The Autistic Yogi Reflects on the Journey of Emotions

Emotions have been the single hardest thing for me to understand and to engage in. Often when discussing with people and emotions come out I put up a wall of intellect, my cognition attempts to take over and to think things through and analyze them to the Nth degree. The longer I exist and the more in-touch with my body I become I realize that not all emotions can be cognitively sorted through and only through a form of non-cognition can I get in touch with these emotions. Especially concerning the emotions that others or myself inhibited when I was a young child.

My single greatest struggle has been my self worth. Self worth for me has been a roller coaster ride. Most often I intellectualize and find myself wrapping up my self worth in my intellectual capacity to converse or to seek out information. And when I start to get close to another human my self worth starts to come out and it seams that my inward way is to say my self worth is not valuable and should be abandoned, and those moments that someone is able to make me feel worthy I have engaged in destructive behaviors to reaffirm why I am not worthy of anothers love or adoration. The wholesome practice of yoga has really started to change this for me and I am now much more capable of peeking into my inward being and seeing my self worth coming out and being valued at my deepest levels. This is a daily struggle as I seam to unconsciously get anxious when I am considering my value as a lover, a friend, a family member, a teacher, a student, etc....
My practice is working and forgiveness is flowing
My practice is working and love is certain
Slowly my inner manager is allowing a greater inward expression..
Through movement and bodily awareness I am finding emotional healing.

Thank you for listening.

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Preparing Bone for Practice

In training both yoga and acro-yoga I have come to conclude that it has been best for me to train most diligently with someone around 120 lbs and to have a few other of various weight ranges from 100 to 180 lbs.

overtraining L basing can produce extremely tight hip flexor and external rotators. I have lost flexibility in the range of motion in my hips due to training many hours of acro. It's fairly easy for me to integrate a yoga program that facilitates both flexibility and strength.

Preparing the Bone for Practice Concepts to Look-up

1. Wolff's Law - Bone will adapt in a healthy person to the loads which it is placed under.
2. Piezoelectric Effect.
3. Lacuna & lacunar-canalicular.
4. Fluid dynamics and bone.
5. S.A.I.D. Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Agnotology in Yoga.

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, especially regarding the perpetration of misleading interpretations or poorly done science.  Culture, in my opinion, is regarding the personal data that an individual experiences as they observe and witness their family and peers over time.  Some people seam to be more inclined to follow the belief pattern of their family, where as others have a tendency towards the belief patterns of their friends, while others seperate themselves from any external belief and only believen themselves. There are probably other ways to describe these and more.

Yoga in the west, or at least in the limited experience I have had in training with hundreds of teachers, both current and upcoming teachers, has its own culturally induced ignorances and practitioners whom have molded yoga into their own standard. 

Overall it seams that the very base of yoga is either known as a method to stretch, or as an 'evil' on the planet. The 'evil' seams to be the agnotology perpetrated by either catholics or protestants in the areas that I am from. The people who seam to see yoga as a stretch tend to be raised secular.  I have encountered numerous whom neither see it as a method to stretch or a religion/belief structure, but a rounded method of ethical behaviour, movement, breathing exercises, sensory training (learn to observe and take in stimulus in a calm and relaxed manner, concentration and meditation techniques.

I personally am more inclined to see yoga as a state that is achieved through practicing. This state is most simply described by the words, awake & aware.

The biggest perpetration of cultural ignorance in yoga is the historical knowledge of the practice. A few good men and woman have devoted a lot of time to discovering the truth to the historical facts of what the actual yoga practice was.  Yoga has certainly evolved though and in the modern west it has become a thing all together its own, nearly seperate from its historics. The majority of western practitioners are learning a yoga that has very little to do with the original methods, but rather the evolved idea of moving through sequences of postures to invigorate the body. Most will encounter a ton of bullshit spouted by people in general, and they will encounter a ton of good wisdom. 

Its wonderful that there is a ton of supporting science and methods that do validate older practices and modern observations. Its obvious that our body systems have been relatively the same over the last thousands of years. The way that we have integrated knowledge has changed dramatically. We once spoke in a narrative that was mystical and we saught as a species to uncover the secrets of the universe. This produced science and a methodology of aquiring data so that we could truly understand the workings of the universe.

Become versed in how to recognize wrong knowlege, so that we do not become swayed one way or the other, stand by your convictions, but don't love them so much that you cannot change as you absorb knowledge that makes better sense then the previous knowlege you held.

Look up the balloney detection kit if your really interested in discernment.

