Leaving Mysuru after 4 weeks

Yesterday morning, Tuesday, I could not bind Supta Kurmasana, (see previous post...), but my practice was still good.

For breakfast I went to the Green Leaf restaurant and had Bisibali Bhat, which they only serve on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. Leena had been craving it when we arrived in Mysore, but could not find anywhere that served it. It is like a soup with vegetables and rice in it. Tina said she would give me the recipe.

In the afternoon I had my third and last cooking class with Tina. The cooking class was supposed to be on Wednesday, but was moved ahead. This was going to create a little problem for me... see later. We made idli's and the sambhar and coconut chutney that goes with it. We also made masala dosa's. Idli and Dosa are made from the same batter, which is lentils and rice soaked in water and then liquidized in a blender. Normally masala would refer to spices, when used like masala chai, masala aloo etc, but when referring to masala dosa, the word masala means the dosa has been stuffed and this could be potatoe (aloo) or cauliflower (gobi) etc. Both idli and dosa's are breakfast dishes. You can also get plain dosa, set dosa, which is thicker and contains some bicarbonate of soda, and you get rava dosa, which are made from semolina instead.

After the cooking course I got ready for my yoga class at the Mysore Mandala Shala with Sheshadri. (I have commented on Sheshadri in the previous post already: In trouble with the law) Before going to the shala, I searched one last time for the idli man, the place that Michael had taken us to for breakfast one day and which served the big dosa's.... I finally found it... so guess what tomorrow morning is idli for breakfast :-).

The yoga drop-in class cost Rs 400 and we were 15 students in the room. Sheshadri is quite small, but he shouts at people too, just like guruji and Sharath :-). He started counting us through Surya Namaskara A and the first repetition of B. We then continued Mysore style (on our own) and he would walk around adjusting and assisting people. The students were all of very different levels, some were doing the second series, whereas others were using a printed page to try and remember the sequence of asanas in the primary series. Sheshadri was very good... I would get into a difficult pose and saw him walking toward me and I would feel apprehensive because I was worried he would push me too far, but I was never in any pain and he pushed me further than I have ever been in many postures, especially Marichyasana D and Supta Kurmasana. Yes, this time, with his help I bound the posture completely with my head under my crossed ankles...
The fact that I had eaten idli's and masala dosa's 2 hours before the practice was not very good though.

Today's practice was ok... I was not too tired, but because we ran out of water at home I was quite dehydrated... (There are no shops open at 6 am to go and buy a bottle of water.)

After practice, Jay, Myra, Lori and I drove to the idli man for breakfast... It was as good as we had expected again. This time we took lots of photo's to capture the good memories :-).

Today I have collected my tailored clothes, then I packed, but I have not weighed my bag yet. I cannot be overweight, as I still have 2 domestic flights and an international flight, all with different airlines. I have made a package of most of my books as could post 5 kg for Rs 350, but this is a special rate for books only, so I have to take the books to a tailor, who will wrap the books in a see through plastic bag first, then stitch cloth around it, leaving a small window free to prove that it is only books at the post office.
I also considered buying some chai (tea) spices today before I leave (I have made enquiries as to which is the best one), but because I am not sure how much my bag is weighing, I thought I better refrain.

I also had my final sanskrit class today... we had a test... did not study and it went well. We can now write words in sanskrit if I know the spelling of the word with our alphabet, but the word means nothing to me... The next course would teach us how to create sentences, but we would still not know the meaning of the words unless we used a dictionary.
The language spoken here, Kanada, uses a different alphabet to sanskrit, but Hindi, does use the sanskrit alphabet, but the words are different to sanskrit.

In the evening I phoned a bus company in Delhi (travel agents were not able to book buses) to find out what time the buses to McLeod Ganj (13 hours) were leaving Delhi and if there were seats available. Most tourists take a train or hire a car, because buses are dangerous, but since I am travelling alone hiring a car is too expensive and the train tickets are still waitlisted. I had bought 2 train tickets one for the first of March and one for the second of March just to see when I could get on the train. The bus is turning out to be cheaper and it is more convenient than the train, because after the 12 hour trip to Pathankot, I would still have to take another bus to McLeod Ganj for 4 hours. Since the railway company charges 25% of the ticket fare if cancelling a train ticket less than 24 hours before scheduled departure, I had to go cancel my tickets tonight and take the risk of trying to get on the bus in Delhi tomorrow.
On the way home I got stopped by traffic cops, for not wearing a helmet and charged Rs 100 fine... I am glad it was only that because I also did not have my driver's license, which they asked for...

