Teacher Training - Day 2, First Sunday

Class was fun, illuminating, and tiring. The first class was largely a reprise of the Astanga warm up and the first 12 standing asanas of the primary series, which is familiar territory for me and a large chunk of my daily practice. Still, it was difficult to modify the poses in the manner Daren laid out, making me realize how ingrained my habits and inclinations are. I sleepwalk through Sun Salute 1&2 on many occasions, and the first 12 standing asanas of primary series as well, and simply altering a few of the details in each pose left me struggling against the inertia of poor habits I've built up. Deconstructing and rebuilding these poses and transitions if going to require a renewed commitment. Hell, I'm not even breathing right... While that could be discouraging, it's actually more liberating than I thought, because it makes me wonder how beneficial and gratifying my practice could be if my pranayama was optimal... Walls will fall, if I can get this right...

Reviewed Cobra (Bhujangasana), Up Dog, and Chataranga with a partner. I felt really grateful to slowly evaluate Cobra, because I rarely actually do the pose, usually skipping over it to do up dog. I had a lot of things wrong with this sequence, which was again surprising considering how often I do it. Not huge problems, but little things that differentiate between a vaguely correct pose and a pose that manages to trigger all the right flows. It feels good to be taught something correctly, and I feel grateful to have someone I trust spelling out these sequences and asanas in a manner that's irrefutable. Unlike my journey through martial arts, which was filled with multiple teachers at various schools telling me I'd learned something completely wrong, Daren is merely optimizing everything. Also, with martial arts, a lot of the differences between each school of thought are largely dogmatic and subjective differences dealing with historical animosities and long-standing cultural feuds about which technique is right, accurate, or oldest. With these asanas, it's not about being more right or stronger or greater, it's about seeing the underlying principles and grasping how to best make the flows work through each pose. There's nothing to argue about, there's no dogma, and variations and modifications are encouraged. You would never find that in some of the martial arts schools I attended. They maintain a military-precision and compel everyone to do the same technique in the same way... This approach to yoga feels far more welcoming, a "come-as-you-are" aesthetic that's intended to be personalized. Where the kung fu temple I attended was created to manufacture uniform spiritual warriors, Moksha's declared goal is to promote self-actualization. Those are two very different ideals, and I feel blessed to have finally arrived at a place where I'm not being judged for what I've learned before...

We reviewed some of the transitions between poses as well, and it was interesting yet again to take note of something I've been doing inaccurately. It was interesting to watch the group struggle a bit with jump backs and jump forwards, as it's something I've been struggling with for quite some time as well. However, a few years ago I did come across video footage of John Scott, a famed Astanga yogi, performing these transitions with an ease that's astounding and inspiring all at once. I've been trying to emulate his smooth lifts and graceful mastery everysince I saw these videos, so I thought I'd post them here in case anyone else wanted to see them. His entire Astanga sequence is a video well worth owning, because I have yet to see anyone move through the primary series with such grace. It's jaw-dropping when you see it in it's entirety, and i'd post it all, but it's too long. These are a great snippet, though... Have a look...




The rest of class went well... Looking forward to addressing these issues in my practice, and seeing what the consequences are....

Day 1 - Teacher Training

First class with Daren... Hit some unexpected bumps over the course of the day, which I suppose were to be expected, but they caught me by surprise. Upon being asked to teach basic anapana breathing I froze up, like a deer in headlights, and ran out of cues and couldn't find anything to say after about ten seconds... It was really disconcerting, how paralyzed and unsure of myself I was. Wanted to sound intelligent, or maybe unique, which is totally not the function of a yoga teacher at all... No one needs a genius to walk them through a class, what they need is simple, clear, and direct guidance... My recurring problems over the course of the day got me thinking about how very rarely I manage to be direct in my communication... My life in recent years has been an elaborate facade of evasion and silence, and I rarely if ever say exactly what I'm thinking. Such is the life of a manipulative youngest child, who came of age as an angry Muslim man in a paranoid post-911 America. I've cultivated silence over the last few years, and put my speech on a perpetual lockdown, for fear of saying the wrong thing, or being misunderstood. Truth be told, I've been accused by loved ones and poets of being profligate with words, tossing language around carelessly, to the point where larger messages get lost in the contrived artistry i create stringing words together. So I've learned restraint, by necessity, after sending unforgivable e-mails to ex-lovers and hurtful screeds to friends. You grow up after awhile, and learn to control the impulse to express by holding it in... Because if you don't have anything good to say, there's really no reason to inflict it on someone. In recent years I've tried to cultivate the "walk softly and carry a big stick," and only in certain company do I really feel comfortable enough to air out my thoughts... So today caught me off guard, and as I struggled to find words to explain a simple breathing technique to a partner, I realized how fundamentally this training is going to change me. No more evasions...no more silence. Simple, clear, direct communication, without superfluous dressings. That's a sea change for me, and will require practice...

