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yoga in the real world

by L. Valdez Karl


When I told a well-known and well-respected yogi who shall remain nameless that sometimes I teach in places where there are no props, she said with a sniff, “I don’t teach in THOSE places anymore.”

Well, now.  Maybe one of these days I will have permanently traded up my yoga teaching venues sans any dysfunctional yoga studio owners of course.  But in the meantime I look upon my teaching experiences with great affection because I learn from all of them.

This morning I was teaching my private class in my house and the security system’s alarm started screaming.  There had been a thunderstorm with a huge lightening flash over my house (talk about raising the kundalini) and shortly thereafter the alarm went off. And when I say screaming, I mean the sound feels like a drill going through my ears into the middle of my brain.  My students looked at me with that WTF look and I ran downstairs and tried to shut it off.  No luck.  Still screaming.  I went back up to my home yoga shala and told them not to worry, no one is breaking in and nothing is on fire.  Then it stopped. Then it started again.  By this time all I could was laugh.

I ran back downstairs and called the security company.  They told me that the power must have gone out momentarily or there was a power surge and the system was rebooting itself.  As I talked to the security company the message on the control box showed everything back to normal.  I could stop grinding my teeth.  I told the security person that the alarm had gone off while I was teaching a yoga class.  She thought that was hilarious.

Good thing I practice mindfulness meditation: “screaming alarm feels like this…”

Yesterday afternoon I taught to 20 musicians of a symphony orchestra in the massive basement of their auditorium.  As they sat in stillness before savasana I heard massive doors open.  I watched a janitor come in pulling a massive industrial size garbage can behind him on a platform with wheels that obviously needed massive amounts of of oil.  I saw the janitor and smiled, thinking back when I used to teach regularly in THOSE places.

Two other people walked in and opened the doors of a massive closet, the size of a room. The storage closet was lined with shelves of liquor bottles and the man and the woman rolled out two bars which I’m sure were for the audience for last night’s performance.  By this time the students were in savasana.   After class I told them that this was the first time anybody set up a bar in back of the room while I was teaching.

Years ago I taught for a park district.  I taught in their community center in a large a multi-purpose room with a stage.  Saturday morning class, all the women up in downward facing dog — “BREATHE, WATCH YOUR BREATH….”  In walk two uniformed policemen.  I was the only one who saw them because everyone had their butts in the air, eyes closed. “Everyone come down into child’s pose…hello, officers….”  Twenty heads jerk up.

“We’re just here to get the lectern,”, i.e., the one that was up on the stage.

“That’s nice, officers. I thought you were here to strip-search us.”

The men in blue laughed as they hustled the lectern across the stage, down the stage steps, across my teaching space, and into the room next door, the door slamming behind them.  Of course.  Door slamming.

Yoga teacher trainings don’t teach you how to handle these things.

Do you want to hear about teaching next to bagpipe practice and above a dog obedience class?  Fortunately these two things did not occur at the same time.

There is no sound on earth worse than bagpipe PRACTICE, not even a screaming burglar alarm.

A day in the life of a yoga teacher.

Oh, yeah. I’ve paid my dues.

fear and loathing in the yoga world, part 2

by L. Valdez Karl

Fear and Loathing in the Yoga World, Part 1

I will say from the start that the studio owner who fired me in an email last week later realized that her actions were not the most professional or reasonable. she admitted that she should have called me and she regretted what she did. however, the damage had already been done. you can’t unring a bell. you can’t undo the damage that you did.

She sent her screaming email late at night accusing me of things I did not do, so it was too late for me to call her. I wrote back to her immediately explaining how I could not have done the things she accused me of, which were:

1. sending “consistent” emails to students with “negative connotations” about her and the studio. more about that later.

2. calling a woman who was scheduled to do thai yoga massage after my Sunday morning class and asking her to cancel her appointments so that I could use the space. the story about that is even more bizarre than #1.

