Super Mega Photo Fun Time! Awesome!
Aww.


Wend your way down one of the circuitous sets of steps at Little Vagator Beach and you find yourself in a slender cove, bracketed at either end by cliffs that extend to the sea. Shiva’s is one of only a handful of restaurants on this particular stretch of beach, but perched in front of Shiva’s sits a large trampoline, a veritable kid magnet. The sun dips downward, the parents sit in Shiva’s, drinking, eating or smoking their chillums, while their children leap and tumble.


The family, and the family car.






There are an abundance of utterly mad people who’ve washed ashore in Goa and decided never to return to the land of their birth, and India being what it is --- a land where everything and its opposite are both true at the same time --- many of these afflicted and affected souls have carved out their own particular dreams, no matter how bizarre or off the wall. We’ve been frequenting the results of one such dream, a restaurant called Sharewood, at which every table is its own treehouse. I’ll say it again --- every table is its own treehouse. If that doesn’t stir your blood in some way, you are dead to the world and ought to climb into a coffin.

Each table is either built off the ground, up in a Swiss Family Robinson-style treehouse, or else sunk into the ground, the curved walls of the earth forming parts of the chairbacks. Sharewood also has a small, ankle-deep wading pool filled with various children’s toys, and there are usually at least one to three nude children splashing about.

The place is owned by a French couple who are cyberpunk biker nuts, and there are always several heavily modified motorcycles parked in front that have been channeled and chopped just in time for the coming apocalypse.

The ambience of slight lunacy at Sharewood is abetted by the absolutely brilliant food --- it has the best shakes, the best galettes, and the best tartines I’ve ever tasted, and their croissants are neck-and-neck with the French bakery as far as the buttery flake-factor goes.


We have no burner or stovetop at Resort Melo Rosa, so I dropped 40 Rupees (one US doller) on a “heating element” as a means to continue my caffeine addiction. I’ve procured a French press, and have accordingly switched from espresso to coffee. Drop the heating element into the glass and the water boils in less than two minutes. I am inordinately sketched out about electricity and water in such close proximity, but needs must. I also have a profoundly negative association with “heating elements” as the last time I saw one, it was in use by some junkie friends.



En route to the market area in Anjuna sits a large field, most of which has been given over to the nearby high school for cricket and football. At one end, though, a small portion is where the locals shape, press, and then dry the cow patties. I’m told cow patties make for excellent floors and walls, and are incredibly sterile.



We made the arduous 30-minute scooter ride north from our digs in Arporam to visit the beaches at Arambol and Morjem. Although the area is saturated with beach bungalows, restaurants, and of course, hundreds of shops selling the requisite fisherman pants, sequined peasant bags, and T-shirts, the beach itself is as beautiful a stretch as I’ve ever seen. Where else but India do you get cows on the beach?



We lived within blocks of the beach in Encinitas for roughly 14 years, so both Tara and I tend to have little desire to sit in the sun and sand. Which is why there aren’t too many shots like these.



The Las Vegas Market is around the corner from our old, rat-afflicted flat. It’s atypical of most Indian groceries due to both its vast selection and its overall large size.

I do love the 10 Rupee-per-pack biscuit selection, though why they don’t just call ‘em cookies and be done with it is beyond me --- must be some throwback to British rule.


This mutt lived at our old flat, and was one of the pack of dogs that used to howl and bark at the rats. All of the pack members were old, decrepit and disfigured in some way. This is Broke Face, so called because he was run over by a car as a puppy and managed to survive, though the accident left his head permanently kinked to one side.


The ankle-biter appears unhappy to have been woken from her nap on the scooter ride to Mapusa, the biggest town closest to the beaches of Goa.


We hit the Mapusa market in search of bootleg movies. Okay, in all honesty, I hit the Mapusa market in search of bootleg movies. I scored Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat bangers --- 16 movies on one DVD for the former and 12 movies on one DVD for the latter! --- and a kid’s compilation for Rowan that didn't work when I tried to play it later.


Need For Speed: Pro Street! In India! It’s an EA-produced video game I worked on last year with my man Rod Chong. Bootleg?


Scooter hair! My hair has been blown so high that it’s actually eclipsing the view of Tara and Rowan on the seat behind me. Note: although the forehead is truly giant, please remember that it is the containment unit for my monstrously oversized, incredibly virile, and hypersexy brain.


The kid’s room, or “Kids Korner,” at our favorite local vegetarian eatery, Bean Me Up. (I’d stab a stranger for their key lime pie.) Unfortunately, on this night Cartoon Network was inexplicably frozen, which devastated both Rowan and myself, because it was frozen on a fight scene from the “Cell Saga” of Dragon Ball Z.

How They Do It In Goa
We’ve relocated to the rat-free Resort Melo Rosa, just around the corner from Rolf and Marci’s. Last night was the first in our new digs. I sacked out at about 8:30 (I know, I know: pussy). I could just barely hear the dull, repetitive 130 BPM thud of techno coming from a top-floor room in a building across from ours. Dudes were setting it off!

I woke up this morning at 4:30 and went about my morning routine. I left for yoga practice a little after 6. They were still setting it off! The music was still bumping, a couple people were chilling on the balcony, and I could even make out the flickering on-off pulsing of a strobelight.

I got back from yoga at 8:30. It was full daylight outside and the hand of summer heat was beginning to push down.

Motherfuckers were still partying! I could hear the music, and the soft but distinct murmur of voices. A couple hardy souls were out on the balcony, staring down the morning.

Now that, my friends, is how you party.

Things I Am Into In India That Otherwise I Would Not Be Into
1. Pepsi.
It is so fucking hot that I have had a mega-epiphany, which is like a Super-Sized Big Gulp epiphany: ice-cold sugar syrup with a gallon of caffeine is absolutely fucking brilliant.

2. The Dog Whisperer
Marci has turned us on to this show and we’ve been freebasing like, three episodes a day, easy. Carlos Millan, the Dog Whisperer in question, is serious skill in action. We’ve also started incorporating his techniques into child-rearing. Sh!

3. Goa Trance
When in Rome.

4. Eat, Pray, Love
Yeah, I read that shit. My favorite part was when she goes to Bali, and her sensuous older Brazilian lover introduces her to the joys of anal --- wait, maybe I’m thinking of another book?

5. Jackie Chan
I’ve never been a big Jack fan, because while I think the stuntwork in his films is brilliant, I can’t stand the oafish clowning he tries to fob off as “comedy.” Still, I bought a couple of those bootleg DVDs that have 14 movies on 'em, and one of ‘em had nine Jackie Chan movies on it. I watched Crime Story and City Hunter and was seriously feelin' 'em. I watched 'em without subtitles, too, just straight-up Cantonese. Gangster.

Things That Will Disturb Your Meditation During Finishing Poses On Rolf and Marci’s Back Porch
1. A fly landing on your eyeball.
2. A mosquito on your lower lip.
3. A fly in your ear.
4. A mosquito on your urethra.
5. Discursive thinking about numbers one through four above.
6. Recursive thinking about numbers one through five above.

Ascending Hierarchy of Pain Relief, as Provided by the Chemist, per Single Pill
1. Ibuprofen, 400mg.
2. Ibuprofen, 400mg, plus paracetamol, 400mg.
3. Tramadol muscle relaxer, 50mg.
4. Tramadol muscle relaxer, 50mg, plus ibuprofen, 400mg.
5. Tramadol muscle relaxer, 50mg, plus ibuprofen, 400mg, plus paracetamol, 400mg.

Why We Moved Out of Our Flat
“There’s a mouse in the pool, Daddy,” the kid tells me.

“A mouse?”

“Yes, Daddy, a mouse! A mouse!” She says the last bit slowly, plaintively, making sure I understand. Tara and I had done the Kid Handoff at the yoga studio, and Rowan and I had just pulled into the driveway of our flat.

Sure enough, she’s right. There is a mouse in the pool. The “pool” is a small pond at the head of the driveway, and serves as the center-point for the two flats and the large garden that make up our little compound. The pond is about a foot deep, with a foot-and-a-half lip. It’s perhaps 5 feet in diameter, and has been tiled with blue and white shards. An incongruous maple leaf design made from blue tile pieces sits in the white bottom. A short palm hangs its leafy arms over a pedestal with a statue of Mary on it, and Mary in turn looks down on the water. The 18-inch statue has been placed in what looks like a large glass ampule, as though perhaps a giant will amble by one day and toss back the mother of Christ like an ibuprofen.

Queenie Fernandes, the owner of the property, has three turtles that she lets flap around in the pond; the lip is high enough that there’s no risk they might climb out. The turtles have thick red swatches around their eyes, which you can see when they extend their heads from their shells. They do this when Rowan and I lean over and reach towards them. They’re fearless turtles, apparently, and it’s almost like they want to be petted. Queenie feeds them puffed rice, and once a week lets them eat some meat.

The turtles only swim when Queenie is at home, though. “People will come to steal them,” she tells me. “I can’t leave them in there without someone around.”

