Flight of the Conchords Saved Christmas!

Thank god for Flight of The Conchords. They totally saved Christmas from being a re - run of last years total disaster of a Christmas Eve. Without going into details about stuff, all I can say is that my mother in law - who I love and respect a lot - has got some anger management to work with when it comes to christmas. Every year she says : "I don't want to fix a big fancy christmas dinner with a hundred different things to choose from..." and we all say that's ok and where happy with little and so on. And still each year she works her ass off fixing all these things that nobody is really asking for and by the time we all come over to her and her husband's apartement, she is so angry and mopy that there is no end to it. Irritable and...well, just not very pleasant to be around. Last year was a disaster and I had to tell her to shut up and start acting like a grown up, which of course didn't cheer things up.Yesterday I felt like it was about to turn down than crocked old dead end street again, but instead we put on the Flight Of the Conchords dvd that my wife and I gave to her sister and boyfriend. Me and my wife both love the Conchords, so does her sister, but I was pretty surpriced to find out that the one laughing the most was my mother in law! Both her and her husband were laughing hard all through the 6 episodes that we watched. Yep, instead of talking - we all sat down for hours watching Flight Of the Conchords on Christmas Eve. May be a good recipy for the future - don't sit down around a table, just put that dvd on and laugh together instead!
And we did. Laughing, drinking beer, eating dinner and afterwards way too much chocolate.
Tomorrow I'll be doing double bikram yoga classes to set straight my poor body from all that meat and candy. And the beer, let's not forget about the beer...

Christmas Eve

On the 17th December, I turned 34 and when I think about the fact that I am really this old I feel scared. Don't get me wrong - I don't mind turning 34, I like being in this age and I feel confident and calm within myself - it's just so hard to grasp all the time that has just come and went again. I can not believe that it is over 15 years ago that I moved out from my mom and step dad to go to a school where I would study art for two years. 17 years old I was. I had red colored dreadlocks, jeans that were broken in a grunge kind of style, a shirt, a vest and a bandana. I was a bit scared to move away from home, but I think I was most of all releaved since my mom was in and out of mental institutions all the time. She came home feeling pretty good, but after a couple of days she always started getting weird and wander around the apartement asking the same questions over and over and over, with her shaking hands, her battered body and her hair that grew more and more grey every day.
It was a crazy time - pardon my joke - living with a crazy mom at the age of 14 - 17. I was pretty glad to move away and start my own life, even if I felt like I betrayed my little brother leaving him behind as I left.
To make a long story short - I moved out of the cuckoo's nest and I started my own life and now I'm 34 and I have done all these things and I have seen the years come and go and I sometimes feel a total panic crawling over me when I think about the time and how f***ing fast it flies...
I talk to guys at work that are 18 - 23 and I suddenly remember that I am more than 10 years older than them...and it just feels weird...

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we're going over to my wife's mom to have dinner and a drink and hang out for a couple of hours and I hope it doesn't turn out the way it did last year where mother in law got stressed out and had a baaad temper...

I have worked my last day for a week now and I will thoroughly enjoy being free. I will read, play the piano and practice playing the bass for my next recording session in Stockholm at the end of January.
I listened to Arcade Fire "Neon Bible" fora while today and I love the production of it...if I could ever do something that good...!
If there is anyone reading this blog (except for my wife) I say "Merry Christmas" to you. Hope you have a good one!
P.S. Be kind to each other, you never know if it's your last christmas together. I miss celebrating with my mom.

Money, money, money...

