Burning Man 2008: Simple pleasures, simple truths

Is this utopia? A place where we all live in peace and as equals? It is so beautiful in the morning as the sun comes out. People are so joyful and friendly.

I had my first hot cup of tea this morning. Ahhh. There is a Coffee Camp with industrial-strength La Marzoccos and Seattle baristas (yay!), which is the only place you can buy anything with cash (besides Ice Camp) in this “gift economy.” Nothing else can purchased. You can give someone something, preferably something that reflects something personally, but you can't necessarily expect something back. I lent my lapptop to someone who was writing an email to his boss to say that he wasn't going to make it to work. I wasn't expecting anything but afterwards he let me pick a page from a stack of papers, which turned out to be a novel he had written himself. In another instance, a very handsome guy who walked by me slapped a sticker of my chest that said, “YOU.” “That way, if you forget who you are, look down!” he laughed with the purest sense of joy on his face. Of course, there's the usual SWAG (shit we all get) of glowsticks, flags, and condoms.

When I went to the temple two days ago, I was totally overcome by the serenity there. This is where people leave messages and tributes to lost loved ones, which are later burned on Sunday, the night after the Man flames out. Anyway, I don't usually get weepy over this kind of stuff, but I started to think about the loss of my mother and my wish for good health of my Dad, my family and friends. I also thought about my place in the world and how I might choose to live my life from here on in.

Yea, this is the place to think about big themes and simple truths.

Burning Man 2008: It has a beat (Thursday)

The most common question being asked at Center Camp is, “Can anyone get on the internet ?” It sucks here, but you have to understand that this is one connection for the 20+ users in the Playa Info tent at the moment. I'm told that other folks nearby are also pirating the line, booting us off, and slowing it down further. So I'm told by an IT geek next to me.

Yesterday was spent exploring the art installations on the main plaza, visiting the Man and the Basara Segura temple, which will be a lower-key burn that takes place the evening after the more wild and aggressive burning of the man. The quality of the art is surprisingly good. At least comparable to many things I've seen at municipal art museum.

The most interesting interactive piece I saw so far is a large sealed glass booth that produces soap bubbles filled with helium and other gas mixes, I'm told. The particpant outside the booth is uses a lighted stick inside to pop the bubbles as they float up the booth, and the bubbles explode is a fiery pop. Cool!

Yesterday was also a real test of loss and letting go. Mostly things like one glove, a little cap on my battery-operated blingy that is needed to make it work. This stuff usually drives me crazy. I also had bolts holding down my bike rack that I searched for ½ hour at Home Depot.

The EL wire fur coat is a HIT! Strangers, and people in my camp, make a point of shouting out compliments. I'll try to load a pic, but the connection is brutally slow and intermittant. Besides looking fabulous, there's a practical reason for being lit up at night. It's so you don't get hit by a mutant vehicle cupcake or some stoner dude on a bike wiping out on a mini-sand dune.

The parties last night were quite fun. I have to say that this music is totally foreign to me, but i think i'm hearing the difference between house and techno. One has melody and sometimes voice. The other music seems to focus on the beat or a groovy sound to create a vibe like mellow and chillaxin'!

Burning Man 2008: Princess Diaries (Tues & Wed)

The highlight yesterday was meeting this mobile pedi-massager. My bare feet were thrashed from the very alkaline soil on the Playa. I was wearing flip-flops and I left my boots and sneakers in the gear boxes that were being transported down for me. Duh. So, at center camp, this nice guy (who says he doesn't have a foot fetish), was offering to wash my feet, exfoliate, and massage mosturizer into my parched tootsies. Heavenly. A gay boy's dream...even if he was straight and talking about "chicks."

I ate another cold but divine lentil pouch thingie from Trader Joe's. Divine. It powered me for the rest of the evening to go out and check the sights.

This morning, my next-tent campmate was talking about taking a shower at the camp shower. He was also three days without a shower. I asked him how to use the solar shower bag. He assured me it was simple. So I went for it after he finished. I've never looked more forward to getting clean than today. The used wash water was surprisingly clean. Hm.

I might ask him how to use the propane stove tonight, so I can heat up hot water for a cup of tea. Ah, simple luxeries!

