YogaBudo

I took (yoga) class this afternoon at 12.  It was a great class, with one of my very favorite teachers.  I wasn’t sure how it would go seeing as how I’ve been fairly exhausted lately.  But Tuesdays are my day off and I was determined to get on the mat.  I slept better last night than I have in weeks and woke feeling more rested than I have in a very long time.  So, the noon class seemed like the best choice for me.  I was rested, dressed and ready.

I got to the studio, got my mat, water, towels and went in the room.

Hello heat, hello dizzy!!  Why am I so dizzy?  Only breathing?  Ha!  Wow, Roy looks so tan.  I need to go to Spain.  No NO NO Focus!!!  Half Moon, ahhhhhh.  I am the queen of the backbend.  I can do any backbend any time I want.  Oh wait, not the forward bend.  OUCH OUCH OUCH!!  Hamstrings, I hate you.  Warm up, Balance.  Kick out, hold it.  Lock the knee.  Why did I wear these shorts?  No no NO FOCUS!!!!  Touch it, touch it!!  Touch the forehead, now the top of the head.  Man, I used to not be able to do this.  I am super yogini.  I am the awesomest.  I love you Triangle, I hate you Triangle.. Toe stand.  Snap, crackle, pop. Right knee not cooperating.  Forget it.  Just do the posture, no don’t do the posture, where is my balance?  Change, sweat, water, breathe.  Mmmmm, water. Floor…

Spine, so stiff.  Not the queen of the backbend anymore.  Stupid Cobra pose.  More heat.  Why is it so hot?  Sweat sweat sweat.  Bow pose.  Balance on the hipbones?  Is she serious?  I wonder when LOST comes on again.  Oh look, water break.  Mmmmm  water.  oh.. maybe not.  No water, nasuea.  Ugh, I know better.  Almost there, can do it.  CAN DO IT.  I would marry you all over again, Camel.  I am super yogini..  WILL NOT skip Rabbit.  WILL NOT.  Ouch, neck is stiff.  Shoulders, so stiff.  Must do the posture.  Did it get hotter? Oh wait, I feel cool air.  Stretch, twist..  Breathe.  Water..  Done.

Focus, I ain’t got it.

Speaking with a friend the other day, I mentioned that I needed to “get back to my mat..”  I mentioned that I had not practiced yoga in a few days and I felt a little off.  I had a budo lesson coming up as well.  I needed to practice, so I could practice...

The further I get into my budo practice, the more I need my yoga practice.  Yoga, the single longest-running discipline I have maintained in my life, keeps me centered in a way that nothing else can.  In the grand scheme of things, a few days off the yoga mat, especially en lieu of a vacation, are small and relatively harmless.  But, as I pursue simultaneous practices in these two disciplines, I find that I need more yoga than ever.

I am a yoga teacher.  I average about eight or nine classes a week on my schedule.  In addition, I train with my budo teacher twice a week.  In addtion to that, I really aim to practice yoga at a minimum of four times a week.  Doing the math, it’s a lot of… well…  practice.  Teach, train, take class.  Sometimes, depending on my schedule, I take a yoga class, teach two classes, then go and train with my budo teacher for two hours.  It’s a full time job, just keeping up the practice.

I am fortunate to have the flexibility (ha, get it??  flexibility?) in my life and schedule to allow for such a job.  But I am constantly reminded that I must practice for the sake of the practice.  I practice yoga first and foremost because I love it.  Secondary to that are the benefits, the feeling I get, the glow, the bendy spine, etc, etc,, etc..  Additionally, I practice budo because I love it.  I’m going on seven weeks with my teacher, which is relatively brief.  But, I do love it.  It fits me, and I practice and train for the sake of the practice.  One practice compliments the other.

