Combinations

My New year, as far as practice goes, tends to start around February/March. We were Burgled in February 2007 and I took up meditation as a response, Vipassana after hearing a podcast, rather than the Zen I had explored years before. A month later I took up yoga, the book from the library just happened to be Ashtanga.

So Vipassana and Ashtanga by accident, on a whim, a jerk reaction...

Somehow that doesn't seem quite right, doesn't seem to explain it. I've practiced pretty much everyday since (was never really one for rest days), getting up in the early mornings, in the dark and sweating buckets over a couple of hours. Mostly I've practiced twice a day, yoga in the morning, meditation in the evening and probably a little extra asana practice in the evening as well. And of course this isn't just me, I'm sure for most of us it's the same, one day a friend drags you along to a class or you pick up a book and then began to practice everyday, every morning.

On a whim, an accident, a jerk reaction....

So perhaps it's not a whim perhaps the guru within has been whispering for a while, kind of like the nutritionist within that gives you a craving for fruit, a better diet one morning.

And perhaps it wasn't an accident. For me it had to be Ashtanga, I've looked at other styles of yoga since and though I love Vinyasa Krama now it wouldn't have been right for me at the time, I needed something extreme, full on, to build the discipline.

And I keep coming back to Ashtanga despite everything that irritates and frustrates me, the contradictions and occasional absurdities, some of which I've no doubt contributed to ( sorry), for all the nonsense and pretensions it's still a beautiful practice that just seems to suit me. Perhaps because I used to run through Kata every morning in my martial art days or used to like gladiator movies and am drawn to the basic, shorts and mat simplicity, perhaps I just like to fly, either way it doesn't seem such an accident that it's ashtanga, that it's still ashtanga.

I'd titled this post 'Combinations', it was supposed to be about how I struggle to find the right combination between Ashtanga, Vinyasa Krama, Vipassana, Pranayama, how best to structure an ever growing practice, which to do in the morning and which the evening. How to work 90 minutes of Ashtanga, an hour of Vinyasa Krama, forty minutes of Pranayama and and fifty minutes Vipassana into my day let alone chanting and reading. Which gets cut back or sacrificed... typical housholder problem. However, the post seems to take a different direction,

...an accident?