For the past couple of weeks, I've felt like doing more yoga everytime I've come out from the yoga room. Even after classes where I've been lying down for long periods, I've felt the urge to go back into the room and do another 90 minutes. Since I can only practice in the evening during the week, the oportunity hasn't really come up. So last Sunday I decided to go with the flow and obey my body and take two classes in a row. I did, and it was the best two classes I've had in two or three months. Finally I was able to let go of my expectations and disconnect my brain from my practice.
I find it very hard to take a step back and not push myself, to allow myself to do the poses without burning all the rubber in the first 20 minutes - but last Sunday it worked perfectly. I started the first class thinking " shit - I better take it easy, or I will never be able to pull of two classes in a row.."
So I started out a little more relaxed then what I usually do, and from pose 1 all up to the final breathing, I felt strong and flexible and when the class was over I felt really happy and that energy took me all the way through the second class as well. I was strong, had good balance and most importantly : a good mood! I could almost smile at myself in the mirror and not feel like I was faking it. I have tried to smile at myself before in classes where I have felt and looked like shit, but that smile looked more like someone who is about to cry. Not very confident at all...
I came back to practice again the next day and there were all the expectations again...I tried not to let them in, I tried my best to just ignore them, but they jumped up and down screaming "yaay...yesterday was soo good, I bet I can do it again today...!" And of course I couldn't. I had a decent class, but no way near the double ones on Sunday. But I didn't let it get to me and as I came back again the next day, I had a great class again. And I am so glad I did. Now I know I can do it, I am confident that whatever problems I sometimes have in class, it's in my head and not in my arms or legs - it's all a matter of determination and being able to not focus, but just go with the flow...
For a while now I have had thoughts about going to the teacher training - both me and my wife have talked about it. It's pretty new to me wanting to go, but my wife who has been practicing for many years talked about teacher training about several years ago and included me in the process a year ago. I wasn't up for it then, but the more I think about it, the more appealing it seems to me.
If I could teach Bikram yoga classes, which I am starting to think I could - it wouold allow me to focus on my music as well. Instead of spending eight hours every day at a job that I don't really like and that isn't giving me a shit ( let's face it - I deliver mail and 90 % of it is commercial and bills and stuff - people don't write old school letters to one another anymore expressing their love and inner thoughts...), I could teach yoga and play music. Two things that hopefully would give both me and other people some meaning.

The big question is: how, in the name of the lord, would I ever be able to afford going to teacher training? My wife has no job and no income, so we both feed off of my lousy mailman salary - it's not considered a high status job being a mailman in Sweden...
In short - we have no money saved and to be honest we have no possibility to save any either. We are already planning on moving to the states - Austin, Texas to be more precise - and I think it would be a good thing to have a teachers exame when we go. Maybe I could take a loan, but that feels like a pretty risky thing to do in these days.
I can't just sit around waiting for life to change, I need to take control of it and be the change myself, instead. But it's hard to do when it all comes down to one thing : MONEY

I will have to think about this a lot and come up with a decision soon. In the meantime I will continue delivering crap in the daytime, and practice in the evenings.

A Bikram Addiction

Hello darkness, my old friend... you make me feel like I'm drowning..
oh, the darkness in Sweden in the winter...
I go to work - it's dark
I sort the mail and then I am lucky enough to get a few hours of daylight as I'm on the route. Then, if I'm lucky, it's still light when I go home around four, four thirty. Then of course - darkness all around until next day when I go out on the route. I long for a life with a lot more sunlight in it. That's why where working on moving to Austin, Texas. I've been there twice with my wife since she's got family there and both times I've felt so much happier and easy going, much because of the humid and warm climat, but maybe also just by being far away from the every day life of work and duties. I was born on Dec 17 and when I was a kid I loved the winter and the darkness and the snow, yes we had a lot of snow when I grew up. We don't have that anymore, I think the climate is all fucked up. In Malmö where I live, winter mostly consist of darkness, wind and rain from November until March/April when things start brighten up a bit again. I used to love the winter, but since a few years back I just feel trapped and sad because of it. Not depressed, just indifferent. And that scares me more than being really sad.

I just had a brief look around the blogger world. I just clicked on one of the bands that I have listed on my profile and a long list of other bloggers with the same taste in music came up. Isn't that really pretty cool when you think about it? I've never thought about the chances of making internet friends before - but man if one wants to find friends with a similar taste in music, books or art or whatever - there sure are a million people out there to start talking to. Weird.

