The Spiritual Practice of Freecell

If you've never played it, Freecell is a form of solitaire, except all the cards are spread out, face up, in vertical columns. You have four open "cells" at the top, which are used to shift cards around. The goal is the same as solitaire - untangle all 52 cards and pile them up by suit and number, in order.

It’s also a pretty powerful spiritual practice.      

Freecell is teaching me to work with what I have in front of me. The game has many moves, some of which seem like progress, and some that seem like backtracking. It’s not linear. I cannot simply do what I’d like to do. The card I want is buried beneath three cards for which I have no use. I have to deal with a chaotic and seemingly arbitrary jumble. Each tiny step leading me further along my circuitous route…just like life.

Just like real life, there are no jokers, no get out of jail free cards. There’s just raw material and a little bit of wiggle room. You have to shift it around until the chaos is transformed into order. If you fail? That’s it…or you can hit retry. That too, might be like real life, but none of us really know that answer. But back to Freecell.

The game has a certain flow, yet it’s also balanced by longer termed strategy than simply putting a card anywhere it can fit. Looking ahead a few moves, that’s the key. But then, one can easily overbalance in this direction and take on too much. Unbridled ambition doesn’t work in Freecell. It tends to just eat up your free cells and leave you a crucial onemove away from perfection.

It’s also showing me how it doesn’t matter if I can see where my step will land. The most unlikely moves can sometimes lead to the most brilliant streak of flowing, easy scores. It seems like such a bad idea, but I have to do something. So I take a chance…and then, eureka!

Freecell reveals my blind spots. I never knew it, but sometimes I am dyslexic with numbers or colors. I think I'm seeing clearly, but the reality is different. How like life, how like Yoga!

Sidebar: a Yoga teacher I studied with recently told me that asana (yoga poses) reveals imbalance and asana corrects imbalance.

Koans everywhere!
 

Anyhoo. I find that I make a lot of mistakes. I think I’m on a roll, maybe I’m just a wee bit too excited about that fact and BOOM! Saw the color wrong, went too fast or overlooked one crucial thing. At other times, frustration will lead me to act recklessly. 

I also find that I’m capable of some brilliant flow. I get into a fugue state and it becomes effortless. One move leads to the next in a harmonious rhythm. It feels the same as when I'm in an altered state creating artwork, when my martial arts mojo is strong or when I'm paddling well on a river. Flow is a whole other topic…I'll write more about that later.

To sum up, it's helping me:

• Use what I have.
• Take one step at a time.
• Look a few moves ahead.
• Balance effort and non-effort.
• Learn from blind spots.
• Flow.
• Trust.

Give it a try, and as always, tell me about your experience! Are there any mundane seeming things you use as a spiritual practice?

Anatomic Yoga: Precision Asana

I attended a workshop this weekend with a gentleman who wrote one of the textbooks in my Yoga teacher training. Ray Long, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon who practices Yoga. He’s taken his in depth knowledge of the human body from his Western medical background, studied cutting-edge research and applied advanced computer animations to figure out how Yoga works in the body, and how we can use anatomic principles to do Yoga more effectively.

His basic premise is that we analyze each pose to see what muscles are involved in creating the form. We then stretch and engage the primary muscles and their opponents to create a precise, correct embodiment of the pose. He integrates modern scientific stretching techniques to enhance the efficacy. I myself got my torso on my leg in Janu Sirsasana (seated forward fold with one leg extended and one bent), which hasn’t happened since my full-time martial arts days.

This type of approach, interestingly enough, is a big part of how I was trained to be a Yoga teacher. Two of the three teachers who created the training program I attended have a detail-oriented, practical and anatomical bent to their teaching. The other instructor came out of a very holistic school of Yoga. She has much of the same knowledge, but different languaging.

Sunny Davis, especially, is skilled in combining anatomy and biomechanics to building good alignment in Yoga poses. But because of her background as a international level fitness educator and former competitive cyclist, her knowledge base is rich enough to inform any type of movement. Sunny has an amazing ability to analyze all the different embodiments of a pose in even a large class, and her corrections are subtle and powerful.

She and I have co-taught a series of therapeutic classes that focus on each functional area of the body, starting from the ground up with the feet and lower legs. In each workshop, we teach anatomy, common problems, options for treatment and then we practice stretching and strengthening approaches that come from her and my broad array of disciplines. Sunny brings in the perspective of an athlete, fitness trainer and long-time therapeutically-focused Yoga and Pilates teacher, and I bring in my martial arts, subtle energy expertise, lifetime Yoga practice and clinical massage background. Together, we make a pretty potent team.

I garnered some excellent asana cues and subtle anatomical insights from Mr. Long this weekend. It’s going to add to my ongoing process of combining disciplines to better help my students and patients. It was also lovely to meet an MD who believes that energetic blockages are the root of most illness. More than anything, it confirmed that I’m headed in the right direction – true integrative medicine. I love the ancient and mystical aspects of Yoga, but I’m quite sure I would not be so effective at using it if I didn’t have so much training in anatomy, physiology and kinesiology.

Here’s a little scrap I wrote in my notes near the end of the workshop:

“Our job as Yoga teachers is not only to help increase overall strength and flexibility, but to counteract the effects of modern sedentary life, which is rife with such problems as: kyphosis of the upper back, lower back pain, flat feet, weak core musculature, weak shoulder girdle musculature, tight hip flexors and hamstrings, sacro-iliac instability, living in a constant state of stress and lack of embodiment.”

A mouthful, I know. This is my life – I work with people every day who have a preponderance of the above conditions. People are stressed, tired, out of shape in crucial areas and not aware of their bodies. That’s what I do in my massage practice, yoga therapy practice and yoga classes. I strive to get people back in their bodies, to build awareness of the body’s sensations and wisdom, calm the nervous system and then get to work on strengthening and stretching safely.

The more trainings I attend, the more I can see that knowledge is knowledge, no matter what the source. Most disciplines and traditions of healing and personal development have similar insights, though they have distinct systems of symbolism and language. My sensei once said “the moves are the moves are the moves”.

Very true.