Standing Up

Yesterday my drop-backs were a disaster. Well, that is only partly true. Dropping back was the strongest ever; standing up was a disaster. In fact, I stumbled almost every time. And yet, I remember thinking during my practice that the primary series was beginning to feel less difficult, like it was part of me; I remember learning when I first started practicing that Ashtanga is meant to be a practice that one begins each day like brushing one's teeth. I am mostly there. The practice runs through me and I through it. And when my teacher helped me to drop back I placed my hands closer to my feet than ever; I could see his feet. So why the disastrous back bends? I don't know. I know enough to know that it was probably representative of something else...

No practice today. Two full moons in a month is rare. Tonight is a blue moon... I was able to find much-needed sleep this morning.

The last several days I have been immersing myself in the pre-tenure portfolio. I'm not sure, but it could be that my struggle to stand up from backbend was related to this process of trying to articulate who I am and what I've done over these last several years. The portfolio is a contrived project, but it's not all that. Flickers of realization come and go, but the most powerful happened today. In compiling my service portfolio, I called upon previous experiences in my previous tenure-track job. Among the list of publications, teaching innovations, and service accomplishments, no single experience stood out like my work on domestic partner benefits at my previous institution. As I read through my narration of these efforts, I felt a wave of melancholy: part sadness, part relief, part heaviness in the heart. The school now offers these benefits. In all of my inner questioning about my career choice, this activism has made me most proud. It is tangible, meaningful, raw...

Through this lens, I saw the real in the last four and a half years. The moments of pure connection with students, the rhetoric that comes from the heart and not the hope for accolades or a line on the CV, the genuine feeling of pushing an institution forward. As I read through my portfolio materials, I latched on to the whole reason why I do this professor thing: human kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, carving a new path around the politics that does illuminate the romance of reading and theorizing and applying ideas that work. It is not always possible to see this sense of purpose because the air gets cloudy with bureaucratic static and political tension.

In practice, vinyasa is meant to wipe the slate clean between asanas. I once overheard one of my teachers explaining vinyasa: one becomes so strong with bandhas and breath that one could move from intensive forward bend to backbend, from seated to handstand, from open to twisted, without the feeling of clogged energy in between. I realize as I write that this professional portfolio process is a kind of vinyasa, and that I need to punctuate my professional life with a vinyasa that helps me to clear the muck that confuses my sense of purpose and reveals the pure motivation behind this choice. My mentor calls this kind of renewal "choosing the job back." Vinyasa will help me to move from task to task in this academic life without clinging, without ego-latching.

I wonder whether an intensified focus on vinyasa will help me to find the energy, the strength in my legs to stand up once I've dropped back. Wiping the slate clean helps not only to let go of where we've been, but also to let go of where we expect to be going.

Stand slowly: belly, then heart, then brain comes up last.

Lift

I am back in the city from a week-long trip home for the holidays. The trip began beautifully and ended on the horribly sour note that people talk about...my father's pain erupted, and I got in the way of it. And even though I couldn't sleep the night before we returned, I was consoled by at least four things: 1) the knowledge that I was not alone in getting caught in the storm of emotions that can befall some people during this time of year, 2) the reassurance of my mother, whose words were some of the most endearing that she has communicated to me, 3) my practice, and 4) my beautiful daughter and partner.

On the drive home, I told my partner that I was worried I might float away. The pain was in my belly, of course. But in nursing my child last night, I felt none of it; I watched her and marveled at her basic need for a full belly and the gentle power in being able to provide for it. While sleeping, no memories of the pain came to me. My daughter slept through the night. And this morning, I had forgotten about the pain and the belly ache of anxiety. It is nothing that Yoga Chikitsa cannot help to dissolve. And, lo...at Mysore there was handstand, unexpected.