The situation is that she is closing the studio at the end of the year, not because of the economy, but because it was a hobby that turned into a real business. a successful yoga studio with committed students. I should be so lucky. she admits that she never realized how much work a “real business” takes and it all got to be too much so she decided to close up shop and sell the building. that’s fine, it’s her decision, and I have to say that when I first heard this news I had little reaction to it because all things are impermanent, so be it. but I did tell her that I would look for my own space, maybe even buy a building, I was upfront about that from the get go. and I have found my own space starting in January. so when she told me I was “going behind her back”, that accusation floored me.

I’ll try to make this convoluted story short. I had given up my night class and the owner gave it to another teacher. I emailed a few of my night students saying that I regret I am no longer teaching this class, so-and-so will be teaching it, and I hope to see them in January in my new night class. that’s it. I had also sent an earlier email announcing my new space and my new classes to all students who had voluntarily given me their emails. by the way, all the students know the studio is closing.

As it turned out, the owner taught the night class after which she sent the scathing email to me. she said that three students (who were my students obviously) came up to her after class with the accusations about the “consistent” (two) emails with the “negative connotations.” I did not understand how they could have interpreted anything negative from my emails.

As for asking the thai massage practitioner to “cancel” her appointments, I did call the woman to ask if she was using the space after my Sunday morning class. I wanted to know because a friend who is a semi-pro photographer was coming to the studio after my class to take some shots of me. she told me yes, she’s using the space after my class, and I said fine, I’ll just reschedule. that was it. for whatever reason, the thai massage practitioner called the owner and told her I called. when the owner accused me of wanting to “cancel” this woman’s appointments behind the owner’s back, I called the practitioner and asked her why she told the owner the lie about me. let’s just say I was not my most yogic self. she claimed she did not. when the owner later admitted she acted hastily, she told me that the practitioner did not use the word “cancel”, but that it was hard for her to imagine that she would have heard anything different. so as for who was telling the truth, I had no idea and I did not care. the damage had already been done.

As for the students telling tales about me, human nature is what it is. and I’m sorry to say this, but yoga students love to stir things up. admit it, because y’all know it’s true — in fact, maybe some of you reading this have done it yourself. in our subsequent discussion about it, the owner told me about how students would tell her that so-and-so teacher doesn’t do this, or doesn’t do that, or teaches shoulderstand like this, he doesn’t teach it the way you do, blah blah blah blah blah. I’ve heard students speak horribly about sub yoga teachers, I’ve seen students walk out of classes because “their” teacher wasn’t there that day. I have to ask: what the hell are you doing? and why? I’m here to tell you, if any of you reading this has ever done that, you should be ashamed. yoga is about cultivating an attitude of gratitude and if you don’t have one, yoga has taught you nothing.

After my experience with the alcoholic studio owner, this screaming email brought back bad memories. there was no way I was going to allow another studio owner to treat me like garbage. there was no way I was going to let those lies about me stand. in her original email she wrote that I should send back my key and when she got it she would send my last check and my mat. no way, I thought, I’m getting my things in person, so I called the next day. as it turned out, we talked for an hour. reasonably. I explained my side of the situation. and she became contrite and humble. she never once said “I’m sorry” but she admitted she acted unreasonably. so we agreed to meet the next day so I could get my mat and money.

We met the following morning (the email was Monday night, this was Wednesday morning) and I must say that I was not at all upset. I had let it go. in Buddhism there are three sensations: attachment, aversion, and neutrality. at that moment I was neutral. I walked in, gave her my key, and said I’m getting my mat. she stopped me and said “I must tell you these things…” and she began to tell me how wrong she was. I sat and listened. but the damage had already been done, you can’t unring the bell.

She admitted that the whole situation was a learning experience for her, about how she is ruled by her emotions, about how reactive she is, about how she is very attached to the studio even though she is giving it up. I let her talk and said, “well, I have much more life experience than you,” (she is only about 30), “and I would advise you that next time someone tells you something, to investigate it.” I asked her what she thought the purpose was of those students saying those things about me. I also told her to ask herself why she believed them so readily.

I told her that after this whole experience I am re-thinking whether I should continue to teach in that community. she told me that I would have to do what is right for me but she thought it would be a disservice if I did not. she said that I should not let the actions of the three students ruin it for the others. I told her I appreciated that.

