Yoga Journal and the Toe Sox Legacy

My household used to get Yoga Journal every month for years.  I rarely found much of interest in the magazine, but I always flipped through to get to the amazing photos of Kathryn Budig by Jasper Johal.  Enjoy.

Fun Facts About Doctor Orient and Doctor Strange

	Doctor Strange	Doctor Orient
Magical Powers	Sorcerer in command of cosmic forces	Telepathy, invokes angels, tantric & kundalini yoga
Cool Mystic Mansion	Sanctum Sanctorum	Converted family brownstone into groovy psychic yoga lab
Hot Girlfriend	Clea	Lady Sativa
Grey Streaks	Easily recognized by grey hair at temples	Easily recognized by single streak of grey hair
Sarcastic Manservant	Wong	Sardi

"Stop Touching My Ass"; or, My First Baptiste Class

Baron Baptiste Photo by Anja Schlein

(It seems that I wrote this draft in November '16 and forgot to post it)

I just took my first Baptiste yoga class today, and I don't know what to think of it. 

I have been practicing a style of yoga rooted in Tantra for the last six years, so I am used to classes stepping pretty far from the norms of classical yoga. However, I found myself frequently saying "wouldn't it be nice to hear something in Sanskrit? Or maybe to have someone explain what were doing, instead of just bouncing around to all the really, really, really loud music?"

As class started, there were two young, half dressed, yoga chicks (sorry, that's the best way to describe them) bouncing around like they were on ecstasy. They stopped periodically mid-posture to take selfies.  The music was so loud that I couldn't hear what passed for instructions despite the instructor being micced, and frequently "helpers" came around to give adjustments. At one point, while in pigeon, a "helper" placed one hand on my sacrum, another of my back, and then gave me a overly sensual back massage.

Was that yoga? 

On a positive note, I'm pretty sure my third eye crossed some sort of dimensional barrier in savasana.  

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Long time, no update!  Here's what's been going on:

Finished my 200 hours yoga teach training close to five years ago.  Taught a couple of classes over the years, but it turns out I'm better at teaching meditation and pranayama than asana.

Hoping to start a 100 hour Mindful Yoga Therapy program in a few months, with the goal of adapting the MYT program for cardiac recovery.

Speaking of which, I am bizarrely seven years out of surgery.  How did that happen?  While discussing pathways of prana at a yoga workshop recently I asked how injuries and broken bones impact the flow of prana.  Everyone assumed I meant by sternum and various chest scarring; I honestly had briefly forgotten about all of that and was thinking of my repeatedly injured right foot (one break, one broken toe, two bad sprains, plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, and gout).  I seem to have passed the point where heart surgery is just a piece of my past rather than a defining point of my present.

On the gaming front, I've played a ton of Pathfinder and Fantasy Flight's Star Wars at the tabletop, and went through a great period of playing Far Cry 3 & 4, which may be the first time I've ever enjoyed playing a first person shooter.  Great stories, wrapped around mysticism and the wilderness, right up my alley. 

Along the theme of mysticism and the wilderness, I took a sharp reading turn into Occult Detectives, which got me into Simon Iff, John Taylor, Jules de Grandin, Doctor Taverner, and Doctor Owen Orient, among many others.  It's amazing how much yoga sneaks its way into these books, a good reminder that yoga has been finding it's way into western culture and imagination for centuries.

Finally, I'm moving on to a 300/500 yoga teacher training program in 2019.  

First Earth Battalion, the Real Men Who Stare at Goats

As it turns out, there really were men who stared at goats. 

Great WIRED article the explores how much of The Men Who Stare at Goats gets right about the First Earth Battalion.