http://www.oberlin.edu/stuorg/Aikido/dojo-rules.pdf

Admittedly, the martial artist in me is aghast in the yoga world.  Where once I bowed for every occasion, remained silent, and maintained politeness, now I observe the disintegration of these beautiful gestures of tradition and respect.  Healthy tradition preserves the necessary hierarchies that allow the practice to be passed down.

I have replicated, and in some instances, rephrased the above pdf to reflect on how the contemporary yoga environment might consider instating similar enculturation.  As you read, imagine this environment:

Yoga is not a sport. Yoga is not exercise.  It is a discipline, an educational process for training the mind, body, and spirit. A yoga studio is not a gymnasium. It is the place where the way of the discipline is revealed. Physical technique is not the final objective, but a tool for personal refinement and spiritual growth. The correct attitudes of respect, sincerity, and modesty combined with the proper atmosphere are essential to the learning process. And as yoga is a martial practice, they are essential to the safety of each individual. The following rules are necessary to the maintenance of this atmosphere and vital to your study of yoga.

Cleaning is an active prayer of thanksgiving. It is each student's responsibility to assist in cleaning the dojo and to cleanse his or her own mind and heart. 


You cannot buy technique. The membership dues provide a place for training and a way in which to show gratitude for the teaching received. It is each students responsibility to pay dues on time.  

Rules of Training

It is necessary to respect the way in which the instructor of the class directs the training. Receive instruction and carry out suggestions for training sincerely and to the best of your ability. 

Proper Studio Etiquette

Yoga is the education and refinement of the spirit. You will not be aked to adhere to any religious doctrine, but only to remain spiritually open. When we bow it is not a religious performance, but a sign of respect for the same spirit of universal creative intelligence within us all.

The words spoken at the beginning of practice between the students and instructor are, "Onegai shimasu." Loosely translated it is a request which when spoken by the student means, "Please give me your instruction." When spoken by the teacher it means,  "Please receive my instruction." The words spoken by the student to the instructor at the end of practice are, "Domo arigato gozaimashita." "You have my respect and gratitude for what you have just done." This is the most respectful way of saying thank you.

Upon entering and leaving the practice area of the studio make a standing bow.
Respect your training tools. Clothing should be clean and mended.
Never use someone else's mat.
A few minutes before class time you should be formally seated in quiet meditation to rid your mind of the day's problems and prepare for study.
It is important to be on time for practice and participate in the opening ceremony. If you are unavoidably late you should wait, formally seated beside the entrance until the instructor signals his or her permission for you to join the class. Quietly perform a simple seated bow as you get on the mat. The only proper way to sit on the mat is in formal sitting position.
never with legs outstretched, never reclining, and never leaning against walls or posts.
 Do not leave the mat during class except in the case of injury or illness. During class when the instructor demonstrates a technique for practice, sit quietly and attentively in seiza.
Never stand around idly on the mat. You should be practicing 
Respect those more experienced. Never argue about technique.
Respect those less experienced. Do not pressure your ideas on others.
Keep talking on the mat to an absolute minimum. Yoga is experience.
No eating, drinking, smoking or gum chewing on or off the mat during practice. 
No jewelry should be worn during practice, including rings and pierced earrings.  No cologne/perfumes should be worn.  Clothing should not be laundered with strongly scented products.

Do not talk to anyone while they are on the mat and class is in progress;  talking during class is impolite. 
Do not talk or walk around while the instructor is demonstrating or during the opening and closing ceremony.
It is poor etiquette to question the teacher or senior’s authority or technical knowledge, and especially so during a class.
If you are confused about something, ask respectfully during or after the class.
For serious questions, endeavor first to learn the answer through continued practice and observation of other students. If a problem can be solved in this way, the answer will become permanent knowledge. Consult the teacher only as a final resort.  
Breaks are allocated throughout the entire class and not to be taken in the middle of the class unless necessary.
If for any reason you must leave the dojo during practice, either temporarily or permanently, ask the teacher's permission to leave or return.
Be attentive during a class. Do not act inattentively and waste your time and everyone else’s.  Talking interferes with what the teacher is explaining and with the concentration of other students. 

Always remember, “Tai wa kokoru arawasu” (Your actions reveal your heart).

