{"id":4727,"date":"2014-11-20T09:07:55","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T14:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/?p=4727"},"modified":"2014-11-20T09:07:55","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T14:07:55","slug":"wawadia-update-20-the-kaminoff-matthews-interview-full-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wawadia-update-20-the-kaminoff-matthews-interview-full-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"WAWADIA Update #20 \/\/\/ The Kaminoff-Matthews Interview: Full Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

This is the full transcript of my 10\/13\/2014 conversation with Leslie Kaminoff, Amy Matthews, and Sarah Barnaby over dinner in Leslie\u2019s office at The Breathing Project<\/a>. I published the first bit of it in an earlier update<\/a>, and will pick up the action from there, midstream, breaking into our reflection on the sculptural metaphor with which film makers Lindsey and Jake Clennell open their unreleased film Sadhaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This transcript is v-e-r-y \u00a0– – \u00a0l-o-n-g: excellent for geeking out. I hope it feels like being there. My research assistant Jason Hirsch worked like a monster to get this done. He\u2019s broken up the flow with section titles, so you can browse through for topics of particular interest. (If you support this IGG crowdfunding campaign<\/a>, you can help me pay him!)<\/p>\n

Like any vibrant conversation, this one winds in many directions and leaves many threads untied. I hope to prevail upon the generosity of Leslie and Amy again soon, to tell more stories, and, of course, ask more questions.<\/p>\n

________<\/p>\n

“The map is not the territory” Alfred Korzybski<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n

________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Asana as sculpture? Is the sculpture already there?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matthew Remski:<\/strong> There seems to be this central Iyengar \/ Pattabhi Jois divide in modern postural yoga. Iyengar goes in an architectural, mechanistic direction, and it feels like Jois couldn\u2019t give a shit about all that. Jois wants people to move, wants people to do impossible things. To really do them, and maybe suffer pain, but to learn from the experience.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m gaining a new kind of respect for that, actually. Not because I think that the movements of the primary series are adaptive for human labour, but because there isn\u2019t any belief that the body should become more \u2018efficient.\u2019 It just should become something that is able to process experience more effectively. So to me, Jois has a much more organic model. It\u2019s like he\u2019s saying \u2018With devotion,\u00a0the body will find a way to do this impossible thing. And hey — isn\u2019t that what you\u2019re expecting of your mind and heart as well?\u2019<\/p>\n

Sarah Barnaby<\/b>: If we go back to the idea of sculpting the stone for a moment: I think I\u2019ve heard it more in the context of wood carving, that part of what the sculptor\u2019s trying to do is bring out what is inherent<\/em> in the wood.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I think Michaelangelo says the same thing, about marble. That there\u2019s something within it. I\u2019m bringing out its natural form<\/em>. But he\u2019s doing nothing of the sort, right? He just has a sense of what he\u2019d like<\/em> to see. Today, Lindsey described the metaphor to me in Vedantic terms, saying that if Iyengar\u2019s claim is that God is in<\/em> everything, or that God is<\/em> everything, that the Hanuman is already sitting there, waiting to be released. So my question is, \u2018Why do you have to chip away at it?\u2019 There\u2019s a paradox there no one ever answers. But that\u2019s the dissonance of Vedanta. People want to say that things are perfect and they want to improve them at the same time. It causes a lot of stress. [laughs]<\/p>\n

Leslie Kaminoff<\/strong>: Well then there\u2019s the skill of knowing the material so well that you know what you can and can\u2019t expect of it. Stones are not uniform materials. They have grain, they have imperfections, they have veins that run through them.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>:\u00a0So on the other end of the spectrum from the stonecutter shown in the trailer could be the value that some place on found objects. The artist’s role in this case is one of seeing, recognizing and bringing to light, not shaping, molding or changing. I\u2019m also thinking of Zuni fetishes, where it\u2019s very much about looking at a piece of stone, and seeing the animal that\u2019s going to come out of it. They make use of all the imperfections, and the fault lines, and all that. There’s a book by Kent McManis in which he describes how the Zunis value stones that naturally look like animals, or even humans or deities. They feel that that stones that require very little carving to bring out an image are considered more powerful than those that need a lot of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anatomy is Not \u2018Reality\u2019 \u2013 Just Another Map<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amy Matthews<\/strong>: I just had a weekend workshop, that Sarah assisted in, on the role of asana as form, as a container for exploration. I\u2019d recently gone back to taking some kind of Ashtanga-esque classes, in that they\u2019re based on the primary series. And, granted, the teacher who was leading the class was not saying\u00a0\u2018get yourself into the position no matter what,\u2019 but it was very, very process-oriented. Like: \u2018Keep moving, and do it, and be where you are.\u2019<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Stay with this breath count.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Stay with this breath count. And one of the things I profoundly appreciated about it was that he did not talk about anatomy.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s very rare actually for those guys to use anatomical language.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I love<\/em> it. I love <\/em>the way they do not talk about anatomy in their teaching, because I think that so many people speak so ineffectively and so ineloquently, or inaccurately, about anatomy. I want to practice and engage with my body, and not be in \u2018the map\u2019. Anatomy is not reality. Anatomy is a construct, that we have all bought into, to describe experience. And it\u2019s not. It\u2019s just one set of ideas, one paradigm. The map\u2019s not the territory. And it\u2019s a map. But we take it as reality, so we think we can\u2019t teach without talking about anatomy, but I think you can be an amazing teacher without referencing anatomy at all.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But what\u2019s not a map?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Nothing <\/em>is not a map. Everything<\/em> is a map. But I think we treat anatomy like it\u2019s not a map \u2013 like it is reality<\/em>.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Got it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: What we need to \u2013 what I<\/em> need to \u2013 acknowledge, as an anatomy teacher, that this is my take on the world. And that you can actually be an incredible yoga teacher \u2013 you can be an amazing yoga teacher and never talk about anatomy.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: This is J. Brown\u2019s point.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yeah, J. wrote to me and said, \u2018Do you have to know anatomy to be a yoga teacher?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I am a professional anatomy teacher, and I say, no.’<\/p>\n

I think we slip into thinking that anatomy is reality, because it\u2019s the map that the medical-scientific community uses.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: What do you think the language of anatomy does to experience?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Wow. That\u2019s a hell of a question.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I think that the language of anatomy creates a container for experience, that may or may not create a pathway for deepening the experience. And if the language of anatomy \u2013 the model, the map, the pattern of it \u2013 is one that I can drop into \u2013 I love it. I studied Latin, so I hear the anatomical language, and I say \u2018Oh, I know what those words mean. It makes sense to me.\u2019 But one of the things that I see happen is the assumption that anatomy will clarify everyone\u2019s experience. And it does not. I thought for a long time that if everyone just learned anatomy, everyone\u2019s experience would deepen. And that\u2019s not true. We talk about \u2018Oh, feel your femur.\u2019 Well you don\u2019t know it\u2019s your femur until you engage with it and say, \u2018Hi, I\u2019m gonna call you femur. Will you answer when I say, \u2018femur?\u2019 And that bone in your upper leg may say, \u2018I don\u2019t think I\u2019m femur. I think I\u2019m Petunia. Call me Petunia!<\/p>\n

[laughter]<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Or Earth element, in Ayurveda.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Or Earth element! Exactly<\/em>. And then, people say: \u2018Oh, let\u2019s put the chakras onto anatomy\u2019, and they say, \u2018Well, mula bandha is this muscle.\u2019 And I think it does a disservice to the bandha model, and it does a disservice to the anatomical model.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Because it\u2019s neither.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Because it\u2019s neither. Mula bandha is mula bandha! And it might map onto a region, but mula bandha is not the levator ani, and levator ani is not mula bandha. And I can contract that muscle \u2013 or I can intend to contract that muscle we call levator ani \u2013 all I want, and it may or may not give rise to mula bandha.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So we\u2019re talking about a loss of meaning when the language goes flat for the hearer.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So what makes the language go flat? And is its flatness true for everybody?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No! No, I think that the whole point is that language is true for some people, but it\u2019s not true for everybody. Unless we buy into the language \u2013 unless we acknowledge that a linguistic model necessitates a buy-in on some level. On some level we\u2019ve agreed that we\u2019re going to speak English. And that\u2019s an agreement. I couldn\u2019t walk in and start speaking anything else. I don\u2019t know if you have a second language \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Dude speaks Canadian!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well… I used to speak a pretty good French.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Right! Well you could walk in and start speaking French, and be, like, \u2018How come you all don\u2019t understand me?\u2019 So the assumption of some shared language is intrinsic.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And anatomical language isn\u2019t English, by the way. You could be speaking English and come out with all these anatomical terms, and you\u2019re actually mixing it with a whole other language! You know? A language that people have different relationships to.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And that set of relationships has changed over the last 150 years, because we\u2019ve lost Latinate education, we\u2019ve lost classics education. I think the anatomist of the 19th<\/sup> century \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: They were speaking the lingua franca<\/em>.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And\u00a0they were reading Cicero. And so it wasn\u2019t completely \u2013 it had other associations. Latin used to be poetry. Doctors used to be poets. And so we have this specialized separation between the two realms, that only yoga culture, that I can see, is actually trying to bring back together. The notion of the poet also being a philosopher, and also being a medic \u2013 that\u2019s where I see our culture contributing something really interesting, but confusing at the same time.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It\u2019s interesting. But the rash of saying \u2018I have to do it like the medical community does it\u2019 \u2013 that is abdicating responsibility. And that\u2019s <\/em>where I think a language goes flat, to go back to your question. I think that a language goes flat, in a way, when people give up their personal responsibility about playing a role in how meaning is created.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Limits of Mindful Awareness and the Limits of Anatomy: Edges in Our Scope of Practice<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: How do we as yogis interested in therapeutics deal with our scope of practice? About the fact that we have assessment and diagnostic tools that are very concretely limited?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: What do you mean by limited?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I\u2019ll explain. I don\u2019t know if you saw that thing I wrote about my hospitalization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You were hospitalized?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah, I have a deep vein thrombosis in my left calf, and it came out of this past spring, when I was doing a lot of flying, culminating in flying to London and back.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong> : Oh my!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I also walked when I was in London, about 25 miles. I love walking there. But about a week after I returned, the sole of my foot was killing me. And I thought, \u2018I\u2019ve injured myself in some strange way. Is this planter fasciitis? I\u2019ve heard about this. I wonder what I should do.\u2019 So I do all of the massage I know how to do. I\u2019m using oils. I go to physiotherapy. The pain migrates, and then the top of my foot is swelling.<\/p>\n

