Supermarket Sausage yoga

Multiple musings from a text thread.

The article your about to read or hear is a continuation of the last one, titled ‘flow, yoga flow’ because I realised that I didn’t actually summarise it, and therefore finish the article. I did have ideas for finishing it, however ,because I am so new to Substack, combined with my keen sense to put things out on time, it meant I only realised post publishing that I did not answer this question on avoidance and the subject of Yoga.

I must preface this article by saying that it would not be possible without the recognition of Shilina, a student and new aquantance, because much the contents were inspired from a text thread we shared recently. Many of the thoughts and phrases in this article come directly from her, and with that, let’s begin…

“Why do people do Yoga?”

Many years ago, in my mid 30s, I would go and see my first proper yoga teacher, my then Guru, who at that time lived in a house in North London. During each of my journeys to see her, as I approached her stop on the tube, an odd feeling would come over me as she tuned-in from somewhere inside the unassuming terraced house she had co-opted. On one particular visit, through the blur of incense, I can remember asking her a similar question. I felt the need to ask,  because at the time I was making my living from teaching Yoga, and since I could not attain the state of Yoga that she had, I asked her whether I was doing something good for the world. Her response was ‘that any form of movement is excellent for the body, and so all forms of yoga are actually really good for people, irrespective of the states of consciousness that they lead to. So, no matter the reason why someone begins yoga, it will benefit them.’

It seemed to make sense at the time, making the why question pretty irrelevant.

“Yoga is after all, a form of exercise”

Well, at least the form of Western Yoga seems to be exercise. I mean, the likes of Lululemon and Sweaty Betty have made millions, if not billions from the marketing of Yoga as being a sexy, sensual, sensible, and spiritual form of exercise. However, the modern form of Yoga really is still in its infancy. And I say this regarding how old Yoga actually is comparatively to how old jumping around in Spandex is. Don’t get me wrong, exercise is fabulous, as is spandex in the right environment.

But taking other historical examples of the importance exercise with regards to being fashionable, we need look no further than how the Greeks placed physical prowess in such high esteem that they encouraged its practice alongside the study of philosophy and other artistic avenues.

Taking our dog for its daily constitutional.

We don’t have to stop-still for long before we experience how our body requires some movement. Whether it be in the expression of uninhibited dancing or the good sweat after a vigorous bout of your favourite means of getting sweaty! Even the benefits of a stroll are apparent to any one who has sat stock still for too long.

However, as discussed in the last article inspired by my friend Charles and his study into Nei Gong, we saw how Taoist physical arts are essentially internal arts. The same must be said of Yoga, for the aim of Yoga (which is actually more attainable than I believed many years ago) is Union. The merging between one’s perception of yourself and your perception of a greater reality, including your inner and outer world. Walking, running, weights or team sports are excellent forms of exercise, but isn’t Yoga meant to be different ? Yet when the vast majority of Yoga that we come across, shows no real emphasis on guiding practitioners to this place of Union, nor the conscious creation of specific structures within your body, which to my experience are essential for the containment experience. I simply see a lot lovely shapes and spandex sales.

I’m not saying standard western Yoga is bad, but I am questioning, is it actually Yoga?

“Yoga is posture, and posture is prestige.”

I used to teach year long courses where we would look at cultivating a daily practice. A large part of this would cover ‘what’ we were practicing, ‘why’ we practiced it like that and the ‘how’ best to practice.

One of the stories I used to recount in these classes was:

“A yoga teacher, their students and an egg”

These once was a yoga teacher. A quirky, bright and bendy kind of being, who glowed with a whiff of wonderment. Even though they never asked for any students, they found they attracted had a whole bunch diverse individuals, all sharing an enthusiastic  desire to learn from this particular teacher. The students would attended classes weekly, openly expressing how much they loved the classes, and appreciating the quirky teacher, who seemed to love sharing their knowledge. Within these classes they’d reveal a new shape and posture, with detailed instructions for students to go away and repeat in order to be ready for the next class.  However, this was a quirky teacher, and one example of the quirk was seen when each student was leaving the class, as the teacher would hand out to each an egg before bidding them farewell. What was even more quirky was that the teacher would write the posture of the day on the egg!

The students grew curious as to why their quirky teacher kept giving them eggs. They came up with lots of theories. Some said it was to keep them mindful of the practice while they went home, as if they were not, the egg may crack and break. Others said it was the symbol of beginnings, like the “chicken and the egg question”, and it represented the eventual attainment of the posture written on that particular egg. But the most common, and quite frankly obvious reason was that Yoga means to yoke, and the egg was therefore a symbol of Yoga.

The students gradually gained a growing collection of eggs. Some of them even began to decorate these eggs in marvellous and flamboyant ways to celebrate their initiation to the posture, along with marking the accomplishment of what they’d learned.

As time went on and more postures were learnt, the outside shapes of these postures became formed, familiar and solid, and with this a confidence grew in the students.

One day, a particularly curious and chirpy student invited the quirky teacher round to their house for a cup of tea. Upon entering the teacher observed an alcove of eggs on full display. Each egg had been dutifully designed, decoratively decked out upon beautifully ornate egg holders. It was truly a brilliant display, and seeing this, the quirky teacher idled up and observed this alcove of artistic eggs. Then, turning as fluidly as water down a plug, they congratulated this curious and chirpy student on their marvellous display of dedication.

