Assorted Practicalities

Brentwood Yoga Workshop -- July 21, 2012

2012-01-27T23:49:00.000-08:00

Asanas and Ropes--Moving towards freedom

A Rope Wall Workshop with Michael Lucey

Saturday, July 21^st, 2012

2-4:30pm $35 Pre-registration/$45 at the door

In this asana workshop, we'll explore how ropes can enhance the practice of a number of categories of poses: standing poses, forward bends, twisting poses, inversions, and backward bends in particular. We'll use ropes in every pose, sometimes combining them with other props, exploring how they can make certain difficult poses more available, how they can take us deeper into poses where we feel a little stuck, how they can bring new intelligence to various parts of our bodies, and thereby enhance our possibilities for movement and freedom in our practice. Students should have been practicing yoga for at least a year and be familiar with Salamba Sirsasana and Salamba Sarvangasana.

Abelove conference at NYU -- February 16-17, 2012

2012-01-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

Fall 2011 Yoga Teaching Schedule

2011-09-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

At IYISF:

Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m., Levels 1-3

Fridays 6-7:30 p.m., Levels 1-2

At Oakland Yoga Studio:
Thursdays 9:30-11:30 a.m., Advanced Practice Class

Berkeley Yoga Room September Workshop

2011-08-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Inspiration from India

Michael Lucey
Sat, Sept 24, 2–5pm, $50 ($45 in advance)

Michael Lucey spent June 2011 studying at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India. The institute is run by B.K.S. Iyengar, his daughter Geeta, and his son Prashant. In this asana workshop, Michael will share what he learned, focusing on how to practice asana for the breath and mind as well as the body. For students with at least one year of yoga.

Michael Lucey began studying Iyengar yoga in 1982 and completed the Advanced Studies Program at The Yoga Room in 1993. Since 1991 he has made six trips to attend classes at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute.

The Yoga Room, 2530 San Pablo Avenue, Suite D, Berkeley, CA 94702 • 510-273-9273 • www.yogaroomberkeley.com

And then there's Balzac...

2011-06-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Magazine littéraire just published an issue with a whole section on Balzac, including a short piece by yours truly....

June in India

2011-06-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

I'm spending the month of June studying at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India. This is the sixth time I've come to spend a month here. It's always an intense experience, practicing, taking classes, observing classes, assisting with therapeutic patients, reading in the library at the Institute. There's an endless amount to be learned, and I feel after each visit that it has moved my practice to a new level.

I'll be back in SF in July, and will be teaching both at IYISF (on Thursdays and Fridays for July and August) and at Bija Yoga (a new restorative class on Saturdays and some subbing for other teachers during July and August).

Intro to Yoga at IYISF in January

2010-12-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

I'll be teaching a four-week introductory Iyengar yoga series on Friday evenings, 6-7:15, at the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco. See http://iyisf.org/intro/index.html for more info. It's a great deal at $50. In February, it will become a regular Level 1 class.

Parker & Halley's "After Sex?" volume coming soon

2010-11-09T15:03:00.000-08:00

Janet Halley and Andrew Parker's edited volume, After Sex?: On Writing since Queer Theory, will be appearing soon from Duke University Press, with a contribution by yours truly. Check it out...

Details on Yoga Room Shoulder Blades Workshop

2010-09-14T10:05:00.001-07:00

Mindful Shoulder Blades

with Michael Lucey

Saturday, Sept 25, 2– 5pm

$50 ($45 in advance)

Often we think of the mind as a separate entity that works on the body, but the Iyengars teach that mind, breath, and body are all interactive and interpenetrating. Shoulder blades, at the back of the body, often seem to escape our awareness, as if they have a mind of their own. We will use this workshop to explore a variety of aspects of the shoulder blades’ actions in different asanas, looking to discover what we

can gain from an increased awareness of what the shoulder blades are up to, to discover what happens when we integrate the mind of the shoulder blade into our own mindfulness.

Michael Lucey began studying Iyengar yoga in 1982 while living in England, and from his very first class has been fascinated by the many ways yoga can transform your relation to your body, mind, and breath. In 1993 he completed the Advanced Studies Program at The Yoga Room in Berkeley. He made his first trip to attend classes at the RIMYI in Pune, India in June 1991, and has returned on four other occasions. He teaches at the Yoga Garden in San Francisco, and co-teaches, with Mary Lou Weprin, the Advanced

Practice Class for the Yoga Room’s Advanced Studies Program.

