A Powerful Shake

For those who can read Chinese, below is a link to my cousin Grace's blog/diary entry on the devastated earthquake in Japan on March 11; she was at her Tokyo office at the time of the quake and her blog recalls how she tried to make her way home that evening - and couldn't but, thankfully, located a friend with whom she could stay the night.

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/gt1121

Two things that struck me about her experience: how orderly and calmly the Japanese behave in time of crisis, and how social media such as Facebook and Twitter - and those cute multi-functional Japanese phones - can practially become lifelines at a time like this (luckily the earthquake didn't bring down the powering of these networks). 

Just received an email from my yoga instructor friend Anri who is down in Osaka; she says things are okay down in southern Japan - and her family in inland Hokkaido are also fine - but she is extremely concerned for the people up in the North. With a fresh wave of crisis sweeping across the part of the country -- engineers are now trying to cool overheated fuel at two stricken  nuclear reactors that were affected by the quakes -- one hopes the unity, resilience and diligence of the nation (and the Japanese ARE highly united, resilient and diligent) can pull the country through this very, very difficult and challenging time. Okay, cynics might think otherwise but I think it is great that the Chinese have put aside their differences with the Japanese and have jumped in onto the rescue work... actually, am very moved by the fact that several European countries and Russia have all pitched in to help. Can humans actually be less destructive than our Nature?

A Split

Just saw this on the Internet (credit: Agence France Presse):

The blonde Californian in her 40s writhed rhythmically in low-cut white trousers as she performed her “power flow yoga”, to the shock of traditionalists.

  By the time Shiva Rea (left), famed for inventing the high-energy Yoga Trance Dance, had completed her demonstration at a yoga festival in northern India, some 20 people had left the room.
“This is not yoga, it’s just a show, but to succeed in California, this is what they have to do,” griped Austrian yoga teacher Florian Palzinsky, 42, as he watched the Santa Monican.
  For thousands of years, yoga has been expressed through gradual control of the body, breath and mind.
  But criticism of Rea’s spirited show at the week-long International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh underscored the growing and sometimes acrimonious split between purists and practitioners of new, innovative forms of the art.
  Rishikesh, nestled in the Himalayan foothills, shot to world prominence when the Beatles visited in 1968 to learn about transcendental meditation from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, helping to popularise ideas about Indian spirituality.
  Now hundreds of visitors, most of them foreigners, come each year to the festival from dozens of countries, bringing their yoga mats to learn about breathing, posture, chanting and nutrition from experts in all types of yoga.
  The classes start at 4:00 am and go on until sunset.
“Yoga doesn’t flow in our veins like it does in Indians so I came here to go back to basics,” said French yoga teacher Juliette Allard, 38, who has been coming to the festival for the past three years.
  German nutritionist Daniela Wolff, 50, said that she felt happiest with the festival’s tradition-minded Indian teachers, such as the spry 103-year-old Indian guru Swami Yogananda who gave his course every morning at 6:00 am sharp.
“They are genuine, do not use fancy words, there is no music. Most importantly, they don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” Wolff said.
  For Japanese yoga teacher Hikaru Hashimoto, the Americans “are very gifted at making yoga evolve -- at changing and inventing new styles that will spread throughout the world”.
“But India is the first country of yoga. The basis of yoga is here,” he insisted.
  Nevertheless, the more unconventional practitioners succeeded in drawing the spotlight at the festival, such as white-robed American Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa -- born May Mary Gibson but now a devout Sikh.
  Khalsa has given private lessons to stars such as Madonna, Cindy Crawford and Courtney Love, teaching Kundalini Yoga -- a meditative form of stretching -- and urging people to find the sunshine “in your hearts”.
  What really matters is that people “want to feel better, be closer to ourselves”, she said. “That’s what yoga is.”
  But Khalsa scandalised some festival-goers when her group held hands and chanted the word “Hallelujah” for 10 minutes, waving their bodies.
  Tears poured down some faces of the group and others looked ecstatic after the session, but their emotional response did not impress critics.
“I’ve practised yoga for 20 years. To me, it’s superficial, there’s no depth -- it’s like playing sports,” said Indian yoga teacher Kamal Deep Ohlan, 35.
“Today, yoga has become a business when it should be a discovery of one’s inner self, a philosophy.”

