Your Inscrutable Abs

Yes, the "abs", that part of yourself that is hard to ignore and is used, rightly or wrongly as a measure of how "fit" you are. I currently work and live in the Narcissistic Capital of the World.  Here you will find an abundance of good information on what makes one really "fit" and some really bad misinformation. on the same. Simply put and without becoming an esoteric woo-woo "source/center" freak, your abs are your physical center.  This is very crucial to understand.  No matter how spiritual you think you may be, currently it is this structure that you get to deal with, your vehilce of liberation and your abs are a very critical area for you to understand as you walk this dusty road called Life. For most of us this elusive but ever present center is somewhere around our belly button. It is the center of gravity of our bodies.  This center does differ in specific location from body to body.  Suffice it to say, the belly button is a good indicator of your physical center but also that you are indeed a member of this restless species known as homo sapiens sapiens.

Comprised of four layers (I am being brief for you in the medical/anatomy profession), in my experience as a Pilates Instructor of almost 18 years (actually December 2nd will be 18 full years), your abs and awareness of them is very important to your life on all levels of your existence. I cannot be any more clear or emphatic on that single point. They are crucial to your well being on several points (and I will try and remember all of them as I go).

On a primary level they hold your guts in place.  If the abs are firm then the organs can remain in their optimal position for full functioning.  That includes digestion and taking a shit.  No bullshit! If you don't have the requisite ab strength to move the Big Mac or Raw Food Special through it just sits there and rots.  Not a pretty picture, but there it is.  As for the holding in part, if you have a congenital weakness as I have, hernias will occur, but all my years prior to that eruption (my own damn fault) were significant in my recovery.  Those I have trained over the years who have had babies have all reported an ease in pregnancy and for those on more than the first birthing experience have said that the subsequent births, due to consistent practice made the birth easier if not quicker.  Yes, that is word of mouth and not a full on scientific test so if your results were different, well then, your results were different.  Ask then, what else was going on?

That goes across the board.  My Mentor, Julian Littleford was fond of saying, "We are going to make your body lean and catlike.  Just remember, there are many different types of cat in the world." That last gets missed quite often.  People waddle in all of the time broken, overweight, anorexic, recovering from injury or illness, tall, short, in between and suffering from an overdose of health magazines and late night fix it work outs demanding the One Session Fix (known as the OSF Disorder Syndrome or OSFDS).  Upon not receiving the insta-change that is required for a successful physical fitness regimen, they stalk out glaring daggers at the trainer muttering foul imprecations against them and their lineage with an attitude most MacBeth.

Pilates will not fix you or your perceived abdominal issue!  Ha, let alone will it fix you at all! Pilates is designed to strengthen your core, lengthen the body structure and be but a portion of your overall regimen for well being (even that term is becoming tired as of late).  If you come in with any other expectation you will be disappointed.  I suspect, as a side note, that much of the tomfoolery that is abounding around Pilates is due in part to the quickening pace provided by electronic contraptions that give us the illusion that all can be achieved with a push of a button.  Coupled with the native angst of our species, bolstered by the Judeo-Christian End of the Worldism and the New Age "You can have it all Nowism", the misinformation about developing the body-mind has gotten quite out of hand.  So lets keep it simple:  Pilates can teach you to engage your abs to stabilize the body-mind in movement anywhere, anytime.

Was that simple enough?  Concise perhaps?  Maybe a trifle inconceivable? Is that culturally important area still opaque?  Fear not!  My own explorations and expectations have demonstrated that firm abs can be had if a few minor items are remembered.  Most of us don't like rules or do well with direction, after all, we presume that since we have been in this body for several years and as Americans we should know what is happening, yet Dunlaps Disease (wherein the belly dun lap over the belt) continues to be pervasive no matter how many situp we do, or how much we sweat in Spin Cycle classes or Cardio-asana sessions. In my classes there are just five guidelines (currently) that I recommend (I am speaking of Mat classes in particular, although it follows through into Reformer/Cadillac routines).

