Practice Diaries: Practice Sucked, Doing It Wrong, Birthing Unicorns and the Magic of Normal Edition

Today my practice sucked.

Most days — a lot of days — I get on my mat and I want to make love to the world and watch it give birth to a trillion butterfly rainbow unicorn kittens.

Not today.

Today there are no mythological creatures or even baby animals. Today there is just sucking (and not of the love making variety). What I do make, is passable posture shapes all the short way to to a half-assed kapotasana (translation: a big backbend but done at a loveless twenty percent) followed by collapse onto my butt into the shape of “lazy-sucky-human-asana.” There I cry a little then pick up my phone and send a few “goodbye cruel world I want to quit everything and I suck” text messages to my husband, because who doesn’t just love receiving a few of those while at work?

Doomsday texting complete, I manage a few more poses and a surprising jump into crow. Do I even manage to crack a smile? If so, it’s fleeting and I collapse onto my butt into “holding-smartphone-lazy-excuse-for-human-how-much-do-you-suck-pose” (patent pending), send a few more depressing texts to friends who have no choice but to receive them and so far have not ghosted me but the jury is still out, then scroll through insta for good measure, and —

perhaps now is a good time to notice, dear reader, that you might be thinking–texting during yoga? Instagram during yoga? Well, dear me, she’s doing it wrong!

Let me save you the trouble:

Of COURSE I AM DOING IT WRONG! (Workshops TBD)

It gets worse. I google — hot damn that’s right I’m doing forking research on the internet during my practice now — “when your practice sucks.” Ironically I get a bunch of links to the swampy suckage of law firm practice, which, well, I’ve been there done that. I now refine my my search to include yoga and– can I just express some motherforking gratitude for Shanna Small of Ashtanga Yoga Project for being prolific and covering everything?

The Magic Happens When Your Yoga Practice Sucks

Maybe there’s a unicorn to be birthed today after all. Just knowing that someone wrote this means that I am not the first person in the world to really fucking suck while on a yoga mat.

Relief.

It is time to shut up, divorce the forking phone and put a leg behind the head. Undeterred, shitty emotions continue their march across my brain, taking turns headlining my consciousness. I label them: unworthy, shitty, worthless, pointless– and come back to feeling my breath.

I see you, Mara.

Instead of inviting my demons to tea, I invite them to hang out while my leg goes behind my head. Yes, leg behind the head. Finally, I am doing something normal.

Each pose unfolds, like, well, normal and that, in itself, is magical. Each pose unlocks the next, each opening a door into the quiet. And it is quiet; there is no music but my breathing, the silent pitter patter of my mind finding It’s rightful open space. Second series slips into third, till I’m standing up now with one leg behind the head (totally normal) and then, my final posture. It’s not quite there yet, but there is progress– progress I’m glad I got to see. I’m reminded of a story about magician Harry Houdini, as relayed by Tara Brach:

This is the story of the magician Harry Houdini who traveled through Europe to small towns challenging local jailers to bind him in a straight jacket and lock him in a cell to see if he could escape. Over and over again, he would amaze and astonish his audiences with how he could break out of his straight jacket and cell.

But one day, he went to a small Irish village and ran into trouble because in front of a whole flock of people, be broke free of the straight jacket, but no matter what he did, he could not open the lock. Finally disappointed, the towns people left. Houdini asked the jailer about the lock trying to understand why he couldn’t open it. The jailer told him, “it was just an ordinary lock, I figured you could open anything, so I didn’t bother locking it”.

I locked myself into suckage that day. and with practice, I let myself out. No practice is ever wasted. Indeed, with this practice — that totally sucked — I gained something immeasurable.

Freedom.

(Rainbow butterfly unicorn kitten production resumes tomorrow).

Practice Diaries: Seven Minutes in Heaven

Llama, llama, red pajama– what’s with all this ashtanga drama?  

So here I am. On my mat. Home alone.

