Saturday XXVII · 12 October 2007
Minimalism, recently.
I’d say avant, but that would be obnoxious.
AF moved into a sleek LeCorbusier this week. I keep accidentally imagining myself there. But the flights to Chas de G are just stupid, and I’m supposed to be doing what DJ (the dissertation journal) says.
Reading My Paris as consolation (check it, U).
With Gui Boratto.
Eating Red Delicious. Which taste like something for once.
Bad moon day on Wednesday. Moon days piss me off. I’ve been trying not to mention that.
Meanwhile, the secret planche is starting to show (phase one; oooooh Tristan—what you trying to do here? But thanks; and the bboy is something else). Take note if you are a 14-year-old boy or a female ashtangi. Related: I am showing a new interest in pressing up to handstand. Elusive. But it turns out I can hold an inverted L all day. Useless.
Also related: return of the desire to tattoo the arches of my feet. I know, I know. Guess it’s the collective unconscious talking. Sort of loudly.
Incidentally, there is no collective unconscious. Been ridiculing Jung’s bad metaphysics in the evenings. Can’t be helped, considering the October occult reading taking place in the Owl House.
However: I will be nesting alone in Eagle Rock this week while a dear friend plays CMJ. It is a writing retreat. Raising the question: to schlep to Santa Monica for practice, or moonlight closer to the temporary digs. Jury’s out.
And obviously, yes. There is a disturbance in the force. I mean the collective unconscious.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: astanga yoga
, esoteric shit
, evolution
, having a body
, sound
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At least keep the collective unconscious as a metaphor! Stop over-valuing crushing scientific parameters! LOL. I am feeling poetic this morning.
Posted by: karen · Oct 13, 12:06 AM · #
Heh, heh. It is a great metaphor! Way too intriguing to throw out.
Rationalism and scientism are way too religious for me in the end. Crushing, yes.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 13, 12:14 AM · #
Wait – does this mean the planche isn’t helping?
You must be extremely rugged and/or a good sleeper. I’m always grateful to the point of giddiness for moon days…
I should be practicing today. I really should. but I have to wait for the super to get here to unstop my bathtub drain. Mui exciting.
Posted by: boodiba · Oct 13, 12:25 AM · #
you don’t believe in the collective unconscious?
go get the soles of your feet tattooed!
why not?
Posted by: Tova · Oct 13, 12:57 AM · #
Not rugged. Scrappy.
They say the arches won’t hold ink. And I’ve seen a lot of photos of foot ink gone bad over the years. But my arches are soft and high. So I wonder if it would work. Especially if the ink gave me that much more reason to work them…
Collective unconscious is new age drivel. I believe in it sometimes.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 13, 01:56 AM · #
mmmm drivel!
eh, everything goes bad over time. get it and enjoy it while it is still pretty.
Posted by: Tova · Oct 13, 03:12 AM · #
Go talk to Dave Hartman. He is genius. I’m so happy with my tattoo, I’m already thinking of when can I go visit him so I can get two more done (we placed my current one with more ones in mind). Even my parents liked them!
Posted by: V · Oct 13, 04:35 AM · #
This must be the guy in Encinitas. What is the name of his shop? His work on you, J and J is really good.
You should get them all done, I’m thinking. One each year.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 13, 04:51 AM · #
Yo owl-girl why not join us at Center for Yoga at 5pm Sunday. The great and funny Steve Walther is the teacher. He has taught many of the ashtanga teachers around this town and is cool,insightful and has a practical and loose approach to practice. Most of us are out for wine and pasta afterwords and S. and I love the camaraderie.
Now the liftup stuff. I am inexperienced and in my 2nd year of steady practice so please pardon. Madame S. frowns on it but probably doesn’t realize that it preps the body greatly for 3rd series and is not the exclusive terrain of male yogis. The sublime L.Peterson taught me the basics anyway and last I looked, shes a woman. Anyway, if you can levitate on up from uttanasana you can do karandavasana in your sleep or heavily stoned on a Mexican doobie. The trick is not in the arms and shoulders but in developing significant strength in the upper abdomen and the uddhiyana bhanda. I know, I can’t spell worth cows pie. If you take 3 very slow strong compressed breaths with this bhanda very tightly engaged thruout and then begin the lift up after the last inhale and really draw the upper abdomen in rock solid as if punched there, the floating tends to happen. To get an idea of the float if one rests a thick yoga bolster length wise along the wall you can drive your head into it and use that to leverage up the lift. Or you can start by lifting off bent knee and then move on to lifting up straddle wise as intermediate stages since both of these cheat gravity more than the pike.
