Life outside of the hot room

From time to time, I have found myself far from any kind of yoga studio or hot room, but I still have tried to make some kind of practice.  Until recently, I have met with mixed success.  However, for the past two months I have been practicing a slimmed down version of the sequence without any heat but with quite remarkable results. I had promised myself some time ago not to write any more about yoga, but this is worth sharing.  So read on at your own discretion.

Firstly, let me set the scene:  for nine weeks, I have been spending six hours a day sitting in a classroom, trying to get my head around another language.  At the end of each day I really need a yoga practice to help me unwind my head and my spine.  It is natural that I should turn to the same yoga sequence, one I know fairly well, and do the best I can with no heat, no smoke, no mirrors, no dialogue – just the sequence and my experience of each posture and my understanding of my own body.

Regardless of all the other noise that surrounds the yoga world from time to time, let me say that I trust this sequence.  Although I do not teach this any more, I continue to believe in the efficacy of the sequence itself.   But I have to say that my experience with this yoga has been peppered with regret.  My life was changed because of the practice and I will be ever thankful to the man who put this sequence together, who picked these postures out of many and ordered them in such a way that they work every part of the body in a logical and healing progression. The source of my regret has never been the sequence, but rather the manner in which the sequence has been led and the environment in which it has been practiced. Both of these have frequently interfered with my practice rather than supported it.  Therefore, I welcomed the opportunity to develop my practice without heat and without any distraction other than my own mind and body.

I have enough space in my room for me to spread a thick towel on the tiled floor and open the door so I can breathe some fresh air.  And as always, I start with a breathing exercise, pranayama, either one or two sets of ten repetitions performed quite quickly.  Next comes the warm up postures in the sequence, and I like to do two sets of the first combination - half moon, back bend and hands to feet.  And then from this point on, just one set of the remaining postures all the way through.  I move into each posture with some care, feeling out my muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints along the way, and then once in a correctly aligned position, I hold the posture for my target time, which I count. Most of the postures I hold for twenty seconds, except the principal balancing postures of head to knee, bow and tree pose, which I hold for thirty seconds each.  There are a few shorter postures which I hold for twelve to fifteen seconds, such as the compression postures, balancing stick, and each part of the locust series.  I allow myself a brief rest between each posture in the standing series of about ten seconds and a full twenty seconds between each posture of the floor series.  I finish with one set of a final breathing exercise.  My time in each posture begins when I am sure that my alignment is good, when I am still and when I am breathing normally.

The hard floor has been a challenge for my knees, so often I use a pillow between the tiles and my kneecaps.  And I always work within my range of motion, not beyond it. But the results so far have been extraordinary.  I feel stronger, more in control of each posture, more focused within the posture, and invariably more energized at the end. I am stretching enough not only to maintain my body's capabilities but to increase them.  In several postures I have been able to extend or improve the asana in a number of ways:  increased stretch, better balance, more focus, improved technique, sound breath control and lastly that elusive stillness.

So the question is, how has this happened?  While I have practiced plenty of times outside of the hot room, I did not expect to improve any posture without heat.  Frankly, I am surprised that this has happened.

I attribute this improvement to the fact that I deliberately work carefully within my range of motion and focus on technique and relaxation. This is possible because I have more energy to play with;  my body is not burning energy to combat the heat.  And that increase in energy gives me choices:  I can use the energy for more technique, by fine tuning muscles or grip, or I can choose to stay longer in a posture that has previously been giving me problems.  In either case there is improvement.  If all is working well and I stick to the target time for the posture, then that energy supports greater concentration. And with more concentration comes relaxation, and with relaxation comes stillness.  It is like unlocking a door and finding a corridor that leads to a room I have not been in before.

Of course my mind wanders from time to time, so I ask it to come back and try again.  There are times my minds sends me all sorts of nonsense, but I know that I don't have to hold onto any of it.  I can just let it go.  And then I start again, always by using my breath.  There are lots of times when I need to start over.  But I accept that now and I don't get too bent out of shape if that is my practice, all the way through. Tomorrow, it may be better, or at least it will be different.

I am not sweating as much, so I realize that I am not benefitting from the cleansing that follows from that level of sweating.  The first part of the sequence is a highly effective means of warming up the body to support movement. And as long as that movement is within a tolerable range of motion, then I have not experienced any discomfort due to muscle pulls or strains. So for me it seems to be a trade-off: I am giving up sweating but gaining more energy and concentration.  Of course there is a downside:  the yoga does not seem to go as deep.  I find that if I miss a day, then I feel a difference immediately.  Before, I could get by with a practice three times a week.  Now I feel that I need this every day otherwise I can feel a difference in my spine.

I know that this may not work for everybody and I am not advocating it to replace whatever works for others.  For the time being, I have no inclination to return to the hot room  although I recognize that this could change at some time in the future. It is probable that for some time I will live far from any hot room, so I need to learn how to use this yoga without extreme levels of heat or humidity.

I am grateful to have found a way where I can continue to practice this sequence of healing postures independently. Every day my spine talks to me and tells me that this is working. When it stops talking I will think again, but for the time being I know what is good for me, and that is enough.  There is a life outside of the hot room.

Snakes and Ladders

I thought we were meant to get smarter as we aged.  Or maybe that was was spread around by older people when I was younger. Age brought wisdom:  it was a twofer kind of deal.  You got incontinence and gas but you were smart as a whip. Until the point of course when you forgot your door keys for the umpteenth time and they don't let you out on your own again.  Then you're not so smart;  you have dementia instead, and that trumps smart every time.

So recently I have been wondering what the signs are, you know, for either being wise and smart, or for possibly being not so smart and being a dementia candidate.  I conclude that it is a thin line, one of many thin lines in life.  I think of all the thin lines that have separated me from others, sometimes a single degree of separation.

Health from sickness — now that can be a very thin line.  Why did Marianne get cancer and not me?  She was the one with a healthy diet:  she was the one who ran every day and dragged us both off to yoga. That was a thin line.

Happiness from sadness — that's another thin one.  And it moves too.  One day happy, and the next day not so much.  Recently I have been keeping a check on my happy score every day.  It seems a reasonable thing to do — not a dementia risk there.  Just a sensible tracking of how things are going.  I seem to be getting a little happier, although I try not to resort to scoring in two decimal points in order to show progress.

Life is just one giant game of snakes and ladders.  Fall on a square with a life crisis and I slide back down the snake, three rows down and five to the left.  Not good.  Roll again.  When I was younger, I wanted the ladder that lifted me up three rows and four to the right.  Your internet start up has a successful IPO — that would have been a good square.  Mine wasn't;  it was one fat anaconda. And I still have not got over that one.

Now I just want consistency, no surprises.  Just give me one square at a time with nothing on it.  I just want to sit there, in the square and enjoy it, basking in the reasonable expectation that there will be another square to the right tomorrow.  I want some thick lines around the square, not thin ones.

Recently I landed on a snake, and that was quite a surprise. My first response was to stop playing.  Not helpful. My second response was distance.  Look for another board in another place and start again.  But this time, choose the board before I start playing. Now that make sense.  But sometimes new boards need some different skills, sometimes the rules change.

But one thing seems to be sensible and smart and worthy of being older.  in fact, it might even be wise:  make the game simple.  Stop complicating it with other stuff.  Simplify everything.  Downsize. Reduce. Give away. Become mobile.

