Chuck E. Cheese: 9th Circle of Hell

After about a year of begging, my little ones convinced me to take them to Chuck E. Cheese (you really must click on this link...it is a witty, subtitled photo montage of Chuck E. Hell...it will give you the true picture of what the Cheese is like). It was worse than I ever could have imagined it. You wait on line for about 20 minutes to get in. Then you wait on line to order your overpriced food - $40 for pizza, french fries, salad and drinks. Then you wait at your table for the swill to be delivered, as music blares, screens show dissonant kiddie images in every angle of your peripheral vision, and your children are jumping up and down, anxiously waiting for you to let them run around in the mayhem. After you eat your crappy food, you get to follow your kids all over the arcade portion of the joint, where they beg you for tokens to play the games and they fight over who won more tickets. THEN, just when you think it's over, they want to go into the "Supertube" or something like that - a giant plastic tube that winds around and around and around, like innards only much more colorful, and empties into a slide where your sweaty children tumble out and then race up into the tube once more. Luckily, there is only one exit to the tube, or else my anxiety level would have been REALLY skyrocketing. As it was, they took an insanely long time to come through the tube and out the bottom - Bri told me that Addy was doing anything he could to avoid the slide because that was the end.

But just when you think you're done, you have to feed all the tickets your kids won into a "ticket muncher" which counts the tickets. And of course there's a long line for that. And then when you conquer that battle, you have to go to the front of the whole place so that the kids can exchange the ticket-muncher receipt for the junkiest little toys you have ever seen. I begged my kids to give their receipt to some children they thought might not have as many toys as them at home....no such luck.

More line waiting. And then, the line to get out the door, which was actually a good thing: there was a security guard checking to make sure that each parent left with only their own children.

After exiting the 9th Circle, we went to Dunkin Donuts so that I could indulge in a warm cup of caffeine for the ride home, which I promptly spilled all over the ground as soon as we left. Ah well. I survived.

Then, just in a bid to enjoy some peace and quiet, I ended up staying up a bit too late, watching more of my Lost marathon....loving it.

Which brings me to this morning.

I don't know how it got so late, but I ended up arriving at Shala X at around 9:45. And then I don't know how it ended up taking me so long, but I didn't finish my seated poses until 9:55. It wasn't my most enjoyable practice ever - how could it be, after such a wonderful practice yesterday? But it wasn't my worst practice either. And to clarify - using subjective qualifications to describe my practice, I am not in any way referring to the outer manifestation of the practice. That, as usual, is the same, as usual, perhaps even a bit deeper in my twisty poses, which I am beginning to really love, perhaps even more than forward bending. Rather, I am referring to my internal aspect.

After practice, I decided to go back to where I had been last night - not Chuck E. Cheese, but the same shopping center in Long Island City (really, part of Queens) to the National Wholesale Liquidators store, otherwise known (by me) as the Small Impulse Purchases Store. The main draw, however, was that Dunkin Donuts and the promise of a quiet cup of Marshmallow coffee.

What a wonderful way to transition from my practice to mindless shopping: a honey raisin bran muffin and that nice cuppa Marshmallow flavored joe. As I sat sipping my coffee and dipping my muffin top (the actual muffin top, not the flesh poking out over my track pants), I mulled over my practice with a small smile. How can it be that Mari D is really happening for me? This summer, I honestly thought that for the rest of my life, I would be yanked into it and negotiating with my teacher to let me move on in spite my failure to master the twisting and the shoulder-stretching, which is so crucial to so much of the rest of the practice. I didn't know much this summer. I was a newbie. Still am. But I know a little more now. And what I now know is that practicing the same things every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, something gives.

My press-ups are starting to last beyond a nano-second, which also feels nice. I expected that to take a couple of months. I'm kinda sorta contemplating what Buhja Pidasana is all about, but honestly, I am really not physically ready to add any new poses. I really want my practice to tighten up, to get shorter, before I add on. I don't want to be adding new poses when I am currently feeling spent by the time I get to Mari D, when my upward facing dogs are still starting to fall apart towards the end of practice (this is a side effect from my abdominal surgery this summer), when I am still working so HARD to get into Mari D (I can finally say that I am not working so hard to get into C anymore...never thought I would be saying that either...in fact, I am beginning to find Mari A to be more of an effort than Mari C, which is probably reflects how hard I am working my lower back in this time of learning to twist)....So, I am not in any way jonesing for the word from Sir.

I look forward to the time when I AM though. It's a kind of nice feeling when practice starts to feel monotonous, and you get to coast for a bit, until the next pose(s) are added...

I have to say that I really enjoy working with Madam on Tuesdays after almost everyone else has left the shala. She gives quite a bit of verbal instruction in addition to her hands on adjustments, and I "get" what she says - her verbal adjustments have been incredibly helpful. She's really quite a good teacher...I wonder if others realize this as well?

It's probably why I ended up coming later than usual today...I think I really wanted to work with Madam. It's the only chance I get to all week.

It's funny to me that I need to analyze my behavior in order to realize my feelings. One would think that the feelings would come first and the behavior would follow. But then, if that were true, no one would need a shrink, I guess.

YC

Well, at least I can get to the shala earlier

Somehow, I think it must be Young Bush's fault, at least indirectly, that starting on February 1, 2006 and going forward into oblivion, the school day at my children's public school will now be 10 minutes shorter for most of the kids. Those children who are deemed to have fallen behind will henceforth have an extended day.

Those children who are deemed to be average or better will go home 20 minutes earlier than usual, the school day having begun 10 minutes earlier. It's a nice thought. But very flawed. When you examine it a little more deeply, you find that the emphasis is on getting these kids ready for the statewide exams they take in third and fourth grade. And you find that the teachers are being required to work longer hours (they are getting paid more, but this was in response to having requested a pay raise that did not involve having to work longer hours). And then there are the other kids, the ones who are not in such desperate need of extra attention. Lucky for them, yes. But is it fair to place so much emphasis on bringing the level up to the median, as opposed to raising the level at the top? By which I mean, what about the kids who vastly exceed their grade level standards? Why is it not important that their minds be stimulated appropriately for their level of giftedness with extra classes at the end of the school day?

On the bright side, school starts 10 minutes earlier, which makes a huge difference in my getting to the shala in time to have Sir's assistance at the tail end of my practice.

And so in the spirit of combining my annoyance with current public policy and the joys of yoga, I give you Bush Yoga. It's quite a trip.

YC

Yoga Chickie's Attachments, January 2006

I am attached to, in no particular order (as evidenced by the placement of Diet Peach Snapple and my children well below the top five):

1. Flavored coffee, black, no sugar
2. Having what feels like "a good practice" each day (notice my desperation when one day it is not such a good practice)
   
3. Blogging
   
4. Email
5. My children's continuing health, happiness and prosperity
   
6. My continuing to feel well and happy
   
7. The notion of finishing Primary Series
8. Cadbury Dairy Milk
9. Diet Peach Snapple
   
10. Buying nice things when I want to
11. The good behavior of Lewis the Bagle
12. Fitting into a size __
13. Feeling attractive
14. The good behavior of my children
    

That's all I can think of at the moment. Are any of these worth detaching from? Sure. Probably number one on the list is everything that is outside of my control. Oh wait...I believe that would be eveything on the list. Even that which relates to my health and to my children.

There is a difference between detachment and not giving a shit, between attachment and enjoyment.

YC

Rogue Yogini

MUCH BETTER today. MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better. OH JOY!!

Read parts of SKPJ's Yoga Mala last night while in the bath.

An interesting read...for a number of reasons...

First, because it does not include several asanas (I assume this is because the Primary Series did not contain these asanas at the time Yoga Mala was first published):

• Parivritta Trikonasana
• Parivritta Parsvakonasana
• Dandasana

And it gives instructions for certain asanas that do not correspond to instructions I have received in every class, Mysore and led, that I have ever taken:

• InPrasarita Padotannasana A, the first inhale (as written in Yoga Mala) takes the feet out as far as five feet wide and the hands to the WAIST. The exhale takes the hands to the floor with the head up. The next "vinyasa" consitst of another inhale AND another exhale that takes the head down between the hands, the gaze remaining at the nose as the pose is held for an unspecified number of breaths. (As I have been taught, it is inhale the legs and arms wide, exhale the hands to the floor, inhale look up, exhale into the full posture).
• In Prasarita Padotannasana C, after the inhale back up from B, it's exhale to interlock the fingers behind the back and the inhale to lift the chest and exhale down to the floor. (As I have been taught, it is inhale up from B, exhale hands to the waist, inhale arms out to the sides, exhale to interlock the fingers....)
• In Marichyasana C and D, the wrapper arm is not the one doing the grabbing. (In class I am always encouraged to grab my back wrist with my wrapping arm's hand).

In addition, he boils down the dristes to eyebrows and nose, inhales corresponding with eyebrows and odd numbered vinyasas, and exhales corresponding with nose and even numbered vinyasasas, this pattern carrying throughout the entire primary series.

And here is something that actually almost inspired me to start a "secret" blog that I fantasized about calling "The Rogue Yogi, but what the hell, I'll take a chance here:

In his introduction to the chapter on Surya Namaskara, SKP states that "The practice of Surya Namaskara, or sun salutations...is capable of rendering human life heavenly and blissful. By means of it, people can become joyous, experience happiness and contentment, and avoid succumbing to old age and death." [emphasis added] I find this incredibly interesting since the fear of death is one of five causes of human suffering enumerated in the Yoga Sutras. I prefer to see it as all five of the causes of human suffering falling under the umbrella of "attachment", because I think they all do. But that is a discussion for another day. In any event, to be attached to our health, to be attached to our life, to hold out a promise to onesself that if one practices a certain kind of yoga, one can control the uncontrollable (the passage of time, the aging of the body, the demise of the body into death), is to invite suffering. When we become identified with ourselves as strong, virile, youthful, bendy, healthy, whatever, there will inevitably be a clash between our identifications and external events that challenge those identifications (and often, if not always, win).

So, it interests me that SKPJ would hold out this promise. I mean no disrespect. But it interests me.

On a far less "rogue yogi" note, I adore the photos in Yoga Mala for their lack of perfection. In Upward Facing Dog, the shoulders are farther forward than one might hope. In Downward Facing Dog, there is a distinct bend in the spine, which one would hope might be a straight and unbroken line. The photos tell me, implicitly, that yoga is NOT about the perfect external form. Rather, it is about the process. The DOING it. Not the end result.

Similarly, SKPJ gives precious little in the way of alignment instructions, aside from requiring the body to "tight and straight" during all of the vinyasas of Surya Namaskara. There is nothing about rolling the ribcage upward in Uttitha Trikonasana or Uttitha Parsvakonasana. There is nothing about pressing the elbows apart but the hands together in Parsvotanasana. This is just to name a few postures that are largely left unexplained. What is my theory on why this is? Because SKPJ would like us to be under the instruction of a teacher. That's my theory, at least. He mentions it several times, that it is best (not crucial, but BEST) to learn his yoga under the guidance of a satguru (true teacher/true dispeller of darkness) or a guru (teacher/dispeller of darkness).

Funny. I was reading the book last night in the hopes of learning something I could "use" with regard to Mari D. Well, that didn't happen. But I did follow the simple driste instructions, described above, and practice was sweet. It could have been sweet because of my more saatvic eating yesterday. Or it could have been sweet because I was inspired by what I read in Yoga Mala. Who knows?

I just know that I am happily back in a groove. For now. Like everything, that could change in a moment.

YC

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

MUCH BETTER today. MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better. OH JOY!!

Read parts of SKPJ's Yoga Mala last night while in the bath. Interesting...because it leaves out several asanas:

• Parivritta Trikonasana
• Parivritta Parsvakonasana
• Dandasana

And it gives instructions for certain asanas that do not correspond to instructions I have received in every class, Mysore and led, that I have ever taken:

• In Prasarita Padotannasana A, the first inhale (as written in Yoga Mala) takes the feet out as far as five feet wide and the hands to the WAIST. The exhale takes the hands to the floor with the head up. The next "vinyasa" consitst of another inhale AND another exhale that takes the head down between the hands, the gaze remaining at the nose as the pose is held for an unspecified number of breaths. (As I have been taught, it is inhale the legs and arms wide, exhale the hands to the floor, inhale look up, exhale into the full posture).
• In Prasarita Padotannasana C, after the inhale back up from B, it's exhale to interlock the fingers behind the back and the inhale to lift the chest and exhale down to the floor. (As I have been taught, it is inhale up from B, exhale hands to the waist, inhale arms out to the sides, exhale to interlock the fingers....)
• In Marichyasana C and D, the wrapper arm is not the one doing the grabbing. (In class I am always encouraged to grab my back wrist with my wrapping arm's hand).

In addition, he boils down the dristes to eyebrows and nose, inhales corresponding with eyebrows and odd numbered vinyasas, and exhales corresponding with nose and even numbered vinyasasas, this pattern carrying throughout the entire primary series.

And here is something that actually almost inspired me to start a "secret" blog that I fantasized about calling "The Rogue Yogi":

In his introduction to the chapter on Surya Namaskara, SKP states that "The practice of Surya Namaskara, or sun salutations...is capable of rendering human life heavenly and blissful. By means of it, people can become joyous, experience happiness and contentment, and avoid succumbing to old age and death." [emphasis added] I find this incredibly interesting since the fear of death is one of five causes of human suffering enumerated in the Yoga Sutras. I prefer to see it as all five of the causes of human suffering falling under the umbrella of "attachment", because I think they all do. But that is a discussion for another day. In any event, to be attached to our health, to be attached to our life, to hold out a promise to onesself that if one practices a certain kind of yoga, one can control the uncontrollable (the passage of time, the aging of the body, the demise of the body into death), is to invite suffering. When we become identified with ourselves as strong, virile, youthful, bendy, healthy, whatever, there will inevitably be a clash between our identifications and external events that challenge those identifications (and often, if not always, win).

So, it interests me that SKPJ would hold out this promise. I mean no disrespect. But it interests me.

On a far less "rogue yogi" note, I adore the photos in Yoga Mala for their lack of perfection. In Upward Facing Dog, the shoulders are farther forward than one might hope. In Downward Facing Dog, there is a distinct bend in the spine, which one would hope might be a straight and unbroken line. The photos tell me, implicitly, that yoga is NOT about the perfect external form. Rather, it is about the process. The DOING it. Not the end result.

Similarly, SKPJ gives precious little in the way of alignment instructions, aside from requiring the body to "tight and straight" during all of the vinyasas of Surya Namaskara. There is nothing about rolling the ribcage upward in Uttitha Trikonasana or Uttitha Parsvakonasana. There is nothing about pressing the elbows apart but the hands together in Parsvotanasana. This is just to name a few postures that are largely left unexplained. What is my theory on why this is? Because SKPJ would like us to be under the instruction of a teacher. That's my theory, at least. He mentions it several times, that it is best (not crucial, but BEST) to learn his yoga under the guidance of a satguru (true teacher/true dispeller of darkness) or a guru (teacher/dispeller of darkness).

Funny. I was reading the book last night in the hopes of learning something I could "use" with regard to Mari D. Well, that didn't happen. But I did follow the simple driste instructions, described above, and practice was sweet. It could have been sweet because of my more saatvic eating yesterday. Or it could have been sweet because I was inspired by what I read in Yoga Mala. Who knows?

I just know that I am happily back in a groove. For now. Like everything, that could change in a moment.

YC

Conditions: stiff and crunchy

I wasn't even supposed to be at practice today. But my plans to go skiing upstate today and tomorrow were trashed by the weather's insane mood swings. First it's practically tropical (for New York City in January, at least). Then it freezes up overnight. Not a recipe for good ski conditions in the East.

So perhaps, my practice today was simply not meant to be. Nevertheless, it was...and it mimicked the conditions of the Catskill Mountains that I was supposed to be making my way down.

It's not that I couldn't get myself into the postures today. It's just that getting into them took so long and involved so much effort. I wasn't expecting to be so uncomfortable today - I got enough sleep last night, and I have not been eating at night. It's not that anything was particularly on my mind. Yet practice felt really bad just the same. I am just happy to have gotten through it, since the entire time, I was debating whether to stop early. Perhaps after standing? Perhaps before Mari A? Perhaps through Mari D and just skip Navasana? Skip backbends? As it turns out, I skipped nothing, but it took me 90 minutes to do my entire Half Primary practice, and I spent a lot of time between the seated postures laying on my back and staring at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself.

Nonetheless, some stuff was good:

• I pressed up into Lolasana and held it. I have no idea how. And I could only do it one time, very early on during seated.
• My jump-throughs are getting better - I find that the stiffer my lower back is, the better they are (I guess when my lower back feels stiff, I unconsciously protect it with uddiyana bandha)
• My Mari A and B binds were deep without assistance
• I bound Mari D without assistance.
• Backbends felt fine.
  

