Divine Stability
I posted this on the EZ Board months and months ago, but I'll resuscitate it here because the ashtanga vinyasa practice is woven with stories, and who doesn't love a good story?

Vishwamitra
Vishwamitra is one of Hinduism’s most venerated rishis. He was a kshatriya warrior-king by birth, but became a rishi through thousands of years of hard penance. He is also known for discovering the Gayatri mantra.

In the Ramayana, Vishwamitra trains Rama and Lakshmana in the use of the devastras, or celestial weaponry, and guides them to kill powerful demons.

Although “Vishwamitra” means “friend of the universe,” one of the rishi’s chief faults was his short temper. He was quick to anger and often cursed hapless victims, thereby depleting the yogic powers he’d obtained through much tapas.

As per a reader's edit, "it should be noted that Visvamitra became a brahmin-rshi, not just a rshi. A significant difference is there. As for his name, it can mean "friend (mitra) of the universe" or "enemy (amitra) of the universe."

Vasishta
Vasishta was chief of the seven venerated rishis and the preceptor of the Ishvahu clan, also referred to as the Surya dynasty. He was thus the guru of Rama and Rama’s father Dasaratha. Vasishta is Brahma’s manasaputra, or “wish-born son.”

Pattabhi Jois highly recommends reading the Yogavasishta, an Advaita Vedanta text in the form of a dialogue between Vasishta and his student Rama.

Kasyapa
According to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas, Kasyapa was the son of Marichi, the son of Brahma. Kasyapa, which means “tortoise,” was one of the seven great rishis. He had numerous and diverse offspring, including demons, nagas, reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things. He was thus the father of all, and as such is sometimes called Prajapati.

According to the legendary history of the Chan and Zen schools of Buddhism, a monk named Kasyapa received dharma transmission directly from the Buddha at the famous flower sermon. The Buddha silently held a flower before his students and only Kasyapa smiled. The Buddha remarked that Kasyapa alone of all his students had received his teaching for that day, and thereafter should be known as Mahakasyapa.

Chakora
Alectoris graeca, the Himalaya partrdige, lover of the moon, said to feed on moonbeams. A favored pet of Lakshmi. The eyes of the chakora are said to turn red when they look on poisoned food.

Bhairava
Bhairava (the “wrathful”) is one of the more terrifying aspects of Shiva. He is often depicted with frowning, angry eyes, sharp tiger's teeth, and flaming hair, stark naked except for garlands of skulls and a coiled snake about his neck. In his four hands he carries a noose, trident, drum, and skull. He is often shown accompanied by a dog. Bhairava is the embodiment of fear, and it is said that those who meet him must confront the source of their own fears.

In one version of the Bhairava myth, Brahma and Vishnu were disputing with each other for the status of supreme god and appealed to the testimony of the four Vedas, which unanimously proclaimed Shiva as the Ultimate Truth of the Universe.

Brahma was scornful of that answer, however, and his fifth head taunted Shiva: "I know who you are, Rudra, whom I created from my forehead. Take refuge with me and I will protect you, my son!"

Overflowing with anger, Shiva became Bhairava and severed Brahma’s head with the nail of his left thumb.

In another version, Brahma lusted after his mind-borne daughter and grew four heads in order that he might continually see her. Embarrassed by his attentions, his daughter ascended heavenwards. Brahma then manifested a fifth head and reached out to 'cohabit' with his daughter. Upon seeing this, Shiva became Bhairava and cut off the fifth head of Brahma with his sword.

The severed head immediately stuck to Bhairava's hand, where it remained in the form of the skull and served as his begging-bowl. Shiva as Bhairava then roamed the world as an ascetic, pursued by a female fury, to atone for the sin of brahminicide.

Skanda
Skanda is more commonly known as Kartikeya. He is a son of Shiva and was born without the assistance of a woman. The universe was being terrorized by the asura Taraka, and only a son of Shiva could destroy the demon. The other gods orchestrated Shiva’s marriage to Parvati, yet no child was born of the union.

Finally, Shiva handed over his semen to Agni, the only god capable of handling it, but even Agni was tortured by the semen’s heat, and was forced to hand it over to Ganga, who in turn deposited it in a lake in a forest of reeds, from whence Kartikeya was born. As he was born from the life-source that slipped (“skanna”) from Shiva, he is named “Skanda.”

The child Kartikeya was born in this forest and then suckled by the six Kartikas, or Pleiades. He developed six faces for this purpose, and has twelve arms, hence the name Kartikeya, by which he is commonly known and worshipped. He was made head of the army of gods, and, according to the Mahabharata, defeated Mahisa and Taraka, who through their tapas were threatening the gods.

One of the major Puranas, the Skanda Purana, is dedicated to him. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, explaining his omnipresence, says, "Of generals I am Skanda, the lord of war."

Durvasa
According to the Shiva Purana, Durvasa was an incarnation of Shiva. When Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were sent by their wives to test the chastity of Anasuya, the wife of Atri, she turned them into three infants. Pleased with her, they granted her a boon, and she chose that the three gods should be born as her children. In due course, Brahma was born as Chandra, Vishnu was born as Dattatreya, and Shiva was born as Durvasa.

Durvasa became a great rishi in his own right, although he was infamous for his extremely short temper. When he became displeased, which was often, he would curse the person who caused him anger, and his curses were frequently potent. People dreaded his arrival.

In the Ramayana, Rama has an important meeting and asks his brother Lakshman to stand guard at the gate. In the William Buck version, Lakshman in his zeal declares that whoever intrudes on Rama’s private conference would be slain.

Unfortunately, Durvasa appears and demands admittance, and rather than disobey the rishi, Lakshman himself is forced to disturb Rama. True to his word, Lakshman surrenders his life and goes to heaven.

Urdhva Kukkuta
Urdhva: “upward,” kukkuta: “rooster.” The kukkuta can symbolize the eternity of time, and also adorned Kartikeya’s pennant.

Galava
Galava was a rishi and pupil of Vishwamitra. According to the Harivansa, Galava was Vishwamitra’s son, and that rishi, in a time of great distress, tied a cord round Galava’s waist and offered him for sale. From his having been bound with a cord (gala) he was called Galava.

Eka Pada Baka
Eka pada: “one foot,” baka: “crane,” a kind of heron or crane, Ardea Nivea. Also a name for Kubera, and also the name of an Asura said to have assumed the form of a crane and subsequently defeated by Krishna.

Koundinya
Koundinya was a rishi and the author of a commentary on the Pashupata Sutras. Also, the kingdom of Funan in Cambodia was founded in the first century A.D. by a Hindu named Koundinya. The Koundinya gotra exists in India today.

Incidentally, one of the five ascetics who became the first disciples of the Buddha Shakyamuni was named Ajnata Kaundinya. In the Lotus Sutra it is predicted that he will become a Buddha called Universal Brightness.

Astavakra
While still in his mother’s womb, Astavakra would listen to his father’s recitation of verses from the Rig Veda, and at one point, he told his father, “You’re reciting mere words. There’s no substance!” Astavakra’s father became angry, and he cursed his unborn son.

Thus, when Astavakra was born, he had eight distortions in his body — eight, astau, and crooked, vakra.

Despite his father's cruel curse, Astavakra remained a faithful son. When the boy was 12, his father lost a priestly debate and was banished to the watery realm of Varuna, lord of death.

Astavakra then undertook an epic journey — is there any other kind? — and traveled to King Janaka’s court to challenge the man who had bested his father. Janaka and his courtiers saw Astavakra’s deformed body and ridiculed him — but only until Astavakra opened his mouth, at which point the King and his court discovered Astavakra was a true sage.

Astavakra debated the priest who had bested his father and triumphed, winning his father's freedom. The people who once mocked him became his disciples, including King Janaka.

Pattabhi Jois also highly recommends reading the Astavakra Gita (or Atavakra Samhita). It’s an important treatise on Advaita Vedanta that consists of a dialogue between Astavakra and Janaka on Vedanta philosophy.

Purna Matsyendra
“Purna”: full or complete. Matsyendra, “Lord of the Fishes,” appears to have been an actual historical person. Born in Bengal around the 10th century c.e., he is venerated by Buddhists in Nepal as an incarnation of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara. As with most Indian myths, there are many versions of the story of Matsyendra's metamorphosis into a realized adept.

In one popular version, the infant Matsyendra is thrown into the ocean because his birth has occurred under inauspicious planets. Swallowed by a giant fish, he overhears Shiva teaching the mysteries of yoga to Parvati in their secret lair at the bottom of the ocean. Matsyendra is spellbound. After spending 12 years in the fish's belly exploring yoga's esoteric practices, he emerged as an enlightened master.

Viranchya
A name of Brahma, with a suggested translation of “vira,” great, and anchy, “five,” “Great Five Elements,” which were generated by and are contained within Brahma. This may be folk etymology.

Viparita Danda
Viparita: “inverted,” danda: literally “staff” or “stick.” A staff given during investiture of the sacred thread. A staff or sceptre as a symbol of power and sovereignty.

In the Devanagari script, the danda is a punctuation character. The glyph consists of a single vertical stroke. In Hindi, the danda marks the end of a sentence, a function which it shares with the full stop (period) in many written languages based on the Latin, Cyrillic, or Greek alphabets.

Because of the shape of the danda glyph, the word danda is also a slang term for penis.

Eka Pada Danda
Eka pada: “one foot,” danda: “staff” or “stick.”

Viparita Salabha
Viparita: “inverted,” salabha: “grasshopper” or “moth.”

Ganda Bherunda
Ganda: “whole side of the face, including the temple,” bherunda: “terrible, formidable, awful;” in the Mahabharata, “a species of bird," the garuda pakshi or the eagle. A mythical two-headed bird that fed on elephants. The gandabherunda was used as an insignia by the Mysore royal family.

Hanuman
Durgaam kaj jagat ke jete
Sugam anugraha tumhre tete

Supta Trivrkrama
Supta: “prone” or “lain down to sleep (but not fallen asleep),” Trivrkrama: A name of Vishnu. A demon named Bali had conquered the four directions and driven Indra and the devas before him. Due to the peculiarities of his powers, he could only be defeated if and when his guru cursed him for disobedience. It was a situation that could only be contrived by Vishnu the preserver.

Thus Vishnu was born the youngest son to the rishi Kasyapa and his wife Aditi. The baby grew to be a dwarf and was named Vamana. Vamana visited Bali, who promised to give the short-statured Brahmin anything he could.

Vamana said that he wanted as much land as he could take in three steps. Bali agreed. His guru Suracharya, however, realized that Vamana could only be Vishnu, and begged Bali to retract his promise.

Bali replied that there could be no greater glory than if Vishnu himself were to seek alms from him. Suracharya became angry and cursed Bali.

At that moment, Vamana grew and grew in size — his first step encompassed the Earth and his second measured the heavens. He asked Bali where to take his third step. Bali bowed low and offered his head.

Digha
Digha: “long.”

Incidentally, the Digha Nikaya is the first division of the Sutta Pitaka in the Buddhist Pali Canon. The name literally means the “long” or “longer collection,” based on the fact that all of the suttas contained in are typically longer than their counterparts in the other sections of the Sutta Pitaka.

