December | 2008 | Autopsis: Seeing For One's Self

Archive for December, 2008

Dating Oneself?

Posted in Life, tagged Rogers Park, teaching on December 22, 2008 | 3 Comments »

So in the car yesterday on the way to Rogers Park in Belton TX we were chatting it up. I was driving and Ellen, Caroline, and dog Bean were carpooling to go climbing for the day in the bitter bitter cold! It turned out to be a bit shorter day than usual due to it being just too darn cold. On the way back I mentioned a concept that I am a fan of and everyone was into it including Bean and I was told to mention it here…

This concept basically stems from a phrase I came up with… Dating Yourself! This has nothing to do with the touching of oneself, although it may be a related item for some. Ahem. Anyways. It also has nada to do with dating yourself as in, “I loved the band Twisted Sister back in the day.” Ahem… Anyways again…

Basically I believe that you should at least once a week totally treat yourself right, or even every day! Like my boy Agent Dale Cooper says, “Everyday, once a day, give yourself a little present. Dont plan it, dont wait for it, just let it happen.” (enter: two cups of hot black coffee and some cherry pie) However, my philosophy is a bit different. I feel that one (1), you cannot truly learn to “hook up” another human being properly if you can’t do it for yourself first. This can be said for another formentioned topic that we need not go into here, again. Two; I feel like we dont treat ourselves with the respect and awe that we should! Especially in a profession like teaching where all of your mental and physical energy is directed outward, we need to refuel and re-energize! I feel like I personally do not get burnt out as long as I keep refilling the vessel that I am constantly pouring outwards from.

Tips on dating yourself:

1.Go Overboard. Go big! Take yourself to that favorite expensive restaurant and hook it up! Dont worry about time, money, etc. Treat it like a date with a significant other and impress yourself!

2.Spa Time. On a night alone trap yourself in the bathroom. Hot bath with salts, music, glass of wine, and possibly a favorite book you have read already many times! I personally do this pretty often and its soooo good.

3. No Fear. Go out and do your favorite things that you normally reserve for doing with another. Get over fear of eating alone, movie alone, or favorite outdoor activity alone.

Nobody can ever truly know what you want at any given moment as well as yourself. Take advantage of knowing who you are and what you want and hook yourself up! Its not selfish! It will only make you happier and healthier which can only effect your local environment in a positive manner! Life is good, revel in it. Roll in it like a dog in a pile of leaves!

Livin Large with Home Spa Treatment!

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A beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Posted in Climbing, Life, tagged Climbing, tolkien on December 15, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Got up early and had some incredibly yummy coffee. (my coffee can be eaten with chopstix) Taught my Sunday AM Ashtanga class which is always a great one! After coming home and doing what I can describe best as “putsing around” for a bit ( a skill I learned from my pops), I headed back out to have some brunch at Hyde Park Grill! From Hyde Park to watch a bit of The NFL and see the Buffalo Bills lose… again, and take my Fantasy Football dreams with them. ”Buffalo!”, he yells to the sky shaking a fist. Then received a call to go climbing again, this time out at McKinney Falls Park. Enjoyed some beautiful weather with friends, a dog named Bean, and a fair amount of salamanders, hawks, daddy long legs, and cardinals. Made me a bit of dinner and then drew me a bath with my favorite tension/muscle relaxing cocktail which is as follows and I highly recommend to all …

Dr. Singhas Mustard Bath combined with Eucalyptus bath salts both of which can be found at Central Market among other places Im sure. Trust me, try a super hot bath and hot box in your bathroom. You will want a bed soon after!

About to talk to wifey for a bit, who spent her weekend climbing and camping at Joshua Tree! Then end the night re-reading The Silmarillion for the many hundredth time. I have a Tolkien problem!

Sunday Climbin

Sunday Climbing2 Sunday3

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Oh, the decisions we make!

Posted in Life, Yoga Theory, tagged Agni, Ashtanga, Ayurveda, buddhi, Family, Gita, MeatBrick, prajnaparadha, tapa, vegetarian, Yoga on December 14, 2008 | 3 Comments »

So this piece constitutes the last of the yoga related writings that I have had in the bank. Time to get crackin on more new material! Enjoy!

