Regarding desires for achievement

When I was practicing Ashtanga yoga regularly, I was trying super hard to learn to do every pose in the primary series as perfectly as I could. My deep desire at the time was to finish 1st series, zip through 2nd series (back bends are naturally easy for me), and then spend some years working on the advanced 3rd series.

When I started climbing, I progressed much faster than anticipated, from not being able to move to very much on the wall at all, to being able to hold on to some pretty bad hand holds with locked bent arms. I thought I would be able to keep progressing at a linear rate and hit the advanced grades at a steady pace.

This mentality makes sense in the 20s and early because the body can handle a lot of training and adapt to the intensity when one is young. I am very glad I exercised my body as much as I did in my 20s despite my culture (most of my relatives and many of my friends do not exercise much at all besides occasional walking).

Now that I start yoga again a little after many years of not doing it, the primary series Ashtanga feels hard again. There are very strong feelings in the hamstrings. I'm not sure if climbing tightens my hamstrings or is it simply from lack of hamstring-specific stretching exercises. I no longer feel the desires to perfect my poses again. I'm just happy to lightly practice yoga occasionally to get some stretching in. I'm still super motivated to continue hard climbing training, but I don't really expect to hit a high grade any more. If I were 25 years old, I would totally aim for an advanced grade, and get disappointed when my improvement levels off.

However, my mind still feels pretty unsettled even though I don't mentally chase high achievements any more. The formerly achievement-addicted mind still wants something else to obsess about. I will keep searching for "it" I guess, hoping to calm my mind and achieve equanimity.

Rock climbing progress after 1 year

The activity of climbing is like being on a hamster wheel or an angled treadmill -- you have to keep doing it to just move up in levels, or even just to stay at the same level. The moment you stop doing it (for more than a week), you slide back down in the amount of power, strength and endurance.

First I went on vacation for 3 weeks and did zero climbing. When I came back, even the simplest route (5b/5c) felt difficult. I guess that was somewhat understandable, given I wasn't exercising my body (especially upper body) much for like 20 days. But then, when I spent a month only bouldering, which emphasizes short bursts power moves, I also felt weak on the rope climbing wall, which consists of a series of moves requiring less power but more endurance. My wrists were really feeling it after a few routes. Climbing at my highest level (6b/5.10c) felt impossible.

Then when I started training for lead climbing (bringing the rope up the wall as one climbs, instead of having it set up at the top anchor, known as top rope), I picked the easiest routes on the wall (4 to 5bs). It felt super awkward to have the rope in between my legs instead of hanging from above. I also did not know exactly where to place my body to minimize energy usage. As a total chicken about slipping and falling to my death, I gripped the handholds super hard. One year of climbing seems to have provided me enough endurance to do a lot of over-gripping (read: waste more energy than necessary to keep me on the wall) the holds while still completing several easy routes. I would be sore the next day, feeling like I have trained pretty hard. Unfortunately, when I went back to the bouldering wall, I could no longer boulder at my highest level at bouldering (6a+/6b). 

So the situation for the last 3 months is somewhat frustrating, but also kind of illuminating about this activity. Even though I have been climbing every single week, I have been slipping back because I haven't been consistently pushing my limits. It's not like I feel I climb worse every week. In fact, I have been feeling better about being in a lot of awkward body positions. It's just that, specifically, hand/wrist strengths and power moves require consistent training. I can already see that by starting so late in life, I will not get super far in this sport. However, I am still hoping to build a foundation such that I can still climb 6A-6B when I am 50-60 years old.

Basic understanding / beginning interest in neuromuscular recruitment

I have been very interested in how the body reacts to a new physical activity ever since I started yoga. When I was taking physical education classes in high school, we mainly did ball sports, which require a lot of quick hand-eye / arm-leg coordinations, running, quick bursts of sprinting, and a competitive mindset. Because I have never been great with quick coordinations, I often lose the ball, be it soccer, basketball, badminton, or frisbee. I also lack the strong desire to sprint faster than the next person for a few seconds in order catch that frisbee or dive hard for that volleyball. These sports require a ton of intuition and spontaneity.

