Two Iyengar yoga sessions over three days. I’m really into it, the lengthening, the opening, the relaxation on the blocks. On Saturday morning I went to a three hour workshop led by a teacher in her 80s, Julie Smith. She had so much energy and passion for someone of her age, and her level of expertise was excellent. Many hints and tips of how to open and relax that little bit more in the pose. The use of supports and belts really helps me too. On Sunday I was reluctant to do anything very much apart from rest, and by Monday morning I was energetic and relaxed and integrated again, with some tender spots, having touched deep. I was glad, then, that this evening’s class with Sandy was more restorative, with a long relaxation and pranayama at the end. If you want knowledgeable, reliable teachers, with detailed instruction on each pose, I highly recommend finding an Iyengar class. It’s very adaptable to each individual, so anyone can get a good feel for the postures.
Health
110320 Drugs
Watched High on Crack Street: The Lost Lives of Lowell. This is an HBO documentary from the 90s about a few crack users in Massachusetts. One of them is Dicky Eklund, the brother from the film The Fighter. It’s such a grim, compelling tale of hell on earth as the drug eats their lives, lives which were pretty chewed up anyway.
The nineties now seems to be the dullest, uncool decade. Not just in the documentary, but generally. The 80s have become cool again, but the 90s seem crap. But at least back then drug use, as I knew it, was almost quaint: heroin, coke, dope, speed, acid, etc. (Not that I took all these things) At least these were kind of known. Now people are taking all kinds of untested nonsense: meth, bath salts, plant food, the strongest bred dope strains, mad mixes of prescription drugs. There’s no telling what the effects of this kind blend are. What a mess.
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Stepses: 4966
110203 Total Immersion
No idea who I’m writing to, but… hello!
Another four o’clock yoga session followed by that oh so nice lie in till time to go to the office. Which is a one minute commute. Finishing off bits and pieces ahead of a week off starting now. My weekends are Fridays and Saturday anyhow. It feels like my first full week off in a very long time. At 10 I went to Southampton airport to pick up Derek who is over from Ojai.
The dialogue this afternoon about what is a religious place, a religious mind, and into ideas and hope getting in the way of what might be called religious. Not religious in any kind of traditional sense, after all that is just ideas repeating themselves through the ages, but a sacredness, a newness.
This evening I took the students swimming. Swimming and yoga go together so well. With the yoga comes more awareness of the body, and more awareness in the water means you can refine the strokes, fine tune your style. I swim in something towards the Total Immersion style, as few strokes as possible per lap and keep the body low in the water, maximising the time when the body is longest. The principle is the same as in yachting, where slim, long boats go faster than wide short ones. So to minimise the width there is a rolling in freestyle so the shoulders aren’t ploughing the water forward, instead the tilt of the body makes an easier glide. There was no sign when swimming of the sickness or weak feeling; I didn’t even think of it.
Signs of spring all around – daffodils opening, green shoots pushing up through the leaves and many young fresh nettles. Perfect for tea.
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Steps stepped 8410
110223 Deadhead
I feel the best I’ve felt for over a week. The dizziness is subsiding and I’m way more centred, stronger. Thanks for all the well wishes. I went over to Alresford where C gave me an acupuncture treatment, clearing out damp in my system. I felt the effects immediately, a clear head and integration taking place as I lay on the massive sofa. I’m tired though, so plenty of sleep tonight.
