so we (boundless teachers and staff) are finalizing our agreement on boundless’s values. we’ve got the mission down (see right if you are reading this on the home page), but we have been debating and discussing the values. they will be up this week.
if you can vote or give me info on this piece; i think it’s an important thing to reflect on:
• honoring the body as our first home, and trusting it at all times
versus
• honoring the body as our first home, and keeping it safe at all times
because sometimes we need to feel a little unsafe in order to effect
change, right? surely a butterfly emerging from its cocoon doesn’t feel
totally SAFE, but i would suggest that it feels TRUST. when we are facing
our demons in meditation, or handstand, or in a deep backbend, playing the
edge of safety is, in effect, deepening your TRUST in the fact that it’s
all good.the purpose of this bullet is to identify the importance of rooting into
the first chakra, or (in a combined first/second chakra) MOTHER EARTH. i
don’t think we feel SAFE in a hailstorm, but we have to TRUST that she’s
throwing ice down on us for a reason.
filed under: the boundless perspective, teacher training, more on yoga, the community of yoga, yoga internal, philosophy and religion, yoga and business
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 4:52 pm and is filed under the boundless perspective, teacher training, more on yoga, the community of yoga, yoga internal, philosophy and religion, yoga and business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I too like “trusting” better. For me this starts with the fact that in a truly devoted practice, there’s a lot of uncertainty. There has to be. If you’re always sure of what you’re doing, you’re not learning.
By the same token, moving forward in your asana practice entails falling, “failing,” maybe even getting hurt. Otherwise how the hell do you know where your limits are? Anyone who’s practicing handstand without occasionally falling over isn’t really practicing handstand. I loved this NPR piece: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6196795 The essayist’s message: “Success is boring. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do…. Failure is how we learn.”
For present purposes, the point is this: I agree with Kim that practicing can *feel* unsafe (even if it isn’t *actually* unsafe — which hopefully it’s not unless one has been poorly taught) (which doesn’t happen at this studio, yo!), because that’s how extreme uncertainty registers, especially when we’re talking about the body.
It follows that we need to trust. Got to have trust in order to keep coming back to an endeavor that is inherently uncertain.
Anyway, cheers Kim & the teachers on this whole editing/honing process!
February 7th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Or how about this: our first home is the soul. It’s the only “thing” about us that is eternal. The material plane is only the physical manifestation of the soul; it is the cause and not the effect; the result, not the intention. The power lies in the cause and intention. We can trust that power, honor that power, and everything else may fall by the wayside. Or maybe I’m just a chick with cancer, who has been operated on too many times, and is beginning to feel this body of mine is merely rented space on an operating table, surrounded by so many doctors’ knives.
I think of donating my body to science after I die, so that doctors may learn more about the disease. But then that makes me feel like I’m renting a very valuable sublet, and there is a line of people outside my door, just waiting for me to move, so that they can move in. I can burn down that sublet and say to hell with it all, but I will still remain. I will still exist.
February 8th, 2007 at 12:22 am
I like better “trusting” too, I have to say that last week at your class we went in to hand stand, I remember you saying “Everybody should go in to the full asana” and so we did. I had never gone in to the full pose until that night and I was feeling kind of afraid, then you started talking about the transition, think of your legs floating as feathers, you kept saying… And so I did, I let my self “float” and realized I could do it. After that I got this feeling of freedom and relief that I could do almost anything. The next day I was trying to practice at home and guess what? I fall down!
I knew it could happen but it’s not until you live it when you realize how it feels… I was on the floor in my room feeling my heart beating 200x’ and holding my breath, trying to figure out if it was only my shoulder and the top of my head what had hit the floor, but a bit later after collecting my self It felt so good to realize that there’s much more to learn, that I have to keep practicing, and that feeling insecure as you said must deepen my trust in the fact that indeed it is all good!
(by the way the shoulder it’s cool now, so I’ll be there soon!)
February 8th, 2007 at 9:32 am
hey luis! the class you’re referring to is the challenge class, in which, indeed, we examine more deeply our levels of trust in the body. and i LOVE your story! and the legs can “float as feathers” when the pelvis is totally secure in supporting you in this inversion.
i always congratulate people for falling down, because as one of my favorite teachers rodney yee used to say, you never realize how easy it is to fall until you do.
can’t wait to see you again in the challenge class; let’s do more headstand!
February 8th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
this reminds me what we talked about before class last night, kim. to “trust” the body means i not only need to listen to it, but i actually need to *learn* to listen to it. and once i learn to listen to it, it will tell me what i need to do to keep it safe.
for me, yoga is helping me learn to listen to my body.
just my two cents.
with metta,
sean