For activities like hiking, snowboarding, yoga, and climbing, it is a totally different mindset. You are in less of a rush. The goal is kind of to keep the body moving, to be immersed in the experience and feel the movements. There is also coordination required, but you are more looking in a general direction rather than at a specific item outside of your body. Of course at a competition level these activities can be fast-paced, but when performed as leisurely activities, it is more enjoyable to focus on the breathing, whether or not the movements feel smooth and natural, in order to enter a flow. While learning the movement for these activities, one even has time to examine the body specifically from within: Am I using my leg muscles correctly for this lunge? Are my cores engaged adequately for this specific move? I find the whole internal inquiry journey quite enjoyable. Perhaps it's because I'm ultra nerdy.

I learned a lot about anatomy and breathing in general through learning yoga. However, I know very little about how the nervous system adapts to exercises. I mean, my nervous system tells me how I feel in the body before, during, and after a yoga or climbing session, but I'm not sure how to observe the nervous system itself. I know it's ramped up as my heart rate increases and my breathing becomes quicker and shallower. When the heart rates starts to calm down and I feel overall less panicky during cool down, that's the parasympathetic nervous system at work. After a yoga session, I usually feel a sense of electric pulses flowing up and down the body, but I'm not sure if that's the nervous system itself or more of the nadi channels / chi / elusive meridian system.

For yoga, from not being able to do an asana at all to feeling comfortable in an asana, there is of course neuromuscular recruitment. But it is not as apparent as climbing, when I started from not be able to do a single pull up (in fact, I could only hang on a bar for about 2-3 seconds before my shoulders and just the whole nervous system screaming at me to let go), to being able to hang for 5 seconds, with no more mental panicking; rather, just the nerves on the skin on my hands ask me to give my hands a break. Now I can do some pull ups (not great ones, since I do not specifically train for them), and can do some lock-offs (hold my arms in a tight bent position for 1-2 seconds). That is an obvious neuromuscular recruitment improvement.

I need to read up more on nervous systems in order to better describe how I feel in my journey of learning to climb.

Climbing and yoga for someone with mild hypermobility tendencies

When I warm up on the indoor climbing wall, climbing simple ladder-like structures, I always get a pretty intense feeling in the shoulders. I don't know if it's blood rushing to the area or if it's fascia slowly adapting to my body weight. I feel a stretch all along my side bodies. I try to hang a bit, let my body weight pull open up and warm up my side body. I can do that a bit with my back body as well, rounding my spine a bit to stretch the muscles and the fascia. I can actually simulate the feeling of stretching (not the intensity though) by simply reaching one arm above my head towards the ceiling.

I asked my boyfriend if he also got this intense feeling of stretching when he warms up on the wall, and he said no. The difference between us is that I have to warm up on very simple routes with next to no strains on my muscles; otherwise the first climb would feel extremely difficult. He on the other hand, already wants some difficulty in his warm up climb. It's like his muscles crave stress already while cold, and my muscles are not capable of fully engaging before the fascia are ready. After some stretching and warm up, then I can start to climb harder stuff -- routes that require more muscular activation.

When I practice yoga, there are a lot of moves where everyone else feel a lot: for example my boyfriend feels a lot in any asana that contains a spinal twist, whereas I barely feel anything in twists. In fact, I hate the lying down mild twists at the cool down phase of many yoga classes. I don't feel a stretching sensation at all along the body. I just feel like my vertebrae are crunched and I'm probably overstraining my connective tissues.