About five years ago my brother was visiting me in Washington DC. He lives in Japan and we get to see each other only once or twice a year. When we do get to see each other we often have to catch up on almost a years worth of information over the course of a few days. There was a conversation that we had on this occasion that I remember quite clearly and have thought about many times. A conversation that I have since found echoed in the experience of both my students and some of the very ancient Vedic texts! A conversation about choices.

We were having a family dinner at a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in DC and catching up a bit. As we began to order, my brother was somewhat astonished to hear me order an entirely vegetarian option from the menu. As a side note, I grew up and ate mostly steak, potatoes, chips and salsa, and little else. I hated veggies and have always loved a big juicy steak. My being mainly vegetarian came as a huge shock to him as it was something that just hadn’t come up before. I remember him asking, “You don’t eat steak anymore? How can you not eat steak? It was your favorite! It’s my favorite!”. I answered by stating that I was practicing Ashtanga every morning six days a week. If I ate steak, it felt like I was practicing with a brick in my stomach in the morning. We all know the practice is hard enough without a meat brick in the stomach! It was his next comment that has been the inspiration of this piece. Perplexed, he looked at me and said, “Well why the heck would you do a practice (yoga) that makes you so sensitive that you give up something you love?” Wow. I have to admit, the logic of his question stopped me for a moment. I hadn’t really thought about it from that direction. I was beginning to make conscious and unconscious choices that revolved around my practice. Even shedding things I loved!

I come back to this experience due to a recent rereading of both the Uppanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. There is a sanskrit term found in these texts that I think is a brilliant concept, Prajnaparadha. This term is commonly translated as a mistake or improper use of the intellect (buddhi)–having just enough knowledge to make a conscious or unconscious poor decision! For example, knowing the effects of smoking but still deciding to smoke; driving without a seatbelt because accidents happen to other people; eating all those yummy hot peppers that you know will give you indigestion; drinking that first, second, and maybe third martini! In the practice of Ayurveda, Prajnaparadha is seen as one of the three causes of disease in the mental, physical, and spiritual bodies. The good news is that this imbalance is correctable with self observation and better decision making. In my yoga practice I was becoming aware of things in my life that I could change and thus feel better as a result. The notion that we, as yogis, can make the powerful choice to give up even the things we enjoy is stunning to me. It is a concept very much at odds with a world caught up in the practice of indulgence, a world that often prizes quantity over quality and appearances over substance.

As our yoga practice becomes more and more dear to us we begin to make decisions. Only with the fire of knowledge (jnana agni) can we begin to burn off the things in our lives we no longer need. In the Gita wisdom is called the “greatest purifier on earth.” In asking any of my students who have been practicing for a few years, I find that they have all changed parts of their behavior due to their practice and are happier and healthier for it! With practice and observance comes this wisdom. With the heat and movement of the Ashtanga system we multiply this purification process, building tapas (physical and/or spiritual heat) and burning off that which we don’t need.

What in you life resembles prajnaparadha? What in your life have you already changed? Endear yourself to the the work of the practice and enjoy observing the changes you’ve made over time!

Matt’s Disclaimer: By no means do I mean to tell anyone to go veg or not drink. These are only meant as examples from my own personal experience! Seatbelts, though…

Mark n Akiko, Hannah n Matt.

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Ahhhh, Thailand.

Posted in Life on December 12, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Matt Borer

Just reminiscing on practicing in Koha Samet, Thailand. The Tsunami that devastated the area occurred only days after I left and I always wonder about the state of those beaches and the great locals and tourists I met there. Wishing the best for the Thai government and its people and hoping to someday return to enjoy one of the most beautiful places and peoples on Earth. Really want to get back there and get my hands on some of the incredible rock climbing there in the Western islands.

Took a lot of Thai massage there and picked up a bit more at the Old Medicine Hospital in Chiang Mai. We spent three days on elephants trekking through rain forest and sleeping in villages with less than 20 residents. Unbelievable stuff. Of course my camera died the morning we got on the elephants… I think it was jammed full of sand! Cant wait to get back and see Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia as well. So many places to go!

Next international travel plans? World Cup soccer in South Africa/climbing trip (The Rocklands). Taking a posse there in 2010! You in?

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Ahimsa

Posted in Life, Yoga Theory, tagged Ahimsa, Ashtanga, Sutra, Yama, Yoga on December 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Here is a little something I wrote a while ago…

Ahimsa!