After class, Philosophy and Pranayama class, which I could have savored all day long (other than the icy temperatures in the room). LOVE it.

Highlight of the day was a conversation I had with Sir after P&P. It went something like this:

Me: Sir, why is it that some days practice is just so difficult? I mean, some days it feels great, and then some days it is so hard...why is that?

Sir: Are you really asking me a question?

Me: Well, I guess not. I mean, yes. I mean, no. I don't know. Practice just felt so awful today. I could DO everything. But it just FELT bad. And I hate when that happens.

This led to a discussion of the factors that could lead to an uncomfortable practice. Sir's first guess was that my mind was unfocused. Perhaps it looked that way, since I probably spent my 90 minutes in the room grimacing and even breathing out of my mouth. But really, I had little on my mind. The room was so crowded, and I don't remember registering much about any one individual, although now that I am thinking about it, the gorgeous Mom and Daughter Team was practicing in unison, and it did catch my eye a few times...and also there was a new girl in front of me whose mat felt too close to mine, which is of course, all about me, not about where her mat was...but other than that, I don't remember a lot of thinking.

Sir went on to state that more than half of what goes on in our practice is a reflection of what we eat. That led to a discussion about the ayurvedic properties of foods. And man, do I ever NOT know anything about that. But here's what I know now:

Must eat saatvic. Fish is not saatvic. Coffee is not saatvic (I think I knew that already). Eggs are not saatvic. Red meat is not saatvic (duh). Organic vegetables are saatvic, but NOT when they are frozen or stored or leftover. Dairy products (other than eggs) are generally saatvic, but again, only when they are organic and fresh and....my head is spinning....what am I going to eat?

I do like spelt pancakes and steel-cut oatmeal. I also love cottage cheese, but only the non-organic brand with pineapple in it. Peanut butter is another saatvic food that I like, but only the kind that is organic and not overly processed. Oh well. I do like Almond Butter. So, I guess I can eat spelt pancakes, oatmeal and almond butter along with some freshly cooked organic produce.

Sir did note that one has to live in the real world, and if you're taking your kids around, walking your dog, working (whether I actually am doing that is somewhat debatable, but whatever), you have to sustain yourself.

I hope that is a tacit license to eat sushi. But I'm kinda thinking...no.

YC

"Music has charms that soothe the savage (?) beast"

I noticed on Friday while I was working with a student in my living room that Lewis the Bagle seemed unusually blissed out. This was the third time I've worked with the student privately in my home, and the first few times, Lewis was kind of hyper, competing for mat space, walking under her during downward dog, generally trying to get in on the action. But THIS time...it was completely different.


What we worked on was a bit different - lots of trance-dance/Kundalini inspired moves to enliven the extremities and soften the shoulder and hip sockets, before we ever got to anything classically "hatha" (this student is very very new to yoga and is learning body awareness as well as gaining a new mindset about yoga as a way to bring the body into more perfect health than the gym ever could hope to). But I think that what was really and truly the difference for Lewis was the music.

I had recently created a new playlist that seems particularly juicy to me, and my students have been telling me how much they are loving it. It is a realy "gellin'"mixture of:



lots of flutes and recorder and other tribal-sounding wind instruments



soft, pulsing, hypnotic drumbeats, sounds of the rainforest




otherworldly vocals, if there are vocals at all....




And Lewis just went into this trance....


and this evening, wanting to plod on with my Lost Weekend Marathon (I'm halfway through season one now, and I am still completely intrigued) without interruption, I decided to plug the ole iPod Video into its dock and play the Lewis Trance Playlist....

As you can see, the results were superb. Now, I must go back to deciphering what is ultimately going to be undecipherable (I DID see Twin Peaks, so I won't be fooled again).

YC

Yoga na do what??

I was reading Susan's blog, about how her friend would like her to teach her some yoga....it made me think about the tradition of passing knowledge down from one "generation" to the other. I believe that Susan should teach her friend and do so without guilt or fear of being taken to task by the "Yoga Police". My hope for Susan is that she teaches her friend and does so proudly, without the need to say, "I admit I know nothing about this, but...." Confidence is VERY important in teaching, and Susan SHOULD feel confident. From her blog, from my discussions with her via both of our blogs and via email, I know that she will be a wonderful teacher. And if, by chance, I am dead wrong, then I can say this with authority: at least Susan knows more about yoga than her friend.

And THAT is the key to imparting knowledge: having knowledge to impart. My eight-year old son teaches my six year old son spelling, reading and math skills. My six-year old son teaches my eight-year old son social skills. We can all be "teachers". And this is the way that lineages of learning are created and continued: One person learns something and then that person imparts the knowledge to someone else. And so on.

In my son's First Grade class, the teacher wants parents in the classroom, helping out where help is needed. In my case, she asked me to help out a boy who is at the bottom of the class in terms of reading and writing skills. She gave me a short lesson in "scaffolding"-style teaching (where one asks some questions and leads the student to make some conclusions and then builds on the conclusions), and then off I went. I am in no way now ready to be a First Grade Teacher. But certainly having me as a teacher for a few minutes a week is better than having NO TEACHER for those few minutes. And even if I am a really SUCKY teacher, it is still better than him being ignored and learning nothing, just sitting around feeling alienated from those other kids who are learning faster and accelerating past him.

Certifications, authorizations - they have their place, no doubt. As I said, learning to help a first grade student in writer's workshop is not going to make me an an appropriate first grade teacher. Obtaining a teacher's certificate from a teacher's college would help ensure that I had the proper traning and experience needed to be an appropriate first grade teacher.

As for yoga, a 200 hour teacher training program can be quite effective in imparting knowledge AND confidence in teaching, even if it only unlocks the existing knowledge and instinct within, bolstering it with confidence and validation. On the other hand, some certification programs are not worth the paper on which they are written.

But in any event, with OR without a yoga certification, one can still "teach" yoga. Someone like Susan, who has studied the Sutras, who is dedicated to practicing yoga not just on the mat but in life, and who has the confidence to say "yeah" when a potential student asks her to be her teacher, can certainly teach yoga. And she could teach it well.

But will she be teaching "Ashtanga" in the traditional method? If she teaches it exactly the way that it is taught in Mysore, then yes....but for one very crucial exception that might annihilate that "yes", turning it into an emphatic "no": she hasn't been authorized by SKPJ. And that automatically takes her teaching out of the realm of the way it is taught in Mysore (or to be more specific, the way the lineage is passed down from Mysore). The same would be true if she were teaching Bikram Yoga without having received certification from Bikram Choudhury's Yoga College of India in California. She might be teaching it exactly the way the teachers at Bikram Yoga NYC teach it (which is to say, by the book, to the letter). But without having taken her 9-week course and received her certification from "the man", her teaching is automatically flawed by definition.

Now, if you're Bikram Choudhury, you might sue her for teaching Bikram without his blessing. From all that I have read and heard, I don't believe that it is part of SKPJ's "plan" to go around suing those who teach "Ashtanga" without met his requirements and having received his blessing. However, the so-called "Ashtanga Police" would surely disapprove of one extending the lineage to another generation of student without having met those requirements and having received that blessing.

I am visualizing the Ashtanga family tree as follows: At the top is Krishnamacharya. His branch leads to three others just below, and these are SKPJ, Iyengar and Desikachar. From SKPJ, you have a direct line down to Sharath, Manju and Sarasawati. And you also have a direct line down from SKPJ, Sharath, Manju and Saraswati to the teachers who have been certified and authorized by the AYRI, in accordance with their requirements. And that's it. There is nothing below the level of AYRI-certified and authorized teachers that carries any weight in the eyes of the AYRI. Indeed, as many of us know, the AYRI prohibits the use of the words "teacher training" to describe any teachings other than those at the AYRI. "Ashtanga Intensive" is okay, but not "Teacher Training"...for there IS no such thing as Ashtanga teacher training...if one wants to teach, one must become a proficient, consistent and repeat student of the AYRI in the eyes of the AYRI.

That is the way that SKPJ wants it. And that is his prerogative.

There is definitely something to be said for seeking to preserve this tradition of direct lineage. To add new teachers that descend from authorized and certified teachers, as opposed to directly from AYRI, would dilute the lineage and would, ultimately, create new lineages. The creation of new lineages does not appear to be the intention of the AYRI.

Again, it's SKPJ's prerogative. SKPJ created the system, after all. He should have the ultimate say in how it is passed down ("it" being "Ashtanga Yoga as taught in Mysore, India").

So, with all of that said, let's analyze the following hypothetical:

After years of studying with a Certified Teacher Smith, Diligent Student Jones has become competent at the physical poses and the breathing exercises and also understands the philosophy that underlies it. In addition, Diligent Student Jones has come to understand the magic of the various Series, how one pose leads to others, how they are all inextricably linked (not just that they ARE, but HOW they are). Let's say that Diligent Student Jones has also come to understand not just how his body gets into the postures but how other bodies might need help getting into the postures. And let's say that Jones moves to another part of the country, let's say Wyoming, where there aren't any certified or authorized teachers. And Jones continues to practice on his own. And one day Jones' best friend asks Jones to teach him this wonderful yoga that has changed Jones's life.

Now, Diligent Student Jones feels confident in his ability to impart the joy of this practice, and he feels confident in his ability to teach the sequence, breath by breath, and he knows that his adjustments will be safe, etc....

Should Jones say no to his friend? Or should Jones teach his friend yoga, giving the gift that is yoga to his friend, as best he can? If Jones is honest about how the lineage is intended to work, and where Jones fits into that lineage (basically, he doesn't - he is merely teaching a yoga that is based on Ashtanga yoga as taught in Mysore India), then how can this be bad, as long as Jones gives credit where credit is due (i.e.,"This method is based on Ashtanga yoga. I learned it from ny teacher, Certified Smith, who learned it directly from SKPJ")?

Certainly, it isn't Ashtanga Yoga as taught in Mysore, India. But it might have value nevertheless. And as long as it is not presented as something which it is not, then all other things being equal, I can see no reason why this sort of teaching cannot be passed along with the utmost of integrity.

YC

Lost Found

I know I am arriving a bit late to the party, but at least I finally discovered something on network television that I can actually sink my teeth into. Perhaps I can get rid of my HBO subscription now, seeing as Six Feet Under is six feet under, Sex and the City has gone the way of syndication, where it is quickly and steadily growing dated and embarassing, the Sopranos is simply too violent for my sensibilities (to paraphrase Sir, decapitation as entertainment is a bit far removed from Patanjali's path to enlightment), and watching Larry David as Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm is the about as comfortable as having an itch in a place where you can't scratch. Carnivale, which was pretty interesting despite moving at the pace of tumbleweed on the prairie, and Lisa Kudrow's cringeworthy but hilarious fake reaity show, are both gone. What's left? Deadwood?

I can't believe that Lost is actually on the same network as Desperate Housewives, which is some kind of Twin Peaks/Melrose Place/Knots Landing composite-wannabe and which, notwithstanding my appreciation of its paying homage to sexy 40-somethings (albeit surgically enhanced sexy 40-somethings who are beginning to resemble drag-queens) and all the sex and intrigue, cannot hold my attention long enough to figure out who is sleeping with whom and why anyone would care.

As the mysteriously healed Lock said early on in the series: "I've looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw...is beautiful."

It's an addictive recipe: Two parts Twilight Zone (any number of TZ episodes come to mind while watching Lost), one part Lifeboat, a heaping tablespoon of Old Testament (including Genesis, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, to name a few), a smidgeon of an old off-broadway play called "Steambath", a dash of Rosemary's baby, plus essence of Ray Bradbury, mix well with gorgeous actors, including Matthew Fox, who is the new Peter Krause, who was at one time, the new Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lily, Maggie Grace, some dudes who are completely gorgeous whose names I don't yet know and the unbelievably charming dude-est dude of them all, (or that dude who plays him). Even better, there is not even a whiff of Survivor or Gilligan's Island....

I am LOVING my latest obsession!

YC

Full Wolf Moon

Tonight at 4 a.m, the moon will be full. Doesn't that make tomorrow the moon day for purposes of Ashtanga practice? Well, it is at Shala X. But other shalas around these parts are observing the Full Wolf Moon today. I wonder how they decide?

I am actually observing the full moon today, not practicing because I am completely spent. I had a wonderful practice yesterday (led half primary, like pretty much every Thursday), but today I feel like someone replaced my spine with a steel rod. I am wondering if my back will ever get nice and bendy? Forward bends are delicious. Twists are getting better and better. But in Urdhva Dhanurasana (full wheel), my feet and hands are really far apart. I can't even fathom ever grabbing my ankles, let alone getting the proper bend necessary to drop back properly (i.e., the head going back first, the back arching enough so that the floor becomes visible in the peripheral vision and THEN then arms reaching back for the floor, which by that point is not far away).

OK, off now to teach a private client who is not observing the moon day...

YC

Studio space needed

Does anyone know of any dance or yoga studio spaces for rent by the hour in Union Square or Flatiron (or, as a last resort, Midtown)?

I have searched Craig's List, and Google, but I just don't know where to look other than that....

If you have any ideas, please let me know....

YC

Just doing my homework

Well, skiing isn't looking very promising this weekend. So, I am going to do my P&P homework since it looks like I will be in class after all.

The homework is to read the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras, something I have done many times before, only I have always used Alistair Shearer's translation, which I love.

BUT Sir recommends trying out different translations. This one I found online. When I got to verses 12 through 16, I had to stop and think for a while, and I am still thinking. Assiduous practice AND dispassionate detachment. It's a bit of any oxymoron, isn't it? Still thinking.

(The context is: the first four verses tell us to listen carefully because we are about to hear what yoga really is, and that yoga is the restraint of the mental fluctuations/modifications/internal noise that stand in the way of the true self (the seer/the divine aspect of ourselves/that which is the universal in all of us because it is pure consciousness, untouched by experience) from emerging. The next several verses tell us what mental fluctuations are, both pleasurable and unpleasurable. Then the we come to:)

12. abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah.

The restraint of these mental modifications comes from assiduous practice (abhyasa) and through dispassionate detachment (vairagya).

13. tatra sthitau yatno 'bhyasah

Practice (abhyasa) is the continuous effort to abide in a steady state.

14. sa tu dirgha-kala-nairantarya-satkarasevito dridha-bhumih

This is indeed firmly grounded when it is persistently exercised for a long time, without interruption, and with earnest, reverential attention and devotion.

15. drishtanushravika-vishaya-vitrishnasya vashikara-sanjna vairagyam

Dispassionate detachment (vairagya) is the consciousness of perfect mastery in one who has ceased to crave for objects, seen or unseen.

16. tat param purusha-khyater guna-vaitrishnayam

That is the supreme dispassion when there is cessation of all craving for the attributes (gunas), owing to discernment of the Self (purusha).

It is challenging to consider how one can dedicate onesself to the persistent exericse of detaching onesself from all of that which is external and now one can cease craving for attributes owing to discernment of the "self". How does one persistently exercise the practice of non-attachment without attaching to the practice? How does one cease craving for attributes owing to discernment of the "self" when one hopes to connect more closely with the "self" that lies buried beneath the layers and layers of vrittis?

Can dispassion and steady commitment exist at once, like day and night exist in the Magritte painting pictured above? I look forward to hearing what Sir has to say about this...

YC

The crack of dawn...

Now what is that exactly?

Can someone tell me please?

I'm told it looks approximately like the photo shown at left. But I don't know. Because I don't believe that I have seen the hours before dawn in a very looooooong time (not since I took Guruji's 6:30 a.m. workshop back in the spring).

Tomorrow, the sun is supposedly rising at around 7:20 a.m., at least that is what the Farmer's Almanac says, but I will already have been teaching a "Wake Up Yoga" class at Yoga Sutra for 20 minutes. What that means is that I will have to do as they do in that Robert Louis Stevenson poem from A Child's Garden of Verses:

In winter I wake up at night and dress by yellow candlelight.
(In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.)

For the love of God, what the hell was I thinking when I agreed to teach a 7 a.m. class?!

Must go to sleep. Must wake up at 6. Must figure out how to travel in NYC at an ungodly hour.

You early Mysore people must be rolling your eyes.

How I wish I were a morning person...

YC

Mari D is coming

I am closing up the space between my wrapping arm's armpit and my up-knee. Today I sat on a folded towel to keep myself balanced as I reached myself into the pose (binding by the finger-pads) while waiting for my full-on assist from Madam. That helped quite a bit, but I assume that someday sooner rather than later, I will have the proper balance to accomplish the same thing on my own, without the need for a towel to stabilize my butt on the floor.