The other day a friend of mine asked me for my advice regarding financial management.  How have I been able to move across the board, and arrive at this stage of my life, let's just say pre-dementia for the sake of argument, and be able to travel and seemingly enjoy life with such ease and lack of financial worries?  What are the brilliant strategies I used along the way?  What ladders was I lucky enough to land on?  And the answer is the same:  simplify, downsize, reduce, give away, become mobile.  It is easier to do that when you are sixty plus than when you are thirty, but maybe that is wisdom talking.  I wish I had known that when I was thirty.  Nowadays, I have no property, very few tangible assets and just a little storage. I pride myself on the fact that my stuff fits in two suitcases, maybe one if I squeeze.

Now I just want a new board, some squares with no snakes and no ladders, and a hand to hold as I roll the dice one more time.  I can see that happy score moving up.

I will not let this day go by unmarked. So I will post this same message again, updated to reflect the passage of yet another year.  I miss her presence and I miss her love.  But I see a life ahead and a path forward. It has become easier.  Here are the words I have written before about these ten days.

For the past five years, I have reserved the ten days between July 1st and July 10th, I have put them aside as a reminder of the last ten days of Marianne's life in 2008. Ten days of hospice care at home; ten days of gradual increases in pain medication; ten days of withdrawal;  ten days of her body slowly shutting down, system by subsystem, bit by bit, until there was no room for her and no room for me any more. 

I like to think that her spirit didn't need her body anymore, and so slowly freed itself, piece by piece. In the Bahá'i faith is written "to consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage".  So like the bird in the cage, her spirit was freed, and remains free.

It becomes easier, year by year, to look back at those ten days.  The pain is eased a little - not quite so raw. Memory is selective, filtering the view, rounding the edges, allowing me to focus on those times when love was affirmed, when a kiss was shared, a hand held, a touch received.   

Much has happened in these five years: two boys have grown into young men, their lives filling, confidence growing and their futures slowly appearing, pixel by pixel. They are finding their way in a tough world.  I am so very proud of them, and I know for sure that Marianne is proud too.

And what for me? I am still reminding myself to be in the moment, to take another deep breath and start again. Life is lots of new beginnings after all.  I need to remind myself of that at times like this.

A messy world

I have been back in the USA now for five months and I have been struggling with my writing for all that time. Several drafts for my blog sit on my laptop – and most likely they will stay there. Friends ask about my writing and I make some lame excuses about work in progress and then change the subject. But now I have just finished a book, for the second time, and I feel compelled to write about it.

Allow me to clarify a possible grammatical confusion: I have actually finished more than two books in my life. But every now and then I like to read a book twice to make sure I have got the point. I am both fortunate to have the time to do that and unfortunate in having the need to do that. That's both sides of the same coin: aging. However, back to the book...

The book is called “Hell Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga” by Benjamin Lorr. In my view, this is a well written, thoughtful and relatively balanced look into the World of Bikram. Lorr relates his experiences taking Bikram yoga classes, attending Bikram teacher training, participating in intensive yoga programs involving extensive back-bending postures (now called “Jedi Fight Club”) and competing in yoga competitions at regional and national levels. It is not my intent to provide a review or recommendation of the book, but the reading and indeed the re-reading has prompted my own thoughts and provided focus for some of my well established concerns.

Those of you who have come to my class over the years have heard me talk about the evil twins of “ego” and “obsession ”. Maybe I am fortunate in having come into this yoga at an older age than many people, since my previous life in Corporate America gave me all the opportunities I needed to massage my ego and explore my compulsive need for work, both of which provided me with my identity at the time. I hope I worked all those out of my system before I stumbled into the hot room many years ago.

Having made all those mistakes myself in the past, I am sensitive to those times when one twin or the other forces their way onto the mat, whether that mat belongs to me or someone else. But should that happen, I am reminded of the humanity of the yoga. We are engaged in a very human activity, a reflection of our life outside the hot room, and that by its very definition will involve both the good and the not-so-good. Life is full of mistakes, and so is yoga.

When one twin or the other creeps in, I try to recognize it and then encourage it to swiftly move on; neither belongs in my practice today. And while I hope I can say that “ego” never has a place on my mat, I must acknowledge that “obsession” might have taken up residence had I been twenty years younger. I like to think that age has given me the wisdom to keep things in balance, something I struggled with during all those thirty years in corporate life.

Balance involves keeping things in proportion. And for me these days, it means recognizing the vital place that yoga has in my life – but it is not everything. Over these recent years, when the Universe has thrown a few challenges my way, I have recognized the critical role that yoga has taken on in my life. That job has been repair and maintenance – first physical, then mental and finally spiritual. So much happens to my body and mind in just every-day life: things break, muscles pull, ligaments tear, stress builds, worries appear, thoughts become confused. All that needs fixing and my yoga practice is the auto-repair shop where that takes place.

I have accepted that my practice will probably not get much better, and I am okay with that. Yoga provides me with a toolkit to keep my aging body running and in balance. I can pick up that toolkit and put it down when I choose. Taking a day or two off and resting does not cause me to feel anxious or guilty. I feel stronger on the mat when I come back. After all, yoga, like life, is full of restarts. Each time I come into the room, I am starting over – no expectations, accepting where I am on that day. I think that is consistent with the humanity of the practice.

And have no mistake, this yoga is essentially human, as are the people in it. As teachers and students, we make our fair share of mistakes. But never confuse the yoga with the people in it. We are all human and we will mess up on a regular basis. In the meantime, we have been given this gift of yoga and the special sequence that makes up the Bikram class.

This brings me back to “Hell Bent”. The book gives an insider's view to the World of Bikram. It is a messy world, the characters are imperfect, the community has its fair share of the weird and the wonderful. I recognize so much of what Lorr describes and it is not pretty. I hope every aspiring Bikram teacher reads this book before they decide to go to teacher training. And I say that in the belief that we make better decisions when we are better informed. The book will inform some; it may deter others; it is unlikely to provide much encouragement. But as an aspiring Bikram teacher, you will be less surprised at what the teacher training experience has become. And then you may be more realistic about your expectations after teacher training. For many, teacher training equips us to recite, while actual teaching takes a little longer and may require a lot more work. That teaching certificate should be just the beginning of a very humble journey.

Or maybe you will be attracted by a week or two of intensive back-bending practice, or by the chance of competing in the yoga championships. While neither retains much appeal to me, I would urge you to keep that all in balance. Recognize obsession if it creeps in to your practice and then decide whether or not you are comfortable with it; if yes, then learn to live with it and test its effect on your life at regular intervals; if not, then do not hesitate to throw it out.

Do not allow your ego to drive your practice: listen to your body and let your body drive your practice. That may be different from day to day. You can still try your best and practice at your edge if you recognize that edge is a moving line, and sometimes it moves backwards as well as forwards. Progress does not often come in the form of a straight line. How many times have you heard me say “two steps forward and one step back”?

So I would encourage you to read the book, and then when you come back into the hot room for your next class, be grateful for that practice, however imperfect it may be, and then be forgiving of those of us who are in the business of messing up your class. After all, we live in a messy world.