The Autisitic Yogi Reflects on Chakras

Chakras are an interesting topic.  And in my experience very few people that I have encountered in the yoga realm have looked into the depths of writings of the chakras to see what the historical literature states about there use and functions. Most don't know that the psychology attributes to chakras are a modern addition to the chakra system from the East. I recommend looking into the work of Christopher Tompkins to gain more insights into the history and evolution of the Chakras.

It appears that in 1918 a book called The Serphent Power by Arthur Avolon that first made connections to psychology and chakras. Carl Jung continued this work with his own indepth studies of Kundalini and psychology systems. Joseph Campbell went on to solidify the westernized Psychology system of the Chakras.

From what I was able to gather the Chakras of old were more about sounds and intonations to affect specific locations either internally or externally. Christopher talks about sonic resonance from Mantra work. It would be interesting to see studies done on the effects of the subtle body through voice and song.

Modal vibrational phenomenon seams like it could be an area that the historical writers were trying to capture. see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode

Without a doubt I can see the anecdotal evidence of the effect of sound on a body system. But I wonder to what extent?

Does the sound of our instruments and voices have any effect on biology?

At what frequencies of sound is an affect observed?

Can cells be transformed or protected through sound?

What psychological effects are standard from music? 

Is sound culturally induced? 

Are there sounds that are universal and hold the same function/meaning regardless of culture?

Is motherese universal?

Are particular mantras universal?

There are a ton of questions that need to ultimately be asked to come to a more broad understanding of how common sounds created by humans affects the biological systems present. And is there any overlap with the chakra practices of mantra and yantra.

I am mostly inclined to think that there is a sublte reaction of the sounds we use. I am not convinved that the sounds themselves have much if any impact. But I do believe the value that the individual puts on the sound internally will have a farily dramatic effect (ie, listen to music you really dislike versus music you really like).

When it comes to other attributes of the chakras like, elements, colors, geometrical shapes, etc, it appears that history shows numerous systems that although similiar are fairly different. From one location of practitioners to another things like color and chakras, or even the number of them is different. Historically there does not appear to be a solid unity of what these factors are concerning chakras. And when we get into the nadi/marma system it gets even more complicated.

I am unconvinced of things like chakras are blocked or spinning wrong ways or their color is off, etc, etc. I take these thoughts as narratives individuals create to try and make heads or tales of our existence. Story/narrative is very useful but can also lead people into a ton of unfounded knowledge. 

The chakra system I think is useful to guide and to consider practices, but its not concrete. It can only ever be a tool utilized by us as we sort through knowledge and come to terms with historical and modern practices.

Reflections on Acro Yoga and the Rush

Acro yoga without a doubt creates a rush as we advance our techniques and abilities.

Its easy for us movement practitioners to get side tracked with trying to attempt ever more complex and difficult skills and we can forget some foundation skills for our movement practice.

Often I have come across practitioners that have not put in their due diligence with training the foundation skills and are seeking to get to a more difficult practice level as soon as they can even if it means skipping steps. These practitioners can be dangerous and are far more likely to cause injuries in their partners and themselves.

Preparing the body for practices that are more demanding is not only intelligent, but its in your best interest and is good practice.

When initially approaching an acro practice each joint should have some gentle attention. If your a sparse practitioner (1x or less a week) you should consider going through a complete joint rotation exercise that should take about 20 minutes to complete. Work each joint sequentially either starting at head or feet and work your way through the body.  Don't just inquire to your mind the state of your body, inquire to your body about the state of your body. Don't over due the rotations, this is just to feel each individual joint move and check in with its state and any corresponding sensations that are caused (does doing ankle circles affect your knee?)

Some initial core engagement exercises should be done. Don't focus so intensely on the core engagements that new comers will be exhausted by the end of warm up phase. Give variations, start with the easiest variation and work up from there. If your a teacher than sometimes choose to not teach more difficult variations because monkey see, monkey do mentalities. Sun salutations is a great way to start into this area of exercise. I encourage at least a 10 minute session of individualized movement.

From here start the basics with some basic partner drills or games. Stuff that is not to demanding, just to initiate the feeling of working with your partner. 

Push Pulls or weight in weight out are my favorite ones to explore. Encourage exploration within these drills.  Ski jumps are another great one to have in this area or the Trifecta / 3 pillars.

Basic games are things like Car driver, slow motion chain tag, Body part to body part, Ninja Freeze, etc.

After the initial partner work start to move into some basic birdy and/or back birdy, folded leaf, basic therapeutic drill or two, around the world/ prasarita twist, Throne variants. Cartwheels, ticktocks, Chelsea points, ghetto ninja, ninja star. Back bends, bow variants. Hand to foot techniques. 