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Continuing the Everest odyssey, I’ve been reading Lincoln Hall’s book ‘Dead Lucky’. Regular readers will remember Lincoln is the guy who was left for dead with cerebral oedema at 8,300 meters and yet somehow survived the night to be discovered the next morning. “I imagine you are surprised to see me here,” he cheerfully announced to four climbers on their way to the summit at dawn. Here’s a ten minute interview with the legendary Lincoln Hall:
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Really liking the new Radiohead song and video. The choreography is by Wayne McGregor. In my ignorance of dance I assumed there was no choreography:
Beyonce Single Ladies version:
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Steps stepped: 3817
110222
I’m feeling highly unusual. Spinning out a bit. It comes and goes. I can work, I can type, I can function, but I can’t focus too much, too long. A bit vague, some dizziness, some nausea. I don’t know what’s up. Perhaps a viral infection that comes back when I’m a bit run down. Perhaps not enough iron or protein. Perhaps none of this. I have felt like it before, even more out there, staggering through woods, unsure what’s going on, in Sweden, C guiding me home, me refusing to go any further north east, really wigging out. Just got to keep resting, watching my diet, taking it easy. I’ll talk to a friend soon who may be able to help. Slipping into meditative states very easily.
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New Mac Book Pros coming for Steve Job’s birthday in two days. This will open the door for the Hackintosh community as they will be running the new Sandy Bridge Intel chips.
110219 Owslebury/Marwell Loop
Took a short walk after the days in bed, but not a lot of energy for it, either of us. We went to Owslebury then walked a loop around Marwell Wildlife Park For reasons I can’t explain, I really wanted to see a giraffe. We didn’t. But we did see some antelope I’d never seen before and an ostrich, through the fence at the back of the park. The footpath basically hugs the edge of the park. Later I read about the very old Marwell Hall, Henry VIII having stayed there and it’s supposed hauntedness.
Starting point, Owslebury church:
Caroline’s muddled boots. Mine looked and felt much the same as we stomped past Little Coney Park:
Peering through the fence at a quiet morning at the zoo. Choo choo:
Nice Park billboard:
Anyone know what these are?
And back to Owslebury:
So we have a large wildlife park twenty minutes from Brockwood. I knew it was there but hadn’t paid it any attention. We’ll go in sometime. They have over 200 species. Part of the walk met the Pilgrim’s Trail a long distance path from Winchester to Normandy. After I finish the South Downs Way, I’d like to walk the UK part of the trail.
Spent the rest of the day in bed. Watched Precious, harrowing and not really that uplifting even at the end.
Steps stepped: 9110. Too many for a not-well Duncan
The Drinking World
Drinking habits
A map of world alcohol consumption
THE world drank the equivalent of 6.1 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to a report from the World Health Organisation published on February 11th. The biggest boozers are mostly found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 litres each, nearly 2 litres more than the Czechs in second place. Over 10 litres of a Moldovan’s annual intake is reckoned to be ‘unrecorded’ home-brewed liquor, making it particularly harmful to health. Such moonshine accounts for almost 30% of the world’s drinking. The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.
via Daily chart: Global alcohol consumption: Drinking habits | The Economist.
110218
Still feeling crappy. Major headache and weak, not wanting or really able to do anything very much. Spent the day in bed again, lots of sleeping and some Hackintosh research. Watched Dr Who this evening, the first full episode I have watched since… sometime in the 1980s. For the Mac build I think I will wait to see what happens with the new Sandy Bridge processors. This is Intel’s 2nd generation of the i5 and i7 so a major jump in performance, with the new i5 faster than the current i7 for not much more cost. I’ve learnt a lot about processors, motherboards, graphics cards. As long as you pick compatible components, you can hack Apple OSX to run on it. Major geekout opportunity.
That’s about it for today. I hope I feel better tomorrow.
110217
I’ve been resting in bed again most of the day. Still feeling weak. I seem to get this every few months. I don’t go down as hard as I used to with dizziness and aches, but that same sick feeling I’ve felt for a few years now gets close by and I loose strength to do very much. There’s nothing for it but to rest up and sleep when I need.
I watched a move called Easy A. An above-average teen movie, interestingly for me set in Ojai, California where several of my friends live. The central character is quite bright yet falls into the trap of what people think of her, and is sucked under for a while by the rumour mill. You get to see quite a few shots of the city centre and surrounds, and of course a lot of the school. I really liked the parents; very funny yet caring.