I was looking up hypermobility and climbing, and people describe pulley injuries in the hands. I guess I haven't reached high enough difficulty to strain my hands so much to start getting those injuries. My fingers also don't contort into the shapes that I see in the images I google online, so my hypermobility is not severe. I am also too chicken to dare to try as hard as many guys at the gym seem to do. The list below are typical characteristics for joint hypermobility syndrome (JHS), and how I match to these symptoms:

• pain and stiffness in the joints and muscles [sometimes]
• clicking joints [yes]
• joints that dislocate (come out of the correct position) easily . [luckily no]
• fatigue (extreme tiredness) [yes]
• recurrent injuries – such as sprains [luckily no]
• digestive problems – such as constipation and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)  [sort of]
• dizziness and fainting [dizziness yes, fainting no]
• thin or stretchy skin [no.... I think]

There was another list of symptoms that JHS can cause, many of which overlap with the above list. But there are some additional symptoms that I do experience:

• back and neck pain 
• night pains [not really a pain in my case; more like soreness and erratic energy currents flowing through the muscle/fasciae that I overworked during the day's climbing session] 

The fact that I need to strengthen my muscles to protect my joint is the obvious one. Given that I haven't severely injured my body that much given my age, I am probably too careful and never push my body to its limits, which is maybe a good thing for my body. I have a tendency to want to compare myself to others, but given my body composition is so different compared to most people I know, I really shouldn't do it. Currently, my boyfriend notices novel muscular definitions on his body pretty much every week, whereas I only notice muscle tone progressions on a monthly basis. He does not get neck pains nor does he wake up in the night from soreness.

The website suggests that people with JHS should stick to low-impact exercises. Currently I don't feel like climbing is overstraining my joints. I really like how the activity improves my muscle tones. I don't love the imbalance I feel after each climbing session. I have tried doing online yoga classes on my rest days, but felt like it was not a good idea to follow a led class. Instead I should try to stretch and try different asanas on my own, be more mindful how each asana feels in the body, and back off on the asanas that really irritate the specific overworked muscle groups. It is not that easy. For example, back bends feel great after climbing, since climbing involves some haunch forward-type movements. However, urdhva dhanurasana (upward bow pose) can feel great and horrible at the same time). It provides much needed stretches for some parts of the body, but the shoulders and back muscles can feel really overworked. I probably should find some alternative backbends that can accomplish the deep stretching that I crave but not put so much strain on the back muscles.

There is also this electric current issue that is not really addressed by western physiology, not well defined by yoga teachings (in the west), and too esoteric for me to understand in Chinese energy exercise teachings. I really hope that one day I can find a teacher with minimal BS, who has sound knowledge of the body's energy system, who doesn't try to sound like he/she is superior to other people, and who doesn't try to put students down. This energy system is linked to the connective tissues, to mood, to how tired or energized I feel, to the mind, and to the physical health of the body of course. 

Yoga vs. Chinese energy practices

I felt triggered by an article written on Facebook by a Chinese osteopath master, shared by my cousin. He mentioned he is a practitioner of several Chinese kung fu / taichi / qigong practices, and he has treated many Chinese yoga teachers who got injured from over-stretching in yoga. He asked some of his yoga teacher patients why they hurt themselves over-stretching, and the yoga teachers replied that when they saw that some of their students could do certain asanas better than they can, they felt the pressure to "keep up with the students".  He explicitly declared he didn't know so much about yoga, but he felt that it is a dangerous practice, because the emphasis of the current yoga teachings seem to be on pushing students to get into the pretzel asanas whether their bodies are ready or not.

The osteopath went in-depth talking about the tendon, ligament, and fascia system, noting that a lot of his yoga practitioner patients had some body parts that are loose, say: hips, or hamstrings, but the ends of the bodies, such as attachment around the hands and feet, were very tight. This is because the whole connected fascia system needs some tension, so when we over-loosen some parts, other parts of the body would tighten up to compensate.

He feels yoga is a very advanced study, but not all students should practice the same asanas, because different bodies have different needs. He is also concerned that the teachers don't adequately teach how people should breath in each asana, for example, breathing from the chest or breathing from the abdomen. He feels that people could serious hurt themselves if they breath wrongly while going into these advanced asanas.

What he says about the connective tissues is fine, and his advice that people should not push to their absolute edge when they do an asana is also fine. What I have a problem is that he says "yoga is very dangerous" based on his patients. I guess his addressing women who turn off their common sense and decide to push their bodies to an extreme in order to look like "advanced yoga teachers".  Shouldn't it be that "lack of common sense" is dangerous? If you are hypermobile, please focus on the strengthening rather than the stretching aspects of asana. Even better, add some other exercises to your life, such as long walks, jogging, resistance exercises (lifting weights etc) or even dancing.

