Today after class a conversation with a student led me to thinking about how ego attachment has such a strong impact on how efficiently and effectively I am able to exercise. I'll have to give that some more thought.
In the meantime, here's another blog entry for you, with yet another lesson from a student and an important reality check.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
New Post Over There! (>>>points yonder)
I am still working out how I want to use each of my blogs, how much overlap I want to give them. The original idea was to gradually phase this one out but, you know, I'm kind of attached to it, so I'm just not sure. It's sort of like a special note you get from someone or a comfortable shirt that's wearing out–what the heck do you do with it when it has lived its useful life but your nostalgia has taken up residence and refuses to leave?
Anyway. Sigh. There's a new post over in my new Yoga Blog: Modeling Meditation
And a similar post coming soon to my writing blog, but from a slightly different perspective. I'll keep you posted! (Yeah, I know. That was lame.)
Anyway. Sigh. There's a new post over in my new Yoga Blog: Modeling Meditation
And a similar post coming soon to my writing blog, but from a slightly different perspective. I'll keep you posted! (Yeah, I know. That was lame.)
Friday, April 22, 2011
Working with Reality
I teach several yoga classes at a local gym. The classes are one hour long and they are all intended as all-level classes. As instructors we've been given certain limits about what we're allowed to teach.
A couple of weeks ago I had a new student approach me before class wondering if I would be the regular instructor. What exactly was I planning to teach? he wondered. We chatted a bit and he expressed his frustration with being unable to progress in his practice by taking classes at the gym. He wanted to do other poses–harder poses–but the teachers wouldn't teach them. Would I be willing, if I saw the same people showing up week after week, to progress the class? Could I maybe give him extra pointers?
I offered my sympathy and had a few suggestions of my own: Maybe he could take some extra classes outside the gym? Or if not classes, perhaps a workshop here and there or private lesson? If he knew the poses he could use extra knowledge from books or videos or online instruction to try some other things while in class. The problem, I explained, was that these classes are intended to be all-level. While I can certainly adapt my class to the people I see attending, I have been hired to do a particular job and I need to honor that.
Each suggestion I made he responded to in the negative. He didn't want to spend extra money on classes, his other gym had an instructor who was willing to teach more advanced poses, he didn't have enough knowledge on his own to experiment.
He was a nice enough guy but I was really struck by something in our conversation: his problem-solving was doomed to be unsuccessful because it was based on changing reality, rather than on working within real constraints. And I thought about how often I do that as well–rather than looking at an actual situation, I try to make the situation change around me and my desires. Problem-solving HAS to be based in reality or it's not problem-solving.
So, you know, this guy? He taught me a lot, it turns out.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
A couple of weeks ago I had a new student approach me before class wondering if I would be the regular instructor. What exactly was I planning to teach? he wondered. We chatted a bit and he expressed his frustration with being unable to progress in his practice by taking classes at the gym. He wanted to do other poses–harder poses–but the teachers wouldn't teach them. Would I be willing, if I saw the same people showing up week after week, to progress the class? Could I maybe give him extra pointers?
I offered my sympathy and had a few suggestions of my own: Maybe he could take some extra classes outside the gym? Or if not classes, perhaps a workshop here and there or private lesson? If he knew the poses he could use extra knowledge from books or videos or online instruction to try some other things while in class. The problem, I explained, was that these classes are intended to be all-level. While I can certainly adapt my class to the people I see attending, I have been hired to do a particular job and I need to honor that.
Each suggestion I made he responded to in the negative. He didn't want to spend extra money on classes, his other gym had an instructor who was willing to teach more advanced poses, he didn't have enough knowledge on his own to experiment.
He was a nice enough guy but I was really struck by something in our conversation: his problem-solving was doomed to be unsuccessful because it was based on changing reality, rather than on working within real constraints. And I thought about how often I do that as well–rather than looking at an actual situation, I try to make the situation change around me and my desires. Problem-solving HAS to be based in reality or it's not problem-solving.
