimes destroying something is the precursor to creating from the rubble. And that moment in between? That is presence. Of course, true to form, I didn’t get that right away. As per my wont, let me walk you through the narrative, and note how the perspective changes as we go along.

Restorative yoga is stretching and relaxing. OK, it’s more than that, or so I’m told. Ostensibly, it is also a deep, beautiful, spiritually enriching experience wherein you reflect, draw perfect attention to your body and your breath, and exercise the types of techniques that lead to perfect, beautiful awareness and a blissful engagement with the moment.

I can’t seem to get the hang of it, but the stretching is nice, I suppose.

My problems manifested pretty immediately. I’m just getting back on the yoga horse after a return from the Mitten, a brief illness, and various other obligations. The first restorative yoga class was just that- it got me back into a practice. Still, it was pretty gentle as a practice goes, which is a nice way of saying ‘boring.’ I was OK with it, but when I showed up for the second class, I was expecting a normal class. Some poses and shit.

Here we get into the first Yoga Platitude, a phrase I capitalize because I think it would do well to document them, and so I intend to. I’ll explain the theory later, but suffice to say, I’m noticing that there are a limited set of yoga standards that all teachers seem to adhere to, be them verbal sound bites repeated in class, or even just habitual practices that seem to permeate every studio.

Here, it was the “End of the Month Restorative Yoga Class.” EVERY studio does this. The last class of the month is always ‘restorative’, and it’s more or less a rule across the board, at least as American yoga goes. I wasn’t expecting it here, though- the YMCA calendar clearly stated a Yoga I class, and I was looking forward to a bit of a workout. It seems as if I have been converted to the American ethic of “yoga as weight loss”, but that seems to be it’s strength, and I’m as malleable as any other consumer. I wanted some exercise.

It also doesn’t help that I’m suspicious. The ‘End of the month restorative yoga class’ feels a hell of a lot like ‘movie day’ in a public school classroom. My first year teaching, I swore I’d never be one of ‘those’ teachers, the ones who fired up the VCR, tweaked the shades, sat at the back of the classroom making sure nobody set fire to anything while I graded papers. I would have exiting and engaging lesson plans each and every day, a model educator.

10 years later, my movie collection is well into double digits, threatening to cross the hundred mark. And you know what? It’s OK. Sometimes the kids need a break as much as you do, and a good ole’ fashioned nature documentary with excellent footage of death and sex on the African Savanna is just the thing on a Friday. Still, call it what it is. Restorative? Yes. A content-heavy problem-solving inquiry workshop, geared toward active student engagement? Not so much.

Restorative Yoga on it’s own feels like a release, a nod to the fact that we all need a day off. Restorative Yoga paired with instructions to be mindful of the ‘most difficult of yoga techniques, the calming of the mind’ feels like you just got a handout of busy work questions to go along with the movie.

When the teacher, as we all filed in and began setting up our various little stations, mentioned that it was almost February and that we would have a gentle practice today, I responded in the true colors of problem #1 (think before you speak). I’m sure I rolled my eyes as I said, too loudly

“Fuuuuuuck.”

I didn’t intend for anyone to hear it. I wasn’t thinking. It was an internal response, made public before I could even consider the repercussions. Unfortunately, she heard. I knew it when she made her announcement.

“ So this will be a restorative yoga class. For those of you who wanted a great workout today, well, you’re not going to get it.”

I have to, despite my initial flinching, commiserate with her. When a kid complains loudly about what we’re doing in class today, I don’t have the option of saying, directly

“Don’t be such a turd.”

It would be confrontational. I might be right, but it would single the kid out in front of his peers, and he would take it as a slight, so I’m forced to say, to the entire class

“Even if you don’t like touching snails- and that might be many of you- I would ask that you don’t refer to them as ‘fetid slices of extra-terrestrial labias encased in their own crunchy packaging.’ Please. Humor me.”

So here I was, feeling funny for being abstractly singled out. I had injected a note of negative energy in a discipline where positivity IS THE LAW.

It is something I can’t get over, now living on the west coast. We all know the views are breathtaking, the weather is (mostly) ideal, the food is local and organic, and life is sweet. Still, having grown up in the Midwest, there is a measure of guilt I feel planting carrots in January. It seems an unearned bonus.

Coming so recently from Michigan, talking to my mother who is faced with two months of chemotherapy and sub-zero temperatures- not that she’ll be getting out much- I feel guilty without winter- it sucks, but one feels a certain karmic debt is being paid to the planet. It gave us an excuse to bitch, get grumpy, practice being stoic, and generally be real with each other. Nothing brings out interpersonal issues more than being stuck indoors for 5 months at a time.

Without it- and living in an earthquake prone area- I do feel a Pompeian uneasiness, as if it is an act of hubris to live in such a gorgeous climate on such unstable land. I would feel better if I were older- if I had already had children that could fend for themselves in a disaster, run for the nearest doorway instinctively, know not to light cigarettes around ruptured gas lines. I could believe that I had passed the buck, selflessly contributed to the profligation of the hairless monkey species we so affectionately refer to as ‘people’, ‘God’s chosen ones’ and ‘stewards of the planet’, actual evidence of our success notwithstanding. We’re the only species to have caused a mass extinction through our own greed, an event that has only happened 4 times in 4.5 billion years, and also the only one that was foretold and ignored. Are we so sure that we should trust ourselves?

This tangent- and I do realize that I just went on a long, serious tangent- Is typical of me, and actually relevant to this small Yoga class and my own problems. Should I even trust myself? Should I listen to my own internal soapbox monologues? I digress, sure, but for a reason. Let’s go ahead and bring it back.

So. Class. Begins.

We have been issued 3 yoga blocks 3 blankets, and 3 of those couch-cushion things that have some sort of official sounding name, stabilizers or something. They are shaped like the armrests on a piece of furniture that would most likely be referred to as a davenport. I cannot at all fathom why we will need all this stuff.

She reiterates the fact that class will be more meditative, mostly for my benefit. I’m trying not to look at her, but I distinctly feel her direct gaze.

“You know”, she begins, “Indians consider these meditative mudras the most difficult for Americans to do.”

Immediately problem number #2 surfaces. The Pink Elephant is a dark suspicion that she read this somewhere, and has not, in fact, been to India. It’s cynical. I do not know this woman. I have no reason to believe that she hasn’t been to India. She’s a teacher, and must have some knowledge of whatever yoga teachers are supposed to know, right? I’m pretty sure yoga teachers must really like their discipline, and so must have some knowledge of the philosophical precepts behind it, because without them, it would only be so much repetitive posing. But I can’t help it. I have a third problem, and that is to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary, and a large part of this is to immediately disbelieve everything that shakes my eardrums.

“Let’s concentrate today on quieting our minds, removing all the chatter that goes on in our heads. “

I don’t like the idea. I feel we are getting served a work sheet. Why not think of stuff? I feel as if I am being deliberately placated, that the positivity laws are, if not being enforced, than relying on our collective goodwill to not be critical of the teaching method.

And this goes on. And on. Sometimes I feel like blogging about yoga is proscribing what I’m supposed to get out of it. I often find myself taking mental notes during class, and without out a notebook, I just have to repeat all my thoughts to myself to make sure they stick, and that I’ll remember them when I get home. And by doing this, I am somewhere else entirely- my body might be going through the motions, but my mind is occupying a future cyber-sphere. I am not at all present, I’m just thinking and thinking and talking to myself in my head, responding in kind, turning my cynicism on myself and I realize I CAN’T SHUT UP.

As this all goes through my mind, we are building blanket forts. Well, not really, but it feels like it. The teacher is instructing us to place our blankets and cushions and blocks (oh my!) in a very specific formation. Some cushions are propped on blocks to make a gentle incline, which we will lay our backs on. Blankets serve to pad the floor beneath our legs and booties, other davenport stabilizers serve as ….armrests. Further yoga blocks are positioned to support our heads and necks, and upon completion of this temporary edifice, I realize we just built floor-level La-Z-Boy recliners. We are instructed to relax.

It doesn’t help that I am not the only one smirking at this point. Other yoginis are glancing around the room with that particular Spock-cocked eyebrow, non-verbally sending a social cue around the room that says “ Does anyone else think this is a bit ham-fisted?” It fuels my cynicism, and starts a brand new thread of masturbatory dialogue between me and my inner imaginary me-friend.

The mental chatter is unrelenting- every time I try and empty my mind, attempt to stop the chatter, I open a new discussion thread about whether or not I SHOULD be chattering to myself, if it’s in fact ok. It’s with no small measure of embarrassment that I realize this woman is absolutely right- quieting the mind IS a fucking hard thing to do. WHY CAN’T I SHUT UP? Wait, you just yelled at yourself. Can’t you please shut up? But shouldn’t I be thinking? Isn’t thinking about what’s going on a measure of awareness? I am here, now, thinking about it. And talking to myself about it. Isn’t that a measure of how “Now” I am? Wait, I thought that thought a few seconds ago, and I’m still thinking about it. That’s not ‘Now’ that ‘s elsewhere. I need to have a discussion with myself about that. Wait, I’m NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TALKING to myself. Wait, if I keep saying ‘wait’ to myself, doesn’t that mean I’m waiting for something? Is that ‘Now’-ish?

This paradox, this idea that I need to concentrate on not concentrating, is spinning me in circles.

Still, the La-Z-Boy is soooo comfortable. I DO feel relaxed and- I’m not sure how, exactly- I just surrender to everything. I’m tired of trying to analyze each and every moment, and something just releases. I don’t have to try and shut the voice up anymore, because the voice just got fed up with trying and knocked off for a pint of bitter at the pub. I- and I no longer feel like “I’, anymore, just some physical material that moves molecules around- am…just ……..here. Breathing.

I so forget myself that I don’t even realize that I’m completely out of the thread. Somehow, everyone else took a verbal cue to move on to shivasana, and the mass of creative atoms all lumped together and given the name Shumit has failed to register any sort of social etiquette. The mass shakes itself out of the stupor, and tries to reconnect with a name, but the process is shaky at best. After I rather sheepishly follow the other yoginis, placing my blocks and blankets and mat away in the proper receptacles, I head toward my stuff on the bench. The teacher- the one I offended- thinks I am coming over to talk to her, and her face lights up. It’s awkward- I went to get my stuff together, but in a way, I do want to apologize, and as I fumble with my belongings, I try to address this. I can’t think Shumit enough to discern what order I need to put my street wear back on (pants before shoes), and I tell her as such.

“Ah-ha!” she says, “So you got it!!”

Did I? I’m not sure, but I’m happy that she understands- or recognizes, really- that something happened. Did something happen? I’m not sure of that either, but I know now that it is best not to think about it.

Guest Blogger: The Return of Yoga Cop

2009-02-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Before we take leave of the Enchanted Mitten and head back to Cali, Let's hear from the Yoga Cop again......

FOLLOW UP REPORT...

Incident Number - 08-38417

Location - 200 S. Main Street

Date & Time - 02/07/2009 1000 hours

Crime - Embarrassment of Law Enforcement Official

Well, the holiday season was busy, and Officer Garbanzo doesn't need much in the way of excuses to be lazy and an overall slug. I made the mistake of stepping on a scale the other day though, and I need to get moving again!

My little sister Chuckette invited me over to watch the Super Bowl with her and her family (I thought the Cards would cover. I didn't place an actual bet so of course they covered). On the way out she mentioned that she was going to Yoga class in the morning, and that the main suspect from the last incident was teaching again. She also informed me that I was a bit off on my age guess, Mimi is apparently 82. Like my ego needed that much more abuse...

So, I bucked up and decided to go. The last time wasn't all that painful to anything other than my pride so I thought I would be safe.

Um, yeah. Not so much.

The class was even more soccer-mom slanted than the first time (sorry Chuckette). No other dudes there at all, not even an old one. I am guaranteed to be the red-headed step child of this class. The good thing though is that you are pretty much always supposed to have your eyes closed and concentrating on your breathing, so nobody will know, right?

So, before we even leave our cross-legged position, Mimi has us doing kegel exercises. Dude, seriously. I just never thought I would voluntarily sit in a room full of soccer moms and do such a thing. I mean, think about it for a second. Try to visualize what the room looked like. I am mortified all over again just thinking about it. I don't know if I am progressive enough for this.

Then Mimi went into a long discourse about our transverse abdominal muscles (or TA's as all the hip yoga instructors like Mimi call them). This is where the pain began. Who knew there were a jillion and a half yoga poses that crush that particular part of your body? Not me, although I sure do now. Compared to the standard military/police academy calisthenics, they were extremely effective even though they used much smaller movements.

Dolphin poses. They sure do sound fun, playful or maybe even cute, no? NO! They aren't. They are hard. They hit pretty much every muscle in your body. So we did a dolphin pose that was like downward dog, which was fun. I couldn't keep up and collapsed to the floor. A couple of times. It wasn't embarrassing or anything though. Shit. Then we did dolphin plane, which is basically a variation on the "front leaning rest". A favorite of mine during boot camp and the police academy. I thought I was past all that stuff, but my old drill sergeants don't have anything on Mimi. As I was sweating, grunting and groaning, doing my level best to not fall out again, there she was, talking through the whole thing. Like she was walking through the park. For some reason, I didn't fall out again. I guess my prior training paid off a little bit.

Before I knew it, the 90 minutes was up. I was pleasantly exhausted. After a quick lunch with Chuckette in yuppie-ville, I went home and promptly slept for two hours. I would highly recommend these sessions to anyone with sleeping issues. It flat knocks me out, but in a good way.

Until I woke up the next day, that is. That's when I felt like I got hit by a car. Every muscle in my core was sore.

I do think that there is something to this though. After practicing yoga (that's what the cool kids say apparently. You don't "do" yoga, you practice it), I feel exhausted, but in a really good way. I have a hard time describing it, but this kind of post-workout exhausted is much more pleasant than anything else I have tried (like running, walking, lifting or swimming).

I plan to take some of my tax refund and buy a package of classes. If I do, I will be sure to keep the Banasana up to date with any further ruminations I might have on the proceedings...

Until then, this is Chuck Garbanzo signing off.

An abrupt end to Paxil.

2009-02-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

This is filler. There IS and end to the Paxil dialogues, but I don't want to post it, not yet. Frankly, it is too personal. It's too family, too DasGupta, and too emotionally .....something. I haven't even shared it with my parents- the people the post is about- to even think about putting it on the blog. Emotional honesty leads to compelling reading, but family and privacy come first. Another time perhaps. Forgive the gap. I hope to fill it in in the future, but that's between me and mom and dad and bro.

That said, let's skip ahead, on to YogaMCA, back here in good ole' California, Yes?

Paxil Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #8

2009-01-27T11:25:00.000-08:00

Today is Madhavi’s class. Oddly enough, it’s the first Indian teacher I’ve come across, California included. In a little Michigan republican town, this is an oddity. There was a total of 6 Indian kids at my high school, population 1200, and here I am with this woman, the first person who can pronounce all the Sanskrit terms correctly, even better than Subramanya né Larry in California Yoga Central. I, admittedly, am waiting with much anticipation; I want to see how much of the standard spirtual dogma she injects in her class.

The answer? Little or none. She doesn’t bother with Om-ing or centering or anything- she just says

“Let’s start our practice with tadasana, hands on your mat, moving your right leg back into a lunge…”

She doesn’t even use a mat herself, and I am thrilled. It is with just a twinge of guilt and cultural self-rightousness that I want her to kick our asses, to do it in proper desi style, to get into some seriously challenging yoga, because it will validate my notion that all the “Spirit of Birdsong Blessings” yoga CD’s might be circumventing the fact that yoga might include a measure of actual work. She compliments me on my practice after the class, and I’m ashamed to say that I felt pretty proud of myself, out-yoga-ing the septuagenarian grandparents on the other side of the studio. A beat later, I think of my mother, at home, unconsciously holding her breast as she walks around the house, worried that she might never see it again, incapable of even thinking about attending yoga class. All of the sudden, I’m an asshole again, feeling proud for being privileged.

Paxil Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #7

2009-01-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

Having both your mother and your counselor in the throes of cancer makes it very easy to ‘set an intention’ – as all yoga teachers are apt to say- at the beginning of class. I don’t need to thank myself for bringing me here. I don’t need to share my practice with anybody. I’m here because I need to take care of myself, if only for the reason that I have done a poor job of this in the past, and if I die before my mom, I will have failed her terribly. Shit, I’m at home again, borrowing her car to come to class, reliant on her careful family planning and my father’s financial savvy, again, after years of being gainfully employed. Maybe nobody sets up their mats by me because I emanate guilt.

Paxil-Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #6

2009-01-22T17:54:00.001-08:00

I find, even as I like to poke fun at Greg, that I really like him. He goes out of his way to be friendly to me (no pun intended) and even suggests that I might like to attend the retreat coming up this weekend. He doesn’t do this to sell the studio, at least I don’t think he does; he’s complimenting me on my practice, suggesting that I will find more challenging yoga at the retreat. I’m trying to downplay the role of ego in my life, but it does feel good when someone strokes it. I’m as bad as a cat in this respect.

Paxil-Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #5

2009-01-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

Greg Friendlyberry is the teacher today at the yoga studio. His name isn’t Greg Friendlyberry, but it is truly similar. He is heavy on the Namaste, maybe overly-friendly, but I’m finding I no longer mind.

I don’t know if it is a consequence of Paxil® or just a nod to the fact that worse things can happen than slightly ridiculous New-Age Starbucks SUV-piloting suburban soccer moms all chanting ‘OM’ in different keys, but I find I don’t care about it anymore. I still can’t say ‘Namaste’ and bow in a pseudo-spiritual 'the-light-in-me recognizes-and-honorsthe-light-in-you Om-Shanti-Shanti-Om let-me-thank-myself-for-my-practice' sort of way, but if everybody else wants to do it, that’s just fine with me. They can even play that “Sounds of Nirvana” CD, the one with a tinkling faucet, a few carefully placed sitar notes, and a Casio-constructed orchestral background. It’s silly, but soothing in a way. I even like the aromatherapy candles.

All that said, I was still a little shocked- well, mildly surprised might be the more appropriate Paxil grammar- by Mr. Friendlyberry’s shivasana at the end of class. It was just normal at first, falling into that half-conscious state of supreme relaxation, but after a minute or two, I heard a sound I could only describe as exactly like stirring ground beef in a bowl with a wooden spoon. It turns out, this is the exact same sound of someone lathering their hands with goopy lavender hand lotion. I break shivasana etiquette and open my eyes, only to be looking up Greg’s shorts, as he is straddling me in the method of someone spotting a weightlifter in the gym. I really don’t know what to say or do, so I just close my eyes again, hoping he isn’t planning on molesting me in a spiritual way. He smears the lotion on my shoulders, which is just plain weird, but I play along, figuring supple shoulder skin isn’t too bad a consequence for not screaming “WTF are you doing!?!”. I figure it is over after a minute, but no, he then cups his hands over my ears, and the lotion has the effect of hermetically sealing my satellite dishes off from the world, and now I feel terribly odd, cut off from the rest of the world for a moment. He finishes by rubbing a lavender-scented bhindi on my forehead- the religious locale that ash is rubbed on when you enter a Hindu temple- and frankly the Paxil takes over. I figure this is the suburban ceremony, and as long as he removes his crotch from my direct line of sight, I will go along with it.