Anyway. Yesterday's class was pretty lousy most of the time. I gave up, felt totally worthless for long periods, but I also managed to push myself in a few poses which was good. That's my biggest problem - I can't find that extra little energy to push myself through certain poses. One of the poses I struggle the most with is half locust. That bastard of a pose does not work for me. I have tried to visualize myself doing it, going up all the way, and in my head it's always very easy to go up into the full expression of the pose. In real life it's another story. As I was laying there yesterday evening trying, trying trying to find a way to just lift up a little more than the few centimeters I usually manage - the guy lying in front of me all the sudden go up all the way into the extended, full version of the pose and the teacher stops the class and ask everybody to take a look at him doing it again. So he does and it looks good and I am happy for him 'cos he's a nice guy and I see him struggle a lot with many poses that I manage pretty easy.
Still, right there and then, it was just a disasterous blow to my self- esteem and I felt envy instead of happiness for him. Watching him so easily go up while I lay there like a fish on land, like a jumping jack....oh man...not good.
I am a bad person for having those feelings. At least I admit it, right ? ;-=

Oh, shit...next time I'll do better. That's the weirdest thing of it all when it comes to this practice: no matter how much I feel I want to leave the room and the studio and never come back again, while in class - I still return time after time for more self torture. I felt pretty sad and down when I came home last night, but now I feel like going back again. I am building up an addiction.
A Bikram addiction.

Sunday Dec 7

Last nights class started out boooring! Already in the first breathing exercise I felt bored and kind of angry. One of our teachers - she's great otherwise and I like her classes most of the time - tend to keep the breathing in and out so slow and long, it seems like it's never going to end. Sometimes that's ok, but other times - like yesterday- it just makes me frustrated and I lose focus thinking the class is going to last forever and ever...Things improved as we went along though and by the end I felt like I had a lot of energy left. Maybe it was the electrolytes. Big difference from Saturday's class anyway, where I thought I would collapse totally.
Practicing has cured me from that cold that was sneaking up on me, I sweated it out on the mat and now I feel ok again!

The no 1 pose that I hate: Lying down bow. I Just Don't Get It! Sure I can lie on my belly and grab my feet and kick, no problem - it's just that I can not get my legs to lift off of the mat when I kick. Nine times out of ten I am just lying there, holding my ankles. Got to find a way into it. Stupid Bow!

It's a weird thing that I am actually writing about yoga practice. I'm not in to the whole yoga world and I am not interested in it at all. Practicing is all ego for me, it's all about me feeling good about doing good things for my body and my mind. Is that ok?

Back to Square One?

Will I have to practice every day for the rest of my life to keep up a "high standard"? It seems like every time I take a few days off, I immediately go back to square one again. Thirsday was the first class in a week and it showed...I was so weak - it wasn't stifness that was the problem - as I thought It would be - I simply felt really weak, especially in my legs. I usually do the awkward serie without any problems, but last night it was tough. I had to really struggle not to fall out of the poses.
As I came home from work yesterday I felt like I was about to get sick and sure enough I started sneezing and feeling as if I had a fever. I went to class this morning anyway, thinking that I might just sweat out whetever it is I have caught. I did that once before, I had just a little fever and I went to class and even though I was just lying doown most the class it still felt good and after a day or two I was well again. Today wasn't as easy, I was weak as hell and I had to lie out on almost the entire floor series. I knew it could be like that and still I got pissed off at times when I couldn't do the poses.Sometimes when I watch how other people in the room constantly improve in their practice, I feel like such a loser, as if I'm not going anywhere at all.
I know I have come a long way compared to where I started out about a year ago, but sometimes it feels like it's such a slow process. If you take an old drinking glass that has an air bubble in it and then look at the same glass 50 years later, they say the bubble will have moved because glass is actually liquid. That's how slow the whole yoga process feels to me at times. I want results and I prefer to see them soon and often and - again - that is one of the things I have to work at. Whenever there is someone new coming to the studio and I get to talk with them, one thing I always mention is how much practice has helped me develope patience...man I have to start putting the money where the mouth is and actually do just that. LET IT TAKE TIME - IT'S ALL FINE!

