General Update + New Music Reviews

A quick post prior to lunch. First, thanks to everyone for their support of this undertaking. I've received a number of emails recently with praise for the Renegade Bodywork journal and site. For me, it often seems dry and I experience a bit of frustration when words fail my thoughts and motions, but all in all it's been a positive activity.

When I hit Mysore I'll try to get more detailed any stylized with this. I did teach English at one point so I should be able to write, right? My stint as an English teacher just seems like an entirely different life now.

I woke this morning and hit the studio at 5:30. It was a bit rough getting up as it is Friday and I usually sleep in and practice at work around noon. I've elected to change my practice schedule. Until leaving for Mysore I'm going to practice exclusively Mysore-style with Matthew. I'm not going to be aggressive with it, save massing the discipline it will take to get up every morning at 5 am. I'm up at that time 3 days a week now, so it will actually regulate my energy to get up at that time 6 days a week. Of course I teach at 7:15 on Saturdays, so the concept of sleeping in must be thrown out completely! (grimace.)

This morning, Matthew and I spoke about yesterday's post on teaching Ashtanga and he agreed with my sentiments. He did pay me a brief compliment that negated a comment from yesterday's post: "My teacher would probably say that I’m not there with any of it!" Of course, Matthew is very traditional so I expected his response would verify my statements. No surprise there, save my out of character orthodox stance.

Practice was a bit unfocused. About halfway through my mind flashed and I remembered a meeting that I had to be at work early for. I let the thought go and continued with the full expression of my practice but did pick up the pace a bit. This increased pace caused me to loose my already poor connection with the bandhas, but it is all practice and practice is all. Well, maybe awareness and focus have a bit of a say in there.

Other thoughts? New music (which is returning to the forefront of my experience of late) has been achieved but not yet mentioned:

The new Boards of Canada is the "tits" as a good friend put it. I actually played this through while teaching yoga last night. I'm not versed at reviewing electronic music so here's a release that my words fail. The Campfire Headphase is quite a suitable title though, as I've been using the campfire metaphor to express my recent take on infinite space. More on that later.

Gravenhurst's new one Fires in Distant Buildings is quite nice. A bit more upbeat than their first effort. It has a nice folkish rock sound that reminds me of Backworld at times.

I finally picked up Live it Out by Metric. This has only played through a few times on my ipod so it has yet to fully sink in. The listening process isn't as organic an integration as it was with Old World Underground but they've definitely got something here. There's more of an overall punk feel to this new release. The first track, Empty, has a harsh, seemingly minute long screeching guitar solo that actually hurt on the first listen. Of course, I dig that kind of shit, so it was love at first listen. Handshake's repetitive rant "buy this car to drive to work, drive to work to buy this car" is actually expressed in such a manner that becomes less trite and more poignant as it cycles. It could of been that I was listening to this track for the first time as I was cruising towards my 8 to 5. I'm still bummed that I missed Metric live due to my fast last month. Next time.

Jeeze, so much for a short post. I'm off to get some lunch and read.