It's a Stretch But It Sounds Good To Me

The Yoga Conference and Show rolled into the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from Thursday March 26 to Sunday March 28. The more serious 6-hour workshops took place Thursday and Friday. I thought about attending but they sounded very intensive. As well, the total price was getting expensive.

I ended up taking two 2-hour workshops. The first one was with Sadie Nardini. She is a reasonably well-known Yoga teacher who has her own style of yoga called "Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga". In fact, I was taking the workshop because I wanted to meet someone I've been watching on youtube for about 2 years.

Vinyasa Yoga is also known as flow yoga where you take a series of postures in a flowing manner. Sadie emphasizes "Core Strength" in her postures. In yoga, your core involves engaging your Mula Bandha (or root lock), containment of your abdomen, and usage of your psoas. Superficially, you can feel your Mula Bandha if you squeeze the muscle at your perineum to stop yourself from peeing. Officially, it is a little deeper inside your body. The psoas are muscles that are attached to the front, inner thighs, which wrap around your pelvis, and attaches to the back of your lower ribs.

The workshop was about engaging your core when doing inversions such as headstand, shoulderstand, handstand and arm balances.

For example, the woman in the yellow top and black-striped shorts is not engaging her core here and so her Bakasana (or crow pose) is low and flat. Furthermore, she is resting her knees on her arms/elbows.

This woman is engaging her core including her psoas, allowing her to round her back, pulling her legs tighter to her body, and straightening her arms. Her legs are not being supported and, in fact, are being used to squeeze her arms together.


Engaging your core allows you to lift your legs into headstand without kicking up, which is a dangerous action and may damage the small bones in your neck. It means that your back doesn't sway in or your belly explode out, leading to greater stability. The same is true for handstand.

Of course, I knew all this before. The hard part is practicing it. It's easy, and tempting to just propel your legs up the wall, especially in handstand or just balance your legs on your triceps in crow. Using your core is hard and exhausting, even if your legs are still on the ground. And since it's likely your legs will stay on the ground, it's frustrating and feels like a step backward too.

Sadie is a great instructor, and strong in her poses. I liked that she admitted that in her own history, she was quite advanced in her other yoga postures and yet, was still a beginner in inversions because of her fears. This, combined with pride/ego, meant that she wasn't willing to go to the "beginner" classes to learn inversions but wasn't proficient enough for the "advanced" classes. Eventually, she overcame her fears. But because she came late to inversions in her practice, she can empathize with our apprehensions and her instructions do not assume that we were all natural gymnasts and circus folks.

This workshop, like many yoga events, was mainly female. In fact, I was only 1 of 2 men in a group of about 50. There was a high percentage of young, attractive women. I'm not sure how many were teachers and how many were just interested students.

In contrast, the second workshop, although still predominantly women, had a larger age range with most in their 40s or 50s. I guess treatment for lower back pain isn't high on your list when you're young. At first, I was unsure about the instructor, Tias Little. He currently has a Crispin Glover look that was a bit disturbing, and kept saying "mmmkay" like Mr. Garrison from South Park. But he was a fount of knowledge and I thought the workshop was very useful.

There are a number of potential causes for lower back (or lumbar) pain. Firstly in most people, the vertebrate column is typically not perfectly aligned or the sacrum, the bone that the vertebrates end at, is not even or balanced. So there is unnecessary pressure on the lumbar causing discomfort. Misalignment also strains the anterior longitudinal ligament, which runs from the sacrum along the spine to the skull, which may induce headaches. Tightness in the muscles, ligaments, and fascia that attach the sacrum to the pelvis and other organs restrict blood flow to the lower organs (potentially leading to some medical conditions), squeeze the large colon (causing constipation or difficult bowel movement), and put pressure on all the nerves that pass through the 8 openings in the sacrum (leading to chronic pain or discomfort in the lower body and legs). Shortened psoas muscle (which attaches to the lower ribs and run through the pelvis) from activities such as sitting also put undue pressure on the lumbar.

We engaged in a series of very simple, gentle non-force exercises. They are meant to loosen and stretch the areas of lumbar, sacrum, pelvis, and hip, and to even out any misalignment. Non-force means that most were done on our back or stomach, so we do not have to use our muscles to resist gravity. The movements were small and subtle so that one, there is no strain on the muscles and joints, and two, so that we train our senses to detect the positioning of these bones and any misalignment or unevenness.

It may be placebo or coincidental but I noticed several improvements immediately. First, my lower back felt great and free of soreness. Second, my walking gait, which tends to be splayed out with my toes turned outward, straightened. Finally, for several yoga classes in the following days, I had no problems at all with one-legged balancing postures. Usually there's a wobble here and there but I was straight as a rod and perfectly immobile.