Burning Man: Coming through the dust storm

Wow! Talk about a trial by fire...or dust. I hitched a ride with a lovely couple from Brooklyn. They weren't freaks, and I chatted them up when I was at Whole Foods.

We arrived in a total white out. The winds were fierce and were whipping up all the dust. They stopped all vehicle entry after us, in order to minimize the number of vehicles on the Playa.

So I'm no longer a Burning Man Virgin. I'm also no longer a camping virgin. I popped my cherry twice so to speak. People back home will be laughing their heads off. I didn't even know how to set up my tent. I have to depend on the kindness of my Toronto and New York friends. I ate some cold Trader Joe's Indian Rice thingy in a vacuum pouch. It was elegant.

I am getting in touch with my inner filthiness. I have not bathed since Sunday and I have not shaved since Friday. Eeek.

Burning Man: Reno

Landed in Reno late Saturday afternoon. At this time, only the organizers and a few members of each camp are allowed admission to the playa, which is more than 100 miles north of Reno. They officially open on Monday after midnight. That's fine with me. I've been spending most of my time running around gathering food and other supplies to take up with me.

As expected, everyone else is doing the same thing. They're all scouring the shelves at Trader Joes, Whole Foods and the drug stores.

Had to make a last minute change to my plans. Hertz will not allow anyone to drive their rental cars off paved roads, which means I can't drive up to Burning Man in one of their cars. People do it, but I don't want to take the risk. Besides, I won't need the car once I'm there. If Hertz suspects that you've visited Burning Man, they will also add a $175 cleaning fee to get rid of the pervasive fine dust that will coat the insides of the car. Early reports are that it is very windy and dusty.

So I'm returning the car and hitching a ride from the rideshare location at Whole Foods tomorrow.

Wish me luck in flagging down a nice, roomy RV with air-conditioning and interesting people.

Carl is Craft-y

Well, in a previous post, you saw the amazing eye-pillows that Carl made with his own two hands and a wicked sewing machine. Now, I had to call on him in for a craft emergency. I had a feeling that the costume I had planned for Burning Man was going to be challenging, but soon I realized that I bit off more than I could chew. Thank goodness, we have a number of super heroes who practice at the shala and perform equally amazing feats outside of the yoga world.

My previous post touched on Pi'ikea who stopped the noisy construction workers from turning on the buzz saws before 7 am (give or take). On Laksmi's blog, she recreated real-life drama from our shala with her puppetry, and granted students expertise in problem poses. Now, Carl steps up and saves my lame ass from being more lame than it already is. A clarification though, he didn't do any magical sewing. I had to enlist a friend who specialized in sewing with EL wire. But Carl took it to its final conclusion.

I'm not quite ready to show this costume masterpiece yet. But I will, in due time.

Thanks, Carl! You get bonus karma points!

Pi'eacable Kingdom

Thank you, Pi' for serving a cease and desist order this morning to the construction crew and making them stop the noise that intrudes on our delicate and very important morning practice. We all appreciate your magical legal powers!

Adjustments galore, new sounds!

It was an embarrassment of riches this morning. The Diver was running over to me a number of time with his fab adjustments. It wasn't too busy. Ahh, just like the good ole' days. It was nice and warm so I was able to work up a big sweat.

I felt a bit weird telling the Diver about what I was doing with Fiona yesterday. It felt a bit, well, unfaithful. Anyway, he did try to help me recreate the backbends that cranked open my upper chest, but I couldn't duplicate the magic. The Diver did help me do a tighter backbend, but I'll have to ask Fiona next time what I'm missing.

Thoughout the morning, noises filled the room. We had new sounds of a piledriver pounding something into the ground and lots of hallway chitchat of the construction workers.

Way too much energy for this time of the morning!

Over at Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver

I wanted to get a quick post in before I got to bed.

This morning, the lovely Fiona Stang was teaching the mysore class. She usually teaches during the week, so I miss her, but it was good to have her help.

She gave me a few reminders/pointers that were super helpful:

1.) Ustrasana: Keep pushing those hips forward while lifting the chest up. Get the thighs parallel so they do the work and help open up the hip flexors. Having the knees wide works other muscles and is not as prodcutive.

Do the pendulum swing of going back more and more with each successive try. The Diver recommended this too. Time to re-incorporate it into my routine.