Paxil-Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #4

2009-01-17T16:18:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting with my mother in our normal 11:00 tea session, usually when I roll out of bed. I haven’t shaken California time, not because I haven’t been in the Mitten long enough, but because the medication makes me sleepy. We are just chit-chatting about nothing, dealing with dishes and dinner plans and the locations of food stuff in her kitchen.

“Mom, where’s the milk?” *, I ask.

“In the pitcher on the top shelf of the fridge. There’s Splenda® in the cupboard.”

I should mention that my father is diabetic, and my mother has been on a perpetual diet- one that gets thrown out around noon every day- ever since I reached an age in double-digits. As a result, everything in our house is fat-free, sugar-free, and flavor-free. I’m also 35, getting uglier by the day, worried about my dating prospects, and currently rubbing generic Rogain® ( the Meijer’s Thrifty Acres substitute) on to my growing solar panel. Even the tea we are drinking is a British version of Lipton. I realize, sitting at the counter with my mother, that I’m drinking fake tea with fake milk and fake sugar, watching the fake gas-powered fireplace, growing fake hair, feeling fake happiness with my fake mood, preparing to go to fake yoga, and fretting over the fact that my mother might have to get a fake boob. I tell her as such, and we laugh, the only real moment born of plastic parts.

*Being a family of both Anglo and Indian stock, we take milk in our tea on both sides of the Raj**. We don’t want lemons, and if you are a waitress, please ask before you dump a bunch of coffee on top of it. It’s TEA, damn it, and that’s important to us. Just sayin’.

** “Raj” meaning “king”, it refers to the British occupation of India from the 1800’s until Partition in 1947.

Paxil Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #3

2009-01-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

I play with my belly. Often. It is subconscious, and something my ex often chided me for, as I would pull it out in the middle of formal dinner parties.

I only mention this because I was resting my paws on their natural mantle during shivasana (the resting corpse pose) when the teacher suddenly tried to smother me with a yoga blanket. Was I that unwelcome?

I didn’t realize that paws-on-belly is code for ‘cover me with a blanket’ something not done in California. I consulted Em, and she confirmed that this is common practice in colder climates, as it is often difficult to prevent icy gusts slipping in under the door, and consequently chilling the studio. People like blankets after yoga. Still, it was shocking. They seemed like such nice people before they tried to kill me.

Paxil Addled Soccer Mom Yoga #2

2009-01-14T17:49:00.000-08:00

The yoga studio is, as the Yoga Cop described so eloquently, a soccer mom yoga deal. I’m no spring chicken, but I am unfailingly the youngest one there, and usually the only guy. The conversation- if you were to transcribe it- seems innocuous enough; what the best high schools are, the advantages of X university over Y college, etc etc, but on paper it lacks the subtle cadence of suburban mothers verbally competing to have the most talented child. I think most of the patrons wonder why I am here, and if I set up my mat on one side of the studio, they unfailingly all set up their mats on the opposite side. This is our routine.

Paxil®-addled Soccer-Mom Yoga: Practicing “Enchanted Mi(chigan)tten” Style

2009-01-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

I am back in suburbia, Metro-Deetroit to be specific, in the little, almost entirely white, predominantly republican town I grew up in. There are manicured lawns, albeit under a thin crust of icy snow at the moment, a dearth of bike lanes, and SUV’s larger than beejeezus (this is the heart of the auto industry, for however long it lasts).

I have been doing yoga with soccer moms, at the very same studio our friend the Yoga Cop visited. Still, before we get to that, I should explain how I got here.

Mom has breast cancer. She, in her own words, “got off easy”- it hasn’t metastasized, and the worst-case scenario is that she will need a mastectomy. That said, it is a scary ordeal, being confronted with mortality, for both me, the son, and mom the….well, mom. On top of this, my high school friend’s mother has a mass in her abdomen, and the prognosis doesn’t look great. His father died of liver cancer only 18 months ago. On top of that the Zeeb- my counselor and friend, and my best friend’s counselor and friend- has undergone, in quick succession, a diagnosis of diabetes and a stroke. He rallied from these with incredible strength- regaining his language skills in less than a month- only to find a blockage in his colon two months later. When they opened him up, they found a mess of cancer all throughout his abdomen, a sticky spider web of malignant slime-mould permeating all of his internal organs. The doctors say he’s got 6-12 months.

I don’t mean to laundry list a sob story- I just need preamble how and why I am now doing yoga with Midwestern suburban wives of auto executives in a haze of anti-depressant medication.

What with residual pains from the shingles-which I mistook for a giant lung tumor- a smoking habit that I am having similar success kicking as our president-elect, and a propensity towards hypochondria when I get stressed out, I convinced myself that I, too, had cancer. I’d call up my high school buddy in the throes of a panic attack, detailing my symptoms, explaining exactly how and why I was going to die, researched thoroughly on the internet. He advised me to take care of it, get a doctors appointment, and, for fuck’s sake, go and see my mother. I was all for guidance at this point, incapable of thinking clearly for myself, so I booked a plane ticket, fully expecting that mom and I could at least occupy the same room in the oncology ward. Who says mothers and sons don’t do things together anymore?

So I came home. To support mom, of course, but also to clear up my issues. ‘Fess up, if you will. I hastily bought health insurance and set off on the plane, shooting pains and swollen lymph nodes all part and parcel.

Mom’s second surgery was still a few weeks away when I arrived, so I scheduled an appointment for myself, figuring that would give us both time to arrange our shared hospital room and perhaps decide on a television viewing schedule, as she favors programs featuring Welsh choirs while I go for crime dramas. I anticipated conflict over the remote.

Suffice to say I was being, if not melodramatic, than at least highly paranoid. I won’t elaborate too much, only say that I got chided by the doctor for poking my lymph nodes with enough fear and force and regularity that they became, duh, swollen. She took blood, poked me in what I assume was a medical way, and decided that I was freaking out. Because I was freaking out, she decided I was depressed and anxious, enough to prescribe Paxil®.

I can’t describe exactly what this drug feels like, although it is eerily similar to taking Threraflu, or any other haze-inducing cold medicine. It is not good, it is not bad, it is just…… zero. It is a curious detachment. Becoming anxious or panicked is simply not an option- whatever brain center was previously responsible for this has been completely deactivated. It can best described by my experience coping with driving in the snow.

I had borrowed dad’s car ( and make no mistake, living at my parents’ house means being 16 again, whether I like it or not) and the roads were terrible, bad enough to start fishtailing on a particularly precarious incline. It was a major road, the closest you can get to a freeway, and a collision would likely mean blood and death and spilled, lacerated organs. You’d figure, being as there were only stalwart aluminum railings that would, should you hit them, only serve to bounce you back into oncoming traffic like a billiard ball, that I would be concerned.

I wasn’t concerned. I wasn’t able. That curious, mandatory calmness didn’t let me.

I have to say it probably helped. I didn’t panic, just adjusted and regained control of the car. Still, I was alarmed at my detachment at the situation. OK, that’s not true. I didn’t feel alarmed at all. I had some sort of abstract perception that I SHOULD be alarmed, but …….nothing. Zero. I just thought

“Well, this sure seems dangerous. I suppose I should do something.”

Although there was no physical or emotional reaction whatsoever, I did recognize the fact that this should be scary, but only in the same way that reading a newspaper article about a homicide in an adjacent neighborhood is scary. I understood that there was danger, and that I could be subject to it, but it was not at all immediate, the type of bowel-twisting fear we are all wired to feel in such situations. Being unable to feel spookiness, it was again academic.

And so here I am. Mom’s surgery is in a few days, and I’m trying to fill time. Being as all my shooting pains disappeared after I stopped repeatedly fingering my lymph nodes, I decided it was time to step up and start being proactive about my health. I’ve signed up for a month at the local Yoga studio, and I’m taking Em’s advice, trying to make it every day, maybe twice a day, although this dependent upon when I can borrow the car. It’s odd, playing the role of a teenager again when I’m in my thirties, but there you go. Hopefully, I can use the time to reconcile all my issues with this little ugly hamlet I grew up in, maybe realize that everything I hated about this town was borne of adolescent angst, within me rather than rooted in some imaginary avarice of the residents. I’m crossing my fingers on this one, but only because read somewhere that this might bring me ‘luck’, something a Paxil patient can only understand on paper.

Guest Blogger: Chronically Fabulous

2009-01-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Coming to us from fabulous Colorado, CF articulates her feelings better than I can, actually.....

Proud to be a Yogi from Muskogee
By ChronicallyFabulous (author of the blogs “Chronically Fabulous" and the upcoming "TheYogaExperiment"[link forthcoming])

Confession: I’m an All-American Yogini.

I’ve been practicing and loving yoga since 1994 – before wannabes like Madonna made it trendy. I’ve studied yoga at studios all over the US and Europe, with “famous” instructors. I’ve taught yoga to students who were inspired to begin yoga by my teachings. I know the names and the terms and the videos and the buzzwords enough to establish some old skool “street cred” – or is that “mat cred?”

So here is my confession: I hate sitar music, I’m not learning Sanskrit, I’m converting to any branch of Hinduism, I’ve never been to India…. And what’s more, I’m not interested in any of the preceding things.

I’ve been conflicted about my indifference to India for quite some time. I am of course aware of the ugly history of White Americans appropriating and reselling the cultural riches of other races while leaving those who developed the ideas to languish in poverty and obscurity. And even I have had moments where I have been horribly embarrassed by “American” trends in yoga, such as every yoga teacher brand-naming their yoga teachings, and of course the advertisements for new yoga-themed consumer products (Nike YOGA SHOES …..People who feel that the lower their body fat, the higher their spiritual awareness…Alanis Morrisette shrieking, “thank you India” on Top 40 radio….Russell Simmons headlining yoga events….Excuse me while my spirit barfs)

Plus, there comes a time in the American yoga practitioner’s life when s/he is supposed to make that great spiritual pilgrimage to India. To pursue a deeper, more authentic experience of yoga, and of course, also to be able to show off to the students back home and be accepted into the cool yogi clique (in a deeply spiritual way, of course.) Was I going to stay stuck in a gym-class-yoga mentality unless I booked that (very expensive) airline ticket?

The problem is, the glowing reports of American teachers returning from their passage to India did nothing to increase my desire to visit the subcontinent. A composite report from my former yoga teachers: “I spent a month studying yoga in Goa with Guru X and I got malaria and dysentery and worms, I had explosive diarrhea every night, I was held prisoner by militants, all my luggage was stolen, my Guru sexually molested me….. but it was a deeply spiritual experience that you just can’t understand until you go there, I urge every serious yoga student to experience it for themselves.” Umm……gee, I can’t wait…..

The flip side of White cultural appropriation is White starry-eyed Orientalism. Now that I’ve been in the yoga community long enough, I have discovered that many of the tenets that I believed were part of the ancient Indian wisdom of yoga are actually American ideals. For example, I was taught that yoga is by definition non-competitive, a sign of the Eastern wisdom that was above grasping American competitiveness. Imagine my surprise when I found out that in India, Yoga Competitions are commonplace, where yogis compete publicly for awards for the best physical pose. I was taught that yoga is about “listening to your body” – a phrase you would hear in nearly every class in the US in the past 10 years – about being respectful of your own limitations and never straining or pushing to injury. So imagine my surprise to read the many accounts by Indian yogis of how their beloved gurus would force them into extreme, muscle-ripping poses in order to show off and attract more students.

If we can be embarrassed by American yoga’s cheesiness and excesses, then we can also be proud of the American aspects of yoga that we take for granted: the preponderance of women in a discipline that was until recently men-only; the democratic spread of yoga to all who are interested in a book or a class, without having to make a lifetime commitment to a guru; and the expectation that a teacher/guru will keep his dick in his yoga pants, or face a lawsuit. I think all of these trends are truly spiritual progress. Also, in America we don’t drink our own urine (a trend among certain Indian practitioners, and proof that there IS something out there that tastes worse than wheatgrass.)

So I’ve come to peace with the fact that the yoga I practice and love is a truly American style. Thank you India, and thanks to all my teachers who have braved international travel to study, re-package, and water down this great art for people like me.

Shootin' Guns with Yoga Cop

2008-12-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, Chuck Garbanzo has volunteered to take me to the shootin' range. I figure since he did something he wasn't apt to do, I should spend a little time in his world. So, until my trigger finger scratches that itch......

Clips for you

2008-12-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

Sent to me by a fellow yogi, this clip of Ogden the innappropriate yoga guy is spot on.

Of Mice and Pants

2008-12-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

So I'm in an odd situation, running back and forth between coasts. I'm relying on reruns to keep the blog rolling, and so, here goes an old standard, a tale of rodents and death and pants...

I fell in love with brushed-cotton pants in college. Let me say right off the bat, I am not a ‘clothes’ person. Those who know me will attest to this fact. I am happy to wear the same T-shirt for days, even weeks in a row, providing no telling stains occur (wasn’t that spaghetti sauce there last Thursday?). I also feel the need, being as I’m bearing my wardrobe soul, that I am not a disgusting slob. I bathe two, sometimes three times a day. I even wash behind my ears occasionally. It’s just that I’ve worked out this system of organization that requires a knowledge of :
A) Where my pants are, and
B) What they contain AT ALL TIMES(i.e. keys, wallet, breath freshener, pencil eraser, quarters for laundry, pennies for fountains, get-out-of-jail-free card, etc., etc.)
This is a serious commitment. I know few people that have the kind of bond that I do with my pants. I have even bought equipment to accentuate my pant habit. I have a pant key-ring, a pant belt, even a specific pant hook, where I hang my pants everyday. I can’t go to sleep at night unless I know that my pants for the ‘morrow are prepared for what the good lord sees fit to send my way. I keep my lunch in my pants, a wilderness survival kit in my pants, and an extra pair of pants in my pants.
I was not always this concerned about my trousers. I used to have less responsibilities, less commitments, less keys, and, in general, less experience in life, not knowing that is always prudent to be prepared, and that, to be prepared for life, you must have all your necessary accessories and accoutrements firmly secured to your pants. I had procured the brushed cotton pants I was wearing the day of the Incident at my catering job in college. We often left out clothes at work, and just changed when we got there. Eventually, because of rampant pant-theft, we moved over to a systematic-pant placement system. One guy, about 6 inches taller and 10 inches wider than me had left his pants there some weeks ago, and then decided the food service industry wasn’t doing it for him. These were the pre-pants system days, and so I was always on the lookout for a good pair. Granted, I had to roll up the cuffs several times and wear a belt, and I always felt slightly naked as the pants in question floated around my chicken legs in roughly the same proportions as the walls of the Carlsbad caverns around float around a spelunking cable, but they were quality trousers nonetheless, and, being a broke college student, who was I to say no to a posh pair of free pants? I kept them and wore them often. The fact that I wore them often is central to this story; however my affinity for pants is not. In essence, I told you that story so that I could tell you this one.
I was wearing these very pants on the Day, a late afternoon in early April. I had an early schedule. Teachers are expected to do five classes a day, with three off-periods, one for planning, one for conferences, and one for lunch, although no one I know adheres to these guidelines. We have nine periods in the day, and I finished my last class seventh period. Meredith, another biology teacher, had the room for eighth period, so I usually left her to her devices and Xeroxed the materials I needed for the following day.
The copying room is one floor below me, on the mezzanine level. It’s called the mezzanine level because it is technically illegal to conduct class in the basement of a public school building. See, semantics are your friends! The science copy room is right next to Bruscato’s Grotto. Bruscotto is the AP English teacher and probably one of the most sarcastic people I’ve ever met. Her door is the last on the hallway, and she loves to make fun of me whenever I try and borrow a pencil or use the English department’s scantron machine. Considering the abuse she hurls at me, I’ve learned that it’s easier to just go back upstairs and borrow an eraser from someone who doesn’t delight in humiliating me. I’ll grant you, it is kind of funny, albeit mostly for her, and I usually just roll with it, but some days I just don’t want to deal, and this was one of them.
I unlocked the door to the copy room, let myself in, and let the door slam shut behind me. I wasn’t in there more than 10 seconds before I heard a frantic ‘blam blam blam!” on the window. It’s art deco glass, difficult to see through, but I could still identify Bruscotto’s silhouette. I figured she was bored and looking to antagonize me, so I ignored her.

BlamBLamBLAM!

“Shumit! Come on, you have to help me!”

She was panicked and something was amiss. I opened the door.

“ There’s a mouse in my room.”

She pronounced the word mouse with clenched teeth, sort of like a ventriloquist, but without any masking of lip motion.

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.

“Well, you’re the biology teacher.”

Notice how ‘biology teacher’ is used as a thin cover-up for ‘exterminator’. I guess the logic is, you work with animals, you must actually like them, right? Therefore I can ask you to pull some pied-piper maneuver and dance your fellow ‘people’ right out of my classroom. I think people assume that because you study the mechanics of existence that you have a ‘respect for all life’ and are willing to put ‘greasy little vermin’ in a cage and make some sort of ‘leaning situation’ out of it. I understand that some scientists choose a particular species and make a career out of studying them in minute detail, but we’re high school teachers. That’s like breeding mosquitoes; no fun and a dumb idea.
I went into her room and she pointed out the hole from whence the mouse had come, and its trajectory along the floor. The hole was cartoon-perfect: it was bored out through the baseboard, a Tom-and-Jerry half-circle, with gnaw-marks around the edge.

“Well, aren’t you gonna go get it?”, she said.

I think she expected me to pull out my “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” machine, the pocket version that all good biology teachers carry, grab a sharpened toothpick, now the size of a spear in my shrunken hands, and get in there and slay the evil dragon-mouse in it’s lair. I looked at her blankly. She blinked a few times. During this silent negotiation, the mouse chose to stick its furry little whiskers out of the hole, and Bruscotto saw it. She screamed and bolted out of the room, just like a 50’s sitcom.

Exit English teacher #1.

Lacking any better ideas, I grabbed a roll of masking tape from her desk and taped up the hole. I fished her out of the hallway and assured her that the mouse no longer had access to her room, or method of recourse. She begrudgingly accepted this, and I finished my copies and headed back up to my room, just as the kids were leaving for the day.
We liked to bitch and complain, Meredith and I, as we were new teachers feeling our way around the system. As we were in the same place at the same time, just after her last class, and as the room was void of children, we unofficially reserved this slot to do just that. She cleaned up detritus from her lab, and I organized my labs for the next day, all the while blowing off steam. It was a ritual, one that I had become accustomed to and fond of. We also parlayed with other teachers, and this day Faraj, another English teacher, came by. She wanted to borrow a video from me, an ocean documentary with Marlins in it, as she was teaching ‘the old man and the sea.”
Now at the time, I kept all my files and videos on the floor so that we had more counter space to do labs. I don’t do this anymore for reasons that will become painfully clear, but at this point in my career, there they were, so I hunkered down to my milk crate to try and find the item she was asking for. I was in the corner of the room, and my brushed cotton pants had relaxed the rolled up cuff that I had put in it at the beginning of the day, hitting the ground and just barely tucking itself under the sole of my shoe. While flipping through my files, I felt a disturbance in the force around my ankle, one with slightly furry undertones. It was a peculiar sensation, one of trespassing coupled with fuzzy cuteness. I probingly touched my ankle, over the top of my pants and I swear I felt the odd and singular sensation of a life form just underneath brushed cotton, yet pressed up against my stylish tube-socks. Despite the uniqueness of this sensation, I was unconvinced that the evidence could support an event so ludicrous. But given the data, I had to consider this as a possibility.

