jujitsu

Well....still way prefer systema. The gi is not only like pajamas, it gets ridiculously hot, and leaves rug-burn-esque marks all over you. And three people injured their feet on the soft mats.

It was nice to get a simple foot-sweeping throw drilled in, I might actually be able to use that in a general basis. And some clinch work, I suppose, though that also just seems silly with no strikes allowed - being able to just smack the other person changes everything. I did enjoy working with a little Puck (re: Alpha Flight) of a guy, a real wrestler, who seemed to have a wrestling/MMA background. Though he was in way better shape and temperament for grappling and just plain kicked my ass, he seems a better class of person than the rest of the class. Annoying to have to fight him with the disadvantage of a gi, and him with none, though.

sore pecs for first time in years

Working exclusively on the chest in weight training was an interesting experience. It's interesting how many variations there are for working one muscle. The other interesting bit, though, was that I forgot how working out with weights can completely wear out your body; it's not like bodyweight stuff where you can kind of keep going indefinitely. I tried to do an arm balance after, and couldn't even support myself for a second. Then was vaguely shaky the whole rest of the day. And hungry. Which was good for the big Chinese feast that took up the afternoon, though, heh.

Today I tried out a dance video I bought at Bookman's, after watching Step Up 2 the Streets and pondering whether I could afford a Pima hip hop class. The production values are horribly low, but I was gratified to find out it's not even a workout kind of dance video, but just like a straight up dance class, which is nice, as that's exactly what I wanted. I felt kind of silly at first dancing in my living room, and only got through about a third of the choreography before stopping to avoid overwhelming, but I'm excited to get more of it down, it gets the tapas going and is just challenging enough. Space is a real issue in my living room, and barefeet on the rug kind of hurts; lessons learned. Ah...sad to see a review that says it's "moves from the 90s"...still, better than knowing no moves at all.

notes from work

One thing to remember when sitting at a desk job - hips! I've felt so much better lately after remembering to periodically stretch my hip flexors (easy to do with a standing lunge in the bathroom, say), and the outside of my hips by putting a foot up on a knee while sitting, then leaning forward. Those parts tighten up so much from sitting in a chair, I just happened to remember it after something keying a memory of how humans weren't evolved to sit in chairs, however comfortable.

Also, with the new workouts I'm happy to be getting a sheath of muscle again; it'll be nice for the organ-deep strikes of systema, just in feeling less vulnerable than when I did when I wasn't working out and felt skinny and weak. It's not a big visible difference, but I'm starting to feel it.

dang teens

Are actually fine, really. I certainly get better what they say about learning from teaching others; for example, I was reminded of how tight I was as a teenager, simply from any lack of knowledge of any stretching at all. Luckily, I had a kind of mini-awakening at one point about that almost-painful at times stiffness, I remember the moment in the house on Water St, and later a girlfriend was kind enough to get me over my macho crap and get me to do a yoga video. Not sure if I'll get the same into these kids, but it's all interesting to think about.

Also, I knew on some level but never really realized how intricate weight training can be - you can pretty quickly determine heavy, medium, and light weight classes for a given exercises, and then say within one class light-heavy, medium-heavy, and heavy - I'm kind of curious to see now if there is a fractal effect like in classical yoga, now.

addendum to previous

Man, I had completely forgotten why arms raised vertically is used so much in classical yoga. I'd relegated to being for seniors who don't really ever perform that action more, but one forgets how tight most people are in that direction, often. Including me after weight training focusing on the upper back, apparently, it's interesting when raising your arms straight up hurts that much; I do have a finer knowledge of that region of my shoulders, though, in working out the knots.

ow, I tell you

Saturday was the first time doing weight training in a long time. Some old exercises, including benching and lat pulldowns I still find very dubious in their practical use, and some new ones including a kind of row-machine supported 45 degree pullup. I think the trick is I jumped in way too fast, and instead of just being sore, seriously knotted up my lat muscles, to the point of nigh-constant discomfort. This is going to take a while to repair.