One day I\u2019m in a sauna, and I\u2019m massaging my calf, and I can feel a sharp pain in the centre of my calf. And my entire yogic-Ayurvedic medicine mindset is, you know \u2013 \u2018Prana must move. Plus, I have a soft tissue injury, and I\u2019m going to bring mindful awareness to the pain.\u2019 To her credit, the physiotherapist said on my second visit, \u2018If the pain doesn\u2019t go away tomorrow, I want you to make an appointment for an ultrasound.\u2019 What do you know? The pain went away the next day. And then I had another flight. I went to Calgary and back.<\/p>\n

I got off the plane, and the next day, I\u2019m carrying my son Jacob, who\u2019s almost two, up the stairs in the health centre \u2013 we\u2019re going swimming. And I\u2019m short of breath, for the first time in my life. Like, really short of breath, strangely short of breath. And I said to Alix, \u2018I think there\u2019s something wrong.\u2019 And so I went to emergency, and they got me into CT scan as quick as they could, and found multiple embolisms in my lungs. A heavy clot load, they say. They immediately put me on \u2013 I think it\u2019s called Fragmin \u2013 it\u2019s an injection \u2013 and now I\u2019m on Warfarin, which was\u00a0a rat poison, originally. I’m sure it still kills rats.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You\u2019re lucky to be alive!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I am lucky to be alive.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That kills people.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It was an amazing month. And I had a sublime experience in the hospital, too. By about two in the morning, they had a preliminary diagnosis. They kept me in emergency \u2013 I didn\u2019t get a room or anything like that. And I had this almost mystical experience, stimulated by watching all of the doctors do their work, and dealing with all of these really ill people. The guy next to me was this homeless guy that they brought in. The internal medicine guy was interviewing him, trying to figure out, \u2018Why did you skip your last appointment with the psychiatrist? When was the last time you took your meds? Why did you just urinate on the bed?\u2019 Like, he\u2019d stood up and urinated on the bed. It\u2019s not that he wet himself. And then the same doctor comes and he deals with me with the same empathy, with the same patience, and the nurses had such beautiful smiles, and everybody was overworked, and everybody was in so much pain.<\/p>\n

And then it finally occurred to me that I almost died, and that I was okay with that. It was the best night \u2013 it was a wonderful night. It was a wonderful night. I was happy to be alone.<\/p>\n

So when I talk about our diagnostic assessment limits as yoga people, what\u2019s first on my mind is that I didn\u2019t have a clue about this condition.<\/p>\n

LK:<\/strong> You were trying to break the clot up, which exactly what you don\u2019t want a clot to do.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Exactly<\/em>, exactly. Like, I said to the internal medicine guy, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve noticed this pain the centre of my calf.\u2019 And he says, \u2018Where is it?\u2019 And he touches me there really gingerly and I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh no, you can dig your thumbs right in there.\u2019 And he says, \u2018No, no, NO! You don\u2019t want to dig your thumbs in there.\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, well I\u2019ve been doing that! Sometimes it feels better!\u2019 And he said, \u2018Do not massage your calf<\/em>.\u2019 The blood clots in my lungs are these little guys that have broken off this string that has clogged the popliteal vein.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve done a lot of meditating on epistemology \u2013 how we know what we know. And about what the limit of embodied mindfulness is, or where those limits show up, and how can I communicate to my Ayurveda students, for example, that there will be immense benefit from paying very close attention to their interoceptive states, and yet, at some point, they\u2019re going to need the outside gaze. At some point they\u2019re going to need some kind of expertise. I want to say to them: \u2018I want you to be empowered, but humble. I want you to take care of yourself, but I want you to understand that self-knowledge is dream-state in the final analysis.\u2019<\/p>\n

And then, the coolest thing was, I\u2019m getting the ultrasound on my calf. Here\u2019s this bored imaging tech, who\u2019s exhausted, he\u2019s working 18 hours a day probably, he\u2019s rubbing the little ultrasound guy on my calf, and he\u2019s nodding, and he\u2019s saying, \u2018Yeah, there it is.\u2019 And I realize that he\u2019s looking at the thing using sound.<\/em> And we all around this table talk<\/em> about listening to ourselves, we talk about listening to the internal body, and then here\u2019s this highly technologized form of listening. It\u2019s listening that\u2019s so powerful that it can draw a picture on the wall. He\u2019s listening to me, and showing me exactly where the clot is.<\/p>\n

So that whole thing just kind of spun me around quite a bit, in a bunch of different ways. And it made me see that, at least as far as yogic medicine and Ayurveda goes, I really feel that some kind of dialogue-synthesis is really what I want to pursue.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: That\u2019s an amazing story. I think that at the same time as we look at the limits of what we do, as yoga teachers, there are limits to what the medical model can do.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Of course.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I heard in the way you asked the question: \u2018There are limits to what we can do, but medicine holds the whole.\u2019 I think that there\u2019s a problem with that, an assumption that there are limits to what we do, but that medicine has got it right.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Maybe \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Or that they\u2019ve got something \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah. They have something we don\u2019t have. While we have something they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: We have something they don\u2019t have. I completely agree with you about self-inquiry, I can inquire about myself all I want, and there is a point at which I will not know myself, except for in relationship to other people. I can\u2019t. Leslie says all the time: \u2018I can\u2019t see myself the way other people see me.\u2019 For sure. But one does not negate the other. I worry about how quickly we go to, \u2018Well there\u2019s a limit to what we can do.<\/p>\n

But then \u2013 my mother had a similar experience with back pain. She went to acupuncture, and she went to yoga, and she did all this, and finally she went to the doctor and was told she had a tumour in her spine and she has cancer. She\u2019s had it now for several\u00a0years. She\u2019s like, \u2018Why didn\u2019t I find out sooner?\u2019 And they say \u2018Finding out sooner wouldn\u2019t have done any good.\u2019 And now that she\u2019s dealing with it, she\u2019s also enmeshed in the medical model, and doing chemo, and slowing it down. But when she does chemo she is exhausted and unhappy.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s like, okay, they have these tools. And it\u2019s great<\/em> that the medication is helping you, but pharmaceuticals don\u2019t<\/em> help everybody. They might take care of the symptoms, etc. \u2013 and so she\u2019s in this question \u2013 I think a lot of people are in, I think, about \u2018Well, do I stay in the medical model, and keep treating the symptoms, or do I look at the quality of my life and say, \u2018I might have less life, but I\u2019m going to have better life. I\u2019m going to have a good year, instead of an exhausted, cranky three years.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And when she was feeling and inquiring into the pain in her spine, what else is she learning as she does that? I think what happens with the diagnosis is that it stops the inquiry process.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: You know the other weird thing about thrombosis? Vitamin K is your main coagulant factor. Guess what\u2019s filled with Vitamin K?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Kale.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Everything<\/em> that you would use to \u201ccleanse\u201d the blood in Ayurveda. Everything<\/em>, down to the last dried green herb you can think of. It doesn\u2019t even matter what it is! It\u2019s packed<\/em> full of this thing that will do exactly <\/em>what Ayurveda would suggest\u00a0it shouldn\u2019t do. Most excess\u00a0clotting is going to be dosha of Kapha. Solids to have to be broken up, motility is needed. The tradition turns to pungents and bitters. The pungents are okay if they’re not green, but\u00a0the bitters are filled with coagulant-juice!<\/p>\n

It feels like a failure on two fronts: I wasn\u2019t able to see into myself, and also: I have this encyclopedic, anecdotal, very useful but largely not control-tested\u00a0knowledge that, with regard to this<\/em> situation, contains a fatal flaw. I could\u2019ve massaged myself and eaten lots of raw cilantro, for a long time.<\/p>\n

LR<\/strong>: Well, not too long, because you would\u2019ve been dead.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Exactly. Death by cilantro.\u00a0[laughs]\u00a0What a way to go!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: There\u2019s a self-limiting factor to that particular treatment of deep vein thrombosis. It reminds me of the story that Elizabeth Kadetzky tells about observing Iyengar having a heart attack in the middle of a demonstration. He was demonstrating, and he had to stop, and he left. And he came back, to the demonstration.<\/p>\n

He was clearly having a heart attack. But it was like \u2013 here\u2019s Iyengar, right? And it was more important, for him, to be Iyengar, and do this demonstration, then to, you know \u2013 \u2018Hey, maybe there\u2019s something going on here that precludes demonstrating in front of this group of people, and I should \u2013. \u2019 When you think of what\u2019s at stake, in a man like that\u2019s life, in a moment like that, you know, like, appearing vulnerable or sick isn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: No.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: His heart had other ideas, though.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So \u2013 it\u2019s epistemology, isn\u2019t it. We are always running up always against the limits of self-inquiry, and at that limit, there is some kind of external knowledge, that might be of benefit, and it might come from Yogaland, and it might not, but there\u2019s going to be some sort of expertise. But this is where \u2013 does more anatomy education, or physiology education, create the better teacher? Because I see this as \u2013 if we know that the general pattern is \u2018self-inquiry is limited,\u2019 then what else would we have except challenging ourselves through continued education in other disciplines to help out? And so when you say to J, \u2018You don\u2019t need more anatomy training to be a good yoga teacher,\u2019 the first thought I have is, \u2018Well, if there\u2019s something that he doesn\u2019t know about his own body, isn\u2019t it better that he apply outside expertise to his own situation, and use that as a model of openness to education for his own students?\u2019<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes, but that outside expertise, and that other model, does not have to be anatomical.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay.<\/p>\n

