Grey Gray Matter

Yesterday's asana practice was most delightful. We spent the first half of class doing sun salutations in the flavor of a combined effort of the group. Different students were called to teach their own version of the salutation. And each salutation looked, sounded, and felt different. Honestly they were all really good. Even as I write this I hate to label it as good or bad. It is as nondescriptive as saying a particular version was black or white. Maybe a better way to put it is to say it was more like a mixed rainbow of colors. From my years in the art business and looking and critiquing paintings it was a firmly held belief that when your mix all the colors up it turns to grey, which produced a muddled, 'bad', or undesirable effect. And sometimes that was true. But sometimes it produced something very interesting, and from time to time, surprisingly genius. There! Those are the words I'm looking for. Each of the sun salutations was interesting and surprisingly genius.

The second half of practice was taught by Kira. She taught a series of deep hip openers, including some interesting work in Frog. For me, Frog is a 'bad' pose. It hurts my ankles and my knees and triggers my emotional vulnerability. When we started heading in that direction my mind did a little 'I hate this pose. It scares me' but my experience in the practice was actually quite nice. Reconciling in my mind 'bad' pose, 'good' experience gives me pause to think. It serves to challenge my black and white thinking about yoga and embrace the grey. And grey is a blend of colors and exists in all forms of art. At this particular time in life, yoga feels more like art than anything.

How does this apply to teaching yoga? To me none of it is completely clear, in fact my whole belief system is undergoing a reality check and my brain's gray matter feels like it's in a blender concocting a grey that is totally foreign but on the other hand utterly familiar. Its kind of a cool place to hang actually.

So yesterday when I taught upward facing dog in my sun salutation I experienced a slight disconnect not only in the flow but also in my words. I used that pose because that's what is done in traditional sun sals. I didn't kill anyone doing it, but for my flow and bearing in mind the peeps who show up for One Breath, its not a smooth fit. Some kind of low cobra thing is much more appropriate I feel. It's a grey area and I'm looking forward to getting on the mat to explore and play with that a bit more.

I'm getting less attached to 'good' and 'bad', 'right' or 'wrong'. But its a hard thing to let go of when it comes to teaching. I have a lot of unexamined 'truths' I've picked up in the practice of yoga that frankly are a little scary to confront.

There's a quote in the manual that resonates with me today. Buddha said, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason an your own common sense."