Guest post : Ashtanga practice and CIRCULO BLANCO - Recovery Center for Drugs and Alcohol Addiction.

Recently I came across a series of photos from Malini Yoga Shala in Mexico on an fb share.

I contacted the Shala to ask for the story behind the photos and received this honest, generous commentary.

I contacted the Shala to ask for the story behind the photos and received this honest, generous commentary.

Thank you to Valeria. Ernesto, the Circulo Blanco recovery centre, to Polo and Edgar and Daniel, to Lupe and Diego and everyone else in these photos for the inspiration and renewal of faith.

ENOUGH

My grandmother used to have in her closet a box full of chocolates. Everyday after lunch, and just after lunch,she would open the lock on that closet and bring out two bite-sized chocolates. One for her and one for me. Then she locked the door and we proceeded to enjoy the chocolate.Little did I know this would be one of the most loving and important lessons in my life. A lesson I would have to practice over and over in different contexts.
This ritual raised would raise many questions in my mind. Sometimes I would voice them, sometimes I would not.

Why couldn´t we just eat the whole box and be "happy"?
Why couldn´t she get bigger chocolate bars instead?
Was she doing this because she thought we did not deserve more?
What could I do, say or be that would get me more than this?

Regardless of my reaction to it, the outcome would always be the same...the ritual was the same and she was teaching me the "art of enough".
The art of contentment, in which I choose to work on every day so I can be connected to what is.

CONNECTION

One of the most beautiful gifts I have received in life was the chance to practice and take a Yoga TT with Shankara and Mark Darby (and Anne-Marie, Joanne Darby, Tara, Jamie,Terri, Angel, Yaelle and Ying). I mention all of them because each they made such an amazing team at the old St. Mathieu Sattva Yoga Shala.

It took took all these people to help me understand that Yoga is Connection.
I had practiced previously in other styles for more than 20 years, but I was missing the point.Their patience and guidance helped me expel from my system that yoga was shape, form and bendiness.
Especially Shankara,whom for me is the embodiment of softness and firmness at once.My heart is forever grateful to them all, but especially to him and Darby for sharing their Connection.

NOT RUNNING AWAY FROM PAIN

During the TT I experience a pretty bad injury of the knees.At that time it seemed like a curse. In hindsight that was just another teacher showing up.It forced me out of comfort into finding a way of learning Ashtanga from "0". I was hurting myself doing things like I was used to.I finished the TT in a plane back to Mexico with the Certification in my backpack wondering how this all happened if I was not proficient at all in the practice.Yet I knew I was willing to put the effort and time required even if it meant my whole life (or many of them!).

ALL ONENESS

Back in Mexico, new city: Queretaro. Practicing alone. In the silence of my breath I was able to process all that was received from Sattva Yoga Shala.

ADDICTION

Food, drugs, alcohol, money, things, beauty, perfection, work, success, sex, approval, permanent "happiness", drama, ego...all the places at some time or another I have tried unsuccessfully for connection. Always feeling more disconnected, empty and not enough after trying so hard to fulfil this natural human need for connection.

TRANSMITION

Transmission of my previous work to my Yoga and Life Partner Ernesto Zarandona to the best of my ability. Learned so much teaching him. I thank him for his love, patience and hard work.

CIRCULO BLANCO

We are approached by Circulo Blanco to teach. Circulo Blanco is a Recovery Centre for Drugs and Alcohol organised by other Recovering Drug-addicts and Alcoholics. Their program is based on a branch of the AA 12 Step Program called 24 Horas. This modality started in Mexico City and I am not sure if it has gone out of our borders.There is a lot of controversy around it, but the fact is a lot of people get help from these places and perhaps they would never get access to live-in treatment. Some people pay, some cannot.

Humans helping humans just cannot be expected to be perfect. It can get very "in your face" and tough.Sometimes they come by their own will, sometimes they are forced by family members and sometimes they have nowhere else to go.