Secondly, a large part of his article is focused on his theories about connective tissues. This section sounded very complicated. I am not really sure if it applies to everyone or just "bendy people". As far as I know, my fellow yogis who constantly complain they feel stiff, even a decade later when their flexibility in the area they work on (say, hamstrings or hips) has gradually improved, still claim they are stiff. Having overly lax connective tissues just doesn't seem to be a problem for people whose bodies do not have hypermobile tendencies.  Even when they overstretch and pull a muscle, it seems to be quite local. However, this article was shared by hundreds of this master's fans, many of which are yoga teachers. I guess it's not a problem to tell everyone to be more careful when practicing yoga, but I just feel like people without hypermobile tendencies should have trouble truly understanding what he wrote, since they have never felt like their bodies are "too loose" while tight near the muscle attachments. But it seems like he got a ton of comments saying "So true!!" "Such a well written article!" "I learned so much from this article!" It left me seriously scratching my head.

Regarding breathing, he made it sound super complicated. People's natural reaction when they do a new, uncomfortable pose, is to hold their breaths. Or they can only do very shallow chest breathing initially. I feel like this naturally protects the body so people don't push past their range of joint motion on their first attempt. The solution is simply to back off from the full posture, and try to breath more deeply. Interestingly, he mentioned something about how good breathing should work based on his qigong knowledge, which basically describes mula bandha. I think what he means by yoga being very advanced, is when one grasps how mula and the other bandhas work, combined with correct methods of breathing, the nadis, the fascia system will be fully activated. Now, I have felt electricity running through my body sometimes during and after yoga practice, but sometimes I don't. I know some people who don't really feel the electricity at all. I'm not sure about other yoga styles, but for Ashtanga, the closing postures are quite important for containing all these activated prana/chi energy, so his worries are taken care of by the ancient wisdom of yoga.

I guess my annoyance comes from the fact that the Chinese way of teaching energy work is that "the body is very dangerous! Only move it in the way I, as a master, tell you to do so, and don't you dare to play with your body or your breath on your own! You will hurt yourself!" The thing is, in the beginning, the students feel nothing, because as beginners, we are not moving or breathing in the "right" way that facilitate the chi flow. The teacher then goes on and on about how powerful the practice is. While it is true when the students eventually do it correctly, it is sort of untrue for the first months, or even years. What ends up happening is a ton of people bragging about all the miracles of  Chinese energy practices before actually experiencing anything real. For the beginners, the movements are so mild that they don't really get a work out for the muscles.

With yoga, initially people only experience the superficial stretching, and balancing, and muscular work.  The movements are more dramatic. I sincerely believe that while most people get a workout while others increase their range of motion, many never experience the deeper work on the subtle body, at least not consciously. To them, yoga is an exercise routine. As for those who are hyper-focused on the human-pretzel aspect of yoga and who end up screwing up their connective tissues, well, I can only say I hope they realize one day that hyper-flexibility certainly does not equal health. I wouldn't say "yoga is dangerous!!" For me, that warning implies that everyone should stop practicing yoga immediately.

To summarize, I guess I have a problem with the Chinese way of viewing health and life. The west generally promotes that exercising is healthy (based on many many scientific studies). Yes, there are people who over do it and need joint replacement surgeries much too early in their lives. As long as  these people enjoy what their bodies can accomplish in marathons, skiing, cycling etc, I think the purpose is justified. This thinking of "don't breath or move the wrong way or you will hurt yourself" applies to people without basic fitness. The idea of training baseline cardiovascular and muscular fitness is good for you is just not fundamental in the Chinese culture. You can build some chi in the dan-tien (diaphragm) area, and/or you can also just build some core muscles. Both protects the body. I wish that in addition to warning which exercises or movements can hurt people, these kung fu / qigong masters could also warn people the danger of inactivity, which can be just as bad for people. The masters also need to realize that some people will claim they understand and can access the chi, but they never actually get it. Getting people to sweat and increase their heart rates are much more straightforward way of promoting health.