Tomorrow I will be doing my practice, shower, eat, return the gas cooker, mattress and Scooter to Randy and then go to the train station where I will catch the eleven o'clock tipu express to Bangalore, arriving at around 14:00 and then at 16:00 my plane to Delhi leaves arriving at 18:40. It is all very tight, but if all goes well I will have just enough time to make the bus station and buy a ticket and get on the bus before 20:15.

I am feeling a little sad about leaving Mysore, as it has been home for a month and it is a very beautiful place, but I am also starting to look forward to going home now. I have been away for 5 weeks now and I have achieved what I set out to do for this trip. The next week is a little bonus of travelling, but I did receive an email today from a woman who is in Daramsala / McLeod Ganj and she reported that it is very cold and has been raining constantly. When I left SA, I had not planned my week off, and expecting India to be hot I did not pack any warm clothes...

Last led yoga class in Mysore and movie night

Saturday the 24th, was the day off and I really did not do anything, no stretching and no exercises... I really needed the break. (I usually do stretch and do some additional exercises before going to bed.)
Yesterday morning, Sunday, was my last led class in Mysore, as I am leaving a day early and missing Friday's led class. I also noticed this morning that the shala was getting a lot emptier, and the tailors around town, who do a lot of work for the Yoga tourists, are saying that this will be there last really busy week. Guruji is also closing his shala on the 14th of March to go on another world tour. I don't know exactly where he is going except that he will be in the USA to open a new shala there.

Saturday, I had a lazy day and basically just shopped around town... Stores close around lunch time and open again either 15:00 or 16:30 and then stay open again until 21:30. At 13:00 there was another demonstration at the KR circle yesterday. Seems to be a very regular occurence. Streets just get blocked and demonstrators walk onto the road for 5 or 10 minutes and then it is over...
My shopping was not very successful yesterday, but I did scout out some shops and I tasted some of the local speciality sweet called Mysore Pak, which is incredibly oily. All of the shop attendants always handled the sweets with their bare fingers, which I did not like, but I haven't gotten sick.
I also phoned one of the local cinema's to find out about what time the movie Guru is showing. It has been on circuit for about 3 months and I am told is very good. The newspapers don't show the times, just what movie is showing. The movie house is called Skyline, right next to Sterling... in SA this would have been Cine 1 and 2 :-)

Instead of watching the movie on Saturday at 17:00, I ended up at Jaganmohan Palace at 18:00, the same place the talent show was last week Saturday, to watch some traditional Indian dancing by a famous Indian dancer. This time it was not free, but there was a seating plan and tickets cost anywhere from Rs 100 to Rs 1,000.
When "Amma", a women with the status of a saint, arrived, everything stopped and she was escorted into the auditorium with a choir of song from women following her. The dancing was very very good. Am trying to load a video snippet on the blog ...

Sunday, the shopping was successful. Bought some indian style outfits for my nieces who have just had a birthday, bought a Kurta (men's traditional garment) for myself and I bought some other bits and pieces. I found out that there are basically 4 different outfits, other than a saree, that women wear traditionally. All come in different fabrics from cotton, cotton/silk mix, crepe silk, pure silk, synthetic material etc, which affects the price as well as how much embroidery etc is on the garment.

1. Sharara: short top, with bell-bottom pants and a scarf
   
2. Gaghra: long/short top with long skirt and scarf
   
3. Salwar (Ladies Punjabi): long/short top with tight fitting pants or ali-baba type baggy pants and scarf
4. Choridar: long/short top with push-back pants (wrinkled) and scarf
   

After we were told that there would be no conference again this Sunday, I raced to the cinema to watch the movie Guru in Hindi without subtitles. The movie cost Rs 25 and started at 17:00 on the dot, no advertisements and finished about two hours and 40 minutes later with 5 min. intermission (yes, very short).
The movie was about a businessman who started with nothing and built a huge company but was then sued etc, as well as a love story. It was fast paced and only about 4 musical dance sections in the movie, but I also enjoyed that... and Aishwarya Rai, the bollywood actress, is very beautiful :-). The audience was quiet throughout the movie, which I did not expect, and the movie house was old and had outdated equipment, but not bad or extremely dirty... all in all, I had a good experience and I hope to see the movie with english subtitles again in future :-)
The story was shot in Bombay / Mumbai, and I recognised Chowpatty beach that I had walked to on my arrival in India at the beginning of my trip... What I also found interesting was that in the movie, the main actor always touched the feet of people he respected. I have not seen this being done other than by westerners doing it to guruji as a sign of respect. I always thought it was a little strange, but now that I have seen it being part of the Indian culture, I am more comfortable doing this myself to guruji. In fact today, a child begging for money touched my feet.