This area can be one of the hardest to navigate in a class setting for teachers as it takes a lot of trial and error to learn what a group is capable of and how to micro manage the groups that are made in the course of a class, and often in a class setting we are working with assistants or other teachers. Figuring out how many groups you can manage is a great thing to learn. 

Make time for some cool down, whether you want to do partner based cool downs or individualized will be up to you as a teacher and practitioner. Be sure not to skip this step as it can facilitate good relaxation and community building.

Major thing, Don't over due it! Come back to the foundations often. Find some goals and discover what foundations make that goal attainable.

Body Scan - Basics

Learning to scan your whole body rapidly can have tremendous benefit to your well being. If you can master a quick body scan than you can help your mind shift into alpha rhythms as you lay or sit. This can facilitate an easier time to relax and rest and lays the basis for quality sleep and release of tension.

Body scans should be part of daily living and you should strive to find one that works for you.

This is my basic structure - its what I do before and after a practice, when I go to sleep and when I wake up.  If I am having trouble sleeping I may repeat this up to a dozen times, sleep always is the result, unless something is really nagging at my mind.

Bring your attention to;

Toes

Soles of feet

heels 

tops of feet

ankles

shins

calves

knees

thighs

hips

lower back

mid back

upper back

waist

lower ribs

sides of ribs

front of chest

Fingertips

knuckles

back of hands

palms

wrists

forearms

elbows

triceps

biceps

shoulders

front of neck

back of neck

back of head

side of head

face

top of head

Sometimes I match the sequence with my breath or a students breath and sometimes I go through the scan with no intention of breath awareness.

One day I will make my own diagram showing the points on a paperdoll chart.

You can also google the 61 point body scan and/or yoga nidra for some interesting reads. I will end up writing about both of these topics numerous times.

Metta!

Reflections on the Subtle Aspects of Yoga in Practice

For me the base structure of yoga as a practice is covered pretty decently by the ashtanga of Patanjali.

How I have come to know each of these 8 limbs;

1) Builiding a moral foundation

2) Duties and how to observe

3) Physical postures and the movement from one to another

4) Breath and the energy systems of the body - learning to expand and contract our system for specific or general living

5) Learning to control the senses - being able to move towards and/or away from any sensation either internal or external. Nervous system is trained to be more efficient. Lays the basis to develop a samyama, which is the combined next three limbs.

6) Concentration techniques - Learn to focus the mind on both internal and external points. Train capacity to concentrate unbroken.

7) Meditation - cleaning the mind of debris concentration becomes meditation. The mysteries of both internal and external states become more clear, and our knowledge expands. This is knowledge in action. Not to be confused with intellect knowledge. This is fluid intelligence at its best.

8) The fruit of the practice - Our primary emotion is eased and we are more likely to stay in it. Primary emotion is the concept of what each individual has for a base emotion, that state they spend the majority of their time in.

The first 2 limbs are filled with verbs, they are calls to action or inaction. They train us to conduct ourselves in manners that align with our deepest morales and allow for a true community to develop. These are time driven tasks and one should aspire to have considered deeply their morale conduct and to put them in both their internal and external lives.

The 3rd limb - asana - postures - Originally meaning 'throne' or 'seat' and evolved to be 'to sit', 'Seated pose', 'Posture'. To me the basis is how do we do basic movement in our daily lives? How do you go from laying to seated, from seated to standing, from standing to crouching, from crouching to standing, seated or laying. We attempt to prepare the body to better handle day to day functions of our musculoskeletal system.

The 4th Limb - Pranayama denotes an expansion and contraction of energy. This is everything from breath, to digestion and elimination. When we have the base shapes of physical postures, we start to refine them with our breath and either activations or deactivations of muscle groups around joint complexes. We learn to use the breath to increase or decrease available energy for actions or inactions. Internal states start to reflect deeper within and externally.

The 5th Limb - Pratyahara is the exploration of 'sense withdrawal'. We learn to utilize both internal and external stimilus to move through non-attachment exercises. This will help any individual to handle the stimulus that comes up in our daily lives. This is not an attempt to become 'empty'. This literally trains your brainwaves and allows you to explore the brainwaves and train them.