1)  Engage your abs before the movement, during the movement and do not disengage until the set is done.

2)  If it hurts, don't do it!  I don't care how good look'n the teacher is, ignore the smile, the hair, the you-know-whats and the naughty bits that are begging for your attention.  I am not sure how cleavage (above and below) or accentuation of rounded parts or bulges makes for a good Pilates instructor (or a Yoga teacher for that matter).  If you don't want me to look, don't show it.

3)  The system that I learned is an ab-based system not breath-based.  I don't know who started that nonsense, but jeeez, if Pilates is about the abs why shift the focus?  No need to huff and puff and blow the house down, sound like a leaky steam valve or flap your arms up and down like a Gooney bird trying to take flight. Breath normally and save the Pranayam for the Yoga classes.  Ab development aids Pranayam quite nicely.

4)  I demonstrate the position, complete with anatomical description laced with humor so you can see the basic template.  Every body is different but the template is universal.  If you are attempting to watch me work out whilst you work out chances are you are now out of position and the abs cease to work as the pain sets in.  So don't.  Just watch, then I move around the room to adjust and guide. Everybody engaging together sets a nice tone to the practice.

5)  Enjoy yourself in class.  There is no way you can get it in one session (remember OSFDS?).  So lighten up, be kind to yourself and have some fun.  It's only your abs after all.

This is your journey.  One that you can custom design. Cross the Bridge and see. 

It is your body, do with it as you will.

Pilates can help, that's all it can do.  The rest is up to you.

Friends on a shelf

In response to a request to give a list of books that have influenced me in my yoga practice (and life) I now sit down to carefully inscribe a few of those that have, indeed, helped along the way.  In pondering these tomes I decided that I would not just do "yoga" books, but also pieces of literature that still echo through my being and influence how I am as a past mid-life hominid here on Starship Earth.  There are many and the warning must be given that they may not impress you favorably at all.  Quite possibly they may bore you to tears or they may drive you stark raving mad.  We shall see.

Overall the one book that has influenced from my mothers womb is the the Holy Bible, King James Version. Although not a Christian this book and its literature was what first informed my imagination and fears from my earliest days. The perspective of its various authors give it a powerful and demanding worldview chock full of characters, cause and effect, heroes (and the odd heroine), villains of the worst order, catch phrases, categorical imperatives and a mythology about how things are the way they are second to none.  However, after teaching me to research, that blade turned back on them and I no longer hold to that worldview. Anything by Jonathan Kirsch, Moses, David; Bart Ehrman Misquoting Jesus and Forged; Sam Harris The End of Faith and numerous Youtube sites; Richard Dawkins The God Delusion; and even the late Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great (I hear he is currently suing God for inscrutability) will give you a clear idea on some of the pressing questions concerning the validity of such a Western world view.  I can add a hearty "et al" to the above.  All of them thoroughly researched and immaculately written to guide the reader to a deeper understanding of this bizarre and inexplicable universe we live in.

Going forward to the point where that structure began to crumble under the weight of logic and rationality, it was in Del Mar where I was earning my spurs as a Pilates instructor, that I was given a book written by Ken Wilber titled "A Brief History of Everything".  Profound!  Shocking to my then Christian sensibilities!  How could he, without lightening spewing forth from Zion (or Sinai, Horeb, Gibor or some other sanctified "high place") to consume him and all his descendants forever and ever, say such things!   Whew, got through that one ok.  Singed a bit?  Yup, my eyebrows seem a bit smokey myself.  What I do remember is that Wilber hammered away at all of my presuppositions without pause.  No quarter asked, none given.  Faith or reason?  Current data or mythological grandstanding? At the time I did not know or understand how deeply rooted in the consciousness of our rascally species is the need to know "why" and "how".  Even with all of the data readily available, I still chose blind faith and improbable stories over logic and rationality.  Mind maps don't change easily and if there is a "God Gene" it is indeed a powerful force in our evolution.