So, you know, this guy? He taught me a lot, it turns out.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sex and Social Science
(Cross-posted to another blog, Spicy Confessions from an Alluring Yoga Temptress. You can probably expect a certain amount of overlap, silence and/or chaos for a while, while I try to get all my blogs in a row. So to speak. Bear with me. I'm sure it'll all be worth it.)
I just tried (and failed) to read Sex at Dawn by C. Ryan and C. Jetha. Back to the library it went! I failed not because I thought it was wrong or badly written, but because frankly I just lost interest. The question of how humans are programmed is just not all that interesting to me beyond a certain level, especially when I see so many sub-groups with agendas around the research. Sexual orientation is a choice? Choose differently! Sexual orientation is genetic? How about a pill or surgery to change it! Humans are born to be monogamous–look at the evidence! Whoops, change that; we’re actually born to be sexual sharers, creating social cohesion through sexual favors.
The research is important, yes, because understanding is a useful thing. But ultimately we’ve got these brains to contend with, these brains that actually allow us to think about and observe ourselves, and make choices beyond our biology. So it’s not that the research itself is a bad idea but what we often get up to with it, which is to make rules about right and wrong. We also have the bad habit of picking and choosing the pieces of the research that work for us, and leaving the rest of it out. So, for example, maybe I read Sex at Dawn and I love the fact that it looks like multiple relationships of both affection and sexuality are the thing for humans (Yay, I'm right! I win!), but frankly I’m not so hot about the idea that we might be better off sharing our sexuality with everyone in our social group, as well as sharing the child care (Oh, let's just forget about that part, shall we?). If I want to back up my own behavior, I’m going to have to be cautious in my reading. Ultimately though what I'm really interested in is choice, and I want to make my choices based on what I think is important.
Want to be monogamous? That’s fabulous! Who cares that humans aren’t built that way? It’s a great way to direct and focus your energy, and minimize your risks of sexually transmitted diseases. Is it challenging? Awesome! Disciplined effort is a great practice and a useful skill in all kinds of ways.
Want to have multiple relationships? Terrific! Living outside the social norms gives you permission to experiment and gives you perspective, and empathy, for the outsider. Do you struggle with it sometimes? Awesome! What a great way to confront your inner demons by sharing with others.
Want to lie or cheat in your relationships? Oh, not so fast! Want to make rules about everyone else’s behavior because they’re all doing it wrong? Whoa there! In a lot of ways I think that life is a big experiment where we are both the scientist and the subject, and how amazing is that that we get to play around with all these big ideas in this fascinating body we have! Really, that's what yoga is in a nutshell! But pulling other people in as puppets in our little play? Or trying to shore up our beliefs out of fear? That’s just not playing fair.
Yes, do the research. Yes, think about it. But ultimately we all have to figure out what truths we’re going to live by, in order to do well by ourselves and others.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
I just tried (and failed) to read Sex at Dawn by C. Ryan and C. Jetha. Back to the library it went! I failed not because I thought it was wrong or badly written, but because frankly I just lost interest. The question of how humans are programmed is just not all that interesting to me beyond a certain level, especially when I see so many sub-groups with agendas around the research. Sexual orientation is a choice? Choose differently! Sexual orientation is genetic? How about a pill or surgery to change it! Humans are born to be monogamous–look at the evidence! Whoops, change that; we’re actually born to be sexual sharers, creating social cohesion through sexual favors.
The research is important, yes, because understanding is a useful thing. But ultimately we’ve got these brains to contend with, these brains that actually allow us to think about and observe ourselves, and make choices beyond our biology. So it’s not that the research itself is a bad idea but what we often get up to with it, which is to make rules about right and wrong. We also have the bad habit of picking and choosing the pieces of the research that work for us, and leaving the rest of it out. So, for example, maybe I read Sex at Dawn and I love the fact that it looks like multiple relationships of both affection and sexuality are the thing for humans (Yay, I'm right! I win!), but frankly I’m not so hot about the idea that we might be better off sharing our sexuality with everyone in our social group, as well as sharing the child care (Oh, let's just forget about that part, shall we?). If I want to back up my own behavior, I’m going to have to be cautious in my reading. Ultimately though what I'm really interested in is choice, and I want to make my choices based on what I think is important.