But no matter where I go there’s this bad neighborhood I call the internet, or maybe I’m the bad neighborhood. No doubt wifi signals float around my inhales and exhales, no doubt the frequencies inside my head could signal outer space. Still, this Manduka mat seems a safe harbor from the shit-soupy-cereal of likes and emojis outside and in the ether and eventually, if not right now, from the dirty snow slush pile inside my head. It’s a safe zone from the hot lava of mental machinations. You can’t tag me “out” here.

Though perhaps, like me, you keep waiting for it. For the other shoe to drop. No, it already did, and it was more like a shoe bomb. And then came another and another and another till I was just pelted by a hailstorm of shoes dropping. I’m taking about the stories of assault by PJ, the wahoo say what now? goings on with list of authorized/certified teachers, and the endless echo of Facebook threads that swirl and snarl and boil.

Llama, llama, red pajama– what’s with all this ashtanga drama?  

Let me cut the song and dance. Here’s what I’m finding on my mat: a daily experience of being, a ritual that serves as both the lavender oil balm and coffee kick for the soul. This doesn’t mean that the circus outside my door must be ignored. But for 90 give or take minutes on my mat, I try to find that space where even if I can’t ignore the raining boots, that cockamamie world isn’t leading me around by the nose.

I’m taking a mindfulness class and it’s, forgive me– yummy. The experience of being in the room for over an hour is itself a bath in some new mind space because I am out of the house at night — translation: my usual space of never ending to do lists, dishes, laundry, dogs. We arrive, put away our shoes and phones and listen to the wonderful teacher and to each other and do some guided exercises.

It’s a relief.

It’s a relief to have time off from the endless autoplay inside the brain, to throw a wrench into its constant whirring and turning, the way the mind will pick up a thought, stare at it, turn it over, lick it, bite it, suck on it till the tongue of consciousness is bright red and sore. I am trying to bring this into my yoga practice, because while the practice dictates attention to breath by breath, I’ve also practiced up my skill in thinking about the breath instead of feeling it. Yes, I’ve not managed to execute my final posture, but I have reached a near expert level of playing a loop of thoughts– think a “real housewives”- type marathon– in my brain as I breathe and move and practice.  Well, at least it’s short lived. At some point the practice flow picks me up to swim with it; at some point a pose or transition rips me into the moment and I stay afloat there —

mostly.

Angela Jamison described stepping onto her mat as entering a “little hell.”

“I go into the little hell because every time I practice alone, knowing from experience that practice will eventually take over. Sometimes after 1 minute, and sometimes after 45. I don’t know why the resistance still has to exist, after all this time. Is it constitutional? Am I a hard case? I can’t know, but when I say that I love practice, and that I am in a love relationship with practice, this includes the little hell. It is the love in the relationship with practice that enables me to go there.”

Hell seems the only way to make it to seven minutes of heaven. Wait– make that five minutes:

“In a peak experience, in some great moment, it’s possible. But we just can’t say perfect. You must give up the notion of the permanent heaven. We can get into heaven, but for five minutes, then you have to come back to the world again.” ~ Abraham Maslow 

Learning about mindfulness — despite being so green i’d rival your spirulina spiked-kale green smoothies, dear yogis– inspired me to try to bring some space between the loop and my practice time. Instead of waiting for the practice to take me over, to carry me away from the loop like Prince Charming, I save myself. I disengage me and my practice from the loop, like separating two troublemaking kids in class, Wonder Womaning my way out of the resistance to best serve the resistance that matters.

This non-effort of an effort is, in many ways, a snapshot of my big picture approach to practice: keeping the practice sequence-breath-ritual, which functions well for me, and unhooking it from tsunami of boots raining down around it.

It’s an “inside job” (thank you Anne LaMott).

 

New Yoga Teacher Vocabulary List: Yummy Manifestations of Nonsensical Abundance

YUMMY!