So the way I have found to develop good strength in the uddhi is to hang from a chin-up bar straight armed and keeping your torso stationary bend your knees and roll up tucked to touch the soles of your feet on the chin-up bar and then roll down slowly. Sets of 4 maybe, 5 to 10 repetitions. Imo, planche work is perhaps best done on traditional push up stands from Big 5 to save on the wrists. Handstand pushups against a wall to any degree develop great strength in shoulders and arms,etc.
Sorry for going on and on. All of this may be unsolicited but it might help save time and energy. Doc John says he doesn’t do this because his arms are too short but I don’t agree. The action of the lift is in the upper ab and its like an upside down leg lift really with balance and control issues.
‘Practice and all is coming’ is more like a koan than a promise to me. ‘What is all?‘is a legitimate question. In my case it has been the dissolution of a long relationship and cycling thru lots of old sports and stage injuries. My quadratus l. is acting up again among other things and though I am making progress in Kapo it looks pretty pathetic kind of like an insect on its back in the freezer section of the old Amana double door. gotta go swimming, love to all, tristan
Posted by: tristan · Oct 13, 05:03 AM · #
http://www.454tattoo.com/454.html
Posted by: V · Oct 13, 05:49 AM · #
How is it that you came to want your arches tattooed? It’s such a peculiar idea. The arch is definitely a sensitive spot. Have you considered painting the images on first just to make sure they’ll turn out the way you want them to?
I still think the bridge of the foot is one of the neatest places for a girl to get a tattoo. Feet are unique. They draw the attention naturally.
Posted by: Carl · Oct 13, 06:36 AM · #
Please apply to get your arches tatted on LA Ink.
Posted by: flint · Oct 13, 04:30 PM · #
Hmmm… if upper ab strength is what helps, you could do leg lifts. Lie on back w/ legs out straight. If you have trouble keeping the pelvis tuck during ab work, you can put hands under hips. I like to cradle my head instead, because the presence of my hands there reminds me not to tighten my neck & shoulders.
Lift legs up on an inhale to 90deg. Stop at the top. Curl your pelvis up toward the ceiling. Get a nice lift, pointing toes. Then flex feet and lower everything to the ground. You’ve gotta be careful to keep the tuck in the pelvis and to not distend the abs. You don’t want to build convex ab muscles. If so, you’ll look like Matthew McCoughnehay (however you spell his name).
Three set sets of 20.
That’s the hardest & most effective of the ab exercises from my old abs / push-ups routine.
Might help. Then again – who has time for monkeying around on TOP of Astanga practice?
Posted by: boodiba · Oct 13, 09:09 PM · #
thanks for all the practice spots, owl. i’m sorry to have gotten stuck here. ended up just doing it here at the hotel like a criminal donkey mammal that i’m.
i love the arch-ink idea! a friend’s daughter from the festival of speed(uk)has a lovely diamond on her instep, really nice.
and sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner, my wireless is out and am finally using hotel computer.
ciao bella,
eor
Posted by: eeyore · Oct 14, 02:08 AM · #
Oh my god! You all love body modification! Ok.
I had to look up LA Ink on the internet though. Riiiiight.
Not sure the origin of the idea, but at some point I actually started drawing on them--a set of three curved lines. Clearly I spend too much time with my feet in my field of vision.
And ab work! This is what I get for confessing to planche training. I used to give myself 30 minutes for pranayama at noon, now here I am playing with rectus abdominus instead of uddiyana bandha. Am I regressing? Regardless, thanks both of you for the closely detailed descriptions. I'll report back after some playing around.