These exercises are so simple and gentle that I think I will be doing them daily from now on either in the morning or before bedtime, as recommended by Tias.

Cyg Win

Heather Ogden and Guillaume Cote

Swan Lake was not a success during Tchaikovsky's life, mostly because the original ballet was rather lacklustre. Since then, there have been numerous versions of this story. I attended James Kudelka's Swan Lake performed by the National Ballet of Canada.

I was able to purchase a ticket in a box seat in the Grand Ring. The seat was discounted because it was only a few hours before curtains. Though stage left was obstructed by maybe 5% (so I missed the first few seconds of some dancers' entries), the proximity of the seat to the stage allowed me to see the dancers' faces quite visibly.

As an aside, I don't think it's hard to sneak into a box seat. First, the staff do not check tickets on this level, especially for the seats along the side. And if it looks like they do, just duck into the washroom until they wander off. Second, go into a box seat, maybe 10 minutes before curtain. Count off the empty seats, possibly also the empty ones in the adjacent box seats. Go back out and loiter around until curtain falls, keeping track of the empty seats as people file in. Now, just go back in and grab your upgraded Grand Ring seats. For added safety, pick the box seat with the most empty seats. Since box seats have their own doors, and thus patrons can enter late (or whenever), there's a slight chance there may be some "confusion". But $20 for a ring 5 ticket to gain entry, it might be worth a try.

In the standard story, Prince Siegfried's is celebrating his 21st birthday. He feels a great malaise until he meets and falls in love with Odette, who has been enchanted into a swan by the evil magician Rothbart. He broke his promise to her by also falling in love with Odile (the Black Swan), who he mistook for Odette. Odette drowns herself in the lake and Siegfried follows suite. In an apotheosis, the lovers are reunited in heaven.

Kudelka made some changes to his version. Siegfried's birthday is not celebrated by the courtiers and peasants, but by his male friends and lackeys. So most of the dancing typically done by women in Act I are now performed by the male corps de ballet, to the delight of the male dancers. Rothbart is not an evil magician, but some sort of divinity, whose goal is the destruction of Siegfried's world by introducing him to both Odette and Odile. Kudelka insists that Odette is a real swan, and representing the purity of nature, and Odile is a woman that Siegfried mistakenly conflates with this purity. However, since the love between Siegfried and Odette is still part of the story, that may make you want to say: hmmm. Siegfried's court is drowned in a flood because of his betrayal. Though Odette and him reconciled, he loses a battle to Rothbart and dies. Kudelka's Swan Lake ends with Odette fluttering around Siegfried in distress.

All the principal dancers dance the roles of Siegfried/Odette/Odile for this staging, on various days. The main focus has been on Jiri Jelinek and Xiao Nan Yu, mostly because Jiri is make his debut as a principal dancer for the National Ballet. The consensus seems to be that he hasn't quite found his comfort here yet and there is some technical weakness, but not musicality and expressivity, with Xiao. Some are also a-flutter over the pairing of Guillaume Cote and Heather Ogden, because they are a real-life couple. Oddly, no one mentions that Swan Lake partners Zdenek Konvalina and Bridgett Zehr are also a real-life couple, according to her facebook profile.

It's this last couple who danced at my Saturday night show. They are obviously junior, making their debut in these roles, and having only 2 matinees and 1 evening show. However, Bridgett Zehr has been turning heads, making principal dancer after only 3 years.

It was a beautiful performance. Here and there, there was a slight leg tremble on a jump landing, a foot being adjusted for balance. During the court scene, one of the ladies dropped her fan. When the action moved to another part of the stage, one of the knights quietly picked up her fan and casually flung it off-stage. Such tiny things compared to 3 hours of dancing. Watching dance recitals, I am always struck by the seeming impossibility of a human being to remember so much choreography as well as such astonishing control over their body. Let's not forget all the interactions with other dancers. Most of us can barely flail our limbs with any rhythm.

Some favourite moments. The pitter-patter of the entire female corps de ballet en pointe sound like swans flapping their wings. As they balanced in place, also en pointe, their tiny foot adjustments cause their swan tutus to flutter, almost like feathers. The chaotic precision of the white (and black) swans as they criss cross each other on stage. The Black Swan's 32 fouettes. During the performance itself, when the audience claps for Odette/Odile, instead of the ballerina's standard bow, Bridgett bows deeply in a kneeling position, with one leg tuck under, one leg stretch forward (a position done by all the swans to represent the bird at rest), with both arms straight up and back like out-stretched wings.

There's obviously no online footage of this performance, but here's Bridgett and Zdenek in a pas de deux.