Manifest/Radiance/Abundance/Vibrance: these words may as well be one as they are interchangeably void. Indeed, their meaning and power is in their lack of meaning which, when wielded properly conveys the deepest meaningful meaninglessness. Use these abundantly empty words in verb or noun form as one word answers to just about anything as in, what’s yoga all about? Radiance. Still, their lack of functionality functions best when they are braided together in any indecipherable combination, preferably with repetition in unsolicited email newsletters about, for example, abundant manifestations of vibrance.

Yummy: used to mean something other than what the word means as a form of praise. Example: Your yoga class and adjustments should be “yummy.”  Note: “yummy” results are best achieved when the students have never consumed legit Italian gelato. Good luck.

Vertebrae (singular, even though it’s plural): referring to…well, who knows exactly what they are, but there’s more than one of these bony-ish fascia-maybe things that can be rolled up or down to and from a forward fold. No one cares. You still say: “Roll up one vertebrae at a time.” Technically, this is impossible– on how many levels, I’ve not counted, but on a grammatical one for sure. Open your third eye: You’re a yoga teacher now, which means you have to throw reality out the window like a bag of your ex’s shit and ride your unicorn into abundance. There, the rules of grammar do not apply to you, any more than the rules of science. Always say vertebrae, always, whether referring to one, or more than one, of whatever these bones? are.

Other Science-y, anatomical-ish, wellness-y buzzwords (need no definition): Facial. Fascia. Aural Photography. Anus. Psoas. Sit Bones. Biomechanical. Bibbity bobbity boo. Neuroscience. Numerology. Planetary. Plantar fasciitis. Proprioception. Pancreas. Quantam Mechanics. Mercury. Mammalian. Mitochondria. Camel milk. Kinesthetic. Kali. Kidneys. Kelly Clarkson. Connective tissue. Convefe. Cordyceps. Ischial Tuberosity. Tantric.

Simply sprinkle these terms like bee pollen into your classes. By uttering these words you harness their power, regardless of how you use them or what you know or do not know about them.

Note: these also work as band names.

Goddess: it is customary to refer to yourself and every female as a mythological female deity. I’m a goddess you’re a goddess. We’re all fucking goddesses. Note: men are not gods.

Conscious: a “choose your own adventure” kind of word to take up space anytime you need a word in space, for example, in a yoga class description. Bottom line: People are unconscious. You will make them conscious. This is scientific fact.

Tox (as in “detox” “retox” and  “botox”): people are filled with toxes, and sometimes lack enough of the right toxes, such as beer. There is a very scientific biomechanical tox balance to be maintained so some yoga classes with remove toxes and others will add toxes. Mostly, people are walking talking toxic mold spores. They come to your class to be rid of these toxes which you will myofascially expel by giving anatomically impossible cues, stringing words together in nonsensical non sequiturs, and delivering Oprah-esque inspiring sermons whilst applying external heat, drips of essential oil and saying “inhale” or “exhale.”  You will thereby make space for the intake of new toxes– hence “retox.” This is space which, of course, you will hold.

Journey: functions as the catch-all answer to all questions you don’t know the answer to.  Ex: Q. Can I rent a mat? A. “It’s your journey.”

Ahimsa: means not harming others, but may also be used to make threats, cast judgment– and even as a marketing tool for cleanses and thirty day challenges. Also known as a tattoo/hashtag.

Hold Space (may require a ouija board): as a master space holder you will hold space for students to continue their journeys into expanding unconsciousness into conscious vibration. “Holding space” also describes how you will protect the bodies of people in savasana, or final rest, from invasion by spirits and supernatural beings entering the room (throwing a fistful of ashwaganda into the air, spinning three times, and smudging some sage usually does the trick). Also means holding the space so that energy doesn’t get too energetic. Does this sound confusing? Great, that means you’re getting it.

Savasana: rest for those vulnerable bodies. Also a photo op for you to splash those bodies all over social media.