Tireness

It must be the (crap) humid weather (or it could have something to do with the fact I haven't practised for three days) ... my body feels extremely tight and heavy tonight. During my power yoga practice earlier, I felt this inexplicable muscle pain across my left upper chest; my body was like a marble statue and I couldn't twist or bend very deep. However, towards the end of the class, I managed to do a (perfect) handstand ... I jumped a little to get both my legs (straight and pressed tight together) up and off the ground, then I lifted them up VERY slowly until I was upside down; even the instructor was impressed. It could have been just fluke or all those months of core training with the Perfect Human Specimen is finally paying off!!

  

A New Laptop

I seldom buy something without taking a look at it first. But with this particular purchase yesterday, I did exactly that. Well, I knew I wanted a Lenovo (sturdy and reliable) and that it should have a 15"+ screen. The rest, though, I just left it to the shop that I'd been buying my computers from since a decade ago. I don't need anything too fancy, I told them; just something with a big screen (for video viewing), a fast-ish processor, a big-ish hard disc and that's it. Doesn't matter if it's a bit heavy cos I will be using it as a desktop anyway. So when I saw my new computer -- the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 15 -- I was, like, okay, it HAS a large screen ~ cool! What's not so cool is that it is a tad too glossy for my liking  (terrible glare) and the CapsLock is so close to the "A" key I keep capping my letters (very annoying) ... but other than that (well, I'll just have to get used to that cos it's a bit too late to change my mind now) this computer is a major upgrade from the last one. The process of transferring all my stuff from the old computer to the new one - and having the latter set up - was surprisingly painless. These days, it seems all you need to do is to power up your computer, link it onto the Internet, and it pretty much configs itself.

Amazing.

Fewer Hang-ups

... and more awareness. Since the yoga anatomy workshop, I've been practising with less self-criticism: "Why can't I do this and that?" ... this is an internal process -- the external process is, of course, to compare Self with others and ask: "Why can they do this and that and I can't?" but, thankfully, because I practise without my glasses on, i.e., am blind as a bat, I seldom compare. But I'm digressing. These days, I pay a lot more attention to the effects of the poses. I enjoy the asanas. When I feel "tension", whether it's of the muscles or tendons or ligaments, I know it can/will be eased through practising (forward bend stretches are so much deeper these days); but when I feel "compression", like, a bone pressing on another bone and there is no room for it to go further anymore, I'll just do a modification of a pose or simply come out of it. Because no matter how long and hard I practise, my bone structure is NOT going to change, c'est la vie! With this in mind, my practise become more free. This actually makes me appreciate so much more what my instructor Lawrence's been teaching: yoga becomes a form of expression - liberation and freedom.

Yesterday I took my regular Core class (with the Perfect Human Specimen) which I enjoyed because the objective is so focused. I do find one of his sequences particularly enjoyable because I can Feel the stretches, twists and, of course, core work: Extended Side Angle, Triangle, then Koundinyasana on both sides (and maybe a half moon before or after). I don't think I will ever feel bored doing that!

Over at Tech-Land, I was very, very pleased to see Steve Jobs introducing the iPad2. Not that I want to upgrade my iPad (camera? no thanks) but so good to see Jobs, well, alive. Such a genius. Talking about computers, I am getting a new Lenovo ThinkPad to replace my existing one (and older model) ... this one has a 15-inch+ screen, which I can practically use as a desk top and watch lots of movies (that's what computers are for these days, right?) But migrating stuff from my old laptop to the new one is going to be such a pain in the butt. I will have to reinstall all the programmes etc etc. I will also have to learn the new Window system ... but what needs to be done has to be done. The cooling fan in the old computer is dying fast (and I only had this machine for 2-3 years) ... it makes all kind of weird non-fanning groaning nosies ... and I fear, if I don't change it soon, it'd just explode on my desk, or worse, on my face.    

Egotistical Yoga Teachers -- An Article

Below is a recent Newsweek piece a friend forwarded me. Yoga is today a multimillion-dollar industry/ business, and there is no looking back ... A very  interesting piece:

Bow Down to the Yoga Teacher


by Casey Schwartz February 20, 2011

Marco, the tattooed instructor at the front of the room, is all charisma. He stalks; he pounces; he perches on my back as he corrects my Janu Sirsasana pose (otherwise known as a forward bend). “If you tell it to me from your mind, I’m not interested,” he announces, to begin the class. “That’s just drama. I’ve got my own drama.” It can be difficult to exit the studio when Marco’s class is over: people lingering to talk to him block the door.