AM:<\/strong> I hear in your question again, \u2018If I don\u2019t know enough, I have to go outside, and the thing outside I have to go to is anatomy, is a Western model of anatomy \u2013 anatomy, kinesiology, physiology, in the Greco-Roman, Western medical model.\u2019 I agree with the basic question about inquiry, and that if I can\u2019t know myself, and the process of inquiry continues to be important, then where am I going for that inquiry? And I think that what happens is that people go to anatomy and they stop inquiring because they think they know. And so –<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yes. Have you seen people attain a high level of anatomical education and say, \u2018I\u2019m over it \u2013 I\u2019m going to keep using this, but I don\u2019t <\/em>feel like I really know anymore?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I think that\u2019s what you\u2019re hearing Amy<\/em> say right now.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So that\u2019s what you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I think that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s what you\u2019ve<\/em> done.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: That\u2019s what I\u2019ve<\/em> done \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So do you communicate that to your students? That narrative?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And I communicate that \u2013 I think I communicate that narrative to my students.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So you say, this is all my uncertain experience \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I say explicitly<\/em>, the map is not the territory. I\u2019m telling you a model of reality, and \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – and I know it really well<\/em>.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I know it really well \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well enough to know its limitations.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong> \u2013 and that it doesn\u2019t work <\/em>for everybody, and half of what I\u2019m telling you is going to be proven wrong.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: She just doesn\u2019t know which half!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I just don\u2019t know which half<\/em>. Which is said in medical schools all the time. So I didn\u2019t make it up. I just took it on. And I said, \u2018I\u2019m telling you all this stuff, I\u2019m telling you like I believe it, and I am learning new stuff all the time, and I\u2019m having to change what I know. I\u2019m having to change what I say. And I\u2019m having to change what I know.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So you model educational openness.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And the further into it I get, the more of a mystery it is.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Great.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: I also feel like the way you\u2019re teaching anatomy is like, \u2018Here\u2019s a container for experience \u2013 we\u2019re going to go through the bones of the body, and see if you can find those bones, and \u2018what does that do for you?\u2019 But not necessarily learning it to learn all the names so that you can do a particular thing with it. It\u2019s to take the map and compare it to your experience and see what comes out of that inquiry.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And develop flexibility around entertaining other models. Not because that model is right \u2013 that\u2019s the model I teach, because it makes sense to me and I love it, but I think it\u2019s also really important to say: \u2018If the way I talk about this doesn\u2019t make sense, if this language, if this isn\u2019t your experience, it\u2019s fine! And if you\u2019re paying to be in my class, or you want to learn this, then come and get inside my world with me, not because I\u2019m right, but because you\u2019re curious.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Because I\u2019ll help with curiousity.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: My job is to make you curious.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: One thing Amy\u2019s very good at is not shutting down people\u2019s questions. Not throwing answers at people\u2019s questions. Some questions are so good, they need to keep being questions. This is a fundamental question you\u2019re asking here. And I\u2019ve <\/em>learned how to listen for those questions a lot more since having these interchanges with Amy and seeing how she does that. You know, there\u2019s a tendency as a teacher to want to give an answer, but if it\u2019s a good enough question, it\u2019s, like, \u2018wow.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah, and wanting to give an answer has a whole psychoanalytic shadow to it: \u2018This is what I need to perform the knowledge of,\u2019 and \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And to me, it goes back to the babies. And parents come in and they\u2019re, like, \u2018Look, my baby can sit!\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Do they know how they got there? Do they know how to get out?\u2019<\/p>\n

The fact that I can recite something \u2013 and I\u2019m blessed with a sticky brain, and I can rattle off the names of all these things \u2013that doesn\u2019t make me skillful. What makes me skillful is how I\u2019ve learned to say, \u2018I don\u2019t know!\u2019 Because that\u2019s what I didn\u2019t come in being very good at.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah, nobody does. You\u2019d have to be born without anxiety to be good at that from the beginning.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well I think babies are born without anxiety. I think we pick it up really fast. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019re born anxious.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Standards of Safety \u2013 Can Anatomy Help Establish Injury-Prevention Standard? Can Chakras? Plus: “No Cure for Mortality”<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: To make it a little bit less abstract: in kinesiology, people will use the Beighton scale for flexibility assessment, or hypermobility assessment. I don\u2019t know how it works, but it\u2019s like nine out of ten joints, or seven out of ten joints, have<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: You can do this, you can do this \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Exactly. And then that is statistically predictive of a whole range of possible joint conditions, and then it becomes an invitation to genetic testing for all sorts of conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and other stuff involving collagen formation, and all of that. Now, this is kind of getting into standards and regulation, right? My question is heading that way, because I\u2019m bringing up a specific tool, but I\u2019m saying, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t this be good for many people to know?\u2019 It sounds like you guys are in the anatomist\u2019s position of knowing many things about range of motion, safe action, intelligent action \u2013 but \u2013 I know you Leslie, for sure, don\u2019t want to impose the idea that there should be certain standards for what people should know.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I don\u2019t personally want to, and I don\u2019t think any sane person would want to be that person.That\u2019s the way I would put it. Because I\u2019ve seen the people who want to be those people, and they\u2019re not sane. I\u2019m not going to mention names.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: \u2018Sane\u2019 is such a huge word to use, Leslie.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, sure, I\u2019d be crazy to think that you could be a judge!<\/p>\n

[laughter]<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But what I\u2019m saying is, \u2018Aren\u2019t there certain tools that would probably, that would likely improve classroom safety?\u2019 And if there are, and if there are, why not encourage people to use them?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Scope of practice.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Okay. The first question is, \u2018Are there tools that could improve classroom safety?\u2019 And I think the tool of becoming an expert in anatomy, and telling someone else about how they feel about what they\u2019re doing, is actually inviting the participants in class to not take responsibility for their own experience.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: If the anatomist tells <\/em>the person what they\u2019re feeling.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Right, if the person says, \u2018This isn\u2019t safe to do.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But then we get into the problem of feeling. And people can do unsafe things without feeling they\u2019re unsafe.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Absolutely. People can do unsafe things without feeling they\u2019re unsafe, and that is a really interesting and paradoxical question. And I\u2019ve watched that thread run through your blogs.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to go on a little tangent here, but I think it\u2019s related. I\u2019ve also seen in people\u2019s responses to your blogs a miasma of \u2018naming\u2019 hypermobility as a condition, to take just one example. And we make<\/em> it a thing. It reminds me of how Western medical diagnoses are getting exported to other cultures \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: – and that they\u2019re actually \u2013 before they had the diagnosis, before they had the language, they didn\u2019t diagnose it as that thing, and that the thing actually didn\u2019t show up. So there\u2019s this co-creation of conditions that happens.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah. The label of \u2018PTSD\u2019 generates presentations of PTSD in rural Africa, where the label had never existed.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: \u2018PTSD\u2019 creates PTSD. Right. Exactly. And I think also about \u2013<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Anorexia didn\u2019t show up in South Korea until it was available as a diagnosis.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Whiplash in Norway. They don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Our experience is fundamentally shaped by our model of it. And I have some really deep questions about the medical model determining what\u2019s safe. Or the anatomical model. And that, again, I agree that there\u2019s some outside perspective that is important, but to go learn anatomy so that I can tell someone else how to do something safely \u2013 it doesn\u2019t make sense to me, because it still privileges the anatomical model as holding all knowledge.<\/p>\n

I would like to go learn how to engage with a student. And if my way in is through anatomical language, great. But if someone else\u2019s way in is through, \u2018What is your breath doing? Do you feel the flow of prana?\u2019 I don\u2019t have to say, \u2018You\u2019re blowing out your medial collateral ligament!\u2019 Because along with blowing out the medial collateral ligament, there\u2019s imbalanced joint space, and there\u2019s leaking prana, and there\u2019s whatever \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: How does your knee chakra feel?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: If the knee chakra\u2019s out of balance, like it could manifest in so many different ways. So I do think that it\u2019s important for a teacher to know how to engage in dialogue with a student about something they have a question about. But then the medical model is not the absolute, essential way in.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t believe it is in terms of description<\/em>. But when the ACL is blown out, describing what\u2019s going on in the knee chakra isn\u2019t going to fix it. So, in other words \u2013<\/p>\n

AM:<\/strong> What is?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – so we\u2019re talking, we\u2019re talking about the \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But wait, what is going to fix it?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well, I\u2019m not sure, because I\u2019m picking an example where I\u2019m assuming that arthroscopic repair is working \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But why isn\u2019t appealing to the knee chakra going to fix it? I don\u2019t actually agree. Because \u2013 this I know anatomically \u2013 people can function without an ACL.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay\u2026<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And so \u2013 if something is broken \u2013 if some tissue is actually torn \u2013 but engaging with what I consider my knee chakra brings me into an inquiry about my knee, about where I can keep a clear pathway of energy, and that brings me…<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: How you can move it and how you cannot move it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: How I can move it and how I can not move it. I think that inquiring about my knee chakra will<\/em> help me not further damage, or \u2013 do you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Sure, but it\u2019s not going to go in there with arthroscopic method and suture it back together! So what I\u2019m saying is…<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Right.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – we\u2019re arguing on the description side of the event, and the other side of the event is treatment.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Right, but even there \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And yogis are ending up defaulting on the treatment side to the arthroscopic surgeon, who makes his living by ignoring<\/em> all of your babbling about the knee chakra, and getting down to fixing the damn ligament.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Mmhmm. And then, I\u2019m gonna argue, if they\u2019re not in touch with their knee chakra, they\u2019ll blow it out again.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay, sure. Cool.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: They\u2019ll do it again. So, again, the knee surgery is really <\/em>great for fixing something in that moment, but the number of studies about the reoccurrence of pain after knee surgery is huge!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Because the surgery isn\u2019t going to do \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Because the surgery isn\u2019t going to fix the underlying problem which is that they\u2019re not in touch with their knee chakra<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Assuming they weren\u2019t playing touch football when they did it, if they blew it out in the yoga class, what made that knee vulnerable to injury in the first place? The surgery isn\u2019t necessarily going to change that at all.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Let me tell you about a story that I\u2019m working on<\/a>, that kind of gets right to this. Nancy Cochren \u2013 she\u2019s on record for this \u2013 she\u2019s 33 now, she had her first baby 18 months ago, no, two years ago. She had an Ashtanga Primary Series practice that was quite vigorous, never had an injury. She loved<\/em> it, it empowered<\/em> her, it gave her a sense of expansive embodiment after all of her martial arts training, it was wonderful. She gets pregnant, she has her baby. Her labour was induced, because she was at 38 weeks and had a stretch and sweep; the gynecologist breaks the membrane. And so they send her to be induced right away. So no preparation for labour. She\u2019s thrown into a forced, medicated labour. And during the birth, the nurse practitioner and her husband draw her legs up and over into a kind of almost yoga nidrasana. I haven\u2019t heard about this in birthing stories that much. I suppose that, in the room, in the moment, people do whatever they think gives the woman more room. I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n

