Healthy Living

(re: audio - enjoy some onlookers discussing the "Iron Man" of this group)

Hey there, cats and kittens. It was a great time Saturday at The Radish Healthy Living Fair. There were "alternative" (it's really pretty mainstream at this point) health and healing approaches as far as the eye could see: herbalists, massage, aromatherapy, and much, much more. Also, some chocolate chip cookies baking in a solar oven. Mmmmmm... And dogs (plus a dog show). Oh, and chiropractors. Lots and lots of chiropractors.

Anyway, there was also some yoga. DSY had the Biggest Yoga Class Ever (again) while Indigo, River Cities, and tapas all cuddled up together in one corner of one of the large tents, shooting the sh...breeze, appreciating NOT being in the direct sunlight, and promoting our respective spins on this practice.

It seemed to be a great turnout. We have not been to the Fair before, but for most of the seven hours a steady stream of people filtered by the table. Some were drawn in by the various yoga books and carvings; others were mortified: "If I ever look like THAT, call 911."

Half-price classes seemed to go over well; we're happy to say that even just a few days after the event we've seen some regulars and some new folks using their classes. Of course, you get what you pay for, so we're only giving half the attention and wisdom we would otherwise, and, perhaps most important, only counting half as fast. Win some, lose some.

We'll be drawing a winner (or two?) for a free monthly membership. To enter, we had people join the (e)mailing list (can you believe they fell for that?) and as a result we may have met the last person on the planet without an email address. Or so he said.

Other highlights included the concurrent Farmer's Market which, at high summer, is a wonderland of goodies. It's no Devraja Market in Mysore, where you can buy everything from a fresh banana to a live chicken (only dead chickens here), but its not too shabby for our little river community.

Each yoga studio filled roughly one hour of demo time and, batting clean-up, we decided to "go big or go home." We dug up the usual Saturday Vinyasa III class, trimmed it a bit, and transplanted it to the yoga demo area. Everybody's already seen the E & K show anyway...

So, shout out to Kathy, Kathy, and Jeff (all seasoned Saturday students) for putting it on the line. And not being too miffed when we were all shown up by the kids in the audience, who seemed completely unfazed by not only these difficult postures, but my practicing them on the CONCRETE. (Shout out to Belle, Francesca, Liam, and all the other yogis who dropped in for this class.) Thanks also to Ann and Brian for their photography...we brought a camera (really) but (as usual) it never made it out of the bag. On a completely unrelated topic, doesn't it really bother you that yogis get slapped with that goofy, absent-minded, hipster-dufus label? Thought so.

Who's That Girl?

And what's with the porn-stache?

Yoga Practice or ???

Yoga practices have ranged all over the place in 5000+ years. You've got chanting/kirtan, asana, pranayama (breathing/subtle energy exercises), drishti (gazing points), all manner of diet practices, and many many more. Putting the legs behind the head starts to look pretty tame. And, frankly, everything listed so far is positively boring when you consider the full spectrum of practices, especially those which have yet to, er, find an audience in the West.

So, how about this. Here are twenty practices. Some of them are real, some are not. We won't use their Sanskrit names. Hopefully by describing rather than naming them, we'll minimize any use of Google/Wikis. Who can identify the fakes? Bonus points for giving the Sanskrit names of the real practice (and, potentially, christening the fake ones with appropriate titles). A free class hangs in the balance...

1) Staring at a candle flame to force the eyes to water and thereby cleanse themselves.
2) Training the body to live directly on the energy from sunlight: no eating required.
3) Using leather strips to lash the legs into Padmasana for hours or days at a time.
4) Burial of a living yogi for days or weeks without food, water, or air.
5) Hands-free enema (container of water, squatting...you do the math).
6) Meditation (hours or days) while hanging from banyan tree branches (the higher the better).
7) Mouth/nose-guards worn 24/7 to prevent accidentally inhaling/harming small insects.
8) Living with/being accepted by animal packs.
9) Walking on water.
10) Holding one or both arms above the head until withered and atrophied.
11) Manipulating the tongue so its tip can touch the third eye (above and between the eyebrows).
12) Consciously stopping the heartbeat.
13) Psychadelic substances.
14) Meditation: seated in the ocean as tide comes in.
15) Digging ones own grave with the hands.
16) Counting the grains of rice in the village harvest.
17) Ritualized vomiting.
18) Creation and debate of hypothetical ethical dillemas.
19) Washing the intestines (outside the body).
20) Jumping back.

Yoga is some freaky sh*t.