So this entire situation was a learning experience for her but also for me. it was a lesson on letting our emotions rule us, a lesson on reactivity, a lesson on investigation. these are all things that Buddha taught about.

The owner’s first email compared to her contrite second email was absolutely Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. since this incident I’ve heard more than a few stories from teachers about the Jekyll and Hyde personalities of yoga studio owners. and all I have to say for right now is “never again.” and for any yoga studio owners reading this, think long and hard about how you treat your teachers and about how much support you give them.

I’m tired of the drama of yoga studios. the alcoholic studio owner (about whom I am finally neutral), the immaturity of the second owner….I think the Universe is giving me another kick in the yoga butt that the studio model is dead for me. time for me to move on to bigger and better things. time for me to examine my own yoga teaching paradigm. my gal pal who lives in India told me that I need to find a “goddess in residence” yoga gig somewhere. I think she’s right. if you have one, let me know, I’ll be on the next Lufthansa flight out.

After my meditation class last night I talked about this with my teacher, the Theravadan Buddhist monk. his dharma talk was about attachment and the Ego, whether there is an “I” and if so, what is it. after our sit I told him that working with attachment and craving is easy for me, but my Ego troubles arise from my aversion (the flip side of attachment) and I told him briefly what happened. he is a relatively young monk but very wise and I always feel at peace after our talks. he said, “why are letting this bother you? you know your truth, you know the type of person you are. no one can change that by their words. let it go.” I said, “but what about the lies about me? my mind continually asks ‘why why why’, that is what makes me crazy.” he said, “accept that sometimes there is no answer. those people have their own problems, don’t create your own problems because you are upset. you will never know their motivations. let it go.” finally he said, “this is a lesson for you, too, a lesson to teach you loving-kindness. send them loving-kindness.”

fear and loathing in the yoga world

by L. Valdez Karl

I’m just a problem girl.

It’s been said that one should never say never, but as for my teaching in any more yoga studios, for right now, in this present moment (and I actually said it all this week) I can say, never again.

In my humble opinion, when you’re a starry-eyed newbie yoga teacher there is a little part of you that longs for that perfect yoga community of like-minded holistic souls who will unconditionally love and support one other; where it does not make any difference what style one teaches, how much our yoga clothes cost, who one trained with, or whether one does adjustments or not, because in the end, it’s all good and perfect and lovely in the peace-love-dove yoga world. yoga teachers are all one big happy family when we travel to Mecca — I mean the yoga conferences — and happily chant AUM and SHANTI and celebrate the Goddess in each of us as we yoga trance dance and cry together in those ubiquitous group hugs….”farewell, Tiffani Shanti Lakshmi, see you next year at the Tantric Goddess workshop in Omaha!”

And then reality hits you in the face like a wet, stinky yoga mat rug that 100 Bikram yogis just sweated on.

I understand that people are people and human nature is what it is whether you’re a plumber or a Fortune 500 CEO. we all have our foibles and the little things that make us and the people in our lives insane. call me stupid, but somehow, somewhere deep inside one’s heart, you just don’t expect to be screwed (figuratively) by a another yoga teacher. that just ain’t supposed to happen. is it? somehow I just don’t expect to be treated like one of the huge piles of excrement that I walk around in an Indian street. I must have missed that day in my first teacher training: “What To Do When a Yoga Studio Owner Treats You Like Shit.”

Oh…I’m sorry…is that too real and honest for you? because I’ve been told that I’m too real and honest. well, fasten your seat belts, children, because you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Those of you who are regular readers might remember that I left a studio last year because the alcoholic studio owner walked in stumbling drunk to one of my workshops and into one of my classes (during savasana no less.) I wrote about it here and here. The irony is that the studio I refer to in those posts, the one where I moved to, the one I was so grateful to teach at, is the studio where I was FIRED from this week. yes, dear readers, yours truly was FIRED from a yoga studio. I was told that I was no longer welcome there.

The most surreal thing about it was that I was accused of things I did not do and instead of reasonably picking up the phone and asking whether these things were true, the studio owner fired off a screaming email — I WILL LET THAT SINK IN: I WAS FIRED IN AN EMAIL — telling me to mail my key because I was no longer welcome at the studio. but I digress. back to the alcoholic owner.