Do yoga, transcend your ego, and discover your inner humility—at least that’s the idea behind this ancient spiritual practice. The enlightened person is “friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity,” promises the Bhagavad-Gita. But in the recent past, around the time that $100 yoga pants became as common as designer jeans, the once inconspicuous yoga instructor has morphed into something more grandiose. Now certain teachers display all the monkishness of Keith Richards cooling his heels in the greenroom as adoring fans reach a peak of anticipation.

The aura of high priest surrounds not just celebrity instructors like Marco, who teaches at Pure Yoga, and is known throughout the New York yoga scene for his godlike presence, but the ranks of proletarian instructors as well. The New York City–based filmmaker Ariel Schulman goes to a weekly class at Kula in Greenwich Village. He knows the instructor is in the building when he arrives. “But she comes into class late. She waits for the room to fill up—I feel the drumroll, sitting cross-legged waiting for her—and she makes her grand entrance.” The lights dim, and her patter begins: “Who don’t I know?” she asks. “Who haven’t I met?”

In America, yoga has become a mainstream and marketable cult—20 million people practice regularly, according to some estimates—and its teachers are, in a sense, performers. That’s why the narcissistically inclined can be drawn to the job, says Miles Neale, a Buddhist psychotherapist based in New York. Becoming a yoga teacher allows an insecure person to act spiritually superior. But the dynamic is two-sided. For the yoga teacher to become inflated, the student must inflate. Yoga acolytes, like rock-band groupies, hang on the approval of their favorite gurus—thus allowing that narcissism to flourish. “People elevate because they want to be accepted by the one that’s elevated,” Neale says. “That makes them feel good.”

Some yoga-diva antics would be considered bad manners even in Hollywood. Jennifer Needleman, a film editor, woke up before dawn recently to attend a new class at her local Venice, Calif., yoga studio. So few students showed up that the teacher declined to teach. It simply wasn’t worth her time, she said. Matt White, a member of the L.A.-based band Earl Greyhound, remembers resting on his back at the end of one class when the instructor seized the chance to burst into song. “I could be wrong, but I swear to God, he was singing something from a musical, like from Pippin,” says White. Carrie Campbell, a Pilates instructor in New York, was midpose at the notoriously purist Jivamukti studio, when her instructor approached, paused, and sniffed. “I can tell by the smell of your sweat that you’re not a vegetarian,” she announced for the whole class to hear. Campbell has not returned since.

Instructors concede that there’s a lure to giving in to their egotistical impulses. “When I start to feel powerful—that’s a dangerous place to be,” says Emily Wolf, a yoga instructor who is also studying to be a psychologist. When she begins to feel that way, she remembers her own teachers “who continue to put me in my place,” she says. The megalomaniacs, she believes, have lost sight of the fact that they were ever students themselves.

Paul & Suzee Grilley (Part 3)

Okay, I might have over-reacted a little yesterday ... The 30-Hour Yin Yoga Teacher Training came to a satisfying conclusion today -- I got my certificate!! -- and I think Paul is truly a dedicated yoga practitioner/ teacher. Sure, he was critical of other schools (I didn't miss/like his sarcastic references) but, with hindsight, I don't think he was dissing them. He simply wants practising yoga teachers/students to understand that, by following blindly and rigidly "traditional rules", they may risk hurting their students/themselves. Full stop. I was particularly touched/moved by his end-of-course speech: that with the extra knowledge/info we've learnt over the past five days, we should use it wisely and kindly ... and not to use it to embarrass teachers who might not know their A-Z of Human Anatomy. After all, most yoga teachers only want the best for their students, not to hurt them, he said. Paul did admit his teaching style may not be everyone's cuppa (he can say that again) ... but his intentions are good and genuine. He also reminded us all to be true to ourselves. So I miss their teaching already!!! The couple said they'd come back to HK/Asia again but it won't be for another year or so.

Now I know my heels don't have to touch the floor when doing down dog (whatever the primary functional purpose(s) of the pose is, it ain't stretching the hamstrings!) and will be more kind to myself from now on. I am also looking forward to practising with my fav teachers again -- and to see how I can complement their style with my new found knowledge and attitude.

Paul says our body/health will continue to deteriorate with age and, well, death is inevitable. And no amount of Yoga practice will change or stop that. But if we continue to practise yoga, it will improve our mobility. The pain may still be there but at least we will not be, like, bed/wheelchair bound when we get old (for some of us, that could well mean in our 40s!). 

I honestly have learnt so much over the past five days and have met some wonderful like-minded yoga practitioners from around the region and this city -- Hi Shiang, Marcus, Mel, Kenny, Oxana, Stefane and Mel!!! -- I hope I will run into them again and practise together in the future.