1. Ashtanga Yoga is Not Functional Movement: No one needs to put his leg behind his head, ok? This is a skill that won’t help you run away from mountain lion. Or get a sticky lid off a jar, or text and walk across the street at the same time. Putting your legs into lotus while upside down on your forearms won’t help you run a marathon or carry 50-lb bags of dog food by your pinkies. It won’t help you perform a triple axle on ice while simultaneously increasing your stock price.
But if you love yoga and progress, the rhythm of your own movement, the feeling of being in the moment, you might just love all your body can do –like putting your leg behind your head or inhaling your arms up.
While I’m at it, no one needs to put her toes wherever janu sirsasana B is calling for them. (No one needs to do this in Ashtanga, either, btw– if you have an open and creative teacher.) Then again, no one needs to zip down a snowy mountain with sticks attached to his feet or climb mount Everest or run 39 marathons either.
But……
Putting my leg behind my head with Ashtanga might help me face the obstacles in my life as I have on my mat. I guess in a sense Ashtanga Yoga is functional movement for me —
because I love it.
2. Ashtanga Asks You To Do The Same Thing Everyday Which is Boring And Bad For You. Right? Well, except for this little thing.…that no day is ever the same, not to mention built in variation within the practice and, my favorite, you only repeat to repeat yourself different.
3. Teachers (and even people who do it) are a$$holes: I’m not a Mysore teacher but I practice Ashtanga — for years now — and I’m still an a$$hole. It doesn’t go away it just gets more obvious– does that mean I’m getting better? Sometimes I don’t want to return the grocery cart once I get back to my car– but I do, even though the asshole in me says no! it’s cold! The longer I live, the more I notice assholian tendencies everywhere, in people doing everything– even yoga! I also notice there are lovely people everywhere doing everything–even ashtanga yoga! Then I notice that most people have a bit of both.
Maybe I’ve practiced with a lot of recovering fully-gone assholes, along with people with pasts that range from troubled to addicted to loss-inundated (not that those things are commensurate with assholism)–people who’ve faced the fire and come through it alive, a bit softer around those once assholian edges. People teach and people practice. Both those “peoples” are made up of individuals and each person is different. I have been hurt by people who practice ashtanga. I have been hurt by people who practice other yogas. But I have also known kindness and support from all of the above. There is no single central “yoga person” machine on Oprah churning out everyone the same like a t-shirt shooter: You get a Mat! and You get a Mat! So, you find someone kind you can trust, who speaks to you, someone with whom you can be your full –still a little bit assholian (in my case)– self with on the mat.
I need that obviously–
because I’m still a bit a$$hole. But if ashtanga teaches me anything, it’s that I won’t be one forever.
4. No feel-good yoga quotes and flowery imagery with unicorns and a side of pyscho-babble: No one is going to start a led class by telling you what’s going on in their life packaged with some quote from Osho/Tara Brach/Deepak Chopra/Oprah/Yoda/Russel Brand/Instagram Influence that is totally getting them through it– as of this morning at least– which is when the teacher first saw the quote on Instagram five minutes before teaching said class. You might miss that. Or, you might come to enjoy how by the end of your own practice you feel your own Insta-worthy quotes bubbling in you.
5. Your Toes Won’t Look Pedicure Insta-Photo Perfect.
Um, Have you seen my toes? Until recently, I kept ripping the callus open, with blood on the mat (so hard-core, man). Looking at Instayogis in short shorts on the beach (is there any other kind of yogi in your feed?) I was under the impression that doing yoga meant I’d have perfect pedicured pitter pattering piggies adorning my goddess-energy handstand on a beach in Thailand.
Instead, the only Insta sponsor deal I’ll get is from a dermatologist or Dr. Scholls, or the maker of natural toenail ugliness treatments. How sexy is that? I could spend money for a shellac pedicure where I guess they use dynamite and kryptonite and cement on your nails and be fancy toes anyway. But I hate sitting down– unless its to put my leg behind my head.
Guess that’s another way Ashtanga is bad for you!
But– I enjoy myself this way. I meet myself as I am rather than this idea of who I’m supposed to be (is there nay other choice, in this practice?). For me, that’s often face down splat on my mat after the third try at my final posture, toes and assholian edges be damned.
Ashtanga yoga is yoga for the un-photo-filtered central channel. I enjoy myself and I guess it shows…
in my toes?
_____
PS Podcasts this week I love:
LOVED this one:
Cant wait to listen to this one: https://www.ashtangadispatch.com/yogapodcast-conrad-anker/