Saturday, October 1, 2011

Learnin' n' Unlearnin'


...it’s been...good gawd...over six months since the two hundred hour certification...during which I’ve kinda taught yoga five times...groups of one to three people...only one of whom insisted on drinking a beer while practicing...(as well as assisting with that class of, I’m told, two-hundred and fifty people)....meaning, ya could say, I’ve not been overly ambitious...perhaps lazy....or, maybe, to take a more positive view, simply humble...egoless...just too damned enlightened...

...at Kripalu, they said what we were doing was less about learning than un-learning...and I most certainly did that....still confused about those esoteric fancy-schmancy Sanskrit-derived terms...particularly that pesky pair: right and left....used, generally, in reference to something even more confusing: the human body...its anatomy, physiology, alignment...

...over a series of weekends, beginning tomorrow, I’m gonna be continuing my yogic education through a fifty hour Align and Flow training...based in principles of anusara...a Sanskrit term which, as I understand it, means something like don’t care how long you’ve been practicing yoga, your alignment’s waaaaaaay off...
...this time, it's only a twenty-minute drive away...(maybe a forty-five minute bike ride, if I could figure a route that wouldn’t likely leave me sprawled out on the blacktop with alignment off in ways all the king’s yoga teachers might never put back together)...with a great teacher I’ve known a few years, and at least one fellow student I know...who's an advanced teacher, too, actually....raising suspicions I could be one of the more unlearned persons in the room...the Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel of yoga...Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yogi...sittin' on my mat muttering downward facin’ dawg?! whut th’ heck’s that?!....I'm looking forward to it...

6 comments:

Brooks Hall said...

Have some self respect, man! You know a lot and are not half bad, either!

Is this post a blatant calling out for compliments? A bit of self effacement is thought to be endearing in some cases, but geeze—get over it and be a cool and cynical yoga rock star! WTF?…

And keep us posted…

Unknown said...

oooo, my. cool, but pleeez don't drink tooo much of that kula-aide.

Daisy Deadhead said...

Just wanted to let you know that you inspired me in your August 13th post, and I linked and thanked you! Doing it again here in case you miss it.

http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2011/10/dead-air-church-deity-meeting-part-one.html

Love and kisses. :)

Meredith LeBlanc said...

I a big fan of unlearning and knowing that I don't know. It's the best part of yoga.

As for beer and yoga ~ interesting combo since some peeps thinks yoga is about turning yourself into a pretzel...

Brittany said...

Enjoy! It must be so nice to be able to have a place to learn so close to you.

It's A Yoga Thang said...

"anusara...a Sanskrit term which, as I understand it, means something like don’t care how long you’ve been practicing yoga, your alignment’s waaaaaaay off..."
OMG! HAHA!!!!!! So, true. Love that style, but threw my back out doing it their way. :~/ Happy knowledging yourself. The more we learn, the more we realize we don't know.