Another deep breath

For the past three years, I have reserved the ten days between July 1st and July 10th, I have put them aside as a reminder of the last ten days of Marianne's life in 2008. Ten days of hospice care at home; ten days of gradual increases in pain medication; ten days of withdrawal; ten days of her body slowly shutting down, system by subsystem, bit by bit, until there was no room for her and no room for me any more.

I like to think that her spirit didn't need her body anymore, and so slowly freed itself, piece by piece. In the Bahá'i faith is written "to consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage". So like the bird in the cage, her spirit was freed, and remains free.

It becomes easier, year by year, to look back at those ten days. The pain is eased a little - not quite so raw. Memory is selective, filtering the view, rounding the edges, allowing me to focus on those times when love was affirmed, when a kiss was shared, a hand held, a touch received.

Much has happened in these four years: two boys have grown into young men, their lives filling in from the corners, confidence growing and their futures slowly appearing, pixel by pixel.

And what for me? I am still reminding myself to be in the moment, to take another deep breath and start again. Life is lots of new beginnings after all. I need to remind myself of that at times like this.

Another thin layer of insulation

It will be Marianne's birthday tomorrow. Another celebration of her birth and of her life – a life cut short in her middle fifties some four years ago. I said at her funeral “she just ran out of time” and I still believe that today. I think that she knew that she was losing her fight with cancer way before anybody else knew, but she never did admit that she was dying until there were very few days left for her. We didn't talk much about dying, about how life might be for me without her; about how it would be for our children. It was just too hard at the time.

As another birthday comes and goes, as another year passes, I have to admit to thinking more about the process of getting older, the effects of aging, the gradual closing of the door that you really don't pay much attention to for most of your life. Not just when you are a teenager or in your twenties, but most of your life. Certainly that was how it was for me.

When did that change? I suspect that losing Marianne was the catalyst for many changes in my life. Witnessing the death of a loved one surely must be the most painful experience that one can endure, but we do endure. Another year passes and another thin layer of insulation is put down to cover the pain. This is not an intentional, intellectual action; it is rather like breathing, it just happens on its own – another part of survival. Stop breathing and you die; stop laying down that insulation and life will not move forward. You will stay in that same painful place and atrophy. There is no choice, so you move on.

So it happens, not as an active choice but as a means of self preservation. Take another breath and build another thin skin. That is how it works for me. The good thing is that the skin does not hide the memories or the feeling of love, but rather it slowly covers up that burning pain of loss, and perhaps one day for me, that anger that still sits deep inside. But I do wonder about those memories – I need them to be accurate, especially as I get older.

Recently I have found myself drawn towards writers who speak of aging and death. I am currently reading a lot of work by Julian Barnes, an English author born a few years before me. I feel like I understand these stories from the inside, as if I have privileged access to some special knowledge that not all readers have. After all, I have been there; I remember holding her hand as she took that last breath. That makes me an expert on the subject. I can talk with authority on the pain of this one loss, on the life changing impact of this one event. Those images, those words, those sounds were burned into my mind so I had no doubt then that I would remember them without fault for the rest of my life. I saw no value and had no time to keep a journal and write down the events and record my exact feelings, blow by blow. I was quite willing to rely on my memory to capture and retain an accurate record of highly emotionally charged events. But I know now that my memory is not one hundred per cent accurate.

The truth is that my memory is failing. I used to be angry that my short term memory was unreliable. I would walk from one room to another with purpose and arrive there to find that I had forgotten the reason I was there. Was it car keys or my telephone? Was it a magazine or the laundry? But my other longer term memories still appear fresh and reliable, as if they are enhanced by age. And I think this is what is happening: I actively edit my recollections of past events. I have no compunction in changing the events to give the memory a more pleasant feel or a more interesting picture. It is my memory after all, so I feel that I can edit it without guilt.

I can freely merge one memory with another and create even more interesting super productions in high definition, with video from one day and audio from another. I can give my mind a free rein to create something more pleasurable than the original. Just give me a few pieces of history and, after some reflection, a rich entertaining memory will emerge, each retelling giving the opportunity to add and subtract depending on the success of the broadcast.

Is this dishonesty? Am I misleading anyone? Does anybody get hurt in this process? I don't think so. It is just my inventive subconscious, looking back at my life and having some fun; reaching back into the files and recovering a couple of events and then adding a little colour here and there.

Maybe I am revising history – but for better or for worse? Barnes writes in The Sense of an Ending “history is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation”. Don't get me wrong here: I am not supporting wholesale revision of history on a macro level, such as Nanking and the like. My revisionism occurs solely at a micro level; and after all, it is my history.

But I like to think that each memory of mine has a core to be protected, a message to share with the audience, something to be passed down to later generations. The integrity of the core is not questioned, it is not at risk. It is frequently a belief, a value, an entry in the guidebook for those at an earlier stage of life. Changing the facts does not detract from that, but rather if done well, should enhance the telling and engage the listener even more deeply. I am quite accepting of that.

Someone I love asked me about wisdom the other day. Now that is an interesting subject. Aren't we meant to accumulate wisdom as we get older? I was hoping that this was a natural result of the aging process:  we just got smarter as the years went by,  automatically with hardly any increased effort. All those experiences, all those memories, add to this database that is there for us to draw on, when younger folks, not so wise, look to us for guidance. That's right: all those memories of all that history. It begins to make me question if I am building this so-called wisdom on solid ground; I cannot trust the foundations any more.

There are times when I feel I have some insight that is unique, some perspective that reflects the years and the pain it took to acquire. But I fear they might be few and far between. In reality, I am striving for wisdom, for some honest and real insights into life. In the meantime, I admit that my inventive subconscious remains busy at work, reinventing memories, enhancing and embellishing, to reinforce the false perception of the honest storyteller at work. There are days when I truly believe that my life has been as interesting and as fulfilling as my memory is now suggesting. Minds are truly creative, aren't they?

I expect that over time my memories of my life with Marianne will change; some will grow and others will diminish. But I am pretty sure that they will all have a core element of love and respect, and maybe that will be about as much as I can hope for as I close out another year and lay down another thin layer of insulation.

Reply from teacher to student

Treat me like an adult; I made a decision to give up my valuable time to come here today for whatever reason. Give me the benefit of the doubt that I am going to do my best. You can remind me of that but don't nag me.

Then act like one – try getting into the room on time for a change! I am reminding you all the time because you forget all the time! Some people think this is positive encouragement. Get a thicker skin.

Give me enough heat and humidity to support my practice, but don't make it another challenge for me to overcome. It is not necessary. Teaching the hottest class does not make you the best teacher. Every studio is different, and it may need some work on your part to manage the hot room properly.

I thought this was HOT yoga, or am I wrong? Stop whining. It's always too hot for someone, too cold for someone else, everybody's whining all the time. Forget about the heat already and just do the yoga. Teaching this stuff is not easy – you can't expect me to keep my eye on the heat all the time. Really...

Leave your ego at home. This practice is about me, not about you. I want you to lead the class and help me do the best I can today. Show me the same respect that I show you. We are partners in this dance for ninety minutes and we each have have our roles; if I didn't turn up then you wouldn't have a class to teach.

I lead; you follow. Let's get that established first. There is a hierarchy here in case you didn't spot that on the way in: me, teacher; you, student. And if you don't turn up here, then don't worry, I'll go somewhere else and teach.