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Caroline passed her driving test. Good on her! The nerves failed her somewhat and she made some mistakes, but the examiner must have noticed her general competence and ability. That means no more driving practice sessions, which are quite hard on my own nerves. For the time being she’ll be able to borrow my car for work and after a while get her own.
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This evening watched Human Planet about the grasslands of the world. Incredible footage of hunters stealing from lions, ambushing kudu, fishing for snakes, working with a bird to collect honey, fending off and then burning thousands of birds, catching and milking horses, and rounding cattle with helicopters. Men in copters was a strange site after 45 mins of traditional ways. Here’s a clip I uploaded of the kudu hunt:
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Steps stepped: Not many more than 1000. Snoozes snoozed: Many.
100215 Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
It’s all caught up with me today, almost exhausted after the moving, decorating, the underlying emotions of C moving, the work on the flat here and this evening, the yoga teaching. I didn’t have much ooomph for the class but I enjoyed teaching it once I was there. Beforehand, as each week, the flight response so strong, the wanting to cancel, to walk away, to not bother, to find any excuse. But each week I go through with it and despite the nerves it does ease something deep inside that has long been fearful. I was very much in touch with this shameful fear on the yoga teacher course, often listening to a small voice asking why are we doing this, not wanting to it, wanting to stay with mother, stay safe, and not mix with these outsiders. To this I listened, I accepted, I loved. And now I am doing something I never thought I would be able to, something I have run from my entire adult life and most of my childhood. It’s hard but there is nothing else for it. And I get to share the thing I love, the thing I have stuck with longest in this life: yoga. I have total respect for this ancient art.
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Steps stepped: 6044
110213 Eye Exercises
Roland gave an eye health workshop at the school this evening. First we learnt about the main bones that make up the eye sockets and practised some simple exercises to ease this area. Then we leant about the multiple muscles that control the eyeball and practised some exercises to touch upon where the muscles meet the eyeballs. The next exercises were those I’ve done in yoga before, and same as in the Bates eye exercises:
Without moving head or neck
Look far right
Look far left
Repeat five times each side
Relax the eyes
Look up
Look down
Repeat five times each direction
Relax the eyes
Look top right
Look bottom left
Repeat five times
Relax the eyes
Look top left
Look bottom right
Repeat five times
Relax the eyes
Rotate the eyes 12, 3, 6, 9
Repeat five times then five times counter-clockwise
Relax the eyes
Look at something near
Look at something far
Repeat five times
Relax the eyes
Rub hands together and cup palms over the eyes, feeling the heat and darkness relaxing them
Lastly, we worked in pairs and imagined energy moving between our hands as we cupped one over our partner’s right eye, the other behind the head. This was very relaxing and I felt the muscles I’d exercised previously let go. After the workshop my eyesight had improved slightly compared to the rest of the day and my head felt clear of tension.
We use our eyes all day and hardly give them a second thought. It is good to rest the eyes each hour, and to do the above exercises once a day.
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Steps stepped: 4647
110201 Mean World Syndrome
I taught yoga at Brockwood Park School this evening – a weekend class open to students, mature students and staff. I kept to the same format as last year, a gentle class with relaxation at the beginning and end, plenty of pratapana before some classical poses. People welcomed it and said it was just what they needed. I’m glad to be able to help a little. I still get nervous beforehand. Not directly before but during the afternoon as it gets nearer. But once I am inside the hall and I get to the reality of it rather than the imagined scenario, it is fine. I am accepting what I feel, loving it and allowing it’s place. I’ve been afraid of speaking in front of groups since Miss Dolan’s class when I was about six, when I probably cried. So this is healthy for me, to speak in a context in which I am comfortable and enjoy sharing. Another class tomorrow due to demand (and my wanting to keep class sizes to around 10).
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A clue to DJ Premier’s inventiveness:
Like, I was a weird dude… I used to listen to a lot of New Wave stuff, like The Smiths, and Psychedelic Furs, and The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Dial House, Joy Division… I was into all that stuff. The Thompson Twins, just all this crazy stuff.