On the day Rowan spies a “mouse,” however, the turtles are not in the pool. It’s not actually a mouse, of course. It’s a dead rat that’s a foot-and-a-half-long.

The rodent must’ve fallen into the pool during the night and paddled about ineffectually, unable to claw its way up and over the lip. I hadn’t seen it that morning because I leave for practice when it’s still dark.

Let me tell you something about rats: where there’s one...

Goa was for a long time a Portuguese colony, and the Portuguese influence is writ large across this part of India, from the Spanish surnames and churches to the Christianity and the architecture.

Many houses are built with front-gabled roofs covered with red tiles. They slant upwards at a 45-degree angle on either side to meet in the center, which is different than, say, Mysore, where most houses have flat roofs. The ceilings are unfinished inside the flats, so you can peer way up to see the support ribbing and the underside of the tiles.

I don’t know if this is common, but in our flat there was perhaps a foot of overlap where the roof hung down and over the walls --- meaning there was a foot of open space through which moths, mosquitoes and flies could pass.

In our bedroom, part of the ceiling tiling had been replaced with sheets of corrugated tin. We would wake several times in the night to the tik-tik-tik of rat paws scraping across the roof, rat paws doubtless belonging to some 2-foot-long rat. And at least twice a night there would be a loud, rattling thump as something big and heavy landed on the tin. Dust, dirt and leaves would flutter down on our beds, and Tara and I would lie there, staring upward, waiting to hear if whatever was on the roof made its way into the house. I began sleeping with a broom stick next to the bed.

The open space between wall and ceiling meant that one morning, after I had gone to yoga, Tara was awoken by a furtive, panicked rattling in the kitchen. She woke up Rowan, and the two of them stood outside the darkened kitchen as something rocketed about, trying to find a way out.

“Mommy was freaking out,” said Rowan. Tara hurled a few empty water jugs into the kitchen, and whatever was there managed to find its way back out.

It’s gotten particularly bad during the last week, so much that Tara has been lying in bed, wide-eyed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. We woke up three times last night to rats on the roof, and that was it. We moved out. We’re spending our last week at Resort Melo Rosa.

I tend to be fairly ambivalent about pests --- hey, as long as I’m asleep when they’re around, I’m good --- but Tara does not like rats (or snakes), and by “does not like,” I mean “is pathologically terrified of.” But you gotta draw the line somewhere, and really, finding rat droppings in your bedroom was the final straw.

On the day we found the dead rat in the pond, we returned from breakfast to find that Queenie has thrown in the turtles. The dead rat is still there, and the turtles are beginning to eat the rat, nipping and pulling at it, worrying it with their mouths. That week, they got their meat a little early.

After that, Rowan and I don’t reach out to touch them.

The Chemist
Okay, we need to talk about the chemists in India. They’re these hole-in-the-wall little storefront shops, much like any other in India. But inside is a plethora of magic. In India, it’s assumed that if you can afford medicine, you know what you’re doing with it. So you can go to the chemist and buy two pills, or 10 pills, or a hundred pills, of whatever you fancy you need. It seems that most medicine is sold by the strip, and not by the bottle.

What’s incredible is that you can get anything --- and I mean anything --- but opioids, straight-up, over the counter. No questions asked and no prescriptions necessary, which makes this place unlike even Tijuana, where you have to go through the formality of paying a doctor $30 to write you a prescription.

I haven't been getting too crazy, but as Goa is a mecca for moonlight partying, the guys in the chemist shops start trying to sell you stuff the moment you walk up, which is how I became fully aware of the potential of these places. "Hey, hey, you want pain-killers? Sleeping pills? You want ephedrine? You want steroids?" the guy asked. "You want ketamine?"

Over-the-counter ketamine? Holy shit. You'd better believe all my friends are getting strips of Viagra.

I'm trying to convince Tara that we should become the hopelessly decadent 70s couple, with a stand-alone mirror-top bar in the corner of our house and bowls placed strategically around the house, bowls that hold a rainbow plethora of pills: uppers, downers, in-betweeners, 'luudes, Xanax, Prozac, Nembutal, Percocet, Percodan, what-have-you.

Don't worry! We'll keep the bowls out of reach of the kid.

We would also need a disco ball. Ah, the good times we could have.

I have been using this medicated heat balm that is the hot fire! It's some sort of unguent made from equal parts napalm and the sun's chromosphere.

Know Your Goans
Dangerous over-generalization? Why not? There are roughly three camps in Goa you will find rocketing past you on motorbikes, clogging the restaurants and beaches, and stumbling homeward on the road-side, wildly inebriated.

Firstly, you got your hippies who washed ashore Back in the Day and never left. They might be a bit older, a bit grizzled, their skin cured and tanned to a terrific beef-jerky like consistency. They might wear orange fisherman pants with a yellow kurta covered in om symbols; they have, in a word, "gone native."

Next, you got your crusties, basically the extras from the Babylon rave scene in Matrix Reloaded. (Remember, in the future we will all listen to techno.) Distinguishing characteristics include fierce black dreads down to the ass, which I imagine to be an incredible comfort in 30-degree weather (that’s Celsius), as well as tattoos and piercings. Crusties tend to be garbed in torn, tattered and multi-layered clothes constructed from the surplus uniforms of all the world’s armies. The more utility pockets, the better.

Finally, you have your tourists. You can spot them fairly easily ‘cause they just look so fucking lost and out-of-place and sunburned wherever they are.

Where do we fall in these categories? I don't know, though the scooter rides and incessant heat have put paid to my Bowie-circa-Ziggy fringe-and-earflaps hairstyle --- riding the scooter is like driving into a molten hairdryer, which leaves my hair shall we say quite Kramer-esque. Thank god I am married, and Tara is forced to both do my bidding and find me attractive, or I would have a lot of time on my hands for meditation.

It is so goddamn hot, though, that I find myself eyeing loose, billowy, white India-style shirts and fisherman pants every time we go out because they look so comfortable, though both Tara and I have a standing policy not to buy any clothes we can't and won't wear anywhere else in the world.

Note: I resisted, strongly, the urge to use the title "Goan Crazy!" for this entry.

Tolerance for Roughing It
As I age, my tolerance for “roughing it” decreases. The two are so directly related that one could derive a precise mathematical inverse proportion that could be graphed. My enthusiasm for, say, sleeping in my car at a music festival, or sleeping under the DJ booth at a three-day beach party, or sleeping in a Las Vegas hotel’s poolside deck chair has greatly diminished. I’m not saying I need the SoHo Grand, mind you, I just don’t need foot-long rats in the kitchen at 4 a.m.

Again, Mosquitoes
Rowan, at age 3, has the metabolism of a small thermonuclear reactor, and as a result radiates waves of molten heat. Every mosquito in a one-hundred-meter radius homes in on that heat.

Our 3-foot-tall pile of magma is also so fair-skinned as to be translucent, so the host of mosquito bites she received in our Mumbai hotel room swelled to an angry, impossible red. The bites on her face made her look puffy and disfigured, although she smiled and laughed through all of it.

Thankfully, I’ve acquired a fantastic anti-itch cream from the chemists, we’ve secured netting for her bed, and now also liberally coat her with Odomos anti-mosquito gel when we head out at dusk. She asked what the family on the Odomos tube was doing --- the picture is of a fair-skinned Indian man, woman and child, holding each other and high-beaming pearly white smiles as, surrounding their heads, a shimmering shield of Odomos anti-mosquito gel repels the insects.

“They’re under a mosquito shield,” I told her.

“I want a mosquito shield for our family, Daddy!” she said.

The industrious little fuckers still find places to bite her, though. She came home the other night with three new bites, all on her fingertips, where the anti-mosquito gel had been rubbed off.

>Mega Photo Fun Issue!
Fuck Avedon, this is where I get all Frank Capa/Robert Frank on your asses! Welcome to the Mega Photo Issue of Leaping Lanka.

I’m currently nibbling on stale samosas at Cafe Coffee Day in Calengute, washing them down with a windshield-wiper-blue ice drink called a Granita, which bears a striking resemblance to a blue Slurpee from 7-11. Just to keep things yogic for the idlers in Mysore glued to the blogs like bystanders at a car wreck, I’m conscientiously engaging ashwini and vajroli mudras, and a touch of mula bandha --- that’s like, three koshas, bitches --- gauging how much writing I can fit in before I have to sprint for the toilet in this, the latest round of intestinal Armageddon.

Calengute, by the way, is a little town in northern Goa that was apparently the first beach-head of the hippie invasion in the sixties, and which has subsequently become a relatively blown-out and disgusting package-tour destination for British pensioners.

Let me just say, I thought Southerners in the United States took the record for most outstanding rolls of sunburned neck-fat, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the Brits are seriously holding it down! Good work.

Snaps, Round I


Our luggage. Look at all that shit! I tried to convince the wife we should just take the clothes on our back and a Swiss army knife (or a Leatherman multi-tool, her pick), but she put her foot down and demanded “a change of clothes” and “clean underwear” and “toys for the kid” and other sundry non-essential (i.e. wussy) gear.