Today, in an otherwise really bad class, I managed to do a nice triangle pose and my teacher saw it and gave me credit for it, which made me feel like such a fake - like a kid sticking out his tounge at someone when mom is turning her back.

This is going to be a slow weekend, I'm not going to do anything but relax and focus on getting well again. And I will practice tomorrow night, it can't possibly get any worse than it was today.

Malmö - home of the pee, land of the grey

My body is screaming at me, begging me to go practice. I try to tell it that I want to but that I really can't do that right now.I'm busy recording. I'm on day three and I am starting to get a severe Bikram abstinence. My back is sore and stiff and I try to do a couple of backbands now and then, but in between I am really just sitting down all the time, playing the piano or the drums, or whatever it is I am doing at the moment.
I had a brief look into the Bikram Yoga studio at Södermalm in Stockholm this morning as I followed my beautiful wife there. She is doing that Jason Winn seminar again for the second weekend straight and I never thought I'd say this, but a part of me envies her. Something happened in my back after taking that advanced class last Sunday - nothing bad, no injury or anything, but it feels lika something has moved in my spine. Something that has been locked for a long, long time. I think my back will go "crack" one of these days if I can only find the right angle or twist to find the exact location in question.
I've had alcohol two nights in a row - I haven't been drunk or anything, but I still fear how it will be to practice again next week. I know what a few days of absence usually does...
"Come on, practice! Twist me, stretch me, bend me, make me sweat!"
My body screams at me.

(now, I started writing this on Sunday, then a few days passed ...)

Anyway, Iam going back to Malmö this afternoon and by tomorrow night I'll be back to practice again. Leaving Stockholm to go back to the everyday life with work and work and work.And some pratice.
I came in to town this morning with the train and as I watched inner city Stockholm pass outside the window I felt a bit sad for leaving so soon. It's a beautiful city, Stockholm and Malmö doesn't really compete in the same league in the winter. Spring and summer - that's where Malmö shows off a pretty face, but in the winter...awful.
But here I am and I will get through it yet again.

Pull! Pull! I am, god damn it!

Today is Thursday and I haven't done any yoga since I got on a train about an hour after I got off work to go to Stockholm to start recording something that I hope will be a new album eventually. Fun, fun, fun!
I did practice yesterday though even though I had planned not to - the yoga spirit grabbed a hold of me and dragged my after work - tired ass down to the studio. Again - I had an ok class, no major breakthrough in any poses, but I was only a millimeter or two from touching my fingers with my head in paschimottanasana. My teacher was trying his best to get the thumbs and head to meet and maybe I'll manage next time!
The pose that I hate the most - if hate is allowed in the yoga room - is the floor bow, dhanurasana ( if that's how it's spelled...?). Ever since I started practising, this pose has been something of an enigma to me, a total mystery and to be honest, something of an enemy that I have come to hate. During the Jason Winn workshop, that was the one pose that I got som physical help in. He gave me some corrections concerning where the hell my left leg was going and he thn pushed me, not giving me the oportunity to give up. So I kicked and I kicked and I swear it was like I was on a rollercoster ride, I got dizzy and desorientated as if I was hanging upside down or something. Weird, but I did get a little higher up and I did keep the left leg in more. So yesterday I was trying to kick and do it as good, but I couldn't get it right and the teacher saw me and came over to help me and again as he lifted my feet up towards the floor and I was kicking hard as hell, I got dizzy and lost in space. I wonder why that is?
The thing is that I know it is like that, but it doesn't bother me as much anymore. It is what it is and I accept it. That is a new sensation to me - letting go and not struggle against whatever comes up. It is new and it is good!
Oh man, if someone had told me a year and a half ago that I'd be doing yoga AND write about how god it feels, I would have laughed. Hard and long. But here I am, not saved by that yoga religion, but certainly a lot more open and a bit more curious about myself, in a way that I haven't been before. Who knows where it will take me? I guess I just have to stay on the train and relax and enjoy the ride.
I'm on the train as I'm writing and as I went to the restroom, I thought I'd do a standing head to knee just to check out my balance, but ooops , the train is movin g way too much...I'll have to do a lot more practice before I manage a nice pose under these conditions...But what is it Bikram say's ? You should be able to do the triangle standing on two big cubes of ice, with oil on your feet? Ah, something like that - I'm not there yet, but I will be in Stockholm in three hours and tomorrow I'll be working on music again for real, for the first time in two years!
Yogamusician, signing out!