Want to be monogamous? That’s fabulous! Who cares that humans aren’t built that way? It’s a great way to direct and focus your energy, and minimize your risks of sexually transmitted diseases. Is it challenging? Awesome! Disciplined effort is a great practice and a useful skill in all kinds of ways.
Want to have multiple relationships? Terrific! Living outside the social norms gives you permission to experiment and gives you perspective, and empathy, for the outsider. Do you struggle with it sometimes? Awesome! What a great way to confront your inner demons by sharing with others.
Want to lie or cheat in your relationships? Oh, not so fast! Want to make rules about everyone else’s behavior because they’re all doing it wrong? Whoa there! In a lot of ways I think that life is a big experiment where we are both the scientist and the subject, and how amazing is that that we get to play around with all these big ideas in this fascinating body we have! Really, that's what yoga is in a nutshell! But pulling other people in as puppets in our little play? Or trying to shore up our beliefs out of fear? That’s just not playing fair.
Yes, do the research. Yes, think about it. But ultimately we all have to figure out what truths we’re going to live by, in order to do well by ourselves and others.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Making Up My Mind
You know how it feels when there’s that one yoga pose that feels like it’s so close you can taste it, but you just can’t quite make it there? Maybe it’s a difficult pose that you’ve had as your goal for years, working up to it but never quite managing it completely. Or maybe it’s a pose you do every day in class, watching everyone else flop into it effortlessly while you continue to struggle. It just doesn’t seem fair, either that you’ve worked so hard for so long without making it to that final pose, or that a pose that seems like the most basic pose in the world just won’t work for you.
It’s easy to get fixated on the things that don’t come easily, that everyone else seems to do well, and then feel like a failure. When I talk with students I try not to use language that indicates one variation of a pose as being better than another, or harder than another, or more advanced than another. I don’t ever want people to feel like they’ve failed at anything, or that they are somehow less than anyone else, or that they can’t access the experience of yoga if they can’t get into a particular pose. But I suppose it is human nature to want what we don’t have and to believe that somehow there are landmarks we are supposed to achieve at certain times or fall behind the pack.
Recently I was having sex with someone and, as part of our play, he tried to insert his whole hand into me. Not shoving it in, but working me up to it gradually. However, when he reached the level of the last set of knuckles, I tensed up. I could feel my body working against him, trying to keep him out, and I finally had to say “enough, I can’t do it.”
I felt frustrated, but I also knew my body had had enough and simply wasn’t going to cooperate. The frustration comes because over and over I have reached the point of almost being able to take in a whole hand. And then right when I can feel that it’s close, and that one more push will do it, I just…can’t. I just can’t. This is something I have wanted to do, first just as curiosity, more recently with desire and intention. I have begun to believe that I am missing out on something and I want very much to experience it. I try not to let my desire get in the way of my connection with my partner, or in the way of the fun we have together. After our date I wrote him an email and in it I said, “I want this, but it’s like my body hasn’t completely made up its mind about it.”
When I wrote that I realized immediately the truth of it. My body hasn’t made up its mind. I have, but my body hasn’t, and my body definitely gets a vote on this decision. With that realization, something relaxed inside. This isn’t about me trying and failing, which is how I had been feeling. It’s that my body hasn’t fully committed to the idea.
I also immediately realized that I could use the same insight to think about yoga poses that feel out of reach. When there are poses I can’t do, it’s not that I have failed at them. My body simply hasn’t made up its mind to do it. All I can really do is keep my desire focused but playful, without force, and continue to keep my body in preparation for what I want to do with it. In the meantime, I can enjoy the things I am able to do, the things my body has made up its mind to do, and know that the final decision is not entirely up to me.
