Once you’ve gone through your 200 hour yoga teacher training, your hardcore anatomy, paid your insurance and RYT fees, you sometimes begin to feel like you Should Know Stuff, that you should be in advanced classes, that your ability to demonstrate xyz poses are crucial to your success as a teacher.

The best YTT lesson I ever received was that your RYT certs were a jumping off point. The first long form (Chen Ch’eng) students learn in Matthew‘s kung fu lineage loosely translates to “The Dance of Sincerity.” Learning its ninety or so movements, stances and techniques is a statement of intention. An RYT program is a statement of intent to be a good teacher, which is often best accomplished by being skillfully vulnerable, admitting when you do not have an answer, and accepting help with grace. It’s a journey that will end when–with equal parts effort and ease–life leaves my body.

Thank you Octavia Raheem, and thank you friend Gina Minyard: you remind me from afar.

I’ve gotten a lot of officious people off the street, in my classes, who feel it’s their right and obligation to come up to me and tell me there are WAYS of getting rid of my weight. What I’d rather be rid of was their projected judgment, sanctimony, and amazed wonder.

In a community that professes fierce love of your body, we still see students and teachers AMAZED that a fat person could be joyously embodied, be present, and have a beautiful practice. We see a lot of value placed on their “success stories,” where they have lost half themselves and become yoga teachers to share their joy. We undertake ridiculous experiments and pat ourselves on the back for the bravery of “career suicide” to “understand fat bodies,” when all you need is to respectfully use your training, curiosity and a sense of human decency. A fat student can tell you through posture that their belly is impeding their forward fold. A manual self adjustment (lifting from pelvic creases upward) could CHANGE THEIR LIVES, and your expectations. Teach that adjustment as an exploration of extreme Uddhiyana Bandha and you’ll teach anyone with a belly how to be a better steward to their practice without singling them out.

Watch your students. If you’re really curious, offer someone who needs a lot of in-class adjustments a free private lesson and allow both of you to teach the other. It will be more priceless than rubies to both of you.

One of the most powerful teachings in my life comes from the Pratyabhijna-hrdayam, (if you can find it and are into this sort of thing, hunt down The Splendor of Recognition: An Exploration of the Pratyabhijna-hrdayam, a Text on the Ancient Science of the Soul.) It comes down to the Five Acts of Shiva, the Cosmic Dancer. Everyone hears a lot about the whole creation-life-destruction cycle.  However, the remaining two that constantly kick my ass are called Concealment and Revelation.

Deep within us, there is a place that has no use for the mundane joys, that’s untouched by the crummy fluctuations of our daily lives. It doesn’t give a damn about tomorrow or yesterday. It may say something about me that I can’t separate this concept without thinking of the song “There is a Light and It Never Goes Out.” It is a constant presence, from the spark of consciousness to our last breath; eternal if you’re into that. The universe is made manifest within me, and yea, it never worries about a double decker bus or any of that. It just IS, and it’s the part of us that encourages us to constantly seek to know ourselves, to unfold, to open, to connect. That’s the “secret,” the big reveal. We catch it in snatches: I hear the rustle of its wings when I unfurl in a sweet backbend, when I am moved by the tidal pull of my breath, when I am speaking truth, when I am standing fully in My Power. When my teaching touches a student and their eyes dart to mine, we share that instant of connection, our lights reflected in each other’s eyes. Likewise, when my teachers’ challenge me, when I find deeper access within myself, my heart goes supernova.

But we forget. Supernovae cannot sustain themselves, although even their remnants are luminous and transformative. The Pratyabhijna-hrdayam is ready for this, and intimates that this is part of being human; being Shiva; being Frodo, Parsifal or Skywalker.

We forget our raditude because it’s delightful to remember.