Art of the Snake and Crane

Daksha Sheth Dance Company is a Indian dance company founded by Daksha Sheth, who started her dance career in Kathak, and has since incorporated Chhau and other Indian traditions into her work.

Located in Kerala, because it's better to live in a cheap and tropical paradise as opposed to the expensive, smoggy cities of India, DSDC tours mostly in Asia and Europe. The last time they were in North America was in 1993, according to the post-show Q&A. Invited by the Kalanidhi organization as part of the Spring Festival of Indian Dance, DSDC presented their most famous work Sarpagati - The Way of the Serpent.

Inspired by yoga, acrobatics, rope mallakhamb, and the Indian martial arts Karalippayatu, the performance centers upon snake worship in India: from Ananta the world snake to Kundalini, the energy serpent that coils at the sit-bone and spirals up the spine.

Moving symbolically through the three lower Chakras, the show presents a person's journey (and by extension, humanity's) from materialism to enlightenment. The music was provided by Indian drums, flutes, Tibetan singing bowls, rain sticks, and other percussive instruments.

It was quite a beautiful and inspiring show for me to see such wonderful yoga postures incorporated into the performance. As well, to see where some of the postures might have arisen. Surely, the warrior poses came from the Indian martial arts!

My three most favourite memories of the evening: first, the fierceness of the martial arts movement. And yet in them, a hint of their transformation into yogic postures. Second, the gorgeous partnering between the male and female dancer during the second Chakra segment to represent union between the dormant male principle with shakti, the active female principal. Compared to this, Acro yoga is a joke. Finally, the image of a man, hanging 30 feet up in the air by a rope, in full lotus. As close to levitation as a person will ever achieve.

You can see bits and pieces of Sarpagati in this promotional video for DSDC. I hope there will be a DVD release at some time or better yet, their return to North America. As a bit of trivia, the main female dancer and daughter of Daksha Sheth, Isha Sharvani, has a minor career in Bollywood.

Food Roundup

The Stop, a community food centre that promotes healthy fresh food even at food banks, had a Iron Chef style cooking contest to raise money for charity at C5. For $20, I was able to sample about 10 different appetizers prepared by 2 competing teams: Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Davis (The Roosevelt Room), Jason Inniss (Amuse-Bouche) vs. Ted Corrado (C5), Luis Valenzuela (Torito Tapas Bar), and Bertrand Alepee (Amuse-Bouche) and Chris Brown (The Stop).

There were some tasty dishes ... including several Eastern Europeans, South Asians, a Molly Parker look-a-like, and a Mia Kirshner circa Exotica twin. Haha. The food ... not so much. If it was made by a friend (i.e., a home-cook), it'd be pretty good. But for professional chefs, it was disappointing. My guess is that making about 500 appetizers per team is akin to running a catering as opposed to a true cooking show-down and I've yet eaten any good catered food. Secondly, a video shown prior to the cook-off seemed to imply that they got their ingredients from Fiesta Farms. You'd probably want to source, at the very least, the main ingredients of your dish from somewhere other than the aisle of a typical grocery store. But I suppose at $20 for charity, you've got to compromise somewhere.

Guu is a 5 restaurant Japanese Izakaya chain in Vancouver that has opened its first restaurant in Toronto. The attendant foodie/Asian din means that if you don't get there by 5:30, you'll probably have to wait in line. The noise doesn't stop when you get inside as the shouted greeting by the staff to every new arrival (and possibly on every order too), and the communal bar and tables encourage the noise level to stay well above conversation level. The published reviews have been mixed although all are positive. I tried, and enjoyed, Tontoro (grilled pork cheek with yuzu pepper), Gyutangue (braised beef tongue), and kabocha korokke (pumpkin croquette). I wasn't as fond of the chicken, salmon natto, or agedashi tofu.

It's a fun and social atmosphere but if you can't get in or want to wait a bit on Guu here's some other non-sushi Japanese places: Kenzo Ramen makes killer noodle soups and takoyaki (octopus balls). Any pork here is mouth-wateringly tender. Manpuku is no foodie destination but it's cheap and cheerful. I recommend the tsukemono (Japanese pickled veggies) + onigiri + a bowl of wakame udon. But really, stuff is so cheap there so just order everything on the menu (don't forget to turn over for more food-ness) and the special menu until you find something you like. For even tastier tsukemono and other Japanese Izakaya munchies, especially vegetarian options, try hole-in-the-wall Rikishi. You could even order sushi there. It's a cut above the stuff you'd find along Bloor in the Annex, but it's no Kaji.