This morning, Monday, I had a brilliant practice... I got my chin onto my shin during quite a few forward stretches, my jump back and jump throughs went well and for the very very first time I bound Supta Kurmasana (sitting on the floor with legs in front, bend forward and put your arms under your knees and wrap the arms around your back, cross your ankles, place head under legs and then grab hold of your hands). Don't know if I will be able to do it again tomorrow, but that is ok :-)

At ten o'clock, I was met by someone to take me to Madhu for a massage. The last massage I had was by a women who had been working for 12 years at the Ayurvedic Centre in Mysore and she cost Rs 500. A massage by a westerner will cost in the range of Rs 1,500 to 3,000. I only get massages by someone who has been recommended to me. The nice thing about that lady was that she came to your place to give you a massage.
Ayurveda is the ancient science of indian herbal medicine and holistic healing. Lots of tourists try there fasts during which they have to drink medicated ghee (clarified butter) and eat only brown rice cooked with specific spices etc. I had considered visiting the centre, as they have consultations where they then explain to you what type of body you have according to the 3 doshas. The centre is a full spa with a 25 metre swimming pool, tennis courts etc., but their prices are in US dollars, so a deep tissue massage will cost over Rs 1,500.

Madhu was recommended to me last week and what impressed me was that Katie said she never screamed in pain before where others had, when being massaged by the "three sisters" as they are known, but Madhu made here scream :-). The cost was Rs 750, which is still less than a simple back massage back in South Africa.
So when we got there, Madhu was just finishing off doing his morning prayers. He did not have a nice house, like the houses in Gokulam, so no seperate puja room, so he just had pictures of the deities like Shiva on the floor and candles and incense in front of that. He then ushered me into a bare room that just had a wooden massage table only about five (5) cm high along the floor. I later found out that he comes from a long line of Ayurvedic massage therapists... ie: his father and his grandfather etc all did this, and the table was apparently over 800 years old. It was made of wood with absolutely no cushioning on it and its surface was not flat but convex, tapering down along the sides and then a little ledge... I guess so that would collect any excess oil running down. The oil he used (he said it was medicated oil... don't know exactly what) smelled very very good. The massage like the previous one started in a seated position, with the head, then down the neck and back. Then I had to lie on my back and he massaged the down the front of the body and down the legs. I always thought you are supposed to massage up the body towards the heart, but this is not the way it is done here. While massaging my legs, he stretched my legs in the split etc and he made me scream too :-) He asked me how many years I had been doing yoga and after hearing that it had been multiple years he said... "Well, I don't think it was regular (practice)!" No, I have never practiced yoga daily until now and that is why I am still so stiff!!!
Then he put a blanket on me and told me to relax and he left the room. When he came back I thought it was all over, but he said turn around onto my stomach and the massage (and the screams) continued... Then he got out a gas burner with a similar top like a skottle braai and he heated a little bag containing some medicinal leaves and he rubbed me down with the hot bag. At the end he asked me to push my upper body up and he stretched my spine backwards. Finally, he asked me to stand up and standing behind me with his back to mine, he grabbed my arms and lent forward picking me up on his back and stretching me. Maybe not the most hygenic of massage parlours but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

In the afternoon, I finalised the embroidery design for the pants I am having made and then I had my second last sanskrit class... The final class on Wednesday will be a test, so I need to revise a little. I basically have two days left in Mysore.
I have decided not to visit the Tibetan village as it is 2 to 3 hours drive one way and I am going to visit the Tibetan community in McLeod Ganj anyway. Other than that I did not have any other unaccomplished activities / sights while in Mysore.

In trouble with the law

Yesterday, Thursday the 22nd of Feb, I had another good practice in the morning Mysore style. I took my time again and just tried to deepen the postures. I am starting to realise how soon my time here in Mysore and my daily practice will end.

Lori has been asking if we could all go to the Idli man that Michael had taken us to for breakfast again. I have not been able to find him. After my breakfast yesterday, I asked Dev, the rickshaw driver, if he could take me there. Ayuko (girl from Niigata, Japan), who I see everyday at practice came along. Dev took us to a very very popular restaurant which was packed, but this was not the street side stall we were looking for. After driving around some more unsuccessfully, Ayuko and I went back to the restaurant and had idli's and dosa's for breakfast there. It was very very good, but the idli's were not like the big idli's the idli man made :-).
So now the last option is to find Raj the rickshaw driver who took us there when Michael led the way...