We do not see clearly until we clean our glasses and wonder how on earth we ever saw through fingerprints and grime. A dirty window dulls the color and light. Clouds obscure the brilliance of the sun, stars and moon. A veil shrouds a bride’s radiance, and distances a corpse from the world of the living. We forget how good it feels to take the journey to meet ourselves, and we fall out of practice over and over again. We fall back into laziness, fear or avoidance: the light is too bright, too much to bear.

Eventually, we find our way back to The Work.  We remember the way it feels to move in the world when we consciously take our rightful place in it. When we have our shit together, there is an ease and surety in action. When we take what we’re given and respond with conscious, premeditated action, we shine out like beacons.  It is splendid, this recognition.

ETA: The delightful Cora Wen says all this in her delightful, earnest way. Bonus: she says it in beautiful Ireland.

Imperfect = I’m Perfect

This time, it’s different. There’s so much effort and thought that goes into planning an Anusara-style class, and that work keeps you grounded and completely, uncomfortably, unflinchingly involved in the guts of living. We theme our classes; not only physically, but emotionally. It’s like theatre without the comforting veneer of character. If your heart’s not in your theme, if you’re not engaged with the material, you come across as full of shit. No one wants to be called on their bullshit when they’re surrounded by a bunch of buff people who know how to bend themselves (and YOU) in terrible configurations.

So the practice keeps me focused and present, even when I’d rather be staring at YouTube or cleaning the tile with a toothbrush. The teaching digs more deeply than the practice, and while my physical progress is best measured in micrometers, I feel like I’m making some serious head&heart-way.

June 15, 2008
Shortest Hobby Ever
Filed under: parkour — mglover @ 6:52 pm

Yesterday morning a bunch of us planned to get together and make our first real foray into parkour training.  While sitting around waiting for the others to show up, I jokingly posted to twitter: Waiting around for the other wannabe traceurs. On the menu: rolls, speed vaults, turn vaults, kongs, precision jumps, and emergency rooms.

Let me tell you, as I lay in the emergency room, the bone in my shin exposed to open air, that joke was hilarious.

I’m fine.  It was a stupid fluke accident.  I encountered a wall about waist high, put my hands on it, vaulted over it, and as I landed on the other side, the top tier of concrete blocks came free and landed on my left shin and foot.  It looked and felt really, really bad.  Luckily I was running with Billy.  He sprinted back to where we’d left the cars, rushed me to the emergency room, saw to it that I got admitted right away, and called everybody who needed calling.  He also waited throughout the day to make sure I was okay, then gave Deirdra a ride to get the things we needed for an overnight hospital stay.  He was a real hero.

It turned out that it badly lacerated the flesh of my shin, did some minor damage to a tendon, but no harm to the bone.  At the hospital they gave me a tetanus shot, antibiotics, painkillers, x-rays, and eventually put me under so they could clean out the wound and piece me back together.  I spent the night and got released this morning with a keen pair of crutches and a nifty mug.  I go back in a week so the doc can see how I’m healing and what needs doing next.  It looks like I’ll be okay, in time.  The doctors were very reassuring.  I’ll probably be taking a few days off work to recuperate, but I’ll be online here and there.

I wanna thank Billy, Marg, John, Ashley, Michael, Sifu, Katie, and all the countless people who called, wrote, and offered to help.  You guys are awesome.  Most of all, I want to thank my wife.  She made sure the doctors and nurses did their jobs, went to get me food when I was starving, sat up with me when I couldn’t sleep and needed painkillers, and generally made herself sick with worry and caregiving.  She puts up with my stubbornness and without her, I’d be…well, I’d really rather not contemplate it.  She hasn’t yet beat me up for getting myself hurt.  I think that says it all.

My wish for each and every one of you: May you never have to see the bones of someone you love.

He goes back in for an EKG on Tuesday, he’s on diuretics and human hypertension meds, he’s shaved in two patches, but they let us bring him home.  He even has a very chic black wristband.