The Digha Nikaya includes a number of prominent and well-known teachings, as well as a significant amount of biographical information about the Buddha.

Trivikrama
A name of Vishnu. See above.

Nataraja
A name of Shiva as raja, “lord,” of the nata, “dance.” Nataraj, the dancing form of Lord Shiva, is a symbolic synthesis of the most important aspects of Hinduism, and the summary of its central tenets. This cosmic dance is called 'Anandatandava,' meaning the Dance of Bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death.

Raja Kapota
Raja: “king” or “lord.” Kapota: “a dove, pigeon.” In the Vedas often a bird of evil omen.

Eka Pada Raja Kapota
Eka pada: “One foot.” Raja: “king” or “lord.” Kapota: “dove, pigeon.”

The Ingenuity of Absolute Poverty
Some pre-practice perspective.

Elephantiasis, Redux
"Who does not begin practice as a white elephant?"

Are some more inherently termite than others?

"It depends on the maturity of the disciple," said Ramana Maharshi. "Gunpowder catches fire in an instant, while it takes time to ignite coal."

Oh Shit!
I know "Leaping Lanka" is sometimes an outlet for some real obscure shit (i.e. yoga, Roland Barthes, Axl Rose, PCP, constant and worrying references to muesli, comic books and crack-cocaine), but I'm so sparked on the news that Ivan Basso has left CSC.

Armstrizza and the boys at Disco better step up to the plate with a blank check or I will be sorely vexed. I mean really, you're gonna put Leipheimer on as your number-one stage racer?

I know road racing (on velocipedes, you heathens) rates just below organized professional booger-flicking in the sports consciousness of the American public, but trust me, Ivan drops nothing but hammers on the bike, and you should see the man climb! Ah, it'd bring a tear to your eye. In fact, I'm getting a tear in my eye right now thinking about stage 12 in the '04 Tour de France, a mountain stage in the Pyrenees, when Ivan, looking minty-fresh, edged past Lance for the stage win.

(Of course, Lance crushed Ivan several stages later by passing him — passing him! — while climbing up Alpe d'Huez during the individual time trial. But I digress.)

You may now return to your favored sports, Americans. These sports undoubtedly involve watching cavemen lining up and hitting each other in between commercials, watching grown men stand around on grass fields, scratching their balls and spitting tobacco as thousands of people in the stands fall asleep, or else watching rednecks speed around an oval for the upteenth time.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming
We'll be back to tales of yoga asana, crack-rock, and naughty (yet satisfying) teen sex soon enough, although be warned: I've still got some sick Roland Barthes/yoga itch that begs to be scratched in a future post.

Carry on.

White Elephant versus Termite Yoga Practice

White elephant or termite practice?

Manny Farber is one of the most important critics in movie history, a legend who penned classic pieces for The New Republic, The Nation, Art Forum, and Film Comment. He was an early champion of the American action film, as well as of Hollywood stylists like Howard Hawks, Don Siegel, Samuel Fuller, Preston Sturges, and even Chuck Jones. He’s most famous for the essays “Underground Films” and “White Elephant Art Vs. Termite Art.”

In the latter piece, Farber introduced and championed what he called “termite art,” a phrase he used to describe any unpretentious movie that “goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."

The tapeworm film is in contrast to “white elephant art,” or “masterpiece art,” which was “artificially laden with symbolism and significance.” The white elephant films of Michelangelo Antonioni, for example, “pin viewers to the wall and slug them with wet towels of artiness and significance.”

Dramatic, histrionic flourishes coupled with a rasping ujjayi breath might characterize a white elephant yoga practice, as each vinyasa and each asana is a neon sign blinking seriousness and “significance.” A key characteristic of white elephant art, according to Farber, is that it’s filled with “overripe technique.”

In contrast, the termite practice is laconic, workmanlike, efficient; a termite practice, as Farber defines termite art, “nails down one moment without glamorizing it, but forgets this accomplishment as soon as it has passed.” The termite practice is epitomized by an economy of expression.

To engage in a termite (or tapeworm-moss-fungus) practice, as the very name suggests, is to concern oneself with a burrowing into the many layers of the self, each layer as fine as onion skin, and not peeled so much as enveloped, chewed, swallowed, and digested, until one is left to confront the paradox of the self-devouring uroboros, the ancient Greek depiction of the snake or dragon eating its own tail.

You will not notice those termites at your studio as their economy renders them invisible. They will arrive, practice, and depart without drawing your attention. A termite’s practice is entirely separate from physical ideas of flexibility and strength; it is compact and internal.

Among the ways to cultivate the termite aspect of one’s practice, as Matthew Sweeney suggests in Ashtanga Yoga: As It Is, is to practice alone for an extended stretch of time. An unintended benefit of the solitary termite practice, as those around the world who practice alone know, is the deep and overwhelming sense of gratitude that arises, from deep in the core of the body, when one once again is fortunate enough to practice with a true teacher.

On a mundane level, a termite practice favors the rooting and grounding of the out-breath, while the white elephant practice favors an upward and expansive in-breath. The key difference is that both sides of the termite’s breath are directed internally, while the white elephant allows the breath to dissipate externally.

The stereotypical white elephant inhales and exhales with thunderous momentousness, and each movement up and down, forwards and backwards, is rigid with overwrought concern for perfection. It is over-burdened with floating fireworks and a concern for rubbery circus flexibility.

The white elephant is entirely dependent upon the strict division between the practitioner, the practice and, most critically, a sense of “spectators” who are “viewing” the practice. But it is this sense of performance that transmutes the white elephant. While practicing “on-stage” and acutely aware of the gaze of others, the white elephant self-consciously activates and engages each and every body part in a steady diffusion of consciousness.

So there is value in the white elephant practice, as true to its name, it inevitably lumbers inward: the relentless focus on the performance and perfection of each asana, and the interlocking vinyasa between, can only lead to the white elephant dissolving in the performance. From there, with a little grace, any sense of separation between performer, performance, and audience dissolves entirely. One thinks of Shiva’s aspect as Nataraj, whirling through his never-ending dance of destruction and creation. The dancer, the dance, the audience: all are one.

Who does not begin practice as a white elephant? Who does not enter a new studio or workshop as a white elephant? A key characteristic of the white elephant is its own self-consciousness, and who has never felt self-conscious? Whose practice does not flip-flop between white elephant and termite stages, sometimes even in the tiny space between the in- and out-breaths? The transition from white elephant to termite comes as one continues to practice: thoughts arise, one observes them, and one returns to the breath.

Espresso is that Crack
I've switched up my medication. I'm on this new Peruvian shit, Green Mountain Farms' light roast. All your liberal eco-conscious sensibilities will be assuaged, hippies, by the knowledge that yes, it's organic, shade-grown, and fair trade.

Some years ago, I used to read this guy's blog — I can't find it right now to link to it — that was concerned solely with coffee, chocolate and yoga. In fact, I think it was even called "Coffee, Chocolate, Yoga." Brilliant. And I mean really, what else is there?

To paraphrase Guruji, a.k.a. Big Boss, with one cup of coffee "even lazy man is coming full energy!"

Two cups? As I discovered last Sunday, two cups means a lazy man is a twitching, vibrating, and sweating mess of pinwheel supernova consciousness. To paraphrase Blake, I found out what was enough by discovering what was more than enough.

These Items of Footwear Have Been Crafted For Perambulation
Despite what I tell myself I want to be doing, my goddamn subconscious mind and my body meet in secret and conspire to tell me what I really want to be doing. They start with subtle messages, faint tugs and twinges of intuition, which, naturally, I ignore, thereby forcing the sneaky bastards to gradually increase the frequency and intensity of their missives, c.f. anxiety dreams, mood swings, back pain, and all-around physical tightness and constriction. When I've ignored all that, they unveil their piece de resistance, a motherfucking cold sore.

The point being, yesterday I walked off a job I didn't want and shouldn't have taken.

Today's Topic
Is there a correlation between a stress-induced cold sore and reduced spinal flexibility?

I say yes.

Discuss.

Speaking of celebrity yoga students, there was a brief pulse in time when I was impressed if a yoga teacher had, at one time, taught Madonna.

Not that I'm now expertly jaded, it's just that over the years I've met at least 10 people who have taught her yoga.

Ten!

Sort of takes the gilding off the lily.

I mean, Christ, who hasn't taught Madonna yoga?

But you don't care about that. Your immediate thought at the mention of "Madonna" and "yoga" was "Yes, but how was her practice?"

Apparently it was very focused and intense, as one would imagine.

Although the few people I've met who've taught her private lessons have all mentioned that she demands an enormous amount of energy and attention from her teacher, so much so that one guy remarked that when the session was finished, he felt like he'd just done the two-hour yoga class.

Sherrie was teaching a class at an Orange County gym; her glance kept catching on this light-skinned black guy who'd dropped in to practice with his cookie-cutter blonde bombshell girlfriend and/or wife. There was something very familiar about him, but she was teaching and didn't have time to think about it. The class ended and she approached the guy.

"Say," she asked, "you look very familiar." Then recognition dawned. "Are you Tiger Woods?"

Sure enough, it was Tiger Woods himself. The Wood-man had just hacked out half primary. "That was a great class—thanks a lot!" he said.

Sherrie related the story over sushi on Friday night. It doesn't matter who the celebrity is—Madonna, Mike D, Willem Dafoe, Gwyneth Paltrow, Parker Posey—because the who isn't as important as the answer to the question that is unfailingly asked the instant after someone reports a celebrity yoga sighting. That question: How was their practice?

Apparently Tiger wasn't flashy, but he held his own.

Nice.

Screw yoga—is anyone following the Vuelta de Espana?

We're in week three, and I've had to strap on the Depends for the last two days of mountain stages, lest I once again wet myself in excitement. And there's another mountain stage to go!

Hello? Anyone? Anyone?

Just the chirping of crickets.

Speaking of pre-practice bong-snaps, I probably should write a post about that one kid who used to come to the shala at 5 in the a.m. banging Guns 'n' Roses at max volume on his iPod—one could hear Axl howling "Welcome to the jungle—you're gonna die-yeeeee!" right through his headphones—and after stowing his gear, he would then hammer out a full and rather spectacular physical practice, all this while riding two or three tabs of the lysergic acid diethylamide.

The mind positively melts at the thought.

Thoughts of Axl also taking me back to a bike ride I went on three weeks ago with a buddy—we chugged north up the 101 through Malibu, and passed Latigo Canyon Road, which, as all die-hard G 'n' R fans know, is the street on which one Axl Rose, neé William Bailey, resides.

I hear what you're saying—given my profound hatred of Guns 'N' Roses, how am I privy to such an obscure G 'n' R factoid?

This is itself another interesting story, which took place several years prior, and began when I piled into a rented limo with 10 friends to journey from San Diego to Los Angeles.

The limo's max capacity? Six. I should have known the journey was cursed from the get-go.

An acquaintance was due at a skateboard video premiere, as he had a starring part in said video. HIs sponsor footed the bill for the limo. I'm not sure who paid for all the goddamn Jack Daniels that was consumed on the north-bound journey, but that was definitely the drink and food of choice for the night.