You don't have to talk all the time; silence can be powerful. Little gaps in the dialogue are okay; I'm not going to fall asleep or stop paying attention just because I cannot hear your voice for a few seconds. But when you speak, then do so with confidence and with clarity so that I can understand what you want me to do.

The dialog is there for a reason: it's to stop your mind from drifting off to some other place, like the shopping list, the movie you saw last night or whatever. I'm doing you a huge favor by keeping up this string of noise so nothing else gets into your head. Sometimes I get a sore throat from all this speaking, but I have to keep going, and how often do I get credit for that? Think about that.

Understand that my body needs a short break between every posture, not only during the floor series. I need just a little time to get my breath back and to be still. Appreciate the difference between a physical limitation and a bad habit; I may need a little extra time to move into the next posture. This is not being lazy; it is taking care of my aging body.

Oh, give me a break: you are just not working hard enough. Just forget about what you think you need and learn to follow directions. You have to accept that I know better than you do in this regard. Do the posture when I tell you do the posture and stop complaining.

Be consistent, especially in the rhythm of the class. I don't care if you teach a slow practice or a fast practice, but just make it consistent. Give me the right time in each posture; don't make me stay there, working hard, just because you have more stuff to say. There is always another side or another set or another class for you to say them.

Let me remind you that I am the one on the podium. I've got the headset, not you. I paid big bucks for this and I get to choose how much time I feel like giving you on any day in any posture. Come out of a posture early and I will call you out big time; causing embarrassment is one of my major teaching tools.

Recognize me as an individual. I don't expect you to remember my name, although it's nice when you do. Make sure that I leave the studio having felt that my presence there has been acknowledged: some eye-contact is good or a few words of encouragement now and again, especially when I am having a bad day. You don't know what else is going on in my life – I might need a little lift and you might be the right person to do just that.

Why? I'm here to teach you yoga, not make a new friend. I can't afford the time to read and memorize the check-in list before each class. I get paid precious little for this as it is, and that would take more time out of my busy schedule. And by the way, I'm really not interested in what else is going on in your life. Leave that at the door and just bring your body in and pay attention. I'm a yoga teacher, not your therapist. I really don't care what your name is; you're just a body to me. If you want me to call you out in every posture, then go ahead and remind me of your name just before class begins, and then see if that gives you the little lift you need.

Be yourself and let your personality shine through; don't try to be somebody else. I see and listen to a lot of teachers all using the same words, more or less; don't be a part of a white noise. A little humility goes a long way.

See my answer above. Give me a call when YOU get a teaching certificate. Enough said.

Please teach – don't just recite. Teaching needs observation, so look at me. Teaching needs listening, so listen to me. My voice may be silent but my body is shouting at you. You tell me that each class is different, but that should apply to you too. If I have taken three of your classes and I can practically recite your speech word for word already, then maybe it's time for something to change to keep your class fresh and interesting.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a dialog here. I'm here to give you the dialog that I spent nine crazy weeks learning. I've got it; now you get it. I have to earn a living doing this stuff, so I have a pitch. I may be teaching three or more classes a day, so get over it.

Trust me and then maybe I will trust you. Because if I can trust you to take care of me, then I can relax, let my body do its thing and have a good class.

I think I've already dealt with this. And between us girls, I'm not too interested in whether you have a good class or not. You're here and you paid; enough said again.

Remind me to breathe. If I don't breathe properly then I won't be able to do anything. But I need some time to breathe so make sure that I have that time.

Okay, here's the reminder: keep breathing! You're good at breathing – you do it all the time, so keep doing it. Fine.

Encourage me to do my best. But do that with compassion. I may not be used to the overwhelming stimulation of the hot room and the yoga practice: so much heat, so many words, so much sweat, so many people standing so close to me with so little on. English may not be my first language and it may be hard for me to just understand what you are asking me to do. This experience may be totally alien to my culture and my upbringing. But I am here and I am trying. If I am not doing it right, then there is probably a good reason.

Did you read my answer about working hard or not? Don't think about it, just do what I tell you. That’s it. Oh, and when you go to the DMV or the Giant, do you complain about not getting the information in your native Latvian or Portuguese? No, you're damn right. This is America, so straighten up and get your sorry ass to an English class.

Show me the right way with compassion, a kind heart and a loving spirit. Being a yoga teacher is a vocation and not just a job. Every time that you step into that room you have a huge responsibility to all of us in there. You can help me change my life; that's a pretty big deal in my view.

Oh, I like this one. You want me to chant and hit a few bells too while I'm at it? This is not feel-good yoga – that's down the street. We feed you pain in here. If you want to pay good money to come in and lie down and nap for an hour, then you're in the wrong place. And another thing: I'm not responsible for fixing your messed up life and I certainly don't want to hear about it. After all, as you can see from my answers, I have enough problems without having to hear about yours all the time.

Incredibly loud and extremely close?

Marsalforn is a small fishing village on the northern coast of Gozo, one of the three islands that makes up the little Republic of Malta, some ninety kilometers south of Sicily, in the heart of the Mediterranean. To the west is Tunisia, on the north African coast, and to the south is Libya. We are pretty remote here. The local language, Malti, has a strong Arabic flavour, but the culture is more Italian than anything. Although everyone speaks English and drives on the left, the telly comes from Sicily. The universal language of football binds everyone together.

In Gozo, everything is blue, more blue than you have seen before. The sky is more sky blue, more than you have seen before. And the sea is more sea blue except for the green. The water is more clear than you have ever seen. It is warm, sunny and warm, for three hundred days a year, including today. The buildings are all of white limestone, rock stacked on rock, each reaching up three floors or more to the same blue sky. Everybody comes here to dive in that perfectly blue-green clear water. Except me; I came here to read.

I sit enjoying my lunch at a small bar by the harbour side in Marsalforn and my quiet is disturbed by a great deal of shouting. I can discern female voices - lots of them it seems, and close by. So loud and so close that you might say incredibly loud and extremely close...

I put down my knife and fork and watch, as around the corner of the street appear three women and a wheelchair. The eldest woman is seated in the wheelchair and the younger is pushing her along, while a third is holding onto one of the handles and seems to be dragged along by the chair. She is limping as she walks, the chair is going just a little too fast for her. None of them are less than sixty years old and the eldest is well over seventy. They are all shouting loudly, possibly at each other, possibly to passers by, possibly to me but I cannot tell since it is all in Malti.

There is some arm waving too and this leads me to believe that the debate, if one can call it that, is regarding where they are going to sit down for a few minutes. They are each pointing to a different part of the sea front. Only the younger one seems to be providing both propulsion and direction so it is inevitable that her will is going to prevail. It does.

Crab-like, they make their way across the street towards the sea wall, where there are some benches, still debating at a high pitch, now a question of which bench. Once they arrive at a vacant bench, the noise subsides and they settle down to enjoy their view of the harbour. I conclude that they are sisters; no-one else could carry on in this way. And I suspect that this is a regular procession. It is practiced and seems to have an order of some sort in the chaos. The shouting, the arm waving, the gesticulating, all seem to be part of well rehearsed routine. I am the only person to take notice of this event; it must be quite normal. It will take more than this to disturb the quiet of Marsalforn.

Normal programming resumes and I return to my lunch.

Successful living?

I have just passed a store here in Sliema, Malta, called "Successful Living". It made me stop in my tracks, almost causing a pedestrian traffic accident as the people on the pavement behind me took evasive action. Saturday night is the night for strolling in Sliema and everyone does it.