She felt wobbly in the pelvis, for sure, as she recovered in the days following. She had burning in the pubic symphysis, she was told by the medics that she might have a little bit of diastasis, they were going to monitor it. But she was very eager to get back to practicing. So two weeks after giving birth she arranges to leave baby with her husband and she goes and rolls out her mat in a gentle hatha class. And she gets tired at a certain point, she goes into child\u2019s pose, and there\u2019s suddenly something wrong in her left hip.<\/p>\n

The pain then migrates to her left hip. This progresses over several weeks. And then it\u2019s in both hips. Her mobility decreases, becomes more painful, it starts waking her up at night. It takes about nine months for her to get the imaging that can confirm bilateral labral tears. So both front 1.5 cm long in the same place on each side. Of course the doctors don\u2019t want to say what caused it \u2013 yes, labral tears happen during childbirth, it\u2019s not common that they happen on both sides, it\u2019s not common that they happen on both sides, and my thought was that \u2018I wonder if the tears are more a reflection of the symmetry of her practice, than her birth trauma.\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: They could\u2019ve been there long before she got pregnant. There\u2019s no way to know.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: They could have.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: If she was able to track in such a way that she never noticed them, then things get destabilized, the pelvic joints become a lot more mobile \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And inflammation happens.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah. Your body will avoid at all costs tracking through damaged joint tissue. You can make these adaptations without even noticing it. Until you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Because, with a labral tear, there is no pain. There is no localized pain.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah. And you can track around it, and \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So are you suggesting that with no conscious awareness of pain \u2013 because cartilage is not innervated \u2013 that neurologically, subconsciously, you\u2019re tracking around the potential injury site?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Your body doesn\u2019t want to go bone-on-bone, ever, if it can avoid it. You see this with a hip that\u2019s going arthritic. When you hit what feels like a muscular spasm, it\u2019s just not permitting a certain range of motion, that\u2019s my signal that the body is protecting a certain range of motion in the ball-and-socket from hitting bone-on-bone. It\u2019s the same principle of a trick knee when you tear your meniscus. And the knee will buckle or lock rather than letting you track through the torn tissue, it\u2019s a \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But in both of those cases, there\u2019s probably an awareness that pain is near, right?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It\u2019s the awareness of everything your body is doing to avoid<\/em> that bone-on-bone pain.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay, got it.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That\u2019s like the one when I picked up Lydia\u2019s leg, and I found that spasm, and I said, \u2018Well, sorry, but after 12 years of helping get through that damaged hip joint, it\u2019s time for surgery.\u2019 It was just so obvious. It wouldn\u2019t move. So my guess is, she got destabilized during the delivery, whatever, and she just couldn\u2019t compensate for it. I mean, this is just a story, obviously, but, you know. I think a lot of people who practice ashtanga have torn up their joints in various ways, and they don\u2019t notice it. Or they notice the pain, and it\u2019s, like, okay, that\u2019s just some of the pain I\u2019m dealing with and, you know, keep going.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But the labral pain probably<\/em> is going to amplify and accelerate over time.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, it\u2019ll cause you to compensate, which creates an imbalanced joint space, and then, you know, how long can you walk around with that before you just can\u2019t? But, you know, there\u2019s no way of knowing! I mean, it\u2019s the same thing with discs \u2013 \u2018Oh, I blew out my disc when I bent over and picked that thing up\u2019 \u2013 how do you know that?! Did you have an MRI the day before, and it was clear, and then<\/em> \u2013 you know, there\u2019s no evidence, it\u2019s just correlation.<\/p>\n

You know, there\u2019s two threads that I kind of felt hanging from our previous conversation which, if you pull on them separately, I think will help clarify some things:<\/p>\n

There is yoga as a practice that brings us more into our experience of aliveness, and everything that entails, including the stuff that we can control, and the stuff that we can\u2019t control, and appreciation that there is<\/em> both of that, you know, and the relationship between the two. As you know, that\u2019s my whole take on tapas<\/em>, sv\u0101dhy\u0101ya<\/em>, and isvara pranidhana<\/em>.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Right.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: But, you know, then there\u2019s that other thread, which is: there\u2019s no cure for mortality. This is what Atul Gawande\u2019s new book is about. It\u2019s called Being Mortal<\/em>. Gawande points out that the medical profession is not really trained to deal with the reality of mortality. The fact that life ends! And the problem I\u2019m seeing, after all these years of dealing with this is, you know, you could be pursuing any<\/em> pathway, whether it\u2019s Christian Science, or Scientology, or yoga, or surgery, or having wheatgrass pounded up your ass, for anything that could be wrong with you. And nothing will shift the fact of your mortality one iota.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, people get better! Bodies are unpredictable! You can never really know an outcome with the body, because the way our minds and emotions interact is so complex, we\u2019re just beginning to understand just a little bit of how to even ask the right questions. There\u2019s just starting to be really, really good research done around placebo. Everything has to beat placebo now, to prove it\u2019s good!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And a bunch of common and accepted things aren\u2019t beating placebo when they\u2019re studied carefully. So why can\u2019t we harness and mobilize this incredible force?!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, exactly \u2013 but that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing \u2013 that\u2019s what all<\/em> of these things do, including <\/em>surgery! And so, people will get better<\/em> pursuing any number of things, no matter how wacky they are. And then it starts to build up the mythos around this particular thing, about how effective it is. And every method is going to have failures, and successes. None of which are attributable to the actual method in many cases, because people\u2019s bodies are unpredictable.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Also the method is confounded by the thousand other things that changed when they started doing the thing they\u2019ve become religious about.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Exactly. But we are really, really reliant on our stories to help make all of this comprehensible. There\u2019s plenty of studies that show that sham surgery is very effective. How much of that effect is attributable to what goes on in real surgeries?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And in some cultures that prayer is really effective.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Unless it\u2019s not. Right? And so, that\u2019s one of the threads \u2013 mortality is not curable, and everything works some of the time, and nothing works all of the time.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I would point out that even the idea of mortality is context-driven. That not every worldview looks at mortality as a big deal, or something to orient around, or avoid. Or even as something that exists. But just that the modelling around dying \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: The fact that this physical body will cease to function at some point is not a context-driven conversation.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No, but the weight that is given<\/em> to mortality, that you say mortality with this weight, that it is a factor in our conversation, that it is a factor, I know what the word means and that we do all die, but that it has weight in our considerations, is a culturally-driven event. Some people, some cultures, care differently about mortality, or they give different weight to it.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Like the culture that yoga came out of?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I don\u2019t care which one! I\u2019m just pointing out that everything we say is driven by a context!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Sure. But it is an interesting point to look at India, and the concept of mortality that\u2019s prevalent there, the fact that you have many, many lifetimes to get it right, and how that longer timeline is going to contextualize a momentary ache or pain or injury, or even a disease, in terms of that broader perspective. We certainly in the West have a little different relationship to that whole conversation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Mortality as a Lens \u2013 Yoga as\u00a0an Existential Perspective<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: This summer, I was at a workshop with an embryologist from Europe named Jaap Van der Wal, and he\u2019s very oriented toward an anthroposophical take on things, and he was talking about embryology and the process of embryology, and the idea that to be \u2013 he\u2019s talking about the placenta, and how, as an embryo and a fetus, all of our nourishment comes through the placenta when we\u2019re in the womb and we\u2019re in this complete environment, and that to be born, we have to give up something that was essential to our life, that we co-create our placenta and then we have to leave it behind. We have to completely transform the way in which we take in nourishment.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And get rid of waste.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And get rid of waste. And he read this little story about twin fetuses talking to each other, and saying, \u2018You know, I hear that out there, after birth, people breathe<\/em>.\u2019 And the other embryo\u2019s like, \u2018No, I\u2019ve heard that too, but like, why would we breathe? We have a placenta.\u2019 And the other one\u2019s, like, \u2018I hear there\u2019s a mother.\u2019 And it\u2019s like, \u2018Who\u2019s mother?! What? Who needs a mother? People are just making that up to comfort themselves.\u2019<\/p>\n

And all of these things that we, from our perspective, think are true, and know that the fetus is engaging with, they don\u2019t believe in, because they don\u2019t have any \u2013 and then , the idea of being born is one of \u2013 you give up everything you know. In a way, you die to what is, and you come into this other way of being in the world. And he was suggesting that we consider what might be after this, and what might be our placenta in this life, and that, as a fetus, you can\u2019t even conceive of air as air. And that radical shift in the capacity to conceive of how we get sustenance was really striking to me. So when you say this about mortality, I\u2019m like, well, the fetus thinks their life as they know it is ending when they are born.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: The only life they could know.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: The only life they could possibly know ends when they are born.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Wait a minute. Let\u2019s acknowledge that we\u2019ve turned the two fetuses into conscious, cognitive beings, right? That are considering these questions. I mean, the analogy is very colourful \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It goes to an assumption.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I appreciate it, but \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But —<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well we have to turn them into us for it to make sense. Which is what we do with babies.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And we have to turn death into something it isn\u2019t, in order for that to make sense, also.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Okay, those are two different things. I\u2019m going to go with the fetus, and say I have no idea what the fetus experiences, and all I can do is connect with my own experience, but it\u2019s also true that whatever comes after this way of being, I have no way of knowing. And as different as the fetus\u2019 experience is from mine, to consider that there\u2019s something else that\u2019s as different as this is, the magnitude of the transformation on a physical level that has to happen, much less whether there\u2019s cognition or self-reflection or awareness \u2013 because there\u2019s a whole other conversation we could have about consciousness and how we define that, between fetus and newborn and adult, and I don\u2019t know what death means \u2013 when you say we have to turn death into something it isn\u2019t \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, at least from my set of beliefs, you would have to believe in something like a ghost-consciousness that can exist independently of the physical body.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: You would have to believe that, why?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: To imagine that there is something else to be transitioned into after the death of the physical body. That there\u2019s something left of us, of who we are, independently of the physical body ceasing to exist.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Our physical body doesn\u2019t cease to exist \u2013 it dissolves as it is, and transforms into other things. Nothing ceases to exist. It\u2019s transformed.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Right.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And the magnitude of the transformation is something I can\u2019t conceive of. And I don\u2019t think I have to believe in ghosts to think that a transformation could be something I can\u2019t conceive of. In a similar way that we can\u2019t really conceive of what a fetus can imagine. And so the shift to imagining what it\u2019s like to be on the planet, in gravity, breathing, might be as huge, partly because of <\/em>that shift in consciousness.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: We have gone to the biggest question possible. And these noodles are really<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well that was that thread I was pulling on \u2013 I used the word mortality. You know, people come in with problems that, one way or another, are related to asana practice, either they occurred as a result of something they did in their asana practice, or it\u2019s preventing them from doing their asana practice, right? There\u2019s always this \u2013 not always, but frequently \u2013 mystification about why did this happen?<\/p>\n