But right now, there remains one thing that keeps Mari D from being a drama-free, smooth part of my practice the way Mari C has become: the hard little domes standing upon my ribcage, or as my plastic surgeon would refer to them, my breasts. I can only use that term loosely, particularly lately as I have begun to notice the onset of what appears to be capsular contracture in the breast that was radiated, although I've been using Arnica, and my symptoms have seriously been diminishing in the past couple of days.

Anyhoo, see how the yogini pictured at left has both of her breasts, facing squarely towards the right side of her space? Well, that is the task for me now...only it isn't so easy, given the lack of give in both breasts. They don't squish. My shoulders and chest have opened up so so nicely, and I am so pleased about that. But the hard little breasts are a problem that isn't likely to go away. On the bright side, once I GET there, it will be DEEP, just by necessity.

In any event, practice on Tuesdays at Shala X is pure joy. So much time stretching out before me. It's heaven.

On an unrelated note, I would like to add one more thought regarding Allie G and The Bachelor:

I am truly saddened that this is how the producers of The Bachelor chose to present their one CLEARLY "smart, career girl" archetype. I am sure that plenty of tears were shed by all of the girls whom The Bachelor sent home. I am sure that there were plenty of sour grapes and cattiness.

Howeverm the producers and editors CHOSE to show Dr. Allie's meltdown, her confrontation of The Bachelor, her keening and whining to her unsympathetic fellow-rejects. Sure, it makes for great TV. But this was just a bit too predictable, a bit too easy: the career girl bemoaning her "rotting eggs" and how men never want the intelligent, serious girls like her. The truth is, Allie G acted out the classic "self-fulfilling prophecy" with The Bachelor, presenting not her best side to him, but rather, her quaking, insecure insides, ensuring that he would reject her for all of that which she seems to be ambivalent about in herself. And then she blames him for not taking a liking to her! From the way she acted with him in the brief time she spoke to him, it would appear that she didn't much like herself either!

If this is the way Allie G typically acts on first dates, then she should probably read some self-help books, talk to a counselor, take a break from dating, perhaps, until she can learn to be comfortable with the choices she has made and the person she is such that she doesn't feel neurotically compelled to do the conversational equivalent of throwing open her trench coat and revealing her stark naked body.

But how about not punishing the smart, career girls out there, ABC, by showing THIS particular meltdown?

YC

P.S. I just realized, the Bachelor's name is Travis STORK. Maybe it was all a big misunderstanding? Perhaps Allie G thought took his name seriously and thought that he was going to bring her a baby?

Da Allie G Show

You're lounging in a room in a 250 year old Paris chateau, with 24 other gorgeous women in evening gowns, cut down to here, slit up to there. You've just met "The Bachelor", who to your delighted surprise, is not only gorgeous and seemingly very "genuine" but also a gorgeous and seemingly very genuine Southern ER doctor. The night sails along on champagne bubbles and giddiness. Pleasantries are exchanged. There is some awkward flirting, some conversation that appears devoid of chemistry. One girl babbles nervously until she finds herself telling The Bachelor that she wasn't nervous to meet him so much as she was to meet the other girls. Got some girl/girl competition issues, have we? She doesn't get a rose. Some girls appear to be slightly lobotomized. One can't offer much to say beyond, "Would you look at this place, it's huge, HUGE, I mean really HUUUGE". She ends up getting a rose.

And then there's you, our apparent front-runner, Allie G from Delray Beach, Florida, bright, bubbly, gorgeous like all the others, and a doctor, yourself. An oncologist even.

So what do you do, Allie G? You take The Bachelor aside, away from all of the giddy libations, away from all of the other gorgeous girls, and you sit him down for a serious talk. "I've done the dating thing, I've done the academic thing, I've become a doctor," you begin. At that moment, you are interrupted by one of the other girls, reminding you with her impatient, borderline catty eavesdropping that your time is limited and you had better wrap it up.

"So where was I?" you gather your thoughts once again, one final chance to change your tack...."Ah yes," you pull it together, "I am ready for the reproduction thing. So if that's where your head is at, I'd like to get to know you better."

At that moment, for the first time in television history, The Bachelor turns into a pillar of salt.

Needless to say, Allie G goes home that night. No rose. But not before confronting The Bachelor, demanding to know, "Am I too short? Are my breasts too small? Why didn't you choose me?!" He tells her what all of the millions of people who are watching already know: because in one sentence, you sucked all of the fun out of the room.

Allie G then proceeds to bash The Bachelor for being a player, for not being looking for the "real thing", because the only reason to get married is to reproduce. She bashes him to his face, and then she bashes him to the other 13 girls who were also sent home (only 12 were given roses and asked to stay), all of whom look at her like she just inhaled a big ole tank full of crazy.

The thing is, it's FINE to look for lasting love, one that will blossom into lifelong companionship and fruitful multiplication. But how many people, guys OR girls, are going to be turned on by an invitation to "get to know me if you're ready to reproduce"? And in THAT environment, even less. I mean, here may be a man who is honestly and genuinely interested in meeting a woman with whom he can spend the rest of his life, but upon meeting 25 beautiful, sexy, women, all of whom are there for the sole purpose of pleasing him, there has to be some period of time when all of that "honest and genuine interest" goes out the window. The whole concept of The Bachelor is disturbing to me because it glorifies, encourages and validates girl/girl competition, cattiness, cat-fighting, multiple sex partners and calculated dishonesty in relationships. But it is what it is. And in that context, does it really make sense to say, "Hey, listen, I can take you away from all of this wine and romance and excitement and sex in the interest of procreating"?

I honestly felt horrible for Allie G, and I wished that I could reach into the television, give her a huge hug and then shake her shoulders hard enough so that perhaps some sense might return to her highly educated brain. She seemed not to understand at all that the rules are different in world of The Bachelor. It was hard to watch. I don't even know why I watched it. I doubt I will watch it again. Much too depressing, even with Allie G back in Florida, curing cancer.

YC

What time is it?

Tooth-hurty.

What happened to prescribing Vicodin for dental work anyway?

For now, I'll have to settle for my trusty Advil, but if it gets any worse, I might have to wake my dentist up in the middle of the night. Goddamn him to hell.

Just kidding. It's not his fault, exactly.

At least I didn't need a root canal. Puh puh puh.

YC

Just got back from Shala X, where I was happy to find that Sir was willing to bend the rules just a TAD bit so that he could give me the world's most intense adjustment in Mari D even though it was five minutes past the designated "Finishing Poses" starting gun. Speaking of intense adjustments, I got quite few today, in both Parsvakonas, in every Mari. It was awesome. Wish my body wasn't so resistant to the experience.

My mind was saying yes yes yes. But my body was saying, eh, not so much.

But like I've said before, stiffness is often in the mind. I don't think that my practice looks significantly different when I'm feeling stiff and crunchy. I still get into the poses. I just don't feel as good being in them.

It was a brief lesson in having and intention and letting go of results today. I wanted to recapture exactly whatever magic was going on yesterday. I tried to do everything I did yesterday at practice, the same way as yesterday. But despite long juicy holds in the Standing Series, it was simply a different day, a different practice. I guess there is not that much one can do to control how practice will feel on any given day. We try as we might - eating the right foods, eating less at night, not eating all morning, having a fulfilling bathroom experience, shall we say, before practice, hot showers, castor oil, epsom salts, uddiyana kriya prior to practice...it doesn't matter all that much. Some days simply are going to kick ass. And some days will simply suck ass. And most days will be somewhere in between.

And now, i must prepare for my visit to my Dr. B, my long-time dentist, who is married to Bettye M, shoe designer extraordinaire, which makes him a bit of a celebrity dentist, I think. Not that that matters to me. I just don't want it to hurt when he replaces that darn filling that keeps falling out, and I am hoping that this won't lead to my very first root canal. Lucky me, I happen to have been blessed with great teeth, so this would be quite the blow. Of course, any suffering would only be because I have chosen to identify with myself as a person with good teeth, because I have begun to believe in that impermanent state of being and have allowed myself to become attached to it. That's what I learned yesterday in Philosopy and Pranayama. In order to NOT suffer this tooth thing as a "blow", I need to detach from the notion that I am in control of my teeth, of aging and just observe it all as a thing that is happening to me, rather than the essence of me.

Later,

YC

What's a fudinah?

Last night, I got an amazing night's sleep, and that is a rare treat. Fell asleep just after midnight, woke up with a start at 8:30 a.m., shocked that no one had woken me up earlier. It took me a moment or two to grab my wits about me, and then I realized I had to get my butt down to Shala X or else miss my chance to practice. That new schedule is quite the discipline-maker.

I arrived at 9:15, fifteen minutes past the mantra, half an hour after the official "doors open" time, but a full, delicious, juicy, luxurious HOUR before the newly enforced "Finishing Time" was to begin. I walked in in long pants but immediately realized that this was going to be a hot one. The room was packed to the gills. I removed my pants and proceeded to get busy.

Wow. That didn't sound too good. At any rate, good thing I was wearing shorts underneath. Or else it wouldn't have looked too good either.

I can always tell when my Surya A's have worked their magic. It's when my chest begins to touch my thighs as I exhale into uttanasana ("dwe"). I hear many Ashtangis complaining of tight hamstrings. But this is never my complaint. My hamstrings are nice and rangy. The tightness is ALWAYS in my lower back. MUST stretch those vertebrae. MUST lengthen! It took me all five today, so I added a sixth, just because I was enjoying the luxury of time.

I also lengthened my stay in Parivritta Trikonasana and Parivritta Parsvakonasana, especially the latter. My palm is still not flat on the floor in PP, but right now with a combination of doing the old "press the palms together and the elbows apart" against the outside of the bent knee, lowering my armpit as far down toward my knee as possible AND gazing UP at the sky - the same driste I would have if I were doing the full, unmodified version of the posture - I am making progress. When I feel my back lengthening, and maybe hear the joyful snap, crackle, pop of synovial fluid in my spine, PP has done its work.

With a nice, long, delicious standing series, my seated poses felt even better than usual. I am still in the honeymoon phase with Mari C, LOVING the fact that I can do it myself (look ma! I can do it myself!). And to the extent that ego begins to kick in at that point, Mari D takes me right back down a notch or two.

But the nicest part of practice was knowing that I could take a loooooong time in finishing poses and then not have to go anywhere anytime soon since I got the Husband to take the kids to Hebrew School so that I could take Sir's Philosophy and Pranayama class!

We began with a little chanting, then samavritti (same action breathing: equal parts inhale and exhale, no pausing in between) and then talked about the Sutras, particularly the first four. Then we practiced Uddiyana Kriya, which is a personal favorite of mine. So far, I'm not learning anything that I didn't learn in my teacher training, but the thing is, I am learning it from someone who is such an infinitely better teacher, one who is interested in hearing his students' thoughts on what he is teaching, and one who isn't just spitting out bits of regurgitated factoids but appears to be teaching from the heart. It was heavenly. I can't wait to see what comes next. Unfortunately, I might not be there next week as right now it appears that I will be going skiing over the long weekend. Unless it stays warm this entire week, in which case there won't be any snow to ski on. Eastern skiing is like that.

Oh, I almost forgot: Lewis the Bagle ran away today!!! It was awful. We were visiting family in the burbs, and someone left the basement door open. Thank goodness my nephew saw the whole thing and ran to tell me. The husband and I had to look all over the neighborhood before we found Lewis. And even when we found him, he gave quite the good chase. I suppose, having tasted freedom, he had no intention of coming back with us. I was so relieved. SO relieved.

And now it is time to watch the Grey's Anatomy recap show. I can't believe it's been on long enough to merit a recap. But before I go, I give to you this snippet of dialogue from my dinner with family in the burbs:

Sister-in-law: Lauren, you have a fudinah on your shirt.
Lauren: What's a fudinah?

Say it out loud a couple of times if you don't "get it".

I don't know....it had us in stitches.

YC

Brokeback Mountain: not just "homo on the range"...

Brokeback Mountain presents an interesting question that transcends the media's intense focus on the sexual orientation of the two male leads...namely, can an extramarital affair ever be justified in the name of "true love"?

Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar (why, oh why did Annie Proulx have to give him such an unfortunate name...one thatwhen said by the character himself, sounds so much like "anus"?) have unsatisfactory marriages. It's not that they fight with their wives, nor that they suffer from any sort of sociopathological need to cheat for cheating's sake. Rather, it is because they have allowed themselves to wander outside the bounds of their marriages and engage in an extramarital affair. And in so doing, they become "checked-out", not present in their marriages, in their lives. Had they simply divorced their wives before engaging in an affair, some of their suffering could have been avoided. Heterosexual, homosexual, it really doesn't matter. These men have strayed. And their straying wreaks havoc on themselves, their wives, their children.

Truth is, there's nothing really new or different offered by Brokeback Mountain on the topic of adultery, other than the sexual orientation of its adulterers.Countless films that came before it have delved into adultery, its justifications and its varied consequences. The 1970's French classic, Cousin Cousine, for example, illustrates the devestation of an extramarital affair, even when the adultering pair are truly in love AND have terrible spouses. Its 1980's American remake,Cousins, has the same "made for each other" sort of adulterers, the same appalling betrayed spouses, but a happier ending, with the adulterers coming together without any major lasting damage to the cuckolded spouses.

Damage or no damage, one thing remains the same in both films: the lovers are soulmates, and we root for them to ditch their "wrong" partners and come together. This is also true of the movie Yes, in which the wife cheats on her repulsively uptight and cheating husband, and in which we root for her to end up with her lover, even as he leaves her (as it turns out, only temporarily) for the symbolic equivalent of his spouse: Lebanon, his birth country. Ultimately, our wishes are answered, and the adultering pair is reunited to live happily ever after (we assume this, although in truth, we learn nothing about their lives AFTER they finally come together as a legitimized couple).

In Prince of Tides, the extramarital affair ends with the cheating husband taking the high road by breaking it off with his lover, despite that she was probably "the one" for him, and he for her. Nevertheless, we are left wishing, even crying, that it should have turned out differently for them. On a somewhat less obvious note, there is A Walk on The Moon, where the cheating wife breaks it off with her inappropriately young and hippie-ish lover for the sake of keeping her family together. We understand her justification for acting responsibly by not leaving her family behind for the gypsy life of the sexy traveling salesman she has fallen for, but at the same time, it's bittersweet for us.

Why? Because they were in love. In both Prince of Tides and A Walk on the Moon, we are made to understand that the wandering spouse is sacrificing true love for true responsibility and commitment. And so we are left to wonder: is the sacrifice of true love actually a Catch 22-style punishment for having allowed the betrayal to occur in the first place?

By contrast, films like Unfaithful and Fatal Attraction admonish us that an extramarital affair is not only entirely without justification but also potentially dangerous to life and limb when the lovers are not "meant to be". When it's all about the sex, we judge the adulterers harshly, wishing for the affair to end at the earliest possible moment. Just STOP it already, we want to scream at them.

Why? Because they're not in love. All that they have is lust, chemistry, pheromones. And that is simply an unacceptable justification for an extramarital an affair. As liberal as we would like to think of ourselves, we find ourselves judging harshly those who would let their desires take hold of their reason: How disgusting! How selfish! How amoral! How stupid!

In real life, we tend not to offer much sympathy or generosity of spirit towards those who cheat on their spouses, regardless of the rationale offered by the cheater. This is true even when it is claimed that the cheating is motivated by a realization that they have found their "true love" too late, only after having married someone else. Look, for example, at how long it took the public to accept the coming together of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, if the public has indeed accepted them at all.

Yet when it comes to the movies, we tend to give such long sufferering romantics the benefit of a doubt, a moral reprieve of sorts. Nevertheless, such reprieve seems never to come without some form of punishment.....which brings me back to Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar.

Let's look for a moment at the moral missteps they made: They cheated on their wives. They failed to accept themselves as gay and to accept their love for each other at a time when their having done so would effect only themselves, and not those to whom they had made promises. Instead, they made a choice to deceive the women who loved them, to marry them and attempt to reap the benefits of mainstream life, while maintaining a secret life with one another, one which fanned the flames of their love and left all others out in the cold. Talk about having your cake and eating it too...

As a result, Ennis's marriage goes down, if not exactly in flames, then in a slow burn of repressed resentment that ultimately gives way to blinding fury. And Jack's marriage dwindles down to something that, as he puts it, can be taken care of "in a phone call." Jack's adorable, sexy wife is left out to dry, becoming as increasingly brittle as her increasingly blonde hair. In her final sene, the camera lingers on her lips, coated in lipstick one would imagine seeing on a corpse at a wake, dry as dust, pursed into a tight grimace of pain as she carefully chooses the proper words to tell Ennis that Jack has died (what she does not say is that he is the victim of a violent gay bashing). Ennis's kids remain at arms' length from their father for the majority of their formative years. And it doesn't take words to convey the pain and confusion felt by Jack's parents when Ennis visits them after Jack's death.

