• During the last two morning practices, when I first bent forward I felt a pressure-pain in the vicinity of my left temple.
• Though it’s not with me at the time of this writing, the last (recurring) discomforts I had in my lower back presented on the left side.
• In warrior posture variations, when my left leg is forward (stretched on the back side) – I have less range of movement then on the opposite side.
• In assymetric seated forward bends I have less opening-range in the left then I do in the right hip.
• My left shoulder and it’s surroundings have known tensions and pains in recent months (projected as far as my heart in Pranayama practices when breath is focused into the chest).
• In Pranayama my left nostril is more blocked then my right nostril.

Left is feminine, moon, yin …

I miss creating, most of creative energies are currently being expressed at the computer …

As leftover money diminishes, faith is recurringly challenged …

Fear lives alongside prosperity and appreciation …

Continuous Breathing

One way to maintain a smooth transition is to keep breathing. Whatever breathing technique you use in your practice, you can continue with a few basic ujjayi breaths which don’t require nostril control. So as you lower your arm back down you are maintaining a continuous breathing experience – sustaining the qualities of the practice. Similarly you can continue the same ujjayi breathing pattern as you move to stop the metronome and then continue for a few more breaths counting inside without the guidance of the metronome.

I recommend an ujjayi breath that is:

1. Shorter  – between one half and two thirds of the inhale length of your practice.
2. Symmetrical – equal inhale and exhale.
3. No holds – do not pause the breath between inhaling and exhaling, stay with a continuous and fluid movement.

Butoh

In the bigger picture of Yoga – Pranayama is a transition from asana to meditation. When I continue into meditation I use an additional gesture – delicately bringing together each thumb and forefinger until they gently touch. The gesture, as it was taught to me, has a containing and sustaining quality to it. Sometimes I would use the last exhale to slowly bring the fingers together. Recently I’ve made a connection to another practice I once experienced – Butoh.

Butoh is a form of Japanese body/movement theatre. One of the qualities in it is slow and attentive movement. The beginning of this video demonstrates this quality – notice how slowly the lighting comes into the space and for movement to take place (there is much more then to Butoh then slow movement as you can see in the second part of this clip and even more so in the third part).

So I’ve been playing around with an application of this idea from Butoh into the gesture of touching thumb to index finger. The transition is now longer, it continues from a refined breathing into a very refined, barely perceptive movement – that together lead into a special experience of stillness.

You can move the fingers on both hands at the same time or you can do it one hand at a time. You can start by moving slowly and then gradually develop that into slower and slower movement – it cane take 20 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 10 minutes … there is no limit to what you can do with it.

It’s been an amazing support in further refining the transition from Pranayama into meditation.

Play around see what happens and please come back and share your experience

For one thing, just a couple days earlier, Google had publicly estimated that 200,000 Android smartphones were being activated daily by cell carriers on behalf of customers …

… Google gives away Android to handset makers for free. But not to worry, says Mr. Schmidt: “You get a billion people doing something, there’s lots of ways to make money. Absolutely, trust me. We’ll get lots of money for it.” …

… “I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” he elaborates. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” …

… Let’s say you’re walking down the street. Because of the info Google has collected about you, “we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are.” Google also knows, to within a foot, where you are. Mr. Schmidt leaves it to a listener to imagine the possibilities …

I am greatful for Google Search, it makes it possible for me to reach the online world and for the online world to reach me. BUT I never logon to Google for ANYTHING – NOTHING WHAT SO EVER. I occassionally delete what cookies they do leave behind (quite a few). I trust Google completely to do what is best for their business – which will always require them to bend & stretch the limits of privacy to server their business needs.

How much you depend on and like  Google defines how much abuse you will be willing to tolerate from them. Google will cash in on everything you “like” about it. If you trust Google with anything other then search then you are an IRRESPONSIBLE  FOOL – YES YOU! A fool because you should know better, irresponsible because your poor choice effects not just you, but the people in your life as well.

I don’t and won’t live in a future where a corporate information service is breathing down my neck. There is a better, doable alternative.