Judging by the fact we had a window row, this was the flight from Portland to JFK. Note that despite the blurry, or what I like to call “artistic” quality of the photo, neither Tara nor I look appreciably haggard, this despite rising at 3:30 to catch a 6 a.m. flight. Casey Palmer, at the time addressing his own jet lag, or as I call it, The Lag, was kind enough to ferry us to PDX.





We had a grizzly layover at JFK --- seven fucking hours. We mounted up, rode the subway into the City, and emerged from the tunnels into the daylight of the Village, blinking like the gnomish tourists we were. We ate pizza and risotto at a corner Italian restaurant that offered a completely gluten-free menu. Fucking fruitcake New Yorkers, they’re worse than Californians.

I don’t recall sleeping much on the 14-hour flight to Mumbai. I was too engrossed in this little game called Bookworm that was available on the monitor in the headrest of the seat in front of me. It was sort of like Scrabble plus Tetris plus a word search. Shit was crack-rock. I’m sayin’, though, they had mad kid’s shows --- Dora, Hannah Montana, the works --- and Rowan was occupied almost the entire time.

We hit Mumbai, and after an interminable time spent trying to find a hotel from the airport --- please note: book ahead --- we scored room 12 at the Ace Hotel, where we would spend the next 12 hours.

Unfortunately, none of that is revealed in this photo. What is revealed is that, despite our trials and tribulations, and the fact that at this point we’d slept perhaps 2 hours of the last 36, my wife looks fantastic.

Which reminds me, traveling with a kid is like being an adolescent all over again ‘cause you have to fucking sneak around like teenagers in order to make out. I’m a grown-ass married man! I shouldn’t have to feel like a sneak-thief when I wish to fondle what, I keep explaining to Tara, technically I own, i.e. her person.


So we arrived at 10 p.m. Friday night. The flight to Goa wasn’t until 2 the next day. Naturally, we all had a strong dose of The Lag, so everyone was wide awake at 4 a.m. Our hotel was near the airport, so there was fuck-all to do. We lapped the block once to confirm that yes, we were in India, then headed back to the room, where we spent 9 hours watching Indian TV.


The crib, in all its glory! You’d be hard-pressed to find a place more uncomfortable than this!

Bamboo furniture, minimal padding? Check.

Hard-ass marble surfaces everywhere? Check.

No screens on the windows? Check.

Top-floor placement, for maximum heat containment? Check.

Foot-long rat in the kitchen at 6 a.m.? Check.

Have I mentioned the smell of human shit that wafts through the bedroom window every hour?

I also forgot the oppressiveness of the naked glare of a fluorescent bulb, which gives our flat the charm of a police interrogation room or bomb shelter.

Perhaps my favorite amenity is our bed. It is exactly, precisely, painfully 4 feet wide by 6 feet long. I am 6-feet-2 inches tall. Lest you think my wife laughs her 5-foot-4-inch frame to sleep every night,, please take into consideration that the mattress, if it may be called that, is actually a giant sack of concrete, or perhaps a reproduction Spanish Inquisition-era torture device. This is Goa, after all, which was for a long while a Portugese colony, and I know that repro furniture is all the rage with the kids these days. If only they’d gone Eames instead of Torquemada.

Lodging in Goa is a tough call --- we could’ve spent the dough for a “resort,” but most of ‘em would’ve cost more than a month’s rent in Portland. We could drop some dough in getting some bedrolls and cushions for our place, but incentive is pretty low because we’re only here a month.

It’s easy to whinge. But it’s India, what did we fucking expect?

The ladies like to keep it lovely; this is the entrance to the bathroom, in which Rowan has observed Daddy peeing directly into the grate in the floor.

“Daddy, why are you peeing on the floor?” she asks.

It’s important to be honest with them. “Well sweetie,” I say, “it’s because I can.”





Rowan is scoping out our porch. Jesus, that is one psychedelic dress.











Rowan shows off some of her latest watercolors.








Rowan models her motorcycle helmet. The kid rides shotgun on the front of the scooter. She’s like a dog in a pickup truck --- hands on the dash, face out in the wind like the carved statue on the prow of a pirate ship, wind in her eyes, tongue no doubt out and lolling to the side. You will note the copious heaps of toys in the background, as well as the laptop, which was no doubt playing Princess Mononoke or My Neighbor Totoro or The Last Unicorn.


We’ve been frequenting this spot called the German Bakery. I will say one thing for Goa --- you can get cappucino everywhere! The food here is so off the Richter --- tofu, real croissants brushed with egg white that just flake apart in your hand, fucking salads with lettuce even. I think I’ve had Indian food once, and it’s not for lack of trying --- everything here is so geared up for tourists, it’s ridiculous. But everything is fresh made from scratch and just so tasty.

You’ll note that Tara is, in this photo, looking a wee bit fatigued at having to cater to Rowan’s every whim. The Lag, plus massive input of new stimuli, plus disruption of regular routine means that we, or should I say Tara, gets a few days of a weepy, clingy, mood swingerific child. A bit of hatching took place shortly after this photo was snapped.

A pre-yoga practice pic, snapped by Rowan! Diane Arbus, look out. Er ... anyway, Rowan hasn’t quite figured out how to get people’s heads into the frame yet. She wanted a photo of Ella the elephant and Mommy in baddha konasana.

We Made It
The journey was long --- so very, very long --- but uneventful. Rowan went on blackout during a huge chunk of the NYC-to-Mumbai leg and I became ensnared in a little game called "Bookworm" that I played on the TV mounted in the seat in front of me. In-flight TVs are absolutely frigging genius --- the kid watched Spongebob, Hannah Montana and sundry other Time Eaters and Tear Preventers.

Goa
Got a bit of the hotel runaround trying to book lodging in Mumbai, and had a Layover: The Extended Remix before flying out to Goa the following day. Goa is trippy --- very spread out, but very Indian in that when there are towns or villages, they're incredibly densely packed. There are several beaches up and down the coast, and we're still trying to sort out which nationality runs what beach. But hey, don't be fooled --- we're still very much in India.

Jet Lag
The kid has been holding up very well, but the Lag means she runs from zero to meltdown in perhaps 45 seconds flat. She also fell asleep face down on the scooter speedometer yesterday, mid-scooter ride, which I didn't actually believe possible until I saw it happen. Jet lag to a 4-year-old looks a lot like narcolepsy.

Euros!
I just got to give a big shout-out to all the Brits, Kiwis and Aussies out here in Goa --- you know, us Americans get all the credit for being the fattest fucks on the planet, so lemme just say I'm glad to see you people holding it down lovely! It brings me such a thrill to see you people trundling around shops and restaurants, sun-burned bellies pouring over your hastily purchased fisherman pants, sucking down frightening quantities of lager, chips, and especially chicken curry.

Yoga with Rolf?
Day one: flying.

My DJ Set at The Park Hotel Has Been Canceled
From Popbitch: "Authorities in Bangalore have banned dancing in nightclubs. People have to just sit around while the DJ plays music, as police are sent to check up."

I'm still on at the Balaji Palace, though.

Been a Minute Since I Posted One of These
Thu 07FEB DELTA 434 OK T LV PORTLAND ORE 610A F M 22B
AR NYC-KENNEDY 231P COACH

Thu 07FEB DELTA 16 OK T LV NYC-KENNEDY 920P D M 40D
AR MUMBAI/BOMBAY 1035P# COACH

Lauren,
I thank you for your blog posting and your interest in this aspect of the practice as it’s helped me articulate more of my own ideas.

I am curious to know in what sense is the primary series “nearly impossible” for some students to master without “daily adjustments”? On what are you basing this observation? Also, on what are you basing the supposition that “without regular assistance, students would make little or no progress”? I’m remarking on this because your statements aren't borne out by my experience, both practicing and teaching ashtanga vinyasa. For what length of time have you observed a body of students, i.e. one year, three years, five years?

The primary series is a progressive sequence, as you’ve noted --- over time, the later poses make the poses that precede them easier. But it’s important not to forget that the earlier poses make the later poses possible.

In a larger sense, on the anna maya kosha or purely physical level, the intermediate series begins to seriously work with the plexus of nerves that runs through the sacrum; to use another, more yogic map, on the prana maya kosha level, and perhaps deeper, nadi shodhana begins to work on the kanda, the egg-shaped “knot” where the three main nadis join, and on the sushumna nadi, which extends from the muladhara to the crown of the head.

Do these channels feel familiar? They should, as intermediate goes to work on them hammers-and-tongs with an increasingly and progressive series of intense backbends, and then heading in the opposite direction with a series of intense forward bends. The advanced sequences of ashtanga then flip-flop between these extreme directions with, shall we say, less compassionate sequencing.

To further elaborate on your ideas about intermediate and to add some clarity, pasasana is the beginning of preparation for backbending. Its twisting aspect continues the alleviation of forward bending that began with setu bandasana, and it begins to strengthen and open the hip flexors and calves, as well as strengthen the soleus. These aspects are integral to kapotasana and urdvha dhanurasana.

Krouncasana will continue to lengthen the quadriceps, hip flexors and psoas, as well as the IT band on the extended leg; again, all of which are important for backbending. We are lengthening the connective tissue in the legs and in the front core of the body.