The systema pushup-balance drill didn't go over so well with the teenagers, I think because they weren't really getting the concept of sweeping, without a real martial arts background, and also the systema concept of striking-to-move, which is really more of a hardcore push.

I did get to teach a little yoga, sun salutationing with the teens, and tailoring a half/side forward bend to an obese gal with bad knees. That's where the real advantage of classical yoga comes in, customizing toward a specific context like that, so that was nice. She also really liked my posture primer. Looks like I may just be kind of a go-to teacher for the place for now, used in moments rather than classes, which is fine for now, though I'm a bit worried the head guy wants to kind of take over any teaching of mine and make it into regular exercise.

ye olden bait n' switch

Thinking I'd get to train with my old teacher, I actually went back for some traditional martial arts training. Instead, on account of an injured back, I got the older teacher who smells uncannily like a dentist.

Ugh, waste of a night. In one sense, bouncy mats are like a feather pillow compared to using concrete for systema, but in another sense, they almost encourage little injuries and carelessness. I find it odd that for as relatively violent and hardcore as systema seems, I felt way more sore/injured after one night on a squishy surface. Part of it is also partners caught up in doing moves that look cool, or who have this frantic need to "win," or who are just unrelentingly stiff. All stuff that is immediately quashed in systema as soon as it appears.

Also, to practice each movement one to two times, with absolutely no context and the other person just giving it to you....after a dynamic environment like systema or the self-led classes we had back on the east side, it's almost enough to make me scream. The best I got out of the class was to practice relaxing out of joint locks, I suppose. Need to get the teacher I actually went there for, oy.

::love:: that balance drill [systema post]

Balancing from a pushup position, specifically. Your partner tried to kick/sweep your limbs out from under you; at first you just feel them and let them push your relaxed limb out of the way, maintaining balance. Then, you anticipate their movement a little, while also moving to positions that make it harder for them to follow up (keeping your limbs kind of spread, though, if you get both arms swept = faceplant). You can also switch to crab position or roll, too. Finally, you try to straight up hinder them in your response movement. The new guy I was with tried really hard to keep his legs away from me for some reason, not realizing each time I kneed his head I was trying to tell him something, heh.

Interesting note: a reason almost all systema punches and kicks hit with at least a slightly bent limb is so the equal-and-opposite reactive energy from impact doesn't travel straight back into the body, as it does with say a karate or boxing straight-armed, straight-line strike. It's really starkly apparent when you have someone hold out a straight arm and just whack the end of it, their body vibrates in turn. Bend the limb a bit, though, and the energy dissipates out the elbow.

And responding to crowd situations (several people hitting at once) is not so random as I first thought; yes, you still absorb and anticipate many of the strikes, but you also set a kind of wave pattern with basically big hook punches, and if you can get your pattern going strong enough, it draws the whole group into it unconsciously. Pretty freaky to see one person hit nigh everyone in a group (sometimes two with one strike) and barely get hit in turn, when they're really good at it.

systema + teens

Well, systema conditioning drills, anyway. It's hard to read shy teenagers' reactions to things, but I'm pretty sure underneath their eye-covering bangs they were refreshed by the sheer unusualness of the drills. Well, the skinny kid seemed so, at least, the but the chubbier kid was having some issue dragging himself over the carpet, and getting stepped on. But he did have more energy for grappling, so it all balanced.

I did note in both doing the drills which involve pushing each other over from a systema squat (you want strong legs? do it.) and the grappling, fighting from the knees like we used to is both relatively incredibly hard on the knees, less mobile, and in reality useless for non-squishy surfaces. On the other hand, the squat, while more vulnerable to being knocked over, it supremely more mobile, I guess a perfect example of less stability equals more mobility - I'm going to say the squat wins out in the end, though, because of its more practical safety, it's expanded range of weapons (kicks and knees), and being able to stand up out of it faster. Now I'm just curious to see how it plays against people who really know how to grapple.

from systema to jujitsu - pre-thoughts

One thing I'll have to get used to again is that when someone tenses up or won't relax or is even just resisting, in systema it's not only okay but pretty much required that you slug them to break that pattern. It helps the recipient get over both ego-anger and that tensing-up, and the puncher to get over punching out of ego, too. But in a traditional school, you can't just go around (to most people, seemingly randomly) punching people.

