committed

Portable portrait of Guruji (Sri K. Pattabhi Jois), which travels with me.
Makeshift altar at La Zone, Maadi in Cairo, where I am subbing for friend Iman Elsherbiny. 

It's not perfect. But I've stuck to it--out of some deep internal compulsion, out of a great need and desire, out of love. And even though, on occasion, especially as the alarm harps on at crazy o'clock in the morning and there is this small sense of drudgery, that oh-here-we-go-again! feeling, mostly I wake up joyfully knowing that I will be met with both its unpredictable spontaneity and steady consistency. My eyes open and I am happy to breathe with it. The longing does not abate. I know that it is there for me, waiting and welcoming. Mostly, I can't wait to be with it, to spend the hours touching an intimacy like no other.

After seven years, this is the longest relationship I have ever had, this partnership with this mad beautiful ashtanga practice.

I realize that I've never been so committed; that no other part of my life has ever received such attention, such loyalty, such love and devotion. And while that in itself may be flawed, I cannot help but feel gratitude that something has inspired me so, calling me on to act day after day with remarkable presence. Even if the sense of fullness is sometimes fleeting, it has made me look upon each day as filled with the potential for growth. It has inspired me to love in so many levels--to love yoga, to love the practice itself, to love my teachers, and to love my fellow beings. Most of all it has helped me cultivate a profound sense of self love that I hadn't realized was even missing.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article likening my relationship with the ashtanga practice to dating, that we'd moved beyond flirtation and how we were properly, happily seeing each other. And what a beautiful time that was, how joyful to see our bond blossom.

We've been through a lot more since then, the practice and I. 

There have had some golden moments. The last couple of years have taught us to be easy and comfortable with each other, more forgiving, more patient.  

But there have been difficulties too. Being with practice is not easy. Frustrations at feeling stalled have played on me. Things don't always move forward at the same lightning pace. Being unable to move beyond one posture, for example, made feel as if we'd reached a plateau, that nothing new was coming and I feared the stagnancy of routine. 
  
I phased through moments of doubts. I scrutinized our compatibility. I wondered whether we were truly right for each other, whether it could truly satisfy me, and whether I could truly represent it and be the kind of practitioner/teacher that I felt like I needed to be for it. I feared its rejection, that I wouldn't be good enough. And then there were times that I felt fidgety and nervous and craved for more. I had to ask: could I truly commit? 

And, yet, here we are: wandering the world together, navigating the strange unknown with remarkable strength and flexibility, adapting to different cultures, coping with the stress of work, travel and movement, being mutually supportive but allowing each other the space to be. I could not imagine this life of mine now without it. 

The question of commitment, a non issue at this point, as I survey my life of, well, commitment to practice. The challenges come and go, yet the practice remains, however sweet, however difficult. It would not have stuck around if I hadn't willed it. If I hadn't stepped on to the mat and breathed it into my body day after day.

These days, I feel committed on a whole new level. 

That while the practice continues to be deeply personal, it has also become greater. That by teaching, my relationship with my own practice now extends to others. 

The authorization, the blessing from Sharath Jois to teach, I must admit, has brought a new sense of commitment to it. Fear, as well. Like a marriage, it feels a great deal more official. More serious. There is a greater sense of responsibility and accountability on my part. That comes with its own set of worries. But this, too, we are navigating together. The practice seems to understand my deeply ingrained fear of commitment and makes no demands. It accepts me just as I am. It bends to my need for independence, it allows me to be the autonomous, creative being that I need to be. 

And what I've realized is, that despite the piece of paper, the intricacies of our relationship is up to us, that we create the kind of loving, respectful exchange that works, that allows love to simply flow easily. 

Want to read more about the evolution of this constantly changing relationship to practice? To read the "dating yoga" blog article: http://realizingmysore.blogspot.jp/2011/12/dating-yoga.html

wandering student to traveling teacher

One of my first mysore-style classes
at Spirit Yoga, Osaka.

A couple of weeks ago, I arrived in Osaka and met up with two people I had met very briefly in Mysore: Rosangela and Simon from Brazil. I had just arrived to cover two months for one mysore program and they were a day shy of leaving after two months of covering another program in the city.