Supta vajrasana then becomes a counter-pose to kapotasana and helps reset the sacrum. Bakasana, with its rounded spine, continues the transition into backbending counterposes. Chief among its aims is to strengthen the abdominal area, which when contracted will help lengthen and elongate the muscles of the back.

Karandavasana, and to a certain extent tittibasana, are gentle counterposes to dwi pada sirsasana, as the spine is gradually brought out of the state of extreme flexion and the core is once again engaged and strengthened to help return the spine and the muscles of the back to a sense of neutrality. Karandavasana also involves an intense rounding of the spine in order to fit the shins into the armpits. (Mayurasana then becomes the counterpose for the wrists, forearms and spine, which bows upward from the base of the elbows.)

While it may be more challenging to do eka pada sirsasana than dwi pada sirsasana, the risk for injury in dwi pada is much, much greater, which is generally why it is given after some proficiency is demonstrated in eka pada sirsasana. Yogi nidrasana is aptly named, too --- it’s a relaxing, resting pose, and it begins the transition away from leg-behind-head, which carries through into tittibasana.

I’ve found it helpful to expand my ideas of asana sequencing beyond the pose/counterpose dialectic and into a triadic approach. We begin with the attack, or the ascension, the rising note, or the Brahma/creator aspect of the trimurti, which evolves into the sustain, the plateau, or the Vishnu/preserver aspect. This is followed by the decay, the decline, the Shiva-destroyer.

Baradvajasana begins the Brahma aspect of the leg-behind-head sequence, culminating in dwi pada sirsasana, which may be considered the Vishnu of the sequence. Yogi nidrasana begins the Shiva aspects of leg-behind-head.

These asanas are also nested as pieces of different triadic series for backbending, twisting, and strengthening.

I’m not a regular follower of your blog, so I can’t comment on recurring themes in it, but I do get a sense that you’re focusing on a lot of the minutiae of the asanas --- hands must be bound, heels must be grabbed, et cetera, et cetera. This can be helpful, although to borrow a phrase from Matthew Sweeney's Ashtanga Yoga As It Is, it’s a phase through which one ought to move.

I practice with a woman who once told me, “I used to be concerned about taking my heels. Now I just make the shapes.” This is after more than 10 years of daily, dedicated practice; I think it’s important to note that in order to move beyond a state of being concerned about “grabbing her heels,” she had to first experience that state.

Part of the “nadi shodhana,” regardless of being able to grab your heels or lick your coccyx, is to “make the shape,” even if the shape is a fairly intense back- or forward bend, while at the same time cultivating a dispassionate, ease-full, skilled state of observation and awareness. This state can be measured by a yogini’s fluid entry and exit from the pose, her stability and calm (Patanjali’s famous “sthira sukkham”), and of course, the quality of her breath, both the out and in-breath. Which is ideally even, measured, and calm (Again, according to our friend Patanjali, “dirgha” and “sukshma”).

My speculation on part of the reasoning behind the way poses are given in Mysore is that Sharath can see a student’s avoidance of a pose, and for the most part he’s very practiced in reading a student’s body and listening for the student’s breath to determine their sthira and sukkham while they’re in a pose.

This cultivation of calm, dispassionate observation in a pose as stimulating as kapotasana --- which ignites the body’s parasympathetic nervous system --- necessitates and is predicated on a retraining of the nervous system. This development of an internal candle flame that is unwavering is what I take “nadi shodhana” to mean.

It can take years to master an intricate physical and mental skill that requires both strength and flexibility. I’ve read that it takes seven years on average to “master” a skill, that is, to be proficient and skillful in its use. In that context, one would expect at least three to five years developing journeyman status.

So as I mentioned before, it’s not as important that, for example, one has to be lifted back up from karandavasana --- though most everyone, given time and practice, can learn to place their feet in lotus and lower to their arms --- it’s the ease, fluidity, and most importantly, sense of dispassionate observation that’s important. This is in itself a skill to be refined, learned and polished like a fine jewel.

I can think of many reasons why someone ought not to proceed through primary without at least “making the shape,” and chief among those is injury. There is also a tendency to gloss over and ignore those poses we do not like or those we find difficult. As the sequences are progressive, when you skip something now, you pay for it later.

To return to intermediate sequencing, bhekasana is very important to kapotasana, as is laguvajrasana, among others ... until these two are not only comfortable but done correctly, kapotasana is very, very difficult. This is part of the reason why these backbends should generally not be given as a chunk or “subsequence.” In fact, in my experience, kapotasana is incredibly difficult, indeed impossible, unless and until one can slowly and calmly lift and lower from standing into urdvha dhanurasana.

Ultimately, I must ask you how many of your ideas about the practice are related to your own desire to get the next pose? As Sweeney notes, again from Ashtanga Yoga As It Is, and I can second through my own practice, this is a difficult phase of the practice, but one that I believe many people, if not all, go through, and one that is allayed through continuous, steady practice through all stages and phases of life --- including injury, illness, and massive life-shifts.

The triadic view of the sequencing is helpful, and I also find a general triadic view of my practice in general as helpful. One might, for example, go through a Shiva phase of practice when one has to be on-site at the construction yard at 7 a.m., which leaves an hour of practice time at 5 a.m. only three days a week. The desire to feed one’s needs for the next pose abates significantly in the face of life’s ebb and flow.

Again, I thank you for the stimulation your post has provided. I hope you derive a nugget of value from this that may reflect on your own practice, as your post inspired me reflect on my own practice.

Namaste,
jason

Who Peed in My Alembic?
Spiros at Soul Jerky just posted a fascinating article on Green Hermeticism, and I thought it'd be an interesting footnote to link to Tim Miller's article on ashtanga yoga and alchemy, in which he notes: "Turning lead into gold is a metaphor for the liberation of spirit from matter, which is the primary goal of both alchemy and yoga."

Link: The Alchemy of Yoga

It makes me think that Tim ought to be writing more articles, whether he's commissioned by Yoga Journal or not.

In the Hermetic alchemical tradition, there are three stages of spiritual transformation: nigredo, or as Jung has it, individuation, purification, or burnout of impureness; albedo, or whitening, spiritualisation, or enlightenment; finally, rubedo, or reddening, for unification of human with divine, limited with unlimited.

It's important to note that these kinds of transformations take place in a crucible, and a crucible must by nature be stronger than the materials heated and transformed within it. The primary series and hatha yoga in general aims to construct the adamantine body in which this transformation takes place.

Set aside for a moment the obvious parallels between the different sequences in ashtanga vinyasa, which would cast the primary series or yoga chikitsa as nigredo, intermediate series or nadi shodhana as albedo, and the advanced series as rubedo, because it's important to recall that Pattabhi Jois says, "Primary series --- very, very important. Intermediate series --- important. Advanced series --- demonstration only!"

The tree-branch metaphor of the eight limbs of ashtanga yoga is relevant in that nigredo, albedo and rubedo can occur simultaneously, rhizomatically, rather than in a step-wise, hierarchical progression. All three can occur in primary series. Picasso famously said he spent his whole life learning to draw like a child again, and sometimes I think we're all just trying to find ways to get back to our very first yoga practice, that very first state of savikalpa samadhi that perhaps ensued.

What Nidra Can Do For You
The only advice Tim gave me regarding teaching was, if I recall, "Short naps really help."

Pinched from somewhere or another on the World Wide Web:

During sleep, the body goes through its most significant regenerative processes, which include the production of growth hormone (GH). GH stimulates rebuilding of muscle, improves the delivery of fuel to muscle and stimulates fat metabolism.

Taking a brief nap during the day can provide additional GH release, potentially improving recovery. The duration of a nap need not exceed 20-30 minutes to be effective.

Sleep also supports proper mental functioning such as memory and other important tasks required for optimal performance.

To summarize: take frequent naps!

Remarkable Armor, Part I
Check it out, I just barged a stovetop moka pot/cappucino steamer from Goodwill for $4. That's right, four fucking dollars. $80? I think not. I have been coming up so hard at the neighborhood Goodwill, it's rederkulous.

Hibernation Sickness
I haven't stayed awake for 24 hours straight since my mid-teenage years, which was probably the result of the last illegal warehouse party (i.e. "rave") that I attended --- I haven't been to a concert, show or gala event yet that at some point wasn't improved by me going home and falling asleep in my warm jammies and soft bed. Suffice it to say, seeing as how I haven't trained for the all-nighters, my post-all-nighter performance since December 21 hasn't been great.

Let's heap on top of that all-nighter a week straight of 3- to 5-hour hammer-and-nails bike rides, the yoga, as well as all the holiday shenanigans --- the last, might I add, also greatly improved when I quietly nod off in the corner. Let's also throw into the mix a couple glasses of wine on a late-night New Year's Eve, more early-morning yoga, and of course more bike riding, and what do you get? Yesterday I took a nice, fat coma. It started at about 3:30 p.m. and I came out of it at 5:45 this morning. If I hadn't had a class to teach I swear I coulda kept going, too.