When I say Jack was the drink of choice, I don't mean that it was the featured mixer, because I don't remember any Coca-Cola anywhere in the car—just crazy motherfuckers skulling amber-colored fire straight from the bottle.

For some reason, the wanton consumption of Jack brought to full intensity my friends' recent obssession with Guns 'n' Roses, so much so that all other music was officially banned for the duration of the evening, and the volume of the G 'n' R in the limo was set to an ear-bleeding level.

This evening was also, interestingly enough, the genesis of my blood feud with Guns 'N' Roses. I should also note that the limo driver and I were the only sober people on board.

We made it to the premiere. As is usually the case when people are drinking copious amounts of Jack Daniels, several predictable Jack-Daniels-inspired happenings occurred at the club where the premiere was held. These are the exact same events that take place wherever Jack is skulled straight from the bottle.

In no particular order: whlie waiting in line for the bathroom, a grown man pissed in his pants; a guy passed out in a booth and was forcibly ejected from the club by the bouncers; a guy threatened to smash a bartender in the face for not serving drinks after last call; the same guy had to be forcibly restrained from fighting said bartender, and was then ejected from the club by the bouncers; last but not least, a different guy knocked out a kid (with one punch!) out front of the club.

The one-punch knockout, for those who've never had the privilege to see a fistfight, was comprised of the sound of a fist striking a jaw and an unconscious head striking the pavement. Contrapunto: girls screaming and crying. My stomach flip-flops just thinking about those sounds.

We somehow avoided the squad cars, SWAT van, fire engines, paramedics and roving ghetto birds that converged on the club after said one-punch knockout, and regrouped in the limo. The Rainbow Room on Sunset Boulevard was the next destination, chosen because the Crue (as in Motley) either sang about the joint and/or used to party there.

True to the place's apparently legendary reputation (I say "apparently" because it was legendary to my friends, while I had no idea what was going on), we ended up hanging out with Lemmy from Motorhead, who is, you will be pleased to know, as ugly as everyone has ever said.

As the bartenders called last call, someone suggested going out to Malibu to "fuckin' ring Axl's doorbell!" Displaying a rather Holmesian feat of intellect, one of my friends had deduced the location of Axl Rose's house based on a few scant scraps of information and a fair bit of mindless and insane leg-work. The clues: Axl had bought the house so prominently featured in the video for "November Rain;" said house was located in Malibu; said house was located somewhere on Latigo Canyon Road. The leg-work: my friend had driven, ever so slowly, up and down Latigo Canyon Road, until he recognized the backyard from the video.

Did I mention I was sober the whole night?

The drive to Malibu from Sunset Boulevard was long, and it was the time of night when the booze began to wear off, and people became weary, cranky, and mean-drunk. We were, it should also be note, riding 10 or so people in a 6-person limo, which meant for 5 or 6 hours we had been sitting in each other's laps and at each other's feet on the limo floor.

At this point, too, due to the shenanigans at the club and the ear-splitting volume of G 'n' R piping at all times from the cabin, the poor limo driver was staging an open revolt, and repeatedly threatened to dump us all by the side of the road.

The idea began to sound increasingly appealing to me.

By the time someone sighted Axl's house the party was over and the hangovers had begun.

As an aside, and an example of my own particular obsession, I was beginning to worry about making it to practice the next morning.

A group of us assembled around Axl's buzzer, but no one had the stones to ring the bell. It was, after all, 5 in the morning, and anyway, what the fuck was I going to say to Axl Rose? At that point I not only disliked his music, but would have gladly strangled him for making it in the first place.

We all piled back into the limo, heads hung low. My friend Rich, God love 'im, was the last guy aboard. But before he climbed in, he shouted "Fuck it!" and ran to the doorbell. He jammed down the button for 30 seconds, long enough for all of us in the car to begin panicking, then ran back to the limo, dove in, and shouted, "Hit it!"

In hindsight, pulling a ring-and-run on Axl Rose from a limo is pretty fucking funny, although I imagine Axl himself would not, and did not, find it funny, in part because I bet that during the last 15 years, scores of drunken heshers have pulled ring-and-runs on his house. I imagine groups of tipsy and stoned teenagers, the gawky and rawboned guys in their tuxes, the lumpen unformed girls in their dresses, all of them laughing and giggling, the craziest among them holding down Axl's buzzer before dashing back to the open doors of the limo, which had been rented to take them to and from their senior prom.

After the ring-and-run, the mood went from hungover to downright maudlin; an exhausted, weepy feeling permeated the car as we drove back to San Diego. This feeling was only heightened by the fact that G 'n' R was still playing at an ear-splitting volume. We listened to "November Rain" on repeat during the 3-hour ride back to San Diego.

It was the longest fucking ride of my life. I got home as the sun rose, and I probably did make it to practice that morning, although I don't remember.

While we had huddled around Axl's doorbell, unbeknownst to us all, my friend Rich had opened Axl's mailbox and stolen several pieces of mail. The next day he proudly showed us a postcard from the San Diego Zoo. It was addressed to one W. Axl Rose.

On a less vitriolic note, apparently I flipped some switch on my Blogger control console that turned on a moderator control function. I just clicked "Moderate comments" and discovered a ton of backlogged comments. If you're trying to get your name up so you can go all-city with your tag, don't worry, I'll be publishing all feedback for future posts.

Here're some random thoughts based on your feedback:

1. I love Mark Millar---sure Ultimate X-Men is filled with teen angst. After all, Millar is consciously attempting to engage teen readers. G-Mor is my all-time fave, though, although Joss Whedon is up there. Chris Clarement wrote a General Hospital/space opera melodrama crap-fest and I don't care for his run. That's right, I said it---The "Dark Phoenix" saga was crap. And you know what? I don't like Wolfman and Perez's Teen Titans, either.

2. 9-and-a-half inches.

3. No, no, Warren Ellis the author; although I do love some Dirty Three.

4. Response #2 is a bald-faced lie.

5. You know what else goes good in a yoga teacher's backpack? That Himalayan pain balm, the stuff that is, upon first application, cool and innocuous to the skin, but that, as a practice progresses and the body heats up, turns into molten lava/napalm.

I used it a few times in India and had to interrupt practice to jump into an ice-dip at the shala, screaming "I'm burning! I'm burning! God help me, I'm burning!" Tara swears by the stuff, though, and bought out the entire supply from the Himalaya vendor next to Green Leaf.

(We would pull up to Green Leaf on our motorcycle and I would sing "When I first met you, didn't realize,
I can't forget you, or your surprise---I love you Green Leaf! Dee dee dee!" to the tune of Sabbath's "Sweat Leaf." The last bit---the "dee dee dee"---simulating Iommi's thunderous chords.)

6. Perhaps one day I will publish my list of musicians who should have gone down in that plane with Skynrd. I try to take the long view of Paul's and the Rolling Stones' careers, which is that the great stuff is only great in relation to the sketchy early formative work and the hollow later-years work.

But it still stings a little, doesn't it?

It stings to remember them young and beautiful and spilling forth genius, especially now that so many artists are in their Vegas years.

Bowie, I'm talking to you.

Here's some advice, Aging Pop Stars: You've had the spotlight for so goddamned long. It's time to let it go. Take your money and head for the fringes---that's where the interesting shit is being done, c.f. David Byrne, Leonard Cohen. It's not like you'll ever go hungry again, nahmsayin'?

7. Also for the record, Ian Svevonius (of Nation of Ulysses and The Make-Up) prefers Paul to John.

8. Although I do recommend merlot and roboflaxin, I do not personally practice this form of post-practice relief. Chiefly because I lack the roboflaxin.

9. Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't smoke pot to save my life. Or ingest it for the matter. It turns me into a monosyllabic vegetable with a hankering for buttered Stouffer's croutons (from the box!) and root beer.

So someone else should blog about the effects of a pre-practice bong snap combined with a powerful double-shot of fine light-blend espresso.

10. That bit about your Supreme/Prana one-off mat bag wasn't a diss on all you yogis out there with the Lululemon Wallies and the Yohji Yamamoto tiffin boxes. Hell, I've been vibed in Supreme, too, but then, that's the point of the store---it's a little container of vibe with some real expensive and cool t-shirts for sale.

(Among my favorites: the ones that just said "Knowledge Reigns" and "Clientele." Ouch, hurtin' 'em.)

11. Finally, and I do mean this, thanks for reading.

Duty Now for the Future

I figure that because Warren Ellis and Billy Gibson (William to you, punk) are all up on this blogging/Feedburner shit, I gotta be up on it, too.

So now the readers of "Leaping Lanka" (which I think are pretty much just my lady-friend and my Mom, god love 'em) have the option to subscribe to my shit so they can instantly cop the latest posting before it hits the streets!

Now the Pilates/power yoga housewives in Des Moines practicing to their Rodney Yee videos can get "Leaping Lanka" at the same time as those Lafayette Street yoga hipsters, with their one-off Supreme/Prana mat bags and their limited-edition woven banana-leaf-and-dosa Dunks.

This Internet shit is true equality for all, I tell you.

Click on the orange icon in the sidebar, and/or bookmark that shit. Truth be told, I'm a little hazy as to what happens after that.

Anyone else think the orange Feedburner logo looks a lot like a mutated Limpies logo? What're Limpies, you say? Christ.

Just to keep it crispy, I suppose I ought to fire out a post, at least to keep my editors, publishers, and throngs of fans (some from as far away as Leucadia!) happy, so here goes. And today, just for a treat, how about an asana-related posting?

"Practice was totally awesome today, although I had a re-cock-ulous time lumbering forth from bed after downing that entire fifth of Old Crow last night! I managed to insert my heel into my cochlea with minimal effort, although afterwards my gracilis was slightly itchy and I experienced a burning sensation when urinating.

On a positive note, I finally managed to palpate my sigmoid colon by wedging my wrist past my rectal shelf! At least, that's what the doc at the emergency room said.

My teacher—who, for the purposes of this blog, I'll henceforth refer to using the clever pseudonym 'Frank W. Arbuthnot, 525 Seabluff Lane, Oceanview, CA, 92404, phone: (760) 613-3067'—is wizened and inscrutable, and never fails to lavish upon his students profound spiritual chestnuts, some of which have the dense imponderability of a Zen koan. Today was no exception! As the EMTs carried me from the studio, he leaned over me and said, 'Sweet Christ, you're bleeding from the ass!'

I wonder what he meant?"

A Peripatetic Yoga Teacher’s Backpack

Tiger Balm
Soothes the aches.

Ibuprofen
Eases the pains.

Secret-brand Deodorant
Masks the coffee-sweat smell; also, clogs pores and cause Alzheimer’s.

Feuerstein’s Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
The book you refer to students.

The Ultimate X-Men, Volume 4
The book you are reading; a hardback compilation of Ultimate X-Men 34–45.

Banana, Promax Bar, One Liter of Water
Lunch. (Honey peanut crunch is best, but cookies ‘n’ cream will do in a pinch.)

Clipse We Got it 4 Free, Volume 2, Thom Yorke Eraser, Lil Wayne Dedication 2
Car-ride iPod.