But who does "successful living" and would we know it anyway? And more to the point, would we recognize "unsuccessful living"?

I suspect that the answer may vary by nation, or by society, or by culture, or maybe by degree of economic wellbeing. Or by whether you are above or below the poverty level in your society. Or not.

If the Englishman, when on his deathbed, can lift his head and say "well, that didn't turn out too bad", then that might define successful living for him. But that is a cultural stereotype at work and maybe that is not fair. Or then again, maybe it is.

I should have stopped to inspect the shop window to search for clues as to what the shop might actually sell to support "successful living". But the press of strollers was too strong and I was pushed on past the shop before I could identify anything. I have a nasty feeling that it might have been furniture. Not the useful stuff that one can sit on or eat off or sleep on. But the useless stuff that accumulates and makes you get storage units when you get older and move on. Stuff that should never be bought no matter how you define success.

Stuff does not define success; I'm pretty sure that most grown ups can agree on that by now. If that is debatable, then there is some more growing up to do. Stuff drags you down and drowns you, designer cushion by designer cushion, artifact by artifact, lamp shade by wicker basket.

An Indian friend of mine says that we have to reduce our stuff down to one hundred things. He wasn't sure if that included books or underwear, but I am pretty sure that it picks up cushions, artifacts, shades and baskets. One hundred is actually quite a lot when you are packing a suitcase to move from one continent to another. I certainly could not fit an hundred of anything into my carry-on from LL Bean. Do I count the carry-on as stuff?

The hundred is a guideline, a concept, an idea for us to think about, an excuse to toss out the useless stuff instead of returning it to store 'just in case'. Maybe we should think of "successful living" as a potential guideline too. After all, there a precious few absolutes in life that cannot be renegotiated at one time or another. Deal breakers come and go every day. Everything is directional - right?

Just start throwing out stuff; in time it will become clear whether the one hundred includes underwear or books - but I'm pretty sure that it does include books on underwear.

Start to minimize. I realize that is what I began some years ago. Let go of stuff, let go of the past, let go of the future and just live now. Minimize expectations and maybe things might not turn out too bad.

Now that would be successful, wouldn't it?

A letter from me to me: student to teacher

Dear Graham,

Please treat me like an adult; I made a decision to give up my valuable time to come to this hot room today for a reason. I have turned up. Give me the benefit of the doubt that I am going to do my best. You can remind me of that but don't nag me.

Give me enough heat and humidity to support my practice, but don't make it another challenge for me to overcome. It is not necessary. Teaching the hottest class does not make you the best teacher. Every studio is different, and it may need some work on your part to manage the hot room properly.

Leave your ego at home. This practice is about me, not about you. I want you to lead the class and help me do the best I can today. Show me the same respect that I show you. We are partners in this dance for ninety minutes and we each have have our roles; if I didn't turn up then you wouldn't have a class to teach.

You don't have to talk all the time; silence can be powerful. Little gaps in the dialogue are okay; I'm not going to fall asleep or stop paying attention just because I cannot hear your voice for a few seconds. But when you speak, then do so with confidence and with clarity so that I can understand what you want me to do.

Understand that my body needs a short break between every posture, not only during the floor series. I need just a little time to get my breath back and to be still. Appreciate the difference between a physical limitation and a bad habit; I may need a little extra time to move into the next posture. This is not being lazy; it is taking care of my aging body.

Be consistent, especially in the rhythm of the class. I don't care if you teach a slow practice or a fast practice, but just make it consistent. Give me the right time in each posture; don't make me stay there, working hard, just because you have more stuff to say. There is always another side or another set or another class for you to say them.

Recognize me as an individual. I don't expect you to remember my name, although it's nice when you do. Make sure that I leave the studio having felt that my presence there has been acknowledged: some eye-contact is good or a few words of encouragement now and again, especially when I am having a bad day. You don't know what else is going on in my life – I might need a little lift and you might be the right person to do just that.

Be yourself and let your personality shine through; don't try to be somebody else.  I see and listen to a lot of teachers, all using the same words, more or less; don't be a part of a white noise. A little humility goes a long way.

Please teach – don't just recite. Teaching needs observation, so look at me. Teaching needs listening, so listen to me. My voice may be silent but my body is shouting at you. You tell me that each class is different, but that should apply to you too. If I have taken three of your classes and I can practically recite your speech word for word already, then maybe it's time for something to change to keep your class fresh and interesting.

Trust me and then maybe I will trust you. Because if I can trust you to take care of me, then I can relax, let my body do its thing and have a good class.

Remind me to breathe. If I don't breathe properly then I won't be able to do anything. But I need some time to breathe so make sure that I have that time.

Encourage me to do my best. But do that with compassion. I may not be used to the overwhelming stimulation of the hot room and the yoga practice: so much heat, so many words, so much sweat, so many people standing so close to me with so little on. English may not be my first language and it may be hard for me to just understand what you are asking me to do. This experience may be totally alien to my culture and my upbringing. But I am here and I am trying. If I am not doing it right, then there is probably a good reason.  

Show me the right way with compassion, a kind heart and a loving spirit. Being a yoga teacher is a vocation and not just a job. Every time that you step into that room you have a huge responsibility to all of us in there. You can help me change my life; that's a pretty big deal in my view.

Your yoga student,

Graham

Another little miracle

My experience over the years has taught me that it is invariably a good idea to wait and think before I hit the “send” button. Today I had the same experience all over again, and I am so glad that I waited those few moments before I made the “send” or “not send” decision.

Let me set the scene: I came back from Thailand a couple of weeks ago and promptly spent five days in the hot room. I expected it would be a tough process for my body to rediscover this stuff all over again, but it seemed to be going quite well until I turned over in class one day to lay on my stomach, and that's when it hit me. Vertigo.

I have had a few occasions in my life when the room was spinning or I was a little dizzy, but never anything like this. The hot room was moving rapidly around me, the floor was rolling underneath me – it was all I could do to hold onto my mat to stop myself from rolling off the edge. And then there was the nausea. It was quite a package.

I spend the entire floor series of class lying on my front just praying for the room to stop moving. At the end of class, I wait until everyone has left the room and then shuffle on my backside across the carpet to the door. Standing up is out of the question.

At first I suspect an electrolyte imbalance – understandable given my absence from the hot room for so many months and then five classes in as many days. Yes, that's it – electrolytes. I can even feel the pins and needles in my fingers to support the case. A coconut water, and a heavy dose of potassium when I get home should do the trick.

I stand up carefully and feel much better. After a few minutes I can walk and things settle down and I can make my way home. Driving seems OK as long as I keep my head still. Later that night, as I go to lie down in bed, it starts all over again. It gets worse as I roll over to one side so I try to sleep propped up on pillows with my head upright.

I believe that things get better in time; I cannot always support this position and I don't think it will work with everything, like cholera or frostbite or a gunshot wound, but my experience has been to wait things out – be patient; don't over-react. Fortunately my wife did not have this “wait and see” attitude, otherwise my children would never have survived past infancy. An absence of medical insurance also encourages this action. So I wait.