Another angle: fighting in gi's after having fought in regular clothes for a while. I swear, the thought of it now is like some sort of pajama costume. Tangentially, fighting on springy mats after concrete - which, admittedly, you do need to really practice Japanese jujitsu with its concentration on throws, one thing you can't really do in systema-environments without nigh-killing someone....but at the same time, one realizes after practicing on concrete how incredibly, so-not-truly safe springy mats make one feel. It's seriously not a good illusion to hold.

hmm...

I should have a demonstration to do for teaching yoga, soon. I picked a classical sequence called Anga Laghavan, because it's pretty typical of the style of yoga I do; it's supposedly one of the best general sequences for being right in the middle of the road, both cooling and energizing. It builds up to a sun salutation in the middle, but after, it's got almost entirely cooling poses on the floor.

I suppose the women I'm going to do it for might want a more athletic style, but I do the style I enjoy/prefer; I could emphasize more warming if they want that, and will have to just read them as best I can and wing it, but we'll see. I'm feeling pretty confident about the whole idea, though; the idea of working within a true community-center is really energizing to me. And having a yoga-space with a fireplace would just be awesome.

borrowed poem, again

Time flies, knells call, life passes, so hear my prayer.
Birth is nothing but death begun, so hear my prayer.
Death is speechless, so hear my speech.
This is Jake, who served his ka and his tete. Say true.
May the forgiving glance of Lakshmi heal his heart. Say please.
May the arms of God raise him from the darkness of this earth. Say please.
Surround him, Shiva, with light.
Fill him, Kali, with strength.
If he is thirsty, give him water in the clearing.
If he is hungry, give him food in the clearing.
May his life on this earth and the pain of his passing become as a dream to his waking soul, and let his eyes fall upon every lovely sight; let him find the friends that were lost to him, and let everyone whose name he calls call his in return.
This is Jake, who lived well, loved his own, and died as he would have it.
Each dog owes a death. This is Jake. Give him peace.

Tao, yo.

An interesting contrast of yoga with Buddhism and Confucianism. But it's Taoism, you say? Well! From some schools of thought, Lao-tsu was purportedly a siddhe, who found that his teachings (as an Indian man) were not really accepted in China. So, being a well-developed soul who just had decided not to transcend into nirvana quite yet, he jumped ship into a dying Chinese man's body. Voila! Yoga and Taoism being very parallel, yet adjusted for Chinese culture.

"There is a famous old painting called "The Vinegar Tasters," a work of art whose origins are shrouded in some mystery. Three men are pictured standing around a vat of vinegar. Each has just dipped in his finger and taken a taste. One man has a somewhat sour look on his face. The next has a very bitter expression. The third is smiling. The vinegar represents the essence of life, and the tasting stands for the human experience of it. The three men represent the three major teachings to be found in China.

The sour expression is intended to capture the Confucian conviction that life can be a bit sour because it is out of step with the way it once was and ought to be. The bitter look is meant to be that of Buddha, who believed that life on earth is full of pointless craving and needless suffering. The smiling man is supposed to be Lao Tsu, who held that by properly attaining a harmony between your own path and the Way of objective reality, by properly plugging into the Tao, you can truly enjoy being a part of the action of this world, making your journey one of happiness and joy moment to moment. And this is not to be thought of as a payoff or reward for having done things right, but rather as the proper experience of doing things right, finding your own way forward in unity with the deepest reality there is. This, Lao Tsu believed, is true success."

sequencing

Writing out sequences for homework has really confirmed what one of our teachers described, that sequencing is as much a science as an art.