Krishna Das Door of Faith, DJ Cheb I Sabbah Sri Durga, Hari Chaurasia
Savasana CD; crack-rap is not widely accepted savasana music, but should be.

Ekam, Inhale, Dve, Exhale
So it goes.

Sartorial Stretching
As I am frequently asked by the editors of the various fashion magazines---Elle, Bazaar, Vogue (US and British versions), W, Cat Fancy---how my current yoga look has evolved, I thought I'd share with you, my loyal readers, the same sartorial timeline my publicist faxed to those august publications. (For your information, Tom Ford has dubbed my fall/winter 2006 look "The Yogi Roué." But I digress).

First Class Ever
A t-shirt and sweatpants, both cotton. I drenched both garments absolutely. I sweated through sweat pants, for Christ’s sake. Although maybe it was only fitting---they are called, after all, sweat pants, and one would assume they are in fact pants to be sweated in. But certainly they were never designed to be sweated through.

More than establishing me as profligate sweater---who knew?---my first yoga class, at some yoga studio in Los Feliz, somewhere on Sunset, was also a banger because, while the class rested in savasana, the teacher read aloud a section from an animal rights book that described, in graphic detail, how pigs were killed at a slaughterhouse. I recall something about an abbatoir, a conveyor belt and a bolt gun.

The Casual Skateboarder
In subsequent yoga classes I unveiled my “casual skateboarder” look: board shorts and wife-beater. I had one pair of board shorts (dark blue, Stüssy) that had a 36-inch waist. My waist size was a few inches less than that, so consequently my ass crack clambered forth to hang from the rafters like a naughty pet monkey. Additionally, the shorts were only washed once a week.

Eventually I ditched the wife-beater. I would sweat through every square inch, and after an hour of yoga it was akin to being wrapped in wet newspaper.

This was in San Francisco, so believe it or not, my sandwich-bread flat ass, attendant ass crack, and shall we say musky scent---which, I maintain to this day, has a fantastic bouquet that is at worst intensely pleasurable and at best a powerful aphrodisiac---went largely unnoticed at our local studio, which was situated in the heart of the Mission district. I recall once or twice practicing next to a fellow my age who wore baggy raver-style blue jeans, and whose sweat was crusty and jaundice-yellow, and who emitted the pungent ether smell of someone sweating out a high-grade crystal methamphetamine.

Collegiate Look
I went and upgraded to these dark blue gym shorts I got for $6 a pair at some sports outlet store. They were cotton, and I would also sweat entirely through them---it should be obvious that at this point issues of perspiration and water management were paramount to my yoga practice. How to collect, funnel, transport and then disperse the prodigious and surprising amount of water being produced? I'd need plumbing, sewage piping, treatment plants---we're talking water management infrastructure here, people. The other drawback to the gym shorts was that they required boxer-briefs underneath, or else the class got full-frontal twig and berries.

The Dolphins
I wasn’t quite ready to make the jump to tight, spandex-type shorts, so I invested the ungodly sum of $40 in a pair of Nike runners’ shorts---they were synthetic, unlike the cotton gym shorts, and they featured an inner lining that gathered up and protected the cash and prizes from the ever-prying eyes of yoga babes.

Unfortunately, disaster struck---I lost this pair. The cotton gym shorts were also proving to be disadvantageous as, over time, the constant shimmying, prancing, and floundering that took place during yoga resulted in the stretching of all three pairs. I could handle a bit of stretch around the waist … but the leg holes were stretching, too, which naturally led to a bit of anxiety about my fundamentals burrowing into the light of day unbidden, as is their wont, like a sand-worm in Dune.

Thankfully, around this time Prana hosted one of their seasonal warehouse-clearing sales and I picked up some thigh-length boxer-brief shorts. For some reason, I was still demanding cotton, which, in hindsight, makes no sense, given a) the vast quantities of sweat that jet forth, Old Faithful-like, from my pores, and b) the fact that cotton doesn’t wick away or disperse moisture---it absorbs it.

Corp-o Shorts
It was at this point that I abandoned all sense of shame and went to Swooshtown and plunked down $70 for two pairs of tight matte-black running shorts made of material also used somewhere on the space shuttle. When I say tight, I mean tight---grape-smugglers, banana hammocks, meat-pockets, jewel-bags, coin-purses, what-have-you.

(To be fair, many of those terms are really only applicable to Speedo-style shorts. You hear me, Ray Rosenthal-in-that-video-with-Chuck-Miller, circa ’87?)

Cinch the Package
It had been a long and trying journey to reach spandex, or at least a high-tech spandex derivative. When I say “spandex,” I’m really thinking of the shorts the Big Guns wore back in those ’93 Yoga Works videos.

(I have much love for those videos, and not just because El Gran Jefe Tim Miller shines forth as a bronzed, muscle-bound Southern Californian alien crash-landed amidst pale, sun-starved twig-men and hairy-pitted women unsexed in drab, shapeless unitards, but because it appears someone had the gall to color-coordinate all the dudes’ spandex shorts.)

Watching the old videos, you get a sense that, despite the many companies that have sprouted up to sell us cooler, more (or less) athletic yoga wear, what really matters at the end of the day, for ashtanga yoga people, at least, is that their clothes be functional to a fault. Of course, how functional is too functional? I can’t help but think of that one nice couple in Mysore who both wore such short-shorts that the round, jiggly flesh of their upper, upper thighs and the lower quarter-moon of their ass-cheeks bobbled on display for those of us fortunate enough to practice behind them.

(Guruji says, “Keep your mind on God!” So I repeated “The ass cheeks are God! The ass cheeks are God!” over and over again during practice. It didn’t work. I switched spots.)

Maybe I’m in the middle of a parabola---as I get older and fatter, I’ll begin to bundle up again, and reverse the evolution---moving from tight shorts back to cotton gym shorts, and finally, in my old age and infirmity, ending up sweating through cotton sweat-pants while grabbing for gnarled toes in a white “Who Farted?” T-shirt.

The worst yoga injury
A friend threw out his back in yoga class, maybe one, two years after he began practicing. It was a serious injury. He remembers looking up from the stretcher at the faces floating overhead---the bored, amused paramedics, the panicky teacher, the horrified fellow students.

Paul turns 64 today. He has, over time, ripened to take the pole position of My Favorite Beatle.

True, John is the one you're supposed to like; you'll tell all the leather-jacketed kids smoking behind the gym that he's your favorite, citing the ratchety scrape of "Helter Skelter" and the clap-trap backbeat of "Instant Karma," which balances out the hippy vibe of "we all shine on" by threatening that "pretty soon you're gonna be dead."

Yet despite Paul's maddening bourgeoisie sentimentality and embarassaing high-brow aspirations, he wrote the treacly confections that linger: the muted enthusiasm of "Blackbird," the anthemic sap of "Golden Slumbers," and of course, the exuberance of "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be," well-nigh unlistenable these days due to their heavy rotation on classic rock radio, reduced as they have been to so much sonic wallpaper and commercial jingle.

(The Red House Painters did establish the brilliance of "Silly Love Song" by washing it out with feedback and barbituates.)

John is still the author of Best Beatle Song Ever ("All You Need is Love"), but he turned his back on the game, testaments to love and peace engaged in a tug-of-war with the vitriol. And we can't forget George's late-era blooming, although he opted for esoteric, less-traveled Eastern paths, and never quite made good on the promise he showed on "Let It Be" and "Abby Road." Steadfast Paul is the one knocking on your door, begging to be let in, flowers in one hand, heart-shaped box of chocolates in the other, a candy-pop paean to love on his lips.

Some Advice for that One Girl at Our Studio Planning to Go to Mysore
There are only two simple steps.

One, buy the plane ticket.

Two, go.

The rest is incidental---parental freak-outs, vaccinations and immunizations, the yoga, transportation, accommodation, etc, etc. There’s tons of advice on those subjects on EZ Board, various other Web sites, and in all the travel books that you can take notes on at the large corporate bookstores in our area.

Probably the best tip on getting to Mysore I can offer that's different from any of those sources--and which, upon hearing, you’ll realize is completely obvious, and what’s more, is applicable to all facets of life---is this: transcend lottery mentality.

Don’t make the fulfillment of your dreams contingent on the acquisition of some “thing”---usually money. Don’t wait to win the lottery. As they say, “Wish in one hand, shit in the other---see which fills up first.”

You eat a pizza one slice at a time---I guess for you yoga people, you eat that bowl of brown rice one grain at a time. Figure out how much money you need, and then break that amount down into small, manageable chunks.

Figure out how much money you can save per month---even if it’s only $10---and start saving it. As Patanjali says, “Atha yoga anusanam.” “Now begins the study of yoga.” Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but now, today, at this very moment.

You have developed the inner resources to get out of bed to make it to morning Mysore class every day. Now it's time to flex those the hard-earned muscles, sometimes also called “character” and “fortitude” and “tenacity.”

There’s never going to be the “perfect” time and you’re never going to have the “right” amount of money. Your parents are always going to freak out, the car will always need new brakes, you’ll always be too young (until you’re too old), and there are always going to be 40-minute commutes to cubicle jobs in well-manicured office parks.

Once you make it to Mysore, stay tuned for part two, “Some Advice for Your First Mysore Meltdown.”

Dear Ashtanga Yoga Blogger,

Thank you for subscribing to Ashtanga Yoga BlogBot™!

We’re the automated ashtanga yoga blog creation service that makes it a snap to generate those exhausting blog entries, leaving you with more valuable free time to do your yoga practice, think about your yoga practice, talk about your yoga practice, and obsess about those difficult asanas.

We ask you a few simple questions to determine your blog’s overall content, tone, and look, and then we feed your answers to our Blog-O-Matic™ supercomputer, which generates candid, interesting, and utterly unique blog entries that are specifically tailored to you!

Let’s get started! We’ve enclosed a blog entry form for you to fill out and return via e-mail. In addition, we require you to answer a few simple introductory questions.

We’ll process and automate your responses, and within 5 business days, your new blog posts will be read by the ashtanga yoga world!

Welcome aboard!
—The Ashtanga Yoga BlogBot™ Crew

Introductory Questions

1. I would like the overall tone of my blog to be:
(Choose at least 3 but not more than 5.)
Serious
Whimsical
Catty
Devout
Fun
Churlish
Filled with doubt and self-loathing
Reverent
Irreverent
Abstruse
Self-absorbed
Profanity-laden
Filled with gratuitous drug references

2. I would like my blog to appear:
Daily
3 times per week
4 times per month
(Please note: If you upgrade to our Ultimate Ashtanga Yoga BlogBot® plan, you have the option to publish 4 times per week!)

3. I would like the look and feel of my blog to be:
Futuristic
Retro
Slick
Classic
Commodore 64

4. I would like the personal pronoun “I” to appear in my blog:
10 times
25 times
No limit

Sample Blog Template
We’ve included a sample blog template below to help get you started! Simply choose the most descriptive words and publish!

