I admit it. I’m a total flake when it comes to Ashtanga. I
hate waking up early for Mysore practice. You will often find me practicing in
my kitchen late in the evening with MC Yogi playing in the background and lavender
incense fumes accompanying my sun salutations. But some nights, I’d rather just eat a
bowl of noodles instead. In the mornings, I make all kinds of excuses as to why my bed
needs me more than my mat. I say I’ll show up for practice and never do. I get
bored doing the same poses every time so I make up my own flow on occasion.
There is also something slightly masochistic about allowing teachers to twist
my body to resemble some dead sage I know nothing about (I mean no disrespect
Mr. Marichi but DAMN your poses are hard). In addition to flake,
you may call me a sinner, rebel, bum, blasphemer, whatever…I can take it. I prefer Reject Ashtangi.
The origins of my flakiness date back to the days before I
even knew what yoga was. Having attended parochial schools my entire life I
developed quite the aversion to authority, rituals and most forms of
indoctrination. Recovering Yogi says it best, “ACHOO! I’m allergic to your dogma.” I developed major allergies
to anyone on a podium with a Bible. Although, I think it was the pleated skirts
and Jesus camp that did it for me. In elementary school, I started with the
Baptists, then went to the Lutherans for middle school, followed by the
Catholics for high school and stuck with them (voluntarily) throughout college
and grad school. At the end of it all, if you were even thinking about
discussing your religious and spiritual agenda with me, I would tell you
exactly where to shove it.
Naturally, this left me spiritually lost, unreliable and
lazy…three top characteristics of a flake. I would go to mass with my family,
but also read about Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Harmless enough. We all go
through investigative processes to discover what feels right for us. But I
didn’t want to do any real spiritual work. To hell with praying, attending
services, giving money or committing to anything with “tradition” written all
over it.
Thankfully, the universe helps us when we are lost. My
parents’ sacrifice for my education was not in vain. My favorite professor and mentor in
college, Profesora Tomas was a complete flake. Or at least I thought so. And,
for some reason I wanted to be around her all the time. Birds of a feather, I
guess. She was from Argentina and would always show up to class late and
unprepared. She strolled around campus with a Mona Lisa-like smile on her face,
taking slow and intentional steps, looking at the trees and people around her
as if she was walking into some magical forest for the first time. She seemed
to have not a single care in the world. On one occasion after showing up late for
class, a student sarcastically asked her if she had forgotten her watch that day and with her
chin pointed toward the sky, she responded in her deep, dramatic tone, “chronological time has never
interested me.” Except, she said it in Spanish so it sounded much more poetic
and eloquent. At that moment, something majorly clicked inside of me. What did
time matter? Why were we so attached to our own small reality in this
classroom? Perhaps Profesora Tomas was unceasingly tardy, but her
lectures were always profound and filled with passion. While we believed her to
be unprepared because she deviated from the printed syllabus, she never failed at teaching
us something new and fun. I wanted THAT - whatever “that” concept was - to be my
tradition and practice. This woman knew about a higher sense of joy and peace. She
had an incredible ability to let go and be in the moment. Without knowing it, she
had taught me my first lesson in presence. From her, I learned that despite the nature of inconsistency,
there is a plane of equanimity and happiness--our true home--that is constantly
flowing and waiting for us to meet it once again. She lived on that plane all
the time and I wanted to as well.
Inconsistency has been one of my greatest teachers on the
path of Ashtanga. It forces me to always return and start from scratch. For all the times I don’t show up, make
excuses and milk the shit out of my flakiness, the practice is always there
waiting for me. Unchanged, patient, forgiving and unaffected by chronological
time. Comfort lies in its ritual. Ashtanga is a tradition that is challenging
but completely non-judgmental. It is
difficult at times for me to not carry over samskaras from parochial
school into other areas of my life. I forget to wipe “screw you,
and your stupid rules!” off my forehead sometimes. But, I realize that no one
is going to admonish me from a podium for not showing up to the mat or make me
confess in a creepy dark room for skipping a pose. When my enormous ego and
aversions get in the way of my practice, I remind myself of the basics of
Ashtanga. It is by no means my religion, and it has no threatening dogma. Through
my dedication to it, as spotty and fleeting as it may be, I am able to find my true
home and reconnect with a more aware version of myself: the part of me that
deeply wants to be present and alive.
With Profesora Tomas (far left) in Merida, Mexico. Rest in peace. Thank you for your teachings!
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