I go to my yoga mat, I sweat, I work, I struggle to find balance.  I learn valuable lessons about gravity, alignment, my body’s limitations and my inner struggles.  I find concentration, determination, will-power, strength and focus.  When I practice budo, I find a calmer mind and all the focus I found on my yoga mat serves to direct me and help me to concentrate on the task at hand.  On my yoga mat, the feedback is internal.  My body and mind give me the responses.  I dialogue with myself.  Left hip forward, drop the right shoulder, relax the face..  In budo, I hear my teacher’s voice.  Relax your shoulder, just take the step, use the body drop, step and push..  One day, I hope to find my own inner dialogue with the budo.  For now, I hear my teacher’s voice directing and focusing me.

I need the yoga so I can do the budo.  Practice compliments practice.  At times it feels complex, pursuing both avenues with such intensity.  But it is no longer an option.  I go to one mat so I can go to the other.

Home base will always probably be my little black mat in the hot little orange room where I do my yoga.  I go back there day after day after day and face myself in the mirrors.  But I am finding that my time spent on that mat makes space in my life for my time on the other mat - in a (slightly) cooler dojo with my teacher.

At risk of exhausting the mataphor, I really believe that the world is our mat.  Life is our dojo and every breath we take is really our practice.  Yoga is no more confined to a studio lined with mirrors than Aikido and budo are confined to the tatami.  If I practice for the sake of the practice, I am always practicing.  I remain in right principle, with an open heart - suddenly practice is measure by lifetimes, not days and hours.  Just as it should be.

I’ve been practicing Hatha Yoga for ten years.  Prior to beginning yoga, I dabbled in dance here and there.  I’ve always considered myself pretty sure on my feet.  I have days when I go to practice yoga and I feel like the force of gravity has somehow doubled itself simply to my own disadvantage.  However, overall, I find my body roots me quite nicely with the earth.

At least, that’s how I used to feel before I started practicing Budo.

I should mention here that I am very new to Budo.  I have but a few lessons under my very very white belt.  But it did not take long for me to find, as I began my study of Budo, that all of my notions of what are and are not balance will be quicky challenged and in many cases completely changed.

A friend of mine once said, “this is like doing yoga - only with someone constantly trying to knock you over..”  Good analogy, really, and it carries far more legitimacy than maybe he even realizes.

When I practice and when I teach yoga, I remind myself and my students to plant their feet.  My particular style of yoga utilizes a locked knee and joint in many cases to stabilize the body in one-legged balancing postures.  We engage the quadriceps muscle, which causes the kneecap to pull up, which is how we “lock our knees.”  On my black sticky mat, this locked knee can serve me well.  I can round down and put my forehead on my  extended leg, achieving a beautiful balance.  I can also kick a foot back into a standing split, all while remaining rooted to the earth - balanced.

However, those locked knees are my enemy on the other mat.  My teacher quickly illustrated for me how very unstable those locked legs were when the right force, angle and momentum contact my body.  It could be as simple as him tapping my shoulder in a certain direction, and down I go.  No longer balanced.  I am learning that in Budo, the knees are soft, the weight bears more on the forefoot and there is a supple ability for the body to shift.  It’s not rigid or locked at all.  On my yoga mat, those softened knees would not serve to root me, but here they serve to protect me.  I am learning.

Ultimately I have much to learn about Budo, much more to learn about Yoga, and a lifetime’s worth more to learn about the real meaning of balance.  Perhaps practicing both will help me to find the truth that there is a harmony between what we need and what we have available to us.  The meaning of balance can change depending on the art we are practicing.  We may lock our knees to balance in a yoga class, or soften them to perform a technique on the tatami.  But balance, even with all its deceptive properties, essentially remains the same.  It’s far more than not falling over, far more than remaining upright, far more than keeping both feet on the ground.  I have yet to discover the elusive meaning, but I am learning.

Welcome to YogaBudo!

Some of us here practice Budo (Japanese martial ways).  Some of us practice Yoga.  Some of us even practice both.  I conceived this site as a place for us to talk about the similarities and differences between our respective paths, reflect on how both/either have affected our lives, share stories of how we came to be where we are today, or  just to pontificate on these and related subjects and see what you think.

We hope you enjoy your time here.  If you practice either Yoga or Budo, and would like to be considered for a position as a writer on our staff, please contact us!

Michael
Founder, YogaBudo