Good practice or bad? Its just practice.

It is hard being a yoga teacher. A fellow yoga teacher back in New York (you know who you are) said "being a professional is doing something even when you don't feel like doing it". Post-practice, walking up the road toward my front gate, my body pulsating, feeling each bone and muscle in my legs working together to place each foot, avoiding the mud, sensing the effort of my core muscles to keep myself standing, the dull ache in my shoulders, I thought about what it means to practice.

In many ways, we feel like we had a "good" practice when we felt good. The poses came easily, we accomplished something we have been working on, or the practice looked good. On days when we are distracted, bored, forget poses, stiff, tight, tired, etc., we say our practice was "hard" or "bad". In most of the activities in life that we use the word "practice", there is an insinuation that we will be doing this to prepare for something. For instance, in dance, we practice for a recital or performance. In sports, we practice in order to play well at a game. On a foreign language exam, we have to practice and study in order to retain the information.

In most of these activities, there is a difference between the preparation for an act and the act itself. For instance, if you saw a ballerina doing warm ups, she probably wouldn't tell you she was dancing (even if it looked like it), instead she was doing warm-ups to prepare for the dance. In this way, the act, performance, or fruition of the practice appears to demand a certain amount of mastery or perfection of a technique. In ashtanga yoga, one moves sequentially from one pose to the next. It is necessary to "master" one pose before the instructor teaches the student the next posture. However, the "mastered" poses are still being "practiced" by the student.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, "practice" is defined as "the actual application of a plan or method, as opposed to the theories relating to it. 2 the customary way of doing something. 5 the action or process of practising something so as to become proficient in it.

Sometimes when you play an instrument, you are just playing. It isn't practice or performance, is it?

In A Long Way to the Floor (which I finished and recommend to everyone, it is very sweet), David talks about how he went to a workshop where the instructor commented on how the students were "showing" him their practice instead of "doing" their practice.

Sometimes when I put my mat down to practice, if I am completely honest with myself, I am showing my practice to my teacher, another student, someone watching, or to myself. When Sharath was in the room, many times I had this feeling. He is watching. Everyone had this feeling. We don't always get obsessed with it, but sometimes we do. Like when we notice he is watching us in our last pose and think, "maybe he will give me another one today." Conversely, we might be wondering, "Is my teacher watching me? Because I am not advancing, and they don't seem to know that I usually can grab my ankles in back bending..." Since, Saraswati has been the main teacher, the vibe has changed. First of all, the students who are here right now are different than those who came while Sharath was teaching. They are a bit more laid back. There are less students, so there is no longer the 4:30 queue for the 5 am class. Sharath isn't here to give us poses, so we know where we are now, is where we are going to be until he returns. And for some reason, everyone seems to feel very relaxed with Saraswati, like they can undo their top button.

Example: During the first class that she led, on the third back bend, she said, "walk inside your hands!" Which means, "walk your hands closer to your feet." We all know what that means. We all walk when Sharath or Guruji says it. But she said it a few times and then, "No one is walking their hands!" The entire room burst into laughter.

When you have absolutely no reason to go to practice except to practice, it is very very hard to practice. Strange right? I would have thought that the absence of thoughts, of pressure, would make my practice soft, beautiful, easy, I don't know. But that isn't really what it is about. It is about getting everything very quiet, and then looking around inside to see what you find. It is not easy at all, and actually, no one said it would be. In practice today, I thought about how ridiculous it was that I was awake at this hour, I thought about how my shoulders ached from Saraswati's slow chaturangas, I thought about how I was thinking and how I wished it would stop. Was it a "bad" practice? No. You can be doing all the technical aspects of the physical side of ashtanga yoga and still feel unsettled. Perhaps what we are really doing is exploring and investigating our selves physically, mentally, and spiritually.

*I'd love to get in on the labeling of things as "good" and "bad" and the mind and all that. Let's save that for another post. But for now, let's say that my practice this morning was "good" because I did practice. At the same time, I shouldn't be attached to this label and really the fact is that I practice. End of story. No judgements, right John?

This morning I had a very interesting "expedition". We began by practicing this sequence of asanas or postures called the primary series of ashtanga yoga. These acted as a catalyst that propelled my "self' into an internal journey. I explored the outskirts of an enormous cave. There were many jokesters and clowns and sad little demons blocking the entrance. They held out their hands and begged me for attention. "My shoulder hurts!" Cried one. "I am tired!" called another. I was distracted for a while by the jesters. I felt obligated to help them. How could I not? They were so pitiful looking and I have a lot of compassion, perhaps sometimes a little to much. For a moment, I looked up and saw that the jesters were busy fighting over the attention I gave them. The path to the cave was clear. The jesters sensed my distraction and followed my gaze to the entrance of the cave. We looked back at each other, we knew each other's thoughts. And we ran. I ran for the cave, dodging the leaping clowns as they tried desperately to grab at my clothes and my feet. The entrance got closer and closer, just a few more steps to go, I was almost there...

"Nava, inhale head up. Samastitih!"

"Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory" --Pattabhi Jois (Guruji)