The last Sutra Study we had a good discussion about the body and sensations. As hatha yogis it’s incumbent on us that we listen intently to the messages that sensation is sending us throughout practice. Ashtanga is a fiery system of vinyasa practice. The essence of vinyasa is Breathing System! The breath must lead us, guide us and inform us. Even, steady breathing calms the nervous system. We develop the ability to embrace difficult asana and the feelings they produce. Dristi practice trains the mind to focus inward ( pratyahara ). The mind, focused and still, is able to receive the impressions of sensation and to make sense of them. In other words, the undistracted mind has the opportunity to receive and translate the message of sensation and just as importantly we are able to hear it too. We can discern between strong sensation that must be contained and injury that must be avoided. In short, the inner workings of practice go beyond making shapes ( asana ). The inner practice is HOW do we go about making shapes; the understanding of the bodily sensations the shapes create. This understanding leads to integration. From here it doesn’t matter what your practice looks like. You will be engaged in a process of conscious embodiment, opening up and refining your energy body, and increasing your sensitivity to your inner world.
Making Moves
Root causes of suffering. Resistance. Upset. Personal hell states. Only through hard won effort and focused determination can one free oneself from the powerful effects of the kleshas. The Roshi, in her loving wisdom, shoved our faces in our karma from a non personal place. Hence we played along, as difficult as that was, otherwise practice would have simply consisted of the normal, worldly ways in which we push each other’s buttons. The mantra was, “ In this very lifetime I commit to cleaning up this karma for benefit of all sentient beings.” Since ego is devoted to comfort, even with this intention, we will unconsciously avoid facing karma. Therefore a trustworthy mentor who holds you accountable accelerates the process. The proactive yogi chooses the road less travelled and swims upstream to face it, contend with it and ultimately free it. Free it? Yes. Form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. Bursting forth from the captivity attributed to ignorance ( ie not looking, avoidance ), freed from conditioned patterns, prana returns to the cosmic dance and the aspirant rests in a flood of well being, bodily surety and relaxed enthusiasm. All is as it should be. Satisfaction. Adulthood. It’s a fine day to die but there is plenty of work to do so let’s get started.
Make a case.
You have to build a Body of evidence. Prove to yourself. Conjecture, wishing thinking, hopeful whimsy won’t float the boat. At some point you must face Maya directly, and disprove its hideous case against you.
The ground upon which you can do that facing is your body, and it is the work that asana practice prepares you for. Unleashing vast amounts of stored prana in the body - the fruits of asana practice - is a potential disaster. A practitioner must have a code. Without it the freed up prana is co opted by ego and a trail of tears is sure to follow. The sages in their infinite wisdom mitigated such silliness by establishing the first two branches: check your “selves” before you wreck yourself.
Right livelihood, Yama Niyama - ethical conduct affords us the opportunity to prove that we are worthy. We never weren’t, it’s just that we are experts in deluding ourselves we aren’t.
When the walls come crashing in and the worst of self hatred pays a visit - usually in a most vulnerable moment - you are stable, vital, energized and have all the evidence you need so you KNOW that stability in your bones. Your body. Your form. Your most valued possession and powerful ally on the Path.
Burning Man
“Playing with Fire” connotes a warning. Be careful you may get burned. Engaging Fire, engaging reality on this place of existence in human form sums up training under the Roshis tutelage. As aspirants on the path, we were putting out the fires in our minds continuously. All the unintegrated projections! The karma! Good god! Projections would flare up and like a flame thrower leave a trail of destruction behind. Quick! Get the lavender and honey burn salve! Yet that was part of the process. So we could SEE projections clearly. And make the next embodied step of practice : cleaning up karma. From that perspective, living in silence makes a lot of sense. No books. No media. No chit chat. Eat your meals facing the wall. A Roshi to accelerate the process. No distractions from the fiery dragon that thrashes about in your body/mind, feeding off your prana, wanting to be realized on the material plane. Your body is your biggest ally on the path. Asana helps us develop deep body awareness and access to the subtle layers of vibration in the chakra system. We practice , through meditation and allowing for stillness, engaging with deep layers of karma. “Aha, here’s a kalpas old karmic quanta revealing itself in this conscious field. I have the wonderful opportunity to finally clean it up, to deal with that which no one else wanted to deal with. It’s been kicked down the road from lifetime to lifetime for someone else to deal with it and that someone is, yep, moi. That’s what I signed on for as a yoga practitioner.” In the Heart center the karma is embraced, loved and yes, integrated - its needs are finally met. No longer needing to roam about, lonely and destitute. It dissolves, transforms and is prepared to play another game. You can see from this model of practice that your body is sacred. A sacred entity that has the amazing power and potential to be of Unceasing Benefit To All Beings.