We did some simple adjustments with partners as well, and reviewed down dog from a dozen different angles. It's amazing how something so familiar can suddenly feel brand new, once you're exposed to a few little things you can do differently to optimize the energy flow in a particular asana. I realizing where my release valves are... Finished up the first chapter of Gary Kraftsow's book on the way to class, and the whole concept of "release valves" really struck a nerve. They're essentially compensatory mechanisms that people employ to get themselves through poses... everyone, in some form or another, has ways to cheat in poses, in ways that overcompensate or manage to sabotage the essential benefit of a particular asana. While reviewing down dog today, I realized my personal checklist for the pose manages to completely ignore some of the core purposes for doing the pose in the first place... Move one set of bones in one manner, and it automatically moves another set of bones out place... An eye-opening realization, but one which is going to take quite some time to fully appreciate and address... Considering how many release valves I can find for just Down Dog, and considering how many poses exist, I can see this taking up the rest of my life... I suppose that's one of the points of this training, to learn to identify the obstacles on the way to growth. Seeing them is the first step to setting them straight...

Universal with Tatiana Cira Sanchez

Cut out of work at 3:45 and hauled ass down to Yoga Now to take class with one of my favorite Chicago yoga teachers, Tatiana Sanchez. Everybody was drinking anyhow, St.Paddy's day in Chicago seems to be a four day ordeal of bottomless pints, bad fashion choices, and folks drinking themselves into oblivion while wearing funny little green plastic hats. The actual day isn't till Monday, and everyone already seems to be sloshed...

Anyhow, felt obliged to take a class because last night at Moksha was a serious gut check in terms of realizing how out of shape and touch I am with my body. I haven't done any serious yoga at all in 2008. No classes, no workshops, no personal practice. I do however, have a pile of excuses. It's been a hellish winter, I totally overcommitted myself, and somewhere along the line I got horribly sick for the first time in years. January and February were rough on me, and I figured I'd make up for it by jumping in wholeheartedly once teacher training started. The only problem with that is, I have ground to make up just to get back to a decent sense of balance and integrity. I'm overweight, I can't breath right cause I've been coughing up bronchial crap for weeks, and the -20 degree weather & assorted work projects have left with all kinds of kinks and blockages in my chi... Everything hurts, and that's not a good place to start from...

Anyhow, made it to Tati's class 5 minutes late, but she was kind enough to lay out some mats for me and promptly led a very inspired class through a great sequence. Tati's a disciple of my favorite yoga master, the Ukranian legend Andrey Lappa, who's an inimitable presence and walking repository of esoteric knowledge. I've spent two weeks with him over the last two years, and more than anyone I've ever learned from, he's completely blown the hinges off my perceptions of what's real and possible. Physical limitations and spiritual boundaries become very elusive around Andrey, and he teaches sequences and poses that no one else has even conceived of. Very few folks in Chicago teach Andrey's style, but Tati manages to incorporate a lot of his teachings into every class she leads, ranging from a few Dance of Shiva elements to arm balances and long asymmetrical sequences that ultimately lead to states of awareness that few other yoga teachers manage to canvass. It was a great class, and it kicked me into gear, and set me up for what promises to be a long weekend studying with Daren. I needed that...

Opening Circle - Moksha Teacher Training

Tonight I ventured over to Moksha Yoga, for the first time in 2008, for an appointment with a career I've been eying from afar for quite a few years. There was a spot reserved for me, a bolster and a blanket and a bottle of Liquid Om water, with a name tag resting on this nice little pile of props that had my name scrawled across it in green marker. I found myself sitting in a circle of beautiful people, dancers and teachers and artists and healers, a few dozen souls on parallel journeys that had all led us to this strange surreal moment in the middle of a warm March night in Chicago, seeking something profound and personal in the shared path we hope to walk. The circle was presided over by Daren Friesen, the owner and founder of Moksha, and the master teacher who I've apparently surrendered my life over to for the next nine months... After years of cultivating a personal yoga practice, and taking baby steps towards a deeper understanding of the principles and theoretical underpinnings of the yogic worldview, I finally took the plunge and signed up for my first yoga teacher training program....and I'm scared shitless...

Turning 30 in 5 months
three decades of intellectual rubble & psychedelic stunts
surrounded by a journeyman's community of bohemians & healers
guided by a musician's antennae & a marketing man's feelers
who have i become? what kind of life am i living?
what have i done with the gifts I've been given?
i've collected tattered body maps & a pile of spiritual methodologies
while a recurring motif of poor follow-through continues to follow me
half-assed & head strong I stumble into a circle of seekers
trying to wean myself off a lifestyle centered around bleeding speakers
meek & malleable trying to remake myself anew
shapeshifting through poses passed down from guru to guru
i believe i can do this because i'm long overdue
& this is a destined journey with a righteous crew...