Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Explosion of the ashtangi

Here I am in Sante Fe at teacher training. We began the second level yesterday. I kind of knew this second week would be challenging, at least astrologically for me, but I was not expecting the explosion I had this morning. In the mornings, we have meditation with this lady. So I went to the temple at 5am to practice and some other people also came in afterward to do their own practice before the day begins... then, the meditation session began. we did some exercises, then she was talking with her overly sympathetic style and she said "If you are an ashtangi girl and you are doing the same practice
everyday, you are not honoring your body. you do not have a good practice" I was first "okey don't take it personally..." then this other person who came from Washington State to assist T also said something, which I could not listen fully anymore but it was something like: if you are practicing ashtanga primary series just for the sake of practicing without modifying and he went on blablablabla... so after all this I started tearing up, still I tried to contain myself and then we had a silent breakfast... but at the end, I could not hold myself and went to the lady who is manager of the training and told her that I need to talk to someone about the meditation session, I just had to tell someone that I cannot stand it if these criticism will pop up all the time! but then I began crying hysterically. I guess I was really hurt... The manager was surprised that meditation lady would say something like this especially since she does not practice any yoga and both T and S have backgrounds in ashtanga. I was upset because I came here with an open heart and mind, and in spite of ashtanga being my love... I am open minded enough but I think, at this stage, I am not ready to take any shallow criticism about our practice, especially in this form. Then, later on, the meditation lady came to me and tearing up, she apologized from me. She said “I am sorry I did not know you were a strong ashtanga practicioner and I honor you practice and Pattabhi Jois”!!!. Later, S told me to take what others say as a grain of rice and listen to my own heart. She understands me because she used to be so in love with her ashtanga practice too... and T never talks badly about ashtanga, he has his own way now but he is sensitive about how he talks about what he believes, what he prefers...
I never criticize anyone’s yoga, it is all beautiful to me… It is a very personal practice and for me, there is no place for judgments…
So I guess I stirred up some stuff here and some stuff was stirred up in me… and the theme of this week was stirring the ocean, water, fire, transformation… is it all related I wonder, what happened and all… I guess one reason for my sensitivity is also because we are in second week of our training and it is getting deeper and I am getting more sensitive…