My standard response for this is, \u2018Well, you\u2019ve never been this old before.\u2019 Which you can say to anybody; you can say that<\/em> to a fetus and it would be true. But there is this constant factor of change. Every moment of our lives, every day of our lives, we can become more capable of doing certain things as we become less capable of doing other things. I think an effective yoga practice puts us in touch with that reality. And it also can teach us that the greatest accomplishment in your yoga practice may be the ability to not push yourself into something today on that mat that you were able to do yesterday, because you\u2019re listening.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And you\u2019re a day older.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And you know<\/em> you\u2019re a day older, you know that that\u2019s a factor. Yes, you could push, but maybe you\u2019ve learned from your experience that, \u2018Well, the last time I did that, it took me a week to recover, and I don\u2019t want to do that again.\u2019 It\u2019s the whole heyam dukham anagatam<\/em> thing, right? That\u2019s a very mature attitude. Most folks who come in when they\u2019re hurt, they just want to be fixed, so they can get right back to doing pretty much the same thing that hurt them in the first place. And to me, that\u2019s not yoga.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Because it has no existential view. Because it doesn\u2019t say, \u2018I\u2019m mortal.\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: No, it doesn\u2019t take the nature of our human existence into account. And that, incidentally, is why I have a hard time identifying Iyengar\u2019s method as yoga. It\u2019s definitely a very sophisticated way of working with the body, and whatever principles of alignment he came up with, but how is that different from physical therapy with props and ropes and body positions that we identify as asanas? I know he\u2019s said a lot about it, he\u2019s written about it, he has his own philosophical view \u2013 I\u2019m well aware of all that.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But how is it not yoga?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I think it has to do with how one defines yoga, how one would define yoga in such a way that asana practice could be a part of it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well how are you defining yoga, then?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, I always go back to the definition in Patanjali \u2013 tapas sv\u0101dhy\u0101ya isvara pranidhana<\/em> \u2013 and if the main guy who put this alignment system together can be more interested in performing in front of a group of people than in taking care of his body, which is obviously having a heart attack, it makes me wonder where he\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well, I personally think he\u2019s thinking: \u2018I have made my entire being out of a performance of the thing I was forced to perform from the age of 18, when I was penniless.\u2019 Yeah, he found his life in the performance of asana.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And if that\u2019s the case \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – that\u2019s okay with me!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: If that\u2019s the case at that moment, then that\u2019s his yoga. I\u2019m not sure how being more attached to doing something that brings you satisfaction, for whatever reason, that has become his satisfying thing to do, that he felt fulfilled in himself to perform. Now we can question that that\u2019s where the fulfillment comes from. But that he chose to override a signal from his body, to get that satisfaction, I\u2019m not sure I would say that\u2019s not yoga. If it\u2019s framed like that.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I would agree with you, if it\u2019s transparent. If he says, \u2018Fuck it, I\u2019m gonna keep performing.\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: [laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Sometimes I think the same thing about the guys on Jackass. They\u2019re like \u2018Dude! I know I\u2019m going to staple my scrotum to my thigh, it\u2019s going to hurt like hell, but it\u2019s gonna be really cool. It\u2019s gonna be awesome<\/em>. I\u2019m never gonna feel like that ever again, and this life is what that\u2019s for.\u2019 And that\u2019s a valid Tantric perspective. But I don\u2019t know \u2013 it\u2019s very difficult to assess a person\u2019s freedom in that. It\u2019s really difficult to hear somebody say \u2018fuck it\u2019 and know they\u2019re being honest and transparent.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes, absolutely.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s rare!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: The denial version of it is the easiest one to understand, because we\u2019ve all been there.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But I also think giving the space to what each person brings to the experience. Take my experience of being in an Iyengar class. Not Iyengar\u2019s experience, but my experience being in an Iyengar class, is one that I would call creating yoga, where I\u2019m invited in the rigidity of the structure to experience myself in that moment, in my body, in space, in gravity.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Is that about the system, or about what you brought to it?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It is an experience that arises in Iyengar method, that I have found in other places, but I had an experience there about structure that\u2019s different than anything I had anywhere else. I can go create it for myself, and it is<\/em> what I bring to it, that\u2019s all anything is, but I don\u2019t think we can say that a system is or is not yoga. I would argue with that.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: What I got from it, which was very helpful for me, and which grounded my first yogic education, was cognitive short-circuiting. The complexity of the action cues was so bamboozling, was so complex, seemingly arbitrary \u2013 and now we know that it changed all the time, so it was<\/em> arbitrary \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It was <\/em>arbitrary.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: And that was its point \u2013 and this is where the patriarchalism of it comes in; there\u2019s this assumption that he was teaching a knowledge, that was somehow formed. It\u2019s not true! I think that what he was doing at least in part was teaching a series of improvisations, and even confusions designed to cognitively overwhelm a person, so that they had no conscious agency over movement or proprioception anymore. That can be experienced as bliss.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve never heard any Iyengar teachers actually say that. They\u2019ll say the instructions led to a particular experience. But the instructions could\u2019ve been anything. Tell me to move my skin this way! Tell me to move my hair that way! It doesn\u2019t matter. But if you\u2019d give me enough instructions, that part of me that wants to try to be a better person gets overwhelmed. That part of me that wants to try to follow instructions and wants to attain something gets totally smashed.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Flooded, we call it.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Flooded, flooded. And that was a positive experience \u2013 for a while<\/em>. And then it wasn\u2019t<\/em>, because like a drug, you can only experience that a couple of times before it either doesn\u2019t work, or you just get pissed at the guy, or \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Or you have to go seeking more sensation, or more flooding, or more disorientation.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Or less. So then I turn around and say, \u2018Now I\u2019m going to go to the Vanda Scaravelli people, because they\u2019re just going to let me roll around on the floor, right?\u2019 You know, and move my pelvis in a wave. And that\u2019s opposite. It\u2019s not about me losing my mind, literally, because I\u2019m trying to accomplish something perfect. It\u2019s a matter of letting myself not<\/em> be perfect \u2013 in a completely other direction. Letting myself be an infant.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: What I heard you say, Leslie, was: \u2018Why is Iyengar more yoga than physical therapy?\u2019 And my argument is, either could be a yogic experience, or not, depending on what we bring to it.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, but what we bring to it is what we bring to it, it\u2019s not necessarily something that\u2019s built into the system, as such.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No, no. But it doesn\u2019t mean that Iyengar yoga is not<\/em> yoga, either.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I\u2019m not saying that. I said I had a hard time seeing how it\u2019s yoga. Maybe that\u2019s more a statement of my own limitations. Because every time I\u2019ve tried to take a class, it made me so repulsed that I wanted to get as far away from it as possible.<\/p>\n

Now is that something I should examine in myself? Should I keep inserting myself into those situations, and find out what it is about me that doesn\u2019t want to be completely OCD about where the 310th<\/sup> follicle of hair on the left edge of my right kneecap needs to be? You know, that\u2019s how it shows up \u2013 it engages the part of my brain that I so want to be disengaging if I want to get to a place of equanimity in myself.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But it doesn\u2019t work for you, doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not yoga.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well that\u2019s why I said, I <\/em>had a hard time seeing it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But it comes out as \u2018it can\u2019t be yoga for anybody.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But here\u2019s something: \u2018It engages the part of my brain that I want to get away from.\u2019 You know that thing about the muscle that\u2019s in spasm: it\u2019s actually aided<\/em> through the contraction.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Because it finally fatigues.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Exactly. Like, my OCD with regard to detail-orientation and wanting to get everything right was precisely exhausted by that. But, yeah \u2013 it only happened a couple of times. And then! And this is a big thing \u2013 we attribute \u2013 I think we can have epiphanic experiences, through particular methods, that can only<\/em> actually work once or twice. And then we keep pursuing them. That\u2019s one of the things I\u2019m trying to pursue with the notion of the plateau that people get to. I\u2019m hearing dozens of stories of people who get to a certain level of attainment, or comfort in their bodies, about five years into their asana experience, and then they keep driving towards the sensation that they had in the first two. And that fits into the mortality argument, doesn\u2019t it? The expectation that the sex I had at 19 is going to be available forever.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Oh, yeah, if only!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finding the Limits of Anatomy Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I hope not! To me, that is the same question as, \u2018Oh, if I want to know how to keep my students safe, I should study anatomy.\u2019 The idea that there is a <\/em>way, and that that one clarifying experience will always be a clarifying model. That \u2013 when I went to this new kind of yoga class, I was met or I was challenged in a way that gave me a new experience. Okay. That thing has to keep giving me that experience \u2013 it\u2019s a similar mindset to, \u2018I just have to find the right model – I\u2019ll learn anatomy, and then I\u2019ll know.\u2019<\/p>\n

The thing is, at some point, knowing anatomy will fail me at meeting a student about being safe. Because \u2013 this is the other argument I have, to go back to the learning anatomy thing \u2013 that anatomy teaching, the instruction around \u201ccorrect\u201d anatomy, is wrong. It is wrong<\/em>. The things that are being taught about anatomy and alignment, they are incorrect, and they are not promoting health.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Can you give an example?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Keeping the knee over the foot.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Squaring the hips.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Squaring the hips.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Tucking the tail.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: People interpret the keeping the knee over the foot idea as \u2018you can\u2019t hurt your knee if the knee is over the foot.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Got it.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It won\u2019t make your knee safe! It is not true! And, in fact, it might hurt your knee more than not letting your knee be over your foot.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: You\u2019re talking about anatomical aphorisms that cannot be universally true.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Because they\u2019re situational.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And they\u2019re taught as if they could make the practice safe, if you just follow these alignment cues.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay, I\u2019m starting to understand you guys a little bit better.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And how do we tell the bullshit from the truth? Because people go, \u2018Oh, you do this and then you do this and fresh blood goes to your joints.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t<\/em>. It doesn\u2019t. And slowing your heart rate down is better \u2013 it\u2019s not<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Or: \u201cBreathing deeply is always better.\u201d<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Right. “Breathing deeply is always better.” But it\u2019s not<\/em>.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: “Space in the joints!”<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: “Space\u00a0the joints, make space in the joints” \u2013 it\u2019s bad<\/em> for your joints to make too much space. “Straighten your spine for it to be healthy.” It\u2019s bad!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, always “Straighten your spine.” Sure!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: There\u2019s really concrete things that are being said, even \u2013 right out of doctors\u2019 mouths!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leslie: Against Standardization for Yoga<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Desikachar\u2019s insistence, right across the board, always has been that yoga is relationship, and that the primary vehicle for the transmission of yoga, and what yoga is in itself, is relationship. And the more highly you value that as a fundamental principle, the more sensitive you\u2019re going to be to anything that comes into the field that interferes with that.<\/p>\n