“Hey Guys?” I said. “I think I might have a mouse in my pants.”

It’s worrisome to watch people’s eyes bulge in disbelief, especially when you are the subject. I grabbed my pants just under the pleats, as if I was just about to curtsy to the queen, and started shaking them vigorously, while jumping and dancing around in circles, trying desperately to dislodge the potential mouse. Like quantum physics, it was still potential at this point- I didn’t have enough solid evidence to claim that the existence of the mouse was a plausible theorem, rather than merely hypothetical at this point. At any rate, it must have looked ridiculous, and the soundtrack was of me screaming “OK! OK! OK!” in a desperate attempt to placate my self, to convince myself that everything was OK, that I didn’t really have a rodent in my trousers, and that the image of my colleagues staring at me in wide-eyed incredulousness was only a bad dream that I would laugh about in the morning. The mouse didn’t fall out, I was still confused as to whether this was really happening, and then…
Everybody has had a visit from the plumber, the cable guy, any mechanical specialist that actually makes more money than an educator. Being self-employed, I guess you can wear what you want, but I guess the old stereotype is true. We’ve all spent some time in the kitchen with the fix-it man, and wondered why, given all the options, they would choose pants that exposed parts of their flesh that is considered taboo. I want you to do something for me. Take your hand right now, reach around to your backside, and gently place it at the top of this unnamed anatomical feature.

Now guess where I found the mouse.
As I can’t show my derriere at work, and you are familiar with my penchant for belts, gizmos, and securely fitted pants, the mouse was still below the boundaries of my waist, unreachable by conventional means. Now I had proof though, It was on, I surely was rodent-infected and my worst suspicions were confirmed, I think it was evident on my face, as both Meredith and Faraj’s eyelids peeled even further back into their skulls.
“OKOKOKOK!” I shouted. “I think I have to take off my pants!”

Exit English teacher #2.

Meredith stood by me, though. Well, near me. She stayed in the room, at any rate. I undid my belt, stripped off the pants, held them by the waist and shook. A little brown mouse tumbled out, rolling end over end on the tiled floor of the classroom. I think that when I reached back towards my backside, I must have, in my panic, hit the mouse pretty hard, because it was clearly wrecked; it’s ribcage smashed, only able to breathe in thin, painful sheets. It’s legs were clearly useless- after the momentum of the tumble, after gravity had settled it, it wasn’t going to skitter off anywhere. I would imagine that if my students were in the room that they would gingerly pick up the mouse with a spatula, gently place it in an aquarium lined with soft bedding, and place a nourishing carrot next to it, in the hopes that their effort would somehow inspire the little guy to find the strength to heal itself. Meredith and I both knew the truth, though. This mouse was going to die. It was unexpected, this kinship I suddenly felt for the mouse. We had shared a pair of pants, after all. This is considered grounds for marriage amongst your own species. We shared trauma, me and this creature, probably the most bonding event between two organisms. And, thinking about this, and my role as a professional biology guy, and the look that Meredith gave me, I knew what had to be done. I grabbed the thickest textbook I could find, held it parallel and aloft over the wheezing mouse, and released. I don’t know if it makes me a better, more sensitive human being, but I did at least flinch at the sound of the thump. I left my room, punched out in the main office, and let the maintenance staff know that there was a dead mouse underneath the textbook on the floor of the room, and went home.

Jogging With Rod

2008-12-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

This, admittedly, has nothing to do with Yoga, but it's so timely that I had to put it up. It was from my old teacher blog, about the day I inadvertently went jogging with Mr. Blagojevich...

I bike to work in the mornings, and I’m fond of stopping at different places to get breakfast. At the bakery the other morning, the woman in front of me asked me if I wanted to go ahead of me, as she was getting a slew of food, and I merely wanted the three-cheese bacon soufflé and a cup of earl grey, as I am wont to do. I recognized her, she was a parent of one of my students. I remembered her face, I think she may even be the parent of a student I have currently. I could picture her in my classroom, talking animatedly at parent/teacher conferences, but I couldn’t connect her with her kid, and, even stranger, I couldn’t recall the emotional direction of the conversation, only the timber. It was intense, but was it bad intense or good intense? Did she think I was a great teacher, or was she distraught at her kid’s performance? Even worse, did she blame me? I didn’t say anything.

This happens a lot. The first year I taught, on the south side, there wasn’t any real danger of running into any of my students, as it was a neighborhood school and I didn’t live there. I was a first-year teacher as well, so I just hadn’t accumulated a lot of former students. Things are different now, though. At the school I’m at, kids come from all quarters of the city, so really, nowhere is safe. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, too, which compounds things. Parents are even tougher, as, if you even meet them ever, it’s only once or twice a year.

Last summer, near the end when my mind was as far away from school as possible, I was dawdling in the Public Library near my house. A friend of mine had mentioned that he had never read The Phantom Tollbooth, and so I decided to get it for him. I headed over to the Young Adult section, and started perusing from the titles. From the librarians desk I hear, clearly directed at me,

“Wow, so are you looking for a good teen read?”

OK, it’s one thing for some chowder heads in pick-up truck to yell at me as I ride around town on my bike. It’s expected, no surprise. I wondered, though if I must’ve emblazoned a big fat “L” for loser on my forehead for the Children’s Librarian to feel compelled to take potshots at me. Of course, it was a parent, but it’s always momentarily surprising to be taken to task when my mind is elsewhere.

So today I went running. I have to say, I hate running, but I have recently been persuaded to run a duatholon, basically run/bike/run. I went with Roy, my housemate. He’s got a bum knee, so he only made it a mile or so before he had to stop and walk. I went ahead, hit the turn around point, and started back. I switched over to the asphalt, as I’m told it’s better for your legs. Another guy was jogging down the sidewalk, dressed in a black tracksuit. He was bobbing and weaving, but without the grace of a prizefighter. He was gesticulating wildly, like someone in the last leg of a marathon who concurrently has a swarm of bees flying around his head. He was being followed by an older man who looked perturbed, and clearly was following him. I decided that the Tracksuit must be retarded, or perhaps had some condition, which made him loose motor skills, and that the old man was following him to make sure he didn’t run into a tree or something. This, however, was not the case.

About a minute later, Roy was coming toward me waving his arms and yelling something.

“DID YOU SEE RON?”, he yelled.

“WHO’S RON?”

“NOT RON, ROD!”

“ROD WHO?”

It turns out that that Mr. Gesticulation was none other than our infamous governor, Rod “the Bod” Blagojevich, out maintaining his chiseled physique. As for the old guy, well, apparently Roy was strolling down the street, when he caught sight of the Bod, and this old guy runs up out of nowhere and starts screaming

“MY PENSION, MY PENSION, YOU BASTARD, WHAT ABOUT MY PENSION!?!”

The Bod’s reply was

“Hey, It’s all right, everything will work out”, and kept on running.

I don’t know if this was the same guy who was following him when I saw him, but Roy really wasn’t too far away. I also don’t know if this flustered the Bod enough to adopt the jogging style he was flaunting when he got up to me, but If I get to pick, I’m surely going to believe that it’s true.

Guest Blogger: The Yoga Cop Incident

2008-12-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

Incident Number - 08-38417

Location - 200 S. Main Street

Date & Time - 12/01/2008 1000 hours

Crime - Embarrassment of Law Enforcement Official

Suspect - Actual name unknown. Goes by the street name of "Mimi". Female, White. Age approx 75 years old. 5'02'' 130 lbs. Grey hair, blue eyes.

Setting - Northville Michigan, otherwise known as "Yuppieville, USA". Upper-middle class town (think entry level executive management in what used to be a Big 3 company type dads with career minded moms) with a slightly pretentious twist (ie the Historical District with huge, modernly renovated Victorian style homes).

Witnesses - Approximately 4 Mom-looking women in their 30's, about 4 women who appeared to be from their mid 40's to their early 50's (very serious yoga type ladies, for sure) and an elderly couple in their 80's (which I was glad for, there was one other dude in the class).

Details - Upon entry, the victim (herewith referenced to as "I") was greeted by "Mimi". She appeared to be a nice lady, but I wasn't fooled. I could see that little gleam of amusement in her eye as she sized me up. When I told her I had done some jogging recently to try to get in shape she could hardly stifle a laugh. It was clear to me that this Mimi was going to be trouble.

I knew I would be getting all physical and stuff, so I asked her where I could safely store my super-tactical .45 autoloader, my backup snubbie .38, my folding pocket blade and my Taser. All I got in return was a blank stare (What was up with that? I left my 5.56mm Colt M-4 carbine in the car, it's not like I am a gun nut or anything). I took that to mean I should probably go back out to my car and leave them there, so I did. Mostly. I held on to one the Taser, you know, just in case things got too out of hand.

Class began and Mimi turned down the lights, and wait... She is LOCKING US IN!!! I think I shoulda worn my special thunder-wear holster and kept the .38 on me.

Okay we are sitting cross legged on the floor and I am having a hard time doing this properly. I am a sloucher. The tops of my legs hurt from just sitting down. This is going to be a long class.

Now we are into the table pose, not too bad, my arms are only slightly shaking. Now comes cat-stretching thing and a dog-stretching thing, moving our hips forward and backward while in the table pose. Did Mimi just say "anus"? The one arm, one leg table got me all fatigued, right quick. This would be a highly effective form of torture on suspects. Now the downward dog pose. My goodness, my academy days of doing 50 pushups at a time have certainly left me. Not 10 minutes into it, I am now sweating, and this isn't even Bikram yoga.

The child pose. We are supposed to rest here? I can't get my heels within 10 inches of my butt. I have had surgeries on both my knees, so this is more like me having half my weight on my forehead, like some sort of weird butt-in-the-air tripod. This can't be right.

On to a standing pose (this is a pose?) Mimi just defined what our perineum is. I happen to know that one, being a father and the most attentive dad in the pre-childbirth classes. It sounds weird to hear Mimi tell me that I need to tighten up my "taint" ('taint the ass nor balls), or what some dudes call the "ABC" (ass ball connector). Some good stretching from this pose, nothing too terribly twisty, I am starting to think I will survive with most of my dignity intact, even though Mimi had said the word "anus" far too many times for my comfort.

Lunge-type poses. Here is where my first laughing fit started. I was able to contain it, but I seem to think this part would be much more enjoyable if I could have done this with a bunch of the dudes I work with. The imaginative cursing and farting would have been hugely appropriate and hilarious at this point. I almost fell over when instructed to wrap my arm all the way around my leg. Pressing my knee into my shoulder was laughable as well. I did hear a few chuckles from the old guy across the room when we were instructed to bend certain ways. This guy was a trooper though. That was about all I heard out of him. I was afraid to look at him though, looking at a person less flexible than me would have been too much funny for me to handle. If this place had mirrors, I woulda been a goner.

Now we do a lotus pose? Anyways, we are flat on our bellies and start lifting arms and legs again. I like how we rest between doing each side, it makes me feel more balanced. Wait a minute, that sounds a little weird, maybe even fancy. Taser still in place? Check. Plan on how to knock the locked door down as an emergency exit? Check. There, I feel better.

Next we are asked to lay on our backs, and start pulling our knees into our chests. We are also instructed to put our knees and ankles together (?!?), and let them fall to the floor on one side while keeping our opposite shoulder on the floor. I called this the twister pose. Can a person who happens to have testicles even do this? I suppose so, there are some dudes who can sit and cross their legs like women can, but I am not one of them. I am an ankle-on-knee leg crosser. I almost compressed my little buddies into flat discs attempting this madness. Mimi saw me struggling, so she put a blanket between my knees, which made me certain that this was the pose I would now call the FAIL pose.

Now I think we are doing what I have heard referred to as "repose". This is nice. My body feels aligned, and although I am on a thin mat on a hard floor, I am strangely comfortable. Then Mimi comes around and places a blanket on me, and some kind of sandbags on my ankles and wrists. She is also using a fan to waft some pleasantly smelling breezes my way. This part I like.

But then I start thinking, and almost break out into laughter again. Damn that Bananasana and his funny yoga blog with his funky door cartoon porn stories. Try to not think about that while in repose the next time you do yoga, I dare you.

When Mimi speaks again, although she is speaking in low tones, I hear her clearly and strongly. Heightened senses I suppose.

Namaste...

Aftermath - It is about two hours post-yoga as I write this. I feel better than I thought I would, the serious muscle pain probably won't arrive until tomorrow. Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I plan on going back, some of what went on was too much to absorb in the first class.

Case Status - I will obtain a warrant for Mimi, she seems dangerous, but I will hold off on serving it until after I give this a few more tries.

Officer Chuck Garbanzo

In Through the Funky Door #3: Out the other side.

2008-11-29T15:05:00.000-08:00

Class begins.

Class begins, I should point out, with the FunkySexual asking who was new. I raise my hand, and he asks me my name. When introducing himself, he made a point of adding a very latin trill to the ‘r’ in his name, even though his natural cadence is white-guy, and so I feel compelled to do the same. I pronounce my name properly, and to my surprise, he bounces it back fairly well.

“OK, Shumit, your job is to just stay in the room today, do the best you can, got it? Good, let’s pick up and gogogo, people!” *clap clap!*

Frankly, I’m a little put off by all this, as well as the fact that the guy from the last class left a patch- no, a puddle- of soaking wet carpet in his wake. ‘If every one sweats like this all over the carpet’ I think, ‘several times a day, then-

Some primitive form of denial abruptly cuts off this line of thought, perhaps my brain recognizing that if I consider this too closely, I’ll run howling from the room and take a Lysol shower. I’m not prone to germaphobia, at all really, but well….best not to think about it.

There is no mystic chanting, but it is the same “V” reptilian breathing as the other Bikram studio. In fact- as per Bikram’s precise orders and subsequent litigation, the whole series is exactly the same, the difference being now there is a little brown man yelling at me through a loudspeaker. Probably even closer to Bikram’s original vision.

He even looks a little like Bikram in his younger days, as he’s tan and wears his hair in the 1970’s Action Hero Part to the left. He even- I’m not making this up- slips into a faux Indian accent from time to time.

Does he get to do that? Frankly, I’m offended. FunkySexual can mock his own heritage all he wants, but that shit is crossing the line. But then again, Funky Door crossed the line a long time ago, and the fact that I didn’t turn my ass directly around when I walked in the door might be on me.

I’m not really sure what to say about the specifics of the rest of the class, but I’m definitely thinking about the whole enterprise. At one moment, in a brief repose in shivasana, I’m just glancing around the room, noting how much energy- the ‘pay the bills’ sort of energy- gets used here. The heat is on throughout the whole class, and a couple dozen fans are rotating above us. The speakers are bumping, both with FunkySexuals voice and some corny aerobics soundtrack. The on-site Laundromat is humming along, washing the towels from the previous class, getting them ready for the next. Fluorescent tubes illuminate the studio, giant metal ducts carry heated furnace air. There is a massive amount of fossil fuel being expended, and I’m here to tell you, it is almost all for naught.

This is the one moment where I get to speak with absolute authority, more than American yogis, more than full-blooded desis, more than Bikram himself, and this is not only despite the fact that I am a half breed, but because of it.

The story goes, Bikram was noticing how quickly Indians can get into poses as opposed to Americans. His solution was the heat- in theory, all this excessive sweating is to make the Americans more flexible, loosen tendons, etc etc. Anyone who has seen pictures of Indians in contorted positions will realize that those of Dravidian descent are built along different lines. I first realized to what measure they are by watching my 80+ year old grandmother doing the laundry in the pond by our house in Calcutta. She was squatting, knees next to her ears like a bullfrog while simultaneously slapping wet laundry on a rock. She would remain in this position for hours at a time, performing fairly arduous physical labor, and it did not bother her in the least.

This odd squatting position, so common among Bengalis at least (and Bikram is a Bengali) is a contortion that Americans find awkward, and frankly aren’t built for. Try it your self- squat down, with your heels still on the floor and your knees spread wide enough so that your arms are between them. Have something to do, maybe a sudoku puzzle or something. See how far you get. I’m not even willing to try, myself. I’d give myself 3 minutes. I got the English knees.

The question is, how much can the 105 degree heat help? It, along with the series of postures ( and while I will concede that it seems a fine series, so are plenty of other series) does it really make it easier for the American body to slip into Indian poses?

Not so much.

The problem is, the gulf between body type is too large to bridge with just heat, and I know- I’m one of few that can tell exactly how wide it is. I have a measure of both- in some ways I’m as flexible as any desi, in others I’m worse off, due to the odd mix of continents and genetics (then again, I’m a touch bulkier than your average Bengali, and I love visiting Calcutta, if only for the fact that, by a measure of an inch or so, I am actually tall). I have European arm sockets and Indian ball-joints and can dislocate my shoulders like other people crack their knuckles. If a punjabi – an Indian shirt- is fitted to my height and stature, I will rip out the arpmits the first time I lift my hands higher than my neck. Yes, I’m somewhere here nor there, sure, but at the same time I’m touching both shores, and there is quite a bit of water here.

I’m not trying to imply that the worlds are too far, the gap can’t be bridged, there will never truly be a yogic understanding amongst Americans- that’s just stupid. There are plenty who get it already. All I’m saying is, all that heat you are paying for? It ain’t doing much except contributing to global warming and making you feel as if you got a “real workout” because you “really sweated.” Perhaps a cleansing of toxins was mentioned as well. You can also get a ‘real workout’ and ‘cleanse those toxins’ by reading the paper in the sauna at the YMCA.

It is, I must admit, a wonderful cloak that has been pulled over our eyes. Bikram saw something in Americans and catered to us, and it is the notion of excess and control that was the button. Think about it. Drive a car? HELL no, an SU fucking V!! Cheeseburger? If you finish our 5 LB Monster Burger in one sitting YOU GET IT FOR FREE! We are the same nation that invented ‘wave pools’ instead of going to the beach, we walk on treadmills instead of actually walking places, and now we’ve applied our simulacrum technology to mimic the heat of India in the hopes that it will make our yoga a little more like the real thing, At least as far as the weather is concerned.

And the specificity and talent for waste deserve mention as well. What better way to get men ( and there is a much higher proportion of men at Bikram classes) interested in Yoga than to add a bit of engineering (105 degrees precisely) and conspicuous energy consumption into the equation?

In this all, I have to make the concession. Bikram saw us for who we are. For all my bleating about it, perhaps he gave Americans the very yoga that they wanted, and perhaps, could handle. I’m still not quite ready to say that his sequence has no merit, but it really is yoga tailored for Americans. Even in his 60 minutes interview, when his yoga was compared to McDonalds, and he was asked if this bothered him, he basically said ‘not at all.’