I had always had my doubts.  I don't always listen to my intuition and sometimes my intuition is no more than my own projections on the screen of the universe.  I recognize this, but not always in time to prevent heartbreak and the salting of a few fields here and there.  So perhaps something a bit more benign.  Say, perchance, a wonderful tale starting with The Hobbit and followed by The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien or Frank Herberts Dune series, at least the six written by him. Seem a bit odd?  But just read the vast scope of characters!  Very similar to many other tales of the past yet without a brooding deity to damn one and all willy nilly for the most minor infraction (like breaking any one of the Ten Commandments was punishable by death.  And this is what we want posted in our schools?). Staying the course, redemption, forgiveness, heroes of huge stature with fell mien, and  heroines of unassailable integrity and beauty.  Ah, my heart doth pitter patter when I reminisce of the hours I spent curled up on a couch on a cold winters day or lounged under an apple tree in the summer. Time and again running out the door without a pocket kerchief to face Trolls, Orcs, Harkonnens and my own fears (please pause whilst I wipe the tear from my eye).

But on to Yoga.  The literature on this subject is vast and confusing.  That's because "yoga" is not a singular "it" at all.  India has two major linguistic groups and many sub groups and many ethnicities all from a common source that started with the Harrapan-Saravasti civilization a long time ago.  More commonly known as the Indus Valley civilization, it went out with a groan around 1,900 BC (or thereabouts) due to a variety of factors, namely earth quake, foreign invasion and overuse of the land.  So we get Sanskrit, Yogananda and yogasana and yummy curries as a result (ok, I am simplifying!).   But good books to help sort things out?  Start with The Heart of Yoga by DKS Desikchar.  This is a handy tome that will give you what most Westerners (read Americans) are comfortable with.  Non-threatening and easy to read, it is a good companion for your journey.

Much of current Yoga is dualistic.  Not surprising.  We live in a dualistic world.  Dualism was a very handy way to deal with life as it is whilst we were evolving on what our planet had to offer at the time. Non-dualism is a later development and as newer things go, it takes time to shake out the bugs in the system (as in all of the shaking going on as this is written).  So any of the many translations of The Yoga Sutras by Pantajali and numerous commentators are available.  Iyengar and a chap named Satchidananda are two of the more reliable translations that are easy to read and yet hold thought provoking ideas on what is happening in you as you begin the practice of Yoga.

For a review of non-dualism Kashmir style, Odiers Yoga Spandakarika is really good.  Jaideva Singh offers some good technical advise in his translations and Osho (formerly incarnated as Rajneesh until the IRS de-carnated him) has a good go at the Vijnana Bhairava (loosely translated as the Radiance Sutras) in his book titled The Book of Secrets. There are two other books out of Northern India as well.  The Shiva Sutras and the Pratyabhina-hrdayam (Splendor of Recognition) but non-dualism is another blog entirely.  Sometimes these texts are a bit difficult, but given time you can begin to wrap your mind around their basic idea that there is nothing to lose, nothing to gain.  Everything we need is right in front of us including the tools to remove the dross that clouds our vision until we can see that there is no vision and no dross to cloud it.  That baffles me to this day, but occasionally the splendor does leak through.

I'll end with a book that I have mentioned before.  It is Sit Down and Shut Up, by Brad Warner.  That book shocked my sensibilities about my Zen practice and is still fun to peer into on occasion.  Like what I just read:  It's easy to become paralyzed in your practice when you focus on the so-called results.  But there really are no "results" in the real world.  There is only what is, right here and right now.  So refreshingly honest I can't stand it.  Or this powerful warning:  There is nothing that cannot be corrupted and bent into the service of a powerful ego.  Yet reality will always remain just as it is, no matter how hard you try to escape it.  So by the book already or just...yup, you got it, sit down and shut up!

That's about if for tonight folks.  Keep reading, keep studying, appreciate your life as Maezumi Roshi was fond of saying.  There are so many good books available and I have just scratched the surface with a few of my favorites.

  May our mind-flower bloom like the lotus blooms in muddy water.