I went a little over the top with the rajas, which burned everything out and left me entirely too tamasic, which I suppose is the risk when you're perpetually vata deranged. Where has all my ojas gone? Anyway, since my physical vessel informed me it was time to slow down by inducing a short bout of hibernation, I feel much, much better. It's these little moments, such as being frozen by Vader in carbonite, that allow one the time to re-evaluate and re-establish one's schedule and habits and fix accordingly.

Addendum
My wife has, as is her wont, brought it to my attention that in fact she is not the crazy one in our relationship, as I would have everyone believe, and she reminded me, also as is her wont, that I fit those shoes more than adequately, as I was the one who vigorously okayed if not outright championed our seemingly suicidal itinerary from Portland to Encinitas, i.e. driving overnight to fly out of Sacramento. Said odyssey occasioned by the $300-plus tickets from Portland versus the $75 tickets from Sacramento.

Insanity, Sheer Insanity
I wrapped up a first-series class at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Tara, Rowan and I loaded up the car shortly thereafter. I mainlined a gingerbread latte from Peet's at 8 as the fam percolated out by the curb and then we dropped the hammer out of Portland, heading south on the 5.

I got pulled over at about 2:30 a.m. just outside of Redding, California. The cop clipped me at 90 in a 65, though he wrote out ticket for 85, so I managed to duck the reckless charge. I'll take the rap 'cause hey, 10 minutes earlier he'd have nailed me with the cruise-control pinned just into triple digits.

It was also by far the most pleasant experience with The Man I've ever had. I rolled the window down and the guy says, "I gunned you at 90 in a 65. Can I see your license and registration?"

Five minutes later he returned. "Here's your license. Please sign here." I signed the ticket and that was it --- none of the bullshit cop banter, or third degree, or smart-guy dickwad posturing.

I used to whip a faded blue 1990 Oldsmobile 98 that had a faux wood dash, leather seats, and power doors and windows, all of which were tres luxurious. It was the first car I ever owned made after Reagan was president --- this was only 5 years ago, mind you --- and it was like driving a big, dreamy couch.

I ran it gangster, too, and left the Michigan plates on --- with up-to-date registration, mind you --- and in sunny Encinitas it was trife enough that it was a veritable cop magnet. Every cop in the city pulled me over, ran my license, and then let me go at least once.

Maybe I looked like someone living out of the car, or maybe it was because a massive American car was horrifically out of place in a city where the latest M6 BMW is standard issue. One cop spent 15 minutes asking me where I lived, where I worked, and if I had a history of drug use. That's a lot to infer from merely owning an Oldsmobile.

I finally got one too many "Do you know why I pulled you over?"s and I absolutely hatched on the cop. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I said.

The response left him a bit flat-footed: "Uh?"

"You pulled me over," I said, "Why don't you just fucking tell me why you pulled me over!"

The cop said that my headlight was out, so I told him I was getting out of the car, which I did, and then I inspected my front end. Both headlights were functioning perfectly. The cop suggested maybe the wire was loose, and then he let me go.

I was so angry and yet so nervous that I was twitching, and I had that gross worms-in-the-stomach feeling. Fucking cops.

Of course, nowadays the guy would have just tasered me for raising my voice.

So I'm thinking I might write a letter to the Redding California Highway Patrol office telling them how positive my experience with this cop had been.

We pulled up to the Sacramento airport three hours after the experience in Redding, at maybe 4:30? We boarded the plane for San Diego at 6 and stepped out into the storied cut-glass blue sky of Southern California at 7:30 a.m.

We made it to practice at the studio by 9.

Fucking crazy, I tell you, though I'm taking none of the blame for it 'cause my crazy wife planned the itinerary. God, I love her for that kind of shit.

When he saw us at the studio, Tim's face split open in one of his patented gleamers. "Well look who's here!" he said.

The ensuing hug was worth it, worth all of it.

Holiday Travel Plans
I'm sure I've lost a ton of e-mail addresses since I've switched over computers, so I'm gonna be posting our December travel plans — we'll be Encinitas December 21–28. Bros and babes: prepare to party down.

Additionally, if any fake rappers desire to engage in rhyme battles, I will be on-hand to serve up all sucker MCs, and if any cyclists are desirous of having their legs torn from their bodies, I will be on-hand to melt off the requisite appendages on my velocipede.

December is Crap Music Month
Current faves include Phil Collins' No Jacket Required and Trance Classics Volumes 1 and 2. No Jacket Required is part of my American Psycho Megamix, which includes the music that was the subject of Patrick Bateman's rather academic reviews, and includes but is not limited to Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and the News, Madonna, Genesis and INXS.

Also, I am agreement with Bateman in that U2 is truly shitty music and Bono is in fact the devil.

Note: the above list does not include or reflect any sense of "irony."

Portland Versus Encinitas
In case you were wondering about some of the more superficial differences.

Encinitas = "Dude!" "Gnarly!" "Bro!", real estate moguls, breast enhancements, Botox, S6-class Benzos spinning on 20s.

Portland = Subaru nation, the tyranny of trees, standard-issue beards for all men, face tattoos, multiple piercings.

Unfortunately, despite an intrinsic two-hour-daily drive time, I still gotta go with Encinitas, if only because of 360 days a year of bike riding, and because one can hang out with Tim for two hours a day. Although one would undoubtedly be paying $1,850 a month to live in a two-bedroom apartment in (shudder) Village Park, and either teaching yoga at seven or eight gyms throughout North County, or commuting 30 minutes to an office park purgatory, where, if one is lucky, one can gaze longingly at the perfectly landscaped foliage outside the office window.

More Positive Things About Encinitas
The park at Moonlight Beach.
The sense of yoga community.
Muffins from Honey's.
The Community Resource Center thrift store on Second Street --- fifty-cent paperbacks, holler!
Cut-glass blue sky every day all year.
Cresting the hill westwards on Santa Fe Drive and seeing Swami's in all its palm-tree-and-Pacific glory.

More Positive Things About Portland
People are in general really, really nice here.
It rains!
If you're into cycling, this is the place to be.
One million coffee shops plus Powell's Books equals a book-lover's paradise.
You will never, ever feel poor here.
Practicing yoga in the warm flicker of candlelight at Near East.

LENNON!
December 7, 1980, R.I.P.

Dwelling On The Anna Maya Kosha For A Second...
I just finished an interesting book on stretching called "Relax into Stretch" by Pavel Tsatsouline, a former Soviet Special Forces instructor and kettle-bell nut. Sometimes wonder why you're more flexible after taking a few days off? Let's talk about the Reminiscence Effect.

"In fact, occasional time off will help you to improve due to the reminiscence effect.

Motor-learning experts know that a skill tends to improve after a lay-off. Multiple repetitions of a drill, a rock climbing technique, a reverse punch, a split, or a deadlift, forms what Russians call the dynamic stereotype, or a ‘how-to manual’ of this movement in the athlete’s nervous system.

You learn to perform exactly as practiced — the form, the force, the range of motion, etc. Although forming a dynamic stereotype is necessary to master a sports skill, once it is formed, it is difficult to improve on. Once you have reached a plateau, continued practice only reinforces it, which is why a powerlifter has to start all over with lighter weights once he has set a new personal best.

If you lay off stretching, your brain gets a chance to forget your limit. This is the essence of the reminiscence effect. Once your old PR [personal record] has been erased, you are ready to train for a new one!

Russian author Victor Popenko advocates another plateau-busting strategy similar to a lay-off — the stepwise progression.

It is known that, in any endeavor, it takes much less effort to maintain the achieved performance level than to reach it in the first place. Say you have been practicing splits for five sets three times a week. You have made good progress but finally hit the wall. Then cut back to the minimal amount of stretching which maintains your current level, for example, two sets once every five days.

Maintenance requirements vary from person to person. I can skip up to a month and still do a split in a seminar through shear grit. Most comrades need to practice at least once every five to seven days, lest they choose to slide back. Having stabilized your flexibility for a few weeks, once again increase your training load — and exceed your old limits!"

Zombie Yoga



As all my friends know, I absolutely hate zombies. Hate 'em. So much as a conversation about Dawn of the Dead will give me three nights' worth of filling-rattling nightmares, no joke.

Unfortunately, I love yoga. So imagine my mind-melting cognitive dissonance when I learned about Zombie Yoga.

From Boing Boing: "The invite said 'Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie.' When filmmaker and Boing Boing pal Jason Wishnow set out to create a trailer for Scott Kenemore's new book The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead (yes, people make video trailers for books!) a vision came to his brrraiiiiinns. Why not gather 100 people in a Brooklyn park, dress them as zombies, and film them all doing yoga? There's no inner peace like undead inner peace.

So today on Boing Boing tv, in honor of Halloween, we've produced a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Jason's Zombie Yoga trailer (we'll share his actual trailer tomorrow!). Oh, and -- watch out for flying guts when they do 'downward decapitated dog' or 'corpse pose.'"

Totally Random!
Hot to def: vanilla ice-cream ramen, courtesy of Kikuya, a ramen shop near Tokyo's Kitasenjyu Station. Big ups Boing Boing.