We show-up and Alejandro, the director, greets us. He has two patients. One of them is the son of the person who donated the house this was all starting at. We taught three times a week at 6:30 am. The Photo Album was shot by Cesar Alanis in the middle of a two year process.

Patients came in and out. There were also patients with Mental Illness. This was a little overwhelming and made us question our position. But somewhere a long time ago I had read about Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda helping mental illness patients with Yoga, so we decided to just go in and let Yoga do it's thing, not us.

It was amazing to see some of them respond amazingly.You could not have a conversation with some of them, and yet they grasped the practice beautifully.

The all had to show-up for practice,they had no option.

Polo
There is a picture of them in Sarvangasana. There is a man sitting on a chair. This is Polo.He had severe mental illness.He would be there but at moments, he would follow instructions in his own way either on his chair or he would even sometimes stand up. They found him on the streets and I am almost sure they gave him his name when he joined.



Edgar
You can see him in a photograph of Virabhadrasana A from the shoulder blades up.He is in the white t-shirt. He had received an electric shock through his left hand while working as an Engineer. His fingers were not complete and he had a protuberance bigger than a golfball on his palm. When he came in honestly I thought he would not be able to practice, but did not say anything about it. To our astonishment he figured a way to do everything. For example, he would go to Chaturanga and DownwardDog on his closed fists.

Daniel
Daniel came in one morning. Pretty bad shape, still tripping on some kind of solvent. He sees me, basically kneels in front of me and begs for my forgiveness. This is the first time I saw him, so I just told him I had absolutely nothing to forgive him of and that in time he would forgive himself.
His turnaround was great.He had great facility for the practice. So much, that at some point the director told us he would teach in our place. We left and two weeks latter we were called back.(He is in black in Padangushtasana, second from left.)

Lupe
(In Trikonasana in a blurry picture, he is second from left) Lupe was really young, 13, his family put him there. He thought he did not have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs. We just kept reminding him to keep his eyes and ears wide-open so he would never have to go through what others had to. Such a sweet child.

Diego
(In front of Lupe) had mental illness and had obviously been abused somehow.He had a lot of aggression in him.He had this defence mechanism of attacking before being attacked. This behaviour got him into a lot of trouble with others. He was challenging to teach at first, but somehow he started listening and changing that aggressiveness towards us and he did learn the practice and seemed to be enjoying it after a lot of his own work.I think he even liked us a bit.

CHANGE IS INEVITABLE

Our journey with them ended this last November.They had already 60+ patients.They decided to change to other activities. So instead of Yoga, they would get Kick-boxing and Zumba. Also a Christian group got involved. So they started getting other kinds of help and support.

HUMANS HELPING HUMANS.

I do not know to what extent the practice helped them in their process...
I do not know anything about their recovery success-rate...
Only their smiles and their effort gave us an idea that they were enjoying the now, which is enough...
I can only hope they all got a glimpse at least of how Ashtanga can be one of the best tools to come face to face with oneself and to cultivate a daily reprieve of the connection we sometimes can so desperately seek in the wrong places.

And Ernesto and I are ever so grateful for everything they taught us.Thanks to Cesar Alanis for capturing Circulo Blanco's heart and soul.

*

For more on Ashtanga and working towards recovery from alcohol and drug addiction see the Trini Foundation

The Trini Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the life-changing practice of Ashtanga yoga to those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. It's our mission to provide yoga as a tool to aide in the recovery process and help those who are suffering maintain long-term sobriety.

Taylor Hunt 
Taylor Hunt is also the author of A Way From Darkness and director of the Trini Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing the life-changing practice of Ashtanga with those suffering from addiction.


See too R. Alexander Medin

Alexander is co-founder and co-owner of Puro Yoga in Oslo, as well as the founder of the Foundation "Yoga for Life". The foundation has launched and continues running projects, such as "Gangster Yoga" and "Back in the ring", helping people who have "fallen out" of society and giving them the opportunity to build themselves up again, through a solid yoga practice, heightened sense of responsibility and social work.