After four or five days, there has been no improvement; I am still incapacitated and my approach seems to be suspect. The next day I start the internet research and begin to suspect some kind of problem in my inner ear.  As I read more and see more stuff on You-Tube and consult with my friends at the studio, I am convinced that I have the most common form of vertigo, called BPPV, or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. It is a relatively harmless condition caused by the dislocation of tiny crystals of calcium in the inner ear (sometimes called “ear-rocks”) disturbing the whole sense of balance and resulting in a serious case of vertigo. It is amazing how messed up one can be by just a few specs of debris breaking off from some other place in your ear and settling in the wrong place. Normal life is interrupted.

Fortunately, more research reveals that there are some relatively simple exercises that can be done to dislodge the debris and restore the proper functioning of the inner ear. I try the exercises and after about the second or third attempt, I begin to feel some relief. The exercises induce vertigo and severe nausea, but in time that all goes away.  There might have been other, more serious causes for the vertigo, but in this case I am convinced that it is this common BPPV.  

So back to today. I wake up this morning and the vertigo is so much better but I feel like crap. Some alien body has invaded my relatively healthy system: my head aches like crazy; my mind is all over the place; I cannot focus or concentrate; I feel myself slipping into a substantial well of self pity; I am miserable. I want to do nothing but enjoy my suffering.

I have promised my friend that today, ten days after the onset of this rotten vertigo and about five days after my fix, that I will go back to yoga – no backbends or movements that might induce the vertigo again, but at least I will take class. But my mind is working hard to find all the reasons why this is not a good idea.  It has only been a few days since I "fixed" the vertigo; it could easily return; this is just way too soon.  This is downright dangerous.  I compose the text message: “sorry but I cannot make it today; I feel like crap and I am not going to the 6 pm class”. I hit “send”.

On my phone, you have to hit “send” twice. The first time gets the message into a queue and the second one actually dispatches the packet of bits into the ether. I never hit the second time. I stop myself and think about it. Many years ago, when I was in the corporate world, I made a rule for me and the people who worked with me that read something like this: 

“If you receive an irritating e-mail from somebody who needs to be straightened out, and you are just the person to do it, then compose the message but wait 24 hours before you send the reply. Do not hit “send” when your emotions are high.” 

 I remember that rule today and stop myself from hitting the second “send”.

I know that once I send the message off into the ether, that would be that; I would be off the hook. Then I would be able to get deeper into my misery and refine how sorry I feel for myself. But I would not be “straightened out”.  There is a nagging uncomfortable truth that pops up in the corner of my mind and will not go away. The truth is that I know, deep inside, that I really need to go to that class. It is going to be hard work and my head will ache and I will feel sick and my vertigo will come back and I will be hot and sweaty and, and, and...

And I knew that I would feel better at the end of class. I always have and I always will. There has never been a class that I have regretted taking, and there never will be. I know that to be true. So I didn't hit the second “send”. And I went to class. And Jayna helped me. And all the students in the room helped me too. Because that is what always happens.  And the headache went away in the first breathing exercise.  

Like Robbie says, "It's only a miracle if you turn up to receive it".

It's good to be back.

Nuad Bo-Rarn

I have just finished my fourth week at the International Thai Massage School in Chiang Mai. Exams were passed and diplomas awarded, but I feel that I have barely scratched the surface. It was an amazing experience and I look forward to getting back home and practicing on some willing bodies. Because that is what I need: lots and lots of practice. Knowing the movements is one thing; making it flow together seamlessly with the correct pressure is something else. I realize that I am at the beginning of a long journey, rather similar to the feeling that I had when I finished teacher training for yoga – I felt like I was ready to start to learn. It was not the finish of a learning program but rather the beginning of a practicum.

I must say that this ancient form of Thai massage – Nuad Bo-Rarn – never ceases to amaze me. Each time that I have laid down and given my body for someone else's practice, I have closed my eyes and just floated off to some other place. As soon as their hands touched my feet, I was gone, in some other Universe. It was extraordinary. It felt like the rhythmic movements were directly in synch with the natural frequency of my body. When thumbs or fingers touched those acupressure points or stimulated those “SEN” energy lines I could feel buzzing all down my legs and arms. I walked back from class at the end of each day and my legs were like jelly. This was no ordinary massage; this was different.

At the beginning, when we practiced, we had difficulty in locating the acupressure points, since they are very precise. But now, when someone finds one on my leg or arm or torso, it is like an electric shock through my nervous system. My whole body lights up as the energy is stimulated – chi or ki or prana or whatever you wish to call it. This truly is the Universe at work.

It is at times like this that I feel a renewal of faith, a sense of comfort that at the heart of things, at the center of all of us, is an energy, a chi, a life force, a soul or spirit. It is not dependent on breath or food for its existence; it exists already. That spirit is not dependent on other people to maintain its purity or to prepare it for a better life: it needs no third party or translator. It just needs our own attention.

I believe this: we are given bodies for a while to allow the chi to move and live in a different dimension, a physical form. Then, when that time is over, there is another form, maybe the original or real form to which we revert. And that is why I realize now that I am not afraid of the concept of death; it is just a transition from one form to another. But the energy, the chi, the soul or spirit, will continue unaffected. I may regret that physical loss or even fear the act of dying, but the result is inevitable: I live now so that I may die at some future point. Bearing that in mind certainly helps me keep a perspective on the world around me. Remember the Delai Lama's comments on the humanity of Man.

There is a writing in the Bahá'i faith that draws a perfect analogy: 

“To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed after the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage.” 

A good friend of mine sent me those words after Marianne died. They helped me then and they continue to help me now.

Each time I have practiced this ancient form of massage I have been reminded that the chi is there within me. I cannot measure it on an instrument; I cannot see it deflect a dial. But I can recognize its presence in the buzzing in my limbs, in the way I feel. It is my job to cherish it, to maintain it, to protect it so that it is fit and healthy for me when I need it the most – in my next life. I hope this ancient Nuad Bo-Rarn will be another way to do that.

I did not expect that studying this ancient form of massage would bring me to these conclusions. I don't know why I am surprised. It is really just one more way to open a door to the core of our being – another way to make that journey from the outside in. It is a connection between the body and the mind and eventually the spirit – just another kind of yoga.  

Same, same but different.

The Art of Thai Motor Cycling

There are motor cycles everywhere in Thailand - from little mopeds to big Harleys. And everybody rides them.  Here are my observations on the art of motor cycling in Thailand.


1.  The little basket in front of the handlebars is for your crash helmet. If you have a helmet, do not wear it but display it proudly in the little basket.


2.  All the lanes on the road are available to you, regardless of the direction in which you are traveling.  The side walks are available to you. The inside of shops are available to you. You are allowed to tak special pleasure in whizzing up the very, very inside lane, close to "farangs" and scaring them to death. If the "farang" is walking on the sidewalk, then you may also use the same sidewalk for the express purpose of scaring the shit out of the "farang".


3.  Thais are made small enough so that three or four can easily fit on the same motor cycle at the same time.  This is to ease traffic congestion.  This would not work in America because the American butt is just too damn big.  The answer is smaller butts for America not bigger motor cycles.


4.  The space between the front of the seat and the handlebars is for very small children.  This is perfectly safe;  you can even install a special seat there.  Dogs may also ride in this space, although dogs prefer to sit on the flat platform of a sidecar so they can bark very loudly at the people next to them in traffic.  The preferred order from the front is therefore small child, driver, spouse, granny, larger child, dog.  Small dogs, up to labrador size, may also ride in the little basket if there is no helmet being carried.