2.) Urdhva Dhanurasana (Backbends):
The neck: In prep, lie flat on your back, lift your legs straight up with toes upward. Get your neck in state of flexion by raising your head vertebrae by vertabrae. It's like an ab crunch.

The arms: Placing the hands in prep for backbends, keep the arms tight in the shoulder sockets. Fiona said you can do it yourself, but it's better if someone helps you.

The feet: Then place your feet on the ground. You can raise your heels as you come up on your toes and roll up to your backbend.

These tips were really great in helping me open the mid-upper chest. These pose felt totally different and it seemed to take a lot of the weight/strain off my legs when I did my backbends.

Can't wait to try it again tomorrow! Before I left, Fiona gave me a bunch of flyers for John Scott's workshop. Please join me! It will be fun!

I am not at the dentist's office

The construction guys are really closing in on us. Even before I rolled out my mat at 6:00 am, there was much hammering and sawing going on. It's not hard to imagine how jumpy I all got when the wailing of a saw was piercing through my head. It reminded me of a dentist's drill. Our former studio on the second floor is totally enveloped in plastic sheeting. The little studio on the third floor that we currently occupy has had a couple of beams and reinforcement put in.

So much for driste. My mind was chewing over all sorts of little details: what was going to be happening at work, how I was going to make my little outfit for Burning Man with glow wire, what I was going to do in Vancouver this weekend...

Sure enough, I had just one adjustment this morning where the diver stomps on my thighs like he's crushing grapes while I'm doing supta varasana (yes, a totally criminal pose that I do after laghu vajrasana). I can totally relax into it so it's not totally challenging.

So before my final pose, I ask the Diver to do a little forward bending acroyoga. He lies on my mat and balances me with my hips resting on the soles of his feet. He holds my hands as I bend forward. He stretches out my midsection and twists me around like I'm a piece of chewing gum. It feels great. I have to keep my eyes closed though, because it feels so intimate. But it totally makes up for the lack of adjustments that morning.

When we're done, I see that he goes over to Mr. A and helps him with an adjustment in raja kapotasana. The Diver pins Mr. A's shoulders back with his knees and Mr. A's head is bending back to reach his toes. It's an awesome post. But I can't help but wonder what would happen if Mr. A's head snapped forward like a loaded spring. Yikes.

Not that it would ever happen.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

This morning, the Diver dismantled my attachment to a certain spot in the studio where I ALWAYS practice and suggested that I find another spot, other than the one I usually take. Apparently, he had to clean up some dust and crumbs that were falling from the ceiling. Knowing how old that building is, I could see the possibility of larger chunks of the floor above come tumbling down on me. I trusted that the Diver was not just messing with me.

I chose a lovely corner spot away from the dust, and next to a mirror to my right and another one behind me. The Diver is not big on mirrors, but he did suggest on occasion that I do a few poses in front on a mirror to check my hand placement in utthita parsvakonasa, for example, and the angle of my knees in Parivritta Parsvakonasana.

Don't know why I hadn't done that sooner. It was very informative and helped me to do a bit of self-adjustment.

BTW, today I got one adjustment. Woo-hoo! If only I could remember what it was. Oh well. The Diver did say in his adjustment workshop that you want to be unobtrusive as little as possible when working with a student.

I know I can get more attention if I ask for it. Yesterday I asked him to do some backbending acro-yoga, which was awesome. He does all the work balancing and stretching you. The less you do, the better it is.

The purpose of your life

One of the more interesting characters I hope to meet at Burning Man this year is Halcyon. He's a 10-year veteran burner with a very colorful alter ego. (He happens to like the color pink!) He's also been very productive in producing numerous blogs and videos.

I like the one above that he put together on his LifeStudent blog. It has a very simple message that draws on inspiration from familiar sources.

If you're intrigued, check out this video as well. At last year's event, Halcyon decided to honor the memory of his late grandfather Caleb with a moving tribute.

Dodged the adjustment bullet today

Actually went through practice without any adjustments today. It was actually okay, even though initially I was feeling a little neglected. I don't usually get a lot of feedback from the Diver but it felt good today just going through the groove without a break in my practice.

In a previous post, I noted that Matthew Sweeney gives his students one day of an adjustment-free practice. It makes a lot of sense and I might just mention this to the Diver to see what he has to say about this.