I practiced in two places during our trip: poolside at the Marriott (nothing like the warmth of a heated room and a huge pool of water to dip one's arms in before Garbha Pindasana), and on the 3 x 10-foot landing between the two bedrooms at the top of my mother-in-law's stairs. While my daughter slept in the bedroom to the right of the landing, I practiced jumping back to Chaturanga and forward to Utanasana silently. And on the soft, safe carpet I found the courage to work a bit on handstand. When I came to my practice this morning, I had still with me the softness of that practice. And there was handstand after Utkatasana. I held it as long as I wanted to...and then let myself fall down to Chaturanga. The toe appears to have healed.

Despite coming home with a heavy heart, I sit here in my office at the university, printing out page after page of my career thus far for my pre-tenure portfolio, and my heart is light. On the elevator ride downstairs to move my car, I rubbed my eyes to relieve them of the strain of looking at the computer, put my hand in my pocket, and discovered the chocolate that my father-in-law suggested that I take with me on the trip home.

I am thinking about this lightness that has come to the surface of what I thought would be a heavy, uninspired, sad transition. I'm sure I am not entirely responsible for these bits of fortune. The blessing of those who come to our aid in their extraordinarily significant ways is humbling in its mysteriousness. What we can do is try not to float away. Being present, as my partner and my mother remind me, is most important; and to be present does not mean to sit with the pain. In yoga, as I have discussed, the "lift" can come from the anchoring down into the earth. Mula bandha, the "root lock," involves both the rooting down and the reaching up. In engaging what one of my teachers calls a "marriage of opposites," we find strength and balance.

I also find handstand, and peace in the belly.

Light

I have been working all day today on the pre-tenure portfolio...the "service" part of it. There are moments of insight in this process; today, I experienced a genuine feeling of membership to the university where I teach and research. As I was composing my rationale for my commitment to serving my institution, I felt like a part of a larger picture; I'm not sure I know what that is yet. But it was interesting...illuminating.

Last night was hard...insomnia has me these last few days. It's laughable, almost; my daughter gets up her usual once a night, and I'm quite used to it. But to have insomnia? Seriously? I planned to go to bed at 9:30 last night so that I could start my day early with Mysore...I finally got to sleep at around 1:30am. Much, much later than expected. It's contextual, of course...it has its causes. Stress presses on my heart and no yogic breathing or sutra can help me in that moment. I get stuck.

No Mysore for me today. I can already feel the ache for tomorrow morning's class. Early bedtime tonight, if I can.

I find — don't you? — that nighttime makes most things dark. An argument before bed can feel like sleeping underneath a bookcase. An argument nowadays feels like a knife in the heart; the grown-ups were right about how significantly a child changes a union. I am flabbergasted by the shifts that have taken place, humbled by our bravado that we were so extraordinarily strong that we would sail through our first child without a scratch, determined to find my way back to what he calls "the core." This struggle hearkens back to the second sutra, I think: if our minds are the lenses for our reality, then we must change the noise in our minds. We err when we continue to look at the present through the lens of the past, when we mourn the way it used to be and become entangled in wishing for the before. Why, when we are so blessed by the now? Because we want to have it all...the upheaval with the comfort of predictability.

That's not how it works. She is like a star that we've been looking for. And now that we have found it, how can we expect the light of her not to change the way we see one another? She shines so brightly that we look toward one another and see things dimming...it does not have to be that way. There is a way, I think, to make light in this new darkness. He says that things begin to separate when people stop trying. I will never stop trying, even when I cannot see a thing in the dark.

Snow and the Second Sutra

It's amazing here in the city...so much snow. The system was enormous; on the radar it was a massive, brilliant blue blob hovering above the Middle Atlantic. And it came down all day yesterday...down on a city that hardly gets any snow at all. The cars are snowed in, and our downstairs is much warmer than it usually is because the snow is snuggling all around us. It is beautiful.

