I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m unconsciously competent. The longer I practice, the less I can articulate how to begin. So I must keep learning from those who are new to ashtanga. Thank you for being open about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard, brave in dropping old habits, and enthusiastic in your own practice. I love this phase of the learning.<\/p>\n
At the start, getting up for practice requires strength and guts: I admire you, and we will all support you. Later, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to do what you want to do<\/em> with ease, and will embody that grace to yet new beginners.<\/p>\n Again this year, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve surveyed our group to remix the autumn antidote to SAD. The Earth is changing, our student body is changing, the zeitgeist is changing: so, a practice so fine-tuned as ashtanga also has to adapt. (This is true, too, of subtle changes to the method emerging from the main school in Mysore: our old practice is ever new. Because we are ever new.) Anyway, after a month in the lab with your findings, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get-up-early elixir. No kidding: stick to a regular practice rhythm, and ashtanga\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only prophylactic you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need.<\/p>\n 1. Alchemize your word. <\/strong><\/p>\n What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the value of your word? If you say you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to do something, is that an ironclad statement? Is it as good as a 50\/50 bet? Is your word more like hot air? If you decide strongly that you are going to be a woman or man of your word, then you can use the golden quality of that word to hold yourself to your own intentions.<\/p>\n Recently, three different practitioners who were struggling to get on the mat consistently got out of their own way with this single, uncompromising practice. They decided to be the kind of people who have zero daylight between what they say they will do, and what they do<\/em>. In those painful mornings when the bed was especially seductive, they asked themselves if sleeping through the alarm was worth the pain of going back on their own word. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Because they had turned their word in to gold, it was able to cut through tamas, doubt, and even the softest bed.<\/p>\n Thanks for the inspiration. You know who you are.<\/p>\n 2. Use the moral values that help you practice; lose the ones that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/strong> It turns out that getting your words and actions lined up is efficient. Similar is the Bhagavad Gita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teaching that a yogi remains detached from the fruits of her actions and simply absorbs her attention into doing her best in the present moment. Ashtanga is not about getting an awesome body or a perfect mind or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nailing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d some posture; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about maintaining some concentration and equanimity for every breath, regardless of what it looks like.<\/p>\n Grasping for results isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t morally wrong; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just not smart<\/em>. What we can control is our attitude, not the outcome of actions. So why waste energy fretting about what we cannot control?<\/p>\n By the same token, why waste energy fretting about the past? Most of us\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmyself included\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhave absorbed a Puritan meta-morality from western culture. This includes a lot of emphasis on moral purity, with a countervailing internal assault team of guilt, shame, self-loathing and regret. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>Total waste of energy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Enough already, Hester Prynne. Regrets for the past kill excitement for the present. You are worthy and you are welcome: if the (internal) puritan mobs come for you, laugh at their feeble 17th<\/sup> century weapons and get your lightning speed mulabandha in gear.<\/p>\n