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Great iPlayer viewing: How TV Ruined Your Life. Episode 1: Fear.
Those old public information films were very frightening. It’s all inside somewhere; I’m riddled with fears of overhead power lines, substations and farmyard terrors.
From the show:
“Television began to enjoy the same level of influence on society as religion had for centuries.”
Our “brain nuts” (Amygdala) don’t know the difference between TV and real violence, so despite any rationalisation and fancy shoes, the same primitive fight or flight response kicks in. It’s stressful, and the nervous energy doesn’t get used up in the would-be fight or flighting.
“The more TV news you watch, the more passive, nervous and frightened you become.” But you don’t show it of course. The more frequently an image is repeated on screen, the greater significance we attach to it in the real world. Mean World Syndrome: the belief the world is a mean and frightening one.
And switching it off doesn’t make you feel any safer because now you are more aware than ever of the glowing silence all around.
“You are 20 times more likely to die driving to the airport than you are on the plane”
The more frequently an image is repeated on screen, the greater significance we attach to it. Mean World Syndrome, the belief the world is a dangerous place.
“What if the Large Hadron Collider went a bit Amstrad?”
Good old Charlie Brooker.
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Steps stepped: 4447
26 Jan 2011
This is the last day of my 30s, or until 1530 tomorrow afternoon so I am not quite middle aged yet. What is middle aged is the amount of steps stepped today: 2961. One of my 40-something resolutions is to take a walk every day.
Yesterday I posted a quick facebook survey about toilet roll direction. The results:
Duncan Toms
Survey: Loo roll dispensing towards wall or away from wall?
Patricia H
away. definitely. I’ll even change it round if necessary. not that I’m OCD or anything…
Celeste C
Clearly explained: http://currentconfig.com/2005/02/22/essential-life-lesson-1-over-is-right-under-is-wrong/
Lucy H
Away, i too have to change it around…even if im in someone elses house!!!
Duncan Toms
I’ve changed two this week to away :) Celeste, I like the poster version:
http://currentconfig.com/images/overisright_hanger.pdf
Martin T
Away. Always.
Duncan Toms
Oops I’ve prejudiced my own survey!
Nicola B
Even your inevitably superior wisdom would not affect my response – AWAY!!
Sam B
towards.
Duncan Toms
Freak!
Sorry, I mean to say thank you for filling out the survey today.
Sam B
I prefer unique, if you don’t mind. And I’ll be the person behind Trish putting it back the other way!
Seppo V
This is clearly one of those things that divides humanity into two distinct schools of thought. Having done filling loo roll dispensers over 9 years as a professional cleaner (next fall I’ll be entitled to a gold watch after 10 years of toilet cleaning service) I’ve always belonged to the “away” school. However, I have once changed the content of a dispenser facing the wall, after customer request. I can see the esthetic sense of it, too, as it minimizes unsightly flapping of the free end of the roll and naturally aligns it with the wall.
My experience is that “away” school predominates. Nevertheless, lets us remember that adherents of “towards” style of thinking, while being in minority, are human beings, too, and don’t deserve discrimination on the basis of their esthetic leaning. “Away” with prejudices! “Towards, or let it flap away, let everyone have their say” could be our motto here.
Duncan Toms
I am humbled
Douglas H
Away if a choice allows, but sometimes you have to put it on coming off towards the wall, because if you put it away from the wall it will trap itself.
An interesting one that for some reason attracted me to speak up. Yeah and there have been occaisions when I see the toilet paper coming off towards the wall and It can obviously roll off coming away from the wall, then I have been known to turn it arround to come off away from the wall. Thanks for this one Dun.
Douglas H
I’ve just noticed all these comments after posting mine, this is supprising. I would have thought it would have been a more balanced out come, because the choices arn’t so diversly different as the results of the survey are.
