The Mysterious Mr. Busuku

My outside practice of yoga feels like I’ve hit a plateau without investing in yoga props. I feel like I’ve just run into a wall. For instance, in Triangle Pose, I’m not quite flexible enough to put my hand flat on the ground, so I usually use a block in class. At home, I don’t have a block to depend on; I’ve tried stacking books or using other similarly sized objects, but they’re either unstable or too inconvenient to use. I’ve also tried just grabbing my ankles, but the feeling in my legs isn’t the same and feels like pressure/stretching is in different areas. Similarly, I would like to try the shoulder stands at home, but I’m not sure how to do it. Rolling backwards and putting my legs on the ground over my head without being up on the bolster/blanket set-up is difficult, and I have no idea how to stay up without the support it gives. I end up just rolling back down or falling to one side.

Head stands are also still a bit of a mystery to me. I’m practicing them up against the wall, but I’ve only been able to put myself up into the pose once or twice. I’m having difficulties with the ‘inversion’ part and getting my legs in the air.

I think the shoulder stands and head stands are very difficult. In the last couple of classes, I’ve struggled with the head stand. Even once I’ve been helped up into the pose, I’m a bit worried that either one of my shoulders or my neck will ‘give out’ and I’ll collapse in a heap. I also don’t understand how to get myself up into the head stand without help; I tried numerous times in class and just ended up kicking the wall/blackboard a few times until someone offered to lift me up into the pose. I tried putting 1 leg and 2 legs up, I just couldn’t get into the pose. I’m assuming that I’m missing something, either some part of the technique, a sense of balance or maybe even mistiming when to fully extend my legs.

The scene with everyone standing around and discussing the expansion of the jail in order to house the young boys is confusing. Did the sergeant and corporal have the scheme planned before making all the ruckus about the boys they must have already known were sleeping under the tree? It seems like an obviously good thing to do – helping others – but the scene was just so sudden that it left me wondering if I missed some sort of prior ‘meeting’ in the book where they discussed this. I suppose it’s meant to show how the ‘good seeds’ are impacting everyone; now that the sergeant and corporal are becoming good, they want to do good deeds.

The exchange between Mata Ji and Friday about the rug loans all but confirms my suspicion that Friday will inevitably end up staying in this village forever, doing yoga and helping the locals dwell in their own true splendor (333). 80 extra rugs, in addition to the normal amount of rugs? It just seems like a way to keep Friday in the village for an even longer amount of time; it’s already been a majority of the year and she still hasn’t been allowed to leave for one reason or another.

Busuku is, at every turn, a mysterious character. In addition to being this sort of noble thief, we now learn that he is also some sort of classically trained genius. It also seems like he has some sort of agenda and hidden knowledge. Why else would he specifically request that Amirta be the one to help teach the boys how to write (344). He obviously has some sort of hidden knowledge/insight into the village. Also, if he’s so smart, why is he a thief in such a small, backwater village? Why isn’t he some sort of civil servant in a more prominent city or working for the government or teaching somewhere? It just seems strange.

Breaking the Habit

Last class, I noticed that, after just a little bit of stretching, I can now touch my toes without bending my knees. At the beginning of the semester, I couldn’t even come close to accomplishing this without bending my knees a lot. Further, I’ve also noticed both in class and outside of class, my heels are getting much closer to the ground in Downward Dog than they were at the beginning of the semester. It’s not much, but being able to see and feel progress is encouraging.

Are there poses in this type of yoga called Pigeon and Lizard? If so, how are they done properly? I had to do them recently in my Lifetime Fitness pilates/yoga class and the position we were in was very difficult and felt unsafe. My knees were at very intense angles and bearing weight; I was worried that if I lost my balance, I might tear up/injure my knee. If these are actually a yoga pose, how should they be done correctly/how can I do them without fear of injuring my knees?

Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but this book is just a little too ‘happy.’ Everything has a bit of a whimsical feeling to it at this point; we know that whatever small ‘bad’ thing happens, Yoga is right around the corner to save the day. It also seems incredibly unrealistic for a young girl, traveling with nothing but a book and dog, would be able to have such a profound and unifying impact on a small village like the one where she is a prisoner. I do like Friday’s advice about helping the Sergeant break his problem with alcoholism; by replacing a bad habit with easy but regular yoga poses and breathing exercises, it might be possible to replace his bad habit (alcoholism) with a good habit (239). This is similar to how some people might break the habit of smoking by eating chips or drinking a lot of water; it mimics the action of moving one’s hand to their face (like smoking) but it introduces something else to break the habit.

I’m not sure how to respond to the small, moral tirade about the evils of liquor. On one hand, it can definitely be abused, but on the other, it should be up to each individual to decide how to spend their time and money. Obviously, I am not advocating alcoholism, but if someone wants a drink every now and then, it seems like a very minor issue and not a good enough reason to police the life of another person.

What is the Lord of the Fish pose?

I’m not sure Friday’s decision to allow Ajit to teach the class was the best decision for him. Sometimes a ‘throw him to the wolves’ approach might work, but here, it seems that Ajit would be more likely to shut down from the pressure. He’s been crippled and secluded for most of his life; it’s hard to believe that he would just rise to the challenge immediately, especially with so little warning from Friday.