As Per Warren Ellis:
"First someone torched the big faux-Wicker Man ahead of schedule, which reportedly led to hippies wailing 'But it’s not his time!' And now, I’ve got to say, they’re not having a good time, out there in the arseweevil-riddled sands of Black Rock City:

A Burning Man participant was found dead this morning, hanging from the inside of a two-story high tent, according to Mark Pirtle, special agent in charge for the Bureau of Land Management.

The apparent suicide would be the festival’s first in its 21 year history, Pirtle said.

And did you want a reason why Black Rock City should be perhaps nuked from orbit with all hands attending?

Pirtle said the man was hanging for two hours before anyone in the large tent thought to bring him down.

'His friends thought he was doing an art piece,' Pirtle said."

Tee hee.

Tee hee-hee-hee.

Apropos of Eddie Merckxx



This guy named Ray Dobbins went and built himself a heat-rocking mega-banger of a replica of one of the Cannibal's whips from his days with the Molteni team, which went from '71 through '76. Dude even milled and drilled the same parts that Eddie used to!

The bar-tape and brake-hood color combo is FIRE!

Apropos of an EZ Board Thread
Are we merely working muscle groups when we practice the yoga? Are we just working out?

Or is the point of the yoga to manipulate our energy bodies?

Let's go with what Pattabhi Jois has always maintained, that, (imagine an Indian man shouting): "Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is Patanjali yoga!" The guy's been doing it for 60-plus years, so we ought to give some credence to that experience.

So then, what does our friend Patanali say about yoga? He cuts to the chase in the second sutra of the very first book. For those who haven't yet had it drummed into their heads: "Yogas citta vrtti nirodha." The translation that I'll use: "Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind."

Not much there about "energy bodies" or "muscle groups." Patanali then goes on to detail the various techniques one can use to still the whirpool of the mind, and again, none mention energy bodies or muscle groups. Or asana, for that matter.

Patanali goes on to lists several obstructions, or antarayah, to yoga, and the very first one he lists is vyadi, or sickness. This is the first obstruction he lists because it is the obstruction that must be dealt with immediately and before the ones that follow, for if your body is sick, it is very difficult to address the later limbs of ashtanga.

Although the practice of the ashtanga vinyasa system addresses the entirety of Patanjali's list of antarayah (i.e. styana, samsaya, pramada, etc, etc), right off the bat it will help ameliorate vyadi, and it will do this in several ways. On a mundane or merely physical level (i.e. "working muscle groups), the practice will make one stronger and more flexible. It will help establish a physical sense of well-being from which the limbs of the yoga can grow.

On a more profound level, the discipline or tapas will begin to burn clean the indriyas, or organs of perception, helping to eliminate physical sickness by making one more attentive to how one feeds and maintains the body. To deny or ignore the purely physical aspect of the yoga is to deny the profound healing and sense of well-being that a yoga asana practice can bring.

Pattabhi Jois also used to talk frequently of the pancha koshas, the five sheaths, the outermost being the annamaya kosha, or the gross body. According to this conception, contained within that are the pranamaya kosha, and within that the manomaya kosha, the vijnanamaya kosha, and ultimately, the anandamaya kosha.

The systems of poses in the ashtanga yoga directly engages the annamaya kosha with asana, but couples the asanas with the breath to engage the pranamaya kosha as a vehicle or link between the other koshas. The koshas do not exist independently of each other, and particularly with ashtanga vinyasa, we directly employ several koshas to work with the others.

Key to this idea of the sheaths is that they all effect change on the others --- except for the anandamaya kosha, which is that which is changeless. The energy body includes and is part of the physical body, and we use the physical body to engage the energy body ... and ideally we engage both the physical body and the energy body to engage other, more profound bodies.

We don't want to reduce the yoga to mere exercise, because that strands it in the gross, physical realm. But we also don't want to strand it in the subtle or energy realm, either, because that both denies the profound physical effect of the practice and leads to the trap of thinking that working with the subtle body is the chief aim of the yoga.

So is ashtanga yoga a physical system that works muscle groups, much as an aerobics or gymnastics class? The answer is yes. Is it a system that allows us to experience and manipulate "energy," however one conceives of it? The answer is also yes. Both of these these results are only side-effects of a practice, and not the aim or the purpose. The physical body and the subtle body change over time, while the yoga seeks to reunite us with that which does not change, and that which is beyond time.

Paucity of Posts
True.

Update: Portland!
Minding a friend's shop --- Near East Yoga --- while he and his wife are out of town.

Alfred North Whitehead
"It is the duty of the future to be dangerous."

Total Video Game Script Word Count
141,000 and change.

Trips to Vancouver
4

Note to Customs Officials in Vancouver, B.C.
Bugger off.

Reasons for Canadian Custom Officials' Interest and Detainment
1. The other "Jason Stein" is on the Canadian "Most Wanted" list.
2. My height, weight, body-mass index, and tattoos are strikingly similar to that of many heroin addicts.

Racist Yet Eco-conscious Vancouver Cab Driver
Reducing carbon emissions and saving the planet while hating "darkies and chinks."

Stacy: Attack of the Japanese School-girl Zombies

Wait ... what was I just talking about? Japanese schoolgirls, mysteriously dying, then returning as undead zombies? All inexplicably named "Stacy"? Oh, yeah.

Since We're on the Tantra Tip ...
They've got Mark Whitwell's Yoga of Heart at Netflix! If you have an account, cop the DVD, 'cause Whitwell is hot fire! To swipe the blurb, he "explores the deeper tantric dimensions of hatha yoga through the male surrender to the female principle." He's a lovely man, and he has a great take on Krishnamacharya's later teachings.

Quantum Tantra
I feel like Spiros at Souljerky was up on this a while ago, but I can't recall reading about Nick Herbert's deal anywhere over there. Nick Herbert, you may recall, has published the shortest proof of Bell's Theorem to date. And the reading list is quite interesting. So...

"Q: What do quantum tantriks want?

A: We want to fuck atoms ... We are living in a time when all our knowledge is being built anew. Modern physics is fully erect science; quantum tantra is science on all fours."

Where I've Been, What I've Been Doing, Part II
Cosmodemonic Video Game Company, Inc.
75,688 words written thus far, and counting ...

Where I've Been, What I've Been Doing, Part I


April the Twenty-eighth, Two-thousand and seven.

We Lost Another One
Faster than you can snap your fingers, faster than you can blink, in the space between the thud of the heart in your chest, he's gone. Just like that.

Sean was always light-hearted, quick to smile, and had a contagious passion for the yoga.

My deepest condolences to his ladyfriend, his family, his friends. Much love and light to you all.

Mike Watt Spiel
If you can thread through the microscopic font size, Mike Watt's tour diaries make for great reading. Watt was the bassist for the Minutemen and firehose, and goddamn if "Jesus and Tequila" off Double Nickels on the Dime didn't change my life. He's since released several solo albums, none of which I've heard, and plays bass with Iggy and the Asheton brothers in the rejuvenated Stooges.

(Apparently Steve Albini has produced their new album, too, all of the above guaranteeing I'll give it a listen. Thank you, Bittorrent.)

Watts hammered out his own San Pedro, California-based punk-rock patois, which is charming and self-effacing. He doesn't have conversations, he spiels; he doesn't play the bass guitar, he "works the thud staff." His home page, hootpage.com, is also filled with daily journal entries from his various tours.

The headache-inducing microdot font size is abetted by the fact that the long entries are all crammed on the page in long, single paragraphs, but there's a realness to be found and treasured in his words. The Minutemen straddled the worlds of punk rock and hardcore, but were neither nihilistic like the former nor as strident as the latter, and after reading Watt's journals, you understand why. He is genuinely excited and interested in the world.

If you can find them, his descriptions of the Stooges live gigs are revelatory, beyond the fact that Iggy Pop still sounds like an absolute madman on stage. With the Stooges, Watt oscillates between two extremes: the first, more common, extreme has him fighting a self-conscious and anxiety-ridden battle to keep time with the band, keep his bass in tune, and stay on top of the sound equipment. The second extreme are those moments when the band locks into a thunderous groove, and Watt falls to his knees and bows his head in worship in front of his bass amp, the better to somatically absorb the thunder pouring forth. He writes of "disappearing" into and "taking off" with the music.

Sarvikalpa samadhi? Call it the yoga of the thud staff.

Yoga at Altitude
“If some people are telling you they had their climax on Mount Everest, they lied,” says Reinhold Messner in the November National Geographic. “It is an awful place.”

Caroline Alexander, the article’s author, asks: why risk everything to go there?

“Without the possibility of death,” says Messner, “adventure is not possible.”

The article, from which the following information and quotes were taken, hails Messner as the world’s greatest mountaineer. In 1975, Messner ascended, with longtime partner Peter Habeler, the 26,470-foot summit of Gasherbrum I, called Hidden Peak; Gasherburm I is one of the giants of the Himalayas. Most remarkable of all, though, was that Messner and Habeler ascended without porters, camps, fixed ropes, or oxygen.