Sorry this post is so longwinded and scattered. I have many thoughts on different aspects of this issue that I just need to write them out on a page before re-organizing them.

Meditation works -- even if you are only half trying

After the "success" last time when I managed to stay awake the entire 45 minutes using ujjayi breathing, sadly subsequent practices I went back to falling asleep or paying too much attention to my mental ramblings half way through the guided bodyscan meditation. However, even though 95% of the time I could only focus on my body in the beginning and the end of guided meditation, I still feel very refreshed when I complete the practice.

In my regular life, I notice that I am more able to "be mindful", ie. focus on what's around me rather than being lost in my thoughts. I think the weekly practice of focusing on my breath or body really helps noticeably reduce my negative thinking train of thoughts.

I think yoga is also a way to practice meditation, or at least release the tension in the body. However the meditation course helps me to practice release tension even if I cannot do a yoga sequence. It is actually harder than yoga. By exerting the muscles, or holding a balance, or performing a stretch, it gives me a strong sensation to focus on. Bodyscan while inactive makes it really difficult for me to "feel my toes".... there are no sensations going on in the inactive body parts.

Now that I have learned some skills to cope with the racing mind, I need to get back to exercising after the course finishes so I can strengthen my body too.

Back to hot yoga

I finally managed to drag my ass to bikram yoga class... I would prefer to take up an Ashtanga regime, but I have to take into account of studio location, convenience (times of day I can go to class), and price. Based on these criteria, Bikram won out. It is really good to get back into some sort of exercise routine.. my body needed that. The first class I went, my quads were really hurting from stretches. I had no clue that my quads were that tight.... Shows how little I know about my body. My hamstrings also ached from forward bend stretches, but that was an enjoyable ache. However I'm not exactly sure if I should enjoy this kind of stretching aches. A positive thing is that my calves also get stretched in the process, so hopefully I won't be getting calf cramps in the middle of the night any more. My feet do still get cramps during class though (in Eagle pose and pashimottanasana A), so I still do carry some tension in the body. Hopefully they will go away soon.

My cardio has always been terrible, and in the Bikram room often my heart/lung feel the intensity more than my muscles. Even though this is not "true cardio" (not like running, swimming or jogging), I figure it'll still help my heart improve a little bit before I get started on real cardio workouts. It's been tremendously difficult to get started on any kind of exercise routine for me so even a baby step it a move towards the right direction.

My focus really should be on strengthening rather than stretching (except for the calves of course). If possible I should try to haul my ass into the gym as well.

I've been feeling less anxious than before.. probably a combination of yoga and an improvement to my current situation. I don't think I should take a break from yoga for such a long time in the future... was really sinking back into the feeling of anxiety, tension, helplessness, fear, and low self worth. Exercise is as essential as food and sleep in life.

Updates on taichi practice.

My beginner taichi class ends for the summer. I learned a grand total of 5 forms. Some classes I just feel bored because we don't learn very much per class, but today we did more warm up movements and I feel really great afterwards, kind of like the feeling after yoga practice. I feel really confused right now. The movements of yoga are so different from taichi; why would they both provide similar types of feelings of euphoria after practice?

It's really hard to understand the "chi", so I will venture to guess that making movements from the core, working the joints, and making slow, synchronized movements while breathing naturally with e movements activate the release of feel-good hormones, like endorphins, and releases tensions in the body. It's just what I need since I've been insanely stressed out lately. 

However, yoga has the added benefit of working the muscles, while taichi... Not so much. So while it is possible to distress and feel bliss from taichi, I still need to pick up some sort of cardio and strength training.

What's the most surprising is that with all my martial arts training, yoga and anatomy, the simple movements of taichi still surprise me. The movements feel totally novel. Just when I thought I figured out the secrets to Ashtanga and Bikram yoga asana sequencing magic, I am completely stumped by taichi sequencing. Guess I have to keep taking courses until I figure it out.