Truly something to consider.

My Yoga Costume on the floor

2008-11-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

It is coming with me to the Enchanted Mitten. I'm going to see my mom, and catching up with myself. So be it. I'm packing my bags, bringing my uniform, hoping that I'll have more to dispatch about from the chilly Midwest. I hope all y'all are having a grand turkey day, tofurky for the Bay folks, or whatever you do wherever you are. It's the Great Lakes for me, for the next month or more. See you soon.

In Through the Funky Door #2: The studio

2008-11-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

The Funky Door stands in front of me, flames inclusive, and the notable detail is that the windows are fogged, and dripping, as if there was a murky, cloud covered and chilly grey day- the sort that makes you reach for a good book and a cup of tea- happening on the inside of the building. I know the truth, though, it’s water that has passed through the pores of at least 100 students. And this is just the lobby. I’m exponentially beyond second thoughts at this point, but I said I’d do it, and so cross over to the other side.

Now, I knew there would be cartoons on the walls. I’d pictured Pluto in Downward Dog or something, maybe an occasional Warrior Pose Barbie , but almost EVERY INCH of the studio is covered in exaggerated depictions of the asanas, as well as a host of other various yoganachronisms. I can best describe them with a laundry list:

There hundreds of little cartoon people that evoke memories of the 1970’s illustrated puberty primer “What’s Happening to Me?”

There are monkeys in bikinis.

There are animals of all phyla, really, all striking poses.

There is Richard Nixon.

There is a Frankenstein wearing a T-shirt with a rainbow.

There is even a little cartoon of Bikram himself.

And those are just the cartoons.

There is also a man behind the counter wearing only daisy duke/roller derby cut shorts, and I have to assume he embodies the expanded definition of a eunuch, as I cannot imagine his package wouldn’t make a desperate bid for freedom by tunneling out the bottom , like the worms in Dune. Without the girth, of course, given the lack of breathing room in his shorts. I know, I know, you might be tempted to speculate on my sexuality for me to notice such a thing, but understand I HAD NO CHOICE. His shorts command an attention married to compulsive gawking, like an airplane crash on the news. He, while not actually flaunting his pelvis, was certainly cognizant of what he must of have looked like when he put them on, and there was clearly no shame involved. If fact, I believe he took some pride in his 0.33 square feet of cloth. How can a pair of shorts somehow be smaller than a thong?

There are also fake palm trees EVERYWHERE, small ones lining the top of the studio and larger ones in the hallway.

There are brightly colored plastic chairs in the shape of hands, palmed cupped as if begging for alms, the alms being your ass, I suppose.

There is a giant plaster sculpture of a blond nurse with a low cut blouse and miniskirt, a Red Cross emblem across her giant bazongas, and an enormously disproportionate head.

To top it all off, the windows are tinted to give an orange Southern California hue across the lobby, and I feel that I have come to do yoga in not so much a studio as on the set of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!

But that’s not quite all. There is one more cartoon, and it encapsulates the ethic and ambiance of the studio at large.

It is of Bill Clinton standing on the Washington Monument in a standing split pose, wearing only a pair of heart-speckled boxers and an American flag tie, smoking a cigar and holding a cup of McDonald’s French fries in his outstretched hand, and……….wait for it……….Monica Lewinski on her knees preparing to fellate his big toe.

I’m not making this up.

It is this perverse Disneypomorphism that sets the tone for the studio. I feel that, shorn of the shackles of cultural mores, Americanism has run rampant over the Funky Door, a vapid, Hollywood-inspired rainbow of shopping-mall fungal strains let loose on an empty Petri dish.

It is further bolstered when the teacher walks in the room. I don’t see him come in, but rather hear him. He is outfitted with a headset microphone, wired to hidden speakers, and the effect is of an omnipresent Voice of God.

“Are you all feeling OK?” booms the ethereal voice.

“You know, you girls could move toward the front if you want. I’ll be standing here a lot of the time, girls, and you may want to scoot up a bit, don’t be shy, let’s get closer!”

I’m confused as to where the front is, but at least God has given me a clue- he must be somewhere along the perimeter of the room, and I’m whip-lashing wildly trying to locate him, amongst the presidential cartoons reflected in carnival mirrors. When I do find him, I’m perturbed to discover that it’s the Metrosexual Eunuch who controls our destiny for the next 90 minutes. He’s saucy, here and queer, and immediately employs a method of CONSTANT TALKING, the cadence and rhythm being a conflation of Richard Simmons without the sympathy and a Midwest County Fair pig auction.

“Ok, OK! *Clap Clap* Let’s get right on to this!”

The actual yoga, at this moment, does not look promising.

NEXT UP: The actual class.

In Through the Funky Door: A Tale in Three Acts.

2008-11-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

Act I: Gathering the Where-with-all

2:30 is the time of reckoning for me. It is currently noon.

I’m being rather dramatic, sure, but I’ve been putting this off for so long that the notion of just going in the building has become saddled with artificial gravitas. I’ve heard SO MUCH about this place, from both directions, that it has grown beyond its britches in my own imagination, at least.

Before we enter the studio, I need to make one last editorial aside: A last note on Mr. Bikram Choudury, and I’ll be done. I paint him as an asshat, but I don’t know the man, and it is probably unfair. I’ve heard stories from people who have, and while many say he is boastful, noting how many swimming pools he owns in public presentations, others have said he is compassionate, in ways that I won’t divulge on a public blog, even if this ain’t the Huffington Post. And there is some notion that his ‘suing’ debacle may be concern for his sequence being executed correctly, rather than for the money. God knows he has enough. It’s hard to know what is true: It is all hearsay, and the most likely truth is that he is a measure of both, which just makes him a little more gauche, and touch more human, just like the rest of us, I suppose.

So, let us focus on the studio. I’ve heard rumors of boot-camp instruction, pictures of cartoon yoga on the wall, egos-a-plenty. I know I’ll only last at this studio this one time, so it is first impressions only for the Funky Door. Perhaps unfair, maybe, perhaps not. Who can say?

OK, I can. It will be unfair, and I clearly haven’t learned my ‘hearsay’ lesson, because I am predisposed to be critical, but then again, they’re the ones who painted flames on their windows and chose to name the studio after B.O., so they sorta have it coming. At least I’m as forthright with my prejudice as they are with the smell.

And so, FINALLY, off I go.

*Crossing my fingers and plugging my nose*

Time to do this.

Updates

2008-11-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Been a few days for certain, but things are churning along. I even got the wherewithal to head over to the Funky Door, but Mom called on my way up and I didn't want to explain to the Funky Sargent/Instructor that I was late because I was talking to Mom. That could only end badly.

As we wait on Yoga Cop, I'm pleased to say Seattle blogger Snotty McSnotterson has volunteered to blog a bit on Yoga, as her friend Whoreleen works at a studio. I feel like Whoreleen should meet my friend Bitchy. Sparks would fly, I'm sure. Anyway, people actually READ her blog, and you should to.

As I been lax as of late- looking for an actual job, dealing with real life, and whatnot- I'll dust off a few thoughts soon, but until then this be all you git.

Guest Blogger: Profile of a Yoga Cop

2008-11-15T18:52:00.001-08:00

"Dear Bananasana, my old friend... It's your favorite Yoga Cop.

I haven't made it to the Yoga place yet, but I now have solid plans to do so later this week. I am going to go the place where my younger sister Chuckette goes, she promises that they will be gentle with me. I thought I would give you a little pre-post here, to give your gentle readers some background so they will thoroughly appreciate my pain."

(Author's note, if you place editor's notes after each of my paragraphs like you so rudely did with your first guest writer, I will fully enlighten you in the experience of receiving a full nelson the next time you venture back home to the Enchanted Mitten).

(Ed Note: By "Enchanted Mitten", he means Michigan.)

(Author's note, there was no way I could make up a post without threatening you with physical harm, I thought I would get it out of the way early).

(Ed. Note: This is the type of relationship Chuck and I have enjoyed for decades.)

"So, although you painted a very flattering picture of me after I agreed to take on this challenge, I thought I would give a little more background info. By the way, thanks for the 200+ comment, you could have said 250+ and been more accurate."

"I consider myself to be a somewhat athletic person. In my younger days, I was the terror of my high school JV tennis and wrestling teams. I clearly remember that I wrestled in the 112 lb weight class, which isn't so bad, until I add the part where I was darn near six feet tall at the time. The next seven years saw me add on about 20 lbs per year, and I have spent my time since somewhere between 220 and 260. So the last time I had yoga-type physique, the Bananasana was just starting to get interested in girls."

"I manage to play in a few old person indoor soccer games from time to time and chase my four kids around. I am a firearms and subject control instructor at work which forces me to be at least slightly active. I recently started to try to get back into some kind of jogging shape. Two months ago I was in the worst shape of my life, due mainly to my own laziness with the kicker of having knee surgery as an excuse. Since then, I have been doing some walking/running workouts which have managed to move my gunbelt in a notch, which is good. Still have a long way to go though, and Yoga seems like it would be a good way to help me to my goal of (truthfully) saying that I weigh a little over 200 lbs."

"I am looking forward to the physical part more so than the spiritual. I am wondering how the hippie peace and love vibe will interact with my warrior have-a-plan-to-kill-everyone-you-meet type training. I am looking forward to having my chakras all loosened up and my chi centered, or whatever good stuff is supposed to happen after the class. I am hoping that it doesn't include an ambulance ride at any point.

Till next week, my little smart-mouthed friend,

Chuck Garbonzo"

Bikram Class #1

2008-11-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

I’m still going to go to the Funky Door. Just not yet.

I elected to head off to Bikram in El Cerrito rather than the Funky Door for the first time on the advice of my friends Garrick and Holly.

Garrick and Holly are proper west coast hippies, born and bred. They have been to the Funky Door and found it wanting, as it seems many people have. Holly, in fact, worked the front desk for a awhile, at least until she was fired for wanting to take a fifteen minute break to eat a sandwich, which squares with the boot-camp vibe I hear about the place. I’m a touch intimidated, and so I go with Garrick’s suggestion to try on the gentler vibrations of this alternative studio.

Nonetheless, we are still going to Bikram, it is still hot yoga, and I am still a little nervous. I’m chatting with Garrick on the way up, telling him that I hear the first few times are a little rough.

“Yea, it’s pretty excruciating” he confirms.

“You’ll be lucky if you can just stay in the room.” he says, not at all assuaging my fears. Isn’t he supposed my reassuring west-coast-permaculture-groovy guru?

We arrive. There is one older Indian man there, a sikh, head wrap and everything, and he ends up to the left of me. I am in the exact center of the room, directly in front of the teacher.

I wouldn’t mind being in the center so much if it weren’t for the set-up. I’m not sure if all Bikram studios are designed like this, but 3 of the 4 walls are covered in mirrors, and the back wall is outfitted with a handrail not unlike a ballet studio. The floors, however, are carpeted, which I can’t figure out. I sweat like a hog during normal yoga (although, biologically, this is a malapropism- humans are the only species with sweat glands covering their entire body, so it might be more accurate to say I sweat like a homo sapien, which is just redundant.) If we are going to all sweat like homo sapiens, won’t the carpet get kind of ……..musky?

It is warm in the studio, sure, but it isn’t excruciating at first, and I figure I can handle it. We start with simple breathing exercises.

Bikram is a specific, patented sequence, the same every time. We start of with a peculiar breathing technique in where we intertwine our fingers underneath our chins. The teacher- demonstrating for my benefit- exhales in a raspy hiss-like method.

There was a mini-series in the 1980’s called “V” which stood for “visitors”. The premise was that this alien race, looking much like ourselves except wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and orange jumpsuits, came to visit, on the pretense of peace and harmony. As it turns out, the human appearance was but a literal shell- the Ray Bans were to hide their reptilian pupils- and often enough they would grab their faces just under the chin and tear of the visage, a scaly, mucus-covered bipedal Komodo dragon underneath, which would then promptly devour the hapless human witness.

The teacher is hissing and giving directions in a rather stentorian tones, and I am already needing to suppress the urge to flee. I’m aware that I’m being irrational, but still,I am directly in front of her after all, so I’m the first to go if she rips off her face. What with my Sikh compadre directly to my left, I’m just hoping she can’t palette Indian food. I think the heat does something to your brain.

We carry on with class. We are asked to check our alignment in the mirror, and I admit, it is a useful tool, on one level. I never get to see myself do the yoga, and I can pick out places where my poses are wanting. The problem is, I can also see everyone in class, from every angle, and I do need to point out that Yoga classes are typically filled with rather shapely young women, in about an 8:1 ration to males, which makes it difficult to concentrate, at least in the beginning. It doesn’t help that should you try and avoid the distraction by looking the other way, you just get an eyeful in the mirror of the back row of shapely young women and a guy whose name might be Gus. This problem, however, is soon rectified.

The space heater is on the whole time, and the room is becoming appreciably warmer. We are also generating quite a bit ourselves, and so it really is becoming unbearably hot and stuffy. Those of us who perhaps didn’t consider our wardrobes carefully before class and chose to wear lighter colored garments are beginning to sweat.

Everywhere.

Everywhere including our crotches is what I’m trying to say.

The effect is to make it seem as if we are all collectively incontinent, such are the spreading puddles from our pelvises, and this- even though I know it’s just sweat- is evoking feelings of kindergarten playground shame. I had the unfortunate experience of wetting my pants on top of the jungle gym in preschool, in front of most of the people I would be spending the next 12 years with, and as you can imagine, reputations stick at that age. I’m desperately examining myself in the mirror, trying to discern whether my sweat puddles are visible. It is only a measure of facial hair that is tethering me to the fact that I am a grown-up, or at least the age of a grown-up.

The latter half of class is mostly composed of floor poses, a poor choice as far as I’m concerned. It is getting REALLY difficult to breathe, and I attribute at least some of this to our proximity to the floor. Carbon Dioxide- which we are rapidly producing as we deplete all the available oxygen, is the heaviest component of all the gases in the atmosphere, at least the ones present in substantial amounts. In an open air situation, no big deal, but the room is nearly hermetically sealed, and the carbon dioxide will, in such situations, collect on the bottom of the room. I find myself gasping a bit as we get through the more difficult poses. I am also suspiciously eyeballing the mechanical contraption in the back. It looks to be a humidifier, and I can’t fathom it being physically possible to saturate the air with any more water vapor.

Bikram Yoga, even though it originated with a gentleman from deepest darkest India, seems to me the most Americanized version I’ve tried as of yet. It seems incongruous to rely on artificially altering the internal atmosphere with machines, ones that weren’t available a century ago.

Still, all said and done, I feel pretty good. I am forced to concede that Mr. Bikram Choudury- even with the asshat reputation he has- may be onto something. I make it through class intact, and even feel pretty good afterwards. I feel ready to test my mettle against the Funky Door.

A false dichotomy

2008-11-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

It is a slightly different post today, folks. I suppose it could be said that I’m guest blogging for myself. As well as all the nifty reviews and yoga diaries, I’d like to get a little deeper into all the elements that surround Yoga, and being as I’ve been trained as a scientist, that’s probably why I chose to write this little piece.

On medicine, western and eastern

We argue. We argue a lot.

We argue about a great many subjects- the morality of abortion and stem cell research, the existence of God, the role of science in spiritual systems.

We do, often enough, harm ourselves when we argue, blocking communication channels when we needn’t and-most importantly- shouldn’t. Take Eastern vs. Western medicine.

Much like the two-party political system in America, the concepts of strictly Eastern and strictly Western medicine is a false dichotomy. There are platforms common to both, and both retain the same goal. In politics, the goal is to govern the people. In medicine, it is to treat the disease. Let us deconstruct these notions, with the intention of recognizing that both have their merits, and-most importantly- could both benefit by removing the blockage and coupling their respective strengths to each other.

As this is a treatise on Yoga, it well serves our purpose to focus on Ayurvedic practice as our resident Eastern medicine.

The word “Ayurveda” retains a holy-grail-type mysticism among health-food shoppers and Californian über-spiritual fitness experts alike. It is a measure of how much an alternative medicinal system was accepted here in the west, that the practice- and subsequently the word -is unquestionably accepted as ‘good’, and has been exploited by current manufacturers of holistic health products. It may help to debunk the notion of inherent ‘goodness’ if we take a look at how these labels are marketed on their native soil: Both toothpaste- a product you don’t actually consume, is purported to be ayurvedic. A popular brand of ayurvedic soap, Chandrika, purports to “ ensure your personal charm”. The Indian version of cornflakes have “Added Shakti!” much in the same way that we fortify our breakfast cereals, albeit with the mystic power of the Tri-devi feminine force. How that force is distilled and added to cornmeal remains undocumented.

Let’s start this dissection simply. Ayurveda could loosely be paralleled to another holistic favorite ‘Chinese Medicine” – it was more or less the governing medical practice for centuries in India. Like the oft lauded ‘Chinese Medicine’, it is a holistic view that relies upon what it available- both in terms of diagnosis and of available treatments. Herein lies the false “east/west” dichotomy- it isn’t necessarily a difference of philosophy- both treat ailments- that lead to the different approaches, but rather a difference of tools.

We need a metaphor for disease, and what better than a pastime everyone is familiar with?

Imagine a pool table.

Imagine three cue balls at one end, an eight ball at the other. In between these, imagine and array of pool balls, configured to a specific shape. And now, cover the table with a tarp- not completely mind you- the cue balls and the eight ball can still be seen , but all the others are obscured by the tarp.

Let us label our metaphor- the eight ball represents the manifest symptoms of the disease. The #1-15 balls represent the internal mechanics- the specific biological molecules and pathway of the disease, and the cue balls represent the tools available to the physician. The specific configuration of the remaining pool balls represent the biological pathway of the disease- it is the same every time, in every person.

The physician’s job is to sink the eight ball- to treat the disease- and in early medicinal tradition, there was really no way to gain an obvious, molecular insight as to how the disease occurred. We simply didn’t have the tools to visualize these molecules. This didn’t mean the disease was untreatable- in fact, through trial and error, a good practioner- this might be a better term than ‘physician’ even though both served the same purpose- could devise a system that at least stood a good chance of sinking the eight ball, at least more reliably than chance. If the practioner fires a cue ball at the right angle, the eight ball can still be sunk- fairly reliably- whether or not you can see what is happening under the tarp.

Geometry is geometry and treatments are treatments- the practioner didn’t need to know what was happening under the tarp to know that it worked. That is not to say that they weren’t curious or didn’t learn anything- our analogy still serves, as you can certainly hear the impact of the billiard balls, and probably locate points of trajectory and intersection. It is speculation, certainly, but it seems natural to assume that this where the concepts of Chakras and acupuncture points came from- they simply are locations where internal energies and anatomical systems coalesce. They only aspect we need to keep in mind, however, is that all these observations were external. Certainly, dissection gave us an idea of internal anatomy, but if the early practioners wanted to see this happening ‘in the flesh’ as it were, they needed live subjects, and live subjects often resist being carved into, at least while they are still conscious.

