Liberation · 27 February 2009

What if it is mainly in the minds of Americans that ashtanga is a rigid law? Is that because it’s what we need it to be? So that then we can break free of it and find our liberation?

We are so much more interested in catharsis than practice. We turn everything into a liberation struggle, but are so shallow that we keep running on the American cliché that liberation is to be found by fighting the system. I do it to. Less so now than in the beginning, but it comes up.

But the System is no big deal (blows on fingernails). Smash patriarchy on your time off. Work out the alternatives to authoritarianism in your sleep. We only tilt at that windmill during practice to avoid the liberation struggle that’s closer to home. We have thoroughly confused internal peace and freedom with abstract liberation struggles fought against imaginary authorities.

I guess it is kind of more fun to obssess about some mean old people out there who want to take away our practice. It also feeds the catharsis addiction and gives us material for the eternal power struggle we must fight in order to feel free. Mavericks. Individualists.

“Don’t put some pre-conceived rules on me.”

What? Conceived where? What’s the issue?

This practice is so full of criminals and outlaws that there’s almost nobody to do us the favor of representing the law. The ashtanga police? Who is that? We want to imagine “they” care about what we’re doing, want to fantasize that we are wild west cowboys throwing off their oppression. Well…good chance “they” are more concerned about (1) paying the rent and (2) managing your projections without collapsing. We should send them a check for being strong rocks in the shifting sands of our daddy issues.

The cult of the law-breaker is a rehash of the commercial myth of noncomformity, and strikes me as especially immature in a time when we could be realizing how intimately and practically all our fates are connected. Instead we just liberate ourselves from some phantom system, and then re-liberate ourselves from imaginary dictates, and then proclaim ourselves liberated to form a maverick collective, and then unite to go get some more liberation.

Liberated Americans: united in noncomformity!

Individuated.

Free.

OM.

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: astanga yoga , self-deception

Comment

1. This Is AWESOME!

   Voted A #1 Best. Love it. (Shooting imaginary pistols off around me, not afraid to get all mavericky up in here ;) Don’t take away my rights, yee haw! ahhhhh.

   Posted by: joy · Feb 28, 01:25 AM · #

2. “We should send them a check for being strong rocks in the shifting sands of our daddy issues.”

   Amen.

   Posted by: V · Feb 28, 01:55 AM · #

3. The smile began at “catharsis over practice” and outright giggling began at, “Mavericks.”

   Now in defense of our American maverickness, this is really, REALLY ground in deep, not that you don’t know that, of course. See Hollywood all the way back to, really, its birth in the teens. See Robert Ray’s bit about “outlaw hero.” See Clint Eastwood’s career. See Sean Penn clocking some papparazzo. See me feel cool a few years ago for getting a pirate copy of some French movie and doing it “under the nose of the Man.”

   Nonetheless, spot on. Well done.

   Posted by: patrick · Feb 28, 10:13 AM · #

4. :)

   Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Feb 28, 10:15 AM · #

5. :-)

   This post is about the daddy issues inside each of us, individually.

   But on an institutional level… I’ve been surveying ashtanga for several years, and truly the groups that have the weakest energy and the most issues are ones where the teacher has the idea that the tradition is “unsafe” or “corrupt” and she has to isolate herself from the rest of the community. Why would that be? I don’t understand, except that it’s a huge energy-drain.

   This attitude was the seed of bad ashtanga politics in LA, and as the attitude dissipates (due to fearful teachers just opening up to their more relaxed colleagues or actually going to Mysore), the collective practice of the city is finally getting some juice. Thank god! Students no longer have to choose a camp. All it takes is leaders who can make peace and understand that trashing their colleagues and the tradition is pathetic.

   It’s not an easy path to teach ashtanga while simultaneously hating it and therefore having to constantly redefine it and constantly fight the us/them classification struggle. But most of us have had a tiny taste of that in our own selves and have learned not to institutionalize it.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Feb 28, 01:05 PM · #

6. I see trees of green…..... red roses too
   I see them bloom….. for me and for you

   And I think to myself…. what a wonderful world.

   Posted by: ZEE · Feb 28, 07:55 PM · #

7. Wait now, Joy Suzanne, I HAVE THE BOOTS, I get to shoot off my imaginary pistols. I giggled at Maverick too, and kept giggling through out your wonderfully perfect post- putting into words what I think a lot of people appreciate.

   “good chance “they” are more concerned about (1) paying the rent and (2) managing your projections without collapsing. “... god, that’s so perfect.

   Posted by: Liz · Feb 28, 11:31 PM · #

8. you rock!