L.Peterson’s is amazing, an absolutely refined and glowing presence, and a real woman. Maybe the only person who consistently deepens my practice just by coming in and setting up next to me. That is something.
I do not know S or the CFY scene, but it sounds nice if not always in sync with my Sunday schedule. Thank you for asking, T, and keep your eyes open.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 14, 11:17 AM · #
Oh, the quadratus lumborum. Looking around at different people in my life, seems that this little sub-system can have a mind of its own.
I’ve had some fun with mine (only the left) since the sacrum shifted in April. It was possessed by demons this morning, and no surprise since I was a stress case. Anyway, best to you in working with yours. Check out Volume I of Carolyn Travell’s Trigger Point Therapy (the original textbook) for a brilliant back door to the QL; and if you see DC some morning, talk to him about it.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 14, 11:25 AM · #
Tatooes are passe aren’t they, like all the guys desperate to mimic Don Johnson back in the 80s and pierce their lobes? Best way to seek immortality and attract attention is to learn the liftup into handstand from navasana 5x and floating. Then again if inking isn’t about attracting eyes then its ironically enough about plugging into the collective ancients. Druids mumbling over witch bones, guys crawling out of caves to do battle with mastadons, droid warriors hefting 10 foot spears into the bellies of onrushing cavalry. Sorry for the shameless rant.
Its a foggy,wild,primitive morning in Topanga. If I see one more woman with an ass-bumper tat in ashtanga I am very likely to fall asleep on my mat. This has nothing to do with you owl-girl its just a verbal exorcism regarding the ongoing commercialization of yoga. Time to go walk doggie and stretch the QL. love from the far side, tristan
Posted by: tristan · Oct 15, 02:22 AM · #
hey owl,
What is this thing they call the “OC” and is there any morning mysore in it? I think I’m going to be there on the 29/30 and may be able to squeeze in a mysore, depending on time & location, etc.
Thanks!
Posted by: cody · Oct 15, 03:47 AM · #
Have you heard of Area 51? The “OC” is like that. Some people who go in never come out again. I strongly suggest you plot an escape via the northern gate to come practice with me at a Sunday time and place of your choosing. Or via the Southern gate to the Mecca which all blogging ashtangis must one day see. I think you know where I mean.
I have heard there is an insurgent ashtanga movement somewhere INSIDE the OC. Maoist style: prolonged peoples’ war. It’s said they call themselves Pacific Astanga. But I don’t know if this is real, legend, or an old group now quashed by an onslaught of Mercedes SUVs and acrylic nails.
You might want to help them. It might enliven their ranks to have contact with the outside.
But I think it would be better if you came to see me.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 15, 04:05 AM · #
Tattoo suggestions: you could create some motif that really only makes sense when the soles of the feet are opened as in Baddha Konasana like the pages of a book and it could relate to the kanda so as to create completion upon arrival into this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MInLZhN0MncAbove the sex organs and below the navel there is the bulb-shaped center (Kanda-yoni) resembling the egg of a bird.” (Yoga Chudamani Up. 1, 14.)
Posted by: e&sj · Oct 15, 04:13 AM · #
Yes, I would love to get into LA proper. Back in another life we used to shoot in the Santa Monica area (expensed stays at Shutters on the Beach, etc. The salad days before the big dot-com crash!)
Alas, the current scenario probably looks like a late arrival on the 29th and a client meeting in Long Beach on the 30th. With a little luck I may be able to squeeze in mysore, if it’s early and close to the hotel.
Posted by: cody · Oct 15, 04:16 AM · #
I think the interest in the arches has much to do with the fact that they will be seen only by me, yes. I suppose I would have to choose between Kandasana and Baddha Konasa as completion, and suppose the latter is where I’ll spend more of my time, whatever eggs this bird may be carrying.
But “Best way to seek immortality and attract attention is to learn the liftup into handstand from navasana 5x and floating.” After that, I will trans-substantiate.
CP: We celebrated E&SJ’s birthday at Shutters, more or less. It’s walking distance from my shala. Alas, I think it falls to you to search out our lost comrades in the O zone. Godspeed.
Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 15, 04:38 AM · #