When I talk with my students I try to use the same type of verbiage, saying things like, “If your body doesn’t like this…” or “Check with your knee to see how it feels about this,” or “Your lower back gets the veto on this one.” My reasoning for using that language is that I don’t want my students thinking things like, “I can’t,” or feeling like they’ve failed somehow. If we can talk about the body as having its own intelligence, then we can be participants in more of a committee decision about the things we do or don’t do.
There are some pitfalls to thinking this way though. Frequently we manage to separate from the body only to make it into an enemy, somehow out to get us, or into a stupid imbecile, incapable of doing anything right. If instead we can imagine being part of a team tasked with accomplishing something we can simply see each piece of the team as having individual strengths and weaknesses. The accomplishment will need all of us working together, and if one isn’t ready, then we simply can’t go forward.
There are a couple of other key ideas around working toward these goals. One is to remember to have fun on the way there. My example of having sex is true for this. So I couldn’t get someone’s hand inside me—so what? I was having an incredible time with him and it would be idiotic for me to decide the entire experience was a failure due to that one thing. Same thing in a yoga class; no one can get through an entire class without doing anything well. I’ve never seen a student without strengths in various areas. I recently read a quote from a yoga student who had struggled with obesity but in yoga class was able to recognize “the magnificence of the body” which I thought was a lovely way to think about it. “The magnificence of the body.” Even the things a body can keep doing to sustain life and health when treated badly is miraculous; how much more so as part of a healthy well-oiled team.
If you can find a place to have fun or enjoy your situation, even around the places that are hard, even better. I recently read a lovely book about a guy’s yoga experience called Stretch by Neal Pollack. At one point he quotes Swami Sivananda: “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.” And it seems to me this is still true. If you’ve ever achieved something you’ve wanted, has that made you stop wanting anything else? Craving and desire are part of the human condition. Frankly it seems to me that without them, we might as well follow the example of one of my relatives and just sit on the couch, smoke and do crossword puzzles until we dry up and die. We need desire to get us moving, but once we’re moving we need to figure out how to enjoy the movement without the goal. Because for one thing there’s always another goal out there. And for another thing, the achieving of the goal is a split second and then it’s gone. When my students get frustrated because they can’t touch their toes in a forward bend, I tell them, there’s nothing down on their toes except maybe dirt. The actual touching of the toes isn’t special enough to skip what it takes to get there correctly with good form.
Later in the book, the author quotes one of his teachers as saying, “Blessed are the stiff. The flexible are cursed. People are very disappointed when they get their chin to their shin. It’s all still breath and the spaces in between. There’s nothing else.” If we can get interested enough in the movement without the goal, treat our bodies like treasured allies that protect and defend us as we protect and defend them, and remember that goals only lead to other goals, then maybe we can have fun, loosen up and surprise ourselves by getting down to those toes after all.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
It’s easy to get fixated on the things that don’t come easily, that everyone else seems to do well, and then feel like a failure. When I talk with students I try not to use language that indicates one variation of a pose as being better than another, or harder than another, or more advanced than another. I don’t ever want people to feel like they’ve failed at anything, or that they are somehow less than anyone else, or that they can’t access the experience of yoga if they can’t get into a particular pose. But I suppose it is human nature to want what we don’t have and to believe that somehow there are landmarks we are supposed to achieve at certain times or fall behind the pack.
Recently I was having sex with someone and, as part of our play, he tried to insert his whole hand into me. Not shoving it in, but working me up to it gradually. However, when he reached the level of the last set of knuckles, I tensed up. I could feel my body working against him, trying to keep him out, and I finally had to say “enough, I can’t do it.”