Also my earlier post Ashtanga and Drug Addiction Project: Back in the Ring - The Journey so far

Read More

Book review OM The world of Ashtanga Yogis - Plus my own answers to the nine questions.

Angelique Boudet let me know she had self published a book of Ashtanga Interviews  I bought the Ebook and have posted some quotes below.

The first friend I mentioned it too asked why would we want to buy a book of Ashtanga Interviews when we have Lu Duong going to all the trouble of interviewing Ashtanga teachers and posting the interviews for free on his site Ashtanga Parampara, there is an excellent interview with Tim Feldmann just uploaded today in fact. http://www.ashtangaparampara.org/Tim-Feldmann.html 

And of course we also have Guruji, the book that probably started the Ashtanga teacher interviewee format, essential reading as it overcome once and for all the idea that there was only one 'correct' way of teaching or approaching this practice.

And of course podcast interviews

I myself was interviewed by Claudia for her Yoga Podcast

Peg has excellent interviews on  Ashtanga Dispatch with the Podcast interviews

and Ryan Spieman has some Ashtanga interviews on his Lonely Guru podcast

... anyone else?

In his interviews Lu focusses on parampara of course ( although not exclusively and I tend to skip over those bits, it's not a concept I'm interested in personally, respect and gratitude towards my teachers feels sufficient), this new book focusses on nine questions, the same nine questions to each of the interviewees. It's a nice conceit in principle but I'm not sure it works in practice, it can become a little tedious, at times. I found myself almost shouting at the author to ask follow up questions, to pin down or push the interviewee a little but the only interviewers I know who are doing that effectively are our friends at Wildyogi.

There are still some good quotes to be found in the book, I read it on the long commute from my home beside Lake Biwa to Osaka. Interviews with Mark Darby, David Roche and Louise Ellis stood out for me and Chuck Miller of course, some of the other interviewees unfortunately seemed to see it as an opportunity to promote their shala.

Angelique is a photographer so much of the book is taken up with her photos.

Here are some quotes for each of the nine questions that stood out for me and below that my own attempt at the questions.

Available from here
http://www.blurb.fr/b/6565494-om-the-world-of-ashtanga-yogis

The nine questions

1 — How did you start practicing yoga ?

“Krishnamacharya was my very first guru then Patthabi Jois. Together we discussed every day, experiencing and practicing. 
In this way, we studied for seventy years. 
I actually started at the age of thirteen.” B.N.S. Iyengar


2 — Could you please tell us how the yoga 
has changed your life ? 

“Yoga has changed my life in every way conceivable and became a constant but evolving presence in my daily life” Louise Ellis


3 — What does it bring to you presently ? 
Could you tell us what your actual practice is ?

“   Yoga continues to help me see myself as I am now. Still trying to re-
turn to my found mantra : Be Here Now ! Thank you Ram Das !” Chuck Miller


4 — Would you ever stop practicing ?

“Would you ever stop practicing ?” is a strange question to me and 
I am not sure now what it means ! Some great person said when you 
first find yoga you have to practice yoga. After you become a yogi everything you do is yoga. That resonates with me. Practice takes so many different forms for me now ! I still maintain a regular meditation practice, an asana practice and a pranayama practice because they help me feel more comfortable and help to keep my mind sharp. And, just realizing I am drifting out of the present moment and then returning with my breath back to the here and now is also my practice, as far as I am concerned !” Chuck Miller

5 — What do you think about the fact that Westerners are getting more and more interested in, and involved, with yoga ?