1. Oh my god, I had so much _____ getting out of bed today!
1. difficulty
2. energy

2. It was so _____ in the house!
1. nipple-hardeningly cold
2. heat-rash inducingly hot

3. It was so _____ at the yoga studio this morning!
1. nipple-hardeningly cold
2. heat-rash inducingly hot

4. My body felt so _____.
1. stiff
2. open
3. sore
4. achey
5. strong
6. weak

5. The _____ practicing next to me was so _____.

Noun
1. guy
2. girl

Adjective
1. stiff
2. flexible
3. bendy
4. floaty

6. Their _____ looked very _____.

Asana name
1. jump-backs
2. janu sirsasana C
3. marichyasana D
4. supta kurmasana

Adjective
1. floaty
2. bendy
3. stiff

7. I did _____ and it was so _____.

Asana name
1. jump-backs
2. janu sirsasana C
3. marichyasana D
4. supta kurmasana

Adjective
1. floaty
2. bendy
3. stiff

8. My _____ felt _____, and my _____ are so _____.

Body part
1. hips
2. hamstrings
3. knees

Adjective
1. tight
2. sore
3. open

Body part
1. hips
2. hamstrings
3. knees

Adjective
1. tight
2. sore
3. open

9. (_____ is when you _____.)

Asana name
1. Jump-backs
2. Janu sirsasana C
3. Marichyasana D
4. Supta kurmasana

Asana description
1. pick up off the floor and jump your legs back to a push-up position---without touching down
2. twist one foot and put the arch against the inside of the thigh on the other leg
3. put one foot in half-lotus, flex the other leg, twist, and wrap the arms.

10. My teacher came by to help me, and said _____.
1. “Better luck next year.”
2. “Having a fat day?”
3. “Body flexible, mind stiff.”

11. My teacher is so _____.
1. wise
2. mean
3. inscrutable
4. not interested in my personal story.

12. I am so _____ to be able to _____.

Adjective
1. excited
2. happy
3. self-involved

Asana description
1. press up into handstand
2. put my leg behind my head
3. grab my calves in backbend

13. After practice, I was talking to some _____ and I realized how _____ ashtanga must sound to people who don’t do it!

Noun
1. co-workers
2. friends
3. family

Adjective
1. crazy
2. stupid
3. cult-like
4. narcissistic

Sports Therapy
The idea of a spiritual experience as a peak performance in a sport is hardly a new one, as you can read in accounts about mountain climbing, skiing, snowboarding, even the more mundane sports such as football (both Euro and US varieties), baseball, basketball, golf, et cetera, et cetera.

(The novel The Legend of Bagger Vance, for example, is a mind-numbing, ham-fisted Bhagavad Gita on the golf links. Stephen Pressfield, there will be an accounting.)

I’m culturally marooned in a surf town, so at this point, articles, books, movies, and videos that center on the spirituality of surfing (“I’m, like, at one with the wave!”) now trigger projectile vomiting.

But the unexpected encounter of a fresh take on a physical experience that transcends the physical to become something other, something spiritual, something, dare we say, yogic, is still an exceptional moment.

“I can’t determine precisely the instant in which my thought escapes its object to become a thought of pure effort,” writes avid cyclist and author Paul Fournel in Need for the Bike.

“The moment the rhythm speeds up, the moment the slope becomes steep, the moment fatigue gets the upper hand, thought doesn’t fade away before the ‘animal spirits;’ on the contrary, it’s reinforced and diffused throughout my entire body, becoming thigh-thought, back-intelligence, calf-wit. This unconscious transformation is beyond me, and I only become aware of it much later, when the lion’s share of the effort is over and thought flows back, returning to what is ordinarily considered its place.”

Perhaps “superconscious transformation” would be more fitting.

So the class’ homework assignment, typed two-page minimum due Monday, is to answer the following question: How does a form of stretching that features synchronized breathing and proscribed gazing points differ from gymnastics, calisthenics or aerobics? Or, for that matter, golf, football (both Euro and US versions), and cycling?

Ye Olde Musick Downloade
Geinoh Yamashiro, Akira OST
Jacques Lu Cont, Fabriclive 09
Eagles of Death Metal, Death by Sexy
The Flaming Lips, At War with the Mystics
Mozzer, Ringleader of the Tormentors
Editors, The Back Room
Neil Young, Prairie Wind

"After long enough, you abandon your masterpiece to sink into the real masterpiece."
---Leonard Cohen

Tokyo Sento Versus the Encinitas YMCA
The Japanese are generally very reserved, and so in the sento (or sauna) I visited in Tokyo, I sat and sweated in silence with my fellow sauna-goers, not least because I couldn’t speak Japanese, and if anyone spoke English, they hid it well.

I visited the Encinitas YMCA last week to recreate the sento experience and sweat out the jet lag. The dingy and under-lit wood-walled sauna at the Y is a closet-sized room just off the showers in the men’s locker-room. And o, sweet heavens, there was no piped-in Muzak! I sat in blissful silence for about 10 minutes---before being blindsided by Leonard Baxter.

Leonard entered, climbed to the top bench, and introduced himself. He appeared to be in his late 60s or early 70s. “I was watching the Masters on TV,” he told me. “I’m a golf pro.”

With what seemed to me to be a blatant lie, he immediately grabbed the conversational rudder and proceeded to steer the ship into the deep, uncharted waters of madness.

We talked about golf. Actually, Leonard talked while I listened and nodded. I don’t know shit about golf.

“I was the California Golden Gloves champ!” Leonard then declared, changing tack with a subtle non sequitur. “But I had to retire---you ever seen an old boxer? They’re practically retarded!”

“But I still got it, though. Once a boxer, always a boxer!” Leonard climbed to face me and assumed a boxer’s stance.

The sauna floor at the Encinitas Y is about two-feet square, so as a result, I had a rather intimate view, from about 6 inches away and at eye-level, of the helmeted nub of Leonard’s penis, which sprouted mushroom-like from a tuft of white pubic hair.

Any concerns I had over my sudden and unexpected proximity to Leonard’s antediluvian reproductive organs vanished, however, when he began to fire off a series of one-two punches that stopped just short of my face.

I did a fair-to-middling Spiderman impression and clambered backwards and upwards, as one does when confronted by a nude septuagenarian demonstrating his boxing prowess.

I put my hands up. “Yeah, yeah. Pretty good, man, pretty good.”

At that point, Leonard took in my tattoos and assumed I was a Self-Realization Fellowship devotee. Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship has been a fixture in Encinitas since at least the 1930s. Accordingly, Leonard pulled the pin on another non-sequitur hand-grenade and rolled it into the conversation.

“I did all that meditation shit back in the 60s!” he said, glancing up and down my arms. “I had a girlfriend at the time, this wild broad, she was into all that TM stuff. I can do samadhi if I take five long, deep breaths!” He pronounced it “sa-ma-dee.”

“Wow,” I said, “that’s incredible!”

“Yeah,” said Leonard, “it’s pretty easy.”

I stretched out on the top bench and feigned death.

Leonard was still standing, and began telling me how he felt about religion in general and the Old Testament specifically (he didn’t like either).

“Jonah!” he said.

“What a crock!” he said.

“You get eaten by a whale, you know what happens?” he said. “You die!”

He hopped from foot to foot and gesticulated wildly. Rivers of sweat streamed down his face and body. I couldn’t tell if the fluid spraying from his lips was frothy saliva---he was pretty worked up about the Old Testament---or if it was sweat that had run down his face.

The beauty of sauna polemics is that the heat will wilt even the staunchest zealot. But still, Leonard held on with the tenacity of the cockroach.

I thanked my lucky stars I’d spent time in Tokyo building up tolerance to the heat. Plus I figure that the sauna’s heat-level had been set to a temperature determined by the YMCA’s lawyers to be “safe,” and therefore I found that the room wasn’t close to the thermonuclear heat of a Japanese sento.

So my heart leapt when Leonard placed one hand on the sauna door handle: Here was a sure sign he was about to pull the ripcord! I wasn’t quite on the verge of blacking out, although I’d been pinned in the sauna for more than 45 minutes.

Leonard wasn’t quite done. “Some guy wrestling with an angel!” he said.

“You think anyone ever wrestled an angel? What a load of B.S.!”

And on that note, he opened the door and ducked off to the showers.

For the next 15 minutes, Leonard would walk over from his shower, all soaped up, open the sauna door, stick his head in, and let me know how he felt about various other stories in the Old Testament.

I waited another long 10 minutes before emerging.

When I did, Leonard Baxter was in the locker room, shaving and arguing with another man about Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger.

My total cost: the $10 day-use pass, 5 pounds of water weight, and a strange homesick longing for the tattooed and silent yakuza of my local Tokyo sento.

As those who read my weekly column “Yoga Hustla” know, I have the thumb, index, middle, ring and pinkie fingers of my left hand grasped firmly around the carotid artery of the yoga world. There is not the slightest tremor on Indra’s many-jeweled net that is not picked up and published by yours truly, and even as you read this, I’m working the right arm around the head for a crushing sleeper hold.

So doubtless all will be as excited as I am with this week’s veritable treasure find---the contract rider of one of the world’s biggest celebrity yoga teachers!

A contract rider accompanies a performing artist’s or celebrity’s contract to appear in public, and includes specifications on stage design, sound systems, lighting rigs, as well as the artist's wish list---from transportation and billing to dressing room accommodations and meals.

What does this big-time yoga celebrity, who I shall call “YOGA TEACHER” for fear of both legal and physical retribution, require to show up at your shala to teach the kids downward dog? And who could it possibly be? I'll never tell, so read on, o yogi …

ARTIST RIDER AGREEMENT

This rider to the contract date _____ by and between YOGA TEACHER (hereinafter referred to as "THE ARTIST") and _____ (hereinafter referred to as "THE YOGA SHALA") for the engagement is made part of the setting-forth of additional terms and conditions to attached contract.

1. One LARGE BASKET of WHITE FLOWER PETALS (any genus) to be strewn at ARTIST’S feet during the “Grand Entrance.” Shala owners responsible for flower petal clean up.

2. One NEW LARGE MANDUKA BLACK MAT, to be laid at front of shala, surrounded by AMBER-SCENTED CANDLES and wiped down with scented SANDALWOOD OIL.

3. Photographs and videos will be allowed in special "MEDIA AREA" to be set up facing ARTIST'S LEFT SIDE. All photos or video must be approved by ARTIST’S PUBLICITY AGENT.

4. Pyrotechnic requirements during ARTIST’S bandha demonstration to be paid for by shala owners and to include:
One smudge pot
Three M-80 firecrackers
Smoke machine with dry ice

5. Workshop accommodation requirements include a dressing room separated from main yoga shala by a door with lock (henceforth to be referred to as “VIP ROOM.”)

6. TOUR MANAGER to be supplied with five “VIP PASSES” to permit entry to “VIP ROOM.”

7. At ARTIST’S discretion, select workshop attendees may be invited to “VIP ROOM” for specific and individual bandha adjustments and to participate in various Tantric practices.