I mean, insurance reimbursement? That\u2019s third-party reimbursement. That\u2019s a third party to the relationship. Regulators, the government, insurance companies, legislators, all of these people that get involved in the regulation discussion are people who, by their very nature, are going to intrude themselves into that relationship. And so it\u2019s like the fundamental ahimsa<\/em> that we would practice, with regard to our field as a whole, is to not \u2013 is to protect that, is to not allow any of that interference.<\/p>\n

The interference would come in the form of price controls, what you can and cannot teach, who can teach, who cannot teach, who can teach people to teach, who can\u2019t teach people to teach \u2013 all of this involves other people making judgments about who is and who is not qualified to do these things, and how much they can charge, and what they can and cannot do, and that\u2019s always been the case. I mean, think of a doctor, it\u2019s a similar thing \u2013 if the medical profession held the doctor-patient relationship as sacred, would they have invited or permitted all of the things that have since happened into their field? Even though, yes, it may be more lucrative to go down this road. But it has the potential for destroying the very thing that\u2019s at the heart of what we do, the doctor-patient relationship.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: But it\u2019s not just been destroyed because it\u2019s more lucrative to collectivize \u2013 it\u2019s also been altered because it\u2019s smarter to share knowledge, and \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It\u2019s not about not sharing knowledge \u2013 it\u2019s about understanding what the core value is that you have in what you\u2019re doing, and I can\u2019t \u2013 I\u2019m not a doctor, I can\u2019t speak for doctors, I can certainly observe how the practice of medicine has been just disemboweled, legislatively and every other way, in our society.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So you\u2019re thinking about old doctors that you knew that were educated maybe in the 40s, or pre-war, or something like that.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Not even that, I\u2019m thinking about the doctors to this day that are just quitting, because they just can\u2019t stand it, they can\u2019t deal with it, they don\u2019t want to deal with the system as it is. Think of all the Canadian doctors who moved to the States when they nationalized health care in your country, you know? There was a huge wave of people who just didn\u2019t want to work under that system. Or the fact that there\u2019s a whole parallel system that\u2019s developed, for private pay, alongside the public \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I\u2019m not quite sure who uses it, though. I mean, it\u2019s very \u2013 we\u2019re talking about the one or five per cent, or something like that.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Sure. But they\u2019re subsidizing the practices of these people who are able to afford to offer it elsewhere, because that percentage of people can afford to pay them, directly.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Let me back out of that political thicket to bring up the issue of exceptionalism in the yoga world. I\u2019m interviewing J. Brown and he says, much like you guys do: \u2018I don\u2019t believe that more anatomical training is going to make me a better teacher, although I\u2019m going to pursue it. Even without it, I believe that I have, on my own, intuitively, by using the listening tools that I have, by understanding what I understand about the intimacy of relationship, I have built a protocol, a method for myself, by which I am very sure that I keep my students safe, and I allow them to grow at their own pace. And I said, \u2018I think you\u2019re an exceptional dude. I think that this frontier approach may be true for you \u2013 we have no way of saying \u2013\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well that\u2019s the thing \u2013 there\u2019s no way to know that all the students are safe.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yes, there\u2019s no way to know, but what I\u2019m trying to ask him is: \u2018The fact that it works for you is great. But if we think towards the commons a little bit more, how can we make it good for everyone, or for more people?\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You can\u2019t. And that\u2019s not a goal that anyone should have who understands what we do. You attract people to you, and your system, and your way of thinking, your way of teaching, who feel an affinity for it. And some people will come and they will stay; some people will come and they will go, which, by the way, is why you cannot<\/em> know that it is safe for everybody \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Exactly.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Someone comes and has a bad experience and hurts themselves \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: They don\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: They don\u2019t come back and you never hear about it. So that is an endemic, profession-wide issue, that we all just need to acknowledge. That we do not get the very feedback we need, in order to make ourselves safer.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So let\u2019s take that issue \u2013 would you say it would be good for everybody to create better feedback mechanisms?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well to do everything they can to acknowledge that that\u2019s an issue, for one thing, and to create whatever mechanisms are available. We did that \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Why is that not a social policy statement that you\u2019re making, then?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Social policy?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well, cultural policy. I mean, it sounds like, \u2018Here\u2019s a good idea for everybody to do.\u2019 Wouldn\u2019t that impose on people\u2019s individualism?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Did you hear me say that everyone should do it? Or than anyone has the right to say that everyone should do it?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well what did you say?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I said it\u2019s a problem in our field. And the degree to which we don\u2019t acknowledge it or recognize it is the degree to which we\u2019re not being as safe as we could be. I talk about this wherever I go, wherever I teach.<\/p>\n

Number one, to set an example, to let people know, we are open to their feedback. We have created an online survey form that we encourage people to log into and deliver feedback. And I tell them: \u2018Look, we\u2019re happy to hear how much you enjoyed this.\u2019 But people are willing to tell you that to your face right afterwards. Sometimes you don\u2019t realize until, like the day after, or the week after, that something I said didn\u2019t sit right with you, and it\u2019s whatever, and you can completely anonymously \u2013 you don\u2019t have to leave your name \u2013 deliver that feedback, on this survey form that we created. And I got some pretty rough feedback. You know?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s awesome, I\u2019m glad you did that.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Lydia would be reading it, and she\u2019d go, \u2018Okay, I don\u2019t think you want to read this, let me paraphrase it for you.\u2019 Because she knows how emotionally sensitive I am. And it\u2019s true, in that sense \u2013 this is stuff that ties a knot in your gut when you hear it, because it makes you doubt things. But it\u2019s what we need to hear. And so, because we have opened ourselves to this feedback, and because we have gone to every pain that we can to let people know that we really, really want it, over the last year-and-a-half, or however long it is that we\u2019ve been doing this survey \u2013 I think it\u2019s close to two years now \u2013 we\u2019ve gotten fewer and fewer negative comments, because we\u2019ve really taken to heart the things we\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n

And I really examine myself, I say, \u2018Well, I\u2019m hearing this thing consistently. This is a similar complaint I\u2019m hearing, you know, from people, and this is something I need to look at. I need to change<\/em> this thing about how I\u2019m teaching. And it\u2019s gotten better and better and better. But unless you really go out of your way to let people know you\u2019re open to critical feedback, they won\u2019t deliver it. Because we have issues<\/em> with educators, we have issues with people in the front of the room that have power. And it goes way, way back, to when we were first starting to be educated, and all of that is going to be projected on us, as yoga teachers. And we have to recognize that. We have to understand that. And letting students know, in whatever way we can, that we are willing to hear this difficult feedback if they have it to deliver, and giving them a way<\/em> to deliver it, anonymously if necessary, is really, really important.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Okay, I \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Can I just interject? When you say \u2018we,\u2019 you mean \u2018I.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: This is exactly what I was going to say!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: No, when I say \u2018we,\u2019 I mean me and Lydia.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No, I just think that you\u2019re saying \u2018we,\u2019 and I think this is something that you<\/em> are doing, as a teacher, and you and Lydia may be reading, but it\u2019s not you as a community of people doing it. You\u2019ve done this yourself.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: No, when I say we \u2013 Lydia and I came up with this, and we\u2019re a team in implementing it, but \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes, but as a teacher, you are not a \u2018we\u2019 of teachers; you are a \u2018you\u2019 of teachers. It\u2019s a position you\u2019ve taken yourself, and it\u2019s really valuable, and I\u2019ve done it a different way. But I haven\u2019t done it that way.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, so the \u2018we\u2019 actually was an actual \u2018we,\u2019 it was me and Lydia.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I know, but when you say as a teacher, you\u2019re changing your teaching \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s exactly what I was going to ask, because \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Like, I don\u2019t presume to be talking for Amy here, although I know she recognizes the issue as well.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Even to recognize something as an issue means that we share it, that it\u2019s shared.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: The \u2018we\u2019 meaning \u2018me and my students?\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Ah, everybody who\u2019s interested in this stuff.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Everybody that I think is at least introduced to the idea goes, \u2018Wait a minute, you know, that\u2019s true.\u2019 When I read Glenn Black\u2019s section in The Science of Yoga<\/em>, I was like, \u2018What the fuck?\u2019 He\u2019s claiming to William J. Broad that he\u2019s never hurt a student in one of his classes. And he\u2019s never been hurt. And my immediate reaction is, \u2018That is such utter bullshit.\u2019 And later on in the book, he comes back to Broad and says, \u2018Oh, by the way, I just had this neck or back surgery.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah. I\u2019m bionic now.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Right, because I fucked myself up in my practice.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: So we have an over-inflated sense of our own safety and efficacy because of this issue people \u2013 students \u2013 have with delivering negative feedback. It\u2019s a built-in problem, it\u2019s a built-in problem with medicine, it\u2019s a built-in problem with anyone that\u2019s in authority. It\u2019s a built-in problem in the church, it\u2019s a built-in problem in the educational system across the board. Anyone<\/em> that\u2019s in authority is going to \u2013 there\u2019s going to be this dynamic that makes it pretty difficult for people to give them negative or critical feedback.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Or \u2013 I agree, in the big picture, and as you\u2019re saying this, I\u2019m asking, \u2018Oh, how have I done this?\u2019 Because you say \u2018we\u2019 and I\u2019m like, \u2018Uh, you and Lydia,\u2019 but then I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a negative feedback question so much, though that is what people have trouble doing, but an authentic feedback question, and a space for people to have their own experience, whatever it is. And so \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: How do they even know what their feedback is in the first place?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: How do they even know what their experience<\/em> is in the first place? We\u2019ll do an experiment in my classes. I\u2019ll go around and everybody has to say something about their experience. And I say in the beginning, \u2018You can say, \u2018I don\u2019t know, I didn\u2019t get it.\u2019\u2019 And it takes two or three classes, usually, for some people to start saying, \u2018I didn\u2019t get it at all.\u2019 And I say, \u2018Okay.\u2019 I say, \u2018Okay! Thanks!\u2019 And then the next person. And we accumulate now 35 people in the room saying, \u2018I got it!\u2019 \u2018I didn\u2019t get it.\u2019 \u2018I had this profound experience.\u2019 \u2018I heard music.\u2019 \u2018I smelled chocolate.\u2019 The whole range of it! But I\u2019m doing it really consciously, saying, \u2018Yes, yes, yes, yes, great, yes, yes.\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: No judgment of their reaction.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And what\u2019s great <\/em>is they\u2019re sharing their experience. And what starts to happen in the room is anything goes<\/em>. And I think that is an experience that people don\u2019t get to have very often. But I think it\u2019s teachable. And I think that\u2019s<\/em> what I\u2019m teaching in my anatomy class. And that\u2019s <\/em>how I think I\u2019m going to change the world. Not<\/em> by teaching anatomy. But by teaching people to have their own experience, in whatever thing it is I\u2019m teaching.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: And do you think, that if people in that environment had an opportunity to fill in an anonymous survey down the road, some of them could potentially say, \u2018Amy \u2013 all she\u2019s ever asking us to do is talk about our experience, and I just wanted to come here and do x<\/em>, which is, like, different from that.\u2019<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yeah, totally! I mean, they still might not \u2013they don\u2019t have to like it. But I think there\u2019s something radical about saying, \u2018What is your experience?\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well that\u2019s what transformed J! That\u2019s the question Whitwell had asked him \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Relatedness as a Guard Against Injury<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: What I heard you say, Leslie, is that relationship is the vehicle for yoga. I would also say that yoga is the vehicle for relationship, which I think I got straight from Mark Whitwell. I studied with Mark really intensely for a couple years, and then went to Body-Mind Centering, and got Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and understood the body as a vehicle for that relatedness. To me the two are inextricable, in my own take on the world.<\/p>\n