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Coming up to middle aged but for me I am only a third of the way through. Things are pretty sorry for a lot of old folk who need care. In the Indie today are 10 ways we can turn that around:
Act One Support elderly people to stay in their own homes wherever possible
Everyone would rather stay in their own home than be institutionalised. There is a whole range of services that make this possible – from Meals on Wheels to home helps who are there to help an old man to shower in the morning and get into bed at night. We should be stepping them up, to keep anybody who possibly can free and independent. Instead, we are ruthlessly stripping them away. The local councils who provide these services are facing the largest cuts of any part of this cut-hungry government. As a direct result, Which? magazine reports that councils are “tightening their eligibility criteria, cutting services and putting up prices” on help for the elderly. All the charities for the elderly are warning frantically that many won’t be able to cope, and will end up falling over trying to shower themselves, or wasting away because they can’t cook for themselves. The result? Huge numbers of people who could have stayed at home with a little help are about to get knocked into the care system.
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An article on Tara Stiles, a yoga teacher in NYC and self-confessed nerd, who doesn’t go the traditional yoga route. I like her, erm, style and damn she’s gorgeous:
“I feel like I’m standing up for yoga,” Ms. Stiles said. “People need yoga, not another religious leader. Quite often in New York, they want to be religious leaders, and it’s not useful.
“Here, people want to sit and talk about yoga; it’s very heady. It’s very stuck, very serious,” she continued. “I was never invited to the party anyway — so I started my own party.”
Besides running the studio — which draws about 150 people to 40 classes a week that are called simply Strong, Relax and Stralax, a combination — Ms. Stiles posts a short video most weeks to YouTube. There, she has a channel with nearly 200 videos that have drawn about four million views. She stars in the yoga DVD that was part of the fitness set that Ms. Fonda issued in December (it sold out in Target, where it was first introduced). And “Slim Calm Sexy,” published last summer, was the No. 1 yoga book on Amazon.com until recently, she said.
None of this has made Ms. Stiles rich, but it has led to a certain celebrity. Last summer, Ms. Stiles released an iPhone app, Authentic Yoga, with Mr. Chopra, and the two recently completed a video in Joshua Tree National Park that will be released this year.
“We are both nonconformists who have incurred the wrath of traditional yogis,” Mr. Chopra said of Ms. Stiles, whom he now considers his personal instructor. “A lot of the criticism is resentment of her rapid success. I have been doing yoga for 30 years. I have had teachers of all kinds. Taking lessons from her has been more useful to me than taking yoga from anyone else.
“She is not a showoff,” he added. “She is ambitious, but there is a lack of ego.”
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Bought a cover for my Kindle. Now it feels right. The Kindle itself is very slim and so a little awkward to hold after a while. I bought the aluminium shielded Proporta case:
The Kids Are All Right?
One quarter of US teens and children take prescription drugs regularly:
These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company’s database figures for 2009.
Doctors and parents warn that prescribing medications to children can be problematic. There is limited research available about many drugs’ effects in kids. And health-care providers and families need to be vigilant to assess the medicines’ impact, both intended and not. Although the effects of some medications, like cholesterol-lowering statins, have been extensively researched in adults, the consequences of using such drugs for the bulk of a patient’s lifespan are little understood.
5 Jan 2011
When the room is stale, you open a window and let the clean air in. The lungs get stale too. After a night’s sleep the air at the base of the lungs is rather old and needs refreshing. The complete breath is the equivalent of opening a window, except you can reach the whole of the lungs within a few breaths.
Sitting, lying or standing, exhale fully without strain and relax the body. As you inhale, expand the belly allowing air into the bottom of the lungs. As the inhale continues, feel the ribcage expanding. Continue the inhalation into the clavicles and raise the shoulders. At the full extent, hold for five seconds then gently release, exhaling from the shoulders, the chest and lastly the abdomen. A squeeze of the bellybutton towards the spine as the diaphragm lifts in and up, will expel the last of the stale air. You may taste or smell it as it leaves. Continue these full breaths five times, and whenever you feel like a break during the day.