And yet, bless their hearts, I still saw six students in my yoga classes yesterday. I suppose that is what makes the city infinitely cool — those who live within spitting distance can simply bundle up and trudge through the sidewalk snow to come to the warmth and welcome of class. And it was just that...and, as usual, I trudged home with a full heart and yet another realization that the tremendous reciprocity of teaching yoga offers.

It was a realization about grace and perception. We have a million different ways to respond to a situation, and we have a choice of how we respond. It is the second of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Yogas Citta Vritti Nirodhah (please forgive the lack of accompanying Sanskrit symbols), "The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga" (2007, 3). Sri Swami Satchitananda explains, "The entire world outside is based on your thoughts and mental attitude. The entire world is your own projection" (5). This would be my greatest lesson. I pledge to learn it well.

My daughter is seven months old today. Seven months...

Works Cited

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. 12th edition. Trans. Sri Swami Satchatananda. Yogaville, VA: Integral Yoga Publications, 2007.

"Gifts of Paying Attention"

Yoga doesn't get old. There is always a new space between joints to open up, a new way to make space for the breath, a new way to place the hands or feet or hips or shoulders. For me, there is an expectation that practice will uncover something new every time. And every time it does. The lesson, I think, is two-fold: it is learning not to have that expectation, and it is learning to see the subtleties even more intricately. Letting go of expectation releases us from assigning an ego-driven purpose to the practice. The practice is in the body and in the soul, not the ego. Even if we don't "get a pose," even if our progress seems invisible, even if we encounter a setback, we can witness the differences between today's practice and yesterday's practice and understand the subtle forces that shape practice every day. We show this appreciation on Moon Days, for example, when the gravity on the earth and on our bodies is different than it usually is.

If we practice from the inside out, and from the outside in, then we can take with us off the mat this appreciation for the subtlety of balance, the shape life takes. My friend Hugh, who is songwriter and a yogi at heart, refers to this appreciation as the "gifts of paying attention" in one of his songs.

When I was pregnant, the changes from day to day were very noticeable. My belly was getting larger every day; my body was getting heavier at a pace more rapid than any I had ever experienced. When I stepped onto the mat and began Surya Namaskara, I could feel how my body had changed from the day before because of how it felt in my practice. I think that is a gift of yoga, a "gift of paying attention." My body is not undergoing such rapid change now, but I still maintain the same appreciation for the forces — however small — that influence practice.

Parenting fosters this gift. I have never watched or listened to anything more closely than I watch and listen to my daughter. Every twitch of the face, extension of the arm, iteration, breath. I can hear her breath from my room next door; it wakes me out of sleep. I know her smell. I can hear her among the other babies at "school" without seeing her face. I know her feet, the back of her head, her belly, her ear. And the process of growing up with her — growing up all over again — is swift, yes. But it is also slow...like the journey from waking up to practicing through the series in the morning. In Savasana, I think, "How did I get here already?" And then I remember the asanas, strung together with Vinyasas like beads.

This is why I planned to labour with my daughter without epidural, and it is why I feel so lucky that we could do that together. When it was over, I lay there with her and thought, "How did I get here already?" But I had the sensation of every feeling etched in my memory, an understanding of how she and I moved together from the instant of her conception to the instant of her birth. Every physical sensation, the pain and bliss, shaped by every moment.

These days, I try not to underestimate the power of the moon, hunger, fatigue, thirst, temperature, sound, weather, and pain on the shaping of life.

Practicing Through

Right. So yesterday I almost broke my toe. I begin there because it comes with a certain irony.

After Utkatasana, I have been practicing — lightly, fearfully — handstand. My teacher helped me into it yesterday. It's not a matter of strength; it's a matter of fear. He pointed that out: "You're afraid even when I'm standing here. I'm not going to let you fall" (read: yet another metaphor nestled in the practice). So I finally found balance, and transitioned down to Chaturanga, whereupon I landed not-so-gracefully on my second toe of my right foot. It is now 50% larger. Not broken, but creepy.