My current morning Pranayama practice is:

My current evening practice:

Recurring ideas/terms in observation:

• Late/Early Morning: early morning practice begins before 07:00am, late morning usually around 08:30. Body is very different in the late morning – warmer, more dynamic, lends itself to movement – but there are more disturbances in outside world.
• Panick Exhale: a combination of mind and body experience when extending overall breath length – manifests in exhale. Mind expresses a sense of urgency early in the exhale – as if it isn’t expecting to hold out. Breath demands refined attention – usually ends up with a push and struggle in the end (manifesting as overly-tight abdominal control).
• This period of observation is fairly aligned with the phase of Andreea’s cycle in which ovulation takes place. We are open to pregnancy – which makes this a more physically taxing period of the month for me. Pregnancy has brought with it much tapas – and this is an emotional period for Andreea and therefor also emotionally taxing on me. I need to remember that this is a period of sustaining.
• The eletric metronome I am using has a flashing light in addition to the sounds. After practicing numerous times in relative darkenss and noticing the light more often then I care to admit – I realized that my eyes are having difficulty staying closed peacefully.
• I have known a more subtle experience of Pranayama – I feel that life frictions are effecting the quality of my breath. Dealing with frictions in Pranayama does seem to offer support in life – is it possible to take it further?

Observations:

“Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there is so bright that I duck … I look back up and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. Clouds form and disappear again – from the compression and expansion of the shock wave.

Finally, a big ball of orange, the center that was so bright, becomes a ball of orange that starts to rise and billow a little bit and get a little black around the edges, and then you see it’s a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat.

…

Finally, after about a minute and a half, there’s suddenly a tremendous noise – BANG, and then a rumble, like thunder – and that’s what convinced me … the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it had really worked.

The man standing next to me said, “What’s that?”

I said, “That was the Bomb”.

…

After the thing went off, there was tremendous excitement at Los Alamos. Everybody had parties, we all ran around. I sat on the end of a jeep and beat drums and so on. But one man, I remember, Bob Wilson, was just sitting there moping.

I said, “What are you moping about?”

He said, “It’s a terrible thing that we made.”

I said, “But you started it, you got us into it.”

You see, what happened to me – what happened to the rest of us – is we started for a good reason, then you’re working very hard to accomplish something and it’s a pleasure, it’s excitement. And you stop thinking, you know; you just stop. Bob Wilson was the only one who was still thinking about it, at that moment.”

Richard Feynman from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

@gregorylent thank you and pleased to meet you I agree, Pranayama is one of the most potent and least known of the Yoga arsenal in reply to gregorylent #

my mind is twisted from math & geometry, moving illustrated joints around each other has boggled my mind, off to find mental release #

@gregorylent then it is also natural that china will suck out of capitalist countries – also just for the bucks in reply to gregorylent #

@gregorylent have u tasted Robert Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality? Great/useful tools 2 answer "what is better/best" http://bit.ly/cx43tR in reply to gregorylent #

@gregorylent thank you for taking the time to look around in reply to gregorylent #

@gregorylent when the mind settles (and stays put) it is indeed almost as if Yoga does me in reply to gregorylent #

@gregorylent such practices are a rare gift, and in general as the years go by I feel a need to re-examine what is "practice" in reply to gregorylent #

@Shuliji "malfunction" is actually a function too – usually protective in reply to Shuliji #

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A new Yoga thread has now graced my life. I am beginning a process, guided by my teachers, of exploration and refinement of Pranayama. It is intended both to address my current being and to be a systemic process of inquiry into potential qualities of Pranayama practices.

I subscribe to my teacher’s view that of all the tools of Yoga, Pranayama is one of the most effective and useful tools for practitioners of this day and age. Yet is it one of the least known and most neglected teachings of Yoga. Pranayama is a subtle and refined practice, it takes consistent long term effort to experience and appreciate – one can almost see it as a teaching of subtlty. Practicing Yoga asana without a consequent Pranayama practice is like cooking a great meal and then not eating it.