So to go back, then, to the question you asked of Leslie about the place of anatomy training \u2013here\u2019s a story I tell often about Mark. When I was studying with him, I would be late sometimes for whatever we were doing, and he\u2019d say, \u2018Why are you late?\u2019 And I\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019m studying anatomy, I\u2019m taking this anatomy class.\u2019 And he\u2019d say, \u2018Why?\u2019 And I\u2019d say, \u2018I don\u2019t know enough; I need to know more anatomy to teach.\u2019 And he\u2019d say, \u2018That\u2019s bullshit. You\u2019re a teacher; go teach.\u2019 \u2018Okay, okay.\u2019 And I\u2019d be late again, and he\u2019d say, \u2018Why are you late?\u2019 And this went on for a couple of years, and he was my teacher, so I was like, \u2018What is this question about?\u2019 And finally I went to him once, and he\u2019s like, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 or whatever. \u2018I\u2019m taking this anatomy class.\u2019 \u2018Why are you taking an anatomy class?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I love<\/em> it, Mark. It\u2019s fascinating<\/em>.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Great<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: He said okay<\/em>.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: He said okay. And so if someone came to me and said, \u2018I\u2019m a yoga teacher, and I want to know more about anatomy, because I love it,\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m really curious,\u2019 or \u2018I want to know this model,\u2019 then \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Then you know the language is going to be alive for them. It\u2019s not going to flatten out.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Exactly! I don\u2019t think people shouldn\u2019t study anatomy! I want everybody to come play in the sandbox with me! I mean, I\u2019m like \u2013 I am so grateful to have other people who want to do this with me. But the idea that they are insufficient without it is so profoundly troubling to me. And the idea that anatomy is what will make me a good enough yoga teacher is distancing me from showing up as a person, as a teacher, in that relatedness \u2013<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Some idea that knowing anatomy will keep your students safe, will guarantee that is \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: What will keep the students –<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You can\u2019t keep students safe, there\u2019s no way!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well, I\u2019m going to say a different thing. What will engage the students in their safety is the relatedness, and my capacity to listen. And people come to me and they want my anatomy expertise, and I\u2019m like, \u2018All I can do is see you. But I\u2019ll be with you, and I\u2019ll see you \u2013 with my knowledge and my experience,\u2019 but really what they want is me<\/em>. My me-ness. My anatomy knowledge is not what makes me a good teacher.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Because you\u2019re teaching wisdom, not information.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: It\u2019s my presence. It\u2019s that I show up. And anatomy, and embodiment, and body-mind centering, has been a way in for me to be present, because that\u2019s my path. Someone else could meditate, someone else could study chakras, someone else could study Ayurveda. So that\u2019s <\/em>my problem with thinking teachers need more anatomy training. If they want it, great. But they\u2019re not insufficient without it.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You know, there\u2019s an old saying in engineering that you can do your very best to make something foolproof. But there\u2019s no way on earth you can make it damn-foolproof. And some people are so committed, on whatever level, to learning their lessons by hurting themselves, no amount of medical training \u2013 you can have the world\u2019s greatest orthopaedic surgeon teaching a yoga class \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Well this is where \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: How qualified does someone have to be, who\u2019s teaching a class, to, you know \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what yoga\u2019s about!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It\u2019s totally not!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think yoga\u2019s about anatomy!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It\u2019s not; it has nothing to do with it!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I think yoga\u2019s about experiencing your body.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, and holding a mirror up for people.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I mean, if we\u2019re talking about on a flesh, incarnate level, which not everybody is \u2013 but that\u2019s the level I\u2019m operating in \u2013 it\u2019s not an anatomical event.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You can\u2019t do it without<\/em> anatomy.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Sure you can.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, you have to have a body.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But having a body is not anatomy. I have<\/em> a body. It may or may not know that it\u2019s bones and muscles. I could not know any<\/em> fucking anatomy, and have a deeply<\/em> embodied experience. People have profound experiences all the time \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That\u2019s what got me started. I didn\u2019t know shit about anatomy when I did my first Sivananda class, and was in my first savasana, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Woah \u2013\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – \u2018what happened?\u2019 \u2013 I remember that first feeling.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I\u2019m lying down, and I\u2019m not going to sleep, and I\u2019m not quite awake, I\u2019m not quite asleep. And I\u2019m \u2013 I guess this is \u2013 well \u2013 relaxed? And to recognize that as a concept, when I\u2019m, like, 19 years old? Wow. I didn\u2019t know anything about \u2013 I knew I had a head, and arms, and legs, and a spine. That\u2019s about all I knew of anatomy. And by the way, that\u2019s about the most anatomical language I\u2019ve heard Desikachar use.<\/p>\n

He was trained as a structural engineer. But he didn\u2019t teach from an anatomical perspective. He would say, put your leg here, put your arm there, you know, he used anatomical terminology that a four-year old would know. And that\u2019s the anatomical language he used to teach what he did. He didn\u2019t say, \u2018diaphragm,\u2019 he didn\u2019t say \u2018rib cage,\u2019 He\u2019d say \u2018chest, belly\u2019 maybe. That was about it!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s interesting. I wonder if there\u2019s something about invoking the four-year old simplicity in embodiment that offers a consolation to somebody who overthinks.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It did for me.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well I think it offers access, in a way, that the more specialized anatomical language gets, the more exclusionary it can be. And I think there\u2019s a little bit of an assumption that anatomical language is somehow \u2018real,\u2019 in a way that everybody will get it. Or that if I say \u2018your scapula\u2019 and I show you what it is, you\u2019ll know some deep truth about that bone, there. And it\u2019s not a deep truth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Integrating Paradigms \u2013 Yoga as \u2018Being in the Question\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So I\u2019m following Nancy Cochren to her hospital appointments. She had cortisone shots in both hips. And then \u2013 do you know Monovisc?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It gets injected right into the capsule.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Right into the capsule! You have to sign a big waiver about infection and all that. But, it has to be so specifically targeted that it has to be done with \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: – with radiographic guidance, yes –<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – with an x-ray trained on her, which she\u2019s watching.<\/em><\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, you can see the neon going in on the screen \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Cool.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: SHE\u2019S WATCHING.<\/em> She\u2019s watching an 18-gauge needle, five inches, going in.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Did they do a spinal? Or local \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Nope, local freezing.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Did they spray it?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know, I think the freezing was injected. Anyway, so she can see it go into the capsule, and nudge against it \u2013 that\u2019s how clear the \u2013 and then –<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: *pop!* *pop!*<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So this is exactly where yoga meets the clinic. The yogi is awake to her body, whilst it\u2019s frozen, and they have a visual of what\u2019s inside of them, of something inaccessible to them normally, that they have learned to explore through interoceptive mindfulness. They\u2019ve learned to explore it through prana, through breath, through every technique that they used to pay attention to sensation, and now they\u2019re watching somebody have a different kind of access to the joint.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That experience has got to be very different for someone who\u2019s been practicing yoga than for your average Joe.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s why I find it so compelling. The story ends there, as far as I\u2019ve written it. It\u2019s wild, it\u2019s such a beautiful thing. It was like my moment with the ultrasound on my thrombosis, that I feel like we\u2019re on this threshold, we stand with one foot in either paradigm, and we\u2019re either in conflict, or we\u2019re trying to see \u2013 what do you know that you can tell me, and what can I tell you about.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Two things. One is that I hear us saying \u2018yogi\u2019 like we know what it means. And I don\u2019t think every yoga practitioner is going to have a different experience of that than a layperson. I think some laypeople would have a pretty profound experience of that as well. And the assumption that because we\u2019re practicing yoga, we have more insight into our bodies, is not always true. Unless we define \u2018yogis\u2019 so broadly that it\u2019s \u2018someone who\u2019s engaged in inquiry.\u2019 I think that we could take someone from any other practice, or a musician, or \u2013 anyway, so what I think then brings us to that place where we\u2019re in this threshold, and what to me then would be being a yogi would be being in that question. If there\u2019s conflict, then I\u2019m not doing yoga. In some way, because I\u2019m not engaged in the question. If I think I know what I\u2019m doing, and the medical model is somehow in conflict with it \u2013 oh, I don\u2019t mean that \u2013 I mean, if I can\u2019t acknowledge that ultrasound, and radiation, and all of that serves me in some way, then I don\u2019t think I\u2019m in the inquiry in a way that\u2019s got \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I\u2019m not in the 21st<\/sup> century either.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Not in the 21st<\/sup> century, and not in the question, in a way that I would think is fundamental to doing yoga.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I think it\u2019s even more basic \u2013 I think it\u2019s a place where you can question your own reactivity to a situation, and not just have your reaction be<\/em> the situation. I think it\u2019s having that little window of consciousness that separates what’s happening from how you\u2019re reacting to what\u2019s happening, and being able to recognize that.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well that\u2019s what I mean by inquiry. And I don\u2019t think everyone who does yoga is in that question.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think everyone who practices asana is in that question. Everyone who\u2019s doing yoga by definition is in that question.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: By that definition, yes, fair enough. But I don\u2019t think all the people we are including in a blanket statement of \u2018yogis\u2019 would fit into that definition.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: The people who would call themselves yogis, versus the ones who we would call yogis.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: You would call yogis. I don\u2019t call anybody \u2018yogis,\u2019 I don\u2019t use the term.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: [laughs<\/em>] I will leave the \u2018we\u2019 out of this conversation from now on.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s interesting what happens with the \u201cwe\u201d, eh? What happens? For you Leslie, because it doesn\u2019t actually reflect your libertarian meaning, it might just be a colloquial tic, right?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I like to think that my personal opinions are bigger than just me, so that\u2019s, you know \u2013 just so you know, I\u2019m normally surrounded by people who, 75% of the time would probably agree with most things I say. So \u2018we\u2019 is really an approximation \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: – mingled with confirmation bias.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Exactly. Precisely. But I\u2019m aware of that, so it\u2019s a yogic view, more or less.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: You go on thinking that, Leslie.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: [laughing<\/em>] Yeah! There you go!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wonderment and Inquiry Bump Up Against Technical Proficiency and Training<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: I think we also stand in such an extraordinary age, because Nancy can look at that radiography, and we can see videos of ourselves undergoing heart surgery, or I can walk in while my son is being born by his almost-emergency Caesarean section, and see that my wife is open on the table, and I\u2019ve never seen such red in my life.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in an age in which we can see<\/em> inside. And I think that the alienation that we feel towards biomedicine is that somehow medical\u00a0training has been functional to the extent that they have lost their absolute, utter wonderment at what they are doing. “They can\u2019t \u2013 they cannot be as awestruck as I am. They cannot be going into rapture as I am.”<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That would be counter-productive for what their job description is.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s so sad<\/em>, actually, that an almost-miraculous experience can feel flat to the specialists who are performing it, and then somehow the population absorbs the sense of flatness, in a way, because the surgeon does not communicate, typically, wonderment. I\u2019ve met a few who do, but \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: But I wonder, I wonder \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s like the training takes away their poetry, right?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And that\u2019s what I wonder, if there\u2019s some co-created thing where they\u2019re not allowed to wonder, because then they lose their expertise. And what we demand of the doctors, as a culture, and what we ask of our teachers \u2013 I mean, I haven\u2019t ever held anyone\u2019s life in my hands like that, but I feel like one of the things I run up against is people come up to me and they want me to tell them the answer. And I say, \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019 And they are sometimes profoundly disappointed. And broken. And they take it personally, and then I feel bad because I let them down, and I let them down. So I can\u2019t imagine the pressure on surgeons who have to be, like, \u2018I know what I\u2019m doing.\u2019<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Yeah \u2013 can you imagine<\/em> doubting yourself beside the operating table?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Can you imagine opening someone\u2019s body, and going, like, \u2018Woah!\u2019 That\u2019s not going to inspire confidence!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yeah, but, see, I think that\u2019s a cultural phenomenon, because it should, in a way.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It can\u2019t with the training. Training is desensitization. Is that part of what you\u2019re saying about anatomy?<\/em><\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: That\u2019s part of what I\u2019m saying about anatomy!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Look, you gotta see this.<\/p>\n