5.  If no passengers are being carried, then the space on the seat behind the driver is for extremely large and heavy objects, such as propane gas cylinders, concrete construction blocks and very long steel poles.  They may be secured by a single, fragile, nylon bungee - preferably fraying at the end.  The cargo being carried should be large enough so that it will certainly kill an innocent pedestrian when it rolls off the seat.


6. You may park your motor cycle anywhere;  in shopping malls, the second floor is preferable – use the escalator for easy access.  In Boots the Chemist, park your motor cycle between Ladies intimate items and the cough sweets.


7.  When giving a ride to a "farang", never allow your speed to drop below 50 kph regardless of traffic conditions.  The relationship between "farang" passenger to Thai driver must never be less than 3:1.


8.  The appropriate rain protection for a driver of a motor cycle is a passenger holding an umbrella over the driver's head – preferably low enough so that the driver cannot see where they are going.  There is no reason to reduce speed when an open umbrella is being used.


9.  Texting when driving is permitted as long as the smart phone is held in the braking hand, not the throttle hand.  In this way, the driver can always accelerate out of a tight spot instead of braking.


10.  The appropriate clothing for a Thai teenage girl riding her motor cycle is platform shoes of at least four inches; the shortest skirt in the wardrobe; helmet in the basket; smart phone in the braking hand; and lastly, a similarly attired female passenger in case of inclement weather.  Toy dog goes in the basket if there is no helmet.


11.  Eating while motor cycling is perfectly acceptable for both driver and passenger.  That is why there are so many road side stalls selling food.  This may also explain why Thais use a fork and spoon and not chopsticks.

This has recently been posted on Facebook.  I urge everybody to read this, absorb it, accept it and then live your life accordingly.

I have read no better observation on the frailty of Man's humanity than this.  I wish I had read this when I was twenty-something instead of now when I am sixty-something. But then I am heartened by the fact that sixty-something is no age – it is just starting.  There is always time to start anew, to change, to begin again.

Haiku: Thailand meets Bikram

Sequence stays intact
But class is always new.
Same same but different.

Same, same – but different

Sunday morning in Chiang Mai – a good time to pause and reflect at the end of the first week of this Thai Massage program, or Nuad Bo-Rarn in Thai. This week has produced a few surprises: for example, I did not expect to be spending Friday morning performing Qi Gong in the local park. After an hour of that I was ready to step onto the production line in a Toyota plant and start installing gearboxes. You have to keep an open mind to live here in Asia.

There is always a certain amount of adaption required to settling into a new environment: the climate, the language, the food, the culture. Life here is certainly different to my life in rural Spain. Chiang Mai is hot, humid and wet where Spain was hot, dry, and more hot. (Spain is often defined by Einstein's famous E=mc², where E= España, m=mañana and c=calor or heat). The recent flooding has brought disaster to some other lower lying parts of the country but not so much to Chiang Mai in the north, where we are on higher ground. English is widely spoken and understood in the city, whereas in Spain, where I was living at least, you were pretty much left to find your way in Spanish. There are a reasonable number of expatriates and tourists here in Chiang Mai all year round; in rural Spain there was a local community of expatriate British, Dutch and Belgians but no tourists in the area where I was living. The Thai approach to eating is to graze all day long – lots of little meals throughout the day; in Spain, the tradition of the big lunch and afternoon siesta is alive and well. Life in Spain was very quiet – the villa was in a fairly remote location, far away from the busy beaches; in Chiang Mai, it is busy all the time. In fact, I have yet to find a time where there are not people on the street and motor cycles, scooters, taxis and tuk-tuks on the roads.

And then there is the Thai culture to figure out.  There is a saying in Thai that has come up a few times since I have been here. It is the answer to many of the questions that we put to the teachers at the International Thai Massage school – same, same but different. In fact, they even have T-shirts with the expression printed on them. It's a reflection of the culture where nobody wants to expressly disagree with you. It's akin to saying “yes, yes but no”. For example, we are learning a new posture in Thai massage and it looks like one we did earlier in the day, so we ask “isn't this like the one we did this morning?” and the answer is “same, same but different”. A simple “no” would have worked just as well.  This is a different culture.

Regular readers of this blog will see the yoga connection coming, but before I connect the big dots here, let me tell you about the Thai massage. It is simply quite an extraordinary and powerful body therapy. The origins of Nuad Bo-Rarn, or “ancient Thai massage”, can be traced back to India in the second millennium B.C. It is thought that the Indian physician, Shivago Komarpaj, was the father of Thai massage as we know it today. Shivago was thought to be a contemporary of the Lord Buddha, and the traditions of Thai massage have a distinctive Buddhist feel to them.

There are two principal families of Thai massage in modern Thailand: the southern or Bangkok style, often called the Wat Po style after the temple in Bangkok where it has been taught, and the northern or Chiang Mai style. Both styles are a mixture of yoga and acupressure, performed on a mat on the floor, where the giver uses his or her body weight rather than muscular force to transmit pressure and energy to the receiver. Bangkok style has more acupressure and less yoga, leading to a strong and deep massage. The northern style tends to emphasize the yoga stretching and a little less acupressure, resulting in a somewhat gentler massage, with a little more flexibility and mobility. A wide variety of stretching movements are used while pressure is applied with thumbs, hands and feet along energy lines of the body. The result for the receiver is an extraordinary feeling of relaxation and well-being. It has been called “yoga for lazy people”, since the giver does all of the work and the receiver is passive. So far, I am thoroughly hooked.

And this leads me back to the yoga connection that I hinted at earlier. It's a simple connection to the twenty six postures and two breathing exercises that make up the Bikram sequence: always the same set of postures but never the same class.  Same, same but different. 

No matter how many years that we practice, every class is different. We come into the room each time with a new set of experiences; our diet may be different; the people around us may be different, and they too bring an ever-changing set of conditions. May be the teacher is different; may be the studio is different. I took a couple of classes a while ago in Madrid in Spanish and they were certainly different. May be it's hotter than usual or perhaps it's cooler. For whatever the reason, the fact remains that each class is unique and our bodies respond in a new way each time. We are tested and pushed to a new place in each class.  Same, same but different.

I have heard a few people complain that they have found the Bikram sequence to be boring or repetitive after a while. Life can be a little that way too. But each day we have the opportunity to look inside and see something new. It is often hidden, deep in that corner of the room that we enter with each asana, suspended in that fleeting moment of stillness. Yoga is a journey from the outside in. The conditions are always changing, but each time we step onto the mat we have a chance to break through, to go a little deeper, to find a new place. How can that ever be boring or repetitive?

Same, same – but different.

One big hot room

I am coming to the end of my stay here in Spain. In another few days,  I'll be flying to London – just to get a visa – and then on to Thailand, where I will be studying Thai massage in Chiang Mai for the next few months. This will be quite a change in my environment and in my daily routine. So it is the perfect point to take a step back and reflect upon my time here in the Hondon Valley.

It has been an opportunity for me to look inside, to consider what is important for me, to explore life in a very different way. Living alone in a different culture and in a rather remote location forces one to be self reliant – to see how comfortable it is in one's own skin.