In Sanskrit there is a term…Ahimsa…which translated means non-harming. A beautiful concept for a word! I don’t know of many other words that symbolize this concept. There are millions of words for the opposite though…destroy, harm, hurt, wreck, ruin, break, crush, beat, smash, etc. Kind of an odd phenomenon don’t you think? There are plenty of words that mean to care for something. However, that is a very different concept from that of non-harming… For example ,the statement, “I will care for this flower.”, is quite different from “I will not harm this flower.” To not harm seems to imply a choice to leave something in a natural and positive state as opposed to changing/harming it or choosing to make it your responsibility to care for it. Non-harming can range from the macro to the micro, the physical to the mental or spiritual, and from the external to the internal. Not only to not harm the world around you, but often first and foremost to not harm the world within you. Using every breath of everyday as your workspace to get rid of negativity we easily fall pray to. “I am not good enough.””I will never be like that.”; “This is just the way I am.” Its not…that is just the way you WERE! Make every breath a more positive and productive place to be for YOU. Only from a center of strength and love can you then radiate the same to those around you without harming the self! Hope this finds everyone having a beautiful day. Ahimsa for all my people!

As a side note, Ahimsa is in fact the first concept mentioned in the Ashtanga, or 8 limbed path in the Yoga Sutras. It is the first of the Yamas; 8 ways in which to deal with our environment. Although each step becomes a grander step. One can really not move to the next without dealing with the first, which leads to the conclusion of the immense import of beginning your practice with this simple concept!

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On creating a home yoga practice and the making of ones bed.

Posted in Being A Student, Life, tagged Home Practice, Yoga on December 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Now and then we offer a piece of advice to a friend in passing. Often we have little idea of the implications of this advice or the residual effects of it that are often greater than we could imagine. Sometimes it’s just something that pops into your head in mid conversation like a hit and run clarity bullet! Years ago I was conversing with a then roommate of mine about simply cleaning up his room. Mine was always quite clean and his was a mine field of dirty laundry, half empty coffees, and rock climbing gear that quite safely guarded the area from anyone entering! He was asking me how I kept mine clean constantly as he was really frustrated but just didn’t know where to begin.

My living space was not always thus. I used to be a super cluttered dude back in the day. I believe it was due to a harsh combination of college freedom, being an artist/musician, and substances that need not be mentioned. Oh, and a bad case of the laziness. Anyhow, in passing i just blurted out, “Just start by making your bed.”, and walked away.

Years later we were chatting and he reminded me of that conversation of which I had totally forgotten. He said it was some of the best advice he had ever gotten and it had changed his life! I was baffled. He proceeded to tell me that consistently making his bed led to him consistently cleaning more and more until his space was clean. It didn’t stop there! His life was becoming more and more organized as well, one little bit at a time! Incredible!

During a class teaching for a Teacher Training program here in Austin, that story came back to me as i was answering some questions about starting a home practice, be it asana, pranayama, or meditation. Most new yoga students have an extremely tough time developing some kind of home practice if ever developing one at all! I realized in that instant that a huge part of the problem was simply our dristi, our focal point. To return to my bed making analogy, if we look at the messy room as a whole it seems like a somewhat hopeless and daunting task to deal with. However, if we look at just the bed that seems pretty docile in comparison.

What I am suggesting is that you not look at your practice as a whole initially. Instead of trying to fit in an hour plus somewhere into you daily schedule, start out simply with a fifteen minute consistent practice. The beauty of this is that you will often find that once you begin you may say to yourself, “Well this feels so fantastic I am going to just keep going!” Your fifteen minutes turns out to be longer than expected! Simple. Think about it as a consistent brief and simple practice and see what it turns into!

All this being said there are a couple of other hints that will help immensely. The beauty of having a yoga studio to go to lies much in the luxury of walking into an open room, throwing down your mat, and sitting down in a calm space that you have no responsibility for. There are no pets, kids, dishes, computers, or any other distractions that often make us weigh practicing yoga against them. Yoga will most likely always lose that battle. So make a space! It can be the size of your yoga mat if need be, but just have it there and ready. If you need to move a bunch of furniture around every time, it aint’ gonna happen.

Try and be consistent with time and day as much as possible!

A book, CD, or DVD may be useful as inspiration.

A practice partner may be useful as well… a wingman!

Get advice from any of your teachers!

Hope some of this helps those of you trying to develop you home practice.

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Thoughts on Yoga for Life with David Williams.

