It took less than three minutes of Facebook to annoy the namaste out of me after having indulged in a week-long Facebook-free skiing spree in Colorado. Almost as soon as I revived my phone upon landing, it dawned on me:

If I have to see another photo of some hot blond balancing on her elbows in some forearm stand/scorpion variation, I’m going to puke. If I see another photo of you, insane yoga girl, in a bikini-ed-up handstand — with cowboy boots on your sky-reaching feet, no less — I’m going to hurl. And dudes, you’re not getting off here, either. I mean, there you all are, always shirtless, always tattooed, always looking like your very essence forms from a precise mix of ink and abs, which of course always takes the shape of a handstand. Yeah, oh, and there you are AGAIN hot blond on your elbows again for crissakes, and now I’m going to spew, I’m going to un-like you, I’m going to hide you from my newsfeed, I’m going to barf displeasure, a million meaningless hashtags hurling from my mouth out into infinity whenever I think of you and your perfect (or not so much, sometimes, sorry) form in some pose that I can’t do, or can’t do like you, or can’t do looking like you, even where just the hair is concerned, or the tattoos, or even if I could (where the asana or the hair is concerned– I’ll take either), I couldn’t get a photograph of the event because the camera and storage settings on my battered iphone are still a mystery to me, and I don’t have a photographer trailing my every move as I practice, or a faithful yoga assistant ready for a spontaneous inversion photo as we pause during our lovely walk down the street in a disgustingly beautiful and exotic location, like the market in Bali, perhaps…no wait, how about here, in the snow…and here, on this big city street, and of course why not here, on the highway, in the midst of standstill gridlock? Have I mentioned that this onslaught of barftastic yoga photos took only a minute of Facebook perusal to overload me?

I know. The problem wasn’t the hot blond on her elbows (I hid her anyway). And no, the problem wasn’t the famous teacher handstanding in her cowboy boots, either (i decided to give her a pass), or even the shirtless tattooed dude. No, the problem was me. Sigh. Too much facebook, too much online time, too, too, too much– a break is not enough, clearly, I need a whole new regimen. And then, the obvious problem you’re thinking of right now. Was I a little jealous? Sure. You got me. I wish I had that sidekick photographing all my yoga heights, and I wish all my yoga heights looked as photogenic as yours, handstand-hashtag-ista. But it’s more than that.

I imagine some of my online yoga teacher friends might read this and wonder, angrily, perhaps, is she talking about me? The answer is No. The answer is Yes. No. Maybe. No. Really, No.

Actually, I’m talking about me. Because, as you may be the first to point out, I post yoga photos too, and videos, notwithstanding my lack of yoga fame, a personal photographer or assistant, and in spite of my plentiful smartphone incompetence. And I can imagine you all groaning with each glance at my feed, thinking…Ugh! there she is, in a backbend AGAIN. I mean we get it, JM, you can bend in half, so just spare me, OKAY?

The unfortunate fortunate side effect of delving into yoga is that the oft-repeated maxims “All is one” and “I am that” turn out to be proven time and time again, to be true. Because as I recoil repulsed at the photos of you, I see it is only because you are reflecting pieces — and sometimes whole chunks– of me. And so, to fix my burning eyes, it turns out I’m going to have to start with me.

When is it appropriate to post yoga photos and videos? Or what makes them meaningful? #inversionsmakeyouhot girl, you have inspired me to look at what actually makes this stuff matter for me.

Struggle. I am interested in your struggle. Because when I see photo after photo of you in some advanced variation punctuated only by vapid hastags I feel bereft.

Frankly, I get bored.

The struggle, where is the struggle? Where is the work, the story, the inner fire that culminated in this beautiful instagram?

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty” -Maya Angelou

I remember when a dear mentor yogini (who I had seen in an artful handstand scorpion photo, pre-facebook) stopped class in the midst of (attempted) forearm stand practice. It seemed that few in class were biting. She told us a story about how she used to practice to an audio recording of Sharon Gannon, and whenever the class reached forearm stand, she would fast forward through it.

What? This otherworldly perfect teacher once had fear? Struggle? Obstacles to overcome? It endeared me to her, it made me feel okay about practicing in her classes even though forearm stand (and all upside down poses) remained at that time feared impossibilities. Indeed, I got into my first yoga teacher training by luck, serendipity, having never taken class with it’s leader, the divine Kelly Morris, and when I read her interview in New York Magazine, http://nymag.com/nymetro/health/fitness/features/5394/index3.html, I knew I had made the right decision, because of this, the very end, where this absolutely exquisite creature baldy admits:

“But I have so many more shortcomings than most of my students! You might not see it in class: I’m flying in there. But when it’s over, I’m back to the same struggle. Yes. The same struggle.”

The lesson for me is to avoid posting so many naked end-result photos, or perhaps to only post them with some message about the work it took me to get there. Because I could post my forearm stand (my recent triumph) but wouldn’t it be more interesting to know, and to see, that I started practicing this pose ten long months ago, and it is only after getting over my fear (no small potatoes), followed by months of falling every time I attempted it, then falling every other time, then balancing for the world’s quickest who-am–I-kidding-five-breaths, then falling again, that I finally think I have this pose in my body and mind.

This morning I held forearm stand with ease. No struggle. Later, scrolling through my phone, drinking my acupuncturist’s kidney tonic, I saw my once-hidden blond yoga chick on her elbows –AGAIN– and managed to smile. I saw, with peaceful clarity, that I was smiling back at ME. And despite her constant slew of beachside handstands (and yes, some of those gymnastics are in cowboy boots), I’ve discovered that I need a little sunny famous Kino in my life, because this magnificent –and adorable– yogi readily shares the days and years of practice, dedication, and fear-toppling that her photo-ready feats required. http://kinoyoga.tumblr.com/post/78739179298/ashtanga-yoga-fourth-series-is-one-of-the-most

Sometimes she even posts videos where she falls out of the poses.