8. VIP ROOM craft services table to include:
One bowl of M&Ms---all red M&Ms to be removed!!! [Sic]
One vat Tiger Balm, large
12 bottles de-ionized, charcoal-filtered, glacier-drip water served at room temperature
6 unbleached organic hypo-allergenic cotton towels with thread count of 500 or greater
One large bowl (two cups) brown rice
One bowl steamed veggies, to include broccoli, chard, burdock root, carrots, beets, kale
One extra-large bag of chocolate chocolate chip cookies
One extra-thick bar of Toblerone dark chocolate

8. Workshop organizers will arrange an autograph signing to take place immediately after workshop and not to exceed 15 minutes.

9. Workshop organizers will provide 100 prints of ARTIST’S headshot, to be purchased at $5 per photo prior to workshop, and 100 copies of ARTIST’S 2006 calendar, to be purchased at $10 per copy.

10. The following items are the ONLY that ARTIST will sign:
Yoga mats
ARTIST’S head shot
The current month’s LULULEMON ad featuring ARTIST (Note: But NOT any previous months'!)
ARTIST’S 2006 calendar
ARTIST’S DVD
ARTIST’S book.

11. Questions NOT TO BE ASKED of ARTIST at any time during workshop:
“Are you Certified?”
“Are you still teaching Madonna?”
“Can you do kapotasana?”

Sakura
The cherry blossom trees uncurled their gnarled winter fingers during the last week of March, offering Tokyo the delicate pink and white flowers of the sakura, or cherry blossoms.

Japanese friends had talked about the apparition of the cherry blossoms with a zeal bordering on the religious. Now I see why.

Snow-banks of the gauze-thin white blossoms draped across the green banks of the moat at the Imperial Palace. On some streets, the trees lining the sidewalks were bent and bowed under the weight of the hanging cherry blossoms, or shidarezakura, so that entire city blocks were enclosed in thick pink tunnels. One day, I rounded the corner to my flat to find the neighborhood playground dwarfed by a cherry blossom tree that had sprouted a towering corona of white flowers.

The appearance of the cherry blossoms is an event in Japan that nearly everyone eagerly tracks, as news programs feature daily bloom forecasts like weather reports. The flowers’ appearance in Tokyo marks the start of spring, at which point the Japanese go on hana-mi outings. “Hana-mi” means “flower watching,” although a more adequate definition would be “drunk picnic.”

Last Saturday, a few of us gaijin ("white devils") walked through Yoyogi Park, a massive public park in Tokyo that sprawls through Shibuya and neighborhoods beyond. Certain areas are thick with sakura trees, and when the flowers bloom, hana-mi-goers picnic under a dense snow-white canopy.

That Saturday, thousands of Tokyo dwellers unrolled plastic tarps under the trees, unloaded cases of sake and beer, and removed their shoes to sit down and get to business. The air was electric with an intoxicated anarchic madness, the beautiful sense that anything could happen. People talked, laughed, sang songs, and stumbled into each other, and on one blue picnic tarp, a group of friends took turns donning and then capering about in a strange blue bear outfit, complete with giant blue bear head.

It was the cathartic heaving off of the heavy mantle of winter, and I swear I saw Bacchus, wearing a red Adidas warm-up jacket, winking at me from behind a tree. Although it may just have been a drunk Irishman.

Part of the beauty of the cherry blossoms arises from their sudden appearance after months and months of soul-freezing winter weather, and part of their beauty arises from their fleeting life-span: the flowers only last a few days, until the rain and heavy winds scour clean the branches. Their end is as stunning as their appearance, though---the wind drives the flowers off the trees, and for a time it snows pink and white.

Such a wind blew through Shibuya's Hachiko Square on Monday, and the cherry blossom tree by the Hachiko statue shed its blossoms, which spiraled and immelmanned onto the commuters rushing about below its branches.

That wind carried me out of Tokyo. April 3 was my last day in Japan.

Katsu
The farewells were much more difficult than I anticipated; three months is a long time to visit a place. I also bid a fond farewell to Katsu. His passion and intensity are humbling and beautiful, and remind me of, well, me, when I first began ashtanga.

“You never know what is enough,” said William Blake, “unless you know what is more than enough.” I hope Katsu can build the practice into his life in a more wholesome manner. When I left, he said, in broken English, “I will see you in Mysore!”

I hope so, Katsu. I hope so.

My Nemesis!
Tokyo Yoga is on the fourth floor of a building in the neighborhood of Shibuya, which is just like the city in Blade Runner, only cleaner and more organized. The front entrance is locked until 8, so students use the rear entrance.

On Tuesday morning I cruised around the back to see a Maserati, an all-white Brabus G-Wagon, and a Ferrari Testarosa parked on the curb. Across the street, a crowd of wasted Japanese kids screeched and hollered in the blue neon light and heavy bass that spilled from the doorway of the newly opened Club Camelot.

Motherfuckers were still partying at 4:30 in the morning on a Monday night!

Hardcore.

Katsu was already practicing when I got up to the studio. He finished by 5 and laid down for savasana. It was a deep, deep savasana, as he began snoring. Katsu slept for a whole hour.

(I was in the middle of practice at 5:30 when Club Camelot closed, a fact I deduced from the sounds of 100 wasted people milling around on the street below.)

Part of the reason Katsu got a key to the joint was because Chama hired him to work the front desk, a good deal for Katsu because he gets a key to the studio and gets to practice for free.

After I finished, he asked if he could talk to me.

"I practice twice yesterday," he said, "and today I am tired and sore! What can I do?" He's finding that banging out the double practices takes quite a physical toll. He asked me how often I practiced. "Once a day is enough!" I said.

I told him to keep practicing, and either the soreness and exhaustion would go away or he'd have a complete mental meltdown.

I don't know how much he understood.

I got home later to find my flatmates huddled around their laptops. "You told Katsu you practice once a day?" they asked.

"How do you guys know that?" I said, and peaked at their screens---only to find that Katsu has a blog! He's blogging about me in Japanese!

Ye gods, what is this strange mirror universe into which I've fallen?

Katsu is my doppleganger, a Japanese Bizarro-Jason.

He must be destroyed.

My Least Favorite Authors, Musicians, Artists and Iconic Marxist Guerrillas
In no particular order.

Aleister Crowley
William Burroughs
Jack Kerouac
Charles Bukowski
Salvador Dali
M.C. Escher
Bob Marley
The Greatful Dead
Che Guevara

A Baby Angel Dies
Did you know that a baby angel dies every time Paul McCartney releases a record or the Rolling Stones take the stage and launch into "Start Me Up"?

It's true.

Mantra of the Day
Today's mantra comes courtesy of Brooklyn-based rapper Fabolous:

"I'm on the parkway, see me at the Knick game
Probably seen this tatted on your chick frame:
F-A-B-O-L-O-U-S."

Fabolous is saying here that he is a player of such incomprehensible magnitude that your girlfriend, and in fact all men's girlfriends everywhere, have tattooed his name somewhere on their bodies.

Your directions: repeat mantra throughout practice, and for the rest of day. For is this not god inscribing god's name on the flesh of god, all for the delight of god?

Perhaps it's just a hook from a catchy song.

Next week's mantra will come courtesy of Queensbridge rapper Jadakiss.

Extreme Decisions of a Biblical Magnitude
The new Final Fantasy video game was released to shitloads of fanfare on the sixteenth here in Tokyo, the culmination of weeks of promotional hype. There have been mega-story billboards on buildings througout the city, posters wheatpasted on every building, and the giant jumbotron building monitors have been running commercials non-stop. On weekends, the exits of the major subways were patrolled by scantily clad girls dressed as characters from the game.

The only way to top the last bit would be if the heavens opened and comic books fell from the sky. But anyway, at 6:30 in the morning of the release day, I trucked past the Shibuya Tsutaya to see 50 people lined up and waiting to purchase the game. My nerd heart swelled with emotion.

I love this country's overwelming love and support of all things nerd-related, and when a role-playing videogame is accorded the pomp and circumstance of a major cultural event, it brings tears to a grown nerd's eyes. There are now Final Fantasy point-of-purchase displays at the front counter of every 7-11. The staples: Milk, bread, rice-balls ... and Final Fantasy.

Which brings me to my current and related dilemma, on par with Abraham's from the Old Testament: I have to choose between attending a Chuck and Maty workshop this coming weekend ... or the Tokyo International Anime Fair.

Cell Phones
They’re everywhere in Tokyo, no shit. Yoga students tuck ‘em under their mats and check for text messages during practice.

That Crazy Bastard Katsu
My buddy Katsu, he of double-practice hamburger-flipping fame, is trying to out-zealot me! The crazy bastard! He connived a key to the studio and I arrived at 4:30 this morning to find he’d already started his practice! (Presumably his first.) I’ll show him who’s crazier …

Tokyo Defamiliarization
I walk or bike everywhere in Tokyo and live at the top of a fourth-floor walk-up. What’s a lazy man to do? I keep cashing out my calorie bank account, and consequently I’m so hungry at all times of the day that, if pressed, I could devour my own foot. (I've thought a lot about it: the left one goes first.) I cannot stop eating.

I walked by a Subway sandwich store the other day and ducked inside to hork down some carbohydrates. Ah, the generic familiarity of the global chain stores! One is always automatically oriented to the colors, the menu, and the layout.

Tokyo Subways are the same as the ones in the U.S.---the wallpaper features nineteenth-century newspaper headlines and subway blueprints, the palette is the reassuring yellow and green, and the employees stand behind the same glassed-off sandwich assembly line.

Fabolous’ “You Can’t Deny It,” featuring Nate Dogg, bumps from the overhead speakers, volume at eight. The Japanese woman behind the counter, resplendent in her Subway uniform and visor, inquires about the bread I desire for my 8cm carb-laden treat.

I am about to answer when Fabolous interrupts to say, “And if you duck cheese I'ma fuck her---duck these, motherfucker! Ghetto fabulous nigga, I ride 'til I die!”

I am stunned into immobility. Apparently big corpo chains don’t require radio edits! I recover my composure enough to ask for wheat. The Subway woman and I slide down the counter, and she asks me in open-faced earnestness which vegetables I want. Nate Dogg pipes in from the speakers: “Y’all can’t deny it, I’m a fuckin’ rider---you don’t wanna fuck with me!”

My mission is now to pay for my sandwich with a straight face.

It is difficult.

Fabolous hijacks the familiar in Tokyo! What’s the word? “Ostranenie:” to make the familiar strange. The Russian Formalists, the Situationists, Fabolous, and maybe even Brecht would be doing cartwheels.

I wolfed my Veggie Delite, head bobbing. Fabolous says, “Still don't know me, still jump in a Lex---the chain so icy I got chill bumps on my neck!”

Speaking of Bumping
The girl behind the counter at the corporate yoga studio bumped Enya at volume 10 this morning, doubtless because Enya is on the corporate “Approved Music for Yoga Studios” list. I force her to swab my vomit from the hardwood floor. “There’s a good lass,” I tell her. “You couldn’t have known.” There's nothing worse than Enya, except maybe Enya and power crystals and pewter dragons.

... And Just to Keep it Chemical!
On the heels of the popular phencyclidine posts comes another must-read!