Keep him as stress-free as possible, they said.  Meanwhile, there are several men using nail guns and slamming things on top of our roof, sending our dogs into a frenzy. The roofers have already murdered my Blue Girl rose (Oh, Prince!  How will Appolonia thrive without you!?) and if they continue to slam things into our rooftop, it feels like a window could break.

If we didn’t NEEEEEEEEEEEED a roof, ZOMG liek NOWS, I would send them home.  They stress ME out.

And now, I go and pet Mister Cookie Paws.

To make a long story short, I noticed his breathing was rapid and shallow and erratic, and we took him to the vet immediately, which was a very good thing. They immediately put him on oxygen, drew a shitload of fluid from his lungs, and generally are trying to stabilize him.

It could be congestive heart failure. It could be fluid buildup from lymphoma or something at least as terrible. They had him in the swanky brushed steel and glass oxygen suite, so we couldn’t even pet him goodnight. That might’ve been a good thing, though, because he was surly and stink-eyed despite all infirmity.

All in all, it’s 90% pretty awful, and there’s not a great deal of hope of doing anything more than making him comfortable for long enough for him to forgive us.

He’s been with me since 1992, when I smuggled him out of my relatives’ house in my cleavage. He transformed from a fraidy-cat to a pimpin’ party-cat when he came to permanently live with me. He follows people like a dog, eats asparagus and wheatgrass and loves to bitebitebite string. He sometimes likes to walk on the dogs like they’re furniture, just to show them who’s boss. He’s a milk stealing, love/hate-biting, nad-stomping, hairball-horking, skirt-snagging, food-begging, cabinet-ruining, dog-tormenting very stylish babooshka hat prancing pony Houdini Cat, and he’s been with me the entirety of my adult life. I can’t contemplate a world without my Jack.

We go to see him at 8 a.m.

I know he’s sixteen and grumpy, and really miserable right now. I hope he has more good times left in him, but if he doesn’t make it, I hope he knows how many people love him, even though he’s a cantankerous, eight-toothed, quack-meowing, cookie-pawed coot.

• Anusara Immersion: Bhagavad Gita studies, plus Tattvas next time around.
• Square Foot Garden: commence! I have 21 plots of forthcoming tastiness, including lots of basil, tomatoes, and chili peppers. Basils, tomatoes and chili peppers rule my summery world. I recently purchased some lovely heirloom tomatoes for eating, and I hoarded the seeds. Since I don’t know the varieties, I named them for fun: Rhumba Panties! Tangerine Coinpurse! Sneaky Stoplight!! I have crazy happy Rainbow Lights Chard, spicy Mesclun mix and wintry squash seeds for later. Loving husband wandered endlessly around stores at my whim, and then braved the sun while using power tools. Yay, loving husband!!
• Friday was fixed on, er, Friday. She has been extraordinarily sweet-natured to us since.
• Teaching Yoga: I taught my first studio class in a million years last Thursday. I’ve been meaning to post about it thoroughly, but I’m facing the sudden and pressing reality that I am teaching THREE classes in the first week of June. If you were coming to my class, what would you want to do?
• My sister‘s tenth birthday is in a week. We’re trying to make it pretty special for her. She’ll be spending the summer in Florida, and I hope it’ll be completely awesome.

Bad Stuff

• Steroid shot for crazy flare. Steroid + weekly immune suppressants = double suck.
• The dogs fought last Saturday, and Matthew and I were caught in the crossfire. M. got bitten once, and I got two nasty puncture wounds. We went ballistic and tried to cleanse the wounds of the contagion. Matthew’s was great!
• My left hand swelled up like a balloon. No, seriously. It was so bad that when I was sitting in the doctor’s office, I was quietly chanting Don’t pop… Don’t pop… Don’t pop…
• Antibiotics that make me delirious and sweaty + Antibiotic Shot + steroid shot + weekly immune suppressants = Ridiculous crazy quadruple suck.
• Friday has Evil Tail Syndrome.  Seriously.  I wish I was kidding, but for the last few months, at least daily, she freaks out, attacks her tail viciously, screams in pain and does it again.  It’s very disturbing. Anyone else out there with a completely neurotic animal who thinks its tail is out to do them harm?
• Yoga really sucks when you are having to hold awesome ever-improving alignment without using the two outer left ball mounts/fingers.