Yet who can watch Brokeback Mountain and not wish for Ennis and Jack to make it work? Who didn't wish that Ennis and Jack would end up growing old together, peacefully living on and working their own ranch? Wouldn't Ennis's life have been so much more rewarding, so much more comfortable, for that matter? Wouldn't Jack have not ended up a homicide victim in a gay bashing? Wouldn't Ennis's ex-wife and daughters have had a more open and expressive relationship with Ennis if he wasn't so repressed? Wouldn't Jack's wife have had a shot at maintaining her fresh, dewy, youthful sexiness rather than slowly hardening into a brittle, bottle-blonde shell of her former self?

The last scenes in Brokeback Mountain bring to mind that mother of all extra-marital fantasy movies, The Bridges of Madison County...in which we also couldn't help but hope that these two soulmates would somehow find their way back to each other before it was too late. But like Bridges, Brokeback must find a way to punish the adulterous lovers. The fitting punishment is, of course, to assure that the lovers shall never be reunited, death being the ultimate and ultimately sole means of parting the couple whose love cannot be allowed to exist in this world.

The fact that the adulterous couple is gay in Brokeback does little more than to add a slightly different wrinkle to the Hollywood formulation. Because Jack and Ennis are cowboys in a macho, repressed late 20th century American West, their homosexuality stands to lead not only to ridicule and embarassment, but also to their becoming the targets of violence, and even homicide. As such, their failure to bring their relationship out into the open, and their related choice to take wives and pose as heterosexual husbands and fathers can be understood. One can truly sympathize with the dilemna they faced as well as the decisions they made. Thus, we don't exactly crave retribution for their choice to pose as heterosexual husbands and fathers or even for their choice to continue their relationship even after they are married.

However, in the movies, as well as in books, even the most ambiguous of moral ambiguity tends to be resolved through the fitting punishment of those who would tread on the grey areas. And so it is that Jack is murdered for his sexual preferences, and Ennis must live his life with no hope of ever seeing Jack again, except in his dreams. One is left with nothing more than the hope that Ennis's having sacrificed his chance with Jack (as well as his tacitly having permitted the sacrifice of gay men to lynch mobs) will lead to Ennis's having learned his lesson. And that lesson is that one must be true to onesself and true to one's loved ones and sacrifice neither for the other.

YC

Na na na-na-na

I am the most enlightened yogi out there. And if you don't think so, that just means that you're stupid. Er, rather, I mean acting stupid, because I would never attack the person, just the behavior. And that is what raises me above the rest of you...that and the fact that I've met Guruji. Twice. Plus the fact that I can get my foot behind my head...not that I'm proud of it, it's just something that I do. Like scratching my ass, which I would never even THINK of doing without my teacher having first given me the okay. Unlike the rest of you ego-driven, desire-following, attachment-tethered, ambition-seeking morons who don't have any business practicing MY kind of yoga in the first place.

(this message has been brought to you as a public service announcement and completely and utterly in jest)

YC

Ashtanga Desert

Today I brought my friends D & D to Shala X for their first time. It was sooooo quiet - just them, me, and about five others. I hope Sir doesn't completely eliminate the second Mysore session due to low attendence, leaving me with nothing but the 6 a.m. option! Come on people...support the late shift!!

D & D, who also live on the Upper East Side, practice privately with Evan Perry, who seems to have cornered the market on Upper East Side Health Club Led Ashtanga classes (he even teaches The Husband at Sports Club/LA). D also practices a bit at Equinox. And D's husband finds himself having to go all the way to California (to Yoga is Youth in the Palo Alto area) to take Mysore classes. Just kidding. But sort of NOT kidding.

The Upper East Side is a veritable Ashtanga desert. There just isn't anything even remotely resembling an Ashtanga shala up there.

New York Yoga had a nice led program for a while with a teacher (MaryBeth), who was willing at times to change to a Mysore format if enough of the students in class seemed able to do so. Yoga Jivana existed for less than a year on East 63rd Street, offering some combination of Led and Mysore classes. But the trouble was that it was never clear exactly WHAT Jivana was offering, and their space was giant and cavernous and, empty. As a result, it was cold. Completely lacking in energy. There was a brief time when my sister-in-law and I half-jokingly, half-seriously considered the possibility of purchasing Yoga Jivana, finding an authorized Ashtanga teacher to run a real, unequivocal Mysore program in the mornings and offering vinyasa classes in the afternoons and evenings. But what the owners wanted was for us to pay them some criminally huge amount of money for their "business" (i.e., their start-up costs, their ongoing costs up until the date of sale and some ridiculously huge amount in respect of the goodwill associated with their name...), when in reality, the "business" consisted of nothing more than a lease and a list of 325 students. It was not to be.

Yoga Sutra is the closest shala to the Upper East Side. And everything else Asthanga is due South.

I can't complain too bitterly when there are students out there in STATES where there is no Ashtanga teacher, or in cities where Asthanga classes are more than an hours' drive away. But still, it's unfortunate that there is this Ashtanga void up here on the Upper East Side.

Practice was good today. I am noticing that I don't need to shower before practice anymore to loosen things up; I wake up now feeling comfortable and loose enough so that after a few Surya Namaskar A's, I'm ready to fly. Hope it lasts. I can't believe it is already Friday and that I have practiced six days in a row already! But I am glad it is Saturday tomorrow. It is time for a rest.

Basically, no poses caused me any problems today, Mari D is getting easier and deeper, and at no point in my practice did my Updogs become stiff. I did my usual R&D bridge pose before backbends, and added my new R&D gomukhasana arms under the back before lifting up in to Urdvha Dhanurasana. Three, nice, long ones. I told my Yoga For Breast Cancer Survivor students last night that THIS is the key to their opening up their chests, to losing the slouch. And I said it because I really believe it. For someone like me, binding in the Marichis helps open me up, and backbending just takes it a bit further. But for someone like my tall and lanky student, H, binding presents no challenge at all. So for someone like H, Urdvha Dhanurasana is going to be the key. She is going to have to press her chest up skyward if she wants to open things up around her chest, physically, around her heart, metaphorically.

So, with this as my current mindset on backbends, my new goal in backbends is to simply DO them. To lift up and DO it. Feet wide? Doesn't matter. Fingers pointing outward? Doesn't matter. What matters is opening my armpits, straightening my arms and holding for five full breaths. I can already feel things have shifted, loosened, softened.

I'm thinking about taking Sir's Philosophy and Pranayama class. It looks interesting. Now, I just have to work on getting the Husband on board with picking the kids up from Hebrew School on Sundays. It's harder than it sounds. You should have heard him balking at the idea of taking them to school on the next two Wednesdays so that I can (a) teach a 7 a.m. class at Yoga Sutra and (b) get my own practice started early...8 a.m.!!! This will cause said Husband to get to work at 9 a.m. Since Husband is a NYC lawyer, this should not be a problem - everyone knows that lawyer hours in NYC begin at 9:30 or even 10! But of course, it is....

Grrr...

YC

Very boring blog entry. Read at your peril.

I spent the morning at Yoga Sutra, helping out with some administrative stuff, then took Erika's half-primary led class, then shopped for a 2006 day-planner (a bit late for that, I know...) and now I am home doing laundry, laundry and more laundry. I think laundry is the WORST part of being a grown-up. You do a load, you fold it up, and then you look in the laundry bin, and there's another pair of socks, another pair of yoga pants, another tank top. For tomorrow's laundry. Because if you don't keep up with it, it overwhelms.


As a housekeeping task, keeping up with the laundry is far worse than keeping up with the vacuuming, which I quite enjoy now that I have my Dyson Animal, and besides, vacuuming doesn't undo itself quite as quickly as the laundry situation does, or at least it doesn't appear to. Taking out the garbage and recycling all my Snapple bottles is almost as bad as laundry. But I can usually get someone else to help me with that.

Wow, this is a boring topic. I am bored writing it - I can imagine how boring it is to read. OK, so then here's a random maybe-non-boring thought: Didn't Jake Gyllenhall, at the end of Brokeback Mountain, resemble Sonny Bono towards the end of his life? Well, maybe that thought was kind of boring too.

I still haven't written my thoughts on Brokeback Mountain, which is kind of odd considering that it was the best movie I have seen since Magnolia. I have so many thoughts about Brokeback, but perhaps writing them down would spoil it for me...the way talking about a lover or a yoga practice can have that spoiling effect...Or maybe I am just feeling kind of lazy.

OK, here's another random thought: ever try practicing yoga without a mat, on a hard wood floor? One of my colleagues at Yoga Sutra, Carl, who maintains the Yogascope Kaleidescope Blog (whose most recent entry is totally WHACK but a MUST READ, especially if you want to have the unique experience of feeling, simultaneously, impressed, awed and slightly nauseated), was showing me that this is possible, although not appropriate for everyone. I really, really like my Manduka Purple, but I can kind of see Carl's point. Practicing with nothing between your hands and the ground is incredibly visceral. No shock absorption, but incredibly visceral. Don't try it if you have joint issues, of course. But if you don't have joint issues, it's worth a moment of exploration.

Yet another random thought: Erika has the most beautiful smile.

Final random thought: Who the f-ck is Rosebud and why is she such a beeyotch?

YC

Alphabet Soup

Spoke to Sir first thing this morning regarding the new practice times. I told him I would be able to be there on time twice a week, and I proposed that the rest of the time I would get in as much of my practice with him in the room, but that I would manage on my own for the remainder of my practice after he leaves. He said that was okay, but he preferred it if I could be there earlier once more each week. I wish I could...if only the Husband would take the kids to school in the morning. Ever. As if.

That said, I had a lovely practice today. I started 10 minutes later than I had planned because parking was scarce in Alphabet City today, and I ended up driving around in circles looking for a spot. Got lots of assists throughout standing and right up through Janu C. I was on my own for the rest. What that enabled me to do was to substantially slow down...even moreso than I would with a teacher present and perhaps waiting to assist me. One side of C was more difficult than the other - the second side, which is usually my good side. For some reason I had trouble managing the sweat to skin ratio. That same side I was able to bind by my fingertips in Mari D. Go figure. I couldn't bind at all on the other side of Mari D - the first side, for whatever reason.

I wonder if I am carrying a pound or two excess since the holidays? I haven't stepped on the scale since mid December, although my clothes still fit me exactly the same way. On the other hand, a milimeter or two of extra "girth", be it skin, fat or mere water weight, can change everything in these pretzel-like poses. Sir told me that, himself a while back. So, perhaps as I re-establish my routine, any extra milimeters will disappear, and I will finally be able to say that I bind reliably in every Mari.

Surprisingly, my finishing sequence was a pleasure today, from backbending through Utt Pluthi, which I held for 20 breaths, surprising myself. I easily managed four five-breath Urdhva Dhanurasana, skipping bridge in favor of stretching my arms Gomukhasana-style underneath my back. I also got deeper in Yoga Mudra than I ever have managing to hold onto my left foot while reaching around and grabbing my right (Usually, I grab for the left, then let the left hand slide away as I reach for the right, then replacing the left after I've secured the right, which I know is NOT the right order in which to do things...but it's been the best I can do without assistance, up until now).

I love, love, love having my legs in lotus.

Right after class, still wearing a pair of bootleg yoga pants and a tanktop under a tattered wrap sweater, I drove up to the Capezio store on East 61st and Lexington to replace said wrap sweater, I found myself a really sweet pair of yoga pants that LOOK like jeans, plus a really cool flattering sheer tye-dyed long sleeve t-shirt. As I was browsing, my hair still up in a high pony, a girl browsing alongside of me turned to commiserate: "Don't you just hate when you come here straight from dance class?"

She. Thought. I. Was. A. Dancer. (Or at least, maybe a dance teacher, considering my, er, advanced age...)

Thank you, young woman in the dance shop. You made my day. Possibly my whole week. The only thing that could make it even better is if I receive my Massage Cushion that the parents bought for me after I killed theirs within less than 10 minutes.

Came home and let a very grateful, increasingly submissive Lewis out of his crate...I think it took him a bit of crate training to help him to begin to understand that the alpha dog around here actually is...that short human bitch (meaning that in the least negative sense) who not only feeds him but, more significantly, decides when and on what terms he is allowed to roam freely throughout the rooms of this house. To paraphrase an old adage: The hand that locks the crate'll rule the cur.

And in sadder news, it seems that there is a new and tragic twist in the tale of the Hatfields and the McCoys, or rather, in this case, the McCloys. Ben Hatfield, the head of the International Coal Group has since apologized for the spread of misinformation in regards to the West Virginia mine explosion that occurred earlier this week, namely that Randall McCloy was the sole fatality. Said Hatfield: "The information spread like wildfire [no pun intended, Mr. Hatfield, I hope], because it had come from the [rescue] command center. It quickly got out of control." Eh-yah. Turns out McCloy was the sole survivor, 12 miners have lost their lives and the hearts of 12 families were broken, then lifted up for about three hours, and then, finally, smashed to pieces in the end.

That's all for now...

YC

P.S. To answer some of the questions I have been getting offline: those aren't "just" apples. Didn't anyone take Art History in college? Cezanne anyone?

Just remember - you read it here first

Not long ago, I blogged about how Jane Brody, the columnist I love to hate, ought to spend less time writing about boring and relatively arcane topics like knee replacement and more time writing about more personal and lively topics like boob replacement. Well, today, imagine my surprise when I opened up the Science Times to see that Jane had jumped on the boob band wagon: the topic du jour was After Mastectomy, Finding the Right 'New Normal'.

Sadly, my verdict: sketchy at best. Between Julie and me alone, we could run circles around Ms. Brody's arms' length, superficial, demotionalized (if it's not a word, it should be) reporting. As we Jews like to say, it's a "shondah" (a shame, or, a pity) that Ms. Brody, a breast cancer survivor, herself, can't bring herself to go first person in an article that deals with so intimate a subject as breast reconstruction following mastectomy.

Note to Jane Brody:

We all remember when you had breast cancer, Jane. Five years, schmive years. As a health writer, you have a moral obligation to act as an ambassador to those looking for information on the topic. For you to distance yourself from the subject matter with your silence, your third-person detachment, sends a message to your readers that we hear loud and clear. In doing so, you do more to damage to the cause of "breast cancer awareness" than ALL the pink ribbon rip-offs combined can do to enhance it.

YC

Think Before You Pink

Jimmy Choo aside, it seems that many companies are not using the sale of their products to make money for breast cancer charities, but rather, are using breast cancer to sell their products....or so says the Think Before You Pink project of Breast Cancer Action.

Take for example the ad shown to the left. It is for a name-brand full-figure bra. Last time I checked (and it truly was a LONG time ago - going on four years), name-brand bras such as this cost, on average, in the range of from $25 to $40. And my quickie research of this particular bra indicates that in 2006, it probably sells for around $60.

Now, the sale of this particular bra is being advertised as a way for the customer to support a particular breast cancer charity. But here's the rub: guess how much this company donates to this breast cancer charity if you buy one of these bras?

One dollar.

One dollar is what percent of $60? Is the purchase of a $60 bra for which $1 is donated to a breast cancer charity (which charity is going to take some portion of that dollar off the top to fund its own internal operations, pay its salaries, etc.....) really a purchase that supports breast cancer research/breast cancer care? Or is it a purchase that was induced through an advertising campaign that merely hooked itself to the bright and shiny, pink breast cancer star?

It's a thought provoking little message they've got there, so please...click here to check it out...

YC

P.S. Don't even get me started on the "forward this email of a graphic of a running woman to advance the cause of breast cancer" messages I get in my inbox or the "forward this email to eradicate drive-by mastectomies" or the "click here to fund a mammogram" crap.

YC

Ignoring the Siren Song....

In the driving rain of the first Noreaster of 2006, I got my butt down to Shala X this morning in spite of the seductive sounds of the Sirens of Resistence whispering in my ear. "Maybe not today," they taunted...."Your house is empty...quiet...warm...go there....curl up with your dog...inhale his delightful puppy breath, feel his soft fur...unconditional love and comfort...."

But unlike Odysseus on his voyage home to Penelope, there was no detaining me. "Just go" was was my mantra, and I used it to ward off the Sirens, whose voices diminished with each block I covered on my way down the FDR Drive until all I could hear was the rain pounding on my windshield. Noreaster or no Noreaster, I was going to get myself to Shala X today.

