I hate this kind of stuff. A nurse has been arrested in connection with five deaths at a hospital in Stockport, near Manchester. Apparently some saline solution (used for intravenous drips) had been tampered with, by someone injecting insulin into it. Consequently when given intravenously to a patient this could cause hypoglycaemia, coma and death. This story is currently all over the news.
However, the police have not charged the nurse, nor have they released any details (was she working with the five patients who died? did she have access to insulin and saline? did she have a motivation?). In fact, it has not been confirmed that the patients died due to hypoglycaemia or insulin injection.
In which case, is it right for the BBC and the Guardian to show a picture of the nurse on their websites? The same goes for all the other news outlets. Even better, the story on the Guardian website today pretty much tells you where she lives.
I think it is highly unfair, in fact it should be illegal, to show pictures and give away addresses of people that may be innocent before any trial has taken place.
Friday 22 July 2011
Friday 15 July 2011
Sequences
Last week I went along to some "intensive" Mysore-style yoga classes, which were run 6-8 AM by Matt Ryan, whose classes I used to attend when I lived in Didsbury. After the first day, it was no problem getting up at 5 AM to walk down Brinny hill and catch the 192 bus to Heaton Chapel.
We started with pranayama, which are breathing exercises involving deep breathing and holding the breath either on the inhale or exhale (which is harder - after doing that a couple of times for 8 seconds a go I was struggling a bit). After that we did our normal self-practice, which is the Mysore thing, while the teacher wanders around correcting people as he sees fit. He got me started on the second series, which was cool, I hoped for that but from my previous experience with him I thought he might not let me progress so fast. However, he seems to have chilled out a bit in the two years since I last saw him, and I was on to the leg-behind-the-head move by the end of the week. (He corrected me for calling it the secondary series - as in not as important, but then isn't it primary, secondary, tertiary education, and that has a definite progress to it?)
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to tell everyone about my week, instead I've been meditating on the idea of a sequence in yoga. Ashtanga has quite a strict sequence of postures, linked by the vinyasa (jumping back, upward/downward dog).
Having a rigidly defined sequence has the potential to become very regimented and boring, and make the yogi reluctant to practice. Also, as the harder moves come later in the sequence, it can instill the tendency to want to push on, to get to the next move, rather than being "in the moment", and also give rise to big egos as you see you are more "advanced" than the people around you (this can happen anyway if you happen to be better than most in certain postures).
Some people complain that there are easier moves towards the end of the first series (e.g. bandha konasana, the butterfly stretch, and salabahasana in the second series) which are beneficial to beginners, and that in the traditional Ashtanga method they wouldn't be able to do these moves until they'd mastered the likes of Marichyasana D (twist and bind with one leg in half lotus - hard enough but dangerous or impossible if you are carrying knee injuries).
On the other hand, one of the things that attracted me to Ashtanga was the sequence. The progressive nature of it gives you something to aim for, and more importantly you can then practice on your own, without feeling like you're freestyling (i.e. making it up). Some of the frustrations that come out of the practice (I was more bendy than this yesterday!) are actually useful - dealing with them in a meditative way might help to improve how you deal with frustrations and set-backs elsewhere in life.
Also, the sequences in Ashtanga have been designed in a certain way, with a gradual build up of difficulty and heat (and sweat) up to a certain point, with a couple of easier ones on the end. So its fine to practice the later postures even if the previous ones are to difficult, but that way misses out some of the benefits of the Ashtanga system. Another point that ties in with the paragraph above is that if you start missing out moves, or doing whatever you want, you will naturally avoid the harder moves and not improve in the ways that you might need to (in other words, spend more time in the positions you find the most uncomfortable/difficult).
I think it is quite normal for the human mind to seek out sequences and patterns. Any yoga class, or exercise class for that matter, will use some kind of sequence for the various exercises (maybe this is the difference between "exercise" and "sport"). Some people respect the purity of a system, and will not tolerate any change or innovation. The history of evolution tells us though that those that don't adapt almost invariably will die. Unless you're a crocodile or something.
We started with pranayama, which are breathing exercises involving deep breathing and holding the breath either on the inhale or exhale (which is harder - after doing that a couple of times for 8 seconds a go I was struggling a bit). After that we did our normal self-practice, which is the Mysore thing, while the teacher wanders around correcting people as he sees fit. He got me started on the second series, which was cool, I hoped for that but from my previous experience with him I thought he might not let me progress so fast. However, he seems to have chilled out a bit in the two years since I last saw him, and I was on to the leg-behind-the-head move by the end of the week. (He corrected me for calling it the secondary series - as in not as important, but then isn't it primary, secondary, tertiary education, and that has a definite progress to it?)
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to tell everyone about my week, instead I've been meditating on the idea of a sequence in yoga. Ashtanga has quite a strict sequence of postures, linked by the vinyasa (jumping back, upward/downward dog).
Having a rigidly defined sequence has the potential to become very regimented and boring, and make the yogi reluctant to practice. Also, as the harder moves come later in the sequence, it can instill the tendency to want to push on, to get to the next move, rather than being "in the moment", and also give rise to big egos as you see you are more "advanced" than the people around you (this can happen anyway if you happen to be better than most in certain postures).
Some people complain that there are easier moves towards the end of the first series (e.g. bandha konasana, the butterfly stretch, and salabahasana in the second series) which are beneficial to beginners, and that in the traditional Ashtanga method they wouldn't be able to do these moves until they'd mastered the likes of Marichyasana D (twist and bind with one leg in half lotus - hard enough but dangerous or impossible if you are carrying knee injuries).
On the other hand, one of the things that attracted me to Ashtanga was the sequence. The progressive nature of it gives you something to aim for, and more importantly you can then practice on your own, without feeling like you're freestyling (i.e. making it up). Some of the frustrations that come out of the practice (I was more bendy than this yesterday!) are actually useful - dealing with them in a meditative way might help to improve how you deal with frustrations and set-backs elsewhere in life.
Also, the sequences in Ashtanga have been designed in a certain way, with a gradual build up of difficulty and heat (and sweat) up to a certain point, with a couple of easier ones on the end. So its fine to practice the later postures even if the previous ones are to difficult, but that way misses out some of the benefits of the Ashtanga system. Another point that ties in with the paragraph above is that if you start missing out moves, or doing whatever you want, you will naturally avoid the harder moves and not improve in the ways that you might need to (in other words, spend more time in the positions you find the most uncomfortable/difficult).
I think it is quite normal for the human mind to seek out sequences and patterns. Any yoga class, or exercise class for that matter, will use some kind of sequence for the various exercises (maybe this is the difference between "exercise" and "sport"). Some people respect the purity of a system, and will not tolerate any change or innovation. The history of evolution tells us though that those that don't adapt almost invariably will die. Unless you're a crocodile or something.
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