Three Blogs

I have three blogs.  Why does anyone need three blogs? 

First, there is a blog about westerns, Slap Bookleather, that I started in January 2011 and stopped contributing to on a regular basis in mid-2012 (you can read the reason that I have taken a break from that blog here).  With roughly 20 months of regular contribution I had 25 followers and over 75,000 page hits, and still get around 50 hits per day.

Second, I have the blog that you are reading now, a blend of gaming, yoga, and cardiac recovery, that has been in place for six weeks as of this writing.  So far I have one follower and just over 400 page hits.  

Finally, I have my secret Tumblr blog that I do not share with anyone I know in the three dimensional world.  It is an almost stream of consciousness blog about environmentalism & politics, and being a Tumblr blog is mostly images, particularly of cowboys, cowgirls, the Lone Ranger, guns, gay rights symbols, people meditating, sci-fi movies, Poison Ivy, and women with red hair.  Tumblr does not track page hits, but that blog has 127 followers.  What happens on Tumblr stays on Tumblr.

Light on Yoga for Smartalecks

I have only just begun to fuck with you

Sometimes I wonder if people come up to B.K.S. Iyengar and ask what the heck he thought he was doing when he wrote the introduction to Light on Yoga.  I imagine this is his answer: 

"What’s that?  Yes, this is just an introduction to a yoga practice manual, why do you ask?  Because the introduction condenses thousands of years of philosophy into fifty pages?  Why else does one practice yoga, to have a nice backside and righteous glutes?"

"Ah, now that you have read the introduction to the practice manual you seek total enlightenment?  Sure, no problem, you can just follow these simple rules all written with lots of untranslated Sanskrit.  Don’t know Sanskrit?  No problem, here’s essentially what it means.  Your mind will be spinning for a few decades are you try to wrap ideas like santosha and ahimsa around your daily life, but just thinking about it will make your journey through life more harmonious.  Now you have a headache?  That is to be expected, but simply keep God in your practice and all will be well.  Also remember that your entire life is your practice."

"Now here are some pretty pictures of me stretching.  Enjoy."

Curious Challenges of Captain Andoran

Captain Andoran.  Really.

Recently a friend gave me some grief that my Yogi Gamer blog is mostly about yoga, and not much about gaming.  He is correct, so let me offer the following- it’s fucking hard to practice yoga while playing Dungeons & Dragons.

When I say it’s hard to practice yoga, I don’t mean that it is hard to make a DC 15 acrobatics check to get into downward dog.  I mean that it is hard to practice raja yoga concepts like santosha and ahimsa in a game that is largely based on killing critters and taking their stuff, and where in many sessions your most noble motive is revenge.

A few weeks ago I was playing my “no character development, please, I’ll stick to two dimensions” character “Captain Andoran”, a paladin from a thinly disguised fantasy version of the early United States (and the subject of endless builds on the Pathfinder boards).  Our group of adventurers had come across a town being threatened by a band of hillbilly ogres, a band who had already taken over a close by ranger fort.  The few surviving rangers gave us information on the fort and a back way in.  To protect the town from raids by the ogres, we decided to scout the fort and see what we could do.

After sneaking in through a hidden entrance we encountered a guard who made a run for it.  Assuming he was going to warn the other ogres, I hurled my shield at him and… smashed his brains out.  It was that or we wouldn’t be able to protect the town, right?

Soon after that we encountered another group of ogres who promptly surrendered to us.  Were we to trust that they had seen the light and wouldn’t warn their marauding comrades?  Trust that we could tie up a pair of 12 foot tall ogres and they wouldn’t be able to break the ropes?  Or trust that shit happens when you kill rangers and ransack towns and sometimes that means getting killed right after you surrender?  Our party, with two paladins mind you, voted for the latter.

On we went through the fort, killing everything in our path.  At one point Captain Andoran ran heroically into a courtyard filled with ogres in an attempt to rescue a fellow adventurer who had been captured.  I arrived too late, and as his head was tossed to me the good Captain was surrounded.  In a fighting retreat I left nine dead ogres in my wake before we used a variety of magic and explosives on the remaining foes in the courtyard.

It turns out the Captain Andoran is not a pacifist.

Danger- geek math ahead!

I do think that it is possible to make a Dungeons & Dragons (well, Pathfinder, really) character who doesn’t leave trails of bodies in his or her wake.  I’ve had my head wrapped around the idea of a dual scimitar wielding Cavalier (Knight of the Blue Rose) 2 / Paladin of Sarenrae X with the Blade of Mercy trait.  Not only would this let you not take penalties to non-lethal attacks, but it would also give you +3 damage to all non-lethal attacks.  While dual wielding that extra damage would really stack up.  Crappy against zombies, but I would just have to stay out of Bissel (extra credit if you get that gamer inside joke).

Not sure who I’ll be playing next; probably a return to Gilbert, who I mentioned in my first post.  That is, if I can return to my original body and reverse the sex change. 

Five Worst Things About Being Vegetarian

1-     Everyone’s got an opinion about it, and they can’t wait to tell you

 

2-     Being so regular really eats up the morning

3-     Clothes are too loose

4-     When your friends go the Tilted Kilt or Hooters they think twice about asking because you won’t eat wings (the answer is still yes, I’ll go just for the view)

5-     People giving you a funny look when you order tofu

What, you thought I was going to say passing on bacon?

Problems with Savasana

Today in yoga teacher training we discussed the many ways to experience savasana, the period of rest at the end of a yoga practice, and the ways that some participants can find it difficult.  Problems with savasana may sound strange to some, but for me the notion is very familiar.

The problems with savasana for me start with the simple act of lying down.  When I roll down as part of a practice I am fine, but to simply lie down I feel a fair amount of pain across my chest (post-surgical recovery is a journey, not a destination).  It then takes several seconds of moving my shoulders and chest to get to a place where there is simply a dull ache rather than a sharp pain.  I lie there, flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling which usually has a bright light glaring down at me.  You know, like a surgical suite.

In savasana you are supposed to be at rest, but when I am in that posture it feels at once anxiety provoking yet peaceful.  The ache, the posture, and looking up into the light before closing my eyes all bring me back to going unconscious right before surgery.  A little anxiety provoking.  But what happened to me on that surgical table?  I put myself into the hands of strangers who used skill, will, care, and technology to give my heart an extra billion or so beats. 

Savasana literally means “corpse pose”, but for me it represents both my brief foray into death and my rebirth.  Purposefully putting myself into a posture that causes anxiety may defeat the point of savasana, but the little pains associated with it are a reminder of coming back to life.  It isn’t always a comfortable place, but it is a place where I am glad to be.