Why I (continue to) blog about my Ashtanga practice

I was asked this question by a friend.

"Can I ask you a slightly personal question? Pls don't answer if you don't wish to. Why do you write? This blog, this way, this dedication to sharing? "

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Why do I blog? hmmm.

I started it for two reasons, one was the hope that by writing and sharing as many resources as I could about Jumping back for example, others would post/share with me what they had also.

The other was that all the videos back then were of Ashtangi's with beautiful practices, perfect jump back, marichi's, kapo's, whatever (actually there weren't that many ashtanga videos around at all back then and this is only a few years ago). I wanted to show the process of the practice, that I was struggling but perhaps getting a little closer too. I wanted to catch the very first unpolished jump back and then later my first drop back and karandavasana and kapo and then the little improvements, and writing about what was working and what wasn't. Thought that was more useful than seeing something perfect ( although they can be good for inspiration).

I think I've retained that idea throughout actually. I was one of the first I think to video and post my home practice regularly, now there are so many doing it, quite proud of the part I played in that, good for the home ashtangi's I think to have that connection sometimes, that encouragement and the inspiration when one of us finally gets it or even a little improvement.

Other reasons came up to keep it going when I was tempted to stop, I wanted to fight the corner a little for the home Ashtangi and question some of the dogma that I was receiving in some comments about what I should or shouldn't be doing, what constituted correct or incorrect practice (some of which I've since now defended, go figure). Much of the time though it was just to throw up my thoughts/current understanding on/of aspects of the practice in the morning and see if I still felt the same by the evening, somewhere along the line blogging became a habit.

And then I found I had a readership... from 13 readers on the first few posts to 35 to a couple of hundred a post. These days it tends to be around 500 a post, this last one on the Defence of Ashtanga has been visited 3,200 times already, crazy ( especially when you think that Ramaswami's wonderful article/newsletter on Duhkha posted the same day has received 150 - what does that say).

I'd also started to explore Vinyasa Krama and wanted to share that, raise it's profile somewhat (felt a responsibility there), promote an integrated practice of asana, pranayama, pratyahara and mediation practices that I wasn't seeing, the variations of asana available in the VK sequences. I wasn't ready to teach, to pass on what Ramaswami had taught me in a class perhaps but thought I could pass that teaching along a little through the blog. Plus I was puzzled by the relationship between Vinyasa Krama and Ashtanga, how I was drawn to them in different ways. I wanted to explore that and share Krishnamacharya's early and later teachings, wanted to show or at least work out if I was right in thinking it was consistent, coherent.

I also wanted to explore Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda in more detail, actually practice it and make notes on it via the blog, and then when Satya offered to translate Krishnamacharya's Yogasanagalu from the 1940's (one chapter to go) to explore that too. Which meant I had to stick with the blog at least until Yogasanagalu was completed.

So it's a mish mash of all those reasons, kind of feels like a job actually and I'm still not sure if it's me writing or 'blogging me' It's best when I don't think about it too much but just throw up a post, certainly best I think when I don't try to write for a reason or an agenda.

I'm often tempered to quit but so many seem to stop blogging after a few years, just when their practice gets really interesting. I'm only seven years into my practice and I can see it's changed, grown in the last year or so. I used to be just as wilfully ignorant as the commentor I responded to in the Defence of Ashtanga post, thought I knew it all and had something to say. I'm sure I was just as rude and insulting and patronising at times whether intentionally or not doesn't matter (sorry to everyone) bit embarrassed by probably 70% of my posts now, cringe when I read so many of them back, especially my comments but at least I was asking those questions from inside the practice from practicing it everyday for a number of years. I'm sure it doesn't make any sense from the outside, you have to practice the practice to make any sense out of it, any sense that matters.

Which perhaps suggests that I should consider exploring practicing with others, the whole shala thing and even Mysore itself rather than looking in from the outside ans saying that's not for me, hmmmm.

And here's the thing... what am I going to think, feel about the practice ten years from now or twenty?  I'll think I'm just as foolish now after seven years and thinking I know something.

I imagine Tim, Nancy, David, Chuck any of those guys coming across a post of mine and chuckling kindly to themselves thinking one day he'll get it, give him another thirty years : ) Can you imagine them sitting around in coffee shops forty years ago arguing about the same things we go round and round in circles over. perhaps it's necessary to go through the process, ask (mostly yourself) about the practice and watch your answers change.

Oh one more reason, M. works so much that I never see her, she loves to read my posts and see the videos of mini me. She goes into withdrawal if I don't post for a while.

Sorry, got long...probably because I've asked myself a the same question and really don't know why I still do it. Might turn this into a post