Call It What You Want
Call It What You Want
Everyone keeps asking me, “What is your yoga called?” Honestly, I didn’t leave Anusara to create my own style. It’s not my desire, but sometimes things can’t be avoided, no matter what you truly want. At a party in Tucson, a friend said to me, “Call it what you want,” in reference to Miles Davis’ famous 1970 set at the Isle of Wight concert (which, ironically, happened to be on my birthday, August 29th). At this concert, Davis and his band played a set of totally new sounds,¬ an electric jazz/rock fusion. About 25 minutes into the set, Davis leaned over to the mic and said, “Call it anything.” (watch the video on youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfHDQ1GffRQ&eurl=http://surrealdocuments.blogspot.com/2007/08/miles-davis-isle-of-wight-1970.html
I have always been someone who seeks out identity. To what lineage do I belong? As I began my search, I hoped to be connected to the oldest lineages – antiquity definitely seemed more authentic. Maybe that was originally due to my deep interest in Chinese thought, but as my discipline manifested into yoga and Indian arts, I sought the “old stuff,”¬ the things that would say I was directly connected to something thousands of years old. Of course, being the young enthusiast I was, it never dawned on me that, even if the connections were to a lineage from a place far away and a time long ago, the practices we were doing looked nothing like what they did back then. I always had that romantic notion in my mind of finding the Ancient One and being part of the tradition, like a Kwai Chang Caine character from the television show Kung Fu.
I moved away from the old lineages. I saw my practices for what they were: new, or maybe more accurately, evolved, innovative, and refined. It didn’t bother me, but when you see something for what it is, you can make better decisions regarding what it actually does for you. When I found Anusara, it was new, it was exciting, and ironically, I found my romantic version of the Old Ancient in a not-so-ancient American from the Midwest and Texas. I learned more from John than from any hatha yoga teacher I ever met, and I learned more than just hatha yoga. But as time went on and Anusara grew, I had trouble maintaining my identity with it. Maybe I was growing so much (and had grown so much), that I could now form my own notions of how I identify life. What is life if you don’t make connections, but does what you name yourself limit you?
I think you have to make an identity out of yourself, but are you solely marked by the one identity you make? We want to be remembered for our great contribution in life; that is, after all, our immortality. Unfortunately, people come to expect that one gift of you and end up fixing you (limiting you) as a person to just that one dimension. There is no space for exceptions. The problem is that there are always exceptions. Why can’t we have multiple dimensions without that being a problem, even if some seem to counter each other? I want people to make identities ¬to name their experiences, develop their ideas, and make their lives expressions of what they are thinking, feeling, acting, and so on. I want them to learn to call it what they want, not what someone else wants them to call it. But, most importantly, “it” is not fixed. ¬ “It” is not one thing, but anything. So, call your yoga what you want, because everyday your wants are changing. Everyday, your experiences are not the same and what you call them will be different. I want to teach you my experiences, but I want you to call them yours,¬ with a variety of differing names.
