side bakasana

This is a great pose to enter out of ardha matsyendrasana (half lord of the fishes) since your body is already twisted and your arms are in, basically, the right place. Marichyasana C is also a good pose to enter from.

It's more challenging than bakasana or even koundinyasana, where the legs are split. Having the legs stacked adds a challenge to the balance and strength. If you're having trouble getting your feet to rise, think about dropping the head lower. This almost has a "see-saw" effect, lifting your legs and feet as the head falls. Your inside arm, which is carrying the weight, acts as the fulcrum.

namaste,
tim

injury and intention

I'm injured. My left hamstring feels like it's ground up. Overused.
I've felt it coming on for weeks now, but I kept pushing. Some days it felt fine. Some days it felt better after practice. Some days it was worse before, during and after asana.
Finally, it gave. The pain was too much. My body was no longer giving me gentle hints to stop, it was screaming at me.
I was crushed. How would I be able to practice without using my hamstring? I couldn't even do a sun salutation.
Then denise reminded me that there is asana for everyone. She told me to practice like an 80-year-old man. I didn't go that far, but I understood.
I started on the mat with cat and cow. Then right into up dog, down dog. From down dog, I went into plank and either held it, or did push ups, or side plank, or nakrasana, or an arm balance, and then back into down dog. To keep warming up, I did various warrior dances.
For standing poses, I focused on side angles, crescents, squats, warriors 1 and 2 and balances that don't stretch the hamstring (tree and its variations, eagle, squat balances).
For seated, I basically followed ashtanga second series. Instead of krounchasana, I did baddha konasana. For leg behind the head poses, pigeon and stacking the legs, ankles on knees. Instead of tittibhasana, I did more crescents, same for horse.
The specifics aren't that important, though it may help someone in a similar position with an injury, and I would welcome and suggestions for other alternatives.
What is importnat is that my intention shifted from advancing my practice to just practicing. I'm not saying that I only think about "getting better" at asana when I get on the mat, but I do have this desire to push myself deeper and do more poses. But this time, I was just grateful to be on the mat. Grateful to have any asana practice. And I realized it's all about the intention, not about the poses. I knew this, but the injury helped remind me.
It felt so right to finally listen to my body.

Namaste,
Tim

hedonist bhoga

am i doing it because it feels good to me or because it is opening up into infinite space? i thought i was awakening, and i suppose i am to start to realize this, but so far its been all about the awakening, as if im doing it, and it is so ecstatic that i am orgasming all the time, except when i start to come down, except when someone pulls out because its not always so wonderful to be on the other side of someones orgasm that is doing it because it feels so good they forget about the other being, even if we are becoming one, we were becoming me. i thought i was opening into love, and i guess i am as i sense the difference, but alot of my love was love for myself, loving the way someone makes me feel, what they do for me. i dint know i was doing it. i felt what i thought was love.
its hard to see the possibilties of life sometimes, we can only see what we have already known. i couldnt understand why people were a little confused by me, turned away from me, they must just not get me i thought, and they may not, but i just didnt get it either. not that ive got it now.
but im beginning to feel the difference.
and can sense how far i have to go.
deep gratitude for the awakening, each door as it opens.

Two poems

One point of light
may sculpt a delicate metropolis
on pebble’s edge


Dusk river banks
the mosquito place
I sit
Let them come
Let them pierce
Let them feed
My blood, my self
my offering
dispersed
Buzzing now everywhere

-tim

From "Choruses From 'The Rock'"

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.

-T.S. Eliot

tim

Introductions

I feel like introductions are in order, although I think I’m probably introducing myself to no one, or to people who we’ve told to come here and so already know me and us.

So I’ll be brief.

I’m Tim.

Okay, that was silly.

I’ve been a dedicated practitioner of asana (from here on, a yogi for short) for almost two years. In that short time, I’ve learned many lessons. Or maybe it’s all one lesson. I’ve grown and shrunk. I am, with no ambiguity, extremely grateful to have found this path.

I write for a (so far meager) living – a sports journalist at the Concord Monitor.

So I decided to mix the two – asana and writing – and here I am. Actually, here we are. Denise and I are partners (we’ve been using the old wife and husband terms less frequently, but we are married). Our styles are different, which should make for a rich collaboration. Actually, it already has made for a rich collaboration. Now we’re just blogging about it. (Love that word ‘blogging,’ it captures the endless ramble of cyberspace)

My goal is to post daily, just like a practice, though I’m sure I’ll miss some days, just like a practice. I want to share the sign posts I find along the path. Those signs may be tidbits on poses from me or my teachers, quotes from yogic texts, personal emotions or breakthroughs that come with practice, random thoughts or various inspirations from books, music, movies, the river near our home in New Hampshire or our son Philip, the great guide who has blessed Denise and me.

And who knows what else will evolve and appear on here.

Since I just posted a handstand picture, let me offer a tip that has helped me there. When I first tried handstands, I would usually flop into backbends. I had too much momentum going forward. So I adjusted like this: from down dog, I walk my feet forward, leaving my hands on the ground. I try to align my hips over my shoulders (it feels like I’m actually leaning forward, or over my shoulders) so I don’t have the momentum of my torso moving me forward and pushing me over when I lift my feet off the ground. Instead, I can focus on raising the legs up and just keeping my torso still. Also, I usually start by lifting one leg up faster than the other into the upright position, so I just use that up leg (for me it’s the left) as a guide and try to “snap” my other leg to it.

Hope it helps.

Namaste,
tim

Scorpion handstand

tchefunkte natarajasana

i am new orleans

mississippi river bottom brown.
wild eyes, wild hair, carnival all day and night.
spontaneous sahajiya - master the form, freestyle jazz.
sensuously fluid shakti, the water keeps rising.
surviving on illusion, swirling below sea level, the water keeps rising.
balancing the fire.
benevolent shiva, storm god, shambo, chambeaux.
mate with thy shambavi, chambavi.
hurricane.
raging through.
electric wind, ocean in the sky.
let loose upon the land.
levee breaks.
ten feet under.
dancing in the current.
pollution cascades through, washing clean.
left naked, humbled, real, alive.
brown scar, high water mark.
some see destruction, some see god.
she lives to tell the tale.
...d...

denisasana

two wolves

there is a native american story about two wolves who constantly wage battle inside each of us. one embodies love and kindness, compassion and generosity. the other manifests hatred and jealosy, anger and fear.
a small child asks, "grandmother, which wolf is stronger?"
grandmother replies, "whichever one you feed."

pretending the the angry wolf does not exist does not make him go away. you are feeding him with ignorance, with fear. when he rears his head dont ignore him, he will bite you from behind. look him righ in the eye, and make peace with him too.
...d...

whole

i could pretend i feel good all the time, and then youll feel bad because you dont. but i am not enlightened, i am only on a path, this one path, this particular ecclectic meandering path that is my own. and everything is on this path with me, the ecstatic states, the deep empty sorrow, the connected bhava, the lonely void. nothing is excluded, all things are divine love. thats all there is, one love, many mainifestations. we just dont always know enough to understand the how and why. how is war and rape divine love? cant explain exactly, i dont know. but i think they are reactions to some kind of imbalance, the energy of all life as a whole trying to restore itself to a state of equilibrium. and there is dark, and there is light. and they exisit together. judging does no good, it blocks us from seeing what truly is. not what we desire, not what we fear. and acting accordingly.
...d...