Enter tools, technology, and the western physician. In reality, there came microscopes, anaethesia, germ theory and biochemistry. In our analogy, we shall summarize the development of medical technology and finely calibrated scientific as a pair of scissors.

With the scissors, physicians- and I think it is fair to introduce the term, although we may need to include a large contingent of research scientists, lab rats, and a host of other medical professionals who don’t and never will work directly with patients- could start to see what was happening with that particular array of billiard balls, the disease. The problem being it was a painstakingly long and tedious process. For the purposes of our analogy, we shall say that they could cut away a 3”x3” window at one time, each window being a culmination of decades of work. You can imagine that many of these windows would be useless- the only thing to report would be that this was a bad place to look.

Careers in science are based upon this ‘non-knowledge’- much of scientific literature could be summed up as “ we looked here, found nothing, don’t bother”. Once in a great while, a window might be cut above a useful location- perhaps here the 2 ball hits the 5 ball, sending it towards the NW corner- but that’s all. And we might even be reasonable in saying that each window cut represents thousands of patients, patients that we can learn from, but not necessarily treat.

This is where the ‘western’ physician gets a bad reputation. In seems cruel to us that this person, our doctor- purported to have taken the medical vow- could be so callous and uncaring as to see patients as data sets- but really it is a failure perception, coupled with the fear of being diagnosed with a chronic or fatal disease. It takes tremendous vision and patience to acknowledge and pursue a higher goal- to eradicate the disease in its entirety, to systematically elucidate every aspect so that nothing is left to chance- so that eventually no one will need suffer. The only problem being, it relies on those suffering NOW to acknowledge that nothing can currently be done- within this system at least. It asks the sufferers to acknowledge that they may well die, and nothing can be done for them, and to STILL volunteer themselves for the betterment of strangers, even hypothetical future strangers. A tough sell, to say the least.

This may be why we perceive traditional practices as more humane- the aim being to treat the patient rather than the abstract concept of the disease. It might be good to note, while we have the pool table in front of us, that these aren’t diametrically opposed methods of practice- this is the same pool table after all- just different points of focus. It may well be that if the early medicinal practitioners had access to the same sorts of tools, they may have done the same- they were also looking systematically after all, hence all the chakra charts and acupressure point maps.

It is also for lack of ‘official’ and ‘scientific’ sounding treatments that ayurvedic practices seem nebulous- diagnosis and treatments relied on what was available, and often seemed steeped in esoteric mysticism. It is again, however, a failure of imagination that led us to make distrust traditional medicine and make critical mistakes. Take Malaria, for example.

The indigenous people - in Chris Columbus parlance, ‘Indians’- of the Amazon flood basin figured out a cure well before western medicine did. In fact, western medicine never did- in merely refined the active compound in the herbal treatments of the Indians, and eventually came up with a synthetic analog. This turned out to be a critical oversight.

While the Indians had little or no conception of the molecular mechanics of the disease- they simply knew if they hit the cue ball in a certain direction, the disease went away.

Enter the synthetic analog. Western medicine, as we all know too well, is subject to marketplace forces, and American pharmaceutical companies generally aren’t willing to pay for imported compounds if they can make serviceable replacements in the lab, as hundreds of thousands of Organic Chemistry students know. They figured it would work just fine.

They were right- to a point. The quinine analog certainly did halt the progress of malaria, but the analog had a problem- for whatever reason, it allowed the parasite to become resistant very quickly- a matter of decades, while natural quinine had worked for thousands of years. In many regions, the local strains of malaria are completely resistant to the quinine analog, and travelers must take harsher psychoactive drugs like chloroquine and laramine*. What western physicians did, essentially, was to take an effective ‘primitive’ treatment for malaria and render it useless through its own arrogance and false confidence in molecular medicine.

Let us not indict western medicine entirely- the proliference of snake oil and charlatanism in ‘holistic’ medicine runs rampant, and are too numerous to bother documenting- it’s certainly been done before, to the point where ‘homeopathic’ has become a blanket term meaning ‘found at Whole Foods, in the Health and Beauty section’ rather than it’s original latin derivation, that of ‘same disease agent.’ **

All this to say- we, as a culture, would do well to bridge the gap between these methods. In a system where upwards of 50% of pharmaceuticals are derived directly from plant compounds, and the vast majority of the rest are simply synthetic doppelgangers of chemicals that were originally derived from plants, it may be time to acknowledge that the vast majority of our medicinal arsenal has its roots in , well, roots. On the same token, we might need to acknowledge that a steady diet of cayenne pepper, honey, and lemon juice condensed into pill form, labeled ayurvedic and marked up 400% may not cure cancer. We need to allow- and encourage- practitioners of both systems to work together, to bridge the perceived gap between the disciplines, for the betterment of the profession and the world.

*Laramine is said to make the traveler paranoid. If personal experience is any measure, laramine can make you believe that the shoeshine boys, eager to make a few pennies from you, are stalking the café, waiting to punch you in the kidneys, steal your wallet, and leave you in the gutter. The average shoeshine boy in Iquitos, Peru is about 8 years old.
**Homeopathy uses, as its lynchpin, the idea that minute quantities of a pathogen or allergen introduced to the body will lead the immune system to recognize it. For example, microscopic amounts of the allergen in poison ivy taken internally, may help the body to become ‘accustomed’ to it, and subsequently circumvent an allergic reaction then next time it is encountered en masse, so to speak, during a hike in the woods or otherwise. It is not, as many holistic commercial endeavors would lead you to believe, anything that doesn’t come directly from the pharmacy.

Guest Blogger #1: Darlee on Savasana

2008-11-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

It's been a struggle, getting back on the Yoga Horse. I've been a bit laid up as of late, what with postherpetic neuralgia, which is a BIZITCH. but at least i ain't gots it SO bad. It was Anusara for me today, which feels like Diet Yoga after the Power Vinyasa/Ab crunch/Enlightened Boot Camp routine. Still, not much to say about it, and so I'm happy to pass the podium to another Yoga enthusiast. I like to see initiative, and so am handing over the mic to one Darlee- the first respondent to the call for guest bloggers- from..........hell, I don't know, where the fuck you from, Darlee? Anyway, she voices concerns about Shivasana, and as I likes me some shivasana- the repose at the end of class- I'm inclined to agree with her.....

“Hey yoga teacher! shhhh!

What's the deal with shavasana? Why, after 60 or 90 minutes filled with (mostly missed) opportunities to say something meaningful or helpful during the asana part of class, do yoga teachers use this precious "quiet-time" to talk? Or read out loud? Or even to SING? I don't know.

Shavasana (savasana) is THE time for rest in yoga. Not just rest for the body or mind- but for the spirit. For some yogis it's the best rest in the entire work/sleep cycle. The benefits of silence are tremendous, especially after yoga practice. Unfortunately, yoga teachers often use savasana as an opportunity to show how "spiritual" or "woo-woo" or "yogic" they are.

Ed. Note: I'm not entirely sure what "woo-woo" means, but I'm feeling it's an onomatopœia for fru-fru "steeped in the ancient traditions of Deepest Darkest India" spirituality....

I already can hear some yoga teachers saying, "If I don’t talk to them they'll jump right off their mats after class and run." Well, I’m here to tell you- the minute you ask me to close my eyes and imagine myself at some exotic locale, or ask me to direct an imaginary white light through my chakras- I am ready to go AT THAT VERY MOMENT!

Ed. Note for the Yoga layperson- I believe, if my facts are together correctly, it is white for the head chakra, blue for the heart chakra, and red for the, uhhh, anus chakra. Conveniently patriotic!

These scenes, speeches and songs are NOT relaxing. They feed the yoga teacher's ego rather than leaving the students in silence to be with their own inner voice. If you must, play a nice drone music CD with some tamboura, perhaps, or a sweet soft chanting CD, BUT PLEASE: no incense in the yoga room! Don’t get me started…that's an entirely different post!

Ed Note: I love incense, but I take her point- even as a fan, I find it a little alarming to add sensory stimulation when you are supposed to withdrawl from your senses- it's called 'corpse' pose for a reason...

So PLEASE, teachers think about this: swami chidvilasananda said "when there is senseless talking, you can not hear the voice of your own self." Shhhhh! there is so much for your yogis and for YOU to hear from your silence! God speaks in silence.”

And there we have it. Teachers, did you get that- LET US CHILL. Of course, given my track record, you can certainly give me a kick in the ribs if I start to snore, as I am wont to do.

COMING SOON: The Yoga Cop and (I swear) Bikram Yoga.

Coming Soon: Guest Bloggers

2008-11-06T11:15:00.001-08:00

Yep. That's it. That's the challenge.

Go to a yoga class. Just one. Write it up and we'll slap it up on the site.

Our first(but not our only) guest blogger will be one Chuck Garbonzo (not his real name). He is a 200+ lb republican Dee-troit rock city COP, single dad of 4 kiddos and can put down whiskey like....well, like a cop. Known him all my life, and we've been at opposite political poles for the whole time.

I know I'M a little critical of the hippie vibe- I can't wait to see what he's got to say. For a little more insight, I suggest you check out the video bar- he's the one who clued me to the existence of "Yoga 4 Dudes."

Feel like giving it a whirl? Just let me know.....

A milestone, of sorts.

2008-11-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

It is an odd thing, this yoga project. It is an odd thing to be a stranger at yoga classes, to actually COMMIT to being a stranger- I see interactions between regulars, and I want that for myself. I want friends, regularity, a routine.....but that's not what I set out to do. Fortunately, I do have help, one source being Em, who communicates with me regularly via email. She asked a question, a pertinent one:

"i'm curious" says she via email, "about how many yoga classes are you going to every week, and are you beginning to feel any kind of shift, either in your body or your mind?"

And so I answer:

I’ve been at this for a month now, and I’m averaging about three classes a week. Have I seen a shift? Kinda sorta.

Physically, the answer is yes, certainly. It isn’t HUGE, but my bearing is different, although I have to admit, it sort of depends on the studio and the teacher. From a purely cosmetic viewpoint, my trousers are a bit looser around the waist and my Man-Titties- an unfortunate reality for those of us who’ve crossed the 30-threshold- are less breast-like and more Men’s Health Pectorals, which is cool, I suppose.

To boot, a rather intoxicated young woman was soliciting hugs on the sidewalk the other night, and so I gave her one- I surprised us both, I think, with my strength. A good strong hug is a cool thing to give. Who knew I had it in me?

And the spiritual side? Dunno, exactly. It might be a false dichotomy to separate this from the physical side, but might as well, at least for thinking purposes. I see it as analogous to gardening- if I’m trying to cultivate a spiritual garden, so to speak, I’ve basically just tilled the soil. I can feel myself becoming more receptive, but to what end? The chanting and all the little parables that the teachers mention don’t do much for me on their own. I feel like they are referencing concepts of the Indian brand of spirituality that you might not get if you were just in class for the asanas, which I think most people are. Plus, as you mentioned, some of the parables are kind of trite- the pontification of the Nature of Ugly Facial Hairs and One’s Spiritual Acceptance of Them? Just pluck the fuckers. Problem solved.

Still, I’m liking some of the reading I’m doing. I don’t think there is much room for an exploration of this side of yoga directly in the classroom, at least during the asana/prana sessions. I think most people want the shapely booty. I doubt I’ll go to any chanting sessions, but maybe I’ll hit up some of the philosophical ones. All said and done, though, I feel like this searching has more to do with what you figure out for yourself, rather than what the teacher can tell you. And I think the teachers know that……

And I like the fact that you asked that question. You mind if I put it up as a post on the old blog?

Cheers ma’am

S"

And so it is. I also considered dropping the blog- I've been feeling a little tired of this open dialogue as of late, and this is a blog afer all, not CNN. Still, she swayed me, told me she'd be sad if I dropped it, and the small readership that the blog has garnered is a regular one. I thank all 3 of you ( it's more than that but still, one must joke). And I still have a job to do. But i have an idea.........start researching your local yoga classes, folks. I will soon issue a challenge.

A Public Service

2008-11-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

So I joined Yelp. This make me a "Yelper". I'm not pleased about this, but what can you do?

I figure, as long as I'm doing the blog, might as well run some more condensed versions, one per studio, kind of get a few reviews out to the public and everything.

So there you go. If you are at all curious, I put a little gadget on the side bar that links to the reviews. The "5 star" system has never seemed quite complete to me, so I will use the Bananasana(copyright 2009) method of:

SPA FACTOR:
MYSTIC CHANTING FACTOR:
TEACHER QUALITY:
SLACKER DEAL:
FAIR WARNING:

The first 3 categories will give a level ( low, moderate, high), the 4th will tell you what the introductory deal is, and the last is, well, just something you may want to know before you get to the studio.

And so there you have it.

Harbin Hot Springs Retreat

2008-10-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Bikram will come later. I decided to Rent-a-Relic, skip town and hit the hot springs. They have, uh, hot springs of course, but Yoga as well.

Harbin is close, has Yoga twice a day, and a bit of a reputation. It’s a ‘clothes-optional’ resort, and often hosts polygamous conferences and sensuality workshops. My friend Jay describes it rather diplomatically.

“You may want to check the schedule. They sometimes have theme weekends where people aren’t always conscious of……….boundaries.”

I’m puzzled by this ambiguous statement, so I check, and it isn’t the Tantric Intimacy Workshop or Group Sex Weekend or anything, so I figure I should be safe.

I arrive in the late afternoon. I’m a little later than expected, and so I ask the check-in guy, a grey-ponytailed hippie about when the Yoga class is.

“5 o’clock. Now just sign here.”

I sign there.

He briefs me on the camping rules, and sends me off with a hearty

“Now go have fun!”, with a sly wink.

I’m a little creeped-out, speculating on what kind of ‘fun’ he means, when he calls me back, and I realized I have forgotten to pay the man.

“You probably need the actual money, huh?”, I joke.

“Ah well, it’s not as if you just ran off, I sent you off, you know?”

I smile and nod, wanting to acknowledge that he realizes that I wasn’t just trying to skip out. I present my debit card, square up, and make gestures to depart.

“I mean, it’s not like you just ran off you know. I did send you off, yea?”, he says.

“Uh, yea. I, uh, know what you mean.” I reply.

“I mean, I did tell you to go have fun you know. When you left. I mean, it’s not like you just went away, yea?”, says he.

“Yes……..uh, you sure did.”, reply I.

I don’t really understand if he is aware that he is repeating himself. He’s of the old school, a real 60’s hippie, and not the first time during this weekend that I become perplexed listening to someone.

Yoga Class 1.

It must be noted that I was later than I anticipated. One reason being that I had stopped to eat a Philly-cheese steak on the way up. It was always an odd point of contention, this notion of the Sacred Cow. At age eight, visiting Calcutta, I was astounded to see the seemingly enormous Brahmin Bulls roaming freely throughout the city. For one thing, they didn’t jive with my notion of what a cow was, being familiar only with the chubby, rather benign looking dairy cows of the Midwest. These things looked hump-backed and dangerous. Another issue arose when my English mother- my only source of the cultural heritage of India, as dad was typical of Indian fathers insomuch as he left all that sort of thing to The Wife- explained that cows were holy. This also did not square with the fact that we- as a family- relished a fine cut of prime rib more than your average American nuclear unit. I still eat beef, but I try and mentally acknowledge that the cow has died for Our Sins. I like to conflate my religions.

So I’m running late, and I scramble to set up my tent and get to the Temple on time.

It is a beautiful building, structured like a yurt on the steppes of Mongolia, but all wood and stucco plaster, symmetrical yet askew in some indefinable sense. It is circular, Feng Shui running clockwise, and it seems a most comfortable place for reflection.

Class starts.

It is heavy on the chanting. As previously stated, I don’t like chanting, but I’ll usually murmur along, just audible enough to fill the letter of the law. Here, though, we are seated in a more egalitarian circle, rather than the typical loose checkerboard with the teacher at the head of the class. She is, in fact, sitting right next to me. She busts out some instrument that looks to combine the less desirable aspects of a sitar and a banjo. It’s kind of janky looking, only two strings, but passably ethnic looking. It sounds, however, like a banjo. With two strings. And no frets. The brown plastic recorder pressed into your hands in third grade music class was a more versatile instrument. She begins plucking the only two notes available to her, the interval a Twinkle Twinkle non-committal fifth, over and over and over again.

We begin the chanting.

Much to my horror, she begins to sing Hare Krishna. If you have forgotten the lyrics, perhaps blocked out the musical Hair from your memory out of a sort of collective cultural shame, they are as such:

Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Krishna

Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Rama.

The next two verses, as they are sung with a slightly different melodic structure, are thus:

Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Krishna

Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Rama.

There are two problems for me in this situation.

The first is that my opinions of Hare Krishnas- the dudes with the pastel orange robes and the braided…….rat-tail….. miniature Mohawk?- are molded only through mass media. I was first exposed to them at my uncle’s house, as he had a VCR and the movie Airplane! recorded from cable television. I watched the movie seven times the weekend we were visiting, scoring the dialogue forever on my brain. I am also reminded of the early Bloom County comic strips, where a Hare Krishna is trying to explain who he is- Opus confuses “Hare Krishna” with “Hairy Fishnuts”, and the devotee becomes aggravated, freaking out and finally demanding Opus to “just cough up some dough.” In short, I view them as hapless clowns. Unfair, to be sure, but probably typically American, such is our reliance on the Tee-Vee and comic books to propagate our prejudices.

The second problem is that I am sitting next to the teacher, which means that everyone looking at her is, by default, looking at me. This is a shy group, as no one knows anyone else- we are all on vacation after all- and I feel compelled to make a good showing, to support the teacher as she plucks away on her janky ethnic banjo. I AM MORTIFIED, but I plug on nonetheless. We sing the whole sequence- all four verses- a total of five times. I know for a fact it is five times. I am counting, waiting, and finally actually PRAYING that it ends soon. It is a sensation akin to counting how many times the teacher says “uh” during a lecture, but...really……………………..slowly.

We don’t begin the asanas. We lay on the mat for a good long time and actualize our prana, which essentially means we are borderline napping. When we do start, we cycle through all the poses, and things move at a fair clip, at least until we get to pigeon pose.

Pigeon pose involves a mid torso twist. They say you shouldn’t eat before class, and I suppose you certainly shouldn’t eat a Holy Cow, particularly if you are in such a hurry that you forget to acknowledge the cow’s Christ-like sacrifice. We hit the pose, and I twist the cookie tube the wrong way. The cow has the last laugh- his remains get squeezed in the wrong direction, and suddenly, almost violently, I become ill. I have to get up and leave the class, to go deal with this bovine Montezuma’s Revenge.

There is a notion in Hindi scriptures- and I certainly can’t substantiate this, or reference it ( I looked)- that a soul will spend a million years in purgatory (or the Hindu equivalent) for every hair on a cows hide that you ate. An FDA study came out shortly after I read this, stating that each McDonald’s hamburger was composed of an average of 200 different cows, due to the processing procedures. We learned of this in high school, at about the same time we learned how to properly use scientific notation, a method that lets you quantify enormous sums. We spent much of our after-school hours at fast food establishments, calculating precisely how long I’d spend in Hell, given I was raised almost exclusively on McDonalds from the ages of 6 to 17. This cow, though, this singular cheese-steak entity- takes his toll in a way that numbers cannot describe. It is severe enough to keep me out of the rest of class. I’m quite sure you really don’t want me to share the details.