But here's the thing: practice doesn't stop. We try to stay present in the body, rather than make the toe much, much bigger than it needs to be. We find a way to practice around the toe. Or, even, through the toe. Through the shoulders, through the eerie pain in the right kidney. Even though the pain is there, we rely on the rest of the body to support the pain, on the breath to support the body, on the bandhas to support the breath. And the irony is that we may find even more strength.

And so I returned to Mysore this morning, swollen toe and all, and I took handstand near the wall. I needed the wall the first time around. But then I didn't need it. It is what I say to my own yoga students: use the block; you won't always need it. Is it a kind of looking-forward reassurance? Yes, it is. But it's a compromise between Eastern and Western thinking: live in the present, if you can. Be completely present, if you can. Look only down at where your feet are planted, if you can. But if you can't right now — if you must feel anxious about the future — find a way to anchor yourself in the present while you do it. Keep one foot planted firmly in the present; one hand planted firmly on the block.

Garbha came closer to me today; or, I went closer to it. It's messy, but it's here. Even, with a few tries, all the way to Kukkutasana. And my dropping back and standing up is smoother, stronger. And in jumping back, I practiced thrusting my hands into the earth to help support the left shoulder and give me lift; there it was.

While I was in Supta Kurmasana (with help), my teacher said to me, "Rebecca, second series?" January.

My daughter is better. Her fever has faded, her smiles are returning, and she is left only with a horrific cough. Last night it really shook her. But she didn't cry. The cough took her over, and I helped her sit up and get her composure. She just let out a sigh, as if to say, "Whew...that was something, huh?" I shouldn't put words in her mouth. However, I cannot help but to see and admire how she moved through it and didn't hold on to any of it on her way out. She genuinely lives in the present, as my partner pointed out today. She inspires us (read: yet another gift nestled in the practice of parenting).

This week my work is devoted to third-year review. I have been through this process before, and so it is with some calm in my heart and in my belly that I encounter it again in this new context. Still, I can feel in the belly some butterflies flitting, stirring anxiety about the process. Old stuff. At the end of his Power Yoga sequence (Gaiam, 2003), Rodney Yee says, "Let your brain sink into your heart on the waves of your breath." This is today's goal.

"Let your brain sink into your heart on the waves of your breath."

Rainy Sunday

I love days like this in Philly. The rain is coming down in buckets, and it was a trickle into Mysore this morning. My friend Catherine says she loves stormy days because the world just slows down; how right she is. My practice this morning was drama-free. My shoulders were sore, but I took good care of them — such good care, in fact, that Sirsasana at the end of the practice was virtually painless. This meant, of course, taking my attention away from jumping back. I did it a couple of times, but I still cannot get that left shoulder not to bend in a creepy way. The issue is at least two-fold: my feet are big and my elbows bow in. I realize, of course, that we are not meant to spend much time talking about how our bodies don't fit into the practice. But I do know that those are my challenges, and so I focus even more intently on keep hands under elbows under shoulders...right from the jumping to Chaturanga in the Surya Namaskaras. Right from the beginning. It's the best way to lock that focus in.

Setu Bandhasana is here now. It was quite something to experience today. I didn't realize how Matsyasana fit in; and now I see. I rolled all the way to the fontanelle, keeping arms crossed over chest, listening to my teacher's words in my head. The man knows what he's doing.

Made some progress in Garbha Pindasana...rolled halfway round, then fell out. Felt a strange pressure on my right kidney that was a little unexpected; so I think I freaked myself out. Tomorrow.

My daughter is still struggling with her sickness. We saw more smiles today, but she's very uncomfortable. I am in awe of her ability to just experience her sickness and not worry herself with our worries. I gaze at her, looking for signs of improvement, and she is just existing in her own sickness, as if she is managing it responsibly on her own. It is her sickness, not ours, and she knows it is hers. I can see her trying to wipe her own nose; I obey her when she tells me that she is ready to be taken back to bed (in no uncertain terms); I come to her when she has had enough and needs to be reminded that we are here. I watch her eyes grow watery as she tries to take her usual interest in Sunday football, and I can see her managing her own health. She needs us, for sure. But hers is a small, but vastly significant form of independence.

