You win some, you lose some

First of all, big shout out of gratitude to Christine for commenting on my blogs :)

Ashtanga yoga is physically challenging. It starts with asana, the physical part of yoga, because that is something easy to see and explain. Inhale, raise your arms, exhale, forward fold. Easy easy. The philosophy and spirituality come later- maybe! Some people don't get past the physical. I don't think that everyone is interested in the other parts, but whatever works! If just breathing and moving helps one to be a happier, more productive human, fine. Ashtanga means 8 Limbs. If you're unfamiliar with Patanjali's 8 limbs of yoga, check it out. There is a misconception that Pattabhi Jois's ashtanga is different from Patanjali's ashtanga, but Patthabi Jois actually based his system on Patanjali's. I read something that someone else wrote saying that [Pattabhi Jois's] ashtanga is a physical system and my initial reaction was to get annoyed. Would thousands of people put their lives on hold, spend a ton of money, and deal with the discomforts and inconveniences of India to travel to Mysore to study ashtanga if it were all physical? Maybe. I don't know. I guess it's none of my business what anyone else thinks of the style of yoga that I practice on or off of my mat.

You can't escape your shit with ashtanga yoga. If you don't want to deal with something- too bad, it's right there. No skipping. If you half ass it, they (teachers, assistants, your conscience) will tell you to do it again. I find my outlook and thought process on my mat to be very similar to off my mat. I look around the room, and if someone is better, flexier, stronger than me, I feel insecure. If someone is more stiff, less skilled, weaker than me, I feel confident. It's a terrible system that induces jealousy and leaves me always comparing myself to others. It's unhealthy and unhelpful, and I'm not sure how to stop it. I went to a talk the other day and the speaker, who was interesting and funny, was talking about how jealousy pushes things away. When he said it, it made tons of sense and was interesting, so apologies for not transmitting it properly but the example was, if a friend makes lots of money, and we are jealous of them and think it's not fair that they have such good fortune, we are, in a sense, pushing the money and fortune away. Any advice for diminishing jealousy?

Back home I practice ashtanga yoga about 4 days a week, and one of those days is usually a led primary. That leave three days for my complete practice: all of primary and half of second, which takes me about an hour and 45 minutes. The truth is, sometimes I am running late or don't have the time and energy, so I will skip vinyasas, rush through closing, etc. Here in Mysore, I am doing that full hour and 45 minute practice 5 days a week and led primary 1 day. My body is SO tired. I have seen some improvement on my eka pada sirsasana (yay!) but some decline in my kapotasana and backbends. I figured I was just exhausted, but Sam, one of Sarawathi's came to talk to me to tell me he noticed both of these changes, and wanted to make sure I knew about the relationship between the progress/decline. I didn't! My response was, "well should I do this, this, or this differently?" And he said, "nope." I guess it's very normal for us folks who end and eka pada and dwi pada to have a tough time with backbending. I don't completely understand why- The spine should be straight for those, but mine isn't! It's all hunched over, which is the opposite of a backbend, so maybe that's the answer. The ashtanga system is a microcosm for life, and I thought of the expression: you win some, you lose some. Maybe when your career is going really well, you have issues with your relationship. Or when you are doing lots of fun socializing, you don't have time for healthy eating and exercise and don't feel great physically. Maybe someone out there does win 'em all, but I sure don't. It was helpful to learn how common that is, and I'm glad he pointed that out to me.

I'm taking an ayurvedic nutrition and cooking course. It's three hours a day for 5 days. Half is lecture and half is practical- a cooking lesson. The we eat a huge lunch. Eating the super healthy nourishing food feels so good. It makes me feel satisfied without feeling grossly full, even when I eat a lot. We are getting all of the recipes, and I hope I do make some of the food sometimes. She wasn't into the idea of leftovers, and discussed the importance of preparing fresh food. It's hard when you live alone, and some days I don't get home from work until 11pm. I'm definitely not cooking then! Oh right, work, something I haven't done in three weeks. I need to figure the work and money thing out, but I promised myself I wouldn't worry about it until March. Here I am.... not worrying... not a bit!

You guys know how I have that shoulder injury/ issue? I've had it for a year and tried everything - acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractor... I had one castor oil bath on Sunday, and it's felt fine all week. This is an ayurvedic method very popular with ashtangis. All you do if cover yourself with castor oil. Wait 45 minutes (or longer, but if it's your first one, start with 30 minutes), then scrub it off in a hot shower. It is a thick, sticky oil, so be careful. It removes the heat and pain from your  body. I've been hearing about it for years but always thought it was just one of those things that fell into the category of hippy new age nonsense. In the ashtanga tradition, you take one day of rest per week, and on this day, oil bath! Give it a try, let me know how it goes.