“Yoga is very young in the West and we approach it from a western psychology. We, in the West, are very extroverted, we are competitive. We need to be seen. It is about achievement, ambition. In the East, people are more introspective. They are more community minded. We are more individualistic, in that way needing to be seen, but also mainly people have the same basic needs, desires and challenges. I think it is maturing because yoga is so young in the West, people are ready and I’m seeing it. People want the psychology, they want The Yoga Sutras, they want to understand it. They feel how it works, they want to know how it works and to understand the psychology. In the East, Hatha Yoga is just a very little piece of it but it makes sense that in the West we are attracted to it because we are physical, we are in the body, we are in the world in a different way. ” Bhavani Maki


6 — What is your opinion about Westerners’ practice and of the practice of yoga in your country ?

“I do not have an opinion about ‘Westerners’ or ‘Not Westerners’. I am glad for anyone who has found a practice, whatever that 
practice may be and however it supports them in their lives.” Lucy Scott

7 — According to you, how does yoga transform people and why does it help to change the world ?

“ I think yoga has the power to give you much more clarity, to become more and more aware, awake. And the main problem we have is that 
the individual is deeply asleep, we are an irresponsible, unconscious and childish society, and most of our problems have to do with that.” Jose Carballal

8 — In which way is yoga important to you ? 
How does it affect you ?

“One takes the Great Vow of yoga to observe the Yamas and Niyamas, then one has a pattern of how to conduct oneself as an individual and as a member of society. Practicing asana and pranayama brings not only physical and mental quiet ; they strengthen the bodymind complex to permit moving more fully disciplined into the areas of pratyahara - withdrawal of the senses, dharana - concentration, dhyana - meditation and samadhi. Being so involved in these pursuits makes one more conscious of his or her actions and their effects on their family, their community, and their world. ”
David Roche

9 — What is your dearest wish ?”

“I am pretty content as I am, I think that if you have a wish it becomes a desire and I don’t think desires are very good for spiritual practice.” Mark Darby

“My dearest wish is to hurt less the people I love,”Tim Feldman

*

view of the mountains from outside my house

And my own answers to the nine questions - you can tell perhaps that I started to find the questions quite tedious. But then, really, what questions would I ask that are any better other than why think about it when I could be practicing more.

1 — How did you start practicing yoga ?

See my series of posts Developing a home practice. Basically I was burgled, had seven vintage saxophones stolen ( I'm also a repairer), was angry about it but more angry that I was angry. Decided to start meditating again, picked up the most manly book on yoga in the library (just happened to be Ashtanga) and started practicing on a towel in my pants in the hope it would help me sit more comfortably while meditating.

2 — Could you please tell us how the yoga has changed your life ?

It hasn't, I'm still attached to the world, perhaps a little more focussed... and there are moments in those short kumbhaka in asana when the world drops away and there is just perhaps *awareness of awareness. Occasionally that happens for little longer while sitting.

*Just enough of a hint, suggestion to make me think that Patanjali's project really is worth pursuing and that Krishnamacharya may have been on to something with hi kumbhaka in asana.

3 — What does it bring to you presently ?
Could you tell us what your actual practice is ?

When the above happens.... peace. In general my asana practice brings me more discipline, hopefully it helps keeps me healthier. My current approach to practice is outlined in this post Slow Ashtanga

 4 — Would you ever stop practicing ?

I practice less asana, no longer stick the the series, see this post Slow Ashtanga, it's debatable whether I still practice Ashtanga, Krishnamacharya's early Ashtanga or Vinyasa Krama But I can't imagine not practicing some asana as preparation for and a support for my yoga practice

5 — What do you think about the fact that Westerners are getting more and more interested in, and involved, with yoga ?

Purusha doesn't have brown skin, nor a dialect, language, culture or history, so....

6 — What is your opinion about Westerners’ practice and of the practice of yoga in your country ?

As # 5

7 — According to you, how does yoga transform people and why does it help to change the world ?

It doesn't.....few if any of us are actually practicing yoga, mostly we're just playing at it.

8 — In which way is yoga important to you ?
How does it affect you ?

Hope

9 — What is your dearest wish ?”

To do less no harm


Update: I'm thinking I might revisit my, off the top of my head, response to these questions in a few days and flesh them out a bit.

Read More