Registration

Make your check payable to “The Yoga Room”and mail to:

The Yoga Room • 2530 San Pablo, Suite D • Berkeley, CA 94702

For general information on the Yoga Room, call 510–273–9273

or see our website for a complete schedule and changes due to holidays – www.YogaRoomBerkeley.com

Yoga announcements

2010-07-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

3 bits of yoga news....

1) Sunday, July 18, 2010, 2-5 p.m. I'll be participating in the 4th annual IYISF Yogathon -- a benefit for the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, which, like many yoga organizations, is struggling a bit in these hard economic times. Information on the Yogathon is here: http://www.iyisf.org/yogathon/index.html

I'll be doing all 108 poses, and will be one of the six teachers leading the sequence. If you'd like to take the occasion to make a contribution in support of IYISF by way of sponsoring me, I and the Institute would be most grateful. A quarter a pose comes to $27. Fifty cents is $54, and, obviously, $1 a pose is $108. Let me know if you'd be interested in sponsoring me.

Alternatively, you could sign up for the yogathon yourself!

2) Sunday, July 25, 2010, 10 a.m to noon. I'll be teaching a workshop at the Yoga Garden in San Francisco on Developing a Home Practice:

"Success will follow the one who practices, not the one who practices not. Success in Yoga is not obtained by the mere theoretical reading of sacred texts. Success is not obtained by wearing the dress of a yogi or a sanyasi, nor by talking about it. Constant practice alone is the secret of success. Verily, there is no doubt of this." - Hatha Yoga Pradipika. We come to class to learn. We practice to study and develop our own experience of what we learn. Want to practice on your own but not sure how to start? Seeking motivation? Lacking time? Already have a practice and want variety? Direction? This workshop will cover approaches to practice, asana categories, and sequencing.

More details here: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ASP/home.asp?studioid=41

3) Saturday, September 25, 2-5 p.m. I'll be teaching a workshop at the Yoga Room in Berkeley on Mindful Shoulder Blades:

Often we think of the mind as a separate entity that works on the body, but the Iyengars teach that mind, breath, and body are all interactive and interpenetrating. Shoulder blades, at the back of the body, often seem to escape our awareness, as if they have a mind of their own. We will use this workshop to explore a variety of aspects of the shoulder blade’s actions in different asanas, looking to discover what we can gain from an increased awareness of what the shoulder blades are up to, to discover what happens when we integrate the mind of the shoulder blade into our own mindfulness.

More information will be available later this summer at http://yogaroomberkeley.com

Robert Pinget

2010-05-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

"Une autre histoire derrière ces bribes, parfaitement agencée, depuis toujours interdite au scribe maladif qui tend l'oreille pour en percevoir des échos improbables.

Se confond-elle avec la grande lecture ou l'a-t-elle dictée comme son double en détournant le sens des mots.

Dur ascèse mais seul remède."

Robert Pinget, Théo ou le temps neuf (1991), p. 19.

Padmasana Workshop at the Yoga Garden in San Francisco

2010-01-31T20:28:00.000-08:00

Learning Lotus with Michael Lucey

Date: Sun 2/28/2010

Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Padmasana or Lotus Pose is a key pose for sitting, whether for a pranayama (breathing) practice or for meditation. It is also a difficult pose for many to master, proving challenging for the hips, knees, and ankles. In this workshop we will practice different kinds of poses to prepare ourselves for Padmasana. You will learn a safe, non-aggressive, but productive method for working towards Padmasana. If the pose is already accessible to you, you will learn how to work more deeply in it, and how to work towards some of the Padmasana variations. We will experience what qualities in this pose make it well-suited for a practice of pranayama or a meditation practice.

January seminars in Paris

2009-12-30T08:54:00.000-08:00

4 upcoming seminars at the EHESS in Paris, plus one lecture at University College London:

At the EHESS:

1) In Rose-Marie Lagrave's seminar on "Genre et sciences sociales," Thursday, January 14, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. salle 1, 105 bd Raspail. Topic: "L'étude critique de la sexualité. Représentations, catégories, et la production des sens et des savoirs."

2) In Rose-Marie Lagrave and Eric Fassin's seminar, "Etudes de genre et de sexualité," Friday, January 15, 1 p.m to 5 p.m., amphithéâtre François-Furet, 105 bd Raspail. Topic: "L'invitée de Simone de Beauvoir et les sexualités proprement innommables."

3) In the seminar of the Groupe de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur l'Histoire du Littéraire, Tuesday, January 19, 5 p.m to 8 p.m., CRH (105 boulevard Raspail), salle 7. Topic: "Sexualité et champ littéraire, France - XXe siècle."