But when I look inside, I don't necessarily like everything that I see.  Don't get me wrong; I like some of it, but not all of it. When I give myself the gift of time, then I like to think that I will use it well. But did I?  I wished I had taken some trips to the north, to the Pyrenees, to Barcelona. But then I consider why I took some trips and not others, and that tells me something about myself. I could have made more progress with my language study; I could have read even more books; I could have written more; and I could have made more inroads into my chess playing. And of course I could have practiced more – that's a given. But then I remind myself to stay in the moment, so I will not permit myself too much time to regret about what could have been!

But I do understand myself a little better: I needed to change my environment so that I could see what would happen. How would I react? Not necessarily in the way that I expected. So my time here, in this different environment, enabled me to learn quite a lot of new stuff about myself. That has been a good thing.

Time to connect some dots: trying out a new environment, stepping out of previous habits or established comfort zones, encourages change. And with change is the opportunity for growth. We don't always take it but nevertheless the opportunity is invariably there. Did I take advantage of all the opportunities for change for me in Spain? The answer is probably no, but I do not regret that. Instead I am grateful for the experiences and the knowledge that I found here – and I am confident for the growth that will follow. I am not sure of the direction where that growth will take me but if I keep my mind and heart open then I am sure that the Universe will shove me in the right direction. I believe in that.

Like breadcrumbs in the forest, those dots lead me back to the hot room, which is a challenging environment by anybody's definition. So is it not reasonable to expect change and growth to follow from every class? Every time that we go into that hot room, we challenge ourselves, not just with the heat and the humidity, but with the discipline of the practice. The discipline requires us to pay attention to the postures, to push our bodies to produce the best on any given day, and to focus our mental capabilities as we breathe and search for that elusive stillness.

We should expect that environment to encourage change – both physically and mentally. We talk much about the physical changes in the body that come from a regular practice, but our mental characteristics are equally challenged. Each class leads us to greater faith in our own capabilities; increased determination as we hang on when our hearts and nerves and sinews are screaming at us (remember Kipling?); extraordinary feats of self control as we hold ourselves in the asanas; better and better concentration as we find ourselves in the mirror, settle back on our heels and breathe; and finally the gift of patience, knowing that our practice and our lives grow in small steps, one slowly forming and then fading after the other, like footsteps in the sand, secure in the knowledge that such growth comes in fits and starts, and never, ever in a straight line. Such is our practice and such is our life.

Maybe I should think of my summer in Spain as having been one big hot room! So I can expect that change will follow on from my time here, but perhaps not in any way, shape or form that I might have imagined. I should have left my expectations at the immigration desk on the way in five months ago – just as I tell students to leave their expectations at the front desk before class. But I know for sure that change will follow, and just like every yoga class I have taken, I don't regret a minute of it!

Next time I write, I'll be in Thailand again. I cannot wait ...

The yoga path

Rejecting ego,

Accepting humanity,

Frames the yoga path.

Some day soon

One day I will wake up and realize how stupid I am. 

 The scenario usually plays out like this: for one reason or another, I feel bad – sick, tired, lazy, whatever – and so I start to argue with myself about doing a yoga practice. Here in Spain, where I practice on my own, outside, on the terrace, there is nobody to witness the argument or to take note of my presence in or absence from the hot room. For the time being, it is me and my ego once again. I am answerable to nobody.

The argument can stretch out for some time; I restate my past experience, my certain knowledge that when I feel bad this is exactly what I need. I know that I will feel better afterwards. I always do; this practice has never let me down. Even in my darkest days of grief, it has still been there to help me find one tiny piece of peace. But I also know that it is hard work. And like many humans, I am inherently lazy. It is so much easier and attractive to find a way to get out of the hard work. I am a master of finding rational, sometimes even urgent, excuses for not doing my practice.

So I woke up yesterday feeling extra cranky: maybe I just slept wrong – sleeping has been a challenge for me for a couple of years now. I had a really painful, stiff neck, so that must have been the way I slept. And that generated a headache of some proportion. Many years ago, before I started yoga on a regular basis, I had suffered from migraine headaches, so I know that the predisposition exists. I napped a little during the morning but that did no good. I know that I needed the yoga; that was the only solution. But still I argued.

Where does that come from? I really have no idea. Over the years there have been countless occasions on which I have discovered something else that needed to be done just as I was getting ready to take a class. Often it was a business call, a meeting, an e-mail that had to be answered. I was too busy with the real world to take time out to do this luxury. And yet deep down inside, I knew what I was doing. It was stupid and I knew it.

Yesterday, I made a deal with myself: I'll just go outside on the terrace and do a little breathing, that's all, no commitment to do anything past that. I will do that slowly and with as much attention on that one activity as I can muster. I will do my pranayama breathing really well, like I am showing it to a new student. And if I want to, then I will just stop after that is done. That was the deal.

I did the breathing, two sets, nice and slow. I felt okay, in fact I had to admit to feeling a little better already. So I made another deal: I'll try one set of “Half moon with hands to feet” and see how that goes; but I'll do it really well, as far as my poor old body can manage on this day, together with some nice deep breathing, all the way in and all the way out, with all the attention I can muster. And if I want to, then I will just stop after that is done. That was the deal.

One set felt alright; I made myself pause for a moment, let everything go, and then thought that another set would be okay too. And that was alright; in fact I felt just a little better after that second set. The pain in my neck had eased and my headache seemed a little less intense. So I made another deal: I'll do one set of “Awkward” and see how that feels, but with no commitment to anything else, because I know that this posture takes a lot out of me and my legs are getting tired etc etc, so no promises here. I'll just give it a try. In fact, if I want to, I'll even cut the posture a little short because of, you know, some reason I have forgotten right now but at that time seems entirely acceptable. And if I want to, then I will just stop after that is done. That was the deal.

It was okay; not too shabby. I felt I could manage the second set, so I did. I even stayed in the postures a bit longer this time. A little rest in between; head feels a little better. Let's try the next one, but no promises, no commitment, I can stop at any time if I want. That was the deal.

You get the picture? That's how it played out for the next hour or so. When I laid down in final savasana, I was laughing at myself for being such a baby, for being so stupid. I had to remind myself of something I have told students on countless occasions: there have been plenty of classes that I never wanted to take but not a single class that I have regretted taking. I expect this to hold true for ever.

I felt that my whole day had changed after that practice. My neck was totally fixed and my headache was a thing of the past. I had kept my attention all the way through on just that one thing I was doing, and so I was surprised when the end came and there were no more deals to be struck. No more debate. Just complete relaxation as I sank onto the cool stones of the terrace. Never has hard stone been more comfortable.

Why do I put myself through this charade? I know what the end result is like and I want that more than anything else. I know it is the only way to repair my body and my mind – and then my spirit. But I am so full of frailties and weaknesses – always looking for the easy way out. It's a little disappointing but what can I expect? After all, I am just human.

But that is the enduring nature of yoga: when all is said and done, it is an essentially human activity – Bikram's “science of life”. I come to practice full of doubts and fears and [sometimes] expectations. It is so easy to find a way out – even for someone like me who should know much better. At my age you would think I would have figured all this out by now. It seems that I never stop learning. That's a surprise!

I expect to have another debate at some time in the future, maybe the next time that I come to practice. Maybe I will feel bad, sick, tired etc and I'll start to look around for some really good reason why I should do something else other than this hard work for the next 90 minutes. But the truth is that I haven't found a better way yet. The only way through is the only way through.

I'll accept that some day soon.