This Is Not Yoga

The line between exploring and experimenting and simple and shameless self-indulgence can be difficult to see...but easy to ignore.
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 111:895

...if there's one thing yoga bloggers like to talk about even more than yoga, it's...y'know...not yoga...as in [outraged yet self-consciously calm and mindful tone] this commercialized/sexualized/nothin'-but-asana/glorified-gymnastics/new-agey/unhealthy-body-image-based/generally westernized/low-grade-celebrity-infested/sexist/egocentric/generally-corrupted-from-its-pure-roots-in-pure-uncorrupted-and-always-totally-spiritual-magical-mystical-Indyaaaa-where-they've-certainly-never-been-patriarchal-or-had-a-brutal-caste-system-or-oppressed-religious-minorities-or-had-abusive-gurus-or-anything-else-that-I-know-of-but-if-they-did-I'll-blame-it-on-western-influence/let's-face-it-just-not-as-spiritual-as-I-am crap IS NOT YOGA...

...but that's not what I'm talking about here....like I always say, in order to be disillusioned about yoga...or anything else, for that matter...ya gotta be illusioned in the first place...so that, most likely, the sooner that illusion gets dissed, the better...

...no, I’m here to talk about non-yoga in its purest form...by which I mean not doing that asana practice with all those vinyasas and sun salutations and twists and bends and stuff that, for better for worse, we have come to define as yoga AT ALL...which, thanks to some badly strained muscle fibers in my upper left arm, is what I've been practicing lately....and this non-yoga, let me tell you, really, really sucks...

 

...I mean, really, if you are the kind of insane freak who feels the need for a serious hardcore daily yoga practice, and yet sometimes wonder, cynic that you are, if it’s really worth all the time, money, and effort, there’s simply no way to find a truer, deeper appreciation for the practice than to fuck up some part of your anatomy so that you have to take a thoroughly unplanned extended break...

...one thing that’s not said enough, except on yoga blogs, where it’s continually brought up like yet another revelation that nobody’s ever thought of before, is that you can get hurt practicing yoga....but, of course, it’s not yoga’s fault...and that’s true...in my case, as in most such, the problem is not practicing mindfully...continuing to push oneself in the practice even though the body is sending clear warning signs, until those warning signs get pronounced enough that they can no longer be ignored...

 
...(of course it should be noted that some yoga injuries are at least partially the fault of unskilled or unmindful teachers...but that's not my problem...my teachers are awesome...and I can hardly wait to practice with them again)...

...and so I ice my arm, bike, meditate every day, and generally work on being more mindful, of my health and other things...trying to use this time away from the practice as a necessary step back to heal and assess...which is a good thing...

...but that doesn’t mean I have to like it...

2011: The Year the Yoga Cynic Goes Legit

I don’t believe in yoga...
John Lennon, God

I don’t believe in yoga, I practice yoga.
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 360.21

...it’s 2011 and I’ve resolved to stop leaving my yoga mat at the studio....that’s not the big news, though...

...up until now, this humble site has reveled in its unique status among yoga blogs...y’know, the one written by the guy who doesn’t actually know crap about yoga....as stated so succinctly in its very first post...

this woman I was kinda sorta involved with said she was curious about yoga and wanted me to teach her some. I told her I’m still working on not hurting myself by overstretching my hamstrings. Hell, I’m still not even sure what hamstrings are.*

...even cluelessness, however charming, turns out, eventually, to be impermanent...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 223:461

...this year, though...specifically in February and March...I’m stepping away from the time honored personal ritual of sitting around depressed until spring...instead heading up to spend a month in the snowy Berkshires, at Kripalu...eating, drinking, and sleeping yoga, while completing...are ya ready for this?...a 200 hour yoga teacher training...

...that’s right, people, the Yoga Cynic’s going legit...

...soon I’ll be able to fill this blog with dry, didactic, and painfully self-satisfied lectures on Real Yoga (i.e. what I learned in my teacher training...as opposed to that crap you do)...as well as to use that legendary inaudible-from-more-than-six-inches-away yoga teacher voice...(though, obviously, I need to come up with a written equivalent to use here)...(perhaps this)...and, generally, to act really egotistical while insisting I’ve overcome my ego...

...or maybe not...though I'll probably find out what hamstrings are...

...seriously, it's gonna be intense and challenging, and I'm excited...hope you all have good stuff coming up this year, too...namaste & all that...


*...this, needless to say, was before Y4C found the magic of ellipses...**

**...Y4C, I’ve decided, is a good abbreviation for Yoga for Cynics...up until now, I’ve used YforC, but everybody else seems to prefer the more succinct YfC...which makes me...and probably everybody else...think of KFC...which, y’know, doesn’t exactly help with the all-important-for-yoga-bloggers vegan demographic...

Dr. Jay Saves Lives

The other Dr. J

...this year, on the summer solstice, I...(no need to make a big deal about this, folks...I’m sure you all would have done exactly the same thing under the circumstances)...saved a life...

...to be more specific, the life of a young mannequin...like I said, no need to sing my praises for such a selfless and courageous act of heroism, which, no doubt, is exactly the course of action you yourself would have taken, if told to by a qualified CPR instructor...

...nonetheless, anybody so inspired to draw a deep, meaningful poetic connection between the saving of this imitation-life and the summer solstice may feel free to leave it below as a comment...