In one sense, it is almost formulaic - designing a sequence in a classical manner requires setting a purpose or focus (a bhavana), deciding on a core pose or principle, using the initial poses to prepare for that core, and then counter-postures to relieve the stress accumulated in the initial process. Of course, depending on the strenuousness of the sequence, there might be counter-postures needed even before the core moment, and several layers of complexity beyond that.

But, in the same sense, knowing what pose to use to follow another and deciding on which counterposture to use (especially when a counter-posture can also be a preparation) relies on an understanding of the asanas in how they are linked to each other. And it is in that connective, creative knowledge requirement that sequencing becomes an art, in my mind, as connecting and creating are intuitive skills.

In that, creating a sequence can be as much a yogic exercise as performing an asana itself. Logic and intuition must be balanced and united, Shiva and Shakti, to create a useful practice.

not so much in a state to write

When you let your own light shine, you unconsciously give others permission to do the same. - Nelson Mandela
related: For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. - Nelson Mandela

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein

"We all think we’re going to be great and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met. But sometimes our expectations sell us short. Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected. You got to wonder why we cling to our expectations, because the expected is just what keeps us steady. Standing. Still. The expected's just the beginning; the unexpected is what changes our lives."
-Gray’s Anatomy

musing

I remembered an old martial arts teacher's ideal-dream idea of developing an apartment complex into a sort of fitness community. People would live in the apartments, and as part of their rent they would get their choice of general-personal training or fitness classes, and various martial arts (I think he very grudgingly conceded a need for a yogic aspect at some point). As a community - community building was something he was big on, something I looked up to him for - they would be able to support and maintain each other's practice, and enjoy having like-minded people around.

I definitely understand the like-minded people aspect being in yoga school now - I've never really found myself in a setting until now where mulitple people were actually having the same thoughts as me (at least in regards to a yoga/personal development side of things); individuals, yes (my roommate and a couple ex-girlfriends, say) but not a community before. Anyway, that's a tangent from what the original point of this musing was to be, that as much as he had something of a cool idea going, I'd maybe back it down to this: an analagous school for martial arts.

Right, I understand the Japanese arts have their own traditions and whatnot of almost purely physical training and specific ways of how things are done. But, interestingly, the yoga school I attend considers the idea of lineage just as important as the dojos I once attended did. And they still have classes that attend to the purely physical. But, in the actual school aspect, there's a more holistic approach - philosophy, language, anatomy, nutrition, etc. It would be amazing to see the effect of that applied to martial arts, in my mind - zen and Musashi instead of samadhi and the Bhagavad Gita, Japanese instead of Sanskrit, anatomy with a different focus...I'm not saying it would necessarily make the students better fighters, mind, but rather, I think certain students would find the discipline immensely more interesting and valuable, and be much, much more effective at the supposed non-physical aims of martial arts, which are usually brushed quickly by, if mentioned at all. Which, in the end, is a sad thing in the case of styles like aikido, where they should be focus, instead.

"Context is very important. Without context we can never really master yoga or any other art or science. For example, artists learn all the classic principles of their form before learning to improvise and find true creativity. Without training in the classical skills of their art as well as understanding how their art has developed, there is no ground on which artists can base their creativity. Most of the great masters have developed their mastery in this way: by first learning the context."

on Iyengar

I noticed a couple things in going to the first of several classes outside of yoga school proper. One is that it's I've come to appreciate previous teachers I've had immensely more, after running into a teacher who was just relentlessly negative and critical, both in phrasing ("don't," "struggle," etc) and in attitude.