Face To Face With Kali On The Mat
Face to Face with Kali on the mat. Kali. Destruction. Kapotasana is often the first ass kicker. You come face to face with limitations. You realize that without correct form you aren’t going anywhere. You must devote yourself assiduously. and dance in the ring with a formidable opponent: that which wants the easy way out. Maintaining form demands extreme mental exertion that changes deeply engrained neural pathways. Old karmic patterns don’t change easily, and not without great effort. Don’t forget to breathe. The mind and body are One. Precision is key. Walking onto the razors edge - inching out over the cliff, challenging your ability, moving into new territory, establishing a frontier of possibility. Fear and stasis on one side. Cavalier over confidence on the other. One side leads nowhere and stagnation. The other leads to fried nerves and injury. Hello Kali. To build a new pattern is to destroy an old one. She doesn’t babysit… no coddling, no warm fuzzy hug. This is pure transformation, a chemical reaction, void of personality and your “feelings”. Direct and swift consequences for actions. Instant Karma. However we aren’t brutes. We have a human heart and Kali has referrals. You get one on the phone with a Friend and the soothing balm is there. Yes, you have to go through with it. There is no way out. Kali actually cares about you more than you could ever know. This is training for the big change… Death. Nothing is permanent. All is in flux. Get on the training program now. Makes things a whole lot less painful as Life unfolds. To ego, Life takes everything from you: loved ones, your possessions, your body. To the Heart freed from the gravity of ego, the dance as Life unfolds and you dance along joyously. Kali, that frightening lady who tears “you” to shreds, suddenly manifests as a kind loving angel who puts her arm around you and says, “ Welcome to the universe of Adulthood, glad you finally decided to get here. You’re now ready to help exert influence on these sad, earthly children making such a mess of things.”
MahaShama
The Prajnaparamita - all depends on the ears that hear it.
Pali canon - basic fundamental practice - habits, impulses, drives, samskaras, appetites.
On the Tibetan plateau where the atmospheric pressure facilitates an open crown - energetic forms - demons, demigods, deities, dakinis.
This makes sense.
One must see for themselves. Theory provides little when scrubbing karma. Even in the earliest conglomerate of things written down, the Buddha mentions Mara - a formidable entity who is intent on distraction and leading astray. From what? The Buddha’s genius - he knew the goal. The Third Noble Truth is “knowing” the End of Suffering. The Fourth is the “How”. Interesting. You’d assume that, logically ,the two would be reversed.
The Roshi didn’t give a flying F about theory. We lived in silence and we abstained from all reading. No phones, screens, texts, books. Just you , nature, and the screen of your mind. After a year of Mara banging pots and pans endlessly between the ears and that banging reverberating in the nerves, flesh, the body actually settled down. With that settling, a clear seeing. Uncoupling from the powerful karmic force of habit. Making peace with your demons. Expanding into the faith of and receiving the amrita of the dakini.
That’s the beauty of The Situation.
Manifest Destiny
When and if we contemplate the human situation, it’s always helpful to consider the situation as a predicament. A bit of a quandary if you will. Unlike Western traditions and the underlying assumption that if we just create the proper external circumstances, we can fix this jam we seem to be stuck in, the Eastern wisdom traditions assumes that this human dumpster fire is as it needs to be and we can learn something by accepting it as it is. This doesn’t mean we need to give up our efforts at alleviating an unjust and unfair world. It simply means that by accepting and seeing this human pickle clearly, by beginning from a sane and reliable starting point, we can direct our actions correctly. Confusion, upset and anger arise when our unexamined assumptions don’t align with the outcomes of our actions when in fact our actions are directed by assumptions that are doomed to fail.
If you notice, the Traditions of the East tell us we exist in a human realm and our bodies see this realm as it is, but that if we had different bodies, this same universe would manifest as that particular body would experience it. For instance, water to a human quenches thirst and cleans things. To a being in a hell realm, water is hot burning substance that is frightening. To a hungry ghost, water is pus, urine and offal. The body that experiences the same Universe sees the universe as the body dictates it.
