New Media Faculty Development Seminar

I had a good friend a long time ago who was in the process of converting to Christian Science. She was a life long Catholic and had been attending the same church that I was attending in Waco, for Waco, particularly it was a very liberal church and one day she remarked, "I just don't know what Jimmie (the preacher) really believes sometimes." For her, it was a troubling thing, for me not at all, she wanted some sort of structure, some sort of standard to set her beliefs by and that was just not important to me, in general, never has been.

I was thinking about that recently with respect to Light on Yoga and "classic form." What really is the point of knowing what the pose is in and of itself? We live in an anything goes world and even more so anything goes in the yoga world and in this I find myself more on my good friend's side of the question. I find that classic form gives me something to believe.

Of course, classic form is defined by someone who already can do all the poses, so we are looking at a trikonasana of someone who can to hanumanasana, a janu sirsasana of someone who can do eka pada sirsasana. Someone who had been practicing hard, and even harder still after the book came out 46 years ago. BKS himself is famous for saying Light on yoga is a dead book. Differently put, it is dead if you don't practice what is in it yourself.

BKS is also famous for props and numerous variations, let's say countless, if not in principle infinite variations on classic form, but he still has classic form in mind. So take a common issue in Austin. Pincha Mayurasana with palms up, not the classic pose or thinking sirsasana is some form of Pincha where your head really doesn't touch the ground. What bothers me about students of yoga not knowing classic form is that it generates a confused mind state. It isn't that we always do it by the book, but it is good to know what the book says...

but again why? I am personally "just" interested... but how to make someone interested or what if you aren't interested and you just want to move and do what feels natural to you... I think the book, in this case LOY, like religious books, give standards to strive for, a pattern that can guide our own practice.

Another way the issue came up was on Christinasell.blogspot.com lately. She was talking about the four pillars of backward bending and some comments were around, well what if you can't do that advanced stuff.... it is sort of an elitist thing.. there are all sorts of this in LOY that I look at and go.. well, I"m not there yet, but I don't feel excluded from the vision because the path of how to realize the vision is relatively straightforward. Long, uninterrupted, intense practice done with devotion and intelligence.

The exchange on Christina's blog reminded me of another conversation I had with my old friend? One day, one the eve of her conversion she was asking why I thought different people had different gifts and abilities if god loves us all equally? It was one of those abstract sort of conversations were the referent is not explicitly state, but Jimmie had in fact just preached a sermon on the matter and so I said, "well I guess it depends if we are all equally blessed?" It was a great moment with my friend because she felt understood and even though we were clearly going different ways on the spiritual path, we shared this common meeting ground.

We live in a world that values the notion of equality. It does not infact value equality but it values the notion of it. I think the yogic system ultimately is a system that strives for freedom and equality, where we all get on the path ultimately is the same, but where we are actually are on the path is very very different and not at all the same.

Things started back up at San Marcos School of yoga tonight, the last even there before it transforms into School of Yoga, San Marcos at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

Sukasana,
Tadasana,
working with brick between ankles knees and thighs,
UH
UB
UN
Vrksasana worked with using belt to help knee pain.
Utthita Hasta Padasana
Parsva Utthita HP
Trikonasa
Vira II
(Back at wall for all of these).

Parsvotanasana concave back hands on block heel at wall
Adho Muka Svanasana, palms at wall and heels at wall.
Supta I and II outer hip supported by block
Setu Bandha
Savasana doing Ujjayi I.

Short and sweet.

Castle Hill Class tomorrow. Junior I standing poses.

in other breaking news, Jeff has the rope wall up. It is exciting beyond measure.

Jeff and I went out to dinner New Year's Eve with his good friend Eric. We went to Cafe Malta and the food was again, amazing. It was also quiet enough to have a conversation and it being the new year and all, resolutions came up. I do tend to make new year's resolutions. Some are pose related, some are life related. Eric isn't a resolution sort of person in the sense that he needs the new year to make a change. I agree with that, but I do like the whole freshness of the new year as a symbol of making a fresh start at something.

Eric asked me if resolutions tend to stick. Some do, like being a vegetarian, some I don't quite get, I still can't do Mariychasana III without help, but I'm getting a lot closer.

This year I resolved three main things.

1. Not to use mobile device while driving. This one I actually started about 3 days before the new year.

2, Spend a few minutes sitting with my husband every morning before rushing off in my flurry of activity, this one I also started early.

3. Spend twelve minutes a day twisting. This is in addition to whatever other practice I have going on. I'm turning on the timer in the morning after pranayama and meditation and twisting.

I mentioned the twelve minutes of twisting at group practice on Wednesday and Meredith said I should chart my progress.

so for those who are interested, I worked on twists in sukasana, dandasana, bharadvajasana I and II, MI, M3 with leg in baddha konasana so it remained an open twist, a bit of ardha masteyndrasana ii, twists in upavistha konasana and parivrritta upavistha. This is pretty much what I did day one and two. I worked a lot with a strap to pull my arm around the back of my body. I sort of make a pulley with the belt and my foot and lever the arm around.