Dietary history--how many diets have you done? [self-esteem]
"I believe in the dignity of every human being."
Nabiim--one who looks to the Heart.  "Don't be a fortune teller, be a Truth-teller.  Illuminate, point, project.

• We've all heard a story of a doctor saying, "You won't ever be able to squat again...walk again...live more than 3 months..." etc.  People have proved the fortune tellers wrong again and again.  
  

• Dietary history--or even trauma history--could paint a very hopeful or dismal picture depending on what pattern emerges.  Do they start something and never finish?  Do they comprehend what it is they're trying?  
  
• Self-esteem:  I've never worked with anyone ["dieting" for aesthetic reasons] to not also be working with self-esteem on some level.  The diet or the sought-after "look" are usually garnering social approval through external means.  Self esteem is largely the lifelong commitment one has to self care--and building positive core beliefs about oneself.  It is about identifying and meeting one's emotional needs.  This is to say that if a client uses food as a coping mechanism, when they diet, they will be contending with and redefining their emotional needs too.
  
• The quote emerged when Dan and I were talking later after his presentation about gay marriage in Utah.  
  

To what does all this point?

"Fat loss feels like hunger"


Hunger simplifies.  
In a fasted or induced hunger state, we cut out all the ways we've distanced ourselves from our goals, fooled ourselves, or distracted ourselves from what's really important.
Without appropriate hunger, can there be Vision?  
Even when a person has a grim history of failing themselves, can we look them in the Heart, in the eye and remind them that Hunger may not be the problem but the clarifying solution?

currently reading Power Up Your Brain:  The Neuroscience of Enlightenment, David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo


There's a point in the workshop wherein the phrase "intermittent fasting" comes up.  I guess it's a popular phrase right now.  Years ago, before I ever picked up a kettlebell, I had been probably automatically doing whatever this protocol is without knowing it.  The process went like this:  Get up, make green tea, rev up the studio, drink green tea, write and record music, make more green tea etc.  for usually no less than 7 hours straight.  The amount of work accomplished on that particular day was stunning.

Nowadays we have professional nerds like Dave Asprey to suggest getting quality coffee and fats together like manna.  [Seriously, get good butter in your life.  Don't be a cheapskate.  Good butter=good life; this is infrastructure.  While you're at it, Chicago, get good coffee, I haven't had much Intelligentsia lately, but have found the Sumptown Hairbender to be one of the cleanest feeling coffees.  There is a huge difference in coffee and you should never be cheap here either.]

But it's worth noting that every major religion fasts.  In the Native traditions one fasts before vision quest.  Pavel and Dan have been playing with writing before eating, and I prefer practicing/meditating before eating.  

There was mention of playing with nicotine patches.  I think there is possibly a better product for dosing:  

Dr. Hauschka's Nicotiana Cramp Relief is nicotine, camomile, and probably a little sucrose.  Those cute little buggers are sublingual.  Never tried them but woman friend did and reported a noticeable buzz with just one or two of those things.  Men may not have thought to look at women's cramp products....

This right here is an intersection.  Where intermittent fasting leads to brain-enhancing metabolism, is also right where neurogenesis [brain growth!] lives.  It's right here in this neuroplasticity quality and neurogenesis process that we can enhance certain neural pathways.  We can engage a metabolism that literally changes gene expression.  Whether we're rewiring primitive emotional patterns [fear, anger, shame] or rewiring movement patterns, the infrastructure gets built by more or less the same process.  I think this has huge implications for any trainer that is pattern-aware.

Thomas Ryan, a Roman Catholic priest, stated, "Fasting as a religious act increases our sensitivity to that mystery always and everywhere present to us.  It is an invitation to awareness, a call to compassion for the needy, a cry of distress, and a song of joy. It is a discipline of self-restraint, a ritual of purification, and a sanctuary for offerings of atonement.  It is a wellspring for the spiritually dry, a compass for the spiritually lost, and inner nourishment for the spiritually hungry" [163, The Sacred Art of Fasting:  Preparing to Practice; 2005]

Fasting disallows distractive eating--eating out of boredom or to quell anxiety.  What is your prime directive?  Hunger for it appropriately.  Feast.