We left Brockwood at about 1015, 19 staff members in three vehicles. I drove the minibus, with Mark as co-driver. The journey was without incident, but for my heading south on the M40 instead of north. It took five miles before I reached a roundabout to about face. Mark was trying a new satnav. It wasn’t much good. It didn’t seem to know about services so when we’d stop for breaks it tried to recalculated the route. And then near Kendal it tried to take us who knows where, towards Barrow. We weren’t impressed with this Garmin.
I like the Lake District. Who doesn’t? We are staying at a large guest house belonging to a Brockwood Trustee. He also owns a cinema and two vegetarian restaurants in Ambleside. I’m in a particularly floral room:
How many flowers can you fit? Even the wardrobe has the same material on the doors. And the mirror surround. It’s cold in here, the room probably not having been used since before Christmas. They apologised for the radiator not having been turned on, like every year. It’s the 8th time I’ve been here for a staff week. The first time I came to Yewfield was when working at the youth hostel in Coniston, down the road a few miles. Raman was showing Krishnamurti videos here sometimes, and I hiked up the hill, returning through the moonlight with Consiton Water stretched out below.
Q: How many lakes does the Lake District have?
A: The Lake District only has one lake. The others are all something-or-other Water, or Tarn, or -mere. Buttermere. What a fab name. The only lake is Bassenthwaite Lake, in the north. Looking at the map, some other nice names right near Yewfield: Bettyfold, Keen Ground, Bobbin Mill. Ah, the Lake District! I can’t wait to take a walk, and maybe a skeet tomorrow. Now to the warm open fire downstairs…
Get closer to your favourite film stars – surf in their shit
Peer deeply into the pristine ocean and you will see it is murky and grey. Waft aside the plastic bags floating past at Paradise Cove, wade into the ocean at Surfrider Beach, and you may glimpse traces of the matter that has gripped the coastal community: the effluent of the affluent.
At Broad Beach, whose beachfront homes have housed the likes of Redford, Spielberg, De Niro, DeVito and Stallone, workers struggle to erect a barrier to stop the might of the Pacific Ocean carrying off the contents of their septic tanks. For in the twin capital of detox and Botox, whose inhabitants are so removed from humanity’s grubby charm as to represent a distinct life form, one bodily function remains to be conquered: defecation.
via Why septic tanks are a washout in Malibu | From the Guardian | The Guardian.
Power and aggression made vulnerable to beauty – Roger Federer as Religious Experience
I very much liked this 2006 article about Federer and modern tennis
A top athlete’s beauty is next to impossible to describe directly. Or to evoke. Federer’s forehand is a great liquid whip, his backhand a one-hander that he can drive flat, load with topspin, or slice — the slice with such snap that the ball turns shapes in the air and skids on the grass to maybe ankle height. His serve has world-class pace and a degree of placement and variety no one else comes close to; the service motion is lithe and uneccentric, distinctive (on TV) only in a certain eel-like all-body snap at the moment of impact. His anticipation and court sense are otherworldly, and his footwork is the best in the game — as a child, he was also a soccer prodigy. All this is true, and yet none of it really explains anything or evokes the experience of watching this man play. Of witnessing, firsthand, the beauty and genius of his game. You more have to come at the aesthetic stuff obliquely, to talk around it, or — as Aquinas did with his own ineffable subject — to try to define it in terms of what it is not.
via Roger Federer as Religious Experience – Tennis – New York Times.
Starting the day inwards
After three weeks of getting up and going straight to work, I am welcoming the chance to have some space in the morning. Some space to stretch, some space to not immediately get busy, some space to relax and connect. To relax first thing in the morning… seems odd that I’d need to, having rested a whole night, but there it is: tension on waking. Sleep isn’t necessarily restful. So, instead of two hours of computers, video players, storage systems, this morning it’s been two hours of gentle stretches, sustained poses, relaxation and sitting quietly, gauging where I’m at today, the issues, short and long term, how I am feeling. Basically, being in touch and going in instead of out, to start the day.