This morning was a busy session for him. There was a relatively new student doing a very creative version of primary. The Diver handed him a cheat sheet of the poses, which he seems to study quite closely. Hope he doesn't get discouraged. We all had to start somewhere.

Yoga injuries: Healing a tweaky right knee

As any primary series practitioner will tell you, there are a lot of poses that involve bent and possibly torqued knees. I won't list of them here, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, in June of last year, the inside of my right knee started to complain in lotus and ardha baddha padmottanasa. I hadn't had problems with my knees before and have been happily going through my routine. I thought it was just a nagging tightness that I needed to relax into, but the pain started to increase each time I did these particular poses. Oddly enough, my knee felt free of pain otherwise.

I decided to cut out the particularly problematic poses and spend a lot of time babying my knee, doing lots of hamstring and hip-opening warm-ups. I also got some good advice from the Diver, as well as regular acupuncture and massage treatments. Sparkle Pony was particularly helpful in working her magic to zero in on my adductors and other weird little attachment points along my shin.

It's been getting better gradually. I took the Diver's advice about approaching the healing very slowly and to not overwork the shit of my knee. Patience and aparigraha (abstaining from greed of wanting to make my knee better) were keys to success.

I also consciously didn't want to blog about it and get all sorts of advice that might or might not have worked. Thanks, but too distracting. At one point, I pulled out a particularly painful Iyengar exercise that involves a dowel stick and wedging it in the crease of my knees and sitting in virasana. It's supposed to create space in your kneeds. Talk about excruciating! When I mentioned this to the Diver, his eyes just about popped out. After that reaction, I stopped doing it.

So finally, just over a year, I can comfortably work these poses without fearing I'm going to shred my knee. I still approach them with a bit of caution and try to make sure that area is warmed up. But what a lesson. It's not only working on the poses that are to come, but to revisit the old ones with a new sense of respect and perspective.

Sukha Sthira Asanam.

John Scott: Check. Burning Man: Check.

This morning's class was great with the master. The Diver was on top of his game. He paid attention to all of the 20+ students, which is no small feat, especially when there were a few newbs amongst a number of advanced practitioners.

We started off with his deconstructed Surya Namaskar A: Beginning with the synchronization of breath and the raising of the arms and adding the next element one by one before doing the full blown version. He reminded us that the practice is just about two elements, even though your body is moving and twisting in all sorts of directions and positions: feet grounded and breathing throughout practice.

He was also giving out the love on "frog pose" or adhvo mukha bekasana (knees bent heels up, grounding toe mounds), sprinkled at the end of each Surya B, and after each second series pose. Relatively new in this class, he had us lower the heels SLOWLY, SLOWLY while we tried to keep the deep crease in our hips.

Later, he worked in a super-wide-leg utkatasana and a "table-top" version, where the back is flat, arms are reaching straight out and the upper body is parallel with the floor. He called this the "shameless pose" because you are sticking your sitting bones out. You do that too for the previously mentioned poses too. Give them a try. They add a little zing as well as help you to remember the natural curves in your spine.
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Diver announcements: Some scheduled changes coming up. It's TBC, but he wants Sunday's class to be held in the afternoons so that he can "reclaim his Saturday nights." He also plans to add a Thurs night class at 7:30 pm. (Just be there Fri mornings, dude!) Velocity Dance (and ergo, the Diver) are still in the Oddfellows space for the time being (they're tearing up the 2nd floor bathrooms and there's construction shit going on in the main space). Apparently the builder is coming to a realization that he cannot find as good a tenant as Velocity AND also charge 3.5 times the rent. So, it sounds like we'll continue to practice yoga among the sawing and hammering. Good for focusing the driste.
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And from the Lame Department: I've not been blogging for the past couple of weeks. Got sick again with a cold and for an added bonus, caught pneumonia. I'm pretty well clearing out the last of it now (Azithromycin rocks!). Practice was a little congested last week and this morning, but doing it is very healing.
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Oh yeah, and I'm trying a new tactic of blogging without getting too involved with the pics. I'll still post pics, but I want to see if this helps me blog more entries. The next few might be catch-up posts from events past.

Now, looking forward, I'm doing prep for Burning Man, which takes place on the last week of August. I'm stoked. John Scott's workshop in Vancouver will take place shortly after that. He gives a great class. It'll be awesome, for sure.