The more you ignore me the closer I get!

Tuesday night and I just got home from another 90 minutes of self-torture in the hot room. For the first time in a long time I actually had some fun in the class, even though I was far from perfect in a lot of poses. But as they say - it's yoga poses, not yoga perfect. I will try to embrace that more in the future.
The breathing exercise in the beginning is a strange thing. Tonight it was easy for me, it felt as it was flowing perfectly, maybe 'cos the teacher kept it fast and short, maybe I just had a better day. I sometimes find myself grasping for air, having to cheat and take an extra inhale to make it through. Not tonight.
Awkward pose tend to be pretty easy to me, I've got strong legs, while the camel is a killer. It left me feeling all dizzy and weird in the beginning of my practice - that is the few times I actually did it. I am a giver upper, did I mention that? I am stubborn as hell when it comes to certain things and then I give up far too easy when it comes to other things. Like yoga.
I recently took part in a weekend yoga seminar with Jason Winn, senior Bikram yoga teacher. Two days of intense practice and nothing else. It was interesting even if the days felt a little long at times. I realize though that it did give me something. I can't put my finger on what it is. Maybe it was the fact that I felt like I was ignored for a big part of the class after I said "I can't" when he was trying to help me through a pose in the advance series. I am a giver upper.
I tried to do a pose - don't ask what name it had, because by the time we reached that pose I was a big question mark for periods of time. I tried to push my hands through my legs while sitting in lotus and I felt like it was impossible. So I said "I can't" and I gave up. No big deal, but I understand that a guy like him don't feel like spending too much time on a guy saying "I can't" when there's a whole room of other people trying hard…
So, I felt like he kind of ignored me for the rest of the class, but it was ok. And now afterwards I can even say it was kind of helpful. I guess "I can't" doesn't exist in yoga. That's good, I think I need a lot more of that, in yoga and in the rest of my life.

Tonight's class was ok, not a super class and not mediocre either. It was ok and I enjoyed it, and that is all that matters right now.

Now I'm making some supper and I will sit down in front of the TV with my wife, my super yoga wife. She is another story - she's great at this yoga thing, but this is not her story, this is mine.
The Police is singing "Don't stand so close to me", I've got cold fingers and I look forward to the yellow pea soup!
Oh, I forgot - I do think Jason Winn is a good teacher, nothing to complaint about there!

