I'm sure most of us who've been blogging for a little while think about doing the same. I've taken a break a couple of times, often think about quitting altogether but rarely consider deleting the whole thing.
It's no so much that think this blog is important, of any value but rather that I kind of feel I don't have the right to delete it, as if I don't have ownership. I know in the past a couple of you have felt the same re comments "How dare you delete my comment", so perhaps not such a strange idea.
This is no criticism of my friend who deleted her blog, I kind of admire her for just going ahead and doing it like that, cutting it loose, non attachment, it can feel like a stone around your neck sometimes.
Still, it kind feels a bit like Karma Yoga, not exactly or at least not always selfless, it has been helpful to my practice to work things out here, post videos of my practice, reflect on it, view it with a more objective eye but there is the sense of giving something back to the community, offering a little support and encouragement especially to other home practitioners and at times a questioning voice, saying out loud what many of us have been thinking ( I know others have been thinking the same thing because they tell me in direct emails).
Every time I've started to think privately of giving up the blog I've tended to to receive a couple of emails asking for advice or thanking me for a post, often telling me that they're a home ashtangi too and that that the blog helps them get on the mat in the morning.
Sometimes I think I'm intentionally provocative to trying to push everyone away, not always, sometimes I'm just being an arse. I think the expression is to burn it. Funny thing is though, although many stop following the blog it then seems to become more popular, more hits, more followers, it has a life of it's own I swear.
Apologies to anyone I've offended in the past.
And of course I've received so much from the blog in return, support, encouragement for my own practice, a little extra push by saying I'm going to do something here and feeling obliged to follow it through, the karandavasana or drop back challenge say. And the friends I've made ....I'm the least social person I know, the interaction here is probably good for me. So thank you to everyone for of that.
So it kind of feels like it's not so much my blog as the communities, I've posted 1026 times but there have been 5353 comments, is it fair to delete all those? Down the bottom of the blog there's the 'followers' box 172 profile pics of people who've wanted to keep up with the posts enough to click the follow button. Then there's the long blog roll list over on the right, I'm sure many come here just as a place to jump off to other blogs love seeing that in the feedjit widget down the bottom left that shows where people come from and where they go off to, I started collecting the different flags a while back, still amazes me the global nature of our blogs, love that.
So here are some stats and screenshots of the community that builds up around a blog, not just my blog, any blog.
Visits 392164
1026 posts
5353 Comments
Visiters come from over, just some of the flags I've collected, when I've remembered.
Love seeing where visitors come from and the blogs they go off too
Still can't get over the global nature of our practice
....and yet I'm tired, wonder if there's a domino effect and a bunch of us who have been blogging for a little while and thinking about calling it quits will do so.
I've been thinking about it for some time but there's always something else.... I wanted to raise the profile of Vinyasa Krama a little and find a way to balance VK and Ashtanga and then the book project and trying to make VK more approachable and Rishi which I see as somewhere where Ashtanga and VK meet.
Enough is enough perhaps. I think it was five years ago this month or next month that I started practicing yoga or at least Ashtanga and four years of that I've been blogging about it.
Kind of fancy going caveyogi and just getting on and practicing and not writing about it anymore.
The other thing, for some reason so much that surrounds Ashtanga irritates me, need to seperate that from the aspect I love, the bit on the mat.
Finally got to a place where I can balance the two practices peacefully, VK in the morning, Ashtanga in the evening and yet already in the last couple of weeks with the Mysore post, Rishi I've felt like washing my hands on the whole practice.
So I guess that's it after all. Won't be deleting the blog, might trim it sometime or other to make it easier to find stuff that might be useful and possibly add one or two more Rishi posts to tie up the loose ends.
No shortage of wonderful blogs at the moment.
Posts
16 comments:
I agree with that part where you say it takes a life of its own, very true. I know your blog has helped me in more ways than I thought it would.
Glad that even if you have doubts you dont think you would delete it, cause it is a great resource.
I hope that other blog you mention re-appears somehow, will check now see if I can figure out what you mean when you say it is back in different form...
I suppose it was a bit selfish to delete it, in the sense that all the comments went with it. And some valuable comments there were, too.
I feel a bit sad now, but what's done is done. It feels a bit like when my flat burnt down and suddenly all my 'stuff' was just gone.....
But we can't get yesterday back, so why should I hang onto my blog? In the end I do (did) own it. And really, these are all just conversations. We don't go around recording all our discussions.....
I dunno..... it is what it is :-/
It probably has something to do with me getting to grips with the fact that you can't hang on to the past. Maybe I'll finally be able to put some things behind me. Maybe that's my Mysore 'stuff' to work out and this was just a symbolic act.
Sigh......
To both Claudia and Susan re resource,
It's difficult, as you say Susan they are like conversations but sometimes they're more than that. Many a time I've gone searching through your blog for some asana analysis that I remembered you writing on that perhaps I wasn't up to at the time. You do write THE best asana asana posts (except you never tagged them so it was a bugger finding what i was looking for though would tend to come across something equally as useful).
