The Radical Life

My teacher says that yoga practice is radical.  And so it is. 

I did a quick Google search:  radical (the adjective) relates to or affects the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching and thorough.  Some of its synonyms are:  complete, exhaustive, extensive, profound, and rigorous

Yes, yoga is radical.  Yoga requires the rigorous study of your own mind – the thoughts, emotions, personality, sense of individuality, and conscience.  Through its various techniques it aims to clarify the mental field so that one can look at the world objectively rather than subjectively.  By seeing clearly compassion wins out over anger, hate, and indifference.

Compassion:  a feeling of sympathy coupled with a desire to alleviate suffering.

We all suffer, every single last one of us.  In fact, we all make the choice to suffer.  We could all make the choice not to suffer.  It is such an easy thing to say, and such a difficult thing to do.

Why? 

Fear.

Fear is a basic building block of the human experience.  It comes in so many forms and intensities.  All fear boils down to a loss of individuation; a loss of what is mine verses what belongs to another.  Fear is the threat of loss; whether it be my corporeal body, my free will, my possessions, my personality, my way of life, or anything that I have decided is mine (including the I in mine).  Yoga asks us to go beyond fear, in essence to become super-human.

My happiness is my responsibility.

No one except me can make me happy.  The shining jewel of bliss lies within, but it is covered with dirt.  While I’ve done some cleaning in my time here as Michael, The Human, I’ve also added some dirt.  My radical goal, the goal of my yoga practice, is to remove more dirt than I add to allow the light of bliss to shine through just a bit more.  No one can do this cleaning for me, with the possible exception of God, and in the case of God I would need to politely request it and then (more difficult) acquiesce to the process (not likely given my fear of losing my free will and way of life).  So I must engage in the radical practice of yoga, the thoroughly extreme practice of going back to the fundamental root of being. 

Working with what I’ve got.

I have a body, which houses my mind.  The best chance for my mind to become clear, insightful, and content is with a healthy body.  I live in a society, which influences my mind.  The best chance for my mind to remain calm, collected, and free of pain is to help others in society better themselves, thereby uplifting society in general.  I make choices constantly and those choices affect me, all of me.  I will study my choices and listen to the advice of those that I trust and those with more experience than me, with the aim of always improving my own condition.  I will be patient and compassionate with myself.

What is the next step on this radical journey?

Every journey is made up of a multitude of tiny steps.  Each step counts, whether it be forward, backward, or sideways.  We can choose to move quickly or slowly, or some combination of the two.  I’m about to go cook for myself with ingredients that are wholesome and sourced to my satisfaction.  What step are you taking?   

Intrepid Ashtanga Student:  "You're a back bending tyrant!"

Me:  "Oh?"

IAS:  "It's not meant as a bad thing.  It's just what you are."

Keep It Sweaty

Sweat is a part of life and it is part of yoga.  The choices one makes about what to do with sweat have varying repercussions. What is sweat? Basically it is water containing exceedingly small amounts of minerals, lactic acid, and urea.  It is virtually colorless and odorless. What is the purpose of sweat? Sweating allows the body to regulate temperature. The evaporation of sweat cools blood at the skin which then returns to the center of the body’s circulatory system to counterbalance an increase in temperature.  What should you do with your sweat? Use it to your best advantage.

Yoga is a process of cleansing. Yoga practice cleans the physical body, the nervous system, and the mind. As with most yoga processes the order of operations starts at the most gross (most physical) and moves towards the more subtle. Heat cleanses the body, therefore, if you want to cleanse your body you must sweat. Analogies to the heating of metal to remove impurities have been made in India for thousands of years.

Pattabhi Jois adjust students during practice.

“In the same way that gold is melted in a pot to remove its impurities, by the virtue of the dirt rising to the surface as the gold boils, and the dirt then being removed, yoga boils the blood and brings all our toxins to the surface, which are removed through sweat.” KPJAYI website

If you don’t want to trust traditional knowledge passed down for thousands of years then trust what modern science has discovered about the lymphatic system. Lymph is made of white blood cells which are responsible for attacking bacteria in the blood. Unlike the circulatory system the lymph system has no pulse, it is pumped through the body by the movement of muscle and the change in body temperature. Heat causes the lymph vessels to relax and cold causes them to contract. Heat your body and move your muscles and you move lymph around.

Here we come upon a conundrum:

I want to have a heated body.
When I heat my body I sweat.
Sweat’s function is the cool down the body.
How do I keep my sweat from cooling me down?

 There is a solution – You rub the sweat back in.

Sri T. Krishnamacharya

It is not sweat itself, but the evaporation of sweat that cools the body. The quickest way to cool a sweaty body is to the wipe the sweat away with a towel, exposing dry skin to the air. Never wipe your sweat with a towel during yoga practice! Rubbing the sweat into your skin with your hand keeps the skin and the blood underneath it warm. The process for rubbing sweat back into the skin is detailed in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a 15th Century text on the practice of yoga. Avoid clothing that holds sweat. If you wear a cotton t-shirt during yoga practice and the cloth becomes saturated with sweat you now have a layer of cold material that sits on the skin and constantly lowers the temperature of the blood underneath. In the ashtanga yoga practice men typically take their asanas shirtless and woman in a small, yet modest, tank top or sports bra. If you don’t feel comfortable showing your midriff wear a shirt that exposes your armpits – a particularly potent area for sweat creation in the human animal.

Showering after yoga is no good. Taking a cold shower after yoga practice cools the body down thereby halting the detoxification process (constricting the lymph vessels). Taking a hot shower after yoga practice drains energy. I know, that last statement sounds a little hippy dippy. Think about it though. During a hot shower the blood is drawn to the skin (that’s why you look all flushed after a hot shower) which means it is drawing blood away from the internal organs. After yoga practice blood is highly oxygenated, aka full of energy, and the internal organs thrive on that influx of oxygen. Showering after yoga practice is cheating yourself of the benefits you’ve worked so hard to gain.