Fishing for feelings

I've been doing Bikram yoga for little over a year now. Before I started, I had never practiced anything in any shape or form and certainly not yoga. I was, to say the least, sceptic about it.
Now, a year later I am not sceptical to why people love doing Bikram yoga. I fully understand the benefits it has on the practicians. Not just the physical stuff like straightening your back out or helping your digestive system, or whatever other reasons one might have for doing bikram. To me it has most of all been a way to take control of my own mind, to try to be more present and not always live in yeaterday or tomorrow. It is damn hard to do it and I still struggle with it every single class I take and I have a looong way still to go, but I have taken some gigantic steps in the right direction for sure.
I am a musician. I am a person who is always searching for something. I don't believe in the 9 to 5 life, I've always had the feeling that there has to be something else out there than just work and "do right" for yourself - that whole working class hero thing, building a family, settle down and be happy with whatever you've got. I have a great admiration for anyone who can cope with the everyday life and be happy with it - a week or two of vacation every year, nice dinner on Sunday, a walk in the park with the wife and kids...NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, it just doesn't do the trick for me. Having said that, I still must admit I'm not sure what else there is out there to find that would make me truly and deeply happy.
I've been calling myself a musician for about ten years now. I started writing songs when I was unemployed and really bored and alone. My mum committed suicide after a ten year long depression and that gave me an enormous amount of input to write songs. I took all that frustration and sadness that I had in me and converted it into songs that were really kind of too personal to present to other people, but I didn't care. I did it for me and for her and I didn't reflect upon the fact that other people would actually read my lyrics. But they did as I released records with my band, and I found that there are so many people out there with similar backgrounds as myself. Comforting, sure, but pretty depressing at the same time that so many people feel so bad in their everyday life. I guess it goes to show that I'm not all alone thinking the way I do.
I try to take pride in what I do, and I am honestly really very proud of the things I have accomplished in my life and "carreer", but I still have that nagging feeling somewhere deep inside that just won't let me rest or feel completely calm. I'm always searching and running after something and it is so hard to let go.
That's where bikram yoga has actually helped me a lot, even though I struggle in my head against the fact that it does make me feel good.
It does clear my mind a bit
It does help me not to worry about things when I'm doing the poses or when I am lying down in savasana.
But if I know that it helps me, why the hell do I still struggle so much? I am really split up in half with this. It's like I can't fully focus on two things at the same time.
Am I still as good a musician if I sink deeper into the yoga or will one thing wipe out the other?
Can I still make as good music if all the sudden that storm inside me would calm down?
I wonder.
The best songs I have written, were definately written in a state of chaos and sadness and frustration or whatever other dramatical mood one could fall into in life. Can I still grab those feelings if I turn into a calmer person? Not that I am a person that is depressed or in any other way a big chaos kind of type, I'd like to see myself as a normal person. I have a job that I go to so that I can pay my bills, I love to laugh at silly things and I enjoy a beer or two sometimes without going all crazy screaming at people, crying and cutting myself...I'm just a regular guy ( call me Joe the plumber), who tend to think a little too much at times.

I am balancing on a knives edge all the time, trying to feel content with the situation I am in, but for the past two years I find myself more and more often being far from content. I would like to let go and go deeper into the yogapractise sometimes and at the same time I don't really feel like I belong in that world at all. I mean, I used to tour a lot with my band and I so much miss the feeling of packing the gear into the minivan and hit the road. I totally love the feeling if being on the road, seeing citys pass by outside the car window, driving through cities and villages - hell I even enjoy a bratwurst at a crappy Autobahn gas station. I absolutely love arriving to a smoky worn down club in a city where I have never been before, unoading the gear and get it up on stage, do the soundcheck and enjoy a beer, doing the show and just watch peoples reactions to the songs. I love staying at hotels (I'm not as fond of sleeping an squathouses on moldy madrasses...) and I love having breakfast in a new city, watching people pass by outside. All that I love and all that I don't get to do anymore. Instead I do yoga. Sometimes that helps and sometimes it just reminds me of the things I haven't got, and that's where all the hard work begins. I need to remind myself that just because I don't have it now, it doesn't mean I will never have it again. I have to remind myself not to grow bitter and sad, 'cos that's just not who I really am.

So, I do bikramyoga. Some days it's just really fun and it makes me feel good about myself, and other days it just pisses me off tring to get in to the camel pose or tulladandasana, head to knee, rabbit or whatever pose...I just get mad at the pose and at myself. And I don't want to be that way. I don't want to be a quitter - a "giver upper" like I know I am sometimes.

I started this blog to write about my practice to see if it could help me find the joy in doing yoga again. I do have classes on occasion that make me feel good about myself, but most of the time I am left blank and indifferent and I hate that feeling of not feeling anything. I need my feelings and I tend to go fishing for them to see if they are down there somewhere.