...more pressing is the matter of my official bio, which, evidently, needs to be changed from

the kind of doctor who, in case of emergency, can explain Faulkner while you die

to

the kind of doctor who, in case of emergency, can stand there for a minute or two looking stupid and thinking “ooooh shiiiittt” before finally stepping to the fore and saying "soooo...ummmm...anybody know CPR?...Like, y’know, other than me?...No? Oh...ummmm...okay...”...then get down on the floor and, we can only hope, remember to pull the head back and squeeze the nose, and recall that it’s two breaths to thirty compressions*...though, if that doesn’t work, we’re of course back to Plan A: “Fragmentation is central to Faulkner’s work. His entire wide and rambling Yoknapatawpha saga may be seen as a collection of fragments attempting some kind of desperate cohesion, themselves often broken up and confused...”**...***

...on second thought, maybe I’ll leave it as is...



* yes, that’s the appropriate ratio...really...get re-certified now...

** actually the first two sentences of Splendid Failures in the Old South, the first section of “One nation: no longer anywhere;” Going Native in Yoknapatawpha, itself the second chapter of my dissertation, “The Painful Task of Unifying:” Fragmented Americas and “The Indian” in the Novels of William Faulkner and N. Scott Momaday...seriously...

*** now that I think of it, change the names and it could also be a pretty reasonable description of this blog...

The Highly Prestigious and Karmically Significant Floating Glowing Being of Pure Love Award

...before getting this post started, I think I need to say something about a controversy currently raging on other blogs with yoga in their titles...that is, the highly acrimonious subject of competitive yoga...which, to many, is a bit of an oxymoron...so, let me just say right now that you won’t find any of that here....that’s because I happen to be the least competitive yogi on the web...one might even say the World Champion of Non-Competitiveness.............and if there's anybody out there who thinks you’re less competitive than I am, all I can say is bring it, bitch...

...ahem...as loyal readers know, now and then this humble blog receives awards from fellow bloggers...(with very little money changing hands...usually)...and, generally, that involves passing on the award to other deserving bloggers...known as blog love...which I’ve been far too uncooperative and un-loving to do....and so, the time has come to atone...(even though I’ll no doubt end up doing more harm than good by forgetting people who really deserve awards)...so, since nobody’s actually given me any awards lately...drum roll, please...

...Yoga for Cynics is, like, totally thrilled to present the highly prestigious, karmically significant, and not at all tacky Floating Glowing Being of Pure Love Award... redeemable for 15% off orders of $100 or more at participating International House of Yoga™ locations...honoring blogs and bloggers about whom I can think of something funny to say at the moment...

Holly's Earth to Holly is kinda like the blog version of that mellow friendly house where your mellow friendly friends live with their mellow friendly dog...you wanna stop by without calling first, you wanna hang out, you wanna borrow CD’s, you wanna crash on the couch...it’s all good...

Brooks' appropriately titled Yogic Muse is where half the posts here started out as comments...seriously, if this blog ever started making money, I’d worry about a lawsuit if Brooks wasn’t so full of that yogic lovingkindness and stuff...

Melinda's Melindaville offers such well-written, often hair-raising first person accounts of drug abuse, prostitution, and other really serious stuff that all the jokes I can think of are coming out way too offensive...

Iranian poet Human Being at Thus Spake the Crow appears to be further out there than I am...which I find kinda threatening...

Clutterquake is Lydia’s other blog...and it's getting the award instead of her main blog ‘cause that’s how edgy I am...

Seeing Eye Chick at Apocalyptics Anonymous is seriously pissed off...do not fuck with Seeing Eye Chick...she will fuck you up...

Lisa at Ecoyogini practices yoga in Canada, kinda like Roseanne at It’s All Yoga, Baby, which means...jeezus, I’m right on the cusp of making some lame-ass joke about curling, Celine Dion, and locust pose...which means my well of creativity is just about tapped....so that’s all for now...we return you to your previously scheduled internet activity...

Thoughts Swimmin' By Like Dolphins

...ever try to take pictures of dolphins from the beach? by the time ya hit the button, they’re gone...so, then, ya start pointing the camera in the general area where you saw them and start clicking, hoping one will appear, and maybe even jump, at just the right moment...which doesn’t usually work so well, either...but, at least you can end up with some nice shots of water...

...my car inspection’s due this week...and it’s gonna cost me a bundle...including the annual couple hundred bucks necessary to make the check engine light go off...only to come back on a week later, and stay on until I fork over another couple hundred dollars next year....I’m thinking about pointing out that I live in the eternal now...so the distinction between this year and last year doesn’t mean anything....somehow, though, I doubt ya can get an inspection sticker with now on it...

...a lotta people’ve been pissed off lately...and not just at town halls and the MTV Awards....I’m talkin’ about the mellow incense-scented environs of the yoga blogosphere, where fierce and sometimes hurtful arguments about corporate sponsorship, lascivious gurus, and the relative merits of divinity and solid abs seem to be poppin' up like poison ivy in a Zen garden....as an ongoing effort to be more compassionate and understanding, and hence less combative, is an essential part of my whole yoga practice thingy, I try to keep out of the fray...at least when the argument’s about yoga...though even that can sometimes be difficult as a one armed handstand...like, sometimes, people are so lacking in compassion and understanding I just feel like smackin’ ‘em upside the head...but I don’t...so that’s at least a start...

...I’ve been told there’s an equivalent to the Golden Rule in every major religious or ethical system...which attests to the fact that people in every society throughout history have needed to be reminded not to act like assholes...and, in the end, there’s really not much to do but keep trying...and try not to be to hard on yourself for not always acting like Gandhi...particularly since, as his biographers can attest, Gandhi didn’t always act like Gandhi, either...