Though I have written about the basics of breathing and Pranayama practices I have not yet gotten around to writing about the process of developing a Pranayama practice. Not for lack of wanting, but rather because I couldn’t find a point of origin nor envision a good path that I felt would be useful in this technological medium. I am therefor happy to share and document my personal experiences as this new personal journey of exploration presents new momentum. The Journal can be accessed using the new “Pranayama Journal” content category.

Point of Origin

Over recent months I have managed to create a fairly regular day-to-day existence. On top of it I have managed to stabilize a highly regular morning practice which includes 40-60 minutes of asana practice followed by a Pranayama practice and a short meditation. I am also looking to create a window for a regular evening practice of similar length (though different qualities) followed by an additional variant of Pranayama.

During my first years of quality practice I had easy access to Nadi Sodhana. Yet after a few years my nostrils developed a regular kind of congestion which prevented me from experiencing a quality NS practice. For many years this led to frustration (on numerous levels) – until at some point I came to peace with it. Some years ago I consulted with a medical specialist who said that my nasal tissues (which act as a natural air filter) are slightly inflamed. Her suggestion was an invasive procedure in which these tissues would be trimmed to re-enable a regular flow of air. She could not offer any insight as to what may have cause this. I didn’t go through with the procedure.

The primary Pranayama technique I currently use is therefor Anuloma Ujjayi. I practice with a 10 second inhale with a crown practice formula of [ 1.1.2.0 ] – which translates into [ 10.10.20.0 ]. Generally my practice is 30 breaths long – 5 sequences of 6 breaths each. My observation has been that when qualities of focus, quiet and physical vitality are present – I can comfortably contain this practice, otherwise it may lead to exertion and tension. I usually don’t approach this formula in my morning Pranayama – I do so in the evenings if I feel that I have successfully created the conditions for it.

My overall objective in practice is to maintain a soft, open and faith-filled heart, sustain a sense of health and vitality in the body and a quiet and fear-free mind.

First Steps

The first steps are about observation:

• Create a month long journal of observation of my Pranayama practices and their relationship to other movements in my life.
• Replace my evening Pranayama practice for 10 days with a simple, continuous, steady and accessible practice of 6.0.12.0 for 40 breaths and to observe the qualities of breath in this setting.
• Start oiling my nostrils with almond oil in the mornings.

Though it is offered in the context of software (which is only mentioned for 2 minutes towards the end of the lcture) – it is a great talk about a wider concept of design. It is an accessible and enteraining talk – and if you are a computer user may be able to relate to the suffering inflicted on you by poor software design (which is abundant).

Oh … and if you noticed Joel mentioning Kathy Sierra and wondered who she is – here is a great talk she gave at a WordCamp SF 2008 and these are the remnants of ber blog.

Enjoy

The summer heat was not as intense as it could have been – living at this higher altitude in the north means pleasant air throughout most of the day and low humidity. Evenings are a pleasure. Still spending most of the time at home, except for shopping or going out to eat once a week in a neighbouring village.

My practices are finding a new regularity and stability. I was able to gain momentum into experiencing a wholeness and focus in practice. I am practicing almost every morning. Pranayama is also becoming a more regular practice. There have even been days where I’ve been on the mat more than once. I have also tasted again the sweet intensity of an evening practice.

There was one defining event in July. I had the honor and pleasure of helping my teacher migrate from three outdated web-sites to one integrated modern, easy to manage website. The work itself was extremely rewarding (still ongoing) – there was plenty of motivation, excellent and open communication and rewarding results. But even more so was having the opportunity to be in touch with my teacher – it confirmed and reinforced my presence and my direction, it affected the quality of presence in my practices, it gave me an opportunity to gain a deeper perspective into the work and the questions that my teacher faces – a very grounding experience.

Though I can’t place a finger on it, I feel that Andreea and I have created new subtle links between us – that our relationship has been somehow refined. We have separately and together found a way to transform our fears, tensions and uncertainties into appreciation, embracing and growth. There has been a subtle but clear shift in my perception of our relationship and relationships in general. I see better.