4) In Judith Lyon-Caen's seminar, "Les usages sociaux de la littérature au XIXe siècle," Friday, January 22, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., salle 507, 54 bd Raspail. Topic:"Sur les ratés de la Famille. La vie contextuelle et les apports ethnographiques des oeuvres littéraires."

On Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at University College London, 5pm, room 114, Foster Court Building: "Beauvoir, Duras, Context, Sexuality."

BKS Iyengar turns 91

2009-12-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Yoga Master BKS Iyengar turned 91 on Monday. In honor of the day, my friend Jarvis Chen, who teaches yoga in Cambridge, MA, posted some inspiring compilation videos he made a while back. Check them out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaba-PUd5PU

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MMw1TDYTOg

Upcoming trip to Cambridge UK

2009-10-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

Info is here: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/gradstudies/pdfs2009/luceyDSW.pdf

Write the representatives again...

2009-09-27T12:27:00.001-07:00

Dear Assemblymember Ammiano,

I wrote you a few weeks ago regarding budget cuts to the University of California, and to public education more generally.

Today I write as a faculty member at UC Berkeley, and one of your constituents, to comment on a quote in the San Francisco Chronicle from Assemblymember Julia Brownley. She argued that the campus protests at Berkeley and the other UC campuses last Thursday involve only an issue of how the University has cut its budget:

"'The state is facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis,' said Julia Brownley, a Santa Monica Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. 'The students are protesting how the university cut its budget. The Legislature left that up to the university.'"

As someone who attended that event, I can assure you that is only a small part of the story. Faculty and students are deeply distressed about the declining commitment of the state government in support of California's unparalleled tradition of public education. The UC system has long served as a cultural, scientific, and economic resource for the State of California, the preeminent example of access to the highest quality of education for all students, regardless of their background.

While the budget cuts imposed from UCOP are painful, the fundamental issue for which we are fighting is the restoration of support from state government, and our voters, for public education at all levels: K-12, community colleges, CSU and the UC. Please support education and the future of California. Please listen to our message more carefully than your colleague Julia Brownley seems to have done.

Respectfully yours,

Michael Lucey

Professor of French and Comparative Literature

Chair, French Department

UC Berkeley

Template for a letter about the University of California crisis

2009-08-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Senator Mark Leno
State Capitol
Room 4061
Sacramento, CA 94248-0001

Dear Senator Leno,

I write to express my concern about the current state of public education in California, and in particular about the crisis at the University of California, Berkeley, where I am a professor.

On a purely personal level, the furloughs at UC that begin on September 1, 2009 and will last for a year will result in my pay being cut by 8% for the year. As chair of a department, I am all too conscious of the amount of pain and anxiety the furlough plan will be causing to my co-workers, staff and faculty alike. Many of us will see a serious reduction in our quality of life. There are those of us who will simply no longer be able to make ends meet.

The University of California at Berkeley is one of the most renowned universities in the world. It cannot continue to be so with inadequate support from the state of California. What a tragedy it would be for the state to lose this amazing resource! At the current level of funding, it is not just the quality of life of the university’s diverse employees that has been diminished. (And there have been many employees laid off as well.) The educational experience available to our students is now also being impaired, as is the ability of the faculty to pursue research effectively. I urge you to work to see that state funding for the University of California becomes a high priority.

Everyone recognizes that the crisis at Berkeley and at the University of California more generally is part of a wider crisis affecting every level of public education in California and many other public services as well. Because of this, I also ask you to commit to working to reform the budget process in the state of California, and in particular to find responsible ways to generate more revenue, and a more stable stream of revenue, to support public education and other public services.

In particular, I would ask that you support and work towards:

--a sensible revision of Proposition 13 that would remove the requirement for a 2/3 majority to approve tax increases and that would rethink in a sensible way the way property tax levels are set, especially on commercial properties;

--a removal of the requirement for a 2/3 majority to pass the state budget;

--the generation of new revenues, for example through the creation of an oil severance tax and perhaps the reinstatement of the vehicle licensing fee;

--a serious rethinking of the corrections budget of the state and serious reform of sentencing requirements to help reduce the prison population;

--a rational reform of the proposition process, which provides only the most grotesque illusion of democratic participation.

Thank you for your attention to these urgent matters.

Sincerely,

Michael Lucey

How to contact your California state legislator

2009-08-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

You can find out who represents you by entering your home address at http://www.legislature.ca.gov

Tuesday Jazz @ Caffe Trieste in Berkeley

2009-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

When: Tues 7/21 7-9pm
Where: 2500 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
Map: http://rurl.org/1oi5

The band:
Brian Wood- saxophone
Michael Lucey - piano
Richard Anderson - guitar
Huy Nguyen - bass
Jeff Becerra - drums

Violette Leduc, hoping to find her first book in a bookstore window...