Internet is working in my hotel/ apartment/ hostel (whatever you want to call it) again so I can watch stand up comedy in bed. For the authentic Indian experience :)

Pics now, words later

A family of pigs eating garbage outside if my apartment. 

Mysore palace

Post practice coconut- very important!

Meal at nasavama organic cafe

Meal at anu's bamboo hut. 

Stuff and things

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.

Wildlife Tour

I found out about this tour on Facebook. You see, India is a difficult place to travel. It's not as "backpacker friendly" as other places I've visited. Organizing and figuring things out takes a really long time. This new company, GoMowgli is just getting off the ground. The founder, Sunil, was inspired by the ease of his traveling across Australia and New Zealand and wants to start a whole network of buses taking people around India. This was their first overnight excursion!

We started at Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary where we saw lots of cool, enormous birds and crocodiles. We took a little boat tour and got uncomfortably close to the crocs. Then we had a big lunch and went to Nagarhole National Park. Went on a safari and saw spotted dear, elephants, wild boars, peacocks, bison, and monkeys. Went to our campsite (or, "homestay" as they call it, but really, it was a campsite...) and had a huge dinner and went to bed. Up early for an awesome breakfast (as you can see, they fed us well) and then a hike to Irupu Falls which were beautiful but I was forced to go in! and it was freezing! Back to camp for a hike where we saw evidence of a tiger. ...tiger shit. Would have liked to see a tiger, but they are very shy and hard to spot, and it was still exciting that one had been there recently. Big lunch and then tour of the coffee plantation. Fed an elephant an orange at an elephant sanctuary, and saw about 30 elephants! Dosas and chai on the way back, and I'm back in my room in Mysore :)

Today was a moon day and it was good to have a day off from practice, but was busy, hardly got to rest. Tomorrow is just led primary, and then another day off. I'm getting a massage tomorrow, and by Monday I think my body will feel great and I'll be ready to have a strong week!

Pictures are not in the order of my descriptions, but you'll figure it out.

Terrible practice this morning

My practice was terrible this morning. My body felt awful. Even with a deep assist, I could barely catch my heels in kapotasana. Every jump back was challenging. My savasana sucked because I felt shitty about my practice and I felt rushed because I actually have somewhere to be this morning. And now no time for breakfast :(

Amazing Amazing Amazing practice this morning!

After setu bandhasana I said to Saraswathi, "It's my second week here. At home I practice some of second, may I?" Saraswathi: "what asana?" Me: "Eka Pada Sirsasana." Her: "You do."

So she let me practice all the way through! Her assistant Sam helped me with pasasana and made me keep my heels down. Saraswathi adjusted my bhekasana and turned my hands around the other way from how I was taught so my fingers faces back instead of forward. She adjusted my kapotasana A and made me grab my heels! No one has given me that deep of an assist since Jocelyn Stern. She assisted my lagu vajrasana herself and picked me up into my bakasana B. (I was going to get there on my own! It just takes me a few tries!). Eka pada sirsasana is no problem for me on the right side. I actually just nailed it before leaving for India, and can now hold my hands to my heart for 5 breaths and then grab my foot. However, my left side sucks, but she helped me with it.

OK, here's the best part. I did my backbends. I did my drop backs with Saraswathi. She has me walk my hands in. Then she grabs my right hand and puts it on my ankle. Holy shit, I'm freaking out. I've seen this in videos and photos but I had no idea my body was ready for it. She grabs my left hand and I touch my left ankle but can't grab it. Well, maybe I could if I wasn't freaking out. Tomorrow. For many of you, that made no sense and you are trying to wrap your head around what was grabbing where. Below is a photo of Sharath assisting someone named Paul.

And then I was the last one out of the shala, and the coconut guy was gone. Had breakfast at Santosha with a couple of nice people and chatted with a guy from NYC who taught Pilates at Pure. We had "I used to live in NYC and boy was that tough, haha" talk. On my way home I bought a book and some essentials, and then got a migraine and had to lay down for a bit. I think it's because I didn't get my after practice coconut. When the migraine hit I went out to the other coconut stand to get one and then came home to lay down in the dark. Feeling better. Also did some laundry.