Surely, love is not a thing of the mind; and because the things of the mind have filled our hearts, we have no love. The things of the mind are jealousy, envy, ambition, the desire to be somebody, to achieve success. These things of the mind fill your hearts, and then you say you love; but how can you love when you have all these confusing elements in you? When there is smoke, how can there be a pure flame?
– Krishnamurti, Book Of Life, 12 April
Happy New Year! Living With Ease
Here we go! 2010!! What a year it’s going to be in every area I know and can imagine and those I can’t comprehend. I may even become a yoga teacher. I mean start teaching classes, having got my qualification in November.
This morning marks a new start after a week of living by the pleasures – eating whatever and slobbing about. Four activities each day, simple and without ‘shoulds’. Instead, the motive comes from 15 years of trial and error, feeling and knowing what works and what’s important to me, what allows new possibility. These daily activities are: yoga (asana, some pranayama), sitting quietly once or twice, a walk, some exercise. This combined with eating only what does me well long term, rather than satisfying the desire to fill or to taste.
To start 2010 I’m doing Richard Hittleman’s Yoga 28 Days Exercise Plan. I’ve done it a few times before and never managed to do in 28 days. I started this morning at 0645, having let the eager chickens out of the coop at the school. I like the pausing, the variety of asana, the holding and the sequential flow at the end of each practice. A bonus is the amazingly attractive model, Cheryl Fischer. The book is from 1969, with rather a strong emphasis on health and beauty, but the yoga is sound.
From today’s Thoughts of the Day:
Young people whose spines have grown rigid will appear to be much older than their actual years. Conversely, people who have retained the elasticity of their spines and limbs appear youthful and ‘alive’ in middle age and beyond.
I am also going to see Krishnamurti’s Book of Life through a whole year. From today, January 1st:
If you can listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change that comes without volition, without your asking.
And that is the theme for the year, a continued exploration to living with ease, living without effort within and without.
Happy New Year! Go easy. On yourself, on others.
Kripalu Yoga Journal – YTT – Day Three
28 October
Wanted to speak, didn’t. It will come.
Sadhana = Personal practice
The Five Vayus:
Apana – Gravity
Prana – Brighten
Samana – Micro
Udana – Movement
Vyana – Total Connection
(Another yogic map) Science is now giving validity to these ancient maps.
Grief is often held in the clavicles.
Ujjayi breathing. Ocean sounding breath. The home breath. It can be contagious!
Afternoon: Tempeh tired. Chatted instead of resting. Very nervous in tiredness.
My new yoga mat arrived – the Prana Revolution!
Pratapana = Warm ups. Building the sacred fire, warming the body, releasing synovial fluid in the joints.
Settling down today. Less mind-blowing and less nervous.
Almost spoke on the mic in the morning session. They are encouraging us all to speak.
Posture clinic this morning and afternoon. And we got to have a go at teaching! To a couple of people. A good, positive experience. I was enthusiastic and into it. I’m really liking this and will do more when I’ve spoken a little. The serious side is fading and I’m more humorous.
Tomorrow is the classic fourth day yoga crunch. No, fourth day is usually fine, but the fifth day I don’t want to feel, and cease practice. Feels VERY different this time. Supportive. Possible. Only three days in.
This evening I danced! It was great. Non-threatening and no one judging. Free! Then we watched a video about Mr Kripalu. Interesting guy. Desai, not so much.
Great to be sharing the dorm with these guys. Talking about the day, laughing, talking seriously about religion. They would all dig Krishnamurti so much.
I may teach, I may not. In the deepest of my nerves I won’t. And yet it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, it’s the depth of possibility, the freedom that matters.
This is a great, truly great course and it’s what we make of it and it makes of us.
Falling Awake 