Friday

When she is trying to go to sleep, my daughter loves to have her face softly tickled and her belly rubbed.

Last night I got up with her and knew that today would be a no-school day. It's haunting, these instincts. Today she was even sicker; watery eyes, no smiles, a cough that hurts to hear. It pains me to imagine not having spent the day by her side. I am lucky to have a partner who can share the parenting, who is flexible in his vision of how the day is 'supposed' to go, who feels her hurt when I feel it, too. We are both lucky.

No led primary this morning. Snuggles with my baby and a rest for the shoulders.

Tonight she struggled to sleep, and multiple times I flew up the stairs to calm her. Eventually the only thing that would work was to stand and rock her so that she could stretch way out long on her back and moan. I love her honesty. Even in misery she is beautiful and forthright and the sweetest little pickle.

Progress

I finally found my way into Garbha Pindasana today. I balanced, and I fell out again when I tried to roll back. I have a feeling this may be a physics issue. Will try again tomorrow.

Shoulders are still tweaking. I laid off the jump back today. I absolutely positively must get my hands beneath my shoulders. Titibhasana to Bakasana was not as painful as it was yesterday, but it was painful enough. I can see what's happening; I just have to slow it down enough to realign. I felt the tweaking when I went to push my daughter's stroller. Okay...so we slow down and figure this out.

Setu Bandhasana, on the other hand, made sense today. As did the newest iteration of Sirsasana.

I feel myself reverting back to an old version 1.0 need to please my teacher. It's hard not to want to. It's built into the practice. Tomorrow is the led primary, when we show the teacher what we have learned all week and try to keep up with the pace of the counting. Must go easy on the shoulders...must.

And yet, at the same time, I am finding this average-ness to be delicious. More on that later.

* * * * *

My little one has a cough that breaks my heart to hear. I have been watching her in the video monitor tonight as she sleeps, and she has just now come to a peaceful place. About an hour or so ago, I must have flown up the stairs (she is on the third floor) three times to soothe her. A hand on the belly seems to work. I am fumbling through being her Mommy, but she seems to think it's okay (except for when I wipe her face or her nose). I am dedicated to her.

In her big crib she seems tiny, though onlookers tell me she is getting so big. I see it sometimes, and then I see her again as a tiny peanut. My mother still uses the word "teeny" to refer to me sometimes. I am small; so it's a literal thing. But I think it must also be a figurative thing. I'm not sure I'll ever get this vision of my tiny daughter out of my mind, even when she is all grown up. Ssssh...let's not talk about that now.

Learning and Unlearning

Janu Sirsasana C

Garbha Pindasana and Kukkutasana

Supta Kurmasana

Urdhva Muka Paschitmottanasana

Setu Bandhasana

These poses challenge me the most.

This morning's practice was about learning, as always. I finally learned the right way to get into Setu Bandhasana. Now, to practice it correctly. Also, my teacher cranked me into Supta Kurmasana, as he often does, and I felt less panic than usual. And he helped me into Garbha Pindasana, which I traveled into farther than I had ever been. It was a new horizon. While this pose is not nearly as challenging as others, it is one of the most challenging to me. I have always had a hard time squeezing my arms through. David suggested that I use lots of water, and he helped pull my arms like taffy. They finally fit, and I found my balance, but lost the bind on my third roll back. I tried to get back in, but couldn't. "Tomorrow," he said.

I stood up from my backbend the right way....ish.

But I also had to unlearn — for like the 47th time — sirsasana. I have changed this pose so many times, and felt the relief of thinking I'd finally found the right positioning of my head. Thought I had the fontanelle. I should know; my daughter's is still soft. But I was too far forward. I used to do headstand hovering above the ground to avoid any wrong contact between floor and head. Now, I think I have it. I was wobbly today, but I think it locked into place. I also felt the shoulder release...