From that day on the quirky teacher, no longer gave the students an egg after the class.

Overtime, this led to a quite a few of the students falling away, choosing new and different disciplines. But the curious and chirpy student remained in attendance. After a particularly challenging class this curious student chirruped out,  asking “why have you stopped giving out eggs at the end of the class.”

To this, the quirky teacher sidled up, smiled, and pausing a moment to let the air settle, replied

“the eggs were for you to eat when you got home, as I thought you’d be hungry, but you obviously never ate them, so i saw there was no need”.

“But why then did you write the name on it, if it was just to eat?” the curious student chirped?

“simply so you wouldn’t forget”

The End

Don’t just read the shell, eat the egg!

For those of you like me who are slow, gullible and generally unaware of deeper meanings, I intended the eggs to be symbolic of Asana, or posture, because the only nourishment is found in their correct practice; much the same as the nourishment of an egg tends to be found in its consumption.

Other takeaways from the story are that when one is hungry, it is easy to be consumed with thoughts of yourself, and how important the feeling of your hunger are. Yet when one is full, it is much easier to think about the nourishment of others. The same can be said of posture, for when performed correctly, our ‘hunger’ so to speak is nourished, and when we come out of the posture, we know it has worked because we feel and act a little less selfishly.

It’s not the best of stories, but I did enjoy telling stories, and whether the students enjoyed it or not, telling it was a great reminder to practice what I preach, and pay more attention to the internal workings of what I was offering and less the external shape of how it looked.

Forced posturing or realised posture

This seems to me to be contentions subtitle, because the truth is that the external shape of a forced posture can look almost identical to that of the realised one. So, how can we tell what is posturing and what is realised?

The practical and pragmatic part of me boiled it down to this simple answer:

Forced posture is one where there is excessive physical contraction and unnecessary tensions, which can include mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual elements.

A realised posture is one built from release and connection, which results in balanced appropriate physical contractions, alongside appropriate and necessary mental, emotional psychic and spiritual connections.

To the trained eye the difference is palpable.

I must add that I can remember during my formative years of yoga practice, posturing inside postures burns way more energy than it gives. But the process of realising and unraveling these unnecessary tensions, then integrating them, seems be a great way to take the poser out of the postures.

We are lucky if we have four limbs, but in Yoga, we have eight

The inner workings of Yoga were outlined pretty much perfectly by Patanjali in his yoga sutras. For anyone reading this, who has studied these sutras in depth, please forgive my overly simplified interpretation of them:

They are

1 relationship to others/the world around you.

2 relationship to yourself

3 relationship to your body

4 relationship to energy

5 relationship to your senses

6 relationship to your mind

7 relationship between you and other

8 Joy

I will be breaking down my interpretation of these during future in-depth upcoming articles, because I found the journey from theoretical to living steps utterly wonder-filled. But for now, I will say that Yoga is the sum of the correct application all of the above eight steps. I will also add, and this still fascinates me, is that each step naturally leads onto the next. For instance, it is through our interactions with others we learn more about ourselves, and it is only through the interaction and relationship with ourselves do we learn more about our own body.

This leads me nicely into another point Shilina made, regarded the role of the eight limbs in the everyday yoga practice. For we can observe that when postures are performed in the absence of them, they can appear dull and hollow. It is as if the application of the eight limbs provides the energy to illuminate the filament of our soul, whereas in its absence all we really have are varying styles and shapes of lamp shades.

However, as my guru stated, it is obvious that even colour by numbers Yoga will still work, because the very act of moving in a certain way into a certain shape, will inevitably causes cracks in the surface of our ego, which  in turn offers us the opportunity to look deeper.

Photo by madison lavern on Unsplash, featuring spandex and posturing.

Everything Everything, and you don’t know what you don’t know

I listen to a lot of music throughout the day, and one of my current ear worm albums is by ‘Everything Everything’. The penultimate track on their most recent album is called City Song where these lyrics seem to, along with the melody, haunt me.

“How can you laugh at it if you don’t know the joke?”

There’s so much inspiration arises out of these lyrics, as my entire life seems to have been built on this entire premise. But coming back to Yoga, and Yoga teachers, we can’t really be overly critical with Yoga teachers since they, myself included, were never actually taught the path of embodying the eight limbs making the attainment of Yoga pretty much impossible. Which has meant that the west has done what the west does best, which is take something truly nourishing, pare it down into its most sellable shape, add plenty of man-made stuffing, additives and flavourings, and market it for the masses. This is how Yoga turned into what Shinila called “yet another sausage factory”.

Personally, I think sausages have their place in society, but it’s not something to be eaten every meal. Yoga on the other hand is the source of smiles and connection, so perhaps a daily portion of this would benefit us .