I'd like to cull half the posts, more than half from here make some of the old stuff that might still be useful easier to find.
Didn't want to make you feel bad or suggest you were being selfish at all, it's a dilemma, attachment and all that. Glad you back though even in pop up form ...perhaps you could just delete the non asana part tag it and then leave that bit alive
I thought you must've meant boodiba.... She's disappeared no? I miss her blog heaps :-(
yes, i miss boo die too although sh's posted some videos on youtube under boodiba,planning on watching them over the weekend. I have my fingers crossed that she might start again when she gets back from india.
Yeah I am hoping she comes back too! Such a wicked sense of humor. I read your blog pretty much every day too Grimmly, have for a fair while but I don't think I've ever told you how much I love it. Always look forward it, so thank you for all the time and effort you put in! (can you tell I'm another home ashtangi with a pretty solitary self practice- have learnt a lot here!)
Dear Grimmly
i'm looking to you for inspiration, since my practice waivers. and curious how both Claudia and Susan are experiencing renaissances of some sorts, pyre burning of stuff, while over there in Mysore. wonder what would happen to me when i finally visit there, heh. yes i notice Boodi has been quiet recenly. (love y'all)
Arturo
Grim, I don't have to tell you how much I value your dedication to this blog, I've said it before. I remember feeling gutted when I saw your post 'gone fishing'!! And similar when Kaivalia went awol for a while. What am I to do now I thought?!! Ha. I understand you shouldn't be attached to things, but when you don't have the people around you to share yoga with and who don't get it, its amazing to have OUR community here who do! I look forward to reading my favourite blows nearly as much as I do practicing. I think that says something about what we have here :)
*blogs ;)
Hi Grimm,
I just wanted to thank you too. I am a home ashtangi and it can be so very lonely sometimes and it will be difficult to tell you (and all my other fave blogs - Boodi, Claudia, Susananda, Nobel, Arturo, Globie, Kaivalya, Napper) how much I enjoy clocking in each day - I also work in a very dry finance corporate environment and the first thing I do when I get to work? Google "Ashtanga Grimmly" - I'm amazed I haven't been censured by the IT department. But really, in the absence of a teacher, I can pretty much say that all my progress of the last couple of years has been made becuase of your collective and deeply inspiring blogs. i am conscious of the time and committment it takes to update everyday and would miss them badly if they went. So, a heartfelt thank you!
warmest regards,
Kste R
I really look forward to visiting this (your) blog on a daily basis. I always get excited to see what new topic you discuss. There is much I've learned from your efforts. I know it takes a lot of time for you, but it is well enjoyed.
Ooh - I thought you were talking about Boodi's blog too. So, Susan's blog is gone as well? ... :(
Funny how dependent one gets on reading other people's daily (or periodic) thoughts/experiences with their practice. Something to do with an ethernet community or something - probably need a few years of academics and philosophers musing about this to bring it all into focus.
I too really hope you don't delete your blog Grimmly ... I look at it pretty much every day - and then when I've read and thought about what you've had to say, I move on to some of the blogs you have listed! (You've replaced the old ashtangi.net site for that!!)
I was pretty shocked to see Susan's posts gone, but I was more surprised (but at the same time very pleased) to see you write about it.
I share your feelings about her posts being very informative for understanding the mental and physical anatomy of the asanas
but we should practice non-attachment, right?
Thank you everyone for your kind words, no plans here to practice non attachment with regards to this blog right now but next time I am tempted I'll come back and reread these comments.
Susan hasn't gone completely, she's exploring new blogging forms, a little like Duthain Dealbh perhaps, the ephemeral pop-up blog. One post, each new one replacing the one before.
Boodiba I hope will come back after India, got my fingers crossed on that one.
fatou hi, it's been ages.
....and yet I'm tired, wonder if there's a domino effect and a bunch of us who have been blogging for a little while and thinking about calling it quits will do so.
I've been thinking about it for some time but there's always something else.... I wanted to raise the profile of Vinyasa Krama a little and find a way to balance VK and Ashtanga and then the book project and trying to make VK more approachable and Rishi which I see as somewhere where Ashtanga and VK meet.
Enough is enough perhaps. I think it was five years ago this month or next month that I started practicing yoga or at least Ashtanga and four years of that I've been blogging about it.
Kind of fancy going caveyogi and just getting on and practicing and not writing about it anymore.
The other thing, for some reason so much that surrounds Ashtanga irritates me, need to seperate that from the aspect I love, the bit on the mat.
Finally got to a place where I can balance the two practices peacefully, VK in the morning, Ashtanga in the evening and yet already in the last couple of weeks with the Mysore post, Rishi I've felt like washing my hands on the whole practice.
So I guess that's it after all. Won't be deleting the blog, might trim it sometime or other to make it easier to find stuff that might be useful and possibly add one or two more Rishi posts to tie up the loose ends.
No shortage of wonderful blogs at the moment.
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