Such meetings are not unusual within the community of ashtanga-practioners who go in and out of Mysore. What was different, however, as we traded stories about the months since the shala closed in March, is that I was like them, I realized. They'd been moving around Asia and were then going to Europe to cover another program. And like them, I was traveling and teaching. Properly. Not just when I was at home in the Philippines. Not just on the side. Not by accident, which was a lot last summer. I was moving intentionally to teach and share.

I had been to the Philippines to assist after India, followed by teaching in Spain. After Osaka I'll be heading to Egypt, again to cover a mysore program. I had made a transition without being fully aware of it. I was a little shocked at first, then amazed, then grateful...

In 2010, I took my first trip to Mysore. Realized I knew so very little. The director of KPJAYI, Sharath Jois emphasized a lot during conference those months the importance of being a student first. It deeply resonated. And even though I had been teaching already, I felt that it was time to drop the idea that I was a teacher and simply embrace being a student.

And the Universe was good, complying and giving me the opportunities to move about, learn from amazing master teachers, from friends, and from loved ones. When the opportunity arose, I would teach but it was not my focus. I returned to Mysore again. Svadyaya, was a key word. I was constantly, it seemed, self-studying--on the mat, off the mat, from books, and from experience. I often emphasized how I was a student first. But what of teaching?

I still wanted to teach but didn't hanker for it, content to take the time to learn. Perhaps there was a part of me that took refuge in being the student, that my lot wasn't to teach--not yet! maybe never?--but instead to simply prepare. In the beginning, I honestly didn't believe I was ready. But in recent times, I think maybe I was scared. There was safe-ness to being the student. As a student, I was accountable mostly for my own learning. I was responsible to grow and expand for my own good only. And what if... what if I didn't make a good teacher?

I realize now how much I stepped away from the role of teaching. How I was happy to be the student around other great teachers, how I stepped aside for them, not just my seniors but my peers too. But if I were totally honest, I guess there has also been a certain amount of dissonance in this act, because I have learned a lot, because I also have things to share now--and because, I am coming to realize, I've always had to something to share.

Yes, I am a student. Yes, I will always be a student. I will always honor and respect and give time to my own teacher. To my Guru. And that there is always time and space to humbly be the student. 

But, yes, I am also a teacher. And am feeling my teacher-ness more now than last March when I received my teacher's blessing to teach. The authorization from Sharath matters to me, of course--the reasons for which could be an article in itself but I had wondered sometime in June as I blundered nervously through a guided class, whether I was really really ready, had Sharath made a mistake, had he misjudged me, perhaps I hadn't ripened? 

Yet, here I am. In Osaka. Called here to teach. Teaching. I get up very very early so that I can practice for myself but also for the students who will come and lay their mats down after I've finished. And when they come into the 6th floor studio of Spirit Yoga, they are under my gaze and guidance. For a brief moment, their practice is an extension of my own, their breath is my breath. And I try my best to be present in order to help facilitate the subtest of movements.  

Maybe Sharath's blessing is a part of an initiation, this coming of age that we perpetual students must also go through. 

Perhaps being really ready entails stepping into the role, not running away from it or being scared by it. Instead, accepting the responsibility that being a good student now also includes working towards being a good teacher. That all that self-study has to be good for more that just one person, that knowledge so dearly earned is meant to be shared.

And this fear of teaching? Trying to face it, to stare it down. I still freak out just a little bit here and there, I get nervous--about stupid stuff, really, like forgetting the opening prayer midway, or the counting, oh God, the counting! But those evil, little nagging moments of self-doubt, they are coming less and less, they are loosing their power. Last June, after my train-wreck of a class (mind you, the students were fine, only the teacherly were critical, god bless them!), my friend Paul was giving me feedback, I needed to simply practice teaching, he said. I guess that time was also a part of this transition. And, yes, I am reminded that everything comes down to practice.  

So, here I am in Osaka where students call me "Sensei Kaz," which for an American like myself is just so odd and yet so obscenely cool because I learned that word from the movie "Karate Kid." But it's also weighty. It comes with this new sense of responsibility. I'm not in my comfort zone anymore, but it's ok because I know that this is also the place where the magic happens. So, bring it!