(this is actually what it looked like out there today)

It was so nice to be back. And it was so nice to practice slowly, knowing I had a full hour and a half before I had to move my car (damned alternate side of the street parking). I got NO adjustments from Sir, other than a verbal adjustment in Parivritta Trikonasana. He saw me struggling to balance while trying to really get my twist on, and he suggested that I open up the angle of my back foot. It worked. No one adjusted me in Prasarita Pado C, which was a bit of a bummer. I need that extra little help to get my hands to the floor. But as disappointing as THAT was, I had the pleasure of being hands-on adjusted in EVERY Marichyasana and getting another good verbal adjustment in Navasana (to lower my toes to eye level), in each case by Madam. Madam is the opposite of Sir in the sense that she is a talker. She examines your pose and discusses it with you. I have seen (heard) her do this with other students as well. Being a talker myself, and ever the analyzer, I quite like that.

Anyway, practice was great, I was thrilled that I was back, and I made sure that when I practice on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays that I will not be made to go into finishing poses at 10:15 on the dot. Works for me...we shall see...

Then I had the pleasure of driving home with a fellow student, chatting as I transitioned back into Housewife mode, before heading over to Fairway, where I bought lots of cleaning products, a boatload of juice boxes and some organic fruit.

And now, for the New York City moment of the day: Despite that I drove to supermarket, I STILL had my groceries delivered. MUCH easier to have them brought directly to my front door than to have to drag them out of my trunk, into a baggage cart and up the elevator and down the hall. Those who live in the burbs have a number of advantages over us city dwellers. THIS is not one of them: in the burbs, you gotta do all of the loading and unloading of the car....

YC

D'OH!!!!!

I was checking out the Shala X website to see when their holiday schedule finished up so that I could get myself back to my practice there (their reduced holiday schedule didn't work for me over the holidays - what with my kids being on vacation - and I have been practicing for the most part on my own, interspersed with some led classes at Yoga Sutra and a couple of Bikram classes simply because I crave the heat)...and I saw to my shock and dismay that there is a new schedule. At first, I couldn't even understand how the schedule works: Sunday through Saturday? Doesn't that mean every day? An extended session on Tuesdays and Thursdays that goes until 11:30, great...but what about the 9:30 session that they used to have on the other days?

It looks like my ability to practice at Shala X has now been seriously reduced. Tuesdays, I can do. Sundays I can do. But I teach on Thursday mornings at Yoga Sutra, and the other days, if I begin practicing at 9:30 (which is when I can get there without severe agita, after dropping of my boys at school, making sure Lewis the Bagle is set and making my way downtown), I will have only 45 minutes before I have to go to finishing postures (Sir is VERY strict about his students starting finishing postures by a specified time). And there is no way that I could, or would want to, finish my entire practice in 45 minutes, save for the finishing sequence. I mean, that's what we eek out in a half-led primary class IF we're lucky, and that doesn't leave much time for long, slow breaths or extended exploration of any postures.

This puts quite a wrench into my plans to be practicing with Sir as my teacher. I suppose I can still be there twice a week - Tuesdays and Sundays. But what about the other days (other than Thursdays, which I spend at Yoga Sutra)? Is it okay for someone like me (read: a relative novice) to practice without a teacher three days a week, and to practice with my teacher only twice a week (with once a week being 1/2 led primary)?

And assuming it IS okay, is it something I WANT to be doing? I LIKE getting my adjustments....

And if it is NOT okay, or if I decide that I want to be practicing with a teacher in a Mysore setting more than twice a week, then what are my other options?

Shiva Shala has Mysore until late morning every weekday. But it seems so out of the way. Yoga Sutra's morning Mysore (6:30 to 9:30, finishing postures to follow) seems much more appealing because I feel very much at home there, but if I get there between 9 and 9:30, then although I know that I will be free to practice for as long as it takes me to finish my practice, I will nevertheless have to practice without a teacher for the majority of my practice. Of coure, there's always the option of what one might refer to as the "AYRI Annex" in south SoHo, since they have an 11:00 a.m. session. But it is not at all clear to me whether I would be welcome there given my free-agent tendencies...

I hear the echoes in my head of the discussions this summer, the objections raised to my being at both Sir's and the AYRI Annex on a regular basis, and I shudder to think that I might hear them again. And even if I don't hear the objections, still, there is the reality: this isn't the way it is supposed to be done, alternating teachers, alternating practice spaces, becoming, essentially an Ashtanga gypsy....

I am confused, and my head is spinning thinking about this. I know that it will all fall into place. But for now, I don't even know where to go tomorrow morning. Oh, wait...it will be Tuesday. I can still go to Shala X....

Any advice is appreciated, but please try to keep it constructive. I am feeling a bit fragile right now.

YC

What I learned the year I turned 40

1. We have very little control over a very large portion of our experience. Accept it, don't fight it.

2. Bad things can happen to you even if you thought you had already had your fair share of hard luck.

3. Good things can happen to you even when you thought your luck had already run out.

4. Dogs are amazing, loving creatures.

5. Never EVER buy a dog from a pet store. For that matter, don't buy a dog at all: rescue a dog from a shelter, or better yet, the pound.

6. Practice and all is coming. I knew this when I used to run marathons. I somehow forgot it over time....and now I have learned it again.

7. Mari D and Mari C are actually POSSIBLE - I NEVER thought they could be. NEVER. And yet here I am doing them...on my own...!!

8. Teach from the heart, and your students will find you.

9. When you get enough sleep, your muscles and joints feel better than when you don't.

10. If you want to lose weight, eat less. NEVER diet.

11. The Upper East Side is pretty much a wasteland when it comes to yoga. Just ACCEPT it already.

12. Always get the refill on the prescription meds, even if you think you don't need to. I won't explain this one other than to say that in this day and age, insurance companies suck, and doctors are seldom available for their patients who aren't imminently sick. Might as well stockpile.

13. Morning movies are a delight: no crowds, no candy cravings, better attention span and focus.

14. Stargazer lilies smell great, but they don't last the week. Stick to the yellow lilies for the staying power.

15. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is the BEST BEST BEST cleaning product ever invented. No more fingerprints on doors! No more scuffmarks on the baseboards! WOOHOO!!!

16. I am officially a housewife. I even wax ecstatic about cleaning products...

17. I kind of LIKE biting my nails.

Happy New Year!!!

YC

Sword of Gideon

The husband and I went to the movies this morning and saw "Sword of Gideon". Or as Spielberg is calling it these days, Munich. It was fine. Nothing particularly memorable (other than the fact that it was our very first time being at the movies at 10 a.m.; the kids had slept at my parents'). Not like Schindler's List, which the husband and I saw exactly 12 years ago this month on our first day back from our Honeymoon in Cabo and which made a lasting, probably lifelong, impression on us.

For those who don't know, and I am not giving anything away here, Munich is about the carrying out of the plan hatched by Israel (or at the very least, by Israelis in very high positions in Israel's government and military) to assassinate the terrorists responsible for the deaths of the Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. The plan is presented as a simple "eye for an eye" type deal: you killed our countryman, so we will kill you. But like all journeys into moral muddy waters, this one carried with it a steep and slippery slope.

The first assassination is fairly straightforward: "Are you so-and-so?"

"Yes...?"

"Do you know why we're here?"

Bang bang, and it's over.

But it doesn't stay straightforward for long. And it's not just that children and other innocents are put in harms' way or that families and property are destroyed on a major scale. It's that people begin to make their way onto the assassins' list who weren't there in the first place...bad people, yes...indeed, people who need to be stopped....nevertheless, where should the doling out of vigilante justice stop? And should it have started at all? And, of course, there's the problem of who you have to deal with when you get yourself into the business of hunting terrorists. There's the many people that must be trusted to assist you in some way...for example, porters to let you into the hotel rooms you shouldn't be in, suppliers of plastics to build explosives, those who know the whereabouts of those whom you are hunting. Usually "trust" (or some version thereof) can be bought for the right price. But sometimes, there's a higher bidder....and sometimes the person who is selling information to you may be selling information ABOUT you.

Ultimately, the question becomes: how is this vigilante justice really any different from the terrorism that it had set out to punish?

The movie's final shot (which I won't give away here) brings to mind one word for all of it: senseless.

Next topic: Brokeback Mountain, which we saw last night and which is still swirling around in my head, bringing up new thoughts and themes and questions. Now THAT was a memorable and achingly beautiful cinematic masterpiece.

YC

"The news was bad, I went to Bendels"....

There are many different approaches to dealing with illness, and one way is to affirm one's faith in the act of continuing to live. And among those who decide to take that approach, there are, in turn, many different approaches to affirming said faith. Some seem rooted in group hugs and prayer circles. And some are far more concrete. I am sure it will come as no surprise, that I find myself drawn to the concrete, the urban, the slightly sardonic approach.

Which goes a long way toward explaining why when I was diagnosed with the beast in the summer of 2002, I spent a good deal of time shopping for clothing I had absolutely no use for while in treatment... stiletto-heeled-over-the-knee boots, a fabulous cream-colored suede shift dress...and which I had every intention of wearing once I was done with treatment. And let me tell you, I have... especially that dress. (The boots have been harder to fit into my regular rotation - the fact remains that it's hard for a five foot one inch forty-year old to pull off over-the-knee boots. But I will keep trying...)

An email dialogue I had today with a reader of mine, who is a yoga studio owner and a survivor in her own right (not of cancer, but she will know what I mean) made me think about the notion that what might seem vain and shallow to one person could be viewed as a form of salvation to another. And in turn, my mind returned to an article I read several years ago regarding one writer's uniquely urban and hip approach to her diagnosis with breast cancer. I bring it to you here, the words of Ellen Tien, a writer and young survivor of breast cancer. She wrote this amazing article for the Style Section of the New York Times back in 2002:

The News Was Bad, I Went to Bendels

"THREE doctors had already told me that the carat-size lump in my left breast was, in all likelihood, nothing to worry about. As a 37-year-old Chinese woman with no history of breast cancer in the family, my chances of a malignancy, they said, were lottery low. The radiologist who performed the routine biopsy last spring seemed less certain. She carried out the needle aspiration with brisk efficiency, extracting tissue samples via four staple-gun-like thrusts to the offending mass. After the fourth ka-chung, she flipped on the lights and turned to face me. “I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “It doesn’t look great. I’d say your odds are about 50-50.”

Her honesty was cruelly refreshing. “I’ll phone your regular doctor tomorrow with the lab results, and he’ll call you,” she said. “Good luck.”

It occurred to me that when a doctor wishes you good luck, it might not be the world’s best sign. I got dressed, walked out of the office and did the only thing I really could do, under the circumstances. I went shopping.

F. A. O. Schwarz was conveniently situated on the corner, so I headed in and up, straight to the Star Wars section, where I gathered an armload of action figures for my 4-year-old son. That done, I went across the street to the Bergdorf Goodman men’s store and chose a summer suit and a striped Etro shirt for my husband. The entire expedition took less than an hour.

Still, by the time I stepped out of Bergdorf, the city had changed. The unpredictable gold and gray sky of late spring had faded to black, hurling great canvases of rain over Midtown. Fifth Avenue was bouncing with raindrops, and not an available taxi was in sight. As I peered down the rows of cars, my arms laden with packages, I felt my first pang of despair.

Magically, an empty cab stopped directly in front of me. “You’ve got a whole lot of packages there,” the driver said as I clambered in. I explained that they were gifts for my husband and son. “Lucky them,” he said. “What’s the occasion—did you just get a big new job?”

“Something like that,” I said.

By noon the next day, the results were official. My new employer was invasive ductal carcinoma, and it was now my assignment to best it. In the breath it took my doctor to say, “I have bad news: you have breast cancer,” I was lifted into a whole different shopping arena. For the next few months, I walked the aisles of breast surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists. I became versed in the brand names of chemotherapy treatments; I discovered a world where a single anti-nausea pill could cost $200. It was a grim and compelling sort of spree, the most high-stakes shopping imaginable.

Yet, oddly, I had never felt more sure-footed. I knew I had the skills. From the time I was old enough to point and say, “This one,” it was clear I had been born with my mother’s shopping genes. I bought my wedding dress in an hour, my apartment in a week. Now, I would sift through the shelves of medical terms and make order of them; I could remain unmoved by a flashy surgeon’s sales pitch. Given the opportunity, I was more than ready to haggle with fate. In a way, I had been preparing for this moment all my life.

Shopping is a freighted activity—at once a task and a hobby, a necessity and a pleasure. The average American spends six hours a week shopping. Last winter, the Harvard Design School put retail in the canon with its 800-page “Guide to Shopping.” The Stanford Medical Center is conducting studies on the brain chemistry of compulsive shoppers. Like eating and gambling, shopping has managed to traverse the pale from pastime to illness.

In the face of serious physical illness, however, shopping takes on a different cast. Certainly, there is a deny-yourself-nothing mentality that flashes on in the psyche upon diagnosis (and then flashes right off, after you receive the first medical bill). Too, there’s a desire to seek haven in a place where the inventory is guaranteed to be new and untainted by the blot of toxins or bad cells.

But more than an agent of acquisition, shopping can be an act of hope. The dying take stock of their possessions, the living add to them. Shopping implies that there are days ahead of you and good times to be had: a Christmas party that cries out for Cacharel’s pink kimono-tied dress, a spring afternoon just right for Stephen Burrows’s bright knits. In shopping, there is an implicit future. When a salesperson assures you that the shearling coat you’re buying will last forever, it helps you to believe that maybe you will, too.

So, as I trudged through the stages of primary and adjuvant treatments—a Memorial Sloan-Kettering ID slotted neatly in my wallet behind my American Express card—I shopped. There was the peasant skirt I bought at Calypso after the first surgical consultation, the Ralph Lauren cable cashmere cardigans I bought after the third.

After a post-lumpectomy checkup, there were the clownishly oversize Adidas sneakers I picked out for my son—a secret insurance policy that I would be around to see them fit. Even an 11th-hour trip to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston yielded four coveted Palio plates from a little shop on Newbury Street. When one surgeon suggested that I start a “cancer diary” to help me process the process, I stifled the urge to laugh in his face. Who needed a diary? I had my credit card statements.

Along the way, I encountered women in similar situations who were keeping retail chronicles of their own. A fashion designer told me how she ate lunch at Barneys before her chemotherapy sessions. A college professor recounted how she fought a brutal, chemically induced depression by trying on shoes. Every morning for six weeks, as I sat in the waiting room of Stich Radiation Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, I listened to women with cancer discussing and comparing their most recent purchases, be it lipstick, a wig, a bracelet or a wheelchair.

Certainly, these women and I were only doing what women do every day: going to work, attending to our children, accruing details—and taking a quick spin around Saks somewhere in between. But for us, there was comfort in the routine. Much the same way we exulted over the words “grossly unremarkable” on the pathology reports of our tumors, we were buoyed by the normalcy of shopping. We browsed, not for the quick lozenge-effect of the latest fad, but for continuity. We ordered hairpieces that exactly matched our own hair. We bought makeup to simulate our precancer skin tones, blotches and all. No longer searching for a grail that could make us look taller or leaner, we shopped to look precisely the way we always had.

Last week, I had my final radiation session. To mark the occasion, I decided to walk from the hospital back to F. A. O. Schwarz. As I passed by store windows along the way, I was struck by the array of clothing, accessories and beauty products that had been created in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month: the T-shirts and tote bags, earrings and pink-laced sneakers.

Before my diagnosis, I thought of this October retail practice as slightly distasteful, the chic-ifying and merchandising of a serious disease. Now, there seemed to me a strange symmetry between these two worlds. Seen one way, breast cancer is not unlike Bendel’s in that both are populated almost exclusively by women. Both create a sense of sorority. Both have a certain underpinning of secrecy. Just as some women hide their purchases from their husbands, other women hide their cancers from their employers and children, grandparents and co-workers.

While I have never been secretive about my spending habits, I did hide my cancer from all but my closest family and friends. I wanted to avoid the scrutiny that comes with illness, the conversations with information-hungry people who mask their curiosity as concern and use phrases like “we’re rooting for you.” I needed to minimize the crocodile tears, the gossip, the questions like “How can you go shopping at a time like this?”

How could I not? In what had abruptly become a frighteningly circumscribed universe, shopping offered possibility, a forward stretch into seasons to come. Soothed by the familiar rhythms of a department store, I could distract myself from nausea and walk off waves of fatigue. Even on my shakiest days, I could convince myself that if I didn’t find anything good on one floor, I would on the next. In shopping, as in all else, where there’s hope, there’s life."

(This article was originally published in the Style section of the Sunday New York Times on October 20, 2002. Copyright © 2002 by The New York Times Co.)

As far as I know, Ellen Tien continues to live, shop and write in New York City. And the shoes - they are Jimmy Choo's Pink Ribbon Shoes. At $495, they are pricey. But 15% gets donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (which happens to be headed up by my neighbor, God bless her, who has never had breast cancer). I'm not telling anyone to go out and buy them. I just think they're pretty....