Cheating on yoga with taichi classes

I started taking taichi classes. I've always wanted to learn it so finally brought myself to sign up for a class. This is supposed to be a yoga blog and I'm supposed to be a yoga fanatic. However, it really difficult to be excited about a hobby on my own, with no one else around me caring about the topic at all. I've tried attending classes at yoga studios (both Bikram and Ashtanga, but not at the same time :P ). The enthusiasm of the students here can freeze the whole room. I guess it's the Scandinavian culture.

I've only taken very few classes so far, but happy to report that I really enjoy it. I can see why it's an art that's nowhere nearly as popular as yoga: the traditional way of teaching it is to be so strict about the placement of every body part that it makes traditional Iyengar yoga class seem like free-style classes. I'm exaggerating, but my point is that without a revolution/upgrade in the teaching style, this activity will never become popular in the world. I should note that I accidentally signed up for one of the less popular styles of taichi (because I didn't know anything about the different lineages before I started), but it's kind of like ashtanga, one of the "original" styles, which is harder to learn but "more aesthetically pleasing and more popular for younger students", so hey, works out for me :)

So the reason why I am practicing yoga less now is that my ligaments are so lax that I have a bad tendency to over-stretch, even when I'm practicing alone rather than in a class settings. This means that unless I become more mindful immediately, too much yoga practice is actually bad for my health. I think if I have a good yoga teacher who can check my alignment during chaturanga or something it would be really helpful, but right now I don't have any, so I'm switching to a milder activity in a small class setting, to learn something new, especially about this elusive "chi".

It's good to start a traditional course after being armed with yoga teachings from teachers with all sorts of backgrounds. One of the most surprising corrections I get is that apparently my shoulders still pop up a lot during a lot of my arm raising movements. I thought that got corrected out of my yoga classes, but I guess hearing the teacher verbally say "lower your shoulders" 1000 times doesn't mean I've actually achieved it. However, the taichi teacher is incorrect in saying the solution to my shoulder raising problem is just to "relax more" to lower the shoulders. It's actually a muscle pattern built in and I actually need to actively employ my lats to pull my shoulders back down. So until the new pattern becomes built in, the correct instruction should be "actively engage the lat muscles" rather than "relax".

For the past few weeks I've been trying to read up on information of taichi, and there's a ton of woo-woo, bullshit, and purposeful mystification filling up the internet about this activity (not much different from yoga I guess). I was lucky I had a lot of great yoga teachers with scientific knowledge who could demystify various aspects of yoga and show the benefits in the physical, spiritual, social aspects of yoga for what they are.  I think taichi teachings could a revolution like yoga, with dance teachers, kinesiologists,  massage therapists, athletes, scholars, modern martial artists, physiotherapists,  medical doctors, osteopaths, personal trainers all learning the activity and then provide their personal expertise and interpretations of the 'sport'. Then we can cut through the BS and identify why it is such a great activity. I must say that the scientific way of studying yoga and taichi (eg. patients with rheumatoid arthritis who did taichi 3 times a week, 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks showed better improvements than patients who took 30 minute walks 3 times a week for 8 weeks), while practical, is a very naïve way of studying such sophisticated arts. I would much prefer a dancer's (or 100 dancers, to be less biased) take on how he or she feels after 1 year of yoga vs. 1 year of taichi in terms of flow and other feelings/thoughts.

But until taichi becomes half as popular as yoga, we have Doug Swenson as one of the few people who do both I guess. However he positions himself as a yoga teacher. I wonder if anyone would position themselves as primarily a taichi practitioner with some level of proficiency in Ashtanga or Iyengar yoga. That would be pretty awesome.

Looking back at the past year

As I look back at my blog posts this past year, I have been struggling a lot mentally, despite my best efforts to grow out of my negativity. For me, the toughest part doing this whole personal growth thing, was that I kept reaching home to friends and family for empathy and support, only to be given   implications to "grow up" and "be more independent" and to take responsibilities for myself.

