Sunday, January 20, 2008

i really like indian food

Day 3 is behind me of my Anusara teacher training. I'm so happy that everything sort of conspired for it to happen. I didn't end up going to New York last week, and now that I'm going this week, I'll be able to make it in between the training (Friday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, and Monday mornings for 10 weeks). I'm learning a lot about the structural composition of poses, and a tremendous amount about tantric (specifically, Kashmir Shavaism) philosophy. I should probably get it out of the way for all of you who think tantric and then think sex: this has nothing to do w/ porn, kama sutra, etc. Sorry. Rather, it's a philosophy that says that we're not seeking liberation from the body -- we're seeking liberation within the body (the context being within, and then eminating out, from yoga). We do this, in part, by coming into sensation, coming into the senses. Makes sense.

I have friends who have gone from a yoga tradition (okay, Baptiste) and transitioned into another (okay, Anusara) and have struggled with the conflict between schools of thought. Maybe I'm just lucky or Pollyanna, but I see no dischord. In my own practice the two compliment each other. I've seen a little difference in philosophy (Anusara is little more erudite in its approach) and occassionally the alignment is different. But since I think it's important for people to practice a posture in a way that's intuitive to their own body, it matters not to me that one school might say "top hip open" in ardha chandrasana, while another might say "top hip down" for the same posture. It's just not a big deal, I guess. Reminds me of the Rumi poem:

Out beyond ideas of wrong and right,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense.



So far I've signed up for only the first five weeks of the 10-week training. I'm now considering the entire 10 weeks b/c the second 1/2 is practice-teaching and I think this would be good for me.

***

I've been told twice in my improv class that my action doesn't match my words; my words have no emotion to them. Since I've received similar feedback in teaching, this was a wake up call. So I took it as a good sign when the other day I got really really mad at my mother. Thank God. I haven't felt this kind of anger in I don't even remember how long. It occurred to me afterwards, better out than in. Oddly, it felt refreshing, because I realized that I finally expressed what had been sitting below the surface. Bringing it to light means that now there's room to actually do something with it - like room for growth... and all that good stuff.

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