Messner and Habeler then scaled Everest without oxygen in May of 1978, a feat that National Geographic says “took climbing to the absolute limit.” Three months later, Messner climbed Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain on Earth, solo. Two years later, he again climbed Mount Everest without oxygen, equipped with a single small rucksack — and alone.

Messner was the first climber to ascend all 14 "eight-thousanders," or peaks over 8,000 meters tall.

The yoga of Messner’s climbing — and make no mistake, it is yoga — involves intense practice and dedication. “If I am well-prepared,” says Messner, “and if I’m living a long time in my visions, in my fantasy, with my challenge, before doing it, I’m living with it, I’m dreaming about it, planning, preparing, training.”

The residue of his practice is a fierce, consuming, and single-pointed state of concentration. “So when I start to climb,” he continues, “especially when I’m on a big wall, whatever the difficulties — I’m so concentrated that there is nothing else existing; there’s only a few meters of wall where I am hanging and climbing; and in this concentration, everything seems quite logical. There is no danger anymore. The danger is gone … But the concentration is absolute.”

As Messner says, without the possibility of death, adventure is not possible. It must be understood, however, that for Messner, the idea of “life” and “adventure” are inextricably intertwined, for it is true, too, that without the possibility of death, life is not possible. That’s the word “life” as opposite to the idea of merely subsisting, which is the ceaseless reaction to external stimuli — avoiding discomfort, seeking its opposite — eternally buffeted by the mind's internal chatter and its cherished anxieties and neuroses.

For Messner, that internal chatter is stilled in the face of absolute danger, a danger for which he has rigorously practiced.

“There are moments in difficult situations, far away, that there is no more doubt,” he says. “There, the questions are gone. And I think these are the important moments. If the question is gone, I have not to answer. Myself living — I am the answer.”

Messner has paid heavy dues to the mountains: frostbite has claimed five toes and three fingers, and during Reinhold's first Himalayan expedition in 1970, Nanga Parbat claimed the life of his younger brother, Gunther.

Is it possible to become Messner’s “myself living,” to become one’s own “answer," without stumbling to the summit of Everest, half-mad with oxygen deprivation, at the edge of starvation and dehydration?

Samadhi at Three Paces
I dipped into a Peet's two Fridays ago for a pre-practice double-banger of espresso. In the three paces between the front door and the counter, nirvikalpa samadhi arose, and I disappeared into that timeless gap between thoughts. The conscious brain, the I-maker, the ahamkara, as it’s called, scrabbled for purchase, dug in its heels, and did what it does best — that is, think — and so, facing the counterperson, I thought, "Wow! I am experiencing a moment of pure timelessness and formlessness!"

Which meant that at that point, of course, I wasn't.

The irony being I then went to practice the yoga.

The yoga will not create or bring about such moments, but in my case, at least, it has refined my ability to recognize such moments when they arise, and further refine the tools, techniques and skills that allow one to pay attention to those moments for longer and longer.

The irony, in this instance, is that there is no “one” paying attention to any “thing.” Words are just too slippery for descriptions.

You will doubtless be pleased to know, too, that it was a strong, hearty espresso, one which did most of the work of the practice for me.

Questions
Can ashtanga vinyasa yogis cop to looking at pictures of Britney Spears' vagina?

Can ashtanga vinyasa yogis admit to being more intrigued by Britney Spears' C-section scar than her vagina?

What does Britney Spears' vagina have to do with yoga?

Oh, if only we could live in a cave in the jungle, wear a loincloth, grow our hair and beards, practice the asanas, the pranayama, the meditation, chant the Gita and the Sutras, and know nothing of Britney Spears' vagina.

Frawley Comes Alive!
I just crept out of a talk given by Dr. David Frawley called "Ayurvedic Psychology." Dr. Frawley’s a prolific author, and has published books on yoga philosophy, jyotish, or Hindu astrology, and ayurveda. He’s one of the few Westerners recognized in India as a Vedacharya, or teacher of the ancient wisdom.

In person, he's articulate, intelligent, and soft-spoken. For all you groupies, he’s trimmed his wild-man beard and hair and now bears little resemblance to the renunciate staring out of his dust-jacket photo.

A question I might have asked him, had I not snuck out before the group mantra meditation in order to make the Encinitas Christmas parade: Are we, in fact, a chronically overstimulated culture, country and civilization? Are we heaping on more and more undigested and undigestable sense-impressions, and therefore bloating on the ensuing karma?

But how to untangle that idea — illustrated by Frawley's example of the escalating number of car-crashes in movies — from a thinly veiled romantic yearning for a prelapsarian Eden, an unmediated “pure” state of existence, which, we all know, never existed?

I'd have liked to discuss the other thread woven throughout his talk: existence as a perpetual sickness, disease, or imbalance, forever in need of an eternal healing, an idea also prevalent in much New Age thinking.

(You say you aren’t “imbalanced”? That’s a sign of a vata imbalance.)

My attendance at this talk comes hard on the heels of my completion of Daniel Pinchbeck’s latest opus, 2012. Pinchbeck has eagerly picked up where Terence McKenna left off, as regards to psychedelic shamanism, alien abductions, and the machine elves who live on the other side of a DMT-generated boom tube.

Interestingly, in 2012, Pinchbeck glosses right over the work of Ken Wilber, and in fact dismisses it as a complicated series of “charts and graphs,” when in fact much of Wilber’s work addresses most of Pinchbeck’s central questions, chief among them the ways the different wisdom traditions turn the insights gained during certain peak (and psychedelic drug-induced) states into permanent, everyday qualities and characteristics. In other words, how to stabilize the insights Pinchbeck received while chugging ayuhuasca at Burning Man and therefore experience transformative growth.

(Although undoubtedly Wilber would be unable to save Pinchbeck from his own shrieking harridan writing style. Daniel Pinchbeck never met an alliteration or assonance he didn’t like. 2012 is awash in their pulpy corpses.)

The other, more obscure author who might most help Pinchbeck, in addition to Wilber, would be Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, from which Pinchbeck might heed Patanjali’s suggestions to find one single practice, one truth, and then stick to it, without interruption, for an extended period of time, with faith and vigor.

But the cross-pollination of Frawley’s talk tonight and with what Pinchbeck addresses in 2012 — chiefly, the quantum-jump into a new human consciousness set to take place in the year 2012, said date coinciding with the termination of the third (fourth?) Mayan age — was the idea that yes, perhaps our era is marked by an exponential acceleration, of communication, of thought, of sense-impressions. All of which are characteristics of an increasing heat. Pinchbeck maintains that this heat is cooking us, a la Rumi’s chickpea in the pot.

Maybe this acceleration is part of a great quickening of consciousness, and the sensory overload is only signaling the onset of a massive shift, a quantum jump, in human evolution? Perhaps this friction and its heat is first driving us out of our minds — and then, through practice, through ayurveda, through yoga, through meditation, through tapas, forcing us back, back into our minds. Only when we get there, we’ll find everything new and different, yet older and more familiar than our own faces.

Frawley Comes Alive!
I just crept out of a talk given by Dr. David Frawley called "Ayurvedic Psychology." Dr. Frawley’s a prolific author, and has published books on yoga philosophy, jyotish, or Hindu astrology, and ayurveda. He’s one of the few Westerners recognized in India as a Vedacharya, or teacher of the ancient wisdom.

In person, he's articulate, intelligent, and soft-spoken. For all you groupies, he’s trimmed his wild-man beard and hair and now bears little resemblance to the renunciate staring out of his dust-jacket photo.

A question I might have asked him, had I not snuck out before the group mantra meditation in order to make the Encinitas Christmas parade: Are we, in fact, a chronically overstimulated culture, country and civilization? Are we heaping on more and more undigested and undigestable sense-impressions, and therefore bloating on the ensuing karma?

But how to untangle that idea — illustrated by Frawley's example of the escalating number of car-crashes in movies — from a thinly veiled romantic yearning for a prelapsarian Eden, an unmediated “pure” state of existence, which, we all know, never existed?

I'd have liked to discuss the other thread woven throughout his talk: existence as a perpetual sickness, disease, or imbalance, forever in need of an eternal healing, an idea also prevalent in much New Age thinking.

(You say you aren’t “imbalanced”? That’s a sign of a vata imbalance.)

My attendance at this talk comes hard on the heels of my completion of Daniel Pinchbeck’s latest opus, 2012. Pinchbeck has eagerly picked up where Terence McKenna left off, as regards to psychedelic shamanism, alien abductions, and the machine elves who live on the other side of a DMT-generated boom tube.

Interestingly, in 2012, Pinchbeck glosses right over the work of Ken Wilber, and in fact dismisses it as a complicated series of “charts and graphs,” when in fact much of Wilber’s work addresses most of Pinchbeck’s central questions, chief among them the ways the different wisdom traditions turn the insights gained during certain peak (and psychedelic drug-induced) states into permanent, everyday qualities and characteristics. In other words, how to stabilize the insights Pinchbeck received while chugging ayuhuasca at Burning Man and therefore experience transformative growth.