OH and Malissa took me on her scooter (yikes!) to the lake and we had a really nice walk and talk. I'm so happy and lucky that she is here now.

Did I mention the Thali yesterday. Sorry this is in reverse order, but I was SO excited to tell you about my practice today. Susan and I went to FabIndia for some shopping and then ate Thali at Green Leaf. It was amazing. Lots of stuff, my favorite! Pictured below :)

Dosa

Practice has been great, body feeling better and had my first led class with Saraswathi yesterday. I've always held that Saturday is a day off, which is true for Sharath's class, but Saraswathi takes Sunday off instead. Just goes to show how we hold onto these "facts" like NO ASHTANGA ON SATURDAYS and then have these experiences that just crumple them up and throw them away.

After practice on Friday I really wanted to ask if I could come earlier and practice some of second, but I wussed out. As the "strong, independent woman from NY," I have cultivated the courage to ask for the things I want. But it's different here. You just have to wait and be patient. India has taught me a lot of patience so far. I want to play by the rules, but also get what I want. I grab my wrists in marichiasana D and stand up  by myself out of urdvha dhanurasana. But I can't hold onto my face and rock around in garba pindasana. I'll have to ask around to folks who have been here longer than I have for advice. After all, it's only been a few days.  I need some patience, and I need it now! :)

I've been eating really well. Lots of Indian food that is so delicious and so healthy and so inexpensive. Still no good Indian food pics, because I'm always so excited when it arrives, but here is a picture of a masal dosa. It's a fried rice flour crepe/pancake filled with potato and spices that you dip in coconut chutney.

After led class yesterday I had coconuts with a group of students and then had breakfast with Natalie (England) and Chris (Australia).  We then took an auto rickshaw into Mysore city to the very highly recommended Three Sisters for massages.  Like everything in India, it was hard to find and dirty. It's a famous massage place where ashtanga students have been going for a very long time. When I told Harini I was from New York, she started talking about all of the well known authorized NY based ashtanga teachers she knew, and was impressed that I had practiced with many of them. It was the weirdest massage ever, where they cover you in oil, have you lay on a mat, hold onto a rope, and rub you with their feet.  It was very good. And very weird. Sometimes you just have to go with it.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Still no food pics :(

Dear Readers, I am SO SORRY but I still don't have any pictures of food. I have found myself so hungry by the time I get food that I forget about photographing it until I am finished. Food has been very good. Trust me.

Two days into practice. My first day was rough. My body was so tired from the flight and weird sleeping patterns. Saraswathi assisted my utthita hasta padangustasana and she didn't care about when my five breaths started or ended. She did not want me practicing trivikrimasana in there, like I do at home. One of the assistants corrected my setu bandasana. He just said when I came down, "your heals are supposed to be touching." I wanted to yell at him, "I freaking know but I am soooo tired." Instead I just said, "OK." I was so exhausted by the end, even though I just did primary. I could barely stand up out of my backbends. I had to rock back and forth a bunch of times like an amateur! I got the latest start time, so I was the last one out of the shala. In the afternoon I had a really nice chat with a British gal named Fiona who is staying in my hotel, and then in the evening I ran into Malissa Larson! Malissa used to teach at The Yoga Room, too, and we did our prenatal yoga teacher training together, AND she assisted a Mysore retreat to Mexico I went on a few years ago. We keep reconnecting.

Yesterday's practice was little bit better. My body was a bit more acclimated to India time, although my backbending was still so so. I think it's because I'm just doing primary, as where at home I practice primary and then half of second, and all of the backbending in second makes standing up out of urdvha dhanurasana a breeze. Well, not quite a breeze, but you know what I mean. I went to have breakfast with a group of students at Santosha Cafe. Tomato and spinach omelette with millet toast.

Off to practice day number 3 and then chanting. I missed chanting on Wednesday... because I forgot about it! After all, my life is very hectic with all the yoga, eating, and resting.

First day in India

I want to apologize in advance for not providing photos of food. The two meals I ate yesterday were awesome, and I will describe them, but I was too hungry to pause and photograph them.

By coincidence, Michael, a guy I know from New York, was also traveling to Mysore around the same time as me. By super amazing coincidence, his flight landed on the same day about 50 minutes apart from mine! We had arranged for him to wait for me so we could share a taxi from Bangalore to Mysore. This is Michael's 3rd visit to India and 2nd to Mysore so I felt quite lucky! He and I worked at the same studio in New York (The Yoga Room in Astoria, Queens) and he actually introduced me to Ashtanga yoga 3 years ago.

