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!

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.

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.