Unfortunately I cannot lay claim to genuine experiential participation in the following event, given my hatred of cigarettes, which seems to be genetically encoded. In addition to dipping their coffin nails in liquid phencyclidine, John and a few homies used to dip 'em in Wite-Out. You know, Liquid Paper?

There was another cross-town crew who reputedly dipped theirs in embalming fluid, but that might've been rumor. Where the fuck does one get embalming fluid? Then again, where does one lay hands on liquid PCP?

I wasn't on-hand the day Eddie flopped over and had a seizure as a result of smoking the Wite-Out-coated cigarette, but I did see him after he'd recovered. One side of his face was paralyzed and looked like lumpy clay: the left side of his mouth drooped and leaked drool and his left eyelid sagged closed. Eddie had to worry about the eyeball drying out because he couldn't blink.

Ah, Phencyclidine
My buddy John had an unspecified number of older brothers, unspecified because they were on steady rotation in and out of jail. They were all in some East Coast biker gang. John's refrigerator at home had one entire shelf stacked with Elmer's glue jars, the kind with the glue-brush stuck on the inside of the top. The glue jars were filled with liquid phencyclidine. We used to take parsley, dip it in the jars, wrap it in tin-foil to soak, then smoke it, releasing a very singular chemical-laced parsley smell.

Once, one of John's brothers was due to be released, so John and his other brothers packed a car and picked him up from jail for a celebratory fishing trip. How many jars of Elmer's were in the car? Who knows, but I'd guess a lot, because as they sped down the freeway, the brother fresh from lock-up opened the car door and stepped out for some fresh air.

He went to the hospital and then straight back to the clink, released Friday and back on Monday. John laughed when he told me the story, like, "Hey, what the fuck? He's a dumbfuck. Shit happens." John was pretty fucked up.

Profanity-laced Phrases That Have No Japanese Equivalent When Shouted In Moving Traffic From A Speeding Bicycle
1. "Loogout homie."
2. "Watch it there, tubby."
3. "Stay in your lane, fuckface."
4. "Gah!
5. "Your left, your left, your left! Your left! Shit."
6. "Hey there chief."
7. "Oops."
8. "Whoops."
9. "Fucktard!"
10. "I am sure your BMW is not scratched."

Katsu
In broken English, Katsu tells me he quit his job as a graphic designer in order to practice ashtanga. He wanted a job that freed up his mornings so he could practice ashtanga. He now "makes hamburgers" from 10 to 10 everyday. That is to say, he works a 10-hour shift at a fast-food restaurant.

He also practices twice a day. I asked him if he was trying to get "there" twice as fast, but he didn't understand me.

We've become friends as Katsu is the first human I see every morning. He arrives at the studio to begin his first practice just when I'm finishing at around 6 a.m. He hasn't abandoned graphic design, however---he has just designed some banging shirts for my friend Chama's studio, tokyo-yoga.com.

Books
"Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius"
"Freakonomics"
"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman
"60 Stories" by Donald Barthelme
"Kundalini: Aghori II" by Bobby Svoboda
"The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe
The number-one Tokyo banger, however, has been "Who Cares?!" by Ramesh Balsekar

Cartoons, Or, Why I Loved Bittorrent Until Our ISP Choked Our Service
Dragon Ball Z
Yu Yu Hakusho
Hellsing
Gundam: War in the Pocket
Gundam: Starlight Express

Post-it Note Stuck to Cerebellum
Pee first, then the Tiger Balm.

Extra-wide Sharpie Tattoo on Back of Hand
(For Walking Around Tokyo)
Buy Nothing

The Best Part of Cappucino
The sludge cloud at the bottom of the cup, cut with espresso and sugar.

The Ol’ Truck Door in the Face Trick
A classic! I bike with the flow of traffic. Sometimes passengers get out of trucks stopped at traffic lights. I caught the door right in the face! Actually, I took most of it on the shoulder. Surprised hell out of the guy climbing out, too.

Chilling with Yakuza in the Sento
There’re just three of us, and we sit and sweat in the wood-walled steam room. A speaker on the ceiling pipes in the Muzak version of Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and comes very close to killing my soul.

The old yakuza guy on my left has the full-body tattoo hook-up. Arms, shoulders, back, thighs---his body is fully covered in tattoos but for a vertical stretch on his chest. All his skin is covered but for the parts that would be revealed when he wears a kimono. He smiles a genial grandfather smile and nods at me, then cracks open a manga comic about yakuza.

The younger kid now sitting on my right is the older man’s underling. He held the door open for the guy and waited a full respectful minute before entering the steam room. He’s since sprinted out twice with comic over-enthusiasm for the older man’s ringing cell phone. Comic because we’re all buck-ass naked, and there’s nothing funnier than a buck-ass naked man attempting to sprint on a wet tile floor with his dick flapping.

He’s got the beginnings of what will be the full-body tattoo hook-up, and he’s shooting sideways glances at the ink on my arm. It’s enough that I baldly stare back at him---man, I fucking hate being stared at like I’m not there, especially when I’m sitting six inches away from someone and we’re both naked.

I smile and point at his tattoos and say, “Nice.” He smiles and points at mine and says, “Very good!” We give each other the thumbs-up---two buck-ass naked guys giving each the thumbs-up and grinning like idiots. It’s not as comic as watching Junior hop around the corner at high speed on a wet floor. But it’s close.

Rice Ball Roulette
I’m not just subsisting on muesli and bananas---I’m also eating a shit-ton of hockey puck-shaped rice balls from the local Sunkus, AM/PMs, and 7-11s. Generally, I’m fairly sure what I’m getting---I prefer the sesame seed and red-bean rice ball---but when that’s not available ... spin the wheel, try your luck.

Lessons in Tokyo iPod Detournement
Directions: wander until lost. Set iPod on stun. Create dream-state meaning. Strip personal biography from the city; hijack Tokyo’s geography and history. Become an alien, make the city a strange and wondrous lunar landscape.

Round One: Leonard Cohen Versus Tokyo
“Famous Blue Raincoat” on the Metro; body pushed and pulled by the tidal wash of the crowds and the ebb and flow of the train; an ocean of humanity; “Did you ever go clear?”

Round Two: Krishna Das Versus Shibuya
4 a.m. bike ride to studio; Krishna Das’ bass-chord voice, perfectly struck, thrumming “Puja”; masked, helmeted, vinyl-suited astronaut construction worker waves me to practice with his twin orange flashlights; cold, cold, empty studio, don’t think, just do.

Round Three: Metallica Versus Akihabara
“Back to the Front”; jaw-clenching phencyclidine disconnection; “You will die/ When I say/ You will die”; technology in all its shapes and sizes; flickering, strobing, pulsing; raw wash of too much, too much.

Ask Cereal Boy
Once again, Cereal Boy is here to answer your cereal- and yoga-related questions.

Dear Cereal Boy,
Is muesli considered cereal, and do you eat it?
Joseph Pasquale
Ramona, CA

Joseph,
Since muesli consists of uncooked rolled oats and fruit, it is frightfully less sugary than cereal, and therefore not as good for you as regular cereal. I blame the sawdust palates of the Swiss, who invented the stuff in 1900. Muesli is, however, part of the cereal food group. It meets all the vital criteria: it is packaged in bags or boxes, is prepared with milk in a bowl, and as Jerry Seinfeld famously noted, it can be eaten with one hand, while one is doing something else. Therefore I eat the shit out of it.

Dear Cereal Boy,
Does your well-known hatred of hippies extend to granola?
Franklin Rochester
Dubuque, IA

Franklin,
My hatred of hippies extends to many of their accoutrements---Birkenstocks, hackie sacks, patchouli, alpaca wool, folk singers---but stops short of granola. Granola, which consists of a baked concoction of fruit, rolled oats, nuts and honey, became part of the cereal food group in the mid-1800s---well before the hippie co-opted it so famously at Woodstock. I do, however, consider it one of last century's great tragedies that such a glorious breakfast treat has become a slang term for those unshaven sandal-shod cretins.

Dear Cereal Boy,
Is it true you subsist solely on cereal?
Anne-Marie Plodnitz
Redford, MA

No. I pour milk on the cereal. I also consume coffee, dark chocolate, and bananas by the branch-load.

Dear Cereal Boy,
Will cereal help my yoga practice?
Sean Fillmore
Vestal, VA

Fuck yes.

Dear Cereal Boy,
In your column in last month's Light Connection, you quoted a passage from the Shiva Samhita, a 17th century yogic text, as listing the many-fold benefits of cereal consumption. I've re-read the text, and I can't find any reference to cereal. I also couldn't find any reference to espresso as "the blood of the gods." What gives?
Lisa Woodrow, DDS
Blaine, VA

You are obviously reading an outdated and culturally myopic translation. I suggest you find a better one.

Tokyo, city of narcoleptics: Trains shuttle to and fro, every third or fifth person slack-jawed and unconscious, either slumped over on their seat or suspended on their feet by fellow passengers and force of habit. Chin-chested hunchbacks have taken over the corner seats in coffee shops. The coffee remains untouched until waking.

Yesterday on the train, the woman next to me slumped over onto my shoulder. Four women sat across from our unlikely coupling. Three of them nodded out during the ride, heads all bowed in the same direction and gently rocking in time with the train’s rhythms.

Mind you, this is mid-day, not early morning or late night.

Tokyo is a raw rush of the most intense stimulus on the planet---visual, auditory, sensory. Its inhabitants work ungodly hours, say 10 or 11 in the morning to 10 at night. Their long work days are often book-ended by hour-and-a-half commutes.

When they don’t work, they play. The karaoke houses are 10-story neon citadels. My daily 4:30 a.m. bike ride to yoga takes me past a karaoke center, and every morning, without fail, I pass drunk clusters of people emerging and heading home … doubtless to catch an hour or two of sleep before heading back to work.

The city seems in the grips of a sleeping sickness epidemic, a story from Calvino: People fall asleep in greater and greater numbers, on the trains and in the coffee shops, to be sure, but also in cars and in supermarkets, at their desks and on street corners, in plazas and skyscraper elevators, in parks and building foyers, until one is stepping over gently snoring bodies as one walks down the sidewalk. The three-story video displays, flashing neon signs and lambent window displays go unseen and unheard, their messages blinking and echoing down silent streets. One navigates once-busy train stations on tiptoes, careful not to wake those slumbering. The city’s ever-present background noise, its dull din, becomes the drone of millions of people, gently snoring.

Tokyo Yoga
Tokyo is the same as anywhere else. People struggle to fit a practice into their daily lives, juggling jobs, families, commutes, traffic, and winter weather. The yoga explosion in Japan, specifically the ashtanga explosion, mirrored its counterpart in the west, and there are many yoga students. They are passionate, driven, and hungry for information; in typical Japanese fashion, they adopted and adapted at hyper-speed.

There is a glut of yoga teachers, too, many foreigners here as well as budding Japanese teachers who have come to the yoga in the last two or three years. Smelling the money, corporations stepped in and sewed their dollars like dragon-teeth, from which have sprouted across Japan fully formed and ultra-modern yoga studio franchises.

