I have some good food pics, but my internet connection sucks right now, so that will be another post later. But don't you worry! I have been eating like it's my job.
Last Monday when I blogged about what an amazing practice I had, I had shitty practices later in the week, so I don't want to jinx anything, but I had a pretty satisfying practice this morning :) There, that's all I'll say for now. And I got moved up to 7:15am, the perfect time for me to practice ashtanga.
I think I have a cold, or I'm allergic to something, or it's just all of the dust and the dirt in the air, but I've had the soar throat/ coughing/ sniffling thing going on. It's a lot like when I had the dreaded "ceder fever" (google it non-Austinites. spoiler alert: it sucked). I went to the ayurvedic doctor hoping he would neti me or something, but he gave me a prescription for some meds. As can be expected, these are mostly cinnamon, pepper, bark, etc and taste terrible. However, they were very cheap, so why the heck not give it a try. I should have known how bad this stuff would taste when he told me to take it with a piece of chocolate!
Conference with Sharath was really interesting yesterday. A bit of background- Pattabhi Jois founded ashtanga yoga. His grandson, Sharath, is the main dude of ashtanga now. He runs the show. Pattabhi Jois's daughter, Sharath's mother, is Saraswathi. I am in Saraswathi's class, which is smaller, and essentially secondary to Sharath's. I chose to be in Saraswathi's class even though Sharath's is the main class, and "cooler" because I wanted a feminine perspective to the yoga, and I felt as though her class would be less intimidating for my first trip here. ANYWAY, so every Sunday at 4pm in the main shala is conference with Sharath, where he gives a talk and answers questions.
So yesterday Sharath talked about a couple of really interesting things. He referenced the hatha yoga pradipika and talked about how we should practice many asanas for stability and balance. How people love handstands and want to do tons of of 'em and take workshops on handstands and do handstands between every posture, but if we do SO many handstands, our urdvha dhanurasana isn't going to feel good. Handstands make the chest tight and won't get us ready for supta kurmasana. Along the same lines of doing various postures and types of postures, he discussed how the marichiasanas get us ready for kurmasana. He also warned against mixing asana practice with weight lifting because weight lifting will make your body stiff.
The asana practice brings flexibility and strength, then we are ready for spiritual development.
Thanks for reading. I made the mistake of having an enormous lunch and then a light dinner, so now it's 9:20pm and I'm hungry. I can't sleep hungry. Snack and then bed. Good night!
update - OK had my snack and realized I forgot to put a title on this one. sorry, nothing good. I also had more of my ayurvedic medicine, which looks like vegemite and tastes worse. And as I was cleaning up after making my gigner tea and snack, I was thinking about how different India is. Throwing out my ginger skin and banana peel, I was thinking about how it will be burned. It is common to burn one's trash here. Then cows and dogs will hang out in the ashes, and eat garbage that didn't burn.
Last Monday when I blogged about what an amazing practice I had, I had shitty practices later in the week, so I don't want to jinx anything, but I had a pretty satisfying practice this morning :) There, that's all I'll say for now. And I got moved up to 7:15am, the perfect time for me to practice ashtanga.
I think I have a cold, or I'm allergic to something, or it's just all of the dust and the dirt in the air, but I've had the soar throat/ coughing/ sniffling thing going on. It's a lot like when I had the dreaded "ceder fever" (google it non-Austinites. spoiler alert: it sucked). I went to the ayurvedic doctor hoping he would neti me or something, but he gave me a prescription for some meds. As can be expected, these are mostly cinnamon, pepper, bark, etc and taste terrible. However, they were very cheap, so why the heck not give it a try. I should have known how bad this stuff would taste when he told me to take it with a piece of chocolate!
Conference with Sharath was really interesting yesterday. A bit of background- Pattabhi Jois founded ashtanga yoga. His grandson, Sharath, is the main dude of ashtanga now. He runs the show. Pattabhi Jois's daughter, Sharath's mother, is Saraswathi. I am in Saraswathi's class, which is smaller, and essentially secondary to Sharath's. I chose to be in Saraswathi's class even though Sharath's is the main class, and "cooler" because I wanted a feminine perspective to the yoga, and I felt as though her class would be less intimidating for my first trip here. ANYWAY, so every Sunday at 4pm in the main shala is conference with Sharath, where he gives a talk and answers questions.
So yesterday Sharath talked about a couple of really interesting things. He referenced the hatha yoga pradipika and talked about how we should practice many asanas for stability and balance. How people love handstands and want to do tons of of 'em and take workshops on handstands and do handstands between every posture, but if we do SO many handstands, our urdvha dhanurasana isn't going to feel good. Handstands make the chest tight and won't get us ready for supta kurmasana. Along the same lines of doing various postures and types of postures, he discussed how the marichiasanas get us ready for kurmasana. He also warned against mixing asana practice with weight lifting because weight lifting will make your body stiff.
The asana practice brings flexibility and strength, then we are ready for spiritual development.
Thanks for reading. I made the mistake of having an enormous lunch and then a light dinner, so now it's 9:20pm and I'm hungry. I can't sleep hungry. Snack and then bed. Good night!
update - OK had my snack and realized I forgot to put a title on this one. sorry, nothing good. I also had more of my ayurvedic medicine, which looks like vegemite and tastes worse. And as I was cleaning up after making my gigner tea and snack, I was thinking about how different India is. Throwing out my ginger skin and banana peel, I was thinking about how it will be burned. It is common to burn one's trash here. Then cows and dogs will hang out in the ashes, and eat garbage that didn't burn.
I think it's so cool that you're not taking the "cool" class! So punk. I hope the medicine is kicking in and you feel better soon!
ReplyDeleteBig hugs!
xo