We arrived super early in the morning so I dropped my stuff at Michael's place, as it was too early to check into my hotel. He showed me around and introduced me to some people and we got dosas and coconut stuff to eat with it (what's that stuff called?) and coffee. Everything was super cheap, fresh, and delicious. Later I Rubin'ed my way into the hotel early (they told me to check in at 7pm, I stopped by around 8am and let them know I was here and that I would like to check in sooner. They told me to come back at 11am so I showed up at 10:15am with all of my stuff and sweetly requested to check in as soon as possible, which I did) and had a nap. I have air conditioning and wifi and cable TV, so more amenities than home!

My hotel is cute and clean and simple. I don't have the best room, ground floor right next to reception, but I don't mind. Sorry if it seems tacky to talk about money in this blog, but I'm going to in hopes that perhaps it will be helpful for anyone else planning a visit. I am staying at the Good Touch Service Apartments. It is $400 US for the entire month. I'm pretty happy with that price.

I registered at the Shala in the afternoon. I was so nervous and awkward. I still remember my first day of Kindergarten, 25 years ago. I was so anxious and nervous I remember drawing a picture and the picture was done but I just kept drawing over it so I could stay at the drawing station  because I didn't know what to do next. Anyway, I felt like that. I got a 9:45am start time. That's late. It's "cool" here to have an early start time; the earlier the better! I am so freaking excited and nervous for my first practice today. Shala fees were very expensive, but I knew they would be. Let's just say it cost more than my hotel. They charge a lot because they can, and people from all over the world are still going to come.

I've done a lot of wandering around, trying to learn my way around Gokulam, the little suburb in the city of Mysore where I am staying and practicing for the next 5 1/2 weeks. Not sure if it a suburb or part of the city, but I am really looking forward to checking out downtown Mysore. I had dinner at Tina's Cafe and accidentally ordered a biryani for two people. With a side dish and bottle of water about $2.50 US.

I also blew up my tooth brush charger by using an adapter but not voltage converter.  Oops. There was a big popping sound and sparks and it seriously blew up. So I guess once the batter runs out, it will just be a regular tooth brush. My iPhone charger should be fine because Apple makes their products so they work with both voltage sets, and I hope my Chrome book charger will be OK because it is 3 pronged. If anyone has any advice or insight on this, please let me know. I haven't charged either of them yet.

I am very happy to be here.

Also, there are dogs and cows everywhere, but I've only seen one cat- a rough looking kitten. I am trying my best not to touch the dogs, even when they come up to me and look all cute.

If you didn't catch them on instagram, here are some photos;  the view from the roof of my hotel, and a cow in the city street.

Namaste y'all

India here I come!

I'm starting this blog to talk about my trip to Mysore, India, but have a feeling I will also end up talking about food a lot.

I'm going to India in a few days!

After 12 or so years of practicing yoga, I am going to the source. Those first six years I was a casual practitioner, taking a class here or there at the gym or getting an intro special to a studio. Then I started practicing hot yoga and everything changed. I really found the breath-mind-body connection and felt less stressed and more at ease in the world; and physically healthy and strong!  I became certified to teach and shared traditional hot yoga and hot vinyasa. Two years after that I was introduced to ashtanga yoga. It blew my mind. It was harder than any other style of yoga I had ever practiced, and I felt determined to learn it. The hard work required to get into some of the asanas (yoga postures) required daily practice. When  you work on something every day and see and feel yourself getting close, it makes everything seem worthwhile. I love ashtanga yoga because of the  sense of commitment and accomplishment that it provides me with.

Ashtanga comes from the city of Mysore in the state of Karnataka, in southern India. It was founded by Pattabhi Jois, who died a few years ago. His daughter, Saraswathi, and grandson, Sharath, run the show now. I am going to be in Saraswathi's class for 5 weeks! There are plenty of amazing teachers here in the US, but I am looking for the total experience, and I am so excited to be studying with and supporting the Jois family.

I've always wanted to go to India. It's going to be so different from anywhere I've been, and I've been to a lot of places! This will be my sixth trip to Asia. I am nervous about wearing or saying the wrong thing and offending people. I am worried about getting sick. I am feeling very self conscious about my practice. But most of all, I am feeling excited.

Just a few more practices and then it's see you later, Texas!

Photo by Joy Torres