The 6th Limb - Dharana - We learn to concentrate. We learn to collect some acute thing into our stimulus. This can be an internal thought/word/image/sound/sensation or concentration on an external thing; candle flame, image, sound, structure, etc.  This is useful to help us concentrate on the tasks of our daily life. In conjunction with the preceding limbs we are able to do all our daily tasks much more efficiently

The 7th Limb - Dhyana - meditation - I see mediation as sweeping the mind. Sometimes I come across those whom believe meditation is emptying the self. I both agree and disagree. Cleaning a room doesnt remove the objects in the room, it removes the decay/dust/wrot/garbage/etc, meditation is the same thing for the mind and intellect. It will help clean up the nervous system and the thought process. Meditation can be everything from sitting and breathing to deeply concentration on a single subject for an unknown amount of time, you become so involved with the subject that your unable to seperate yourself from the subject, as though you were the subject.

The 8th Limb - Samadhi - I see this as the fruits of the practice. Its a state that is achieved through having put into practice the preceding limbs in such a way that it all becomes a part of our fluid intelligence, that intelligence that doesnt come from intellect, but from action (karma). Its in everything we do permeating us all the time. I think the psychology concept of primary emotion is the basis for this state. You have achieved the state of Yoga.

Reflections on Some Issues in Yoga

Yoga in the West is definitly a phenomena all of its own. After years of studying the different areas of yoga and haveing a general love for movement of all sorts, some of the issues in the global situation of teacher trainings and the quailty of teachers coming from those teacher trainings are becoming more apparent.

A lot of teacher trainings really lack the scientific method and many of these teachers teachings are dubious at best. People in positions of teaching should be able to at least point towards where they obtained their information. Credit and citations are always wonderful, it allows individuals to seek deeper into their personal practice.

 Experience tells me that we have a ton of yoga teachers teaching yoga teacher trainings that have proven repeatedly in their personal logic to put more heed into anecdotal evidence, which is usually steeped in what I term as suburbia knowledge, when an individual has a tendency to believe in modern day myths. Culturally induced ignorance definitely permeates the world of westernized yoga.  

The cultural induced ignorance seams to look like this in our yoga studios and trainings:

1) 'Every posture requires this same action'. This is a gospel cue, our bodies are not playdough being stuffed through a cookie cutter pattern. Each of our bodies have at least subtle differences that make movement, engagement, and stretching a very personal experience.

2) 'You must do this everytime,' again a gospel cue. Most often this comes in because well meaning individuals have become convinced by their peers that a certain movement is an absolute must (keeping a flat back through sun salutations is not beneficial and neither is it natural.)

3) Setting up teachers, gurus, practitioners like their words and concepts are irrefutable. In the world of science there are is not one person who is authority of it all. Science is based on observation and experiment. Yoga is based on observation and experiment. Learn this concept deeper please!

4) Seeing non-attachment as avoidance, which is equally as destructive to attaching to something. Non-attachment is seen when you can not have the product of your attachment ( do you become an asshole when you can't have some particular thing?)

5) Strict observance of rules. This is destructive and even the Hatha Yoga Pradipika states this. Strictly observing rules is a barrier to yoga. This is the easiest way to become a bigot, when we can not tolerate each others opinions than there is a problem. ( I am always open to changing my opinion when I come across knowledge that makes better sense than the previous knowledge I held.)

6) The concept of yoga will heal all things. It wont, it will make them more tolerable. Yoga as an ongoing practice can end suffering, but it will not cure actual medical worthy physical issues.

7) The concept that the most dangerous aspect of a hot yoga studio is in allowing deeper stretches, which increases injury. There is a far greater danger in practicing in hot yoga studios, its called germs and allergens. Heat, sweat and deep breathing in a room not well cleaned and ventilated produces an optimal environment for life threatening illnesses.

I could continue to list more but I think this gets across a few points. Mainly there exists a bias in a lot of people to take their teachers teachings as gospel. The certification process of certifying instructors to certify instructors is interesting.

Reflections on Autism and Yoga

After years of practicing yoga techinques (asana, pranayama, sensory skills, concentration and meditation techiques) it is certain that these yoga techniques do in fact enhance the quality of life both internally and externally.

What I define as the practicing of yoga is the westernized variations of yoga that have a foundation in the techniques that have been passed to us from our teachers. Some of these techniques certainly are a modern creation or a fusion of older knowledge mixing with new knowledge.