Another was that it turned out to be a lot more valuable than I thought it would be to experience a different style of yoga. I assumed there would subtle or slight differences, but nope - where I'm used to vinyasa flow, with its reasoned sequencing and relaxing movement, the Iyengar yoga was disjointed and based on relatively few, static asanas. I'll acknowledge and perhaps even admire the point that in that manner one is able to really look at the minutae of a pose, but they seemed to focus on it so much to the point that it was ultimately more hindrance than benefit. The constant criticism and obsession with ideal form, regardless of injury (in the case of one poor woman grimacing at shoulder rotation) or the unique structure of an individual's body only exacerbated that hindrance. The idea that achieving conformity to some perfect idea of a pose would help the body achieve integration with the mind holds some shallow logic for me (in the sense of visualization, perhaps), but also seems intuitively wrong on several levels to me (ignoring the breath as bridge between body and mind, forcing which just brings resistance, etc).

-coincidentally, I just had happened to read these passages in one of my textbooks:
"Asana should not simply be an external form into which you fit your body, but should arise from within you. What you see in the mirror is the form. What you feel is the function of the posture. Unity, not uniformity, is the goal of yoga."

"Rigid adherence to the ideal form is simply habit or conditioning, whereas adaptation to insure function is an act of creativity."

- both from Yoga for Body, Breath and Mind, by A.G. Mohan

a few notes on posture

At class last night, we did a quick postural analysis of a partner; we first found our natural posture by jumping up and down a few times, and just stopping however we landed, without fixing anything. And I realized a couple of things -

One, that it actually became painful after a bit to maintain that incorrect posture, with one shoulder a little too high, my feet turned a bit wrong, my neck canted a bit too much to the side, etc. I started to feel the beginnings of kinks form in muscles, even, by the end of it. So it's interesting how much a lazy, uncorrected posture can affect us.

Two stemmed from our homework - our feet affect our posture enormously. The sole of the foot is in effect the beginning of the back, and the alignment of our feet reflects up our bodies, through our pelvis, all the way to our shoulders and neck. That isn't exactly a weakness, however; rather, it can be turned into a strength by achieving proper alignment in the feet (good arch, grounding through the front of the heel and bases of big and little toe), and through integrating an awareness of the feet into asanas. For example, in the soles being the first part of the back, if one begins one's forward bends by beginning the stretch in the feet, the overall stretch is augmented, and moreover the body is better integrated as a whole. Clever!

vulnerable

I caught myself altering some poses contrary to the teacher's instruction the other day, which is actually kind of a pet peeve of mine - when people just willfully do it out of some sense of competitiveness or irreverance. So, I examined my own motives.

Whenever she would tell us to clasp our hands, implying that we should lace our fingers together to, for example, pull our knee to our chest, I would rather layer my hands on the other, or in other cases where she intended we lace our fingers together, I would find a differnt way to clasp my hands or hook my fingers together. Long story short, I was doing that because in grappling, interlaced fingers are horribly vulnerable - sure, they might seem to provide a better grip, but all the opponent has to do is squeeze them together for a quick tap. Fingerbones don't like being crushed against other fingerbones.

In regards to the yoga, I realized that for me, to consciously decide to allow myself to lace my fingers together might be a sign of consciously choosing to allow myself to be vulnerable. And to me, that is a positive change to be made, and hopefully will help me develop further in my practice, in however subtle a manner.

fear

I had a sudden thought the other night, looking at a swimming pool (though that particular body of water was at a perfect temperature). Imagining a cold pool, however, even icy-seeming, I realized I might feel a certain fear at the sensation of the cold water, as if it was a kind of pain, and that would make me consider it unpleasant.

I realized, however, that if I could embrace the wonder of the sensation of the cold water, and perhaps embrace even more through that - the weightlessness inherent in being submerged, the sudden availability to acrobatic movement, the tough of a girlfriend's smooth skin - then that fear which I had initially, reflexively blanketed the idea of "cold water" with might be transformed entirely - as Phillip Moffitt wrote in an entirely unrelated article I just read, "admidst all suffering there is joy."

Tangentially, something similar occurred to me while watching a horror movie - perhaps that is something of the fascination for going to a movie to be scared...that possiblity of tranformation of the emotion.