Rents are hideous in Tokyo, so studio maximize all hours of the day. Yoga teachers are on the grind as they are in every big city, many traveling to different yoga studios throughout the day in order to teach two or three people. My flatmate Chama owns and runs his own studio. For a while, he was teaching 25 classes a week. He’s since cut back to 15. His studio opens its doors at 6:30 a.m. and has classes throughout the entire day, sometimes until 10:30 at night. I usually only see Chama in the mid-afternoon when he stops by the flat to eat a bowl of noodles. He then passes out until it’s time to teach the evening’s class.

It would be more unsettling---"the yoga trend," like all trends or fads, will end---if ashtanga weren't so difficult to undertake and so powerful in its results. It will never be too popular because it's simply too fucking hard. It doesn't rely on star teachers to encourage the opening of one's heart chakra. Its effects are immediate and bone-deep; you just have to do it.

The Future is Now
One
Our washing machine washes, rinses, spins and dries clothes---all in one. You put the clothes in, push a button, and return two hours later to a load of clean, dry clothes.

Two
Our microwave is also a toaster---you pull off the revolving plate and a grill is underneath. There's a toast button on the front.

Three
Kranti bought the most futuristic cell phone in the world for ¥1. It's a Star Trek tricorder that takes photos and videos, recieves and sends e-mails, browses the Web, and makes excellent wet cappucinos. You can also swipe the phone on the electric sensors at subway turnstiles to ride the train. You can swipe it on many vending machines, which, in Tokyo, contain soda, juices, water, coffee, sandwiches, beer, mixed drinks, cigarettes, cigars, school-girl underpants, et cetera et cetera. There are a growing number of restaurants where you can swipe your phone to pay the bill.

Other
Every day, yoga studios in Tokyo provide fresh wet-wipes to students, with which they wipe down their mats.

Public Bath Blues
I am denied entry to a public bath due to my tattoos; a sign in front of the building features an "x" over an icon of a man covered in dragon tattoos. I try to explain to the employees that I am not yakuza, but to no avail.

Recipe for Coma
Ingredients
1. Wake at 3 a.m. to practice yoga at 4.
2. Stay awake all day.
3. That evening, swallow 1,000mgs of Robaxin (generic name: Methocarbamol).
4. Follow that with two hours in a Japanese bath. "Bath" includes sauna, hot tub, ice dip, and steam room. (Note: "hot" tub more accurately called "core of the fucking sun" tub.)
5. After bath, drink half of one shot-glass-sized hot sake.

Directions:
Slide off the restaurant booth into a puddle on the floor, unable to move your limbs. Blink "SOS" in Morse code to alert friends that you are in fact a sentient puddle of water, and that you need to be levered into a taxi with your home address pinned to your lapel.

Drukqs
Psilocybin mushrooms were legal in Japan until three years ago; head shops used to sell baggies of them. In contrast, marijuana is very illegal. People are brought up on criminal charges for failing urine tests.

DMT is still legal and available; I have not inquired about ketamine.

The GG Allin Challenge
Consumer culture has reached its apogee in Tokyo. Fashion has been deconstructed down to the molecular level and codified accordingly; fashion is followed with a rigor and zeal that, as William Gibson says in Pattern Recognition, has become an act of worship.

All of which has pushed me to the other and no less extreme end of the spectrum, the GG Allin Challenge, or the Scum Fuck Possession Fast, which involves giving up material possessions and only living with whatever fits in a brown paper bag.

GG Allin, as I'm sure everyone is aware, was a punk-rock car accident, a perpetual man on fire who wrote classic songs like "Drink, Fight and Fuck," and who hurled obscenities, fists, excrement, and other bodily effluvia on audience members. He swore he was going to kill himself on stage, but overdosed and died before he could make good.

GG had a simple philosophy on life. He had the jacket on his back and could fit everything else he owned in a brown paper bag, in case he needed to blow town, which he often did. The brown paper bag also presumably contained a six-pack and a carton of cigs.

Proposal: 10-day fast with only access to the clothing and toiletries that one is wearing and and one can fit in one regulation-sized brown paper shopping bag. No layering of clothes like girls who cheat at spin the bottle, and no department store bags! (Those are considered sacks.)

Things that are not considered "clothing" and "toiletries," and are as such outside of the fast: books, music, comic books.

You can't use your credit card, either. It's all cash-on-hand. So withdraw some money and live on a budget. You think fucking GG Allin, who wrote an album called Live Fast, Die Fast, had a fucking credit card, college boy? Fuck no.

Ten days? Make it a month.

You could do this no problem in India ... Tokyo, however, as with most places in the West: much harder---not least because it's freezing in Japan right now and you'd fill up the bag with just one sweater.

Okay, so we make it a seasonal fast---spring and summer only.

Which lets me off the hook ... for now.

Subtle and Insidious
The allure to "teach," to be a "teacher." To tell it like it "is." To see the hunger for knowledge in a slight tilt of head and to seize upon it. To enjoy the role of authoriity figure. To enjoy being listened to and taken seriously. To shrug on the coat of gravitas, worldliness, experience. To hesitate at the thought of practicing with students.To hesitate to be seen as anything less than perfect.

Recipe for Antidote
Practice, practice, practice. Practice. Listen more, talk less. Pause before speaking. Inhale, exhale. Always question, yet move spontaneously. Is this about me? Or them? The worst vice is advice. Your truth is not their truth. Your truth is not even your truth. Remember Siddartha Gautama on his deathbed, to his monks: "Be a lamp unto yourselves."

Respect Due
Tim Miller would no doubt laugh, but one of the things I most respect about him is that he practices with his students three times a week. He unrolls his mat just as they (we) do and then puts in the work, gifts and impediments bare for all to see, sattvic and tamasic days alike.

What the hell? Where have I been? Why haven't I posted in ages? And why am I in Tokyo?

The Rain Bit
It rained non-stop for seven of our ten-day stay in Auroville last October. It was Indra's fury at the Bay of Bengal manifest as an unending apocalyptic torrent of water, which poured forthl from the sky to blot out the universe. All roads were muddy brown lakes that we forded on motorcylce, ankle-deep. The very walls of our guesthouse exhaled water that soaked through our bed.

Everywhere, everything was mold, mud and grit. And always the fucking rain. After three straight days it had penetrated our skins and skulls and souls.

The murder marked the low point. A young man, a member of one of two local village gangs, was stabbed to death by rival gang-members. For the remainder of our stay, the air was filled with tension and grief and the dull roar of the grey rain.

The Cockroach Bit
Fuck a two-hour car ride from Auroville to Chennai, follwed by a nine-hour train ride home to Mysore. We strapped into seats on Air Deccan for a one-hour flight.

Just before take-off, a fat brown roach skittered over the headrest of the seat in front of me. It waved its antennae and then disappeared, continuing its cabin circumambulations.

Jet Lag
For my money, the best drug on the market. Your circadian rhythms are like, totally fucked, man. As William Gibson says, jet lag is like sending your body someplace, and then waiting a few days for it to reel in your soul.

Two or Three Things About in Tokyo
1. People don't lock up bikes. They just park 'em on the sidewalk, hit the kick-stand, and leave 'em.

2, Don't cross against the light at crowded intersections. Lemming-like, everyone will follow you across the street; even into the face of oncoming traffic.

3. The mouth of Takeshita Street slopes gradually downhill. Hundreds of shoppers clog the street and sidewalk, wall to wall. All twirl, maneuver and otherwise pilot umbrellas to fend off the snow pouring forth from the heavens. It is a delicate dance. I am a full head taller than most everyone, and tower over a sea of bobbing plastic Technicolor domes, red, green, white, black, blue, clear, camouflage; plain or monogrammed. It is a Busby Berkeley set waiting for someone to cry "Action!" to cue synchronized song and dance.

The Power Nap Bit
Mid-day: the kid next to me at the coffee-shop is studying, highlighting a page in a book and taking notes, doubtless preparing himself for the critical entrance exam into eleventh grade. Twenty minutes pass. The kid leans back in his chair, closes his eyes, and slides down in the booth, dead asleep.

A friend told me that many Japanese students get very little sleep due to school, after-school tutoring school (called "cram" school), and then more studying.

Waitresses passed too and fro and batted nary an eye. After an hour the kid gave a little snort, woke up, and resumed studying.

Straight from the Tap
The milk boy delivers fresh milk---still warm from the udder---every day at 4:30 p.m. for the sum of 7 rupees. We’ve bought a milk pail expressly for the purpose. He pours out a half-liter, then dips back into the bucket with his cup and tops it off with a well-practiced flourish, a graceful mobius swirl of the wrist. The boy does, however, walk into our living room sans knocking, which is quite unnerving. He doesn’t stand in the hallway, doorway or even inside the general front door area: the door will suddenly swing wide and he’ll troop right into the living room. Andrew boils the milk for 2 to 3 minutes; it usually ends up foamed for cappuccino although I’ve been known to pour a bowl for cereal.

We Regret the Passing …
Let me take a moment of silence, head down and on bended knee, for the passing of my position at Cosmodemonic Shoe Co, Inc. My job ended not with the usual ritual pomp and circumstance---the farewell lunch endured, smiles and handshakes apportioned to every cubicle, and the yoga-India monologue recited---but by a gradual and somewhat confused un-entanglement. I worked remotely from India for the last two weeks, responding to certain e-mails, disregarding others, and detaching a little more every day.

Mysore’s Subtle Tyranny
Be free from the idea that you must only read books about yoga! Liberate yourself from the creeping anxiety that your free time must consist of chanting, Sanskrit and Sutra classes! Read John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum! Rent and watch films you would never dream of watching! “American Pie 3!” “40-Year-Old Virgin!” “Orgazmo!”

Casual Piracy
Video Tech is on Kalidasa Road, across from the petrol station. I have to duck my head to enter its open garage-door storefront. Hundreds of VCDs line the racks on the four walls, the DVDs are tucked in a three-foot-tall recessed alcove behind the front counter.

I’m sure I pay Westerner prices---30Rs per DVD!---so they let me sort through the good shit behind the counter. I squat and sit on a stool in confessional and the kid turns on an overhead bulb: “Wedding Crashers,” “Fantastic Four,” “War of the Worlds,” “Red Eye;” incongruously, Renoir’s “The Grand Illusion.”

There’s a 1-in-10 chance my laptop simply won’t read the DVD as existing, and many copies are filmed directly off the screen. We’ve been fortunate, though, as none of the copies we’ve rented have included filmgoers’ heads. “Wedding Crashers” did have an extra audience laugh-track.

I sorted through a basket of music CDs on the counter yesterday. I left with three, for the sum of 15Rs each per day. One CD contained 15 Pink Floyd albums, one contained 11 Metallica albums, and the last contained 13 of the latest pop albums (Backstreet Boys, Jennifer Lopez, Black Eyed Peas, The Scorpions, Richard Marx, and … Nelly?) Tara wanted the two Black Eyed Peas albums, although I swooped the Backstreet Boys album (“Never Gone”) for myself.

Courtesy of Video Tech, last Tuesday I downloaded onto my computer 21 episodes from the third season of “Seinfeld,” and on Sunday the entire first season of “Sex and the City.” Decadent? Maybe. Downright sybaritic? One could make the case ...