I understand addiction. believe me, I do. been there, done that, momma don’t ride dat hoss no mo’, y’all. and any of you out there who know or live with addicts know it’s hell. but when you try to help someone and you’re abused for it and you’re lied to, I walk. the thing is, I could handle the alcoholic owner, but what I could not handle was the total lack of support from every other teacher at the studio (except for one who also walked.) not one teacher called to show their support or to ask how I was. not one. ever. it was like I had died.

I was so upset about the situation that I talked to my teacher, a Theravadan Buddhist monk, who felt that those teachers talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. he thanked me for coming to him because he said if she ever walked in liked that to his dharma class “I would just….” and he moved his fingers like he was walking, “and I would not even say goodbye.” he told me that I did the right thing in confronting the owner about her addiction. and if a Buddhist monk tells me that, then that’s OK by me.

So much for the “yoga community”, a phrase that makes me regurgitate faster than eating salmonella infested potato salad. and the rage over what I felt was a betrayal stuck in my body as chronic, sometimes excrutiating, back pain for a year. talk about my aversion creating my suffering.

to be continued…..

why do you want to teach yoga?

by L. Valdez Karl


I’m just throwing the question out there.  I know why I teach, but why do YOU want to teach yoga?

I suppose this goes back to the “how much is a yoga teacher worth?” question, and for those of us who don’t want to return to the corporate life, yoga teaching is my vocation, my avocation, and my personal dharma.  I know more than a few teachers who also do massage or another holistic practice or their yoga teaching is a “sideline” and they rely on another’s income (and health insurance.)

I know very few yoga teachers who totally support themselves by only teaching yoga. because of a life-changing decision I have made, I may have to get a part-time job.  but I know I will never stop teaching yoga and Buddha/Kali/Shiva willing, I will do this the rest of my life, either in the US or in India.  I still need to finish my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation training at Spirit Rock, and in October I start Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training. in late 2009 I plan on living two months in an ashram in South India studying yoga therapy with a swami.  this will require me to give up two steady yoga gigs, or at least get subs for them. as I mentioned in another post, for those of us who do these lengthy trainings, there is no guarantee we will have yoga jobs when we get back. this is the reality of the yoga biz. but this is my commitment to myself, to immerse myself as much as I can — at my age I have a lot less time on this earth than if I would have started this path 30 or even 20 years ago.

everything I earn gets plowed right back into my yoga biz (I’m incorporated.) I am over 50 and this is my life plan and nothing will keep me from it. I know this is my path and I have given it up to the Universe to follow this path for the rest of my life.

what will you give up to be a yoga teacher?

I live in the Chicago area where there is a plethora of yoga teacher training programs all costing beaucoup bucks. this is where the yoga money is made, in teacher trainings and offering workshops.  a well-known American yoga teacher who was on the same retreat that I was told me that she rarely teaches group classes anymore, that she makes her money on her branded teacher trainings and traveling the world doing workshops.

when I was certified in 2002 there were only four training programs in Chicago that I knew of.  now almost every major studio both in the city and suburbs, and some not-so-major, have teacher training programs that train you in “their” brand of yoga.  and of course there are the weekend programs (become a yoga teacher in 16 hours!) and the online yoga teacher training courses where voila!…anyone with a computer can become a yoga teacher.  of course, not everyone who does a training wants to be a teacher, some do it to deepen their yoga knowledge.

for a while I thought of starting my own teacher training program, which would actually be unique in my area because I would incorporate yoga therapy and Buddhism, no other local training offers that. but I decided I don’t want to be tied down with that right now…my next two years are going to be for my own yoga sadhana culminating in the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, India in 2010.

so where are y’all going to teach?  after spending thousands of dollars on your training will you be happy making $4 or $5 or $6 when one student shows up to the studio?  I made $12 again last night. I used to teach at a studio where students paid $5 for their first class and the owner did not pay the teachers for those students because she would “lose money.”  some months I had so many first-timers in my classes I lost over $100 in monthly income. I’m not crying about this, this is the reality of the yoga biz.

people want yoga for the same fees that they are paying with their gym memberships. and everybody — every spa, chiropractic center, gym, and physical therapy office — wants in on what they view as big bucks to be made in yoga. the yoga biz in America — a gazillion dollar business according to Yoga Journal.

but who’s making the dough and where’s the dharma?