YC

How do you begin an Ashtanga practice without an Ashtanga teacher?

My cousin discovered Ashtanga on a trip to the east coast, but has returned home in Colorado Springs to discover no Ashtanga, or at least none that she can find. As you can see, Denver (and Boulder, which you can't see) are not possibilities for a daily practice. She has kids and a husband and is in school, so traveling to for a month or two to study with Richard Freeman, etc. is not really feasible either.

So what does one do when the Ashtanga bug bites, and there is only vinyasa on the menu?

YC

Move over Geico Cavemen...meet the Kleenex Monk

Poor guy - after a quiet, meditative walk through a seemingly zen-inspired garden, during which he gently and deftly saves the lives of several tiny members of the animal kingdom (namely, an upturned turtle, a land-stranded goldfish and a misplaced spider)...he blows his nose only to hear a voice-over intone that his tissue is responsible for the death of 99.9% of household viruses.

OH!! THE HORROR!!

Nice touch on the glasses and five o'clock shadow too. If I didn't know better, I'd say that this guy was a Jew....

On other fronts, I am THRILLED, and I mean THRILLED, to report that my lower back issues have resolved. For someone like me, with a health history that has the potential to rattle me at the slightest ache or pain, it is a relief when an ache or a pain goes away quickly. Unfortunately, I now have a cold. And even though I am not the only one in my household to have this cold, which produces sharp coughing, I am feeling the twinges of anxiety about the coughing. Last night, as I was teaching my vinyasa class, with three of my breast cancer survivor students in the class, each time I coughed, I was acutely aware of my own anxiety. And when one of my students said, "Are you okay?" I imagined that she was feeling the same anxiety that I was feeling....the unthinkable, the unfathomable....of course, I can only speak for what I was thinking.

At any rate, I had the opportunity to sleep super late today, being a moon day and all, and the coughing seems to have diminished. Fingers crossed. This is NOT good. My vrittis are going wild. MUST NOT ATTACH. MUST NOT ATTACH. MUST NOT ATTACH....

YC

Auspicious on the inside

I wish I could bottle practices like the one I had today.

It just felt so goshdarned good...light, effortless, no discomfort, the feeling of my foot pressing into my stomach in half lotus poses, the feeling of my chin bone pressing hard into my shin, wishing it wasn't over when I was done...

Funny, from the OUTSIDE, I am sure my practice looks essentially the same on a day to day basis. But what changes, day to day, is the way it FEELS on the inside. And today, it just felt...well...auspicious.

I love it when that happens.

YC

Peggy Fleming I aint

However, skating was fun, and my kids and I were shocked when we looked up and realized that we had been at the rink for two hours and twenty minutes. There was a time when I used to care VERY much about figure skating, taking a couple of lessons a week, practicing three or four times a week. It wasn't all that long ago - the winter of 2001, if I am remembering correctly. But after my surgery, skating kind of hurt - my ribcage, my pecs, the whole area just got terribly inflamed every time I went out and skated (skating is VERY upper body intensive - don't believe for a second that it is all about the legs....in order to spin and turn, you need really good strength, control and flexibility in the core). And I realized before too long that I needed to find another creative and athletic release....

(So for anyone who thinks that I don't listen to my body...hmmmm)

That is how I ended up turning most of my attention, more and more to yoga.

I can't say that I never looked back, because today, I was definitely looking back. I still knew a lot of the coaches and they remembered me and my kids. I think they were glad to see I was still alive. It felt weird to step on the ice and feel so shaky, so unsure. I could still get myself moving, and somehow, spinning feels more balanced now (probably a shift in my center of gravity due to the swap of breast tissue for the more compact saline-filled implants). But I have lost a lot of technique. And most of all, I have lost my sense of devil-may-care recklessness. I can't see myself attempting any sort of a jump. Oh, my mind can envision it. But there is absolutely no transmission of brainwave to body part there. It's like trying to move a paralyzed muscle. All feeling is gone.

Ah well. As KJS said in her blog today, everything changes. As if we need to be reminded...and yet, sometimes we do. Change can be upsetting while it's happening. But usually change turns out to be good. Not because it creates a result we were hoping for, but because as human beings, we are amazingly resilient, and we are capable of changing our expectations to fit our realities. I used to think that was sad ("how can one be happy with LESS than one wanted?" I would lament). Now I think of it as both miraculous and essential to our survival.

When it comes to times of extreme change - death, illness, loss, even winning a lottery, proverbial OR actual - it is good to remind ourselves that throughout all of it the SELF remains the same. If you eliminate the chatter (the chatter that berates ourselves or wishes for things to be different, etc.), what remains is the SELF. And nothing can touch that or change that.

YC

"The world is sexy"...

So says Sri Swami Sivananda (who would very likely disapprove of this photo and the notion of yoga as a tool for better sex) in his The Practice of Brahmacharya.

I started thinking about the practice of "brahmacharya". For those who don't know, "brahmacharya" is one of the "eight limbs of yoga". Traditionally, it is the practice of celibacy. Sometimes it is considered to be the practice of modified celibacy with sex permitted only at certain prescribed times. Some don't even like to USE the word celibacy with regard to the practice of "brahmacharya", instead construing it broadly to fit the realities of our modern "sexy" world as "conservation of vital energy".

Do people practice Brahmacharya as celibacy? Feel free to comment anonymously on this one.

YC

Little Sparrows and One-Legged Pigeons

After spending most of yesterday with a group of economically homogenous but ethnically diverse six- and eight-year olds, I cabbed it up to the Bronx, where not far from the Grand Concourse, which lays below the elevated subway track, about 300 Kindergarten through Third Graders go to school year-round (even during holiday weeks such as this one) at the Little Sparrow Elementary School (P.S. 88). There, I taught yoga to twenty six- through eight-year olds who couldn't have been more different, and yet more the same, from the kids I had left playing with my nanny in my Upper East Side co-op.

Unlike the school that my kids attend, which is somewhat ethnically diverse, the Little Sparrow School is quite ethnically homogeneous. Less than one percent are caucasian or asian. Greater than 99 percent are of color. About one-third of the kids are in the school's city-mandated after-school/day-care program so that their parents/guardians can work. But in nearly every other way, these kids were very much like my own kids, like the kids with whom my kids go to school: cute and rambunctious and puppy-like...they wanted to clown around, and they also wanted to do the right thing. In fact, I would have to say that they were far more willing to follow directions from me than my own kids....partnering up for forward bending poses, back to back, taking turns leaning back on each other and singing the Closing Mantra at the end (better than ANY led class I have ever attended). We did some handstanding and some crow balancing as well. I managed to keep their attention for over an hour....and as fun as it was for me, and as rewarding as it was to have one of the little sparrows show me her coloring book after class, it was quite a demanding hour of teaching.

And then off I was to find the subway back to Manhattan. The Husband, being the mainstreamiest of them all, and dare I say, a teeny bit closedminded, had asked that I have one of the other teachers accompany me to a cab. But that's just not my way - no delicate flower am I. I found the subway just fine, no problems, and shivered for what seemed like hours, waiting for the train to arrive on the elevated platform. Now I understood what it meant when it was said that the trains seemed to be moving slowly. When you have to wait for it outside, you really begin to notice how slow the trains are.

Somehow I managed to get to Yoga Sutra with enough time to squeeze in my practice. Zoe was there. She knows that I am working hard on Parivritta Parsvakonasana these days, and she spent a lot of time with me, helping me to twist juuuuust a bit more. She suggested that by going for the full posture - reaching my top arm over my head and using my hand as my driste - as opposed to keeping my hands in prayer as I had been doing, my body would follow along with a deeper twist. And as Parivritta Parsvakonasana goes, so go Mari C and D (just as my Ardha Badha Padmotannasana is a pretty good indicator of how everything with a "padma" in it will feel that day), and they were nice and deep. Pressing up into Lolasana seems to be becoming a reality as well....

And then it was time to teach. I was subbing for Julie, who has replaced Karri, who used to teach "Happy Hip Hopping Yoga", which was a super-advanced vinyasa class set to funky, happy music. The class is now simply a Level II vinyasa class, but I don't think that word has gotten around yet: the two students who showed up told me that they were ready for anything I was willing to give them. I recognized one of them from the Mysore room. She was practicing while I was teaching Yoga for Breast Cancer Survivors (in the Mysore room also), and I remember being struck by the simple beauty of her practice. The other told me he practices with Dharma Mittra and Allison West. Enough said. The three of us spent a minute or two discussing what we would cover in class....

1. Arm balances (crow, side-crow, vasistasana, pincha mayurasana, astavakrasana)
2. Standing balances (eagle into a twisting version of Uttitha Hasta Padangustasana into the Bikram Style Toestand into Ardha Badha Padmotannasana)
3. Eka Pada Rajakapotasana...both of my students touched their foot to their head.

It's really fun for me every now and then to lead super-advanced students. With a good vinyasa teacher training, you can learn enough about anatomy and about the poses such that you can teach poses that you aren't necessarily practicing yourself. For the most part, my students last night could "do" more than I could. But I did have the wonderful opportunity to teach one of them how to get into Astavakrasana from Compass (which I can actually do), and, I think she got it!

Today it's ice skating with the kids....my kids....

YC

Holy Jelly Doughnuts!

Today (in fact, in about 10 minutes), we are having a Hannukah Party here....with the primary purpose being the making of Sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts that have become an Israeli tradition on Hannukah. Last night, I made the dough and let it rise. Today it awaits the little hands of my boys and several of their friends to punch and roll it out and cut it up into little rounds for frying up.

The idea of this party came to me when Brian's best friend in school, a HUGE HUGE HUGE Yankee fan, as well as a first generation Japanese-American, was here for a playdate a week ago and told us that he really wants to be Jewish. When his mom came to pick him up, I asked her about this, and she said it was true, and that she has no problem with that since their family essentially has no religion. So, we decided to have Masaya over for a Hannukah party...complete with candle lighting, doughnut making, dreidl playing and Hannukah gelt as party favors.

I have always loved entertaining. We don't do it enough in this city, , where we have such easy access to so many wonderful restaurants (perhaps the true "ladies who lunch" do host dinner parties in their Park Avenue mansion flats...but not my crew).

So I am excited! Also coming to the party is Adam's friend, Mo. Mo is short for Mohammed, and he is not Jewis either, and since he is Muslim, he does not celebrate Christmas either....and two of Brian's friends who go to different schools, but who know each other from the competitive chess circuit, will be there.

Should be fun!

Later on, I am making my very first voyage ever up to the Bronx via subway to teach yoga in an after-school program at an elementary school. This particular after-school program is ongoing throughout the year, as a form of daycare. I have no idea what I am going to see up there, but I can imagine that it may be quite sobering.

And then a u-turn to the privileged yogis at Yoga Sutra. LOOOONG day. Haven't practiced today yet. Maybe I can squeeze it in between the Bronx and Midtown....

Sometimes I think that it's not that I THINK too much but that I think I can DO too much...

YC

Random thought:

"He painted with notes. He painted the people, the scenery, and the moods of Norway. In the immortal Peer Gynt Suites, ... [he] captured the rising of the sun, the lamenting of a death, and, in "The Hall of the Mountain King," the imagery of a chase scene. His works contained what are yet today readily recognizable 'tunes.'"

I am talking about Edvard Grieg, a re-discovery I made while home with the parents. I think my parents would have loved it if I had appreciated this music when I was younger. Same with art museums, for that matter. But at least I have rediscovered it in time for my own kids to think I am a total dork.

(And mom, I accidentally took the Peer Gynt CD home with me...we'll make a prisoner exchange: Grieg for Moomy.)

I am LOVING this music!

YC

An ass CAN be too small.

P.S...I am sure that this photo was retouched and that no asses were harmed in the making of this photo.

Nice Menorah!

And now, let us all join Adam Sandler in song:

"Put on your yalmulka, here comes Hanukkah
Its so much fun-akkah to celebrate Hanukkah,

Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights,
Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights.

When you feel like the only kid in town without a X-mas tree, Heres a list of
people who are Jewish, just like you and me:

David Lee Roth lights the menorrah,
So do James Caan, Kirk Douglas, and the late Dinah Shore-ah

Guess who eats together at the Karnickey Deli,
Bowzer from Sha-na-na, and Arthur Fonzerrelli.

Paul Newmans half Jewish; Goldie Hawns half too,
Put them together--what a fine lookin’ Jew! ]

You dont need Deck the Halls or Jingle Bell Rock
Cause you can spin the dreidl with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock--both Jewish!


Put on your yalmulka, its time for Hanukkah,
The owner of the Seattle Super sonic-ahs celebrates Hanukkah.

O.J. Simpson-- not a Jew!
But guess who is...Hall of Famer—Rod Carew--(he converted!)

We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby,
Harrison Fords a quarter Jewish--not too shabby!

Some people think that Ebeneezer Scrooge is,
Well, hes not, but guess who is:All three stooges.

So many Jews are in show biz--
Tom Cruise isnt, but I heard his agent is.

Tell your friend Veronica, its time you celebrate Hanukkah
I hope I get a harmonica, on this lovely, lovely Hanukkah.

So drink your gin-and-tonic-ah, and smoke your mara-juanic-ah,
If you really, really wanna-kah, Have a happy, happy, happy, happy
Hanukkah……. HAPPY HANUKKA!"

I killed a massage chair

Well, not exactly a massage "chair", more like a massage cushion, the HoMedics: Therapist Select™ Shiatsu+ Massaging Cushion, to be exact. Here is a picture of it, may it rest in peace:


But before it died, it gave me the best massage of my life. And I mean THE BEST. The Yoga Chickie family is in the burbs tonight, visiting the Yoga Chickie Parents, and they always have the latest spa accoutrements (my mom asked me to write that). Actually, they have some good stuff here...among other things, a nice, big jacuzzi and...the ill-fated HoMedics massager.

After lighting our Hanukah candles...



...making a big batch of potato latkes...



...and eating our faux-Christmas dinner...



...we went upstairs to watch March of the Penguins.

And there it was...the massage chair. It beckoned me. And at my mother's insistence, I decided to give it a try, never really believing that a mechanical massage could satisfy me. But satisfy me it did. I had practiced before dinner, and for whatever reason, I was feeling really agile and light and found myself getting very deep in Parivritta Parsvakonasana and the two twisting Mari's. I wasn't terribly sore immediately afterward, but as the hours went by, my back muscles began tightening up. So much so, actually, that the massage the chair started out almost TOO strenuously. But as my back muscles relaxed, it began to feel juuuuust right.

And then it died. It was as if the chair simply could not handle the degree of muscular tightness my back presented to it....and so, it simply siezed up and gave out. My dad was PISSED. It's not like I did anything. I just sat down and gave that chair a run for its money. After my back muscles, what was left for it to conquer?

Thank you for giving your life to me, Mom and Dad's HoMedics Shiatsu Massage Cushion. I will always remember our night together...

YC

Blogging gone wrong...?

What exactly does that mean? Someone just told me (posted to me on EZ Board, actually), that my blog is cited by those at her shala as an exanple of how yoga blogging can go wrong.

To me, blogging (any blogging, yoga or otherwise) goes wrong if it veers into the illegal or the tortious. An example of illegal might be the conveying of material, non-public (insider) information on a publicly traded stock. An example of tortious might be telling a lie about someone, also known as libel. I suppose blogging goes wrong if it conveys misinformation or omits important information, and the readers are relying upon it as an authority for accurate information. An example of that would be a blog about childproofing your house that fails to recommend anchoring heavy furniture to the wall. Blogging could also go wrong if it harms the blogger - if the blogger is constantly scuffling with his or her readers. I saw that on one blog: the blogger couldn't seem to stop himself from answering the obnoxious charges of some angry reader, and so he eventually and wisely removed the blog's comments capability temporarily until things died down.

But other than that...how can blogging go wrong?

The blogger usually has a purpose in blogging - self-expression, clearing out the cobwebs, practicing writing, practicing writing to an audience, conveying information that the blogger thinks is going to be relevant to someone. Whatever that purpose is, the blogger is wise to stay with his or her intention. Ultimately, the desires of the readers may shape those intentions down the line. And in some cases, perhaps they don't.

The reader's job is to read blogs that interest him or her. Continuing to read a blog that annoys or inflames him or her is just really self-harm. Writing scathing critiques to the blogger in response then becomes harm to the blogger. If I weren't into all the yoga lingo, I might substitute the word "abuse" in place of "harm".

A troll is someone who plants seeds of discord in a public forum. A blogger cannot be a troll because the blogger's forum is not exactly a public forum. It is essentially a private journal laid open. Its purpose is defined by the blogger and the blogger alone. A blogger "goes wrong," I suppose, however, if the blogger spends more time answering trolls then following the blog's original intention.