“Divine sausage and chips”

I have recently made a fast friend in a chap called Ian, who is my swim buddy at the London aquatic Centre, where we glide back and forth its 50 meter competition pool before enjoying a good natter post shower. Ian‘s partner is a phenomenal chef, which means Ian more often than not eats deliciously fancy food. He has though told me on many occasions, and in absolute confidence, that sometimes he really fancies, sausage, egg and chips. I firmly agree with him, having enjoyed good butchers sausages baked brown in the oven, with golden yolked farm laid eggs fried runny and sunny side up, along crispy chips made with potatoes grown in my fathers allotment. This lip smackingly lovely meal is guaranteed to hit the happy spot in my belly.

The point is that nourishing food will taste like good, nourishing food, no matter what shapes it is served up in. The meat from the sausage could be made into a stuffing or patty, just as the eggs could be scrambled or made in to an omelette and the potatoes from buttered mash to dauphoniose. It tastes good because of the goodness inside it.

Photo by Önder Örtel on Unsplash

Beating a retreat on a retreat

Last year, i was asked to teach on a training course, which coincidentally was the same course which introduced me to Shilina. My job was to offer the students some insights into yoga philosophy and the subtle bodies. Being a practical and pragmatic kind of chap, I chose to introduced the class to the eight limbs of Yoga within a routine they were already knew; the idea being to show them what’s under the hood of the vehicle they’re already familiar driving. I took my time showing them how certain moves showed a relationship to “other”, by highlighting how the opening of joints could lead them into the next posture.  Then how the closing of a joint within a movement direct us into a deeper relationship to ourselves. Further along into short sequence, a section requiring the release and catch of their arm provided the perfect place to highlight a relationship to our body, because we found that when it was performed with full commitment, it led to the dissolution of any tension held within the body. These are three examples of how the yogic limbs of Patanjali’s manifest within movement.

This helped develop a level of softness in the students. Softness is key in establishing an awareness of internal energy, so, it meant we were off to a good start.

I proceeded to show how attachment to breath could be relaxed by letting the movement breath for you, and from there it was easy to establish a singular relationship with the senses, or the fifth the relationship limb… and from there it was pretty easy to flow Into a state of Yoga.

Getting feedback from students is never a huge priority for me, as I like to allow folk the space of their own process. However, the energy of the room radically shifted during their explorations, to the extent that the silence in the final meditation felt like sunshine.

A quick side note, showing the inner workings of yoga inside someone else’s work was not the best judgement on my part, making my retreat from this retreat a welcome one.

To sum up so far, Just as, with the right ingredients, it is possible to make a divine meal from sausage, egg and chips; I don’t think it is actually that hard to take any yoga shape or flow, and uncover within them with the inner workings of the eight limbs.

So, is modern yoga a form of avoidance after all?

Since I didn’t answer this question in my prior article, I write this sentence with a big smile on my face, because it is an excellent example of how easily distracted we are in this day and age.

For instance, we can go into a yoga teacher training course with the best of intentions, but then having to be fed anatomy and philosophy, learning flow routines, then breath-work, and teaching pedagogy, plus business acumen, not to mention the hard work of the many Asana classes. It is hard enough to learn to hold onto out intentions at the best of times, but under this kind of study schedule, it would be all too easy to come out of the other side forgetting why they entered it in the first place. A bit like looking for something specific on social media and then an hour or two later coming off from our screen still unsure as to whether we have found what we were looking for, having been distracted by all manner of other interesting content.

We must then add to this the fact that we don’t know what we don’t know, so how can we know if we know we have obtained a state of Yoga during our training? Surely just by saying we have would mean that we have? If I serve up any old sausage eggs and chips saying that it’s divine, to anyone who’s never had it before, then they may well agree. Especially when we bolster this claim with the blessings and certification from our teachers and the course. We don’t know it’s not divine, and we’ve been told it is, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t then go out serving our sausage, egg and chips as though it isn’t .

I’m getting peckish now.

All this talk of divine sausages, eggsquisite eggs and charmed chips is making me a bit hungry, so it is time to sum up so I can serve myself some supper.

Serve anyone the very best ingredients, cooked to perfection, adding the essential ingredient of love, and I would guarantee that most folk would feel something inside,which would result in them speaking up to express their enjoyment and gratitude for the meal.

Yoga means union, and union by its very nature, means you plus something other than you. I don’t known about you, but when am served a truly wonderful meal, a feeling of gratitude bubbles up from deep within me to burst forth in the shape of wide eyed smiles and excited clapping. I don’t know where this gratitude comes from, as it seems to originate somewhere beyond the boundaries of me. i would guess it is the same place which electricity comes from to illuminate a lamp shade or the thing which organises the miracle of many moments that makes the sausage possible.

Finally, the answer I’ve we’ve waiting for…

Is the sausage machine of Yoga a form of avoidance?

Unquestionably, yes!

However, if performing any old yoga brings us any form of nourishment, we are one step closer on the path to discovering that divine daily sausage. In the grand scheme of things, any meal offered to the hungry can be a good thing, therefore factory packs of spandex filled Yoga classes are also good.

I am however truly, and contentedly pleased to have finally seen the joke, and begun to chuckle at it all.

I thank you for reading and or listening this far.

My sincere thanks you to Shinila and ‘Everything Everything’ for the Inspiration for this article, as I very much enjoyed writing it