One thing I've discovered already is that the limitations in my shoulder are holding me back, just small pieces like bottom gomukasana arm come up all the time in twists.

Jeff and I went out to dinner New Year's Eve with his good friend Eric. We went to Cafe Malta and the food was again, amazing. It was also quiet enough to have a conversation and it being the new year and all, resolutions came up. I do tend to make new year's resolutions. Some are pose related, some are life related. Eric isn't a resolution sort of person in the sense that he needs the new year to make a change. I agree with that, but I do like the whole freshness of the new year as a symbol of making a fresh start at something.

Eric asked me if resolutions tend to stick. Some do, like being a vegetarian, some I don't quite get, I still can't do Mariychasana III without help, but I'm getting a lot closer.

This year I resolved three main things.

1. Not to use mobile device while driving. This one I actually started about 3 days before the new year.

2, Spend a few minutes sitting with my husband every morning before rushing off in my flurry of activity, this one I also started early.

3. Spend twelve minutes a day twisting. This is in addition to whatever other practice I have going on. I'm turning on the timer in the morning after pranayama and meditation and twisting.

I mentioned the twelve minutes of twisting at group practice on Wednesday and Meredith said I should chart my progress.

so for those who are interested, I worked on twists in sukasana, dandasana, bharadvajasana I and II, MI, M3 with leg in baddha konasana so it remained an open twist, a bit of ardha masteyndrasana ii, twists in upavistha konasana and parivrritta upavistha. This is pretty much what I did day one and two. I worked a lot with a strap to pull my arm around the back of my body. I sort of make a pulley with the belt and my foot and lever the arm around.

One thing I've discovered already is that the limitations in my shoulder are holding me back, just small pieces like bottom gomukasana arm come up all the time in twists.

Hi Everyone, I'm teaching a lot of yoga this week. It is standing pose week.

Monday San marcos school of yoga at 5:30
Tuesday Castle Hill 9:30 AM-10:55 Level II III
Wednesday Clear Spring Studio 5:30 PM-7:30 PM Hard Work.
Thursday Clear Spring Studio 4:15-5:45 Restorative
Thursday Clear Spring Studio 6:00-7:30 Level 1, ii
Friday Clear Spring Studio 4:30 appreviated group practice.

Hi Everyone, I'm teaching a lot of yoga this week. It is standing pose week.

Monday San marcos school of yoga at 5:30
Tuesday Castle Hill 9:30 AM-10:55 Level II III
Wednesday Clear Spring Studio 5:30 PM-7:30 PM Hard Work.
Thursday Clear Spring Studio 4:15-5:45 Restorative
Thursday Clear Spring Studio 6:00-7:30 Level 1, ii
Friday Clear Spring Studio 4:30 appreviated group practice.

The last couple days have been filled with yoga teaching. I'm enjoying teaching at Castle Hill. It has been part of my yoga experience ever since I moved here in 2007. I started going there because it was close to the house I was renting part of at the time and it used to be the only place in town that had anything going on yogawise Friday afternoons. I started going to Happy Hour and a half with Giaconda. In my own life, that's morphed into friday practices with Devon and our decision sometime in 2009, to start Friday advanced practices.

In 2008, I went to Feathered Pipe and met Heide Grace who had just moved to austin and started teaching Iyengar at the Castle, I was on sabbatical at that time and took her classes and also practiced with her two or three times a week, it was a great year of practice, then Heide moved back to New Orleans, but knowing her has led to some great Iyengar experiences with Patricia at the Abbey and Gabriella at the Ranch.

I was reminded about the ebb and flow of people coming together to do yoga last night when I subbed Wednesday Group Practice at the Castle. Christina started that practice a couple years ago and Sam took it over and I subbed it pretty regularly. it was a small group, Shannon, Debbie, Meredith, Carole, Lindsey from Lulu and Jason showed up. It was a very peaceful approach to dropbacks and it did feel like an end of one era and the beginning of another. I teach there now and Sam will be teaching a 3/4 class wednesday instead.

Things change, practice remains.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Jeff and I went to see the King Tut exhibit at the Houston Fine Arts Museum over the holiday weekend. Most of the artifacts there are oriented around the afterlife, procuring eternal life for one's self through a set of elaborate practices that would help you navigate the dangerous terrain of the "underworld." I'm not really sure what the Egyptians called the place they went to afterwards, but it is clear that they saw it as a rather pernicious dangerous place where many evils might befall one. Clearly, they believed in a sort of bodily resurrection (ie mummification) and canoptic jars that held the four central organs of the body, the liver being once of them. In fact, one god had the specific job of guardian the liver of the departed. One could not be reconstitued without these organs. Whenever I see some exhibit like that one, I am struck by how much I don't know about the various ways people comport themselves with respect to the big questions, and also struck by the fact, that this religion, strange though it seems lasted for thousands of years, longer in fact that Christianity has been practiced. on some level, it must have "worked" ie. filled the spiritual need of the people, or at least some of the people.