2009-06-09T15:23:00.001-07:00

Un après-midi, je préparais un assortiment de légumes pour mon potage, j’eus un espoir fou, le couteau tomba sur le morne poireau. Je m’habillai à la hâte. Le trajet fut interminable jusqu’à la station Bac. J’arrivai haletante devant les vitrines éclectiques de la librairie Gallimard, boulevard Raspail. Il y était sûrement. Il n’y était pas. Les grands papiers, les éditions rares de Valéry, de Gide, d’Apollinaire, hautains, secrets, me repoussèrent. On ne renverse pas les forteresses de la littérature moderne pour rejoindre sa petite merde. Mon Dieu que j’ai mendié aux vitrines… Si j’avais été sûre de ce que j’écrivais, j’aurais été sauvée… Baudelaire, Rimbaud étaient-ils sûrs d’eux? Je n’étais pas Baudelaire, je n’étais pas Rimbaud. Dix nouveautés par jour. Comment veux-tu qu’on puisse exposer ce flot? Une heure, ne serait-ce qu’une heure, chacun notre tour… Où est-il depuis que je l’ai dédicacé? Où se terre-t-il? Les libraires l’ont-ils reçu? Je mourrais de honte si je devais le leur demander. Ecrire est une mauvaise action puisque je préfère la dissimuler. Je redevenais coupable, vitrines et libraires me chuchotaient la nuit : «Tu n’arriveras à rien, tu n’arriveras jamais à rien » comme me l’avait ressassé ma mère. Je vais rendre mon tablier. Rendre mon tablier à qui? Aux libraires, aux vitrines, à l’éditeur.
Violette Leduc, La folie en tête

Upcoming Yoga Workshop

2009-04-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Yoga Garden San Francisco, 286 Divisadero

Working with Inversions

Sunday, May 3
2:00-4:00 p.m

Sirsasana (Headstand) and Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand), along with Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Full arm balance) and Pinca Mayurasana (Forearm balance), are the key inverted poses in an asana practice. Headstand and Shoulderstand in particular are each part of a cycle of poses that includes many different variations on the main pose. In this workshop we will learn which poses prepare us for these important inverted poses. We'll study each of them in some detail, including how to work on specific problems participants might have in each pose. We will also learn some of the variations of the main poses. Recommended for students who have been practicing regularly for at least 6 months. Cost: $35 if registered by April 26th. MEMBERS: $25

Click here to register.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 1950-2009

2009-04-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

Spending a lot of time today thinking about Eve and remembering her.

Here's a little quote from an interview with Eve in the book Regarding Sedgwick, edited by Stephen Barber and David Clark:

"I'm always compelled by the places where a project of writing runs into things that I just can't say--whether because there aren't good words for them, or more interestingly because they're structured in some elusive way that just isn't going to stay still to be formulated. That's the unrationalizable place that seems worth being to me, often the only place that seems worth being."

Here's a link to Duke University Press's announcement:
http://dukeupress.typepad.com/dukeupresslog/2009/04/eve-kosofsky-sedgwick-19502009.html

and here's a brief memorial by Cathy Davidson:
http://www.hastac.org/node/2081

A couple quotes for the day

2009-03-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here are the epigraphs for the paper I'm writing to deliver at the ACLA in a couple days, which is in part about how Claude Lévi-Strauss's way of thinking about music is related to what he learned from Roman Jakobson's structural linguistics...

Music is language without meaning [La musique, c’est le langage moins le sens]; consequently, it’s easy to understand that the listener, who is already a speaking subject, feels irresistibly drawn to fill in this absent meaning, like an amputee who attributes to his or her missing limb those sensations that he or she is experiencing which have their locus in the stump.
—Lévi-Strauss, L’homme nu.

What happens when we learn to feel the ending of a church mode as an ending?
—Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, number 535

American Comparative Literature Association Convention at Harvard

2009-03-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in a seminar at the ACLA meeting next week at Harvard:

Melopoiesis: New Soundings in Music and Poetry
Seminar Organizer: Yopie Prins, U of Michigan

This seminar will explore the relationship between music and poetry, from various theoretical and historical
perspectives, and attuned to forms of dissonance as well as resonance. Papers are invited on musical settings of poems and poetic meditations on music; poets who make music and musicians who make poetry; the poetics of music and the music of poetry; words on music and music on words; the melody of poetry and the poetry of melody; further meditations on the reversibility of these relations, and their irreversibility.