[LK<\/strong> breaks out a book of surgical pictures.]<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Oh, the colours.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I mean, you can\u2019t look at this and not get a physical reaction. You know? And that\u2019s why I so admire doctors, and particularly surgeons, who deal with this every day. This is, like, they have trained themselves to be a person who can take a sharp instrument \u2013 I mean, if I were a surgeon, I could use this [holds up a steak knife] to do something useful to your body. I mean \u2013 that\u2019s, like, fucked up!<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: They\u2019ve turned horror and violence into medicine.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: That\u2019s what \u2018ana-tomy\u2019 means \u2013 it means \u2018to cut into.\u2019 That\u2019s what the word means! \u2018To cut into!\u2019 All we\u2019re talking about is different ways of cutting into the body! You know, with consciousness, with emotion, with focus \u2013 that\u2019s all anatomy. You get chakras, and that\u2019s anatomy \u2013 you\u2019ve got a sharp instrument, it\u2019s just your consciousness cutting in. The Western anatomy uses a knife to cut in. This, by definition, has to be used \u2013 well, on a live body, really really carefully, so that it doesn\u2019t become a dead body. But what we do in the cadaver lab, you know, it\u2019s like, the more you use this sharp instrument on a cadaver, the dead-er it gets. I mean, by the time we\u2019re \u2013 at the end of a week \u2013 the cadaver\u2019s in pieces, it\u2019s in bags it\u2019s in piles.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Dead-er \u2013 what is dead-er? How do you get dead-er?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Dead-er means it has less \u2013 it looks less like it looked when it was alive. I mean, dead is dead, let\u2019s face it. Wait, there\u2019s that one prana that remains \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I\u2019m really curious about that.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: There\u2019s that one prana that remains in a cadaver. I call it the structural prana. The rib cage will still spring open when you divide the sternum.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Got it.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: There\u2019s the pressure zones that are still there, until you penetrate the pleura, you know? When you pull the hip socket out of a joint, it\u2019ll still go, *pop!* There is still a suction force holding it in place. There is still, you know, potential energy stored in a cadaver\u2019s body. By the time, at the end of a sixth day with Gil Hedley, all of that is gone. And it doesn\u2019t look anything like it did, and there\u2019s nothing holding anything together anymore. So there is still a prana in a cadaver.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: You\u2019re talking about entropy.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Yeah, I mean, entropy accelerated with a sharp instrument. That\u2019s how we learn anatomy, in that context. You know, there is all of the tensile connections between the skin and the superficial fascia. You have to keep changing your scalpel blade when you\u2019re separating the skin from the fat, because there\u2019s something dulling that blade! That\u2019s \u2013 that\u2019s \u2013 that\u2019s energy! You know? There\u2019s the energy in that connection that is exerting itself on the molecules in that blade, that\u2019s dulling it, that means you have to keep changing blades to get the skin off the fascia. That\u2019s happening the whole time. So that\u2019s \u2013 there\u2019s an enormous amount of energy in a cadaver before you start disassembling it. And in a way, the dissassemblage \u2013 is that a word? Disassemblage?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Disassembly.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: [laughing<\/em>] Whatever.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: So the knife is liberating the energy that\u2019s still there. So, yeah, I\u2019d say it\u2019s much more dead at the end of six days than at the beginning. I mean, it doesn\u2019t matter to the person who was inhabiting the body, but \u2013<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: As far as we know.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: – the structure of the thing itself? Yeah, there\u2019s a definite accelerated entropy that is occurring.<\/p>\n

AK<\/strong>: So your definition of death has something to do with \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: [to Sarah] You haven\u2019t been in that lab yet? We\u2019ve gotta get you in that lab.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: She\u2019ll get herself there. \u2018We have to get you in that lab.\u2019 Because you think she\u2019s not complete unless \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: No, I just think she\u2019d have so much fun, is the thing!<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Hm. I don\u2019t know about fun<\/em>, but I am interested and curious.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Um, I\u2019m looking at the time, and I have to get a cab for a train to Penn Station at 8:51. Is that doable? That\u2019s doable, right? It\u2019s ten minutes?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: If we get you out of here in ten minutes.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Um, so, I really need you to refute my\u00a0Wild Thing argument<\/a>, Amy, if you think I’m wrong. Because<\/em>, that\u2019s gotta be part of the story, is including how I can gather provocative, arguable information, and be wrong. I\u2019m making another point about it, though.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: And that\u2019s the reason that \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s part of it, that\u2019s part of what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: I completely agreed with your point<\/em>, it was this particular detail. But yes.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Are you good at transcribing from audio?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Am I good at it? I have a research assistant.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Because, Amy hates to write, but she can talk.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No, I should write it, because several people want to read \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Oh, so you\u2019ve resigned yourself to actually writing it!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Yes.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Wow. Cool!<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Well, we\u2019re going to, yeah, I have to write lots of things.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Sarah, if I had three copies of these, I\u2019d give one to you, but maybe Amy or Leslie can lend you one, but this is just a gift for you guys.<\/p>\n

[I bring out copies of my latest book of poetry \u2013 Rosary<\/em> \u2013 as gifts.]<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Thank you!<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: What is this?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Ohhhhh.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: It\u2019s a little book about the fact that I was brought up Catholic, thought I was Buddhist at a certain point, and then I thought I was Hindu. But the rosary stayed the same, all the way through.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, it\u2019s either 54 or 108, which is an interesting multiplication there.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Did you \u2013 am I remembering- did you go through ashtanga?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Ah, no.<\/p>\n

SB<\/strong>: Oh, okay. I grew up Catholic, and got into ashtanga, and at some point was like, \u2018I think I’ve\u00a0done with this already.\u2019<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Check out page 85, or like sutra 85, whatever it is. I see Fibonacci.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Ohhhh.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You could have a whole thing about Fibonacci, and the Golden Ratio with \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Nice.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Oh yeah. Have you seen the tattoo?<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: No, I haven\u2019t seen the tattoo.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Show Matthew the tattoo!<\/p>\n

[Amy reveals a beautiful nautilus\u00a0tattoo on her forearm, in white ink.]<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: No way. How was that done?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: White. Ink.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Are you crazy\u2026.<\/p>\n

[L and A laughing<\/em>]<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: That\u2019s wonderful, that\u2019s really good.<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: Thanks.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: On one side, or on the other side, too?<\/p>\n

AM<\/strong>: No, just one side.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: The other side is flesh-coloured ink, and then mole-coloured brown.<\/p>\n

AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s a freckle-coloured \u2013<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: The other thing is that you paid for dinner, and I\u2019m very grateful \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: You\u2019re very welcome.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: So I have to make sure that \u2013<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: Well, you can buy me a meal when I\u2019m in Toronto next time.<\/p>\n

MR<\/strong>: Done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n