The Autistic Yogi Reflects on the Path of Life.

Walking the path.

Imagine that you lived in a dense forest that was difficult to travel through because of how thick the growth was. You felt capable of surviving as the food here was sufficient for you to live. First you slowly made your way through the thickness and found shelter and then over the period of years you build paths from one section to another, depending on resources. The paths that were well travelled became easier and easier over time to travel as you carved your way through the thick and learned how to manage it. The unbeaten paths still could be quite difficult.

Our bodies are the same way.

Life is the thick forest and as we move through life we start to carve our trails. Our friends, family, work, hang out spots, shopping locations, vacation locations are the resources. Even the activities we engage in can be seen as resources, do you weight lift, jog or run, dance, yoga, swim, meditate? These all are resources and how much time we spend discovering more about our preferred activities or friends or working then the  easier it becomes to navigate that trail to that resource.Ultimately it is each of our responsibility to decide the paths we take to the resources that we claim.

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Acceptance, Teaching, Practicing, Alignment and Teacher Training

Today I really noticed that I have a lot of work on letting go as a teacher of yoga. Often my mind attempts to make judgments when students seam to be non-compliant, that is to say they are not doing the postures that I am asking, or they look frustrated or bored. Even though I know logically that for so very many reasons a person may choose to not do a posture and they might be dealing with some heavy issues that make them seam like they are unhappy, most likely it has nothing to do with me or with the posture.

Enforcing my vision of the Yamas and Niyamas on another goes against the very principles I am attempting to cultivate. I consider ahimsa to be acceptance, and I have to accept that others are going through crap that I am not privy to and if its about me than I am bound to find out without having to assume all about it.

More often than not as a practitioner I can just stay focused completely on my own mat, although aware of others around me I am intent on my own personal practice rather than observing others and their practice. But as a teacher you have to be aware of others in their practice. I don't for a moment believe that a posture must be done in a particular way for it to be correct other than that it feels correct to the practitioner over time. I support natural and authentic movement. When we start to get into refinements like the heel must intersect the arche of the foot in warrior 2 or the foot must be turned in 45 degrees in warrior 1. I can not find anything that holds up to peer reviewed scrutiny that actually supports these thought processes. They work for some and dont work for others.  There are 8.4 million possible combinations to put your body into and many are detrimental combinations for you but helpful to another.  Acceptance.

I am considering to make public each of my yoga teacher training notes as I complete each weekend of teaching. Will have to go through them and clean them up.

Metta!

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Friends, Social Networking and Life

Lately I have been considering how much effort it takes to maintain numerous quality friendships. In-depth friendship is a lot of work. It takes time and effort to build and maintain those friendships. If  a person takes on to many close friendships than certainly most if not all of them will lack in the depth of ability to really know and be vulnerable.  It would be great if we were not bound by the constraints of time and energy but in this present reality, that is the case.

In my experience social networking has not made it easier for me to not be around people. It has made it easier for me to stay in touch with people who I may never have otherwise seen again, except by 'coincidence' at some point in the future.  And we can't pretend to know what any other person commits in time to online activities unless we are constantly around that person and know there habits through and through.  I don't mind a friend checking their phone or messaging someone when we are in a face to face meeting but if they spend a majority of our time together on their device then I won't likely be seeking them out in the future. That experience though should not be the basis of judgment I use when considering how others utilize their devices. Like anything else, attempt at using items intelligently.

I can count on one hand those people in my life that I consider amazingly good friends. This does not cheapen the many other friendships that I have had in life, fore I am grateful for each and every person who has crossed my path and I wish them the best and would in a heart beat continue to work on our friendship if given the opportunity, time and energy to do so.

Those who are in our life are precious and greater than any earthly treasure.

Metta!