I felt frustrated, but I also knew my body had had enough and simply wasn’t going to cooperate. The frustration comes because over and over I have reached the point of almost being able to take in a whole hand. And then right when I can feel that it’s close, and that one more push will do it, I just…can’t. I just can’t. This is something I have wanted to do, first just as curiosity, more recently with desire and intention. I have begun to believe that I am missing out on something and I want very much to experience it. I try not to let my desire get in the way of my connection with my partner, or in the way of the fun we have together. After our date I wrote him an email and in it I said, “I want this, but it’s like my body hasn’t completely made up its mind about it.”
When I wrote that I realized immediately the truth of it. My body hasn’t made up its mind. I have, but my body hasn’t, and my body definitely gets a vote on this decision. With that realization, something relaxed inside. This isn’t about me trying and failing, which is how I had been feeling. It’s that my body hasn’t fully committed to the idea.
I also immediately realized that I could use the same insight to think about yoga poses that feel out of reach. When there are poses I can’t do, it’s not that I have failed at them. My body simply hasn’t made up its mind to do it. All I can really do is keep my desire focused but playful, without force, and continue to keep my body in preparation for what I want to do with it. In the meantime, I can enjoy the things I am able to do, the things my body has made up its mind to do, and know that the final decision is not entirely up to me.
When I talk with my students I try to use the same type of verbiage, saying things like, “If your body doesn’t like this…” or “Check with your knee to see how it feels about this,” or “Your lower back gets the veto on this one.” My reasoning for using that language is that I don’t want my students thinking things like, “I can’t,” or feeling like they’ve failed somehow. If we can talk about the body as having its own intelligence, then we can be participants in more of a committee decision about the things we do or don’t do.
There are some pitfalls to thinking this way though. Frequently we manage to separate from the body only to make it into an enemy, somehow out to get us, or into a stupid imbecile, incapable of doing anything right. If instead we can imagine being part of a team tasked with accomplishing something we can simply see each piece of the team as having individual strengths and weaknesses. The accomplishment will need all of us working together, and if one isn’t ready, then we simply can’t go forward.
There are a couple of other key ideas around working toward these goals. One is to remember to have fun on the way there. My example of having sex is true for this. So I couldn’t get someone’s hand inside me—so what? I was having an incredible time with him and it would be idiotic for me to decide the entire experience was a failure due to that one thing. Same thing in a yoga class; no one can get through an entire class without doing anything well. I’ve never seen a student without strengths in various areas. I recently read a quote from a yoga student who had struggled with obesity but in yoga class was able to recognize “the magnificence of the body” which I thought was a lovely way to think about it. “The magnificence of the body.” Even the things a body can keep doing to sustain life and health when treated badly is miraculous; how much more so as part of a healthy well-oiled team.
If you can find a place to have fun or enjoy your situation, even around the places that are hard, even better. I recently read a lovely book about a guy’s yoga experience called Stretch by Neal Pollack. At one point he quotes Swami Sivananda: “There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.” And it seems to me this is still true. If you’ve ever achieved something you’ve wanted, has that made you stop wanting anything else? Craving and desire are part of the human condition. Frankly it seems to me that without them, we might as well follow the example of one of my relatives and just sit on the couch, smoke and do crossword puzzles until we dry up and die. We need desire to get us moving, but once we’re moving we need to figure out how to enjoy the movement without the goal. Because for one thing there’s always another goal out there. And for another thing, the achieving of the goal is a split second and then it’s gone. When my students get frustrated because they can’t touch their toes in a forward bend, I tell them, there’s nothing down on their toes except maybe dirt. The actual touching of the toes isn’t special enough to skip what it takes to get there correctly with good form.
Later in the book, the author quotes one of his teachers as saying, “Blessed are the stiff. The flexible are cursed. People are very disappointed when they get their chin to their shin. It’s all still breath and the spaces in between. There’s nothing else.” If we can get interested enough in the movement without the goal, treat our bodies like treasured allies that protect and defend us as we protect and defend them, and remember that goals only lead to other goals, then maybe we can have fun, loosen up and surprise ourselves by getting down to those toes after all.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Friday, November 12, 2010
Why Isn't She Writing More?
