Pratyahara Saturday session

Sense withdrawal or pratyahara, was today's Saturday session topic. We talked about the senses a little bit and examples of pratyahara, like when you change the senses to a more intensified focus or withdrawing from other senses to focus on the task of a particular sense. We listed ways we have experiences pratyahara for each of our senses:

Smell
1. zeroing in on who's baby has a poopie diaper
2. identifying if the strange smell in the house is a gas leak
3. inhaling the scent of roses to relax and enjoy

Taste
1. ascertain if I ate something bad
2. enjoy the taste of real, dark chocolate
3. test a recipe's edibility

Touch
1. feel if there is a fish bone in my mouth
2. searching for car keys in the bottom of my bag
3. feel around behind furniture for a particular toy

Hear
1. distinguish if it is my child crying or the other kid
2. defining a sound (ie a boat or motorcycle)
3. determine where the "meows" are coming from to find where the cat got stuck

See
1. determining an object far away
2. reading
3. looking for a child in the woods

Pratyahara, although considered "sense withdrawal" is the time of change when we go into the sense withdrawal. Kathy wants us to notice the following instances:
- when we are falling asleep
- a situation that intrigues us
- a situation that repels us
- when we begin to notice that something is funny

Blindfolded/Earplugged Experience
We spent over an hour practicing yoga, blind-folded and with earplugs in. At first, I was hesitant and slow. I kept reaching out my hands and feet to find the corners of the mat. During suryanamaskars, I checked in with my body and mind. My breath was "in my ears" and I focused on its volume and quality in my head. I found myself adjusting and strengthening my ujjay breath. I also checked in more with my bandhas, feeling if they were engaged or not.

After a while, I began to build pace as I started my standing postures. This is when standing and lunging became a little difficult. I kept feeling like I was moving, like on a sailboat. A slight sensation of motion sickness, but never developed into nausea. I became off balance, and because of this I had to reminded myself more than usual to lock bandhas. The standing big-toe posture was nearly impossible. I missed having my focus point or other point of reference--a knot of wood to stare at or a crack in the wall. So, I imagined the knot in my mind's eye. This helped tremendously and I was able to hold steady and get deeper into the posture.

As I moved to seated postured, things became easier and I found my mind clearing. I began to sense more "little things" like the touch of my hair on my cheeks, a small itch on my shoulder, pants falling down. These thing I never notice before, or if I do, I clear the sensation without thinking about it. While blindfolded, the sense of these annoyances was magnified.

I found myself visualizing myself doing the yoga. I could not see my hands and legs in motion, but I imagined them, the way I remembered seeing them before. It was as if I were watching myself do yoga, not really doing it.

Discussion
We had a long discussion about how yoga, and attending the workshops, has changed our life. Many of us felt an almost depression after we spent the entire week together in July, then we had to return to our daily lives. Kathy described it like putting on armor. How do we continue to practice yoga, when the rest of the world is not? We have to deflect everything else and try to take care of ourselves first.

One person talked about how a friend left his "real world" and entered into a peaceful commune. It was easy to live in a yogi way there. He found that there were no challenges to it, and left the peacefulness for the rest of the world again, where he could actually practice yoga, and strive to be a yogi without having the yoga already done for him (in a sense).

In a future blog, I will write about how yoga has changed my life and how in everything I do, I think about the consequences and if I am happy with my decisions. Particularly with what I consume and how I raise and love my children and family.

Kathy reminded us that we are always connected with the divine. How we chose to honor that connection is how we live our lives. Through discernment, we learn what to do with our lives and how to make choices. Through contentment, we learn to be happy with our choices.

We discussed a little bit about the difference between self-depreciation (mentally beating yourself up, ie "I'm too fat") and self-improvement.

Kathy reminded us that we should read biographies of great yogis and learn about the world's religions. Learn what is Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, Suism, Buddhism, Judaism, etc.

I made a note that I need to work on my splits.

We ended class learning some assists, particularly assisting Adho Mukha Svanasana.