Ashtanga Yoga: Ann Arbor

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From the brilliant Riddhi Dastidar
06/27/2021

From the brilliant Riddhi Dastidar

In India, mutual aid tries to fill in the blank where the government’s pandemic response should be.

03/01/2021

From today's newsletter...

--- We have a big anniversary rolling in at Middle-March. Our last class on Main Street was Friday, March 13, 2000; our slackteam built the 2D shala all day and late into the night on March 14; most people who joined did so on March 15; and I taught our first Zoom class that day. This year, March 14 is a Sunday; I expect this is the day our deep minds and our emotional bodies will feel the loop closing.

If you have some gesture or thing you want to offer the group as part of this strangest ever of shalaversaries, write me back. In any case, it might be significant to set aside some creative energy and empty time to feel the feelings and learn the learnings as that weekend comes around.

Here is what I will do. Anyone is welcome to join me in spirit: on the new moon, define and make note of one thing that has ended for me this year. Grieve and give thanks as appropriate. On the full moon, define and make note of 1-5 positive new things that have begun and taken their full form during the pandemic year.

--- At the beginning of the pandemic I shared here that one of my favorite places on earth is at the base of a steep learning curve, so the weirdness at that time was no worry. Indeed from there, much of 2000 was triage for me as a shala director. Day by day, my attention gathered and regathered around whatever urgent needs arose for us. This was interesting, challenging and often very beautiful. No complaints.

Now, it feels that the apocalyptic feelings that pervaded 2000 have dispersed for the majority of us. So, as part of the shala’s digestion and re-visioning process, I’ve blocked off Saturdays in March to do an administrative deep clean. Very much looking forward. Don’t be too surprised if you get a reply to something from 10-12 months ago; it’s the shala + me warping time to tidy up.

Our shala will likely re-enter a new, creative flux state later this year. Whatever that looks like for us all, I’ll be ready.

http://www.ashtangaannarbor.com/wordpress/2020/10/03/lisa/
10/03/2020

http://www.ashtangaannarbor.com/wordpress/2020/10/03/lisa/

Lisa Kaufman died this week, peacefully in her sleep. She had turned 53 on August 9th. The medical report found no cause. She was in extraordinarily good health. Her heart stopped. She leaves so many of us who have been connected with her, most notably her husband, and sons ages 13 and 16.

09/01/2020

From the September Newsletter...

Note from backstage on how the shala operates: ... I am always thinking about the long run of practice and relationship, for the sake of the organization. This is why I choose to slowly build networks of trust that aren’t dependent on selfish cost/benefit mindsets and that can ensure our practice will be supported come what may. This is a way of building out the culture of accountability, discipline and dedication that grew up around here the last decade. In a time when the future is unwritten, I feel strongly that deliberate practice, and healthy relationships, are especially hopeful for our long-term view for the future of our practice.

Here in Ann Arbor, we've been meeting outside all summer. It has been exciting and weird to be affected by the sun, moon, weather and sky. The together-but-not thing has also been weirdly sweet. Monday after class, I will depart for a very long drive, and will teach from the road in September.

I’ll take a roundabout route to my parents’ home in Montana, and will see a good bit of America this month. On a personal level I feel this a time to use my creative energy to make some deliberate, positive memories that will remain as a part of this year in my mind. I’ll be in touch from the road, and will be so happy see some of you in person during the travels.

07/31/2020

From the August Newsletter:
My intention for August is to fill our virtual shala with two key resources:

(1) committed, real, caring social connections, and
(2) the greatest clarity and discipline possible, based on the work we have done this far.

This intention is nothing new. But right now I think love, and discipline, are important at a new level.

For 1, I’m teaching almost every day this month (and beyond, of course). Come around when you can.

For 2, we will do another intensive of Yoga Sutra study with TKV Desikachar's student Chase Bossart. This is applied science. Not theoretical. It’s integrated into mundane life through hanging out with teachers and keeping it real. I memorized and later analyzed this material with my teachers, on the ground in India. Chase did the same with his teacher. This is the method because it gets makes us be honest and gets the understanding into our bodies and our lives.

So. It is unlikely that September-December will be smooth sailing, in the diverse cities and countries where we all reside. It is unlikely that September-December will be smooth sailing on OUR PLANET, where we together float in space. I predict that the training we have always done, and any sharpening of these tools that we do in August, will serve us and our communities extremely well come fall. I predict that our scenes, our societies, will need us.

For now, I just suggest that we practice sincerely, enjoy being together whenever we can, and get real with the spiritual tech - like our hair is just about to catch fire.

Part of Adam Grossi's work for his upcoming class on sequencing, inspired by his teacher Yoli Maya Joseph Yeh.
07/02/2020

Part of Adam Grossi's work for his upcoming class on sequencing, inspired by his teacher Yoli Maya Joseph Yeh.

06/30/2020

From the July Newsletter:

Most of our group has been both devastated, and inspired, by this month's waves of uprising and learning about police brutality and legacies of racism. It is so important now to have a practice that can steady our minds and keep us vital. The consequent clarity and courage are such important personal and group resources when the world is changing fast.

A large number of our group is working through Layla Saad’s journaling practice, outlined in her book Me and White Supremacy. Bringing warped mental/ emotional/ endocrinological conditioning to the surface, and straightening it out, is Yoga. I have found the book immensely humbling and helpful for my own learning, and recommend it. I expect any white person I mentor to make a whole hearted commitment to anti-racist study and practice. Our long-abandoned page is now a storage for resources and readings on this topic. There's years of study there.

Not as a brand for our shala, but as a way of life, I remain committed to resisting the powerful, violent forces of colonization and commodification — two forces that distort and demean Yoga in our time. Since we began working in this way ten years ago, I have always felt that talking about the practice of resistance cheapens it, making *resistance* itself susceptible to branding and personal identification. But resisting colonialism and commodification is not “cool.” It is not a style, not a posture, not a statement, not an in-joke. Keeping things grassroots and historically connected is just a way of living with and in the Yoga. In my constant interactions with our group now, it feels like we know in our cells that a commitment to anti-racism flows naturally from a Yoga that honors its Indian roots and actively, clearly resists the extremely powerful forces of selling, objectification of postures, personal enrichment, and ego gratification.

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220 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI
48104

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