I began this blog as a place just for me, to give myself direction in my writing and a place to explore my thoughts out of my head and into some sort of forum. I never worried about trying to attract an audience and I never put that much of my own information up here to help people find me.
As I wrote more about my sense of direction, both in the very tangible "I get lost a lot" sense and in the "where am I going in life?" sense, and began to add in more of my thinking about yoga, the poses and the philosophy, I found myself feeling too constrained by my own self-imposed limitations here. A big part of my life is wrapped up in love and relationships and sex, and a lot of how I do that part of my life doesn't look very mainstream. I wrote this entry about my quandary.
That entry in turn sparked a book, Yogic Bliss and Sexual Healing.
The book brought together all the pieces of me in a way that was very satisfying, and once I had accomplished that, I felt unsatisfied with the idea of leaving out whole pieces of my life in my writing. However, I still had strong feelings that people should be allowed to access my thinking about yoga without having to get all sexy with me. And not just allowed, but encouraged if that's a particular boundary for you.
What to do, what to do? I wrung my hands. I wrote an occasional post. I wrote other, sexier posts for another private forum. But I still felt limited, and disturbed by the fact that there's so much I still want to talk about that I'm holding in reserve--about body image, about health, about fitness, about teaching, about group dynamics, about...well, all kinds of things.
So, here's what's going to happen: I have at least one more post for this blog that will show up shortly. I'm going to go back and reorganize the writing here to make it more user-friendly, so that it's not just for me. But I'm also going to be cannibalizing it over time as I create two new sites--one just for information about yoga, both the poses and the philosophy, upcoming classes and workshops, thoughts and ideas about fitness and general health, resources for both students and teachers, eventually (I hope!) video and links to helpful information, and one with all of that plus the sexy stuff and information about upcoming book readings and signings, as well as future writing projects. That way, you, the reader, can make an informed choice about how much is too much, and what is helpful and useful to you in your life, and I can stop worrying about it!
I will keep this site posted with information as I have it. Meanwhile, one more regular entry coming right up!
As I wrote more about my sense of direction, both in the very tangible "I get lost a lot" sense and in the "where am I going in life?" sense, and began to add in more of my thinking about yoga, the poses and the philosophy, I found myself feeling too constrained by my own self-imposed limitations here. A big part of my life is wrapped up in love and relationships and sex, and a lot of how I do that part of my life doesn't look very mainstream. I wrote this entry about my quandary.
That entry in turn sparked a book, Yogic Bliss and Sexual Healing.
The book brought together all the pieces of me in a way that was very satisfying, and once I had accomplished that, I felt unsatisfied with the idea of leaving out whole pieces of my life in my writing. However, I still had strong feelings that people should be allowed to access my thinking about yoga without having to get all sexy with me. And not just allowed, but encouraged if that's a particular boundary for you.
What to do, what to do? I wrung my hands. I wrote an occasional post. I wrote other, sexier posts for another private forum. But I still felt limited, and disturbed by the fact that there's so much I still want to talk about that I'm holding in reserve--about body image, about health, about fitness, about teaching, about group dynamics, about...well, all kinds of things.
So, here's what's going to happen: I have at least one more post for this blog that will show up shortly. I'm going to go back and reorganize the writing here to make it more user-friendly, so that it's not just for me. But I'm also going to be cannibalizing it over time as I create two new sites--one just for information about yoga, both the poses and the philosophy, upcoming classes and workshops, thoughts and ideas about fitness and general health, resources for both students and teachers, eventually (I hope!) video and links to helpful information, and one with all of that plus the sexy stuff and information about upcoming book readings and signings, as well as future writing projects. That way, you, the reader, can make an informed choice about how much is too much, and what is helpful and useful to you in your life, and I can stop worrying about it!
I will keep this site posted with information as I have it. Meanwhile, one more regular entry coming right up!
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