Bringing it back to the personal, the intention behind my blog is primarily personal and creative expression. I do not do extensive research about ANY topic I blog about. There may VERY WELL be misinformation on here, and I do not lead anyone to believe that I am an authority on...well, ANYTHING. The secondary intention behind my blog is to process my thoughts in an orderly fashion as a way of stopping the chatter. Although there are those who believe that my writing is creating the chatter, it is actually quite the other way around. I write in order to dispose of the thoughts. I put them on paper, and that way I don't circle around and back to them. If I can't exactly quiet my monkey mind, I can certainly "crate" it...here.

There is no way I am going to censor my writing in order to appear more enlightened than I am, to appear less ego-driven, to make sure that I am not writing something that betrays a lack of understanding of whatever yoga I am practicing or whatever else I am endeavouring to do, be it knitting, cooking, mothering, shopping. I don't know about other bloggers because I am not in their heads. If their blogs reflect a mind freed from the bonds of ego and desire, then wow, they are lucky, and I can see that yoga works and works FAST. If their blogs reflect a desire to appear that way (hey, fake it til you make it, right?), then, well, that is absolutely their prerogative, and, I respect it completely. Freedom of expression. Use your blog for whatever you want to use it for. Use it to tell your honest thoughts, or use it to tell the thoughts you wish to be true. Use it to confess your weaknesses. Or not.

How can a blog that does any of that go wrong?

Like many people (I want to say "most people", but I really don't know if this is true), I see myself as an amalgamation of many things, many traits, many identities. I live a VERY mainstream life, I am married to one of the most mainstream men I could ever have dramed up, I live in a mainstream neighborhood, I socialize with mainstream people for the most part. Sometimes I veer toward the spoiled - I like luxury. Sometimes I veer toward the crunchy - I can't seem to practice yoga on the Upper East Side (try as I have) and always end up in the East Village. I color my own hair (my mainstream girlfriends gasp in horror!), I never wear my jewelry unless the Husband practically forces me. I was an English major in college, not an Economics or International Relations major like most people from my mainstream world. My favorite English professor used to scratch his head at the contradictions my persona presented..."Intellect with a JAP clip in her hair" or something like that.

But most relevantly to this discussion, I am a yogi with a Type A personality. I was born with my personality, and to the extent that I wasn't born with it, I learned it growing up in a family of overachievers. Hi Mom! You can take the yogi out of the Type A family, but you can't take the Type A out of the yogi. Or maybe you can! But I am not there yet. I just simply am NOT! SO WHAT! If we were all born at the enlightened ends of our journeys, there would be nothing left to accomplish in our lives.

I embrace my flaws. They make me me. If someone doesn't like me and my flaws, they should read someone else's blog - someone who either IS fully enlightened and freed from the bonds of ego and desire, or someone who pretends to be or someone who wishes to be...(no judgement from me here...and I am not talking about ANYONE in particular...I read A LOT of blogs, and not just yoga blogs either).

People tend to get upset about that which they see in others which reminds them of themselves.....If my ambition, my ego, my impatience...my current place on my yoga journey...makes you feel all constricted inside...makes you feel like fixing me....makes you feel angry, then maybe I can help YOU: ask yourself what it is I can teach you via my flaws and weaknesses. And then listen to the answer.

YC

Yum!

Nothing like Christmas Eve in Little Italy...it's so nice and quiet, and there's no wait for a table at Umberto's Clam House, which serves the BEST red sauce I have ever tasted. You can smell how good it tastes as soon as you walk in the door. Addy ate an entire plate of mussels and then manged on most of my calamari fra diavolo, part of Brian's lasagna and a fair portion of the Husband's lobster fra diavolo. Brian is the one with the sweet tooth though, so when we made our way to Sambuca's Cafe (since the old favorite, Ferrara had closed early for Christmas Eve) and actually had the pleasure of getting a table, which never normally happens on a Saturday night without a twenty minute wait minimum, Bri ate his entire canoli...


...part of the Husband's tiramisu...


a good portion of my "canoli cream cake"....

(no photo, but picture this...rich ricotta cheese with a hint of orange and chocolate chips combined with a light genoise cake, covered with a whipped butter cream)...

...and even after he said he was too full to eat any more, he dipped his eight year old hands into Adam's chocolate oreo mousse cheesecake...



...and continued to stuff his face.

(My kids are skinny - so I let them do this kind of thing when they show interest in food, which is, like, hardly ever.)

Boring boring boring boring boring for you, I know....but so very delightful for me!

YC

Ireland, Sweden, Manila, Oh MY!

Checking out a list of locations from which my readers hail, I see that today I have had my first (I believe) visitor from Ireland - Baile U Chonnmha, Wexford, to be exact. Also, a rare visit from Sweden - rebro, Orebro Lan, as my sitemeter states.

Other places that struck my fancy: Slough, United Kingdom....Achterlee, Antwerpen, Belgium....Calgary, Alberta, Canada...Bombay, Maharashtra, India...Torres Buggallon, Bulucan, Phillippines...

I would love to hear from my readers from faraway places...even to just say, "Hey, I'm practicing Ashtanga, just like you, only in Manila." I won't hold my breath. But it would be awesome...

YC

Dreamy

I had an odd dream last night. In the dream, I was still a member of Park Avenue Synagogue, the Conservative congregation of which I was a member for the past eight years or so. It's where my kids went to nursery school. It's where a made a bunch of friends, some of whom I still count as friends, and some of whom are no longer friends. We left the congregation partly because we didn't "feel it" vis a vis the Conservative practice. We are quite secular, and we felt a Reform practice would be better for a more secularly oriented family. Being a "Reform" Jew does not mean that you are one step away from being a Christian or anything like that...it means, rather, that you begin with the "Traditional" as a starting point and then make a lot of PERSONAL decisions about what you can do to live your life in a spiritual way. It is a departure from Traditional (Orthodox) Judasim, not a further slipping down the slippery slope from Conservative Judaism.

Anyway, I digress....

So, there we were, still members of PAS, and I am at some family function with my kids, and I am wearing a brown corduroy Blue Cult skirt and a ribbed turtleneck. Most everyone else is wearing really conservative clothing - dark suits. Every woman is wearing a hat. But I have chosen not to, mainly because I do not personally believe that a woman must cover her head/hair just because she is married. But that's a whole other Yoga Chickie sermon.

Long, winding hallways and other typical-dream stuff happen, and then the crux of the dream: the rabbi seeks me out and says that he needs to speak with me outside. He takes me out of the sanctuary and tells me that I simply MUST change the way I dress. It is "too sexy," he tells me, "and no one else dresses that way. Look around, and you'll see."

Well, I already knew that in the dream, and I got very defensive. And I told him that I didn't need his stuffy, stiff synagogue and I was already switching over to Shaaray Tefila (the Reform synagogue where people where jeans to worship, and it is pleasantly casual, and it's not about what you wear but about community).

That's all I remember now. But I think it's weird because the clergy at PAS was never less than SUPER NICE to me and COMPLETELY SUPPORTIVE of me, my children and my family throughout illness and its aftermath. My decision to switch to Shaaray Tefila is one I made nearly a year ago and had nothing to do with the clergy or the way people dress, although I do recall a vague feeling of my personal clothing style not quite fitting in with the conservative crowd. But that aside:

Why now? Why would I dream it now? Why would I dream it at all? Does it have to do with yoga somehow? Is it about my choice to practice at one shala as opposed to another?

YC

Yes

I love when a day that starts so reluctantly, so grumpily as mine did today, transforms. It doesn't have to transform into the best day of my life, just a nice day, a day where I get done what I need to get done and even maybe manage to squeeze in some extras, like a trip to the dog run and catching a movie that I had not even heard of until today.

I suppose the turning point was my decision to do my practice at home, even though I didn't feel much like practicing. My body has been TIRED lately (the coldness and darkness of winter is not agreeing with me, nor does it ever), and my lower back has been feeling the work I've been doing to really get into my twists. Sometimes I am even questioning what sense there is in a yoga practice that feels good when I am doing it but leaves me walking like I've got a rod up my spine the rest of the day. I'm even questioning it now, even as I write this. But I am hoping that this is just a phase, that the stiffness and achiness I am feeling up and down my back and across my sacrum is just a pothole on Ashtanga Avenue....because I really like the way it feels while I am practicing. I just hate the way it feels when I wake up in the morning and can barely stand up straight, and when that feeling returns in the late afternoon...

But for now, I am halasana-ing on (plow-ing on, that is, for you non-yogis out there).

Today I did full primary at home because (a) I know full primary, (b) I did a full led primary class on Tuesday night and (c) the poses that FOLLOW Navasana really make my back feel better - especially, and I mean ESPECIALLY Garba Pindasana. Damn, does it feel good to wrap myself up in lotus, slide my arms through and roll around on my spine. It is AMAZING. For the same reason, but with a little more ease in entry, I also love Pindasana.

I don't know how long I am going to be "peaked" at Mari D and Navasana (I didn't say "stuck", and I lump the two together because Mari D is primarily the reason I am not moving past Navasana, since I still need help to do more than bind with my fingernails in D, although I AM growing my nails now...), but I can't help but begin to feel curious about exploring the "forward bends on steroids" poses (Bhuja Pidasana, Kurmasana and Supta K), where the shoulders must be tucked behind the knees for anything real to start happening. I suppose my interest in these poses stems from the fact that my forward bends are so bendy, so they seem to be the next "edge" for me. I was reading on the Yoga Dancer Asana Index about Eka Pada Sirsasana,which is maybe as much as a lifetime or two away for me, but I found some of the text which talked about what it means to "play your edge" to be very intriguing. To wit:

"[P]laying the edge skillfully requires unwavering concentration and calm awareness. It transforms your practice into a meditation, and to my mind, is one of the primary differences between practicing yoga asanas and "exercising."

"One possible result of playing your edge is that you might find yourself practicing increasingly difficult poses. For example, you may have become flexible in your forward bends to the point where you can rest your torso on your straight legs with ease in Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend). In terms of flexibility, Paschimottanasana no longer brings you to your edge."

"To find your flexibility edge, you might need to practice Kurmasana (Tortoise Pose).

"Seen in this light, the practice of more advanced poses is not some ego-gratifying game of one-upmanship or a spiritually materialistic approach to acquiring more and more difficult asanas. (Bumper stickers notwithstanding, I suspect that when we die, the person with the most poses doesn't win anything in particular.) Instead, if you're committed to playing the edge in your practice, doing advanced poses may simply be a natural and appropriate progression."

Anyway, after my nice, long, lovely practice, I watched said movie that I had not even heard of until today: YES. That's what it was called. It starred Joan Allen as a woman from Northern Ireland who was brought up in the United States who finds herself living in London in a beautiful, sterile home and in a dying and passionless marriage to an uptight British guy. Angered by her husband's betrayal of her (less angry about the fact that he slept with her best friend than that he did it in their marital bed), she finds herself open to a passionate affair with man from Beirut with whom she has nothing in common other than the fact that both are refugees from countries with violent political histories. The man left his life as a surgeon in Beirut so that he wouldn't have to choose between saving lives and political agendas. The woman became a scientist (actually, a molecular biologist) so that she wouldn't have to choose between the God of her Catholic upbringing and the atheism of her communist favorite aunt.

The movie's plot is fairly mundane - your typical "adultery is an excusable response to an unhappy marriage" story. However, the dialogue is irresistable - it is written entirely in Iambic Pentameter. It took me a while to even realize it as there was almost NOTHING artificial about the way the characters spoke, despite the occasional rhyming of lines.

It was like a music-less opera, incredibly beautiful and expressive.

YC

My hip replacement

Ever since I discovered him writing under a variety of assumed names on the Transom back in 1994, Daniel Radosh has been my connection to all that is hipper than myself. And now, I bring that connection to you....Radosh.net , which is at times SO hip and current that it leaves me a bit baffled (I mean what the hell IS Huckapoo, and why should anyone past the age of 13 really care...don't answer that...please).

But today, Radosh posted a link to Pandora, which is an amazing musical search engine that creates playlists FOR you...all you have to do is input the name of a song that you really like. It then analyes that song based on its various elements (i.e., does it have "trippy" sounds, does it use a femal vocalist, does it have a dance beat, is the bass heavy, does it have a certain "vibe") and it actually comes up with a list of songs that is amazingly on target to your taste. And if not, you can tell them that too, and then it will try again. If all goes well, you then click to buy your newfound musical discoveries on iTunes or Amazon...but you don't have to....you can keep listening to Pandora as if it were the radio.

So, for example, I put in "Un Simple Histoire" by Thievery Corporation. They immediately churned up "Una Musica Brutal" by Gotan Project, which is already on my iPod. Then they found me "Why" by Gus Gus (never heard it before, but I loved it on the first listen) and "Universal Traveler" by Air (Air, a French chill-out band, is a no-brainer for those who like Thievery), among others.

You can click on a menu item that tells you WHY they chose a particular song..."Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features electronica roots, rock influences, off beat style, trippy soundscape, a gritty male vocal and an altered male vocal."

Lewis and I kind of feel bad for that altered male.

But aside from that, I am loving Pandora...and I just KNOW that Susan is going to agree...

YC

Is it possible? Will practicing at Shala X actually be a possibility for me tomorrow???

Rumor has it that the strike is over. At least for now. I haven't seen one bloody bus yet, but, well, maybe it just takes time to gear up. Taught a class today to a large transit-strike crowd of one, although it was a pleasure teaching my student. She comes every week, and often, I find myself learning as much from her as she learns from me (she is a teacher too - at Dharma's). Since she craves a super-advanced practice, we covered arm balances (crow, tripod headstand into crow, several versions of koundinyasana,with a twist (as shown) and without), long and winding standing balances (ardha chandrasana to dancer and back) as well as some pretty intense backbending and backbending R&D. It was fun. Then I took the 1/2 Led Primary class with Guta, subbing for Erika. Guta is a blast. She is really tough and wouldn't stand for my neighbor dropping her thighs to the floor in Upward Facing Dog or for me skipping the "press up" before jumping back. It actually shed some light on the elusive jump-back for me...it now seems "manifestable" rather than an impossible dream. After class, I still had a lot of heat and energy, so I did some stretching and "discovered" a new R&D pose for Kurmasana...Guta saw me and joined in, saying she had never seen anything like it before but she would describe it as a "half kurmasana". For any Bikramites out there, it's not the half-tortoise pose you're thinking of. And actually, it is really more like half bound tortoise anyway....I shall try to describe it:

One leg is straight out in front, like in Paschimotannasana. The other leg is hooked behind the shoulder, like in Compass pose. Bind, like in Bird of Paradise. Fold forward. Tada. Ardha Supta Kurmasana.

The kids have a playdate now, and the three of them helped me to set up a crate for Lewis, whose housebroken-ness seems to be quite inconsistent. I kept chalking it up to separation anxiety, but it has been hard to predict when he would rest comfortably while I was away versus when he would storm around the house peeing and pooping in an effort to train me to never EVER leave him alone again. Initially, I had wanted to avoid the crate since Lewis is already more than a year old. But my sanity cannot bear cleaning up one more accident that could have been prevented....so, Lewis, "KENNEL UP!!!"

As we speak, Lewis is exploring the crate and rearranging the blankets I lined it with. Ah...ah...what's this I see? Is he curling up in the crate??? I do believe he is!!!!!

Uh...oh....darn. He just got up and left the crate and curled up NEXT to the crate. Oh well.

I can't believe I still have another class to teach tonight!!!!!!!!!!!! It's my busy season...wonder if I will run into Private Equity Man en route....tee hee

YC

Coda to my Carrie Bradshaw Moment...

By popular demand, I have decided to continue the saga of Yoga Chickie and the Incredibly Wealthy Man....the uncensored next chapter in the saga continues here:

This morning, as I was walking past the Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street, on my way to an appointment in midtown, I thought I heard my name. Or rather, not exactly my name, but something kind of like my name: "Yoga Girl..." I didn't recognize the deep voice, and I wasn't even certain that it was directed at me (as I generally go by "Yoga CHICKIE"). But reflexively, I turned around to try to associate a face with the disembodied voice, tangling myself up, as I did, in the laces of my Blahnik lace-up boots. Stumbling over my heels, my newsboy cap fell over my eyes, and I nearly tumbled into the street. Luckily, a strong cashmere cloaked arm lifted me up before I had a chance to hit the curb. It was, of course, the man from the cab. The handsome man who made a habit of wearing seat belts in taxis and getting out on the right side of the street.

"Oh, it's you," I said, "Are you here to collect your twenty dollars?"

"Twenty dollars," he laughed, "I just saved your life, kiddo...I believe the going rate for that is something a bit steeper than twenty."