Friday, March 27, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm

James H. Donelan, UC Santa Barbara
“The Sound Itself: Kantian Consequences for Romantic Poetics and Musical Aesthetics”
Michael Lucey, UC Berkeley
“Structural Sonology: Lévi-Strauss, Jakobson, Words, and Melody”
John A. Golden, Harvard U
“Hopkins: The Motions of Music”
Harris Feinsod, Stanford U
“Sound Poetry as Genre”

Saturday, March 28, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm

Jeffrey Arthur Lloyd, U of Michigan
“E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Beethoven Review as Periodical Literature: Musical Autonomy and Linguistic Automation within a New Public Sphere”
John T. Hamilton, NYU
“Aesthetics, Fantasy, and Composition in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Aurora”
Michael C. Cohen, Macalester College
“Civil War Songs: Poems and Airs in Circulation”
Phyllis Weliver, Saint Louis U
“‘the awakening of a great people’: Prometheus Unbound and the English Musical Renaissance”

Sunday, March 29, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm

Cashman Kerr Prince, Wellesley College
“Prisoner of a New Generation? Salonen and Obermüller Set Sappho to Music”
Ben Lempert, UC Berkeley
“Charles Olson, Charlie Parker, and the Musicality of Form”
Ben Glaser, Cornell U
“For Rhyme and for Rapture: Hip hop and the Study of Prosody”
Robert George Kaufman, UC Berkeley
“Notre Musique? Darwish, Celan, Godard”

Jazz in Berkeley on Tuesday, March 3, 7-9p.m.

2009-02-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

It's the Brian Wood Quartet:

Brian Wood - saxophone
Eric Marshall - bass
Michael Lucey - keys
Rick Rivera - drums

When: Tuesday March 3, 2009 7-9pm
Where: Cafe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo, Berkeley, CA
Map: http://tinyurl.com/29c47b

Yoga: Backbending workshop on April 12 in SF

2009-02-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

Yoga Garden San Francisco
Sun 4/12/2009
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
This workshop will be devoted to two key backbends, Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Facing Bow Pose) and Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana (Two-Legged Inverted Staff Pose). We will learn how to prepare appropriately for these two asana, practicing them in a variety of ways, building stamina and intelligence in the poses. We will also learn sensible ways of winding down from an intense backbending practice. This workshop is one of several throughout the year for students who would like to focus in more detail on intermediate-level, challenging poses. Recommended for students who have been practicing regularly for at least 6 months. Cost: $35 if registered by April 5th. MEMBERS: $25

New yoga classes at the SF Yoga Garden

2009-01-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, January 10, I start teaching a beginning level yoga class from 10-11:30 at the Yoga Garden on Divisidero. As of next week, I'll be teaching an intermediate class on Wednesdays from 6-7:30 and an "Ageless Yoga" class on Saturdays from noon to 1.

Yoga Workshop on Sunday, February 15 in Alameda

2009-01-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

Inspiration from India
Teacher: Michael Lucey
Price: $35 pre-registration; $40 at the door (space permitting)
Date & Time: Sunday, February 15, 2:00 to 5:00 pm
Michael Lucey spent the month of November 2008 enrolled in public classes at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India. The institute is run by B.K.S. Iyengar, his daughter Geeta, and his son Prashant. In this asana workshop, Michael will share some of what he learned in his month at the RIMYI, focusing on how to practice asana for the breath and for the mind as well as for the body. Intended for students with at least one year's experience of yoga.

For a registration form and directions to the Alameda Yoga Station, go to: http://www.alamedayogastation.com/registration.php (or just click on the title of this post).

Advance Practice Yoga Class in the East Bay

2009-01-01T21:13:00.000-08:00

ADVANCED PRACTICE
with Mary Lou Weprin & Michael Lucey
Thursday Morning, 9:30-11:30am -- Oakland Yoga Studio

(class does not meet in July and August)

This class is part of the Continuing Education available to students in Year 3 (and beyond) of the advanced studies program at the Yoga Room in Berkeley. Designed for teachers and advanced yoga students, this class emphasizes refinements and variations upon the basic practice, as well as sequencing toward more challenging poses. The opportunity to partner with and observe others is included. By permission of instructors only.

Mary Lou Weprin is Associate Director of The Yoga Room in Berkeley and has worked to make advanced asanas more accessible through sequencing, observation, and partnering for many years.

Michael Lucey is a graduate of The Yoga Room’s Advanced Studies Program and frequently travels to India to study at the Iyengar Institute in Pune. He offers popular, clear and informative workshops detailing his studies.

For more information or to inquire about attendance, please call Mary Lou Weprin, 510-236-0295.