One of the hardest parts in life, for me, is social stimulus. While I always loved social stimulus it came with a cost.  I have always pursued my interests with gusto and have a propensity to acquire   information rapidly about the areas of my interest. And I have always been excited to share my thoughts and ideas.  This I found can be very taxing to other individuals, so I discovered how to rapidly assess people through key questions and be able to find that person in a group that I could share with delightfully. If I couldn't find that person I would internalize and have to focus on something acutely (untying knots, figuring out how to cartwheel down stairwells, perch on the flimsiest chair, crawl up walls, stare at pictures, draw, play/bond with a pet). Pretty much all social gatherings larger than 1 on 1 will result in me feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, needing sleep, need to separate myself from stimulus of all types. As a youth this would mean 12+ hours of sleep, full 24 hour sleeps happened numerous times (mainly during festivals or after a concert).

If given the opportunity to engage with minds I could spend hours upon hours dialoguing. I had always been a story teller and loved telling others about my vivid dream life, and fantasy world I had been creating for years and years ( the longest story I ever told in one sitting was over 30 hours straight, this was with John Benusic when I lived at the Wapiti Shooters Club. Twice as an adult I sought out John to confirm that this was in fact something that happened and he confirmed it on both occasions). 

The mind is a fantastic aspect of life, but I came to know the depths of over focus on the mind without consideration of the body. After a rather terrible break up with my long term mate I found myself in a yoga studio. Over the following months I practiced between 3-6 hours of yoga a day and spent as much time reading, studying and learning about the history, techniques, thoughts & perceptions of both modern and historical writers. I was hooked. If it had not been for the beta blocker that I was on at the time, I am unsure I could have handled the anxiety of the yoga studio.

Over the next 5 years I participated in 11 yoga teacher trainings, many more workshops and immersed myself in yoga and acro yoga.

The physical practice helped me a ton in self image. I taught over 2000 public hours of yoga and acrobatic yoga. My largest fascination was with the anatomy and physiology, the biomechanics of movement. I ate up the writings/videos of Simon Borg Olivier, Scott Sonnon, Paul Grilley, Georg Feurstein, the Bihar School, Christopher Tomkins, Christopher (Hareesh) Wallis, Ray Long, Roger Cole, Leslie Kaminoff, Judith Lasater, Bernie Clark, Katy Bowman, and numerous others that contributed to the world of anatomy and movement.

 

Through all this I still found that after being at a workshop, a social engagment, a class, teacher training, etc, I would be thoroughly exhausted.. about 4 hours of social stimulus would be enough to act as a sedative. After yoga teacher trainings I would last about an hour after getting home and sleep from 6pm to about 6 am. Repetitive body scans and mini yoga nidra practices would intersperse my waking and sleeping time and slowly that helped me to reduce the overloading power of external stimulus. 

More often than not my personal yoga practice would help level me out. I estimate that 99% of my public taught classes and my public practices started with me showing up 20-30 minutes before class. Get in the room that the practice will be in at least 20 minutes before class starts and do a full joint rotation practice and at least 3 minutes of personal pranayama practice. This allowed me to analyze my whole body in a short time to see how each area is feeling and at what state of engagement I could take my body. My practices and teachings included, classical hatha, ashtanga, yin, restorative, vinyasa, therapeutic yoga, and numerous other classes accessible in either Grande Prairie or Calgary.

Acro yoga changed my whole life yet again. I purchased 2" thick gymnastics mats and started to have friends come over nearly daily to practice. often there would be 4 or 5 of us practicing in my space. I didnt have furniture other than the mats and enough yoga props for a small yoga studio. It was perfect for exploring the wonders of acro. Hour and hours of practice. I broke down my personal warmup that would last about 20 minutes to 30 minutes to prepare my joints for the acrobatic yoga sessions was a huge advantage to rapidly developing skills. I was soon practicing at least 10 hours a week. I went up 2 pant sizes in the space of about 5 months as the muscles of my hip joint complex become much more powerful.

Still I found the social engagement a difficult task to manage. Most interactions still cause/d a noticeable overstimulation, but it was far more manageable.

As I find myself utilizing the techniques more and more in my life as a side effect of thousands of hours of practice and consideration I find what once was hard to manage to not be so difficult. Certainly I have a lot more practice ahead of me to really see the fruits of the actions of practice. 

Basic structure of yoga

Ethical considerations and actions both internally and externally.

Physical practice including both physically active and relaxing (learn to physically relax is as important as learning to engage a muscle)

Breathing exercises to help manage energy levels in the current moment or for short & long term results.

Sensory exploration. Learning to withdraw the senses from stimulus. Learning to Observe impartially.

Concentration techniques to help train focus and attention.

Meditation techniques as the concentration exercises bare more fruit and allow a true meditation response to happen.

Primary state of being is more calmed and the rest of life has a more contented/blissful attribute.

Thanks for reading :)

Comments always welcome.