The Yoga of Adversity

A week in review- the Tripsichore Plus Practice Course

It's been a great, though difficult, learning process this last week.  Last week I was surprised to start the week with mysterious and extreme pains that were not present when I left Seattle.

 It was frustrating to  be unable to participate in the practice the way I expected/wanted, but these experiences always give me a greater understanding of my students when they are enduring the same stuff, so I'm grateful for the reminder.

The most difficult thing to do, along with keeping one's spirits up, is to find a way to keep doing the practice.  It's much easier to stop and start from mental perspective, and yet physically and yogically, the right thing to do is to stay with the breath and the practice.

The first week was a real struggle for me physically and as a result, mentally; as fun and exciting learning new things has been, the physical discomfort was demoralizing.  I would be lying if I said I did not think about quitting every day-- and night, since I was kept awake by the pain and a noisy neighborhood!

The additional burden of worrying that I was a disappointment to Edward and Nikki didn't help, but I kept going through the tedious and excruciating work of detailed refinement of Tripsichore breathing and alignment.

Over the weekend I spent a relaxing time with my mom and my best friend in the Cotwolds (English countryside) and didn't practice a lick.

Hesitatingly, I showed up again Monday.  It was the day of my "check-in" meeting, and I confessed my concerns about what Ed and Nikki were thinking, my performance, and my worthiness as a Tripsichore teacher.  They assuaged my worry, but the real message is to just keep practicing, no matter what comes up-- this IS the practice.

The good news is my aches and pains are waning and I'm starting to feel more normal, but those details shall wait until the week 2 review!

What I learned the first week is to above all, be humble.  The hardest work is not always crushing every maneuver, but navigating the way through practice with pain, difficulty and other limitations whilst maintaining attention to the practice of breath, alignment, and mental quiet.  Staying true to the breath practice is paramount, and breath is the best guide.  I also learned that nothing takes the place of persistence, and to just continue, because everything ebbs and flows- the good times and the bad.  I was reminded this morning when I ran across a BKS Iyengar quote:

"Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured."

Enduring and curing,

Liz Doyle

//LizDoyleYoga.com

Take a class with me- next session starts September 9, 2013

Maha Sadhana 

M/W 12N and 5:45P

https://m.facebook.com/events/532039330201285

Yantra Vinyasa 

T/Th 12N

https://m.facebook.com/events/468905803225524

Tripsichore Crash Course

T/Th 5:45P

https://m.facebook.com/events/192641117573949

The Yoga of Injury, Ageing, and Limitations

One of my students recently asked me what I meant when I said that we use yoga asana (the physical postures) to teach us that we are more than our bodies.

I've heard it put best by master teachers like Edward Clark and David Swenson, and I paraphrase-- If yoga (asana) was about achievement in the poses, we'd be looking to gymnasts, acrobats and Cirque du Soleil perfomers for the secrets of Enlightenment. This is not to diminish their accomplishment, it's that there's something unique about yoga asana that makes it more than contortionism; and even if we've never thought specifically about it, on some level we know that.

Perhaps it's not until we've reached "a certain age" or had an injury-- minor or debilitating, temporary or permanent-- that we recognize we are something more than our physical body. It doesn't make it any easier to "gracefully surrender the things of youth" (Desiderata), but it does underscore the value of our practice beyond the physical.

The question then is- why do the physical poses at all? Beyond taking care of our "temple", it's a vehicle through which we can understand and learn about everything around us. The practice room is like a laboratory, and we "experiment", putting our body through the paces, creating situations that create stress, intensity, discomfort, in a safe and controlled environment. We do this and learn about ourselves, train ourselves on many levels-- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual-- so we can grow.

I ran across a poem by Theodore Roethke called Infirmity that I think illustrates the temporal nature of the body and our attachment to it, the play of the senses, and That within us that is always the same. We might call it "Spirit" or the "Soul", but it's this eternal Inner Light of Awareness that we seek to uncover in yoga, and better yet, allow to inform all of our thoughts, words and actions-- even while obscured by this body we inhabit.

INFIRMITY by Theodore Roethke

In purest song one plays the constant fool
As changes shimmer in the inner eye.
I stare and stare into a deepening pool
And tell myself my image cannot die.
I love myself: that's my one constancy.
Oh, to be something else, yet still to be!

Sweet Christ, rejoice in my infirmity;
There's little left I care to call my own.
Today they drained the fluid from a knee
And pumped a shoulder full of cortisone;
Thus I conform to my divinity
By dying inward, like an aging tree.

The instant ages on the living eye;
Light on its rounds, a pure extreme of light
Breaks on me as my meager flesh breaks down-
The soul delights in that extremity.
Blessed the meek; they shall inherit wrath;
I'm son and father of my only death.

A mind too active is no mind at all;
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone;
The eternal seeks, and finds, the temporal,
The change from dark to light of the slow moon,
Dead to myself, and all I hold most dear,
I move beyond the reach of wind and fire.

Deep in the greens of summer sing the lives
I've come to love. A vireo whets its bill.
The great day balances upon the leaves;
My ears still hear the bird when all is still;
My soul is still my soul, and still the Son,
And knowing this, I am not yet undone.

Things without hands take hands: there is no choice,-
Eternity's not easily come by.
When opposites come suddenly in place,
I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see
How body from spirit slowly does unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.

See you soon and keep practicing!
Liz
//LizDoyleYoga.com