Amaya is possibly Toronto's first high-end Indian restaurant. I went there for their Goan Festival $35 prix-fixe menu. If the location at Bayview and Eglinton doesn't give away their aspiration, the nice bar, red patterned wall-paper, and uniformed, attentive, and attractive waitstaff should do it. For $106 for two, which is twice as much as I've ever paid for an South Asian meal, came Goan-spiced crab cakes and shrimp-stuffed poppadums, gulping golguppas (round pastry ball stuffed with spices) and mango sorbet, lamb shakuti and a tamarind-based fish curry/stew, and finally bebinca (layered coconut cake) with vanilla ice cream and a spicy chocolate concoction with almond cookies. Both the shakuti and crab cakes were barely spicy, despite all exhortation and warnings from the staff. The poppadum was a little too soft and soggy, even though they had to wrap it around the shrimp. Best of all was the fish curry. A nice spiciness, though I would have turned up the heat a tad more, and a touch of tanginess. I can't recall anything about the fish, though. Overall, not really worth it for price. I applaud them for going high-end; ethnic, non-european food shouldn't be stuck in the food ghetto forever. But unless their standard menu is significantly better, it'll probably be my only visit to Amaya.

Young Thailand has opened up two locations in the College/Spadina and King/Strachan. How can you go wrong: $7.95 for lunch special, $11.95-$13.95 for dinner special! And not just your basic green/red curry but spicy lamb or duck! Don't be fool by the cheap neon sign and its run-down neighbours, the College/Spadina is all wood tables, padded benches, and soft sconces. In other words, like Spring Rolls and every other Asian eatery in the last 5 years. But at least it's not plastic table covers and hard seats.

If you're not dining alone, consider ditching the specials and "splurging" for the appetizer platter and other dishes on the extensive menu. Though I recently pooh-poohed somebody for their ethnocentric prejudice ("I only go to Japanese restaurants run by Japanese"), disappointing experiences at Thai places on Queen, College, and Bloor staffed by non-Thai has me breathing a sigh of relief upon hearing the waitress passing on orders to the chef in Thai. Or Laotian ... close enough!

Canadian Music Week

On Thursday, for Canadian Music Week, I went to see a few acts at the Drake Underground. I missed the first act, Digits, because of my Yoga class. I was hoping to check out his electronic pop. I caught about 2/3 of the second act, Low Level Flight. They remind a bit of the Tragically Hip, possibly because of the bald, skinny, flailing lead singer. Even with my earplugs on, the bass and drums were vibrating my chest. The third act is Forest City Lovers, a folk-poppy band with a wispy-voiced female singer. Their songs sounded good on their MySpace page but they were a bit underwhelming live. I think it was because their style would be better suited to a more sit-down affair. Finally, Hooded Fang came on. As always, their catchy, propulsive songs are great to listen to and dance to ... in theory. The reality is that a primarily white, indie-music audience is one of the saddest spectacle when it comes to "getting their groove on". Anyway, the good news is that they are finally releasing a full-length album soon. It's been 2 years since their eponymous EP came out ... an issue with finances?

Once again my personal fetish, lots of cute girls with various permutations of the short hair cut: pixie, bobs, close-cropped. A bob with bangs girl was particular striking ... very Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Turns out she's a "professional" photographer. I only put "professional" in quotes because there was a number of people with cameras and Media tags. However, the definition of Media may not necessary be well-known journal publication for most of these when I saw one using what seems to be a $100 point-and-shoot camera.

I finally put my earplugs to use. At other concerts, I tend to move to the back away from the speakers. The 20 db protection, a 100 fold reduction in sound, did allow me to stand right in the front. I was able to hear most instruments and more importantly, the singers clearly. However, the drastic reduction did take away from my enjoyment. A quick search online reveals that there's no such thing as a volume adjustable earplug. The closest is Etymotic's 9, 15, and 25 db Musicians Earplugs exchangeable filters. However, they require custom earmolds ($100-200) + a visit to an audiologist for the mold/fitting. That sounds a bit pricey.

Prelude To Spring

I went to see a trio of modern dances put on by the National Ballet: 24 Preludes by Chopin, A Suite of Dances, and Kudelka's Four Seasons.

24 Preludes by Chopin is choreographed by Marie Chouinard to Chopin's 24 preludes. However, they are not played in order and some are omitted as some of the movements are done in silence. It is definitely the most modern of the pieces and didn't seem to go over as well with the silver-haired set. There were odd, jerky dance movements, even some slapstick at times. My favourite piece involved a female dancer who tries to tell us something, but she can only speak in "do re mi"s. A troop of dancers would march by and she would fall in line with them, only to rush back to speak even more frantically. A comment on society's push for conformity? Behind her, a male dancer (her inner voice? artistic vision?) spins, twirls, and leaps with ever more speed as the female dancer returns again and again.