The gods realms have a certain aspect that fascinates humans. The gods manifest things directly. They create a mental form and manifest it for themselves then and there. No waiting for or paying shipping costs. We have currently created a world that is closer to the gods realms than any other time in human history with the internet and Amazon. 40 years ago stores were closed on Sunday so you had to wait til Monday to place an order for the product you want, then wait for them to call you when it arrived two weeks later. Now, Amazon delivers next day.
The point being that in the human realm we have to work and sacrifice and make things happen in order manifest the life that we envision for ourselves, if we are in fact lucky enough to envision a life for ourselves! And often it doesn’t go the way we want it to. And it requires heaps of effort, diligence and toil.
In yoga practice, we delve into how our human body perceives the world, how we work with mind and how we manifest a life in this Life. Asana assists us in opening the channels of energy, facilitating the flow, cleansing the sense organs, training the mind to be present and attentive and unhooked from discursive and unhelpful mental patterns. We fill the body with prana and breath and tone the nervous system so we don’t fall to pieces when life gets hard. We experience the subtle body chakra system and learn first hand how the body, mind, intention and material world interact. We have agency in that interaction and can get more of what we really want.
The Eastern traditions say that we are floating along in the midst of an ocean of realms and through our intention and actions, are moving towards or away from the suffering inherent in inhabiting a body that experiences the Universe as that body experiences the Universe. You are GOD. You are the Universe and when you realize this You are less apt to want any kind of particular body. You’ll just exist in the simplicity of this very moment without a need to manifest anything because, as God, you realize everything is absolutely perfect as it is.
The State Of Yoga
Patanjali starts out the Yoga Sutras by declaring that the state of yoga is attained by focusing the attention and maintaining that focus on one object. When the mind wanders away and the attention goes from one thing to another willy nilly, then the stare of yoga is lost.
Part of yoga asana practice therefore consists of attending to an object, noticing the attention wander off of it’s own accord, regaining control of the attention and then drawing the attention back to the object. Over and over and over again. At first, you can attend to one thing for maybe 3 seconds before the attention wanders. After much practice, you train the attention and it stays on a chosen object for a longer duration. It’s important to note here that correct practice is neither, “I’m attending to an object so I’m doing it right.” because that is a set up for, “My mind is wandering, I’m doing it wrong.” Correct practice is: I’m aware of how my wanders and I direct it back. And start again.
Ashtanga yoga is designed to address an important aspect of practice: mind training. By learning the count, by learning the dristi, by learning the correct order of vinyasa, we surround the mind with things to attend to. In other words, these are the objects to which you direct your attention. By listening to the breath, by attending to bandha, by proper body dynamics, we support the mind with direct embodied objects to focus on. In theory, no room is left over for the attention to wander into discursive “thoughting”. Yet it will. So we have to catch it and practice bringing it back.
With consistent practice our mind develops the ability to hold these various objects as one experience. Rather than flitting from one thing to the next, the mental capacity enlarges and embraces the entire process of practice. For example, moving from Eka to Dwe in Suryanamaskar A for a newbie may look like this, “ Ok, arms go up this way on the inhale. Oh yeah, the hands touch, right? Dristi on the thumbs? Yes. Okay next on the exhale I fold over. Head relaxes right? My hamstrings are tight, is it okay to bend my knees a bit? I better ask the teacher. “
In short many dynamics are at play within the simple experience of moving from eka to dwe, and the newbie’s mind flits around from one piece of content to the next because the entire movement is new. And this experience is just as it should be. Practice enlarges the field of awareness. Practice means the mind can now focus on more subtle layers of content. The more seasoned practitioner jumps into a pose, “ septa, inhale breath, exhale … lift mula bandah… “ The mind is settled and steady after thousands of repetitions and attends to subtle content like quality of breath and bandha.
The process continues as the attention, now honed and one pointed, penetrates into subtle body layers; the experience of embodied asana satisfying, grounding and expanding all at once.
Ashtanga yoga, through body awareness , mind awareness and your body as the object, offers the opportunity to attain and maintain the state of yoga as prescribed by Patanjali. We surround ourselves with the allies of the count, the vinyasa, etc so that when the mind goes prancing off into undisciplined distracted states, we have a retinue of objects to bring it back to. As practice develops, those objects become more internal and more subtle. With this subtle comes the sublime: the simple and hard won experience of being absorbed and fully present to embodied human form saturated with conscious awareness.