   Posted by: cody · Mar 1, 06:00 AM · #

9. Speaking of RULES, I just banned another IP.

   What does it take? Just follow the instructions.

   That goes for the basic instruction in yoga. Put the mind on the breath and don’t indulge other thoughts. It takes TAPAS and EFFORT and STRENGTH. It’s a SERIOUS instruction.

   Are we so mavericky that we’d rather keep our minds to ourselves and indulge whatever thoughts we like? I think maybe we are!!!

   Well, NO WONDER PRACTICE ISN’T REALLY WORKING.

   The instruction is there because it works. If yoga doesn’t work, it’s micro-maverickism’s fault.

   At least… this is my new hypothesis.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Mar 1, 06:19 AM · #

10. The sad thing is that so many Ashtangis get into it because they want to quieten their minds but because they focus on other stuff (I want the next pose; I’m bored; look at the new person in the shala) they get the opposite result: amplified monkey mind gone wild.

    Posted by: V · Mar 1, 06:58 AM · #

11. More liberated nonconformist-conformist-Americans:

    http://tinyurl.com/middle-age-tattoo-nytimes

    Not being a citizen of LA, what exactly, was/is the bad Ashtanga mojo?

    Posted by: jeff · Mar 1, 08:44 AM · #

12. thankyouthankyouthankyou! but what does it say about MY daddy issues that i have no problem following THE RULES, and i LOVE the tradition?

    Posted by: anonymous · Mar 1, 10:05 AM · #

13. Father figure

    Posted by: V · Mar 1, 10:19 AM · #

14. it means i am a gay man?

    Posted by: anonymous · Mar 1, 10:35 AM · #

15. LOL no! I just like that video and any mention of father issues always makes me bring it up.

    Posted by: V · Mar 1, 10:45 AM · #

16. Good god the 1980s were decadent! This video is outrageous! Go go Electra complex! No wonder my parents forbade me exposure to all popular culture during the era. Catching up is DELICIOUS. (I’d never seen Like a Prayer before youtube.) Thank you V.

    And yes, I agree with your comment about how ashtanga at its worst teaches people to be even more monkey minded, even if their original intent was to become still. It is sad. And I guess this is the heart of the question about whether it works. Is it just a neurosis cauldron, or can we collectively mature past that?

    Institutions go through life cycles, eh?

    Jeff, I came in to this practice at the end of a local institutional cycle when there was a huge amount of trash-talking, fear and fragmentation. But, I had an amazing experience even in that context. Things were so fucked up that nobody bothered to take me aside and give me the instructions: “Now, this is how it works. You are supposed to feel a lot of jealousy for other practitioners. You are supposed to get perfectionistic and arrogant. You are supposed to cultivate and then misuse your own sexual energy. You are supposed to talk and or daydream in class.”

    This is what the advanced people were doing, but I thought they were out of my leauge. As an outsider and naif, I just did what they did (WISELY, GENEROUSLY) tell me, which was move and breathe. SIMPLE. I got the best of a culture that was manifesting its worst. The beauty was still totally there and accessible.

    It was only later, when two new teachers showed up and chased the old fights away, that I realized that the politics of insecurity don’t have to be the norm. For the most part, we’re doing great now, even if—like LA itself, like Santa Monica Boulevard on which I live—the scene is constantly making and remaking itself at a faster rate than elsewhere.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Mar 1, 12:28 PM · #

17. Whoa, Owl. That is terrible. Here in my parts of the Ashtangaverse, I’ve met a couple of people like that, but thankfully haven’t found a teacher like that. Type-A personalities like what you bumped into drive me crazy—-they get so wrapped up in whatever is their fancy. I doubt that I would’ve hung in there in the old LA Ashtangaverse.

    Posted by: jeff · Mar 1, 02:42 PM · #

18. Yes maybe it is fair to say that yoga in this town is a Type A game. I am so incapable of perfectionism that a methodical practice has been good for me. I have benefited from being around systematizers. When I see Type A at work I think wow you are so calm and grounded rather than you no-fun perfectionist.

    Reflecting on the disgrace this country has embodied since 9/11 and the years of decline ahead, I think a lot of institutions cycle through tough times. We have been a malignant, polluting, war-making, debt-swilling, cultural violence-pushing collective entity for 8 years—doing way more harm than good in the world. We’ve defiled the Constitution (that document is a sacred as any Sutra). So... should it all burn? Nah.