I have a friend who’s convinced that everyone doing teacher trainings nowadays are delusional, that they’ve all drunk the Yoga Journal kool-aid about becoming a yoga teacher.

have you?

one person at a time

by L. Valdez Karl


Believe it or not yoga teachers can become very frustrated, sometimes even depressed about their teaching situation. I don’t know any teacher who does this for the money — maybe some do, but I don’t know any. yoga teachers also get burned out and quit teaching AND yoga altogether, I’ve known more than a few. I heard Paul Grilley say that yoga teacher burn-out begins to happen between years 5 and 7, but if you can make it over the hump, you’ll be teaching the rest of your life. I remember that several teachers went up to him after the workshop, me included, with tears in our eyes thanking him for speaking the truth about teaching, telling him “I thought it was only me.” I start my 7th year of teaching this summer.

Yoga teachers deal with lots of heavy stuff (again, maybe not all, but I do and several of my friends do.) those of you familiar with this blog know that I dealt with an alcoholic studio owner last year — her actions of walking into my classes drunk coupled with her denial and lies about her problem was not a easy thing to deal with. it affected my own health.

then there are the students who are just there to sweat, and the students who come into your level 2-3 vinyasa class who have never done yoga before, and they tell you they have rheumatoid arthritis AND herniated disks…but then get very upset when you tell them, uh, I don’t think this is the right class for you.

students run the gamut from A to Z. and then there are students like this:

“I don’t know if you remember me, but I was a student of yours for five years until I started getting sick (well, my body got sick). I moved and I have been really focusing on becoming healthy in every meaning of the word (spiritually, mentally, and physically). I wanted to look you up because I have tried a couple of yoga classes and they just are not the same as when I practiced with you. They were more fitness yoga, and that is not what draws me to yoga. I found you! and I was so excited, but then I read about what you have been up to and I am just so happy for you! It seems…[that] you are really following your path.

I finally started studying Buddhism with more inventiveness. I bought that book you told me about a long time ago, Awakening the Buddha Within. I never really looked at it until now, and now I cannot put it down. I do not think I was ready to read it when I bought it, but I am happy I have it. I also came across The Buddhist Society of Western Australia Video Dhamma Talks on Youtube, and they have really changed my perspective on so many things.

I cannot say things are perfect, but I deal with life a lot better now I think. I have you to thank for so much of it. It was no coincidence that I took your class so long ago, and you have never left my thoughts since.”

This is what makes it all worth it despite alcoholic studio owners, students with senses of entitlement, and students who walk out of a class without paying.

I received this email this morning and was humbled. It reminded me of the second time I studied in India and we talked about having gratitude for the teachings and gratitude for our teachers and their teachers and their teachers before them going back all the way to Patanjali. I was so overcome by our discussion that I left the classroom and found the nearest computer to email my teacher trainer in Chicago, thanking him for everything that I had learned from him.

I cried this morning when I read this. the weird thing (but maybe not so weird in my world) is that I have been thinking about this student, in fact, just last week. I kept one of her papers because it contained some great references for teaching yoga to MS patients.

I teach yoga at a junior college and she reminded me of me when I was her age, a smart-ass (OK, I’m still a smart-ass), searching for something, feeling out of place from where I was. she really connected with yoga even though her physical form was not the “best” — it is not important to me if my students look like they can be on the cover of Yoga Journal. I knew that she was “getting it” in a way that the other students weren’t so I always left her alone, no major adjustments. we connected and she would always stay and talk after class, telling me everything that was going on in her life, some of which wasn’t all that great.

