bad yogi dreams of flying

A sailboat off Southwold beach, dark clouds.





There's a lot of perky yoga stuff out there. Kind of blends in with late capitalism's ability to eat good intentions and spit them out as a list of products along the margins of our lives. I hope that this space can be more sacred and grumpy. More attentive to the dream that wakes you at 2 a.m., or to the little ping of pain at L4/L5 that could be nothing or really could be something.

You want to feel better, be stronger, look younger? Find someone else's webpage.

In most classes I've been in, I'm taller, stiffer, sweatier, older, and, if my eyes don't deceive me, considerably more male than the other students. Advantages and disadvantages to this. Sweatier: my hands slip in adho mukha svasana, downward facing dog, but there's a perfect level of medium slipperiness I attain in salambha sarvangasana, shoulder stand, and my hands suddenly grip well. More information than is perhaps strictly necessary, but it's out of these bits that I'm building my enlightenment. My nickname in high school was Riga. Massachusetts slang for rigor mortis: stiff. One good thing about stiff is, you don't have as many illusions.

Yesterday I had a strong practice, but it was more exuberant than precise. Afterwards, I carried children and bikes a long way. This morning, a dull ache in my tailbone. All the material Bad Yogi needs for despair and self-recrimination, despite Bad Yogi's knowing full well that he ought to go easy on himself. England is green and the sun is coming up and the day is filled with promise. Bad Yogi dreams of flying, but his ass is stuck to the earth.