(Although undoubtedly Wilber would be unable to save Pinchbeck from his own shrieking harridan writing style. Daniel Pinchbeck never met an alliteration or assonance he didn’t like. 2012 is awash in their pulpy corpses.)

The other, more obscure author who might most help Pinchbeck, in addition to Wilber, would be Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, from which Pinchbeck might heed Patanjali’s suggestions to find one single practice, one truth, and then stick to it, without interruption, for an extended period of time, with faith and vigor.

But the cross-pollination of Frawley’s talk tonight and with what Pinchbeck addresses in 2012 — chiefly, the quantum-jump into a new human consciousness set to take place in the year 2012, said date coinciding with the termination of the third (fourth?) Mayan age — was the idea that yes, perhaps our era is marked by an exponential acceleration, of communication, of thought, of sense-impressions. All of which are characteristics of an increasing heat. Pinchbeck maintains that this heat is cooking us, a la Rumi’s chickpea in the pot.

Maybe this acceleration is part of a great quickening of consciousness, and the sensory overload is only signaling the onset of a massive shift, a quantum jump, in human evolution? Perhaps this friction and its heat is first driving us out of our minds — and then, through practice, through ayurveda, through yoga, through meditation, through tapas, forcing us back, back into our minds. Only when we get there, we’ll find everything new and different, yet older and more familiar than our own faces.

Yoga Blog Topics I'd Pay to See More Of
1. Stories about farting, loudly and repeatedly, in class.
2. Pussy-farts.
3. Humping in general.
4. Humping someone from your shala.
5. Breaking up with someone you've been humping from your shala.
6. Putting your mat down right next to someone you were humping, but are no longer humping, from your shala; putting your mat down and, as a matter of fact, doing your whole practice and not saying a goddamn word to that person you were humping for four months, even though it was going somewhere nice, maybe not somewhere overly serious, but there was definitely potential, and at the very least you were spending a lot of time together, until one day, out of the blue, while shifting nervously in his seat at the coffee shop and scratching his wispy facial hair in a distracted and put-upon way, he said, "This isn't working for me — I'm sorry," and that was it, no more humping, no more post-practice coffee, no more phone calls, no more e-mails, and you were left to wonder what the hell happened, and fuck it, you're putting your mat down next to his every goddamn day until he says something to you.
6. Narcissism.
7. Overcoming the novelty factor of a daily ashtanga yoga practice.
8. Eating disorders at your shala, and in yoga in general, i.e., the skinned rabbit-woman look.
9. Thoughts both general and specific on the abandonment, the dissipation, like so much steam, of every conscious thought, the very dissolution of every idea of good bad, fat thin, strong weak, stiff bendy, sore warm, front back, top bottom, all of it, until only the in-breath, the out-breath remain, and then that disappears, too, and there is only a swelling sense of warmth and love, and that, too, disappears, and then there is no "I," no difference between you and the wall, the pillar, the statue of Hanuman in the corner, the mat, the rug, the whirring of the heater, the floor, the woman across from you, the sweating, grunting man next to you, the beams of sunlight lancing through the fogged window; there is no past, there is no future, there is only the breathing, pulsing now, only you are not breathing it, it is breathing you.
10. As per above, heart cracked and overflowing, weeping in savasana, eyes wide, water flowing freely down the cheeks.
11. For the real psychenauts: ashtanga vinyasa plus DMT.

What Up, Cycle Suckas
Basso to Disco; Armstrizza made it official on Tuesday!

'07 is gonna pop, from a pro-cycle racing perspective: Disco versus Astana versus CSC.

The ashtanga vinyasa yoga practice being what it is — an experiment in observation — the people who practice it regularly naturally begin to track correlations between their eating habits and their yoga practice. As a result, many people have either adopted or imported their own rather esoteric eating and dietary examples. In some cases, people don't adopt or import eating habits, regimens or philosophies so much as they use the practice to fine-tune their own food-related neuroses and eating disorders.

So we can put anorexia and bulimia on a far, far end of the spectrum — it's rare but I've seen it — other food philosphies and ideas I've encountered and/or tried directly myself include vegetarianism, veganism, macrobiotics, raw foodism, fruitarianism, breatharianism (or, as an old teacher of mine called it, "male anorexia") and uropathy (the drinking of one's own urine).

There are a myriad of variations and minute differences. Some of the more extreme and hilarious include eating more (and more!) ghee, eating more chapatis, eating less chapatis, and the complete removal of certain and specific foodstuffs from one's diet, such as deadly nightshades (i.e. potatoes, eggplants, strychnine), sugar, wheat, mushrooms, or eggs.

A woman once asked Guruji if eating dark chocolate would make her more flexible, and Guruji responded with a vigorous "Yes!" Milk chocolate, with its milk and sugar, seems to be a very sattvic food. Guruji, it should be added, has a legendary sweet tooth. The next several mornings, before class, at 5 a.m., the woman showed up at the shala gates hurriedly gobbing down bits of dark chocolate before heading in to practice.

I don't know if the chocky made her more flexible, but if you can work out a way to have the consumption of chocolate legitimized and endorsed as part of your yoga practice, I say go for it.

Unfortunately, at this point I can't say with any certainty that eating certain kinds of food affects in any way my experience on the yoga mat. But I'll head out on a limb here to list the few food and diet generalizations I can make.

1. The daily consumption of generous amounts of water. I don't exactly measure it out, but I'm getting at least 64 ounces a day. The tapas of the daily exertions of the practice refined my discrimination to the point where I realized I was often eating when I was thirsty, misinterpreting my body's signals, and therefore walking around perpetually dehydrated. A can of Mountain Dew and two cups of coffee a day isn't enough liquid.

2. A daily practice. It's obvious (as is most dietary advice, right?), but I'll state it anyway: consistent practice is the mother of skill.

It also forced me to take a long view of things, because once you start practicing every day, the body's more minute and heretofore unnoticed tics and nuances suddenly become readily apparent, and this, in turn, is when the practice becomes a true practice; that is, when you've abandoned accomplishment in order to get through it. A bad physical day — a day of physical discomfort and unease — will quickly wipe out the novelty factor of yoga. The novelty factor: "Look Ma, I'm a yogini! I'm wearing my yoga capri pants, I have my yoga mat bag, and I have my mat! Wow, I just put my leg behind my head!" Injuries also have the same effect, but that's a whole different post.

3. Caloric restriction, especially at night. I'm not going to make any generalizations about what sorts of diets ashtangis should be adhering to, although Pattabhi Jois will highly recommend a vegetarian diet, which is also what I personally believe in and practice, but for those Inuits and Tibetans out there — that is, those of us genetically predisposed and raised to consume either whale blubber and baby seal, or yak meat and radishes — an all-veg diet may not be ideal, and in fact may rot out your teeth, destroy your immune system, and make you crabby and irritable.

But I have noticed a consistent sense of clarity and lightness, as opposed to sluggishness and density, when I began to reduce the amount of calories I consumed in the evening. Many ashtangis adopt this habit while in Mysore, where we get up so early to practice that a heavy Indian dinner, eaten late at night, feels like a real gut-bomb. Over the years I've shifted towards eating big lunches and smaller dinners. The idea being, though, that even during lunch, my portion sizes are reduced.

The ashtanga practice, more than any other system, has built-in failsafes to ensure you're not over-eating or under-eating. If you stay out late with the work crew for an extended happy hour re-mix, horking down margaritas, baskets of free garlic bread, and a dinner of spinach and garlic raviolis, odds are you'll feel a bit sluggish the next morning.

If you under-eat, you feel bendy and light for a day or so, but this degenerates into a physical weakness, as the ashtanga vinyasa practice requires equal amounts of strength and flexibility.

This is why, incidentally, I'd be interested to know how those anorexic and bulimics out there manage to pull it off, although I'm guessing the physiological checks they're writing on their bodies will get cashed that much sooner due to the demands of the ashtanga practice.

We could also speculate about the efficacy of eating less towards evening, too, by taking into account Sharath's practice schedule. Tim mentioned that when he lived with the Jois', they would eat two big meals a day: at 3 and 9 p.m. He would finish those heroic practices the Old Guys used to do (three, four hours alone in the room with Guruji) and then, after waking up from resting pose/black-out, rove the streets of Lakshmipuram like a ravenous bear, looking for something to eat.

So if Sharath is eating a typical south Indian dinner at 9, and then practicing at 2 or 3 a.m., that pretty much blows my observation out of the water, but what the hell.

4. Finally, the other factor that affects my practice with any consistent regularity is the amount and quality of sleep. The less sleep, the more flexible and strong I feel. This, too, is a slippery slope, because while I've had brilliant practice after two hours of sleep, it's simply not sustainable on a day-to-day basis.

Nina and Olaf have a great questions-and-answer page on their site, nilaf.com, where they answer some of the most common questions they're asked. Although they're asked about diet separately, their answer to the question, "Can I do other sports and practice yoga?" really applies here, as they answer that yoga is supposed to bring awareness to the other aspects of our life. Eating is no exception. The idea being, whatever it is you're eating, eat with consciousness.