After I take care of my internal problems, I wash up and head to the mineral baths. It is night, everyone is naked, and lined around the perimeter of the pool, in various stages of repose. It is a small pool, budget-motel sized, and all the prime spots around the edge are taken. There are various couples, clearly engaged in, um, intimate relations. I expected this to some degree, figuring that as long as they weren’t OBVIOUSLY having intercourse, I would deal, but I am forced into the middle of the pool, along with a group in the middle in some sort of football huddle of …..sex.

There are gobs of white stuff floating in the water. Now, there is a reason for this- it’s a mineral hot springs, and we are in the moderately warm bath. As the water cools, the minerals precipitate out, and as it is largely calcium, the congealing crystals float around the tub, like amorphous globs of…well, you know. But I know they are just minerals. I read the sign before I got in.

It does not however- when you are in the middle of the pool, awkwardly averting your gaze from the sex mob, track lighting focused on your nether regions like they were the guest on The Tonight Show- make you feel any better. I decide to hit the sauna instead. On my way out, I step on some soft sticky something or other that sticks to my foot- my bare foot, as I am naked- and I calmly flick it off, the same type of ‘let’s get down to business’ calm that overcomes you during times of crisis, like having a mouse crawl into your trousers. Only after I flick it off do I even allow myself to think it may be a used condom. I start bending down to check, but I realize with a titanium certainty that I don’t want to know, I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. Rather than sleep in my tent that night, I sleep in the reclined passenger seat of the rental car, fearing that in the tent I’ll be subject to the sounds of the Tantric Sensuality Workshop after-party.

Class 2:

It is the intermediate class, requiring me to get up early, but this is not a problem. I haven’t really slept all that well, dreaming of rolled up yoga mats stacked upon each other in dark underground bunkers, like anonymous femurs in the catacombs of Paris. I crawl out of Ford Escort Fetal Position as soon as the sky is light grey, hoping to end the edgy half-slumber I have spent a half-rotation of the earth in. I get to the Temple early and warm up with a strap, trying to stretch out my hamstrings, which are now winched up as tightly as jib ropes on a sailboat.

Class begins.

We start with stretching out our hamstrings, employing the aid of a strap. I will refrain from commenting on where the teacher- whose 'Indian' name, coincidently, is the same as my brand of ayurvedic soap- got the idea, but I’m suspicious, to say the least. We do this for 45 MINUTES. Half the class is dedicated to this, shoving our femurs into our hip sockets, which sounds like a terrible idea.

It sounds- to me at least- like a terrible idea, because if I recall my “Yoga Anatomy” diagrams correctly, the sciatic nerve is couched in the hip joint. It runs directly through the ‘hole’ in the back of the pelvis, one for each leg, and if you compress it, it will affect your whole leg, as this is the nervous system’s sympathetic super highway.

Halfway through this exercise in repetition, the soles of my feet go numb. I relate this information to the teacher, but she just tosses the Asana version of a platitude my way.

“Oh, just do ShaNaNasana, it’s good for reawakening your vitreous humors.”

My feet feel all wrong. It is difficult to ‘ground yourself’ when your interface feels like you’ve been standing on a frozen cut of pork for upwards of an hour. I have to duck out of many poses, and I feel completely out of whack, like I’ve done damage rather than good.

I’m rolling up my mat after class, spying in on a conversation between a German tourist and the teacher.

“Oh yes,” says the German tourist “we have been to some classes in the San Francisco .”

“Oh you should go where I take classes, at blahblahblah studio”

Now, should I be worried? I had entertained the idea of faking the role of Teacher one day, taking the helm, but I don’t think I’d ever do that now- I feel like I could do too much damage, not knowing what I‘m doing. Shouldn’t she know what she is doing? I feel ALL WRONG, like I’ve induced a mild scoliosis by force, and I can’t help but note that she might not have the wherewithal to run a class correctly.

I elect, afterwards, to go for a soak, hoping that these healing waters will undo the scoliosis. The front pool, the moderately warm one, is calm enough, but the back pool- the really hot one, encased in a squat, open-air edifice- is Bumping. By Bumping I mean that the people in the building are either collectively moving giant granite slabs or are engaged in some extremely athletic sex, such are their violent exhortations. We- the mellow early morning ponderers, are trying our best to ignore this.

“Huhhhh-UH!”

*Splash*

“Arrrrrugggggggula!”

*smack of flesh on concrete*

“kuhkuhkuhKuh!Kuh!KUHKUH KUHHHHHhhhhhhhh……”

I find myself scanning the waters for incongruous-looking globs of white precipitate. I leave, SHOWER, and secure a picnic table on the outskirts of the retreat, hoping only to be out of the semen crossfire.

I’m quietly working on my Yoga mat for the rest of the morning, taking in sounds and, uh, naked people, and the general atmosphere. It is a pleasant morning, and a half-naked man is playing cello down the hill. I actually meet him a little later, in a little hovel off to the side of the Chapel, later in the day. He is the final straw that sends me packing.

“Hey man, I liked your playing” I tell him, when I see him later in the smoking hovel.

“Aw, great man.” says he.

We banter a bit, I tell him I play as well.

“What kind of stuff do you listen to?” I ask.

What comes next, I can’t explain or even transcribe without getting carpel tunnel, such was his need to talk copiously and unabashedly. He starts. I’m guessing about 20 minutes later, he wanes, a little, just for a moment, and I grab my chance.

“Well, dude, I gotta keep working on my mat, see you in a bit” I say, before I run, run, RUN.

What happened was this: He scrambled my brain.

I don’t know anyone here at the Hot Springs, but the place attracts a certain clientele. It is of the fully integrated organic divine light delivered by sacred oxygen to bring illumination to your beautiful, enlightened soul, and I’m all ears. I’m all ears because I’m trying to be more open minded about this shit, to perhaps listen without judging, and so I’m trying to follow the whole monologue. It is a plan of sorts that he has for Life, and as far as I can discern, it involves the following elements: an organic farm, a restaurant, a cello, a solar-powered generator bike trailer/rickshaw, outfitted to cross the whole of India and able to power one-man concerts on the street corners of New Delhi, a suit, a realization of all of corporate America that they must invest in this man’s organic-fueled restaurant/farm/collective/socialist and yet capitalist network of organic-cello-farm collectives, and someone who will give him money for all of this, because he’s a genius.

He’ll be wearing a suit in place of an actual resumé, I suppose. I should have shut him off at “Aw”, but I’m trying to be more open.

Allowing this- allowing myself to be cornered, to smile and nod, makes me feel as if he has psychologically pushed open a door in the front of my skull, found little resistance, and began to use me as a conduit to talk to everyone else in the smoking hovel. And this is the culture here at Harbin- you don’t say anything negative, because, man, everyone has something to say and that should be respected, and if you interrupt, that might not be cool.

It’s ethic of non-criticism, even the constructive sort, that is driving me a little loony. It is conflated with all the posi-speak, the repitition of “divinity” and “enlightened self” and the unavoidable “spirituality” that gets me. It’s the wanton overexposure of these concepts, the idea that putting a tin of your spare tobacco on the table counts as “universal giving without expectation” and that when said tobacco is subsequently stolen allows one to give a diatribe about one’s beautiful non-expectation of an act of open communal action, without suspicion that someone had ill intention or could be converted to better intention if we ALL gave without suspicion AGAIN- that makes me suspicious. Not of the stealer- that should have been predicted- but of the giveé, the person who uses a loss of a fairly available product to leverage an image of themselves as ‘giving’, and subsequently positions themselves as able to ask for shit later on, as they are so communal. Because everyone should be communal. Got a cigarette, Bro?

Listening to this man- a man who sports the very same Good Vibes For YOU sticker that I posted just a few days back on the bottom of his cello- makes me feel odd and ill-fitted to the groovy hippie vibes of Harbin. It doesn’t help that I’m critical of his playing- while he extols the virtue of Bach- and can play his passages passably well, as long as he is at least an hour away from his last joint- he suffers from a lack of proper intonation, coupled with a drug-addled set of synapses fused together long ago. 13 is too tender an age to start dropping acid, and I hate watching the fallout, years later. I have to wonder if my time is coming.

As I watched the sun decline over the mountains, I’m arguing with myself. To stay? To go? It’s over two hours’ drive back to Oakland, a mountain in-between, and I don’t do so well with the winding roads. Still, I find that my time here is through. I’m not a hippie, wasn’t raised to it. My friends here on the west coast were born to it- they make light of the Overly-Groovy as well, but afterwards, after they poke fun, they let it roll off their backs. Me, I’m too new here to have the proper filters. I take the situation seriously, compounded by the fact that I don’t have a lot of friends here yet, and I’m willing to listen to just about anybody. But I can’t listen to just anybody. These aren’t my people. I’m too couched in the blunt practicality of the Midwest, be it for better or for Palin/McCain. I pack up my unused tent, and retreat from the Retreat.

Blog Filler and Yoga Costumes

2008-10-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

Yea. I'm a little back-logged. The hippy naked yoga weekend took it's toll on me, and to render it is a little daunting, especially as It is far too easy to just pimp my mat. So, as mindless filler, here is a picture of me in my Yoga Costume of Awesomeness. Note that I am giving the Holy Om/YesOKBoss symbol. A ShoutOut/Namaste to all my peeps, yo. I mean, 'om.'

My Yoga Sellout: Pimp My Mat

2008-10-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

I'm avoiding Bikram Yoga like the avain flu. So much that I spent the weekend at a hippy hot springs, replete with Yoga classes, mineral springs, a sauna, and 300 other naked people. More on that to come, but suffice to say, it was.........an education.

The best thing to come out of it was the Mandala I started on my Yoga mat- it's looking pretty cool if I do say so myself. I have yet to finish it, but it occurs to me- mr. unemployed- that maybe I could shop out my talents, a sort of Pimp My Mat. See? only a month into this, and I'm already planning my Sellout!

Bikram Yoga: An Introduction

2008-10-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

You know Bikram Yoga. It’s a form of Hatha Yoga. It’s the Hot Yoga.

And I am cynical.

Who’d of thunk Bikram was named after an actual individual? I always took the title as nomenclature for the hot ‘n’ sweaty variety, the type that my friends rave about, claiming it sucks for the first 18 times, but after that, you love it. It turns out it is named after one Bikram Choudhury, and it turns out, he is 100% PIMP.

Reading about him, I am at first heartened by our similarities. He is of Bengali descent; I am of Bengali descent. He trashed his knee* and fixed it; I trashed my knee** and need to fix it. Judging by photographs of him, he addresses his thinning hair by with an elaborate comb-over; I address my thinning hair by adorning the nouveau-adultolescent metrosexual method of shaving my head and pretending for the rest of my life that I actually want to look like Mr. Clean, without the muscles.

Here, though, similarities end. I’m given to understand that he traffics in Rolls Royces- has a garage full of them, in fact- and has catered to the Rich and Famous in Beverly Hills for the last 26 years. He is wealthy, has all types of ‘endorsement photos’ on his office wall, that of Shirley McLain, President Clinton, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and is, in fact, the only teacher in possession of a patent on his yoga positions. If I accidentally strike the “reclining feline” position while napping, do I need to pay royalties? I’m skeptical, full of the indignant, inflated self-righteousness of a man not even within reasonable driving distance of the Almost Famous.

I know. I’m critical, and much of the slashing I do involves the American Corporate Model of spiritual sellout. I paint Americans as the guilty party, but you can’t sell out Ancient Indian Spirituality without Indians canning it and moving it out the door for $19.99 a case, $17.99 for you, baba, since we like you so much.

Case in point #1: Ayurveda.

Ayurveda is the ostensibly Mystic Ancient Medicinal Practice of Deepest Darkest India. Slap ‘ayurvedic’ on any Whole Foods product and you can up the price 4-fold. But rather than indicting New Age on this, let us look at some authentic Ayurvedic imports.

I have two personal hygiene products- direct from India- that purport to be Ayurvedic, namely toothpaste and soap. Now, perhaps they use a specific combination of herbs to reduce your Vetta, I don’t know for sure. What I can tell you is that the toothpaste has the color of used hospital gauze soaked in watered-down iodine and cements to the sink if you don’t wash it away immediately. The soap- while smelling mystic- also comes with a folded informational sheet which guarantees that the soap will, “…ensure your personal charm”, which doesn’t sound too ayurvedic to me.

Case in point #2: Shakti

Shakti is the divine feminine force of the universe, embodied by the Tridevi, the goddesses Lakshmi, Paravati and Saraswati. It can also, it seems, be added to the Indian version of Corn Flakes, as in “Now with Added Shakti!” And to think, we just fortify our cereal with vitamins.

And so I feel this man is complicit in The Sellout. It occurs to me that his patent is not on the asanas themselves- all of Hatha, Vinyasa, Bikram, and Anusara utilize the same positions. He has a patent on the sequence.

I once- before I started going to classes- had a deck of cards, each with a different asana. It occurs to me that Bikram may have just shuffled the deck, turned up the thermostat, and called it good.

I’m hoping there is more to it than that. I’m trying ( and clearly failing) to be more open minded, but there is too much here to be worried about. My friends have already gotten over their worries about this man- it is generally agreed that he is an asshat, but they seem to believe that this sequence has merit. Me, I’m not so sure.

Still, I have a job to do, and so I select Funky Door Studio in Berkeley, CA, because nothing says “Americanized” like 8 ft high, 1950’s-greaser-era-muscle-car flames painted on the windows. I’m assuming that the name refers to their unorthodox storefront, but I have to wonder, given the fact that the business revolves around hermetically sealing a group of exercising hairless monkeys with copious sweat glands in a room upwards of 105 degrees for over an hour, if the word “funky” might not have been the wisest choice to advertise the business. Frankly, I’m worried about touching the storied ‘funky door.’

* In a competitive Yoga tournament, which seems odd. “I’m the MOST enlightened Yogi in tha muthafuckin’ House, BITCHES!”
** By running into a tree while snowboarding, on the bunny-hill, surrounded by 6-year-olds who could out-snowboard me before they were potty-trained. Perhaps I’m being generous, albeit to myself, by claiming we have so much in common.

Subramanya and The Thing about Dharma: Yoga Mandala, Class #9.

2008-10-23T19:33:00.001-07:00

The thing about Subramanya, né Larry is this: I have built him up in my head. I have put him on a mental pedestal. My friend Em speaks so highly of him, and this is a girl who can commiserate with some of the disingenuity found in Yoga class. She thinks white people adopting Indian names is weird, too, and she is an authentic white person.

The thing about my name, my normal and yet still Indian name is that it is MY name. I like my name, but, like most people who attended school, I was teased about it. Shumit can so easily be converted into rhyming cadence with unmentioned four letter words, not to mention a fine template for racial epithets. I’m not complaining- well, in fact I am certainly complaining, but to an end- but I feel like if you want an Indian name, you have to earn it. By living with it. It seems one-dimensional as some sort of spiritual honorific.

But I hear such good things about the Subramanya, even that he can rationalize why he goes by Subramanya, as well as Larry, and can negotiate my perceived gulf of cultural insensitivity.

And this belies a larger issue: all I’ve written so far is this measure of self-deprecating/cynical commentary. Just the wacky diaries of a goofy little man, and I want to go further than this. A measure of criticism of Yoga is healthy, sure, but how long can I keep harping on it? I want, to some degree, to get over this, and I want Subramanya to help. And help he does- but for reasons I do not at all expect. He’s a great teacher, but in fact, it is what I disagree with him about that gives me a greater insight.

It is the Advanced level class- for 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s, that I attend. I know I’m in for it physically, not prepared, but I figure I can tell him this, and if he’s as good as Em says, he’ll be OK with this. And he is, and he does keep an eye on me.

He rolls through the chants and gets down to business immediately, although not without a short diatribe on Dharma. He gives us a brief recap of relevant sections of the Bhagavad-Gita, and interlaces this with tragic Greek characters. He also says he is “sweating like a hooker in church” which is the precise moment I decide that he’s all right by me.

Class begins.

I am immediately pouring sweat from my forehead and greasing up my mat with perspiration. This stuff is really challenging. I have no time to make any sort of mental notes about anyone or anything- I am way too consumed with just trying to keep up.

Now, Subramanya is a skilled teacher, and it is obvious, notably by when and how he chooses to speak. It is only during pauses of the various vinyasas that he chooses to delve into the spiritual aspect of this session, starting each time with

“The thing about Dharma is…”

If you really want a class to hang on your every word, definitely speak during times of repose. We will ALL LISTEN, if only in hopes that the teacher goes on long enough for us to catch our prana.

Again, I couldn’t think about this during class. I was far too wrapped up in his instruction, which I must say again, was excellent.

Still, the thing about Dharma is…..I don’t really agree with him about how he is explaining it.

Dharma, as far as I understand it, could be loosely equivocated to duty, religious or otherwise. The classical text explaining Dharma is an excerpt from the Bhagavad-Gita, where the warrior Arjuna is headed into battle.

Now, if you have never read the Bhagavad-Gita, don’t feel alone. I doubt most people have, as it long and somewhat arduous. I never have, which might be……..obvious, but thanks to the comic books* handed out at the Mithali’s of my youth, I have a passing familiarity with the story. It sort of runs along the lines of an HBO series, like The Sopranos or The Wire, where the characters have noble enough aspirations- well, some of them anyway- but screw up a lot, just like real people.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, it is much of the same- the Pandava Bros Inc. continually try and keep the empire they are charged with going, but there is division and strife, mostly over gambling debts. One of the brothers has a Habit. Negotiations happen, and they- the powerbrokers- end up passing around poor Draupadi like an IOU chitty, exile each other into the woods, and basically make a mess of things, just like real people.

Arjuna, a central dude in this drama, is whom and where we finally see this realization of Dharma. He is on his way to battle, in a war for the Kingdom. The people he has to fight are people he KNOWS- cousins, teachers, aunt and uncles. Krishna- now in ethereal form, as he has long ago shed his earthly divine bright-blue mystic porn-star vessel- is acting as his charioteer and moral consultant. As the mithali comic books focused more on illustrating the action, we are bereft in terms of actual text, but the conversation must have moved along these lines:

Arjuna: Krishna, I know these folks. They’re my peeps.

Krishna: Indeed.

Arjuna: I mean, I really DON’T want to go in there and hack them to pieces.

Krishna: Of course you don’t. Who would?

Arjuna: So do I have to?

Krishna: Yep.

Arjuna: Why?

Krishna: Dharma. You got to do what you got to do, man.

Clearly, some liberties were taken in terms of simplifying this, but what it amounts to is just what it says: if you have to do something, if that’s the way the chips fall, it’s your duty to play out that hand. No fighting it.