Life. Act 1
Participation in Life is JOYFUL. The asana that pins you down for the 10 count on your mat each morning is your best friend. That is what the sages want us to understand. To fully participate we must get over petty fears of “but what will happen to me? “and trust that Life is on our side. This means exposure to and embracement of all experiences. We don’t get to pick and choose. That which is painful, hurtful opens the heart rather than closes it: that is Practice! “Life is FOR me!”, we conclude with ample evidence.
That’s the riddle life gives to us - it’s all there in essence - we are perfect, nothing was ever “wrong” ….. AND ….. we need to make an effort… We forgot ; lost a fog of misinformation we seek for that which we ARE.
Asana practice. It’s the unwavering effort , the exertion, the determination, the working with opposing forces, the coming up against, the focused concentration, the infusion of the body with the mind - that turns on the new genes which create new proteins which in turn changes your neural structure. This is transformation of you biologically AND spiritually. You actually change the engrained neural patterning, change the conditioning, change the karma, change the form, change the entity, change the Being.
Purify
Kriya Yoga as prescribed by Patanjali consists of:
self observation
connection to the divine
discipline
respectively the niyamas:
Swadyaya,
Isvara Pranidhana and
Tapas
Taking on these practices purifies the small self, egocentric conditioning, karmic patterning. In doing so the True Self, Intrinsic Purity, Whole Mind, is experienced. Awareness of True Nature occurs in little blips. Brief moments of connection to the Divine open into your experience. Quickly, karmic patterns reappear and cover up the opening. We practice. Then - boop - another little blip. We experience IT again. Perhaps we can cultivate IT and breath IT. If you have been practicing with me for a while, I always emphasize that the experience of the Divine is a BODY thing, not just a mind thing. Asana fashions a strong, sound healthy container that is sensitive, responsive and resilient.
This can sound esoteric, strangely religious and weirdly Eastern. But it’s not. It happens all the time, it’s just we don’t pay attention to it. Let’s say you are in a sour mood after a bad day with the work you do. You’re kevetching and replaying situations. You pull in the driveway, get out of your car and the sunset catches your eye. You pause a moment. The beauty of the scene stops you cold. Your mind is clear. The heart opens and you feel, throughout your body, at peace with all that is. You’re even smiling! Then, yes, the voice of discontent chimes back in and you jump back into the ring with it. Time spent in karmic pattern - hours. Time connected to the divine - 10 seconds. But that 10 seconds matters! A lot!
We begin to observe our minds. Swadyaya. We become familiar with the pattering, the stories, the voices, and the flavor of the minds’ conditioned disposition. By doing so we create space for those little blips of the divine to pop through and be experienced and embodied. Iswara Pranidhana. The more we intend to observe and embrace ourselves as we are, the more space we create for the organic, natural experience of True Nature to show itself. Once we get it on a cellular level that divinity is available beyond the small mind, we up the game and make the practice a discipline - Tapas. At this point we use every experience to see the small mind, make space and cultivate our connection to the Self. Ishwara Pranidhana.
Karma is strong. It doesn’t just skulk off down the road. It reasserts its position and its stories. As a practitioner it’s often the case we are caught in the friction of Tapas - knowing that the karmic patterns aren’t “real” yet believing them anyways; not sure where divinity is or if we ever really knew what it was in the first place - were we just fooling ourselves all along??? Cognitive dissonance rules. We stay firm but gentle with ourselves and our resolve. Sutra 2.11 states that the patterns of karma are reduced through meditation. This whole process of kriya yoga: observing karma, not believing it, experiencing an embodied sense of Self and cultivating that Self are accelerated in meditation practice. By sitting with intention, we bring the whole process to the forefront of conscious awareness on the meditation cushion. Those 20 minutes on the cushion can wipe away kalpas of karma.
By using every experience as an opportunity we gain momentum and force in our practice; potent and moving in a single concentrated direction.