"Unless, of course, you're some kind of superhero, " I offered, "You DID rescue me off the street twice in the past 12 hours now - a superhero wouldn't seek payment, would he?"

"If I'm a superhero, then what do they call me?"

"That depends on what your super powers are...they don't, by chance, involve a device that turns back the clock so that I could get to my appointment on time, do they?" I winked, as I turned to continue my transit-strike trek down 57th Street...

"You didn't tell me your name..." he called after me.

I turned around, my hair whipping into my face in the wind. "Thanks again, Private Equity Man! We really need to stop meeting like this!"

He stood on the sidewalk, briefcase beside him, blackberry in one hand. He held up his other hand, a small wave, the sun glinting in his eyes...and off of his gold wedding band. Reflexively, I felt for my own wedding band under my glove and made sure not to fall off of my heels again, at least until I was out of view.

YC

P.S. the above story is in a genre of writing called "fiction". no married couples were harmed in the crafting of this story.

My Carrie Bradshaw moment

It wasn't difficult to find a taxicab on the Upper East Side late this afternoon. The streets were empty. Empty yellow taxis were in abundance. Gypsy cabs were beeping their horns trying to get in on the action. But trying to find a driver who was willing to take me to Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street was not so easy. Apparently, Fifth Avenue was closed, and Park Avenue was bumper to bumper.

I decided to try my luck at the bus stop on Second Avenue at 79th Street. And sure enough, within minutes, a yellow taxi stopped in front of me, and it didn't drive off when I leaned into the front passenger window and said, "I need to get to midtown."

"That's two zones, you know," the cab driver said to me.

"Whatever," I said, "Just get me there."

There was already a passenger in the back seat. A man, who was going to Park and 57th. A man who was wearing a seatbelt, which is not something you see every day in a New York City taxi. He unbuckled his seatbelt and slid over to make room for me as I got in.

He was about my age, if not just a few years older, and remarkably handsome - which also is not something you see every day in a New York City taxi. He buckled himself in once again, all the while talking on the phone and fiddling with his handheld. I pondered for a moment what the proper etiquette is when you're sharing a cab with a stranger. Thrown together in the backseat of a cab that you're forced to share, do you make small talk, or do you stare straight ahead? Do you occupy yourself with "business", like an actor, to avoid the issue altogether?

I checked my watch and then my cell phone. I looked over at my cab-mate, and he was still deep in conversation. Thirty seconds had passed. I reached into my bag and found some lipstick.

"So," my cabmate turned to me, "What are you doing in midtown this evening?"

"Teaching a couple of classes. Yoga classes. And you?"

He explained that he had been working from home all day, due to the strike, but he was leaving tomorrow for his country house in Southhampton, so he wanted to spend some time in the office. Besides, he had a holiday party to get to in midtown later on. I asked what he did. He told me he was in private equity - buying companies and running them. He said that he would like to try yoga, but he wasn't flexible. He played a lot of tennis on the weekends. I told him yoga might improve his tennis game - might make his reaction times faster.

He asked me if I had caught the cab near my apartment. When he told me he lived on Park Avenue, I wasn't surprised, despite that he was cabbing down Second. He told me that he hadn't left the Upper East Side all day. "Same here," I told him, adding that I was surprised to find myself sort of kind of half-enjoying the strike because it afforded me an extra couple of hours in the morning to relax with my kids before taking them to school. His girls are in their teens, so he didn't share the sentiment. Besides, they go to Spence, which already finished its semester.

He asked me where my yoga studio was, and when I told him, he reminded me that Fifth Avenue was closed. I considered that for a moment and said that maybe I would get off where he was getting off and walk the rest of the way. We chatted amiably, even animatedly, as the cab driver drove, as we picked up another passenger (a man, who sat up front and was heading to Penn Station), as we turned down 57th Street. We talked about office politics and yoga studio drama and office politics versus yoga studio drama. I explained that I was familiar with both since I had been an attorney for 12 years before venturing into the world of yoga, and that office politics pale in comparison to some of the stuff that goes on in the studio, even when you teach for the love of teaching, as I do, rather than in order to earn a living.

When the cab finally stopped to let him out, my cabmate paid the driver his fare and asked me if I was getting out as well. But noting that the traffic was moving fairly smoothly now, I thought that perhaps if I took the taxi even just a little bit further, I might have time to practice a bit before teaching. "Nah," I said, "I think I'll see how close to the studio this guy can get me."

"Would you mind letting me out on your side?" he asked me politely. I was seated on the curb side of the cab. Very safety conscious, this man. I got out and held open the door of the cab for him. As he got out, he leaned toward me. "You know, I'm paying for your ride," he said as he slipped a folded twenty dollar bill into my hand.

"What?" I stammered, dumbfounded..."Why?"

"I'm incredibly wealthy." he said, without a hint of irony.

I just stood there....twenty dollar bill in hand...what else was there to say other than "thank you"?

YC

Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy; It wasn't what I had expected...but I am so glad I did it

Reading the New York Times Science Section today, I saw that the columnist I love to hate, Jane Brody, had churned out yet another autobiographical column, this time on her knee reconstruction and how she feels about it a year later. Not that knee reconstruction isn't important, but I wonder why Brody doesn't spend more of her autobiographical time on her life as a breast cancer survivor? Then I thought about my own life as a breast cancer survivor, and how there is SO much information out there about treatments, but not so much information out there about living past the treatments. I'm not saying anything earthshattering here - it's a common complaint that there is lots of info on how to survive breast cancer, but not a lot of info on how to LIVE after breast cancer.

One aspect of "living" after breast cancer is an aspect that is still often overlooked by frightened newbie patients, and that aspect is breast reconstruction following mastectomy. Not all breast cancer patients have mastectomies, and of those that do, not all have their breast(s) reconstructed. I know one woman who said that the idea of planning for a life after treatment (i.e., reconstruction) seemed like bad "juju". In other words, she felt that she was jinxing herself by addressing vanity issues when her life was at stake. So, four years later, she is a lovely woman with a breast on one side, and nothing but skin and rib bones on the other. Not a size A breast; NO breast. Nothing.

I think that is sad. And I have to lay part of the blame for the result on her doctors. I was lucky: my doctors led me by the hand and said, "here is what you should consider doing if you are going to undergo mastectomy." I never had to ASK about plastic surgery. My breast surgeon, Dr. S. simply said, "After you see me, you are going to see Dr. A to discuss your reconstruction options." Dr. S paved the way, made it easy, made it seem like part of the treatment.

And in fact, it has been found in some studies that women who HAVE reconstruction at the same time as their mastectomies (this is called "Immediate Reconstruction") have a higher survival rate than those who don't choose reconstruction. Of course, it is not altogether clear whether this higher survival rate reflects a healthier population - one which is healthy enough to endure seven or eight hours of surgery, which is what a mastectomy with reconstruction can take, as opposed to an hour and half - the time it takes to perform a mastectomy without reconstruction.

But perhaps the higher survival rate is due to a sort of "wish fulfillment" - a desire to live beyond the cancer. Or perhaps it is due to a positive outlook - that there WILL be reason to have breasts after all is said and done. Or perhaps having the reconstructed breasts helps the survivor to NOT focus on her illness long after her treatments are over.

Of course, having had immediate reconstruction, I have to admit that this last statement doesn't exactly ring true. My reconstructed breasts do not exactly help me to forget the illness I survived. They don't look like natural breasts - but more like Barbie breasts. They don't feel like natural breasts - but more like extra-firm water beds. They don't sag (that's a good thing), but they also don't bounce (that CAN be a good thing). And sometimes they get in my way when practicing yoga - try putting Barbie into Mari D. It's not enough to twist - I have to twist enough to clear the breasts past my bent knee.

Nonetheless, I am still glad that I chose reconstruction. I look perfectly normal in clothing, and I was able to experiment with different breast sizes before I finally chose to live as a 32B, which was quite a change from 34C, my pre-cancer size. It turned out that smaller reconstructed breasts just looked better on me. Still, it would have been nice if I had more realistic expectations.

Back in the summer of 2002, I was talking excitedly about getting some nice new breasts as part of the whole deal. But in truth, they were never going to be the "nice new breasts" that I envisioned. At best, they were going to be nice new "fake" breasts. At worst, I would be disappointed in their shape, size, contours, whatever. I came across this article from Susan Love's website about unmet expectations in breast reconstruction. I don't remember this article being on Love's website back in 2002, not that it matters: I am not sure if I would have given it much thought, had I read it back then. I simply HAD to believe that I was going to go into my surgery with my 36 year-old, starting-to-sag breasts and come out with some brand new perky "hooters". I HAD to believe it. SOMETHING good had to come out of this mess.

And that was just fine. Because expectations or no expecations, I'm glad I decided on immediate reconstruction after my double mastectomy. I may not have come out of my surgery with stripper-quality boobs, but I also didn't come out feeling butchered. I didn't come out with NOTHING where there used to be SOMETHING. I came out with hope.

So why am I writing this? My hope is that if someone googles "breast reconstruction after mastectomy" and finds this entry alongside Susan Love's, I hope it helps that person to decide to go ahead and GO FOR the reconstruction. No, they WON'T be your old breasts. But they will be something.

YC

Why is it that dogs are so damn lovable?

What IS it about Lewis the Bagle Lewis that makes me just want to snuggle with him and breathe in his houndy scent, even his doggie breath?

And let's not forget my kids, who decided, on their own, no coaxing from me whatsoever, to play Monopoly this morning in the two hour delay between when school should have started and when it did...

How does it go from this to parents and kids pissing each other off?

YC

STEEEEEEEEE-RIKE

Unless something changes in the next hour, the transit strike is on.

This just sucks for everyone.

YC

Heating Pad

Today, I dove into a nice heated pad - Bikram Yoga NYC. Shala X was out of the question since I didn't finish up at Winter Solstice until after 10 a.m., so other plans had to be made. George ("Hey Gorgeous") DeLancey was teaching. He is a maverick, I tell you. I have known him since he first came to NYC from Philly - and he teaches something like 10 classes per week in the "hot box", plus has a husband and two kids at home. How he has the energy....whew....I sure wouldn't. Practiced next to Robin, who told George she had to leave after only 40 minutes because if not, she would be fired. She looked sooo familiar...did I know her? Then I realized. Bikram attracts quite a lot of working actors and other famous faces....I've practiced alongside Idina and Anna (who just recently got "fugged" for the very first time), as well as Mary and George...but how much do I wish that I was there when Chris shows up to practice (I love him - more than I ever loved Zach Braff and Jake Gyllenhaal combined - it might help that he's about the same age as them when you add UP their ages)?

Yeah, I'm a sucker for a famous face. I tend to feel all giddy inside when I see one, although I keep it hidden. And I have learned never to discuss anyone's practice other than my own....

YC

Hanuman Chaleesa

Found a wonderful resource just now and felt compelled to share....It's a link from Dharma Mittra's web site. For those who don't know, Dharma Mittra is the yogi featured in "ASANAS: 608 Yoga Poses" and has a yoga studio in NYC, where some of the most advanced yogis in the city practice amazingly gymnastic yoga at noon on Wednesdays (actually, every day at noon, but Wednesdays seems to be the day that everyone I know who goes, goes). Anyway, I was checking out the site and saw and followed this link to "Chants" and found, to my happy surprise that it's all about Hanuman, who happens to be my very favorite Hindu god (god, in the mythological god sense, since I only worship Adonai).

Hanuman was the great monkey God who leapt across the sea to save Sita, the wife of his beloved lord and master, Ram. His leap was epic - it took years; his hair is said to have gone white while he was leaping. His leap reminds us of all of which we are capable when we are dedicated, when we act out of love, when we have patience with the process. I adore what Hanuman stands for, but I also am intrigued by the story of Hanuman, Sita and Ram and find myself wondering about whether Hanuman was a little bit in love with Sita, or Ram, or both...I see Hanuman sometimes as that archetypal wingman.

Anyway, I digress.

If you click on the link, you will see the Hanuman Chaleesa in full, as well as fully tranlated, and for an extra added treat, you can click on an audio link and hear Krishna Das singing it. Thus, you can read it, hear it or enjoy some Hanuman Karaoke with it....

YC

Winter Solstice

It's never clear to me when winter solstice is - because it changes from year to year, although it usually falls right around December 22. This year, it will be on Wednesday, December 21. I was just reading Julie's blog and saw that she and another yogini are going to get together for 108 Sun Salutations to mark this year's solstice, and I thought...what a lovely idea.

Mind if I steal it?

It just so happens that on Wednesday, I will be unable to go to Shala X because of the Winter Solstice celebration in Addy's class (can't go tomorrow either, because of the Solstice celebration in Bri's class...). So, I could (a) not practice at all, (b) do my own practice at home, (c) run off to a noon Bikram class on the theory that the shortest day of the year could be a good day to practice in my skivvies and pretend I'm in the tropics or....(d) salute the sun a propitious number of times, say, 108....thank you Julie for the idea.

Well, so let's see...choice (a) is just not an option at this point, since after two days of not practicing and three days of not practicing Ashtanga, I am already actually missing practice and finding myself fantasizing about being in poses. Choice (b) is a possibility, albeit sort of hum drum. Choice (c) is just not going to happen. So that leaves Choice (d).

If any of my students or friends (or both) are reading this and would like to join in the fun, let me know, email is fine. As you may know, my method is to flow through without stopping in Downward Facing Dog except for every sixth and 12th Surya Namaskara; on the sixth Surya Namaskara taking five full breathsa and on the 12th, dropping into Child's Pose for five breaths. I am planning on starting at noon and being done by 1:30.

YC

Better Than Average Joe

I happened to see Adam Mesh this morning. He was on his way into the gym, and I have to say, he is quite cute in person, not at all "average". It's interesting to me that the television-watching public wants to believe that this is what "average" is. It reminds me of those Dove ads, where really attractive women with really nice figures (albeit not waifishly thin) are called "real women" with "real curves", when in fact, the women featured in the ads are way above average in terms of attractiveness. Those may be "real curves", but they sure aren't average.

What is even more interesting to me is that "average", even amped up to above-average levels, doesn't really sell. A friend of mine who works in marketing theorizes that people don't WANT to identify with their "models". As consumers, they hope to trade UP, not make an even exchange. And maybe that is true for some people.

But as for me, I think there might be something else at work here. When I look at the girls in the Dove ad, I recognize myself in a couple of them, particularly the athletic-looking fair-haired girl in the middle and the petite but curvy dark-haired girl on the far right. And the truth is, as much as I know that I am no Ford model, I don't feel like being reminded of it in magazine ads and billboards. Especially not in ads and billboards that tell me that THIS is average, when I know in my heart of hearts that it most certainly is not.

I always tell my boys that they are the handsomest and best boys in the world. I hope that they always believe on some level that they are. I wouldn't want them to see someone much like themselves on a television show or a magazine ad being called "average" and then have to wonder if maybe they really are as well.

And now, one of those handsomest, best boys in the world is demanding to use the computer to accessMajor League Baseball'swebsite, so I will get off of my average soapbox (despite that it ads a good six inches to my BELOW-average height).

YC




YC

OUCH

Didn't make it to practice AGAIN this morning, and I feel distressed. I have been nursing a very low-grade cold for the past few days (the kind you get when you're a grownup and have had just about every cold that exists, and as such, have pretty much developed immunities to most of them, so that when you get hit with a germ, you get a mild version of the cold, but you still feel like crap generally). And all over my back, there are pains and aches of various sizes and intensities. My sides ache to the touch, and my shoulders are stiff. But the worst of it is across my sacrum. Perhaps it is my sacro-iliac joint. Perhaps it is the muscles of the lower back. Logic dictates that this has everything to do with the new intensity with which I have been practicing my twists, particularly parivritta parsvakonasana (which is infused, I have to admit, with some degree of impatience and unhealthy desire to place one palm on the floor and extend the other over my head, oh why oh why is it not happening....NOTE TO SELF: STOP THE MADNESS.).

But the hypochondriac in me taunts me with the "what ifs". What if it is not muscle but bone? What if something is "wrong" with my spine? Get my drift? And so, instead of practicing through it, which would probably be the right thing to do, I got 10 hours of sleep last night (hoping that sleep would help the healing process of whatever needs to be healed) and instead of practicing today, am sitting on my sofa nestled against a heating pad.

The good news is that the heating pad feels AMAZING, which leads me to believe that this is nothing more than muscle aches, possibly exascerbated by the fact that I have a cold (things always ache when I have a cold).

Tomorrow, I have Winter Solstice at school, so no shala for me tomorrow either. Hopefully I can make it there on Tuesday. I think I should forbid myself to practice until Tuesday. Is resting really so bad?

YC