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Ashtanga Yoga Basics

Ashtanga Yoga Basics The word yoga originates from Sanskrit, which is an ancient language from India. It means union particularly of the body, spirit and mind. The yoga that we know today is what is termed as asana, which pertains to postures and poses. Asana is just one of the eight types of ...

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Comments on the August quote from Basics from Report Back in the hood, August 11

“Women should be part of the revolution.  So they know their rights.  And what to look for when it comes to them getting brutalized, raped and many more by police, men.  That’s why women should be part of the revolution.”                                     — A Black women who came with her kids who took part in the “blow the whistle” march “It’s an inspiration in life and thoughts in what’s happening in society today.  Reality is real and life is real.  Women are kept down. Some can’t relate until someone is incarcerated or killed.  So many have lost their lives and have been incarcerated who shouldn’t be.  We need for all of us to come together.  I have a son who is locked up and I’ve been locked up and I can relate.”                                      — A Black woman from the hood “Everything is true.  We are oppressed as women.  And we should unite as people and not separate by gender.  And women need to start using their voices to stand up and let people know we are here and deserve to be treated as equals.”                                      — Black woman new to the neighborhood “We are the glue.  We are the ink to the pen.  It is impossible without the woman.  Like life itself.”                                      — Black woman from the neighborhood   

[basicsbustour]

Bud Billikin Parade

On Saturday, August 11, tens of thousands of black people at Chicago’s Bud Billiken back-to-school parade, the largest African-American parade in the U.S, were introduced to this revolution and Bob Avakian through a dynamic contingent that came together around the Basics quotes 1:13 that no more generations of our youth -- here and around the world -- be condemned to the horrors this system imposes on them. 

The response from the crowd  was electric. People’s  faces lit up and there were cheers, applause and some raised fists as they read the 6-foot signs with BA’s quote “no more generations”, many people reached out for cards and took extra to distribute in the crowd or to take home to spread to their neighborhoods. People in the crowd joined in on the chants “When the revolution comes” and “We say no more.”  One young woman was so inspired by the contingent she repeatedly tried to scale the fence to join and only gave up when the police stopped her.

The enlarged cover of Revolution newspaper with the picture of Trayvon Martin also struck a deep cord.  At one spot along the route where the bystanders were mostly youth, the crowd began chanting “Trayvon Martin, Trayvon Martin.”

When the contingent passed the press reviewing stand the announcer read the whole of the poster of 1:13, to the crowd including “Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party” and then read the BAsics banner “BAsics – from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian.”

The contingent was made up of people of all ages and many different nationalities, some who are building this movement for revolution, both veterans and a number of younger people newly coming into it – some who want to be part of newly developing Revolution Clubs – some who are part of the fight against police brutality and murder, and others who are fed up with the status quo and are dreaming of a better world and really wanted to take out the message of 1:13 to thousands of people who are brutalized and oppressed on a daily basis by this system. 5,000 BAsics 1:13 palm cards got out. 

People contributed in many different ways, one person who has been part of actively taking out BA Everywhere made a very important contribution by spending the whole day in her Revolution t-shirt raising money selling refreshments at the Revolution tent to long lines of people who all got the 1:13 palm card. Another person postered the route before, during and after the parade.  A videographer documented the contingent.  Others developed chants.

The energy of the crowd fed back into the contingent and the enthusiasm of the marchers stayed high throughout the two-mile march. Most of the contingent gathered under the Revolution tent for two hours after the parade was over to wrangle over the importance of the day and what they learned and how to build on this.  This crowd attracted other people who wanted to know more of what this was about.  One young woman said she was really struck by the impact of this message on the crowd and this gave her a picture of the broad openness to revolution that she had not gotten previously from just talking to her friends and family.  She said we have to do more of this, get this message out there, and bring people into the movement for revolution.

[basicsbustour]

Correspondence from the New York and Beyond Leg of the BAsics Bus Tour

By Alice Woodward

The volunteers were busting up laughing at another volunteer mocking in a shrill speechified satirical voice like BA does in his REVOLUTION talk after walking through the reality of how this country has been founded on slavery and genocide with the horrific oppression of Black people an integral part of it, he walks through the visceral reality and systemic nature of this and then poses that all the while as this system and its enforcers carry out these brutal crimes they proclaim, “This is the greatest country in the world.  This is the homeland of freedom and democracy!” The volunteers continued in this vein, “You can be anything you want in this greatest of all countries, pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”

Another volunteer started in, “If you don't like this country, go live somewhere else.”  More laughter.

