Yoga And Wisdom

Yoga and wisdom?
Okay, look not every yoga teacher can be 80 years old, do handstands, full lotus or scorpion and simultaneously offer fountains of life altering platitudes of faith or dramatic/mind boggling stories.
I bring this up because I just read an article on Yoga Journal online that was critical of today's yoga, the beautiful bodies doing asanas on a beach and the myriad of yoga selfies on IG and other social hot spots.
I go to a yoga class nearly every day and many of the yoga teachers are young enough to be my kids and even grandkids. Also, all of them are beautiful.
Not all of them constantly recite from the sutras.
But do you know what they do?
They welcome me, smile at me, are respectful of me and encourage me to push through many times difficult obstacles. They treat me as an equal.
And you know something?
That to me is the greatest wisdom there is and it is all of the wisdom I need shared with me. None of what they feed to me in a yoga class is bullshit! Well. Almost none of it! 😂
There.
I said it. That's my voice. Read it and weep. Or not.
Happy Holidays! 🙏

Christmas, harvest and Pickles

My number one son tells me they wrapped up harvest yesterday so that was great to hear. I'm sure that's a relief since it was such a long drawn out affair this year.
This was always kind of a special time of the year when I was a kid because harvest was over and each Christmas eve my dad would put out extra straw bedding for the animals. There was the anticipation of Santa's arrival and what he would bring and the smell of fresh pine needles in the living room from the newly decorated Christmas tree. It was a lot less hectic or stressful than the busy farming days during the summer and fall.
Apparently my daughter-in-law and number two son's kitten Pickles likes the Christmas season too. I was over checking on the kittens one day last week while the building maintenance crew did their thing. I'm told Pickles gets kind of nervous when strangers are around but for whatever reason he and I get along just fine. He even jumped up on my lap and purred a bit but his favorite lounging spot was under the Christmas tree.
Guess Pickles is a party or holiday cat at heart!

Rejection isn't a four letter word

I suppose one of many perks of being older is that rejection isn't such an awful thing. I don't know if anyone ever gets used to being rejected.  But after living 20 or 30 or more years, most of us learn that it is indeed a part of life and it happens more often the harder one tries to accomplish anything worth going after.

When I went through my youthful experience of drinking copious amounts of alcohol for about 10 years, the rejection factor didn't seem to matter. Heck, if one stays drunk enough nothing matters other than trying to lie and manipulate enough to stay out of or get out of serious trouble.
But when the music stops and life begins, it's then that the feelings of rejection begin and in the early stages of facing reality head on, the rejections are numerous and many of them really hurt.
You're not big enough, strong enough, educated enough or seemingly enough of anything for about any endeavor.

Then suddenly one realizes that many of the rejections are compliments in disguise and one begins to see rejection as a blessing not a curse. Life becomes much easier and more fun when that realization takes hold.

What a horrible feeling it is to be hired for a job and once it begins you realize it isn't at all what you want to be doing or maybe the job description didn't fit with your experience and education at all. An upfront brutal rejection by the hiring manager would have been a gift.

Or on the romantic front, you find yourself involved with someone for a period of time and then realize you've been sold a bill of goods, in fact deceived. You realize the person you're with isn't at all what the initial packaging advertised. Now the daily mantra becomes, how do I get out of this one!

All of this I suppose is a part of living and is how most of us learn about life.
Some people learn by logic but it seems most of us learn by bitter experience.

The saving grace of being older is that although the rejections continue, one can retreat in peace and with a smile since the daily mantra becomes...I'm weary, been there-done that so I don't really give a fuck about your stupid party anyway!

Nostalgia over the Triple Post and a great man named Tex

I opened my K-Stater magazine the other day and lo and behold Tex Winter was featured in a two page spread.
Some of you may not know this, but Tex was the basketball coach when I was at K-State and he was a good one. We won a lot of games and although KU was still the king, everyone in the old Big 8 still had to go through us to get to the top. He won 8 Big 8 titles and took the Wildcats to the final four twice, in 1958 and 1964. Oklahoma State and Henry Iba also were a force to be reckoned with during those years in the old Big 8 conference.
Coach Winter died this fall at age 96 and was the innovator of the triple post offense or triangle offense. He was hired by the Bulls to install the triple post when Phil Jackson took over and went with Jackson to the Lakers. So basically Coach Tex Winter taught the triple post offense to Michael Jordan and won 9 NBA championships with that offense. But Jackson, Jordan and Kobe got the credit? Okay well that's an exaggeration but it makes an interesting story. It does take some talented and intelligent players to run it.
A true story is that local Courtland, Kansas farmer John "Johnny" Blackburn came back from a trip to K-State and told our coach Raymond "Stewie" Stewart about Winter's triple post offense. I think Winter wrote his book about the triple post around the same time. This was the winter of 1961-62.
Anyway Stewie and Johnny thought we were bright enough to run the triple post so we practiced, and practiced and practiced including the dreaded daily wind sprints. By the way Johnny Blackburn was in his late '30s then and could still whup any one of us on either end of the court. Practicing against him was like wrestling a pissed off bull. Many times I didn't get home until dark but we managed to put together a pretty good high school team the year I was a senior and ran our version of the triple post in about 70 percent of our games and won most of them, enough to win the Pike Trail League and the District tournament. We got beat in the Regional tournament and kept from going to state by a team from Bird City that played as tough a man defense as us and was as disciplined controlling the ball as us. The score was 34 to 32!
The triple post requires a lot of decision making and movement by the players and I know it was hard for Stewie to give up play calling control but he did it. Of course if we made a bad decision he let us have it with both barrels. It wasn't abuse back in those days...it was coaching! Ha!
Our version of the triple post included sophmore Kenny Henrickson (big dude) and my senior teammates Robert Carlgren and John Freed in constant motion, rotating in the post, setting pics getting each other open so cousin Kenny Russell and I could find an open player for the shot as we continuously moved in a semi-circular motion around the perimeter. If the defensive guards dropped off us too far to clog the middle then we took the shot.
Some teams required a three guard match up so sharp shooting sophmore Gene Macintosh would start instead of Henrickson. In those games Gene, Kenny and I would work the perimeter while Carlgren and Johnny Freed worked a double post. This was my favorite setup because I didn't have to handle the ball quite as much or make as many decisions or get my fanny chewed by Stewie as much. Ha!
I could go on but you get my drift, assuming you've read this far. Ha!
Have a great day!