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Saturday, February 7, 2009

butterfly, finally

I'm going to Costa Rica in March to play with some of my NYC jedi kula. Funny enough, Nick of playpoi fame is going to be in CR the week prior, teaching his classes on advanced poi spinning. The pre-requisite is "The Basics". I consider myself a fairly decent poi spinner, so wanted to see what "the basics" consisted of, in Nick's opinion.

To my astonishment, it included some fairly advanced moves (behind the back weaves, anyone?). I've been playing inside the Weave for almost a year now, and its time to incorporate some new moves. The one that I *do* consider basic, that I was struggling with, even after classes, was the Butterfly. This morning, in between sets of pushups, I decided to tackle it.

With good music, anything is possible!

To my own amazement, I had the butterfly within 2 minutes of attempting it. Just like when I first learned the weave, it was a really high energy schping moment! The important thing about new moves is to train your body to unconsciously complete them. In otherwords, so you can transition into, play freely within, and out of the move without so much as a conscious thought. This is the nature of flow. So I stayed within the move for a mighty long time, and played with the internal possibility space, seeing where all my hands could go, where I could relax, where I could exert force, where the beats and rhytmns were. All the while the chakras were unlocking and energy was flowing freely up and down my spine. It felt so good to be opening up to new moves again!

After 20 minutes or so of left over right (which seemed very natural for the butterfly), I heeded CMs advice: for every move, practice your weak side twice as much as your dominant. So I painfully reverse engineered the move and finally got my right over left working. It *almost* felt like (which means, there is) a way existed to swicth dynamically between the two in real time while still maintaining butterfly. But every time I tried it I either wrapped a wrist or konked myself in the head. We'll get there... something tells me its related to that move I hear about called "thread the needle" :)

I've got it now where I can actually interlock my hands and still keep butterfly going... that's fun! Also tried it bending over backwards and essentially doing helicopter overhead and then reverse butterfly over the head. Fun fun fun. :)

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Kundalini

The practices enable you
to merge with
or "yoke" with
the universal Self.

This merging of individual consciousness
with universal consciousness
creates a “divine union” called
"YOGA."

The practice that leads
to this state of self-mastery
is also called
"yoga."

So the road
and the destination
have the same name,
"yoga."

There are many different kinds,
or schools
of yoga.
"Many Paths, One Goal."

Those who practice yoga
are called "yogis"
and those who master yoga
are also called "yogis."