Posted in Being A Student, Yoga Theory, tagged Ashtanga, David Williams, Gita, Pradipika, Sutra, Upanishads, Yoga on December 8, 2008 | 2 Comments »

There was certainly a lot of great information and advice to ruminate on after Davids wonderful workshop here at the YogaYoga. So much of his viewpoint was new an refreshing to hear, and much of it simply reinforced thought processes that I have been harboring for quite some time. The major one of these thought processes is that your yoga practice should be an enjoyable, elevating, healing practice that should be approached with an eye toward simplicity! Seems like an obvious statement, but when I tell many students to RELAX to deepen their practice and that it shouldn’t be a frustrating goal oriented process, they sometimes look shocked! “You mean I can just relax and not push constantly?” Indeed! For two weeks after his workshop I tried to get students to create a silent verbal contract both with themselves and I. Something to the effect of…

Student:

“I am giving myself the freedom to not compete with myself or others. I am giving myself the freedom to alter, modify, or skip postures I intuitively know are not making me feel better. If i come out of an asana feeling worse, than I am doing it wrong! I have the freedom to verbally question any teacher concerning what they are asking of me and how they are physically assisting me. I am here to feel better in every breath! I will settle for nothing less than this!”

Teacher:

“I will do everything in my power to give you a healthy, compassionate, and comfortable environment in which you can let your practice grow in the directions it needs to. Anything I ever suggest in a class is entirely negotiable. You have the power to NOT do anything you know is a bad idea for your body or mind. I will never physically assist you in any way in which you could possibly become injured. (If you are injuring yourself in yoga, you need to approach it differently or find another teacher that understands and has compassion for human anatomy. Seriously, question your teachers actions, motives, and methods. Injury is %100 unacceptable!) As teachers we are not always in the right. I am open to any questions, ideas, suggestions, and changes out there. I am still learning constantly as well!”

The best quote I got from David over this weekend relating to this is, “We are doing cave man exercises.” I love it. Think about it.

Caveman:

“What can I do with the tools that I have to make me feel better and give me a longer, happier, healthier life.”

Before the advent of any modern medicine, besides the practice of eating random things and waiting to see what happens, we had only breathing and movement to experiment with. How can we make ourselves feel better using just the tools of movement and breath? Stop making it so complicated!

Wether you are pointing a foot or flexing it, wether we are rolling around 9 times or 5 in Garba, wether we are doing the invocation together or call and answer, what’s the difference? The questions to be asked are so much simpler. Does this teacher have my best welfare in mind? Do I feel better after each breath? Do I WANT to practice as opposed to HAVING to practice?

I understand and respect tradition, but if the tradition is not making you better than you need to question it. There are certainly a lot of traditions that we no longer take part in that some crazy person came up with and then some “bad” person thankfully questioned.

The bottom line for much of this for me is that it was so good to finally hear a senior instructor lay this out plainly. I have often felt to be in a minority and jokingly called myself an “anti-ashtangi”. I have in fact had my wrists slapped by other teachers telling me that this line of thinking is not Ashtanga and that I need to go to Mysore to “fix” it. Well if injuring people and putting asana in a box so it cannot grow according to peoples needs is Ashtanga… than Ashtanga is not yoga and needs to be put into its rightful place in the gym. Ouch. Might have gone a bit far there, almost offended myself! To truly understand yoga, its origins, and its theory we should all read and re-read in order of their creation, The Upanishads, The Gita, Yoga Sutras, and The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, or in my line of keeping things simpler, just experience your practice and constantly question it!

“This calm of the senses and the mind has been defined as yoga.” -Upanishads

“Even as a burning fire burns all fuel into ashes, the fire of wisdom burns into ashes all works.” -Bhagavad Gita

“The practice of Yoga…must develop our capacity for self-examination…” -Yoga Sutras

“Hatha yoga is the greatest secret of the yogis who wish to attain perfection. Indeed, to be fruitful, it must be kept secret; revealed it becomes powerless.” -Hatha Yoga Pradipika = this blog is for your eyes only and will self destruct in 15 seconds.

Disclaimer: All of the above is truly just personal thought and inspiration from Davids workshop meant to create thought and discussion. Nothing is meant in the least to offend or judge others who believe or feel differently. We all learn and are inspired by different approaches toward the same ends! Practice inspired, simply, and compassionately!