Simple and Effective
When I lived as a Zen monk, each morning’s first meditation session commenced with The Daily Recollection, which consisted of a pithy line by line layout of the basic Buddhist doctrine. Three Jewels, Refuge, Four Noble Truths, Three Characteristics, PrajnaParamita, Eight Fold Path, 3 Pure and 10 Grave Precepts, Paramitas, etc. We followed along with our beads which were bestowed upon those of us who had “taken the precepts”. Each line referred to 1 bead. It took about 8 minutes to recite and we did it as group, the time keeper leading the cadence. We sat in zazen the remainder of the period, then onto breakfast and morning work assignments. All in the Holy Silence.
What amazed me over time as my practice deepened was the utter simplicity of the outline of the practice. 8 minutes to recite, 55 beads - something this simple had endured for over 2500 years and has been a guiding light for countless beings to uncover the truth of happiness.
The same process occurs within the Ashtanga practice.
What I mean is the simplicity of the outline. Sun A, Sun B. standing poses, seated poses, backbends, finishing poses, final three seats. All strung together with vinyasa keeping the mind attending to the Tristana - body, breath, dristi.
Here’s the thing - it’s up to us to fill in the simple scaffolding with Life. With our Soul. With our Heart. We have to live it and breath life into it. Each part of the scaffolding, whether it’s the Third Nobel Truth or Bhuja Pidasana, requires research, investigation. exertion, resilience, and willingness not only of body but of intelligence. With consistent practice over a long time Wisdom accrues. We gain a deeper Understanding of ourselves and how we operate, what constitutes the body/mind and how to act in ways that lead away from Suffering. We build a strong container of our material form as well as our subtle form. This strength and fortitude allows us to go deeper into unknown territory, bringing the light of conscious awareness to the places in the body/mind that seem dark and scary.
Much like learning to play an instrument, showing up for practice regularly is required. A beginner can pick up the guitar and figure out a few chords and play a simple ditty in a day or two. A master can pick up the very same guitar and make it weep. As a yogi, you, your very Self, your physical, emotion and mental forms are the instrument. Beginning with small, easy steps, you progress along the path. Take heart and keep on trucking…
Is it me, or you?
I love it when I come across an idea that I once found ridiculous, but now rediscovered, hits me smack in the face with its wisdom. Was the idea ridiculous or was it me?
In BKS Iyengar's seminal book Light On Yoga, one of the benefits of asana practice he outlines I found to be a silly idea, and I scoffed at when I first read it over 20 years ago. I came across the passage the other day and I was indeed in place of "hearing" the teaching.
The yogi does asana in order to experience different forms of life - be it animals ( ustrasana / camel ), sages ( mariciasana ) or gods ( hanumanasana ) - by putting his body in that form. The yogi recognize that, despite the difference in form, the essential nature of each being is the same: Life Force, Prana, God. In this way the yogi doesn't fall prey to the illusion that she is separate from other forms of life. "That which animates me animates All". From that understanding the yogi experiences inner integration and an interconnection with all beings. This is Peace. Living from this place of interconnection the yogi will put aside selfish desires and choose actions that are aimed at the common good. How could she do otherwise?
The deeper beauty asana practice affords is getting this interconnected realization on a cellular level. With our body. It's not just intellectual noodling about the nature of the Universe. It is a fundamental deep " body feeling / knowing " which seats us precisely Here, where we are, completely satisfied and content. This very moment in time, in this vast expanse of the Universe exists "me" and I am meant to be here and I am One with All That Is. What a gift.
Are we having fun yet???
Kids enjoy the moment and make learning fun. Adults ossify the learning process and turn it into a trudge through a cemetery of dead ideas and lifeless content.
Once we bring the sad and lonely adult sclerotic mind to asana practice things can really go off the rails. Your very own alive, vital and sentient body gets squashed beneath that calculus; the very life force squeezed out by exacting and demanding standards.The tragedy being we conclude the body is a problem. We learn to not feel. It’s no different than a youngster losing his love of learning under the tutelage of an adult teacher squashing the child’s innate brilliant intelligence in the name of learning the “ correct way “.
Kids need guidance and structure. We all need mentorship and discipline. Training the mind and body channels our life force in the direction of wholesome behaviors that result in a happy, fulfilled life. If we are enslaved by unmoderated appetites, things don’t usually end well.
The question then becomes: how do I do discipline? How do I do learning? How do I do asana practice? Do I relate to discipling my body like a task master over his subordinate? Do I shy away from doing demanding practice because I despise and rebel against the part of me that bullies like a taskmaster?
Awareness practice delves into the finer points of navigating these relationships.