And so we come upon another conundrum:

I want to keep the benefits of my yoga practice.
Therefore I will not shower after my yoga practice.
But then I will smell bad.
How do I keep from getting B.O.?

More on sweat and yoga from Kiki Flynn, my long time teacher.

Remember, sweat is virtually odorless.  Bacteria use sweat as a breeding ground and the smell of B.O. results from bacteria breaking down the keratin protein on the skin. No bacteria equals no odor. How can you get rid of bacteria and keep it at bay. Firstly, take a shower before you practice yoga and make sure you dry off completely. Secondly, wear as little synthetic fiber as possible during yoga practice and on your way to your yoga practice space. Thirdly, avoid loose and bulky clothing during your practice – the sweat that is caught by your clothes is a veritable oasis for bacteria. Finally, allow enough time at the end of your practice to rest so that your sweating stops before putting on clean clothes.  

Keep is sweaty.
Keep it clean.
They’re one in the same.

Intrepid Ashtanga Student:  "I think the New Moon energy is really affecting me."

Me:  "................."

IAS:  *whispered* "I forgot my underpants."

Me:  "blink blink......... blink blink"

Are You A Good Student?

I have a student, he shall remain nameless (or is it a he?, hmmm….), that has become concerned about wasting my time. He is most definitely not wasting my time, on the contrary, he’s making quite good use of it. His concern stems from confusion about the values of product and process. He thinks that since his product is not as polished as that of some others that the time it takes me to engage in the process with him is of less value. This couldn’t be more from the truth.

Time is a terrible thing to waste – this is one of only two things that all the great Indian gurus in recent memory agree on; the other being that coffee should be taken hot with milk and a great deal of sugar. Personally, I view the stealing of time as a most grievous sin. Time is something we have a finite amount of and to make things more precarious we have no idea when it is going to run out.

How can a student waste his teacher’s time? The teacher is there to engage the student in an educational process. This process will result in many different products along the way. As the process continues products that initially seemed to be of high value will cheapen as newer. shinier, products are created by the ongoing process. How fast is the process? That is different for everyone.

So how can a student waste his teacher’s time? He can refuse to engage in the process.

What does not engaging in the educational process look like? Here are some examples.

1.     Asking questions you already know the answer to.

Seems like a no brainer, yes? Why ask a question to which you already know the answer? Generally it’s for an ego boost. Asking a question for which you already have the answer gives you an opportunity to show just how very smart you are to the teacher. This is especially evident when the original question is followed by a tricky follow up question. Look at me everyone! I asked a super intelligent question of the teacher and then when his answer wasn’t fully satisfying I followed it up with an even more perplexing and involved line of questioning. I am so crafty and shrewd and now my teacher and anyone within earshot knows it! That’s the ego, once again comforting itself in its own individuality and superiority. If you’re going to ask a question, ask because you want to learn something. Seems like a simple task – it’s not, the ego is a sneaky beast.

2.     Doing your own thing.

People like to do what then want when they want. It is only natural. Yoga practice works against this natural inclination. Understanding that getting what you want when you want it is not always the best thing for your personal growth is foundational to an educational endeavor.

Grandparents are known for spoiling their grandchildren. They give the little ones sweets and treats, let them stay up extra late, and take them to special and interesting places to play. Then they give them back to their parents. The parents, wish to educate their children, withhold sweets and treats until after dinner, put them to bed early so they are not tired the next morning, and leave them to play in the same boring sandbox day in and day out. Why this difference between grandparents and parents? Because the grandparents don’t have to deal with the bad behavior caused by their spoiling. Just as Little Johnny is about to throw a temper tantrum because his growing sweet tooth hasn’t been satiated by yet another ice cream bar he’s whisked away by Mumzy and Daddums and Grandma and Grandpa can go back to tending their gardens and crocheting afghans in peace. 

Many yoga students spoil themselves. “This is my time.” “I’m honoring myself and what I need to do right now.” “This is what I need today.” “I’m listening to myself, I’m my own teacher.” These are not uncommon statements heard in yoga studios across the country. I, me, my, mine – these are all terms associated with the ego. If the practice of yoga severs the ego how can I, me, my, and mine be useful to that practice? Doing your own thing is just that – your own thing – don’t try to call it yoga and certainly don’t blame your teacher when you continue on your rollercoaster of suffering because of it.

3.     Being non-committal.

Commitment is essential. Without steady commitment practice with be stop and start, two steps forward one step back, or worse – one step forward two steps back. The actual amount of time you commit only affects your rate of change, the speed with which you evolve (and there are so many other factors at play as well). It is the steadiness of your commitment that produces change.

As a teacher I like to see my students often. Of course the hay ride drawn by a herd of rabid cats that we call life does not always permit my students to see me for practice the traditional 6 days a week – and I have a life outside the yoga studio myself (I know, shocking). I have students I expect to see 6 times a week, others 3 times a week, some one week a month, still others once or twice a week. That I expect to see them implies they have made a commitment:  a commitment that is strong enough to notice, to warrant expectation. If a student’s commitment changes it is easily noticeable and can be addressed.  Without commitment there is no expectation – no expectation on my part of the student, and there shouldn’t be any expectation on the student’s part of me.

In conclusion, let me rephrase all I’ve said in the positive. Honor your teacher’s time as he honors yours. Use your time with your teacher for the greatest possible gain. Ask the questions you need the answers to. Do what is asked of you. Commit to a steady practice that is within your means. I think any teacher would be more than pleased to have a curious, attentive, and faithful student.