Which brings me to shoulders. They hurt. Jumping back and Titibasana back to Bakasana turn my shoulders — I am missing something. They scare me when they hurt like this; I worry about the loss of my practice. That I will break myself. But I think I know why it's happening. I am not lining up my hands below elbows below shoulders. I am not pressing into my hands nearly as strong as I should. I found this site yesterday, and it made so much sense:

http://www.ashtanganeworleans.com/Old%20Website/StudentSection/JumpBack-Maty.htm

I realize as I type all this that it was actually a better practice than I have been giving myself credit for.

But it went long, and I came home to a hungry baby and a partner needing to start his workday. And the guilt of practicing when I 'should' have been elsewhere. And a bellyache. And a mantra for the day: today I cannot do anything right. Ugh...even as I type it I see the cliche.

It's interesting how that happens: the practice can become a kind of stamp of who we are that day. It's the blessing and the curse: we have to face who we are that day in practice, but then we are tempted to take that identity with us, when it really should stay on the mat, or melt away with Savasana. I took from practice that I had been doing it all wrong. I started a storm of doubts: should I be teaching yoga when I cannot seem to find my own fontanelle? Should I be practicing now when I could be at home? Am I worth this teacher's time? Is he disappointed in me? Am I letting my partner down?

What's the use of that? Yoga teaches us to be in the practice, but that the practice is always evolving in every moment. It is the most beautiful mix of construction and deconstruction; it is anchored in an ancient tradition that we follow day after day...but it is constantly coming apart and holding together as the body enters the shape, breathes in the shape, micro-moves in the shape, departs from the shape. It is "always already."

The day has evolved since my morning mantra.

All is belly

Guruji has said, "Practice, and all is coming." I know these words to be true, for all has been coming since I began my yoga practice in 2003, and certainly since I began my Ashtanga practice in the summer of 2008. All is coming.

Also, all is belly. It could not be more perfect that the Yoga Chikitsa ("yoga therapy") of the Primary Series is to cleanse and to heal, and that the belly is the focus of that cleansing and healing. My belly has been the furnace of my body for my whole life; my brain and heart have trickled down into my belly, where they simmer. My belly has been in knots for years and years: listening for the next departure, abstaining, holding in, catching my breath in a shallow reserve. Most recently, however, it has been a garden for nurturing and change: the nerves, the hunger, the will, the jumping forward and back, and, yes, the baby. All has been coming to the belly. It is opening, cleansing, and healing.

I have been practicing the Primary Series of Ashtanga yoga since the summer of 2008, and 9 months of that time I spent growing my daughter. Almost every day I practiced while she grew. My beloved teacher, Karen, helped me to take out and modify asanas and insert Second Series where it would help me most: ustrasana, supta vajrasana. I backbended and inverted and forwardbended day after day, and my child flowed with me in her watery cocoon and woke up during savasana while I rested. When my daughter was being born, I felt every single moment, and I breathed from the bottom of my belly to the very top of my lungs as we worked to help her out. And after I rested my body for a few weeks, I returned to my practice to find asanas that were inaccessible before. Something released in the belly when she left it; and she left a space for me to grow stronger and to breathe.

She is here now, my daughter, and she is hilarious and peaceful. I am practicing most days now, I am re-immersing myself in the devotion of my beloved second home, Yoga Squared, and I am listening to my new teacher, David. I am listening to him, to my daughter, to the ancient history of my partner and me, and to my mothers a bit more lately. I am an English professor, a yoga teacher, an Ashtangi, a mother, a partner, a friend, a (grand)daughter, and I am only just learning how to be any of these things, and all at once. In this listening, I am finding out that I am much more important than I thought I was, and much less important than I feared I was.

I hope this blog shows someone else that she or he is not alone. I hope it soothes someone else's belly.