In many ways my students are also my teachers and they help me realize — no matter how much I second guess myself, no matter how many times I think about quitting, no matter how many times I think I taught a lousy class — that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.

one person at a time.

om shanti to you, sister Alice

by L. Valdez Karl

Alice Coltrane in Bombay…


peace
shanti
salaam aleikum
so shall it be

get real

by L. Valdez Karl


I am recovering from a vicious upper respiratory infection and/or flu that I had for two weeks. I went to a yoga class today and we we were in Bow and I had to come down after only a few breaths because I still felt weak. I berated myself and then I told myself, get real. get real because what do I have to prove? I have/had a nasty infection that kicked my ass exactly one month after I had a vicious case of salmonella food poisoning that I brought back from India that also kicked my ass. My reality is that I will be 54 this year and maybe, just maybe, it takes me longer to recover from things than it did at 44 or 34 or 24. get real. be authentic.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

After the class a yoga teacher friend and I went to lunch and we kvetched about what else, problematic yoga students. ahem….yoga teachers talk about students as much as yoga students talk about teachers.

My friend told me about an older student whom she told not to return to her group class because it was not the right type of class for him, he had too many health issues. she told me his whole litany of physical ailments the worst of which was uncontrolled high blood pressure that gave him exploding ocular headaches. she wanted to teach a safe class but he was not honest about himself when she asked if anyone had any health issues. he wanted to do everything, even poses that were contraindicated for his conditions. All I said was, “ego.”

Ego. we’re conditioned to bully our way through a class, whether it’s a yoga class or anything else. no pain, no gain. even if it kills us.

My friend said just because people do yoga does not mean people can or should do every pose, the same way that because you can run three miles does not mean you should run a marathon. she felt that students truly do not understand this. she said that students think because we are yoga teachers we should be able to not only do every pose, but teach them every pose in any class they choose to attend, no matter what their physical limitations. she mused that maybe our calling as instructors is to help students realize that it is the nature of the body to grow old.

yes, we are dharma teachers on the nature of reality which is impermanence! I’m sorry, what did you say…you only came to this class because you read that Jennifer Aniston lost weight doing yoga?

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

I’m taking a workshop with Lilias Folan next month. for those of you who don’t know Lilias (or who think yoga was invented by Madonna), Lilias introduced millions of Americans to yoga in 1972 with her television show “Lilias! Yoga and You.”

Her website says that “Lilias has found that her practice and her teaching have naturally and even necessarily changed over time [emphasis added] as she has physically transformed into having what she describes as her current middle-aged body. Lilias draws on her years of experience, along with living in a changing body. In her new book she describes how to adapt yoga for a body growing older.”

The workshop is advertised as “moving at an enjoyable pace we will prepare the body with interesting warm ups, salutation to the hips and more from her highly acclaimed book Lilias! Yoga Gets Better With Age”.

There is a video on her website called “It’s Not Easy Being Real.” She says that as yogis, we want to be authentic, and that our challenge is to be real and to be an authentic human being as we age. she says the realness is that we age and if there’s a glitch such as illness or maybe we don’t move like we once did, that we should accept it with the wisdom that we are not 21. she says she does not want to be 21 again but she wants to be a juicy 81 year old. hallelujah.

I don’t care anymore about learning a fancy arm balance. I choose to be a rasa devi.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

Stephen Cope is one of the teachers in my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation training in California and I think he’s brilliant. I was googling some of his articles and I came across this video where he talks about how his practice has changed as he has gotten older. he says that he does not want to do the same practice now as he did when he was younger, that at 56 his practice is much more internal and meditative. in the video he advises how to adapt your yoga practice as you age.

yes, yogins, you are aging. every day. little by little. even those of you who can kick up into that perfect handstand will one day feel that crunchiness, that grinding of an arthritic shoulder and it will be your wake up call to your own impermanence. and it will scare the hell out of you because deep down it is your own fear of death. in this Botoxed, liposucked culture, many of us refuse to accept this, even yogis.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

In May, my teacher from Chennai, India, Srivatsa Ramaswami, is coming to do a training. he wrote the book Yoga for the Three Stages of Life. Ramaswami says that as we get older our practice SHOULD change, that the older we get our practice should become more meditative. this is the Krishnamacharya way.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

I find that the older I get, the more meditative I become, the slower I want to move, the deeper I want to go, the more I want to feel. I want to feel the juiciness of this seasoned body. I am not afraid to feel the aches and pains that crop up because I want to face them in order to move beyond them. I do not want to resist my pain because pain that is not resisted begins to soften. no matter how painful it is, it is a relief to feel.