Sleep now.

I’ve been talking about makeup lately on several levels ranging from frivolous, feminist, artifice, other people’s comfort, etc.

I love makeup. I love hair dye.
I have loved makeup since I was in sixth grade and believed you should apply eyeshadow until it resembled the color of the eyeshadow cake itself, just like the new wave girls on MTV. (Sometimes, I still espouse this opinion, but there is a time and place.)

I started getting the hang of makeup when I began performing regularly, and would frequently end up pinning down theatre guys to do their eyeliner. Rrrowwr. Well-applied guyliner still makes my toes curl. LARPing and college honed my makeup skills, and clubbing expanded my skillset.

I don’t wear makeup very often these days: usually lip gloss/lashtint. Every once in a while, I go all out, and I have fun, but I conserve my energy/finger dexterity for more important things.

What annoys me is the melodramatic way people react when I wear makeup now. It’s always an over-enthusiastic, forced ordeal. For all the fuss, you’d think I was trollish without makeup, and a shiny princess transformed by my faerie gothmother MAC. Nearly everyone’s face changes dramatically with good makeup technique, but people gasp like they’ve witnessed some sort of great feat of magic. It really makes me not want to wear it at all, because it feels like their reaction is so strong because they are trying to reward “good” or “acceptable” behavior.

What pushes me over the edge? When a coworker pulls me aside and suggests that since I’m chronically ill, I should wear makeup more often because when I look like I feel poorly, it makes people uncomfortable. This is such grand idiocy. When my shoulders burn, the muscles in my chest are too tight to breathe properly, and it feels like there’s a piece of hot metal bouncing around in my left thigh… the farthest thing from my mind is an acquaintance’s discomfort. I am just trying to get through the day without taking it out on someone else, and why skew anyone’s expectations with artifice?

So, Deirdra, how does the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 affect reproductive freedom?

The provisions of the DRA have narrowed the scope of providers who would be eligible to continue to purchase deeply discounted drugs. The bill was intended to remove discounted drug pricing for hospitals that operate for a profit. College clinics were not specifically targeted, and so no one realized they would be affected until afterwards. As a result, brand name prescription prices for campus clinics rose from about the $3 to $10 range per month to the $30 to $50 range.

Most clinics had stockpiles of contraceptives, which allowed them to delay price increases until more recently. However, since January 2007, birth control costs have skyrocketed at university and public health clinics. According to Planned Parenthood’s research, some birth control pill packs have increased in price from $10 to $49 per month at Mississippi State University. Similar increases are soon expected at The University of Mississippi, as well as The University of Southern Mississippi. Nationally, clinics have had to cut staff, hours and services (such as prenatal care, educational programs and even cervical screenings) to try and keep contraceptives affordable for their patients. Unintended pregnancies are on the rise amongst women in their 20s.

The problem is simple: Due to an unintentional error made by Congress, we are facing a national health crisis that affects three million undergraduates and over 850,000 low-income women. Raising a child is hardly cheap, but scores of women are losing their access to reliable birth control because of the DRA’s provisions. When students and low-income families are forced to choose between groceries and contraception, everyone loses.

Fortunately, the solution is also a simple matter: if the Senate clarifies the language of the bill, the changes can be enacted immediately. Some senators have recognized the error and have been working to fix the problem, but the matter would benefit greatly from a huge surge of public support.

Nearly four million women are counting on Congress, and you, to help make birth control affordable.

Ask your senator to fix the birth control pricing problem caused by the Deficit Reduction Act. A small change will protect women’s health, and put birth control back within women’s reach.