Join the club November 27, 2006

The last few practices have given me the distinct impression that I’m broken. Wednesday I had to stop at janu A, in spite of my desires. My energy was at work, and I needed to give my nervous nervous system a break. Got on the mat Friday for a late morning home practice, only to janu A again. Yesterday I did my split practice to my new eka pada but felt quite tired getting there and this morning I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.

The end of the semester couldn’t come soon enough. Have I said that recently? Ugh. Never doubt the power of stress to wear you down over time, even when you think you’re on top of it. Never doubt the power of a new pose to fuck with your prana. Never doubt the power of deep internal processing to steal your strength. Never doubt the power of grief finding its way out to take with it some vital energy.

In the last couple days I’ve been inspired to look inside, following the lead given to me by a recent conversation and compounded by a long-avoided visit to the cyberspace of a girl far away who is never far from my heart. It’s been bigger than I thought it would be. An iceberg, to be sure. I thought I’d post it here, but then I realized it’s just too cumbersome. I’ve made a link to it, however, and if you feel like reading four pages of Cameron’s mental diarreha, it’s all yours. An offering to Kali Ma.

It’s about my battles with my worst enemy: my expectations.

Fear manifest

If you aren’t putting your leg behind your head… November 21, 2006

…before 7:30 in the morning, you’re just not living.

Eka pada sirsasana. Wunderbar.

Practice was slow and hot. Veddy nice. I’m a big fan. Everything in it’s right place, as Tom Yorke would say.

This week is turning perplexing, and it’s only Tuesday morning. You ever get the feeling that you’re reaching the end of something coming full circle? The feeling like you’ve been on this long path that you didn’t see before but then start to glimpse what might, just might, be said path and startlingly think to yourself, “is that what all the fuss has been about?”

Fuss. Fussiness. Not my favorite part of my personality. Not my favorite word. Fuss. If you say it enough times it starts to lose it’s meaning.

Waking up in Oakland November 19, 2006

The sun sits low in the sky now that we’re creeping into winter. South-facing windows are flooded with light all day, provided there are no clouds. It creates the eerie sensation of it being late afternoon all day long. Late afternoon is pretty much my least favorite time of the day. Don’t have a good reason for that. The sky, when not totally overcast, continually has a certain reflective glare to it that never releases you to pure clean blue like you get in so cal.

My bedroom never lets me sleep in on days like this. Sand and white colored walls with white linen curtains make it impossible to pretend that another half-hour of sleep is possible, once that sun has appeared.

I reluctantly sat up, crossed my legs, stayed there wondering why it was so hard to fall asleep last night. Wondering how much of a practice my body would tolerate this morning.

I rolled up the rug, put down the mat, mentally bowed to my idols, dedicating the practice and began. Most parts were sore/creaky/unhappy from the last week. Friday night’s demo was more intense than I could have ever anticipated. Practicing in dead silence with 30 pairs of eyes staring at you raises the energy to new levels. Back when I was dancing, the audience was concealed in the dark, hidden behind the fourth wall, that space between the edge of the stage and the first row of seats.

In the shala Friday the audience was 5-15 feet away, seated on the floor, in full view. We shared the lights, the breath, the time. Maybe a full primary that morning was not the best idea. My teacher called the poses in sanskrit. We proceeded through maybe half the poses in primary and another 10 or so in intermediate. I was never sure which poses he would skip so the humdrum sequence that I have been so used to became filled with new excitement due to lack of knowing what would come next. Holds were rarely longer than 3 breaths, focusing the attention of all present- and my strength- on the vinyasas. It’s a hard program.

Rest was welcomed yesterday, but sleep was poor. Again last night, sleep was poor. I wonder when the next time will be that I actually feel rested after sleeping for a night. My lifestyle doesn’t seem to allow it at present. This morning I tackled the inertia and powerd through sun sals, standing, finishing, and a nice sit in front of the altar.

The sixth moon November 15, 2006

Happy mid-November. Life seems to be following a parabolic course, and this ship has cleared the apex. Coasting now. The last midterms have been taken, the publication is ready for submission, a project wrapped, another beginning, 4 weeks left of the semester, my strength returning to practice. The light at the end of the tunnel is becoming a glare.

Friday night my teacher is doing a demo of the mysore-style practice for all who attend. He will be demoing his familar role as teacher, calling the poses, and myself and one other student will be demoing our familar role of asana-doers. I’ve never done a demo before, but it taps my performance past for the first time in, well, a long time. Last night we did a rehearsal of the planned evening, so I essentially had a full practice in the morning and about a 3/4 practice at 7:30pm, with shorter holds. This morning I was a little sore.

Took Monday off, had a nice home practice Sunday. Last Friday Jenna was my fancy-dancy chauffer to practice, complete with butt-warming seats. Yuuuuummy.
Yesterday was the birthday of a lady I used to spend quite a good deal of time with who is now married- happy 30th V. Today is another significant anniversary in the “past events of Cameron’s life” category. I walk still in the long shadow cast by that day. Events of Friday night certainly confirmed this.

The numbness continues, though thankfully not in the body. My back is slowly opening up again to it’s previous bend limits, which I take to be a good sign. Maybe soon the veil will lift from my emotions.

Jabra November 7, 2006

Happy retrograde everyone. It seems to be a duzy, that’s fo sho. Keep your heads up and your sense of humor about you!

Practices have been klix. And by that I mean jacked. But not too bad. Weekend off. Short practice yesterday. Second with a little of first before it today. Bad idea. Just trying to get the prana vibed for my last midterm today. Thank God that is over. I’m almost to the end of the hardest semester of grad school. As I told my teacher this morning, I’m just happy that I’m still showing up to class at all, nevermind where I am in the sequences or how much I get done or how in shape I am or any of that.

Lost my pix in the big changeover. I may just start up a flikr site like everyone else on the planet and save a bunch of time with all that.

Berkeley is 70 and sunny this week. Yikes. SOP where I’m from. Thankyouverymuch.

Celebrating the end of midterms tonight. Trying to get my paper back out. One more experiment to do….

Thinking about too many things, too many thinks.

Back and back November 3, 2006

Last week was off due to illness. Practiced Sat, Sun, Mon, then had Tues-Thurs off due to midterms, extra-curricular activity, and 12 hour workdays. Practice this morning was light, delicious, fine.

In general, this semester has been a work of patience, and that mostly with the desire to keep some kind of routine. I guess I have to look at the routine in terms of months, rather than weeks or days. And as the months go by, I’m practicing about the same amount of time each month, which makes me feel better.

I’ve had to acquire a patience with my body I’ve never known. The desire to practice sometimes has to be placed beneath another two hours of sleep b/c I wake up from a dream about my research with a tension headache. Sometimes the immune system is working so hard that I don’t have energy for asana. I try to frame it in terms of priorities, but that isn’t accurate…practice has no less priority, but it has more flexibility in my schedule than other things like experiments and midterms and the like.

In short, I’m keeping things relatively balanced compared to this time last year when I took three months off. I like it better this year.

I have been plagued by something unsettling, however. For several months now, I’ve had a distinct lack of feeling. Numbness. Emotions don’t come easily, and when they do, they’re like music in a car going by two floors down on the street. For someone who runs his life on feeling, this makes experience very grey. Maybe it’s just the stress. When life doesn’t have feeling, it’s all just stuff on a list. Write it down, cross it off, write it down, cross it off….