“You wouldn't even be able to have this conversation in a communist country, that's what makes America great! Freedom of Speech! God Bless America!”

The next joined in the mockery.  “Communism! That was a nightmare, don't you know Mao killed one billion people!”  We were literally rolling on the ground of our crash pad for the evening in an area of Brooklyn with a lot of Caribbean immigrants donated by a local small business that supports the revolution. This crew is seriously dripping with contempt for this system, they're irreverent towards illegitimate and arbitrary authority, and they're seriously funny. 

We came together almost a week ago now and like the Southern leg of the BAsics bus tour we began our orientation with a clip from BA's speech REVOLUTION: Why It's Necessary, Why It's possible, What It's All About, this time with the section on the police and then the first question from the Q&A session—“Smoke weed under socialism?”

I've been thinking about this group of volunteers in relationship to Chapter six of BAsics on the revolutionary potential of the masses and the responsibility of vanguard leadership.  A major part of that responsibility is to enable masses to rise to their full potential as emancipators of humanity, to bring forward new leaders and fighters for this revolution.

There's a mix of people that has come forward through encountering the movement for revolution, “meeting” BA through his writing and speeches.  There are people young and old who have been inspired by the last leg of the BAsics Bus Tour going through the south and have jumped in this time and have even stepped up to play a leading role.  There are people coming forward as part of a new generation of revolutionaries who got ahold of the BAsics and it changed their lives.   There are people who have been through some of the worst of what this system does to people and who themselves have been weighed down by “the ways they put on us” and have shaken that off and are striving to be revolutionaries and take up a communist understanding and method and approach.  On the tour, we've begun digging into the new interview with BA, “What Humanity Needs” and one volunteer was telling me how she feels like there's so much to get into, that there's a lot of depth to what's being discussed.  She shared that when she first encountered the movement for revolution someone put to her reading just four pages of BA's work, encouraging her to work through it, even though it would be a challenge, and I can appreciate that at first she responded somewhat indignantly—“What?! Who do you think I am? You think I can't read four pages?”  but she said that when she did start to dive in she was like, “Oh, okay this is something different.” She talked about reading with a dictionary and going over things again and again to think about what he's saying.

There's a tremendous amount of diversity, different life experiences, different passions and abilities, all brought forward through connecting with this re-envisioned revolution and communism, and connecting with BA his leadership and BA the person.  There's a common enthusiasm for this and getting it out into the world that is infectious.  And people have begun to find out about this leadership and ask us about it in ways that reflect a serious engagement.  One question we've gotten is, “Who is he?” And people have talked about his whole history coming forward through the upsurges of the 1960s, working with the Black Panther Party and becoming a revolutionary and communist and forging a party, and how he's sacrificed a lot and never lost sight of the need and possibility of revolution. And as people actually think about liberation and what kind of leadership is needed from a lot of different perspectives, a big question is, “What about a white leader?”  We're answer this with what BA himself says in BAsics: “Somebody asked the question: did I think that as a white male I could actually lead the revolution. Well, the answer is no, not as a white male—but I think I could play a leading role in it as a communist.”  And also getting into how this revolution is not about “my” people but all people, really emancipating humanity.

Another thing we've been getting a lot of every time we go out into the neighborhoods is this poisonous illuminati and conspiracy theory bullshit from people young and old.  One volunteer was telling us how they themselves used to get into that because they were looking for answers and it felt like this was uncovering something about the world.  They've been studying the piece on this from Revolution newspaper and taking this on when we encounter it, one point this volunteer feels is really critical is to actually bring to people how this system of capitalism imperialism is what's behind the horrors humanity is facing, but also how that system works the way this is broken down in three simple points in the article.  And in fact we've been running into this a lot and there are certainly ardent advocates for it including with a lot of the really rotten anti-Semitism and anti-communism that's part of it, but also, especially with some of the younger people, this isn't that deep and once they start to talk with us they will gravitate towards an understanding of what the system is.