“The thing about Dharma”, begins the Subramanya, “ is that you need clear space to figure it out. Think back to maybe when you graduated college. What were you most keen on, what inspired you?”

This runs counter to my understanding. At that age, I was doing what interested me. I was playing music, as "full time" as you can get. But I was never going to make enough money to do that as a living, and I realized this. I started working in education, a profession that chose me, rather than the other way around. Point being- you don’t always get to choose. But you do have to deal with the results.

It isn’t until the next morning until I think about this. I never got to ask the Subramanya about his Indian name- he was too swamped with admirers after class to get a word in, and no matter.

What does matter is that I had to think on it again. In some other yoga writing- not yet on the blog- I mention how incomprehensibly pluralistic India seems to me. And the fact that it is incomprehensible betrays my western upbringing. I think that most Indians- my relatives at least- when examining what seems to be an apparent contradiction, would shrug it off.

"Yes, of course!", they would say.

"Welcome to India!", they would add.

And so, if this pluralism exists, why not apply it? Why can’t there be two Dharmas?

For the Subramanya, his Dharma- the capitalized one- is perhaps his job as a corporate lawyer, something he is wont to poke fun at. But his dharma, his passion- really is this yoga. I’m ….quite sure he makes some decent money as a yoga teacher, but as a corporate lawyer, I doubt he needs it. My gut also tells me that he’d still be here teaching even if he were doing it for free. He likes it that much. My Dharma is the unfortunate state of education- if I have any duty, it’s to go in a do a good job in a system that tries to make that difficult, if not impossible at times, and often rewards incompetence with greater responsibility and higher pay. But my dharma is music- I know it will never pay, labor of love sort of thing, but I am at least playing again, and without the pressure of becoming World Famous- and I believed I would be at age 23- I am enjoying myself more.

And so it can be with Yoga, I hope. Maybe I can use a critical eye…….and then put it away** and examine some of the benefits. Maybe the old blog can re-orientate a bit.

But I do have one task ahead of me. Bikram Yoga. A style named after the man who made it, Bikram Choudury. It is his authentic Indian Name, and from what I hear, he's a complete Asshat. So let's not put away that critical eye just yet......

* These are a bit like the Children's Illustrated Bible's advertised on TV during the 80's
** One woman in my writing group attended a yoga class wherein the teacher instructed the fledgling Yogis to ‘Envision themselves as eyeballs floating in.............CHOCOLATE”, which may say more about the teacher’s current state of mind, rather than the meditation instructions.

Class #8: Hatha Flow @ The Elephant Pharmacy

2008-10-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

Free. The classes are free. Who can say no?

They are, however, in rather cramped quarters. The teacher seems nice enough. She’s just a little plump, somewhat unusual as yoga teachers go, although I’m willing to bet that she’s had a kid recently It seems a vast majority of yoga teachers are young mothers. Perhaps it’s the schedule, flexible hours or something, but it is an alarmingly consistent trend.

We start. We are meditating a bit, in the ‘let’s talk and find our spiritual connection” part of class. She asks us to think of an Intent, perhaps someone we can send Love to.

I panic. Who do I need to send love to? I first think of my Ex, whom I sort of freaked out on via email when I thought she was dating someone else. In Love, in fact. It wasn’t my business to begin with, but I also apologized already, so no go on that.

I’ve been talking to the Zeeb* about forgiveness, and particularly wondering how I was going to forgive the administrators of Meads Mill Middle School for not intervening when I was getting called Towelhead, Gandhi-Butt-rammer, and Camel Jockey. All before 9/11! These people could see the FUTURE!! I consider them briefly, then immediately think “Fuck ‘em, I hope someone has the sense to shove a grenade up their sphincters.” Forgiveness and Love-in this case- may be a lost cause.

The clock is ticking, and since I’ve already considered my Ex, I’m stuck a little on the romantic love template, although I doubt this was what intended. We are finishing the meditation and I still haven’t chosen a Love and Intent, and I remember that the cashiers at the Pharmacy are generally pretty attractive, and so I send my Love Beam towards the front of the store and immediately feel like a dirty pervert for doing so, as if I’ve somehow become A Karmic Peeping Tom, cosmically masturbating about Chakra Porn from the 4th Dimension.

We get on with the asanas. We start with a sequence of rolling our wrists and shoulders, and it is the very same sequence as 2nd grade gym class with Mr. Johnson, albeit we are sitting down. We later do sun salutations, which I recognize from drama class freshman year of college. One thing that I’m noticing about the ‘different’ styles of Yoga is how similar they all are.

One thing clicks though- I finally get what the Flow part of Hatha Flow means. Certainly it could be attributed to the Cosmic Banana, sure, but it also means that we don’t lock into poses, so to speak. A Flow is a sequence of asanas, done fluidly from one to the next, generally in line with your own breathing. It seems obvious enough on paper, but was something I never understood entirely.

We shavasana- the corpse pose**- wherein we lie down and try not to think about Things, although she does say something about refocusing on our intent, and each sale at the front registers-each register ring- is a reminder that I’m a pervert. I do not do well with not thinking about things.

And we sit up. The teacher asks us to.

“Gather all the love that we have shared today and all the good vibes…”

Someone’s cell phone starts spitting out it’s overly cheerful ring tone, and continues to do so as we attempt to collect the good vibes-which I think is kind of neat that they are supplied for you via the Verizon Wireless network. A free class is free for a reason.

* The Zeeb, for lack of a better expanation, is a counselor I talk to, although is that and many more things, which is why I just call him the Zeeb.

** Which is a rather gruesome name for a pose.

On Namasté

2008-10-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Never has one single word been so emblematic of a wholesale spirituality sell-out. Namasté is ALWAYS said at the end of every yoga class, and it irks me so, I don’t know why.

Probably because it is always delivered in this kind of overly earnest reverential cadence, the timber of the teacher’s voice indicating that we have collectively placed a spiritual button on the end of class, where as formerly, I associated the word with what the flight attendants say to you as you step out on the tarmac at Calcutta International. Kind of a verbal version of the Hawaiian Lei. Do they do this in Indian ashrams? They must.

Perhaps I should view it in the same roll as I view the spring rolls in any Asian restaurant- sort of a litmus test, a standard indicator for quality. If the teacher can say Namaste without a trace of irony, …..damn. Does that make them good or bad?

I haven’t managed to say it yet. I just burble “thankyou” hoping it sort of looks like I’m saying Namaste. Sure I’ll Om- I’ve even found a way to chant a little. This one’s going to be a hell of a hurdle, though, I can feel it.

Class #7: Hatha Yoga @ Yoga Mandala

2008-10-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve elected the Level 2 class. I might not be entirely ready for it, but Em tells me that the Level 2-3 class of the storied Subramanya is the class to go to, and I want to be prepared.

The teacher, who introduces herself with her Indian name, asks me mine.

I don’t remember ever consciously Americanizing the pronunciation of my name. I’m sure it must have happened in grade school. Whether you like it or not, at that age, your name is pronounced however the teacher pronounces it on the first day of class*. At age six, you just acquiesce, and so my name, ever since, has been “Shoe-Mitt”, as that is how it reads off the attendance list. Even that can get hard- a short dialogue with some of my new customers on my paper route, age 13, illustrates:

“So, what is your name young man?”

“It’s Shoe-Mitt.”

“Schmidt?”

“No, SHOE-mitt.”

“Shuman? Very nice to meet you Shuman.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

And so I gave up long ago trying to get people to pronounce my name correctly. Still though, when she asks, for some unknown reason, I’m inclined to trust her, and so I lay it out.

“It’s Shü-meet(h)”**

“Welcome to class, Shü-meet(h).”

She gets it exactly right, and I am immediately endeared towards her. I feel as if I know her already.

Class begins.

It begins, as all Yoga Mandala classes do, with copious chanting. I’m a little embarrassed to have to request the laminated chant card, but I know from last time, we will sing praises to Sarasvati, which I so boldly will pronounce Sho-ro-shoti. Well, not boldly, exactly, but pronounced this way nonetheless.

I need not have worried about anyone hearing me. The man in front of me has got The Voice. It is deeply resonant, almost Barry White in its register, and I suspect he’s had an extra set of vocal cords surgically implanted. As we all Om and chant together, he is by far the LOUDEST. He sits directly in front of me, and yet I can hear his voice far more than any other. It is cool, it galvanizes the class, and we all hit his note, as it is useless to try and escape the gravity of his tone.

We begin the asanas. It’s the patented ‘something-or-other” series, the very same we did in the beginner class, and so it is familiar. Class goes on at a fair clip, the teacher making jokes, and encouraging a sense of camaraderie. She’s funny and personable, and I’m enjoying myself.

There is one slight downfall of having an extra set of vocal cords. The Voice has this habit of making unconscious sounds as his prana circulates. They aren’t really bothersome, but they end up sounding like “umm-hmmm” and “mmmm” and “uh-huh.”
This gives the impression that he is either emphatically agreeing with the teacher as she gives us instructions, or finding something much more sensual in the poses than the rest of the class.

“Raise your left leg-“

“Uh-huh.”

“Now turn it sideways and stack your hips.”

“MMMmmmmmmm.”

“Gently release into Downward Dog.”

“UHHH-Huh!.”

I know it’s not intentional on his part, but I’m finding myself infected by this pseudo-enthusiasm, and have to check myself from adding an extra “You Go Girl!” after his exhortations. I manage to keep my mouth shut, but it is difficult.

We finish class, and the teacher approaches me.

“Where do I know you from?”

It turns out, she can say my name correctly because she has done it before. Not just my name as a name, but my name to ME- we ran with some of the same folk in the college days, me being a punk rocker, her being part of a bohemian troupe that ate fire at street corner performances. Still, it doesn’t diminish the fact that she said my name correctly, and it’s pretty neat to meet up with someone I know, as I don’t yet have a lot of friends here in the Bay. I make a note to attend another of her classes- again breaking my itinerant rule- but that was already broken, and so what of it? Still, I have to meet the Subramanya, and so my last lunch-punch on my 3-class card will go to him, at the level 2-3 class. Hope I can do it.

*While unfortunate when I was a kid, my name served me well when I began teaching. My first year was at a public high school, on the south side of Chicago. At an all black school, the students are rather suspicious of you if you aren’t black, at least in regard to how you pronounce their names, which is reasonable. Before I even tried to read their names off the roster, I wrote my name in full on the blackboard. When I got to LaQuisha, which I pronounced like ‘quiche’, she emphatically corrected me, saying “It’s La-Kwee-Sha!”, moving her head side to side in the way that indicates either Attitude or Indian Classical dancing. I corrected myself and said “Now pronounce my name.” We got along stellar after that.

** the (h) indicates a soft ‘t’, aspirated with your tongue aginst the back of your front teeth rather than the palette. I totally made up the “t(h)” nomenclature, and somehow doubt that I just used the word ‘aspirate’ correctly, but oh well, it’s my blog.

Class #6: Hatha Yoga at Yoga Mandala

2008-10-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am heartened by what I see, initially.

The class is full. More importantly, there are ACTUAL desis in the class. By my count, there are 2 for sure, and 2 unconfirmed, as I can’t see their faces. One woman is a straight up FOB*; she’s looking South Indian to my eyes, dark skinned, hair in a ponytail, and toe-rings. The other confirmed desi is ABCD, a petit young thing, a UC student I’m sure, molded by her parents to believe that she should aim for law school, or perhaps become a doctor or engineer.

I’m stereotyping, certainly, but I get to. Still, I realize I’ve just used the same method to evaluate the studio as I do Indian restaurants. There are real Indians here, so it must be OK, right?

Class starts.

I am paying attention to the teacher, trying to buck my preconceived notions. I think she pronounces the Hymns OK; I’m not sure, as they are in Sanskrit, which I suspect is the “steeped in the ancient traditions of India” way of saying Hindi. I don’t speak Hindi or Bangla, but I can tell the difference, mostly by their cadence. Bangla replaces “ah” sounds with “oh” sounds, and pronounces any “s” sounds with “sh” sounds, the like of which just made deposit a glob of drool on my lap while trying to type and mouth them out at the same time. She mentions Saraswati- the minor goddess of music and literature- and a word which sounds more like “Sho-ro-shoti” in Bangla, and I chant it as such.

That’s right- I chant. Perhaps I was hoping that the cute ABCD girl would hear me, maybe recognize that I was Bengali, and perhaps SHE was Bengali, and perhaps we would have something to talk about, especially as during the class, she was singled out for help more than anyone else. I wanted to shimmy her up with blankets myself. It is difficult for a single man to focus on his own prana during yoga class when there are so many other options.

We carry on. It’s a slightly different sort of method, more movement and what appear to be warm-ups. We insert our fingers in-betwixt our toes and rotate our ankles as if we are reeling in fish from a stream. We cross one leg over the other– still extended- and pump our knees into the ground like we were knicker-clad Mormon children of late 19th century Salt Lake City, vigorously working a lead handle, pumping water out of a well. It occurs to me that there might be a market for Yoga via Norman Rockwell analogy, and I think, for the first time, that it might actually be kind of cool to be a yoga teacher.

As this is a beginner’s class, the actual asanas are low impact, which is fine, but I’m feeling like I can bump it up a bit. I’m trying to prepare myself to meet the Subramanya, hoping to impress, as my friend speaks so highly of him. The teacher- the one who took some care to pronounce all the Sanskrit hymns correctly-asks if we have all signed in. I paid, bought the three-class pass**, but I don’t know if I’ve signed a list.

“What’s your last name?” she asks.

“DasGupta” I reply, taking pains to add the slight ‘sh’ sound to the “Das” portion, as both the FOB and ABCD are within ear-shot.

“Oh, yea you signed in, here you are right here- ShooMott, right?”

Oh well.

Who was I trying to fool, anyway?

*FOB= Fresh off the Boat. I didn’t make it up.
** This feels exactly like buying a middle-school weekly lunch ticket.

Class #5: Anusara Yoga at Yoga Kula.

2008-10-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

I broke my ‘itinerant’ rule tonight and paid-in-full for a class, but I’m going to have to do it anyway if I want to meet Subramanya né Larry anyway. It the first class after the shingles, and since Yoga Kula is right down the street, I figure it’s a good way to get back on the horse.

When I get there, there is some sort of little conference going on in the studio- I’m thinking it’s teacher training or something, and gobs of people are listening to this grey haired man speak, with such undivided attention and deference that I think this might be Friend himself, preaching to his devoted disciples.

We, the lowly acolytes, are shuffled along into another studio, and the nice lady teaching is talking about….well, something about dissecting sadness, I’m not sure, as she is rattling her story off at a speed that I can’t follow, although several days under the influence of shingles and Vicodin may have gummed up the ole’ synapses. She is exuberantly cheerful, although this discourse on meditation feels forced, like she is required to Speak of Meditation, as per the teacher training instructions. She is dissecting her own sadness at having to return from vacation and having to go back to work, a sadness a bit incomprehensible to me, being unemployed.

Frankly, I’m distracted- we can hear the conference through the wall, and I can’t help but wonder if it really is John Friend, and that I, his snarky namesake, Good Friend, am just inches from him, the Yin to his Yang. I can’t help but wonder, though- am I the Skexie or the Mystic?

Class putters along. There are only 3 of us, two males, probably the only class I’ll attend where the men outnumber the women, as least student-wise. The woman to my right- probably in her late thirties, guessing by the crow’s feet barometer, has the body and lithe flexibility of a 19-year old, and for this reason, the teacher feels we can do some advanced poses. She pulls out one that she- the teacher- can’t quite do.

Now I’m not ready for this, but somehow- I have no idea how- I manage to come the closest. The teacher lauds me, and I am immediately endeared to her, so shallow am I to be so pliable by a few ego-stroking words. I push myself too far, pull some unnamed tendon in my bunk knee, but whatever, it’s worth it. At the end of class my knee is screeching and my heart is elated.

We finish with some ‘bolstering poses’- one to support the immune system, one to contact the Cosmic Banana, and one to literally squeeze the poop out of you.

“You always have to start this pose on the left side, due to how your intestines are set up,” she tells us.

“Umm…” I say, “Is this sort of like squeezing cookie dough out of those Toll-House packaging tubes?”

“Yes! Exactly! That’s exactly what we are doing!”

I’m always a better student when I like the teacher.

At the end of class, I ask her if what was transpiring next-door was indeed a teacher conference, if the man I saw was John Friend, Our Lord in Anusara. She says no, which is all I need her to say. She carries on, telling me and any others who cared to listen that it was a philosophical session, a discussion of the ancient Indian Anusara principles steeped in holistic tradition since 1997. She keeps going on, quite the commercial for all the pricey workshops on the calendar, and I get the impression that this is a rehearsed diatribe, Sacred Testaments directly from the mouth of Our Friend, trying to get me to buy in to the Anusara Pyramid Scheme. These speeches, coupled with the litany of John Friend DVD’s in the lobby are what irritate me most about this corporatization of Yoga, the pressing of the discipline into a Business Plan. I’m not entirely convinced that this is strictly an American impulse- I’d be willing to bet Indians do the same, as it seems the pinnacle of ‘teacher credibility’ is to have studied in an actual Ashram in India, under a Guru, or least a well known Powerbroker in the global market-floor of Yoga. I guess you have to outsource at some point.

All my criticism, though, belies a major benefit of the Anusara system. I’m fine taking potshots at John Friend, as he is nothing but a figurehead, raking in profits and looking pretty. What he has managed, though, is to make the Yoga accessible, provided a common language for the teachers and students alike. I find- much to my surprise- that I have internalized the concepts of the Inner and Outer Spirals. When called to use them, I find my body responding without needing to think about it, and it pleases me. I ‘m noticing, too, that after class I feel properly aligned, a respite from having all my muscles winched tight, plodding around town in a Neanderthal gait.

I feel good, and I’m finding myself attached to this studio, but I must press on to others, staying true to my plan. Fortunately this studio offers free classes at the Elephant Pharmacy on Wednesdays, and you know how much free appeals to an unemployed ex-public school teacher whose meager pension plan is currently funding sausages-on-stick for the $430K spa thrown for AIG with their economic bailout check. I will see the Anusara people again, albeit in the back of a swanky grocery store.

"Class" #4:Home-Schooling With Rodney Yee.

2008-10-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

A small note on the Shingles: They hurt like hell. Yes, I bought the DVD hoping to muscle through it, but lordy, the pain got greater and I was on my ass for a bit. And the blistering has to scab and crack- this dampens your motivation, but I managed to at least put it in once and give it a whirl. The experience can best be described in Haiku:

Rodney teaches class
I am in my underpants
He is at the beach

There really isn’t too much I could blather on about doing Yoga in my skivvies that makes for compelling reading, at least for any great length of time, so let’s skin the fat off the cat, pare down our wagons, mix our metaphors, and do a

PROS AND CONS OF YOGA IN YOUR LIVING ROOM

PROS:
- As mentioned, you can do it in your skivvies, or the Altogether, should you be feeling it.
- If you gotta go, you can pause the whole class while you do.
- Bathroom is right there.