A Suite of Dances was originally a Baryshnikov piece choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The main conceit is that a female cellist is playing Bach's six unaccompanied cello suites. The male dancer, inspired by the playing, practices his dance steps and tries out choreography. In other words, it aims to show what's going on "behind-the-scenes" in the creative process. Of course, it is not improvisational at least on stage. It was a playful piece. I would like to see it where the dance is truly improvised.

James Kudelka's The Four Seasons uses Vivaldi's music to illustrate the progression of a man from youth to old age and death. In each season, he meets people who dance out some activity or behaviour reminiscent of that period. He also meets a woman for each season: exuberant spring, sensual summer, mature autumn and maternal winter. He also changes himself and finally succumbs to death. What was most interesting for me, compared to other modern dance pieces I've seen elsewhere, is that this ballet is thoroughly modern but uses the dance vocabulary of classical ballet.

Not being an attentive listener of classical music, the evening also gave me exposure to a lot of good music that I'll have to track down. The cello suites were great, some of the preludes really connected with me, and although bits of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons are ubiquitous (e.g., the opening few bars to Spring), I've never heard the entire piece.

Good Beer, Shame About the Music

No Shame Promotions had a show at The Garrison, a converted Portuguese pool hall, in the up-and-coming trendy area of Dundas and Ossington. For $6, I got to see 3 indie artists.

First up, a local singer named Allie Hughes. Before her set, I talked to some people who knew her and it turns out that she was in the CBC reality show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? As you can imagine, she has a strong singing voice. But that's about it, at least at this time. They also mentioned that her current band has only been together for 4 months. Well, it shows. They can play, but there's no connection between the players. The songs are quirky, but not in any interesting way. And it is apparently in the Sound Engineer's Code to make opening acts sound as bad as possible. The sound mix was terrible.

Next came Brent Randall & His Pinecones. The description said this band was Beatle-esque. Given the 2 guitars, bass, drums and 3 part male harmonies, they certainly had that Beatles sound, perhaps mixed in with some Rolling Stones and other 60s bands. But for their entire set, I couldn't get over the feeling that their style is about 40 years too late. Pop might be a restricted style but it has evolved. You can't stay in the past. So my attention wandered elsewhere. I spent the time watching a woman (barfly?) trying to pick up somebody, maybe for the night or maybe she was trying to meet someone new. She came in, stood beside me, ordered a beer. She then surveyed the crowd and after a moment, started her quest. Several failed attempts/beers/shots later, she sat down. Finally, she left about half-way through the 3rd set.

The final set was a quirky group called Language Arts. I knew the singer probably has a distinctive singing voice as she was one of those women who sound like they're 10 years old. The fact that she and her band played complex chords and rhythms, almost jazz-like, initially excited me. But a pop song is not a classical composition and should not contain 3-4 disparate "movements" over 5 minutes. Just when a song is getting good, it changes, and then changes again. I gave up a couple of songs in.

And so did the rest of the crowd. Actually, whether or not because of the acts, or this is typical of the venue, a lot of people did not bother with the bands. It was mostly lots of drinking and loud chatter. Only a small minority paid any attention to the music. But I guess an indifferent crowd is what you sometimes get as an up-and-coming artist.

There's No Business Like It

The tiny theatre, Bread and Circus, in Kensington Market had put on a revival of a 2007 Fringe musical called Funny Business: The Musical. Stuart (Daniel Abrahamson) is the oblivious manager of the Toronto branch of Chime Communications. To boost morale, he decides to hold an employee talent show. Brie (Rachel Brittain), the short and ditzy secretary, and Jack the Intern (Warren Bain), a tongue-tied finance geek share some secret feelings for each other. Meanwhile, the ball-busting Diane (Lindsey Frazier), from Marketing, and the glib lothario Marcus (Kevin McGarry), from Sales, one-up each other in conspicuous consumption while nursing a love-hate relationship. The team-building exercise goes wrong and the backstabbing begins.

It's an amusing little musical with some cute numbers but I can see why it never got the buzz and went mainstream (such as My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding). Although the characters tickle the funny-bone with the depiction of some common office personalities, the story does not actually involve any typical office situations (e.g., interminable meetings, fighting over cubicle space, passive-aggressive sabotage). The songs themselves are competent but the lyrics are, in my opinion, no better than university-level musical theatre. So the actors, although competent at acting and singing, have only shallow characters to inhabit and a sitcom-grade plot to work through.

It's still a fun 1.5 hours of humour and singing. But I paid $15 to see it and that's about the right price.