Sadness

This part of the story was difficult, emotionally, to read. I had wondered why the Captain seemed a bit too educated and well-mannered to be in such a small town. His mannerisms just didn’t seem to align with the way of life as it was described throughout the novel. With this newfound knowledge of his past, he immediately went from a character that I detested to a character that I pitied. He had to endure some terrible hardships and years of a slow slide into alcoholism that destroyed whatever ‘life’ he had left. He even got the Sergeant hooked on booze, too (167). Even that Sargent becomes a pitiful character; his alcoholism caused him to drunkenly maim and disfigure his own son in a fire (194). It was a very sad reading, overall.

The Captain’s diction/sentence structure of this section was horrendous. From a narrative perspective, I understand that a person in tears doesn’t always form perfect sentences, but as a reader, I had to reread sentences more than once to understand what he was saying.

I think the conversations about perspective are interesting, if still heavy-handed. Of course a cow doesn’t look at a pen and try to write a letter with it (186). Maybe it’s because of all my philosophy classes over the last few years, but it just seems blatantly obvious that people are impacted by their environment. It’s why people associate certain things with particular emotions/feelings/ideas. For instance, the somewhat recent example of the Confederate Flag controversy. People on one side of the situation see it as a symbol of ‘Southern pride’ while others see it as a symbol of oppression and racism. Both sides could argue that the other is wrong based on their perception of the issue.

The talk of seeds in the book reminds me that, during class, there is almost always talk of us planting the seeds for more difficult yoga poses. With the poses we are doing now, at the pace we are doing them, is there an actual chance of getting into the more ‘extreme’ ones? For instance, will we actually be able to put our leg behind our heads? It seems like an incredibly difficult goal.

In addition to my practice outside of class, I am also enrolled in a Relaxation and Fitness course at Baylor for a Lifetime Fitness credit. Now, this class is billed as being a yoga course, but I am extremely dissatisfied with it. More often than not, we are doing Pilates and on the occasion that we actually do something similar to what we do in this Capstone course, it is very different. For instance, today we did Downward Dog. We were told to keep our feet as close together as possible and, once we were in the pose, to walk our hands backwards until they were as close to our toes as possible. From there, we were instructed to do shoulder presses. This is incredibly different from the Downward Dog we do in the Capstone. This is just one example. Is the R&F instructor doing another branch of yoga or is this just her spin on yoga?

In rabbit news, Orion still attempts to interrupt my yoga practice, but I have found two ways of placating him. First, if I practice while he’s eating, I can generally get about 80% of the way through a session before he comes hopping over. Second, he doesn’t like the smell of rubbing alcohol, and I tried dabbing the corners of my sticky mat with it, which seems to keep him away, too. I think a combination of these two things will allow me to practice in peace.

Week 2 – Reading & Class reflection combined post

Reading such an easily understandable book is still so foreign to me as a BIC student. It’s not a bad thing, just different when compared to the other texts that I’ve read for BIC courses. That said, the story is awfully cheesy. The symbolism is extremely heavy-handed; everything that happens is essentially saying “Friday embodies yoga and yoga is good.” It seems like there is little to critically reflect on. Overall, it seems that the message of the book is “Yoga is good and can be a positive transformational force in the world.” I’m not saying that I disagree, just that the books seems almost shallow in the way it presents this idea.

After practicing yoga during class last Thursday, I am concerned about the way some of the poses impact my physical health. I’ve had bad wrists for a while – my father and grandfather suffer from similar issues and occasionally have to wear wrist braces at night in order to mitigate the pain – and some of the poses leave my wrists extremely sore. I lift weights regularly, so I understand that form is important, so perhaps this pain will go away as my form improves? Further, and more worryingly, is the pain in my shoulder.  A few years ago, I separated my collar-bone and severely fractured my shoulder. It never really healed correctly, but it rarely hurts. From after class Thursday until Sunday afternoon, it was extremely sore. Is this something to worry about? Can I overextend/overstretch my shoulder? I’ve been taking Advil since it started hurting. Even now, it is still sore and I’m thinking about taking Advil before class.

On Sleep and Rabbits

It is interesting that the Yoga Sutras for today’s reading mention sleep. For many years, sleeping has been extremely difficult for me. It takes hours to fall asleep, and if there’s even the smallest noise, I wake up and usually cannot fall back asleep. This leads to many sleepless nights and tired/stressful days. I am unsure why sleeping is so difficult for me; I exercise regularly to the point of exhaustion and my diet is decent enough that it shouldn’t have an impact on my ability to sleep.
The relaxation portion of our class has been extremely beneficial to me. It has significantly contributed to lowering the stress that I feel every day. I’ve always been fairly high strung and it takes me a while after classes to ‘settle down’ and be able to do homework or socialize. My girlfriend has already been telling me that I seem less stressed after classes and after I practice Yoga outside of class. I think it is also helping me fall asleep faster. A ‘normal’ night might take me 4 hours to fall asleep, but the past few nights have only taken ~2.5. It’s allowed me to get a lot more sleep. Before bed, I practice the poses that we’ve learned and then lay in bed in the relaxation pose, making sure to breathe easily and not worry about things. Doing Yoga is the only thing that has changed recently, so it seems possible that it is responsible for the easier time that I have falling asleep.
Does Yoga have any poses named after/based on rabbits? I was thinking about this during class on Tuesday because I recently adopted an extremely large rabbit and think that it would be funny to post pictures of Orion (the rabbit) and I doing yoga on this blog. As it stands, he already likes to lay on my sticky mat while I’m trying to practice and I have to scoot him to the side in order to continue.