On the first day people were ready to take this out into the world and the crew made ambitious plans for marching, chanting, doing mass distribution and taking a tour of the neighborhood in Brooklyn where we are focusing a lot of our work. An influential person from the neighborhood, who's been part of the movement to Stop “Stop and Frisk” came out to greet us in a park.  It was a sunny day with kids on the slides and swings, old timers playing cards all afternoon, a couple of basketball games going on the court, lines around the block at the pool and folks just hangin out in the park and in circles on the sidewalk throughout the neighborhood.

That's the day we met Maleek, a young smart guy who is into some bad shit but wants to learn more about the way the world works and is open to learning more.  BAsics broke things open with him, reading the first page and going through the first few pages, more than any exchange with us. He was sitting in the park with a few of his boys, when we first came up we talked about what it was about but he was still distracted and hanging out with his friends but once he started going through the book things changed and he gave his full attention. 

Another youth in the neighborhood who met the revolution when advance work was being done for the tour, and wanted a Stop “Stop and Frisk” button along with the pin with an image of Bob Avakian on it, came out to greet us one day when we had a scene going at an intersection. He wanted five of the BA pins to give to his friends, he got down with a couple volunteers about what's needed, telling them, “You see all these guys over here, I'm gonna be different, I'm not gonna be like them. I'm gonna try to actually change some things.” We said all right, you gotta be down with this Revolution Club then, and got into what that's all about. 

There's been so much just in the first few days, we got a tour of the neighborhood, including inside one of the projects, screened BA's REVOLUTION Talk at a community center, where we were given an opportunity to invite a summer camp taking place there to join us and about 40 kids, counselors and teachers came over to watch the film and there was a lively exchange and very moving posters made by the kids inspired by the quote, “American lives are not more important than other people's lives.”  We've held a speak-out with Carl Dix in the neighborhood, and we attended a concert in Manhattan that's part of a political festival of art.

The volunteers have been struck by how these neighborhoods are flooded with cops and it feels like people are living under an occupation.  Especially in the evenings they emerged in groups of two or three one after another near the park, then there was a checkpoint set up with orange cones and several cops and police cars to stop and frisk people on the road.  We've also gotten a sense of how bad things are among the masses, how this system does lead people to “do each other dirty” and this has been something that we've had to get scientific about and understand why this is not because people are too fucked up, but they do need to be challenged and led. 

In the midst of all that there's been unforeseen challenges that are objective to us, including due to technical difficulties the BAsics Bus Tour has at times been busless!  When there have been difficulties the volunteers have pulled together and relied on people we're meeting. We're building a movement for revolution in line with what the Statement on the Strategy for Revolution from the Revolutionary Communist Party talks about—to actually bring into being a revolutionary people, to bring forward the thousands that can lead millions in different conditions when a situation arises in which a revolution could be made to actually defeat and dismantle the old oppressive institutions and bring new revolutionary state power into being. That means that right now, today every need is an opportunity for new people to become part of working on the revolution, that's what we're forging and many people have stepped up to house us, feed us, give us showers, provide concert tickets for us, to donate, and create openings in these communities for BA to get out there and for people to engage.  In all of this, there are real beginnings.

There's more to come as we hit the road for Philly (in a new RV!) and make big plans for week two. Stay tuned.

[basicsbustour]

Voices from the BAsics Bus Tour: A Quick Look at a Bronx Barbershop

The sweaty streets outside pulse with activity, noise, music, life. People from many parts of the world live around this neighborhood, and we're on a street that serves as a commercial center. People come in to talk, to exchange news about family and friends, to escape the heat for a bit. There's a real feeling of community in here.

The man who owns the shop is from the Dominican Republic. Some of our crew went in to talk to the customers and to this man. We talked with him about the crimes the U.S. commits all around the world, and told him of the picnic in the South Bronx on Saturday, to welcome the BA Everywhere volunteers. People had written down the names of countries the U.S. has invaded, and all the blood this country has shed.

We also told him about how BA has persisted in developing an understanding that can emancipate humanity. While others from his generation gave up or looked for easier solutions, BA not only persisted, but really developed an appreciation for how much had developed in the first wave of proletarian revolution, and also some of the weaknesses and mistakes, and had developed a richer and deeper synthesis of communism.

We watched several cuts from BA's sampler DVD. The shop owner had a certain amount of an attitude that was basically, “I know about all this stuff, you don't have to tell me about it.” But his attitude was very different after he got a taste of BA's Revolution talk. When we left, he had stacks of palm cards in his shop to get out to customers and passersby.