Pain is not suffering.  Stephen Cope writes that suffering — duhkha — is the resistance to that pain. duhkha is the pain of pain. as a wise ass Buddhist once said, life is pain but suffering is optional.

***********************************************************

The Five Remembrances
(as offered by Thich Nhat Hanh in The Plum Village Chanting Book)

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
—Buddha

 

Never the spirit was born
The spirit shall cease to be never
Never was time it was not
End and beginning are dreams
Birthless and deathless and changeless
Abideth the spirit forever
Death does not touch it at all.
—The Bhagavad Gita

 

What is never born can never die.
—Sama


long time no blog

by L. Valdez Karl

WOW!

It’s been quite some time since I created these rants and musings. In the meantime I returned to India a second time in March 2006 — same city, same school, different adventures. This time I was able to travel south India a little more, which made this second trip more delicious than the first. And I cried the night I had to fly home….

Got lazy the first time and never posted anything about my first trip, but I can assure you it was life-changing. I have to say that the minute my feet hit the ground in India, I felt like I had come home. Yup, the adepts who told me that I would feel that way were right…about everything.

Once I stepped outside the airport into the very early morning Chennai air, I knew I would never be the same. I stopped for a few minutes and my senses took everything in, as an animal would when you open the door and give it the chance to escape. I had no fear, no trepidation whatsoever to be in a foreign country for the first time in my life, alone, not knowing anyone. I took a deep breath and stepped forward into a place that somehow I knew I had lived in before. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew, as well as I know my own name. Say what you want about a sixth sense or deja vu or wacky new-age beliefs, but the feelings that would overcome me in certain places in south India during that first month were too strong to be denied.

Give me time and I will re-create some India experiences for you — the temple touts, the beggars, the giggling school children who would run up to me to touch me and then run away, the train rides and the bus rides, and the journey to the heart of yoga.

Since I returned from my first trip there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about India, the way you think about a lover who you know you never should have left….you think about the good and the bad and the things you would have done differently or not at all, but you savor every moment and remember all of it, as if it just happened yesterday….

india travel forum

by L. Valdez Karl

If you are interested in India travel, check out indiamike.com (see links). Anything you want to know about travel in and to India is found there. It’s an awesome website where people post all sorts of questions about India and you get equally awesome answers. Check it out…

the official countdown

by L. Valdez Karl

The countdown officially begins today.

Four weeks from today my journey to the heart of yoga begins. Four weeks from today I step on a plane to travel overseas for the first time in my life. Four weeks from today, my life will change forever.

I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but I know my time in India will transform me. I’ve been preparing for this trip for approximately a year, but I know nothing can prepare me for the moment I step off the plane in Chennai. India will smack me in the face like a wet, smelly towel.

Something has drawn me to Ma India, something more than the desire to study yoga, something inexplicable. More than one emotion is percolating at the same time — fear, nervousness, excitement, love, passion. All those emotions rolled up together like kittens in a basket, piled one on top of another, inseparable; sleeping, yet ready to explode at any moment.

It is like when you meet someone again who was in your life a very long time ago, someone whom you loved and never forgot, and suddenly they reappear. Those initial moments of seeing that person again after so long — fear, nervousness, love — suddenly everything comes pouring out of your heart, and you are drawn, for an inexplicable reason, never to be the same again. You feel that it is a culmination of something, but you don’t know what, and you don’t want to know, because it doesn’t matter. But it is also a new beginning. Hold your nose, close your eyes, jump right in, whatever happens, happens, om namah shivaya…

I’ve been told that my trip to India will be as if I am “going home”. Who knows? Karma is karma, and our past karma works itself out in mysterious ways. All I know is that it is not because I want to go India, I have to go. I must go, at this particular time of my life, there is no question about it. Something deep in my cellular level is drawing me closer and closer and there is no turning back.