I can’t gag at that.

Nope, I’m going to swallow that video and keep it down, hashtags and all, keep it where it can stream and warm and smile me from the inside out.

 

 

 

Perhaps, like me, you’ve gotten the message that everything in yoga is sacred, unassailable, and immune to light humor. I love yoga, I practice yoga, and I teach yoga, yet I’ve seen plenty in various yoga rooms that seemed, at first glance — or maybe the first 20 — downright silly. I’ve still got friends who do the hottest of hot yogas, standing in the hottest corner of the room, known as the POD, or “Pit of Despair” where they undertake a series of postures and simultaneously try to stay alive. In other styles of yoga, you may be asked to hold a certain hip-opening posture so long you might imagine bolting from the room screaming about two dozen times before the teacher finally cues you out of it. In another class, a strange teacher at the front of the room may instruct you to “squeeze” your unmentionable parts, chant in a foreign language you do not understand, and bend over backwards and grab your ankles– not necessarily in that order.

Personally, I have laughed and yes, I confess, even belittled, a number of yogic practices along my way. When first asked to chant in this strange language I now know as Sanskrit, I meanly joked that I could have been singing “I hate puppies” for all I knew. And in my earliest experience with mysore-style ashtanga, I got on a bus to arrive at the crack of dawn for my newly-found practice in New York City, so early that the city that never sleeps was in fact, sleeping, only to find the place CLOSED. I learned later that morning that the mysore room was closed in observance of a “moon day,” as if that explained everything.

“A “f—ing” moon day”! I exclaimed to my then boyfriend. “What the f&*k is a moon day?”

I did not stick around long enough to find out. I decided to flee this likely cult, and take refuge in the “no moon-day” sweat culture of Bikram, where I joined my friends in the Pit of Despair. I enjoyed suffering. Nothing stupid about that.

Years later, I came back to ashtanga, and left and came back and dabbled and then dabbled some more and then gave it a real go, which is still going, with some stupid-seeming things popping up along the way. A friend of a friend once referred to some of the postures in the ashtanga primary series as the “stupid poses.” Once I returned for real to the world for ashtanga, I stole this joke when talking with someone new-ish to ashtanga about some poses which, yeah, at first glance, or even after 100 glances, seem kinda stupid — janu sirsasana C and supta kurmasana, for example.

To give you some context, janu sirsasana C looks like what happens when the innocent, sweet forward fold that is janu sirsasana A goes out on the town, drinks way too much– maybe even partakes in a few questionable substances — and then while taking a drunken walk of shame home, trips over a fence and lands in this messed-up position with a heel in the navel and a knee twerked down to the floor. And supta kurmasana, my nemesis pose for longer than I wanted it to be, involves laying on your belly with your legs behind your head and your arms bound behind your back. Enough said there. trim.A460E01F-2037-4C8B-91BB-BA2338A47DEA

Of course, once the “stupid poses” joke slipped from my lips, a wave of guilt and anxiety crashed over me…would I be excommunicated from the land of ashtanga for such blasphemy?

Here’s the thing. I made the joke because I am close enough to my beginnings to remember how stupid all this sh*t — the breathing control, the unmentionable parts squeezing, let alone some of those not-very-Facebook-profile-photo-friendly poses –once seemed. It is only with practice and time and dedicated study with a teacher that I saw the wisdom and beauty of all these stupid things. The best teachers I have encountered rarely ask me to take things at face value. Instead, they say “you do it, you try it, and you see for yourself.” When I decided it was time to delve deeper into ashtanga, I wrote my teacher. Even though I was practicing fairly regularly, I told him I’d never given the six-days-a-week practice a chance. Even though he’d once told me sternly, “Practice six days! Not four, six!” I’d never given the system as it was meant to be practiced a chance. My teacher didn’t respond with criticism. He encouraged me to try practicing six days, to give it thirty days, and to be kind to myself.

Thirty days and then some later, the world looks different. Sure, having a life, a child and snow days and moon days sometimes reduces six days to less, but still I can now say that I get the f*&king moon days– the need for rest when you practice intensely regularly, the way the body connects with the cycles of the moon. I get the genius of the sequence and those stupid janu sirsasana C and supta kurmasana postures. But I didn’t “get it” because someone told me; I got it because I practiced.

Whatever yoga class you find yourself in, don’t be ashamed if something you are asked to do strikes you as “stupid.” It is only through my own regular practice and careful investigation that I have come come to see the wisdom behind those yoga class staples that initially (or for a while) struck me as weird, laughable, and yeah, even kind of silly. Perhaps it is self-serving of me to say so, but if you’ve felt this way, then maybe you are the kind of potentially inquisitive yogi who just might be a true student — the kind who really wants to learn. And when you reach that knowledge for yourself, then, well, now that’s something sacred.

I made the “stupid poses” joke for another reason: because I remember being afraid to ask what the deal was with the chanting, the Darth-Vader-esque breathing, and the f*&ing moon days. I don’t ever want to get so far down the path of yoga that I forget what it is like to see it with new eyes. I hope I continue to to find and re-find my new eyes and more stupid poses and practices as I go about my exploration. I don’t want to assume people can understand what I understand when they haven’t yet had any personal experience with it. Sure, there is a place for faith here– my thirty-day experiment took a big helping of that — but I still don’t want to make anyone ever feel like it is inappropriate to have doubts or questions, or a sense of humor.

Because that would be really stupid.