And with this "tough love", I have indeed grown much stronger emotionally. I have realized this is what made me move to Europe in the first place -- the fact I have very weak emotional and social support back home. It is a huge personal failure on my part. I have false assumed that once a good friend, always a good friend; that family should automatically be supportive and care about my well-being. I guess I was never a very good friend for my peers. With family, I guess all my uncles/aunts and cousins have enough family problems of their own that I end up as the least dysfunctional family member whining the loudest. I've been pretty retarded not realizing how much effort my cousins have put in to erect a false image that they are leading normal, happy lives. I seek them out for help, naïvely assuming that the image (stable careers, responsible husbands, happy kids, vibrant social life) is not in congruence with their inner psyche. Everyone else is desperately trying to suppress their emotional baggage, burying them as deeply as possible, while I on the other hand, have been aggressively digging through all my emotional crap, showing everyone and asking them to identify the contents for me. This hit a lot of nerves and that's why I've received a lot of cold, unsympathetic responses.

I'm not trying to say I am better than my extended family. I'm saying I just now figured out that I have been asking the wrong people for help... I'm asking people who have more garbage than me to help take up some of my junk. Of course they would refuse.. I would refuse too if my plates are totally full. This whole time I had thought that it was all about me... that they dislike me because I'm bratty, spoiled, immature, not lovable, etc.

I am lucky that my chosen field of study allows me to move to another continent at my will. Just like I did in India, while immersed in a totally foreign culture, I get to examine which of my values were culturally ingrained, do not serve me and can be let go, as opposed to values that are universal to human kind (or simply unique to this particular culture I'm immersed in) and should be treasured. I get to interact with people with other types of problem upbringings and see how they manage to partly function professionally. This sounds kind of horrible, but it's reality that most people in the world carry trauma. Some are more damaged than others. Some are less good at hiding their trouble than others. As much as I like to complain about my roommate and some of my co-workers, I see they are still able to master some aspects of their work lives, solving problems I'm not so good at solving, dealing with issues that I try to avoid/suppress myself, presenting themselves confidently in certain situations that require it.

All in all, 2013 was psychologically a very challenging year for me, but a lot of growth and maturity happened. I learned that I shouldn't depend on my family any more. It's good in that I will take more mental responsibility for myself from now on. The sad part is that this could only happen when I put up more physical and mental distance between myself and my family. The hard truth is that my extended family have never in their lives felt close to me. I'm the one who had been clinging on to them the whole time, the way my mother had been clinging onto me emotionally the past several years. It's a good thing I'm sorting out all my mental garbage just in time for a new year to come. 

Detox Flow

Downloaded Seane Corn's Detox Flow video and practiced to it today. I've done this sequence at a yoga conference before. It was really challenging at the time but I loved it. This time around it felt just as good, but less challenging/shocking for the body, which is a good thing I guess. Apparently even though I barely practice yoga now, my flexibility is still mostly intact... I'm even worried if I'm over-stretching a bit. Makes me wonder if I should be practicing yoga at all or should I work on weight-bearing / strength building exercises. The most challenging part today was actually the beginning where Seane asked students to hold a plank and then lift the knee to touch the forehead. I think my deep core muscles are lacking the strength/training and I couldn't do it at all. Also I could barely hold the dolphin plank. These are specific move/muscle groups I need to work on.

I kind of want to sign up for trial Ashtanga yoga classes in town but I'm too cheap to do it. None of the studios are close to home and I'm hesitant to sign up, fearing that I might not make it to more than 2 classes/week. Feeling so lazy. I was too spoiled in Vancouver with a studio 3 minutes walk from home and with a community of friends. I don't really know how to make friends here... people seem to keep to themselves. Or maybe I'm keeping to myself and am not trying hard enough.

More indulgence in yoga/meditation workshops

Sarah Powers was in town this past weekend. A friend told me she really loved Sarah's yin yoga classes. I'm not a big fan of yin yoga, not because I'm all about getting a work out, but because I'm paranoid about yin practice making my hyperflexiblity worse (risking injury). I am always worried about going into a stretch pose without also having my muscles engaged to protect my ligaments from being stretched as well. Bones shrink as we age, but ligaments, once stretched, do not shorten again. In the back of my mind, I'm always wondering if I should be practicing Tai Chi rather than yoga.....