Somehow we must find a way forward that integrates these forces. One of many ways to begin: as you roll your mat out each morning, call to mind, and place in the forefront of your conscious awareness, a sense of Fun, Levity, Lightness and Charity. This will open a door to an experience of learning - a place where making mistakes and not being perfect are allowed and actually become the fodder for the learning process.
Embodiment
On the yogic path of awakening, the body emerges as the reference point to which we attend. There are a million and one things that the mind could attend to in any given moment. Yogis choose the body. The body is your best, most reliable ally on the path. Your body is grounded in Reality. It is HERE - present to the current time and the unfolding moment of NOW. It is not in next week, playing out a fictional scenario of the family dinner that is on your calendar. It is not in that fight with your friend that you two had a few years ago. Conditioned mind’s function is the playing of stories. This function occurs with Mind: luminous, unconditioned conscious awareness When we let the stories go and return to the body, it naturally relaxes, well being manifests and we enjoy the rhythmic breath of our existence.
But here’s the rub.
Because body and mind are one, the conditioned mind will color, shade or condition the experience of the body with whatever story it’s playing. When you plug into and go with that memory of the fight, your body relives the fight - in that moment, right then and there. The gut clench, the tight jaw, the anger and rage, the sorrow. That experience is relived. Re living the story leaves a karmic rut in the brain, a neural pathway that the current will most likely flow down again. By repetition the rut gets a little bit deeper, denser, more entrenched. You could call this process habit or karma or conditioning. Whatever label you put on it, you can say “bye bye” to peace, well being and relaxation.
Catching onto karma’s habitual nature and the effect it has on you, the inhabitant of the body, it makes sense why the sage’s guided us to unplug from the stories and get in the body. By doing so we wind up in the NOW, the HERE, the present time grounded in “reality”. This is where we have the best shot at attaining ease and peace because we are dealing with what is so, not what might happen or rehashing what has happened. We don’t have immediate agency over the past and the future. We do have power NOW to influence and create as best a situation for ourselves HERE as we can. In doing so we make skillful choices for a better future and we understand our past with compassion thereby healing it.
Practice: Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair. Close you eyes, let your abdomen go soft and relax your shoulder. Take a few deep easy breaths, noticing the breath fill the body and exit the body. Starting at your ankles, breathing easily, bring your mind from joint to joint: from ankles, to knees, to hips up to the crown of your head. Start again at your feet. Bring the mind to the feet, hands, forearms, calfs, upper arms, thighs, buttocks and hips, shoulders and chest, belly and head. Then again, breathing easily explore your body as skeleton. Notice the bony structures that support you uprightness. Then explore your body as a system of muscles. Then feel your body as pulsing, coursing fluids continuously pumped and channelled. Feel you body as a system of nerves, electrochemical reactions setting off more reactions, stimulating feelings and memory. Finally experience your body as pure energy, free flowing Breath, the inherent body intelligence that supports you.
The HOW
Consistent practice over a long period of time…. the Way of Ashtanga if you will. The important thing to remember is the HOW of practice. How much is too much and how much is too little. We want to drive the mind throughout the body and deep into the subtle layers so as to awake latent energies. This requires a lot of exertion and the benefits are well worth the effort. However, we want to be available to our people, our loved ones and we want to fully participate in the roles we have assumed in the world as husband, wife, mother, father, employer, etc. Too often people attack practice and get run down. They feel defeated and quit. Ashtanga is a slow slow steady climb. There is no rush and there is no agenda. We at Ashtanga Portland are committed to working with you as an individual and meeting your individual needs, giving you the guidance from over 20 years experience. There will be times when you come up against a major roadblock in practice. This or that refuses to budge. Huge amounts of determination will be needed to make the slightest headway. You have the time and space to dig in and go for it??? Great! That means you can take a nap later and eat a nutritious homemade meal. Perhaps you are strapped at work and there are complicated family issues. Now is not the time - you need your essence and energy to deal with daily life. And practice can assist you here too - , a place of refuge where you embody your physicality and redeem your breath and life force to face the challenges.
The key is paying attention and surfing the wave of practice and life, monitoring energy levels, knowing when to dig in and do some heavy lifting and when to back off. When we practice this way, we look forward to coming in the room and our practice supports and provides. It’s a big conversation, probably the biggest one as student of hatha yoga, and one we look forward to helping you explore.