Blog Filler and Yoga Costumes

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.