Anyways, at first I didn't think her style of teaching would suit me. However, after hearing a podcast on her website, I immediately changed my mind and decided I really wanted to meet her in person, even if only for a day. Her Buddhist teaching really spoke to me over the Internet. So I signed up for her workshop. My friend warned me that Powers speaks really slowly (ie. could put you to sleep). I actually found her pace just right. Compared to Michael Stone, she could pass as a speed talker (still slower than average people, but shorter pauses between her sentences :-)  I know you're supposed to follow one teacher, but I found the two teachers complement each other very well in helping me understand the core teachings of Vipassana philosophies. Both of them are long term meditation practitioners, so Powers also gives off this uber-serene/contented vibe, and looks straight into your eyes while giving a public talk. She mentioned that people are normally energetically on the defensive side, to protect themselves from possible (psychological) harm from others, especially strangers. Meditation works to open up that block, making long term practitioners more emotionally/energetically open to people.

Forgive me for being vain, but she must be at lest 45 years old, maybe 50 (she said she's been in the same relationship for about 30 years) but she looks maybe 32 years old. Whatever she's eating/smoking/practicing, I'll have some of the same please :)

One of the things she talked was how humans minds naturally react to the external world:
1. We receive an external stimulus: a sight, a smell, a sound, someone says something bad to us, we step on a nail, etc.
2. When the stimulus is detected, our minds very quickly evaluate it and put a label on it: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral
3. We generate a reaction for this stimulus. If it's pleasant, then we are attracted to it. If it's unpleasant, then we're repulsed by it. If it's neutral, it's non-threatening but also non-interesting. The tendency is to ignore it.
4. Actions arise as a result of our emotional reaction to it.

For certain stimuli that we've encountered before, these four steps become automatic. An action happens (eg. we blurt out something hurtful when someone close to us pushes our buttons) before we even have a chance to think about it.

Powers said (and this was the most illuminating point for me) that pleasant stimuli don't necessarily mean happy pretty rainbows and puppies. Depending on an individual's upbringing, perhaps one has been raised in a way such that openly expressing happiness is threatening, so one is repulsed by that. Being cynical and depressed may feel safer. Perhaps in someone else's childhood, being judgmental, prejudiced, and competitive had always been encouraged, so that's what he/she is drawn to. Repulsion, disgust, and/or fear occurs when he or she encounters compassion, openness, and love.

So Powers refers to yoga and spiritual studies kind of a "re-parenting" process, which I thought is very interesting. I can't help but wonder what I'd be like today if I had come across this kind of teachings/philosophies, say, 10 or 15 years ago?

Luckily it's still possible to change our habits and patterns of thinking/reaction even in adulthood. As we learn to meditate, beginner meditators can delay the fourth step, meaning that instead of automatically acting out, we can pause, examine our emotional responses to the stimulus, and perhaps make our action not so habitual. This alone is difficult enough and achieving it, even if only occasionally, will make great improvements to our lives. More advanced meditators can influence the third step, meaning they get to a point where they no longer automatically generate intense emotions for the external stimuli. I'm not completely sure about this point. I thought it would be an ultimate achievement to catch an emotion as it just begins to blossom?  I guess people naturally try to fake this by suppressing an emotion that comes up when we encounter something dramatic, but suppressing is not quite the same as not having that reaction/emotion at all in the first place. The repressed negative feelings are actually what form the granthis (knots) in the subtle body in the first place.

She actually taught a lot more, but the main point is that meditation helps our minds get more focused, wakes us up from our habitual thinking/acting patterns, and aids us in gaining broader perspectives to life. So now I can't wait to do a Vipassana retreat. I'm currently on a wait list. If I don't get in, I'll have to do this a lot later, but otherwise, I'm set to go on one at the beginning of 2012. I must be one of the very few beings in the world looking forward to sitting around doing nothing except trying not to think for 10 days :) Just wait until I start to majorly regret my decision 2 hours into the sitting meditation :)