CONS:
- Short. The actual yoga is only 20 minutes. I’m lazy and I still think that’s not worth it.
- Yee-Dog don’t invert his left and right, so words and the mirroring are just off. I kinda respect him for just refusing to do so, but for someone who must raise the old “L” hand trick at least 6 times every class, it is confusing.
- Bathroom is right there. It smells as such.
- There is only one other person in the room doing Yoga, and he is doing it perfectly.
- You will buy the DVD for $19.99, do it all of twice, and let it collect dust next to all the other movies you have watched all of twice.

I’d also just rather be in a room with other people, which is kind pathetic, really. I don’t ever say much to anyone when I do attend class, and class is generally silent save the teacher’s instructions and an Om or two. It has to be the least socially interactive activity you can do with other people as you are concentrating solely on yourself, but still, I kinda dig it. Other people are interesting, and I am easily distracted. So, back to it then. A night of Anusara for me, just to get back in the game, and then it’s onward to the next Tapas of Yoga: I’m going to meet a man named Subramanya, né Larry, and I’m fascinated by what he might say.

Class #3: Anusara Yoga @Yoga Kula

2008-10-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have the shingles. Sisterfucking shingles.

I have a line of blistering skin around the right side of my torso, front to back, and it is the chicken pox virus that causes this. I can’t give shingles to anybody, but I can give chicken pox to someone that has never had it, and so I worry about whether or not I should go to class. Everybody I’ve talked to*, though, has had the chicken pox, the only exception being my German friend, and she just isn’t sure, due to the language barrier. I’m sure she’s had ‘em, and I figure, too , that I have my own trusty liver-pink mat, not a loaner from the studio, and it’s not like I can spread the virus to people by breathing on them- you have to touch the blisters, perhaps even lick my torso, and I’m doubting I will be so lucky for that to occur. I’d pretty much have to pick up a naked baby from a stroller and rub him on my ribcage for me to pass it along. I wear two shirts as a precaution anyway, and head to class.

I set up my mat, and while I’m doing so, the instructor immediately pegs me a newbie.

“Hey, how are you doing? What’s your name?”

I balk. I don’t want to say my name.

I don’t want to say my name for two reasons. The first is that I don’t want to tip my hand as an Indian. In a discipline- the California version, to be sure- so married to a sense of authenticity that it makes participants chant in a language they never spoke- I’m afraid of the exoticism tag. The second reason is because of the first- I can’t back it up. I’m from Michigan, remember? I’m not even an authentic Californian, for Friend’s sake.

“Do you want a sheet for the prayer we recite at the beginning of class?”

“Uhhh…I’ll just listen, thanks.”

I need the sheet. I have no idea of what the words are. They only Indian words I know are Bangla, and a few Hindi swear words.** But I don’t want to admit that. I just fold my hands in front of my chest and try to look as if I having deep thoughts. It is not the only time during this class that I have to defer from participating.

After chanting a bit, we finish up with a few holy Oms.

“Om” is the Cosmic Banana, God’s Voice, the Entirety of Everything, the All-Encompassing Truth, the Atman/Brahman interface, the sound for which there are no words. I know all this from an academic perspective, but all I can think of, as we all hum together, is the scene from The Dark Crystal where the wrinkly, potato-shaped Holy Good Guys- looking suspiciously like geriatric versions of the janitor from The Muppet Show- all Om to the cosmic call to go re-unite their Yang to their Yin, the Evil Skexies. And so my holy Om tradition is defined by Jim Henson- may he rest in peace- and I am just fine with that as a personal interface with The Everything. The man was a genius.

Still, because of this, I can’t quite bring my self to Om loud and proud, as if by opening up to the universe, everyone will suddenly know what I am thinking. My mouth is a letterbox slot, wide enough only to insert a grilled cheese sandwich, but at least sound is coming out, and so I progress with baby steps. I am, at least, in tune.

Deferment #2 comes at the end of class. Yes, I had my own mat and I was wearing two shirts, so I wasn’t worried about spreading the old chicken pox virus until the teacher tells us to go get a blanket and insert it under our right sides.

My shingles infected side.

Considering how many blankets I used last time, I could potentially be contaminating them seven-fold and irony of the fact that an Indian would literally be giving back a bunch of pox-infected blankets to the white folk is not lost on me. I defer from this asana, folding into child’s pose, thankful that I don’t need to wear an artificial expression of peaceful bliss, as my face is pressed my faithful liver-coloured mat. It occurs to me that I can’t really attend Yoga class in good conscience until the shingles pass, just in case. I go by the Elephant Pharmacy afterward, along with roughly half of the other students, and rather shamefully purchase a Rodney Yee Yoga DVD. It is mass media Yoga for the next few weeks.

*Having to tell people you have the shingles- as no one entirely understands it, I certainly didn’t- is akin to admitting you are a leper. You aren’t, it isn’t as if you can spread it except in the rarest of circumstances, but it sort of sounds like scabies or rickets or some other antiquated sailor disease, and people look at you funny for it.

** I also know the words sugar- because I dump so much of it in my tea when we visit Calcutta- right, left, the numbers 1-4, please, thank you, and any food terms used in a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. You could certainly say I didn’t try.

Class #2: Anusara @ Yoga Kula,

2008-10-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

I’m running a little Indian for class. I get there, confirm with the nice desk lady that it is still early enough in class to sneak in without breaching etiquette. She says it’s cool and so I enter.

They are still in the sit-cross-legged-dim-lighting-let’s-just-talk-for-a-minute portion of class, but immediately I pick up on the fact that, while not exactly unwelcome, I am unexpected. There are only three students, perfectly aligned in a trifecta in front of the teacher, and I have thrown off the balance. Even their yoga mats match, all a dignified shade of dark purple, and so I roll my mat- which, color-wise would be described as ‘liver-pink’ in crayola parlance- off to the side and back a little, feeling out of place from the get-go.

And so the hymns begin. All the students jump in immediately, and everyone knows the words, and even the harmonies, and I’m a little perplexed. I figure the teacher must have briefed them before I got there, other wise how could these folks seem so familiar with them in what is ostensibly a beginner class?

We get into the asanas, and I am struggling. They seem a lot more in-depth, complicated even, than what I had learned in the previous class, and it seems only I am unfamiliar with the teacher’s commands. At one point we strike some funky asana, I couldn’t tell you which one, that requires you to prop your booty upon a folded blanket. I’m failing and flailing a bit, and the teacher gloms on to this, doing her very best to help me out. She grabs a stack of blankets from the pile and is rather desperately shoving them underneath my ass, trying to shim me up like a dilapidated riverside porch-collapsing swamp shanty this is crumbling on it’s loose foundation. I’m sort of embarrassed to need so much help and later mortified to see all the blankets that have been put to service propping me up. Everyone else has used just one blanket. I have used seven.

Seven.

It sucks to have your ineptness quantified so definitively.

It isn’t until I get home and double check the website that I find I have screwed up the days, that I just attended the advanced class. It’s a sisterfucking moment, but I am at least a little relieved to know there was a reason for my incompetence.

Class #1: Anusara Yoga @Yoga Kula

2008-10-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

They got one thing authentically Indian: class started late. The teacher had a child care issue or something equally excusable, and so I take it with a grain of sugar that she is working on Indian Standard Time (IST) * , that being things start at 'whenever you deem it appropriate to show up' o’clock. Thankfully, she uses the delay to sort of hurry on up through the introductory business, and we have only to do a little bit of Om-ing- no Sanskrit chanting today, and I, for one, am grateful. I’m still too self-conscious to “Om” properly; I hum along, as if I was in church and trying to follow a hymn that I didn’t know the words to.

It is the “Beginner” class and the teacher is pleasant enough, albeit a little heavy-handed with the Downward Dog. We extend our hips in rather ungodly ways, and I feel, after class, if someone has laced my synovial fluid with pulverized glass. I’m not sore the next day- I’m sore now.

Still, the most remarkable thing happens. As we relax at the end of the class, lights dimmed- I assume this is supposed to be the “deprivation of senses” that is one of the eight limbs of Hatha Yoga- I start to nod off, just a little. When she strikes what I’ve taken to call the ‘re-awakening’ gong- in the most literal way- I can feel the waves of sound in a synesthesic sense. They are translucent gold, syrupy viscous fluid, flattening along the floor like pancake batter, enveloping me . I could chalk the first wave up to being in half-sleepy land, but the second and the third time, I am awake, eyes open, and still the waves come. I’m not one prone to being mystical- if I can visualize someone’s aura, I usually go home and clean my contacts or call it a night at the bar- but these waves are tangible, as real and as present as the boom box in the corner churning out the “Peaceful Waterfall Spirit Ungulations” CD in the corner, and it is COOL AS FUCK.

* It’s interesting to note that India, as a country, is bisected by a time-zone line. It is either 10 or 11 hours off from Eastern Standard Time (EST), depending on where the chips fall. This is not interesting in itself. What IS interesting is that the country, as a whole, decided to say “fuck it, that’s too difficult” and so decided to split the difference and just call it 10 ½ hours off of EST for the whole of the sub-continent. To be of the only country one-half hour off the rest of the civilized world makes me proud to be half-Indian.

Anusara Yoga- an introduction of sorts

2008-10-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

I play the bass in a rock and roll band, and have for years.

This may seem an odd introduction, as we are talking about Yoga after all, but bear with me for a moment.

I also write music reviews for a webzine. I always feel it necessary, having an elevated level of music snobbery, to air my prejudices early, and so why not here? I have perused the website of the studio I intend to start with, chosen only for its proximity to my abode. It is Yoga of the Anusara tradition, if you can call something developed in 1997 a tradition. I have concerns about this. In fact, I have concerns about the whole endeavor, and so will rant for a moment. If you are an all-positivity-all-the-time sort of person, you may do well to skip this post. If you’ve ever been a little wierded-out singing Sanskrit hymns in a language you don’t understand in a class led by Mahatajaranarayanan- né Clarance Bean from Omaha, Nebraska- then join me as I express some concerns.

CONCERN #1: Anusara and John Friend

Anusara doesn't seem a real word, insomuch as a google search only turns up hits relating to the school of Yoga. I'm assured by the website that it is a bonafide Sanskrit word meaning "following your heart" or something, but I'm also assured that Yoga Kula has "..teachers who are steeped in the spiritual traditions of ancient India", a little like teabags, I suppose. Still, it seems a little empty and contrived, a word chosen to sound Indian, solely for the purpose of making this new American school of Yoga legitimate. It was conceived by a man named John Friend, a moniker which seems similarly contrived, a bit too welcoming and New-Agey to be real.

CONCERN #2: Organic Energy.

I’m promised, via the website, the fundamentals of Opening to Grace, both Inner and Outer Spirals, and Organic Energy.

Organic Energy. This is a cop-out, description-wise.

First of all, I have been so conditioned that I feel the phrase might only be appropriate on the label of a Bark’n’Berries rectangular energy biscuit, compressed by force into an easily packagable foil wrapped-nugget, the Scooby Snack for New Age Hippies. It’s terrible, I know, this prejudice of mine, but come on now- how more generic can you be than ‘Organic Energy’?

Secondly, taken in a purely scientific perspective, how is anything that goes on in your body not organic? We don’t use any other sort of energy, and as a culture we have a much more succinct term for it that has served well enough for centuries. It’s called 'food'.
Yes, an argument could be made against spaghettio’s and that fake orange cheese sauce,as well as various metal skull plates and synthetic drugs, but still, I hardly expect Yoga to be run on batteries and gasoline. This is just advertising, not a pillar of yogic tradition since 1997.

CONCERN #3: I don’t want to chant.

I just don’t. The website sports both Indian and English ‘lyrics’, so to speak, and I’m assured we will have to sings the praises and give a little Om before we start class, in order to align our meta-physical floating alpha-chakras or some such notion. This is integral to Anusara Yoga, or so I’m told. I hate doing this. I speak, on average, 37 less Sanskrit words than your typical Yoga practitioner, but mine are more useful. If some asshole cuts you off in traffic in Calcutta, are you going to shout “ Weeping Lotus!” at him? No, you’re not. I know how to shriek both sisterfucker, and even grandmotherfucker, if I have to.

Still, it makes me feel odd not to know what these people are talking about, like I should for the obvious reason. I’m afraid of the Look, that flicker of uncertainty that crosses the teacher’s face, the one that says

“Umm…..shouldn’t you know this?”

And perhaps I deserve it. Not for being who I am, but perhaps for all my bleating and reverse-condescension. As much as I’d like to question whether the name ‘John Friend’ is real, I know for a fact it is, at least in one sense: My name, a proper Bengali name, means “good friend.” I am the John Friend of ethnicity, a smiling icon of India whether I like it or not, and Karma is biting me in the ass for being so snarky about it.

So let me say that there it is- simply concerns laid out on the table. I’ve aired them, they are out, you know where I am coming from. Time to do some yoga.

The Hindu God of the Week, Oh Lord

2008-10-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

Really, how could I not? Who comes up with stuff, anyway?

To begin with

2008-10-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

I make a poor Indian. I’ll be the first to admit it.

There is a reason I tell you this. I’ll illuminate in a minute, but first the evidence.

The first strike is that I am a proper ABCD* - I was born and raised on Midwestern soil, a corn-fed, suburban Dee-troit Michigander who knows more about the cultural repercussions of buying a foreign ‘Toy-Oh-Tah’- rather than an apple-pie-flag-waving Ford- than how the actual sub-continental monsoons work. I know monsoons involve lots of rain. I also know that if you drive a Toyota anywhere south of 8 mile road- the very Slim Shady same- in southeastern Michigan you’d better get it stowed away in the garage before sun goes down, lest yoos lookin’ for a busted window and/or a fight. Motor City, baby.

The second strike is that I am only a half-blood; my mother is a proper Englishwoman, fair-skinned and snarky.

This leads to the third strike- I don’t speak the language. Most ABCD kids can rattle off at least a home-spun version of their mother tongue, Punjabi ,Gujarati, Bengali, - but my mom speaks English only, and consequently, so does her offspring. The major language issue in our home came when I got marked off on my third-grade spelling test for the word ‘colour’. My mother had a fit, entreating me to speak out, take a stand against the grammatical oppression of American English, to confront blameless Ms. Sabo with the fact that I had spelled the word more accurately than my depraved Yankee counterparts at Winchester Elementary. I declined. I was 8 years old at the time.

I tell you all this for this reason: It’s time to get back to my roots. And by roots, I mean Yoga.

The way I figure, I’ve been changed, being raised on good old American soil. The way I figure, Yoga probably has, too. So we will meet again, here in our adopted- perhaps surrogate- motherland. I’ve always struggled with the neither-here-nor-there existence of an Anglo-Indian-American; to Americans, I am Indian, to Indians I am steadfastly American, and to the British, I am a sort of icon for a nation’s bastard children.

What I can do, though, is act as a go-between; with a foot in all these worlds, I might just be able to explain one to the other. And so here I find my purpose. I am a translator, but only in one language.

I must first admit to some cynicism on my part- I was young enough, when the ‘New Age’ movement started taking root, to make light of it. It seemed absurd, the proliference of self-help books, Pilates videos, the personality cults of Dr. Andrew Weil and Rodney Yee, the idea that if you bought the correct herbal Whole Foods Rosemary Infused Shower Gel that you could cleanse your self of all that sticky, gross, toxin-laden karma congealed on your immortal soul. Since when did adding food to household cleaning products absolve you of your sins?

The mitigating factor to my cynicism is the fact that I am now officially ‘older’- all my scoffing at self-help culture has come to bite me in the ass. I’m in a position where I have to admit that one can only be a twenty-something so far into one’s thirties until it becomes tired and self-destructive. I have to change my life around, and New Age/Ayurvedic/Holistic/Vegan/Organic/Ikea/Spirituality is the most readily available outlet here in California. So be it. I’m going to Yoga class, with some measure of kicking and screaming involved.

I think it was the cultural shift of the 60’s- the sudden proliference of sitars in pop music, a sudden market for Ganesha figurines carved out of sandalwood, and the uncontested notion that something Indian is automatically and unquestionably accepted as ‘spiritual’- that inspired the idea for this blog. I have only limited experience with yoga class- despite that it was born of the sub-continent, the handful of Desi friends and relatives I know don’t practice, or at least don’t practice in a way that is obviously trendy, and if they do, it isn’t spoken of in the hushed, reverent tones of the yoga teacher or the new age practitioner, but more a “Dad’s got his mats spread out all over the garage again, DON’T go in there unless you want to see him sticking his grungy whitey-tighty covered ass in a far-too-revealing lesson in the anatomical progression of middle age, and no, I don’t want lunch anymore” sort of way.

So, in fact, my only exposure to the practice has been only American. In the classes I have attended- and I could count them on two hands- I always feel at a loss. I always seem to be the only ‘proper’ Indian in Yoga class, and you know me well enough by now to understand why I put the word ‘proper’ in quotes. Often enough at these functions, I get the impression that people are wondering if I am the instructor. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I don’t know where my chakras are, outside of understanding that they run down the front of your torso, much like an internal button-down shirt. The only contortion I’m familiar with was learned from the WWF and Rowdy Roddy Piper. When I was first instructed, at a class at a hot-springs retreat famous for its polyamorous conferences, to actualize my prana, I promptly confused it with Prada®, and was perplexed as to what ‘high-end leatherwear accessories’ had to do with ‘awareness’. I giggled when I learned that one of the central energy points used in yoga is your perenium, something I had always called the ‘Taint, as in “ ‘taint quite here, ‘taint quite there.”

I know I know, it’s a juvenile attitude. It’s a standoffish point of view coupled with the neither-here-nor-there existence of a half-breed that leads to this particular brand of sarcasm. I’m fine condemning commercial uses of Indian spirituality, voicing public disgust at skin-tight, tie-died Ganesha T-shirts with nipples outlined at the Ohm contacts of his third set of fingers, at least until I admit the fact that I’m a little woozy and enamored with the actual ‘nipple’ aspect. I like parsing through all the aspects of multi-cultural permutations of imagery in an increasingly heterogeneous society, but I also like sex, and immediate breasts will always trump abstract repercussions.

Being critical of something I know nothing about smacks of ignorance. I need to educate myself, before I can feel justified in commenting- or even condemning- an entire sub-culture. And so I came up with a plan.

What I’m proposing is a reunion of sorts. I intend to spend the next few months exploring and researching every aspect of Yoga- its origins, its relocation, and all the new permutations it now enjoys here in the good ole’ U.S. of A. While I look the part, I don’t speak the language, and it’s time to start learning it. I’m imagining it will be a surprise for us both, this re-uniting of far-flung cousins.

I intend be a ‘yoga itinerant’ of sorts- I’m allowing for my MTV-raised American mentality to come to the forefront, and so it is Yoga for the short attention span. As both a sample platter and a cost-effective technique, I’ll do the ‘1-week’$20 deal at as many studios I can find. Studios that embody a change in the discipline will get preference; I’m interested in the evolution of culture on other soil, after all, and so ‘cultural fusion’ shall be the watch-phrase of this project. I don’t know if my practice will ‘deepen’, as they say, if I will elect to commit to further exploration- we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let us commence.

* American-Born-Confused-Desi