We also took a brief look at some of the Indian Art. What a difference, the gods are presented as engaged in all sorts of actions, that bridge the gap between life and death, like the dancing shiva, dancing the dance of creation and destruction, Saraswati gaining and imparting knowledge, Vajrasana sitting, by the way in padmasana, not vajrasana. The depiction of the gods and goddess was much more joyful and fluid.

I'm more knowledgeable about Greek and Christian depictions of the Gods and the afterlife, the Greeks viewed the afterlife as a rather somber experience. The Gods did all the things that humans did. The Christian understanding of the afterlife varies from depictions of the circles of hell, to radiant angels. Obviously, I'm being overly simplistic here, but my point is that the notion that something transcends our experience in the here and now does, at least, on a minimal level, seem rather universal.

One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes on this topic, "Over two thousand years and still no new gods."



A former student of mine, Randy Spencer shared this link to an Article in the Atlantic "Is God an Accident?"

It is always a strange sort of time between Christmas and New Years, not a normal regime, between semesters, between years. A sort of liminal space. Things are sometimes more festive, sometimes more relaxed, sometimes more stressful. This year is more on the festive side of things for me.

The festivities started Christmas Eve Eve with the Nutcracker and dinner with Christina, Kelly, and Mom and Dad, and the furry members of the family. Then, Jeff and I just spent the past couple days in Houston with his family for the holidays. We stayed a great hotel, Hotel Zaza, because it is close to both his brother's house and his parents' house. His family are lots of fun but not really "dog friendly" people so we chose to stay at a very dog friendly hotel.

We left in the rain on Christmas Eve, the drive was about the most stressful part of the holiday. We got to the hotel and hung out for a while. They we went to his parents' house and had a fabulous dinner (Fettucine Alfredo and grilled veggies) and opened presents with his niece and nephew on Christmas Eve, (complete with a visit from Santa) it was a really pretty idyllic scene, gorgeous tree, gorgeous house, more presents than seemed possible.. They we went back to the hotel. Christmas morning we went to Christmas brunch at his brother's house and saw even more presents that Santa brought. Back to the hotel, then we had Christmas dinner with his parents, another great meal, though less veggie friendly, still plenty to eat. Jeff's mom is an amazing cook. Monday, we all went to the King Tut exhibit together and then had leftovers and headed back home. We rested for a bit then went over to Mom and Dad's to visit with them and their best friends, Marie and Bob, who came for Christmas all the way from Lavonia.

It was really great doing my meditation and pranayama practice this morning. I didn't really do much on the mat practice the past two days and it was just lovely being back in my own practice space. As luck would have it, this is pranayama week in public classes. So I'm going to work with this sequence both Tuesday and Wednesday morning.


Vajrasana
AMVira with blocks
AMS
AMvrk
PM
Sirsasana
Chair dwi pada
Chathush,
Dropping over from sarvangasana
Maha Mudhra
Savasana

I'll also work with some of the supine poses
Supta BK
Supta SK
Supta Vira

Tuesday I'm subbing for Gillian and plan to do a bit of rope work.

Wednesday I'm subbing group Practice at the castle and plan to do the dwi pada drop over sequence we did last Friday practice.

Then this friday there's practice at Clear Spring, we'll probably twist in that Devon is teaching 12 backbends for 2012 on new years day.

My friend Chris Long recently posted this link to his facebook page. http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/doctoral_2004.html

It lists the top fifty PhD programs according to the number of females the have tenured or on tenure track. Penn State, my alma mater, ranks a very respectable 4th with 41 percent female. First is University of Georgia with a solid 50%.

Baylor, on the list is tied with three other schools at the bottom with 0%.. 0/13. We are actually 1/14 which makes me wonder about my own existence, or at least it would, if I were the philosophical sort, oh but wait, I am the philosophical sort.

Actually, we are 7% female, apparently, I am the 7%, not the 99%. That jumps us up to a tie for next to last with Texas and Southern Illinois (whose female faculty member, coincidentally went to grad school with me at Penn State.

It is just a very depressing situation. I could say more, but to me what is most depressing overall, about it, is that it is not a situation that will change in my lifetime, in fact, not in generations.

The BIC is better on the females, there are it is 3 of 8, a quite respectable 37.5 percent. if you counted me in that list it would be 4 of 9, or 44 percent, maybe that's what happened I didn't count in philosophy because I am director of BIC, but I'm clearly listed on the philosophy web page and my budget and voting classification is in Philosophy, even though i direct this other program.

Here's a good post that gives an account of why things might be the way they are.

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1881

HEre's a post that offers ten things you can do to change the situation.http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/ten-small-things-you-can-do-to-promote-gender-equity-in-philosophy/