“How can I practice today so I can still do this when Im 100 yrs old?” -David Williams

Matt Borer with David Williams

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“This yoga stuff doesn’t seem to be working.” -my dad

Posted in Being A Student, Yoga Theory, tagged Family, Yoga on December 8, 2008 | 3 Comments »

me and pops at Greenbelt

My parents began practicing hatha yoga a number of years ago. I believe that I talked about it so much that they figured there must be something to it! They have been practicing now twice a week ever since. About two years into practicing, I asked my Dad how it was going, to which he responded, “My back and body feel much better, but I am not sure if this yoga thing is really working.” I was astonished and curious with this comment and asked him to elaborate. He basically answered that although he was physically feeling a bit better, he was getting more and more frustrated with daily living. “It’s just making me realize all the things I don’t like about my own behavior.” I was blown away at the power and brilliance of this observation. He was in THE most important stage of a yogic journey beyond asana! I liken it to step one of A.A., “I have a problem.”. We do, we have hundreds of imperfections and poor behavioral traits from tiny to immense! This at first can seem daunting and even depressing, however a great power comes from this realization! “In any given breath I can change who I want to be and how I want to be.” However the path to becoming a better you can only begin with the discovery of the things that need to change.

So how does this happen? How does asana practice lead me from the realm of physical concern to something more? We all most likely can look back at our yoga history and wonder how we got from just doing asana to sleeping better, walking better, feeling better, acting better, etc. I have seen students become entirely different human beings over the course of their practice. I have meditated a lot on the above questions and these are my thoughts thus far.

To me, asana practice is simply dealing with all the emotions and reactions of your daily life on a microscopic level and in a safe environment. The beauty is that you may never even be aware of it! What does this mean exactly? I believe that the end result is that asana practice has very little to do with your physical ability or prowess. Don’t get me wrong, there are fantastic physical benefits and its just plain fun to play with the body and get it to do fantastic things. Eka Pada Sirsana is not about how great it is to get a leg behind the head. Its not the most useful skill I have ever had. To me it’s all about how to be in a posture that is that challenging and possibly uncomfortable, and still be just as calm and relaxed as I would be in Savasana! Here is the heart of my thinking. Each breath in each asana I am forced to deal with dozens of emotions and reactions on a small and inconsequential scale. “I hate it. I love it. I’m bad at it. I’m great at it. That guy is great at it. Too slow. Too fast. It hurts but I’ll do it anyway. I need to try harder. Ill just sit here and hang out.” All of these classics and more coming to a brain near you soon! This is where Ashtanga becomes a great modality in my opinion for moving beyond asana. We are learning to deal with all of that turmoil, not by ignoring it and perpetuating what Buddhist thought calls “conditioned existence” or sleepwalking, but by peeling it away bit at a time. The use of Ujjayi breath, Dristi, and Bandhas are a very direct way in which to begin relaxing and focusing within each challenging asana, observing these thoughts and allowing yourself the freedom to respond accordingly. This is practice and this is hard! Constantly observing and altering to make the hardest asana you can imagine, the most comfortable place to be. This constant process of dealing with these thoughts and emotions is one of the biggest benefits we can take off of the mat. In any challenging situation or asana you can choose to make it harder or easier, but it takes awareness and constant practice.

My feeling is that from the skin out, the world is basically out of our control. You will always stub your toe and it will hurt, there are things you will be good and bad at, there are things you may never get to do, it will rain for better or worse, etc. However, from the skin in you have the power to harness complete control! We can breath easy and focus with a leg behind our head, we can also breath easy and focus in the middle of ecstasy or tragedy! I love this idea that from the skin in I can have a choice of who I want to be, how I want to react, and how I want to treat others. Read this line again… In any given breath I can choose who I want to be and how I want to be. This is the power of the yogi! To become more compassionate, understanding, relaxed, and effective in the face of any situation beyond our control. This evolution is happening in every breath of every asana and you may not even notice! Enjoy your practice. Take it both seriously and with humor. These are simply silly postures to put yourself into, but the effects can be life changing.

Autopsis: Seeing For One's Self

The ramblings of a dude that sticks a lot of irons in the fire whilst wearing many different hats.

Archive for December, 2008

Dating Oneself?

A beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Oh, the decisions we make!

Ahhhh, Thailand.

Ahimsa

On creating a home yoga practice and the making of ones bed.

Thoughts on Yoga for Life with David Williams.

“This yoga stuff doesn’t seem to be working.” -my dad

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