    Last summer the AYRI looked like it was going to implode and lots of ashtangis got wound up. That showed some of our collective worst: an imperial possessiveness of the tradition, bourgeois entitlement, self-pity, anger at guruish imperfections, teachers being sexually irresponsible, insecurity over our own personal practices (I think my own strongest reactions were based in this), and (my favorite) the intellectual dishonesty to equate a simple family business with “corrupt” “nepotism.” And then… instead of imploding it blew over and we realized we still had something left. We are no longer freaked out about what will happen when SKPJ passes over, clinging to his thread of life for our own dear life. The transition has already taken place… and the whole practice didn’t turn to dust in the process.

    I don’t know what it is, but the three people I know who really locked in to regular practice during that upheaval time weren’t damaged by it. In fact, they seem to be lifers—sincere and lighthearted. Maybe being born in the cataclysm increases the stakes—they take more responsibility for their own behavior and become more skilled in seeking out the best around them and feeding it. Maybe coming in to a world during its halcyon days isn’t the only good way to begin.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Mar 1, 05:01 PM · #

19. My god that's a lot of Hegel. How can there be that much metahistory lurking in my mind????

    Posted by: (0v0) · Mar 1, 05:02 PM · #

20. “I am so incapable of perfectionism”

    Uhm, eh, sorry, not buying that one. At all :-D

    Posted by: V · Mar 2, 01:03 AM · #

21. “ashtanga at its worst teaches people to be even more monkey minded”

    I don’t know that it’s ashtanga that is teaching people to be more monkey-minded. When people try to make a practice (any practice) “right” or “wrong” (or, even worse, all about THEM), there’s going to be monkey stuff. It’s mistaken practice, not the practice itself.

    Practice doesn’t make monkey mind, monkey mind does. (There’s a bumpersticker to replace the “Guns don’t kill people, people do” bumpersticker on your Hummer…)

    Posted by: karen · Mar 2, 05:04 AM · #

22. Good call. Thanks.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Mar 2, 05:09 AM · #

23. LMAO “bumpersticker on your Hummer.”

    As to the Hegel, Owl, I think we simply fall into the cognitive patterns we’re used to. I had to get accustomed to having all that Nietzsche in my head, and now it’s just par for the course. You put a teeny tiny bit of “spirit” into the idea of “practice” and all of a sudden (boo-yah, if you will), you get Hegelian history, teleology and all. It’s ok, though, you’re awake enough about it to call it, as you did.

    Posted by: patrick · Mar 2, 07:40 AM · #

24. hi (0v0)
    that is powerful and timely, thank you. it also reminded me to download Firefox, since i would not have been able to comment. hehe. i’m in a new computer in a new (old) world. wow, if your writing is inspired by Hegel, i didn’t know i loved his philosophy. your observations on our culture are right on. i’m observing the same with a detachment. for example, there is not a culture of buy now, pay later where i am. no hiding in credit card indebtness. i am in a place, though, where exposure to yoga is limited. from that standpoint, Cali is a haven, despite the warring yoga camps that might form.
    hugs
    Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · Mar 2, 02:04 PM · #

25. by the way, when i click on V’s link, the response is, “this video is not available in your country.” who was that? George Michael? not that i’ll lose hairs if i don’t find out. a lot of things are not available here and it’s not because of religion, as in the Middle East.
    hugs
    Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · Mar 2, 02:35 PM · #

26. I see that the revolution is being televised, contrary to what everybody predicted. But nobody knows how to use their Cap’n Crunch decoder rings to figure out the news from the front.

    Posted by: Carl · Mar 2, 02:52 PM · #

27. I know this post is in reaction to a certain recent ranting blog post by a visible yogini, but I wonder, how to apply this to my own situation?

    I’m hearing that a certain ashtanga teacher has recently cut many longtime practitioners’ practices in half and convinced them that they had been injured by a more vigorous practice with a former teacher. This sounds like your LA situation all over again. Did things really clear up, or did they just shift coasts?

    And what, per this post, should I do with my practice? Submit to the new teacher’s regime for the sake of trying out conformity? Cut ten years of asana that were gained slowly but surely and treating me really well, in half, because someone says SKPJ, who hasn’t seen my practice except for 2 weeks in 2000, prefers it?

    I know you were not speaking to me, dear Owl, but I just can’t help but relate this to my situation and feel all tangled up. Because as a Manju-ite in New York, I do feel sort of outside the system and vulnerable to the ashtanga police at the moment, if you follow. It’s not what you’re addressing above, but it does kind of call into question your philosophy, say, in the same twisted way that pro-gay-marriage laws would support evil Mormon polygamous cults. :)

    Maybe this is better taken offline. You know where to find me. :)

    Posted by: katie · Mar 10, 09:53 AM · #

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