AYA2 (Ashtanga) House recommendations....for the Home Ashtangi

No doubt the main area the Home Ashtangi and the Shala Ashtangi part ways is in the question of relationship, we practice at home, solo, we have no relationships. This chapter (see below) perhaps provoked the most reflection for me, sometimes painful or at least uncomfortable, it's the area in which I'm most stubborn.

Are we missing out? Hard perhaps not to feel that you are on reading this section. No doubt we gain/develop something too, an independence and self reliance.... I'm reminded of the suggestion that Ashtanga focuses on the breath therefore Ashtanga includes pranayama, that Ashtanga encourages a highly focused drishti therefore Ashtanga is meditative. And yet if you actually practice pranayama and if you practice meditation then it's pretty obvious that it's not the same thing. Ashtanga is excellent preparation for pranayama and seated meditation but it's no substitute for either. In pranayama you're just focused on the breath, nothing else is going on, same with your seated meditation. Likewise perhaps with Shala practice. We might argue that the Mysore shala is a room is filled with eighty solo practices or a smaller Shala being a room with ten solo practices but that's not the case, not really. Home practice is solo practice, the only energy in the room is your own, the motivation, encouragement, the discipline.... the will is yours and yours alone. If there's any surrender, going on it's directly to the practice, your 121 is with the divine.

That's the stubborn bit, there's truth there and yet.... 

I think my practice has been developing nicely thus far. I've stuck with it for six years plus, managed to get on the mat everyday for practice. I've progressed through to Advanced B, realised the error in racing ahead and gone back to basics, to foundations... first principles, developing a practice with a stronger focus on the breath. I've moved into the other limbs, studied shastras somewhat.... it seems to be moving in a healthy direction but have I really done that solo?

Haven't I built relationships through blogging about my practice,? It's not the same perhaps as sharing a shala and yet there are nodding acquaintances, regular readers who never comment but I recognise their flag and less commonly noticed city come up on the Feedjit gadget, I know they come, that we share a practice. There are others who comment regularly as I do on their blogs and then some who have become dear friends, there's love here. And trust, not afraid to be critical at times to question each other strongly, there's also support and encouragement.

How can I say this is a solo practice.

And then there are the online teachers, some we learn the odd tip or trick from others we become attached too, Richard Freeman for one. I've read his book, his articles, practiced along with his DVDs over and over, listened to all his dharama talks and when I eventually took a workshop with him his voice and mannerisms were so familiar that I felt I'd known him for years.

It's one way (although isn't he speaking to us), not the same but there is relationship there...of sorts, isn't there?

It's not the same because I eventually studied with Ramaswami and developed a relationship with a teacher, I know the difference now, but even here despite the support and the encouragement over the last few years I only actually spent one month with him....he spent thirty years with his teacher Krishnamacharya, much of that time visiting him daily. Pattabhi Jois similarly spent twenty years plus studying with Krishnamacharya, Manju and Sharath spent similar lengths of time practicing and studying with their father and grandfather. 

Is such practice and study, a relationship with one teacher still possible in this day and age and in the West.

Well yes, it seems it is and it's something Angela is touching on here. It's an available aspect of Ashtanga practice, that six day a week practice with one teacher, year in year out....it does give me pause.

Is it too late?

And what of the relationship we have with ourselves. Angela suggests at some point that we look for a teacher who know something we don't. For me that would be my common sense self, that side of ourselves that we listen to when we're tempted to get all gung-ho in our practice. How many other aspects of self do we have to listen to. How far can we equate the idea of the inner guru idea with the external teacher.  Argument goes that we're already Ishvara, already Buddha, already divine, we just have to chip away the marble. 

If this is the only teacher available to us in our solo practice, how do we listen....

Here's Angela's 'Relationship' section in full because this began as an Ashtanga at Home blog and us Home Ashtangi's perhaps we have a lot to hear from it. Besides, I want to give more of a feel for the marriage of tone and design of this big/little booklet

If you Like Laura's design of the book you might like to wander over to her website and have a look at her portfolio, we all have a book in us....or two