Afterwards Ayuko and I went to the Sandalwood oil factory, which was established in 1917. Everything was very old and we did not see anybody doing any work while we were there, so we spent a very short time there. Outside was a small store where you could by 5 grams of Sandalwood oil for Rs 650... very expensive. Sandalwood oil has also been called "Liquid Gold" and is used in ayurvedic medicine as well as in perfumes. I bought some incense sticks and some soap.

On the way home I bought 2 metres of silk and linen mix material at Rs 600 per metre for pants I want to have tailored. That was quite expensive, but I thought it would be worth it. Myra reminded me that I need to pre-shrink the material before I give it to the lady doing the embroidery and I need to ensure the colour does not run, so I quickly went and washed the material in hot water.

We are not supposed to be doing yoga with any other teachers in Mysore, while registered with guruji. Jay had been to another class and invited us. As I have no time to do it afterwards, I took the chance. At 16:30 Katie (from Chicago), Joyce, Myra, Jay and I drove to Laksmi Puram Post office where we were met by someone to take us to a Ajay's Yoga Shala where we had a Vinyasa class for Rs 350. That means we did the sun salutation series (Surya Namaskara) A & B and then Ajay took us through some exercises that would help us improve our jump back and jump throughs. It was quite good, although I found Michael's workshop in Goa on this subject more informative, however, Ajay did give us specific exercises to do, which would ultimately strengthen us in the right areas. Technique is very important, but it definitely requires strength in the arms, shoulders and core to do it "beautifully" as Sally put it.

In the evening I washed the material again and I tried soaking it in salt water, but that also did not help... the colour kept on bleeding out. In the morning I washed it again twice, but to no avail...
The Yoga practice was led this morning and my body felt quite tired, obviously the two yoga sessions yesterday... Had a big breakfast at Tina's again today... always start with a big fruit salad of banana, papaya and pommegranate and then I had Fenugreek roti's and badam milk, which is hot milk with almonds, saffron, cinnamon and sugar.
After that I went into town to buy my train ticket from Mysore to Bangalore on the 1st of March. When I came out I found my scooter surrounded by 3 railway cops who promptly told me to pay a fine of Rs 250 for parking in a no parking area... There was a sign that bikes are not allowed to be parked there, on the floor where another car had parked (and there was building rubble lying around everywhere), therefore the sign was not visible . So I said they must take me to court. They walked me all the way around the railway station over sand mounds and railway tracks and more building rubble to a railway magistrates court. On the way I was told that it would be easier to just pay the fine of Rs 125 as it is just a petty crime. At the court, which was packed with people, I met some other commander or whatever with a few stars on his shoulder who insisted that rules must be followed and I need to pay a fine of Rs 150. Notice the change in amount again. I continued arguing that I was unaware of the rule because it was not clearly visible, but I kept calm and smiled.
Eventually I was asked where I was from and what I was doing here and then they told me politely to please leave :-).

I then went into town and looked at buying a Kurta for myself. A Kurta is the traditional garment Indian men wear. I think white can be worn any time as well as different colours, but for funerals, it has to be white.
I then went and returned the material I had bought yesterday and got my money back and went to another store (of the same chain) where I was given good advice and bought material at half the price and guaranteed that the material would not bleed any colour after 2 washes. I then had to race back home to back in time for my sanskrit class.

After sanskrit I ate supper at Anu's where the internet cafe is. I had asked Anu to please make Ragi Dosa's (also a normally a breakfast dish, not made from lentils and rice as the normal dosa is, but from a grain) as I have heard that they are very good and I have not had them yet. She promised to make them on Friday night... today.
At the Internet Cafe, Lori told me that Jay was in hospital at that moment in time... He had broken four toes in an accident on his bike... don't know exactly what happened, but I have had quite a few close shaves on my bike in the last few days... And people don't wear helmets here either.... People just drive out into the road without looking and nobody ever stops at an intersection without traffic lights, unless the traffic is really heavy or there is a police officer directing traffic.

Leena had organised a Salsa dance night at our place tonight. She arranged a teacher to come teach the salsa and planned to have everything on the roof, but realised that there was no electricity so ended up doing it in our flat. Leena and Lica prepared some food and invited a whole lot of people around.
I met a guy from Poland who said it was too expensive for him to register with Pattabhi/guruji (we paid Rs 26,900 for 1 month - 28 days in February minus Saturdays and 2 moon days) and he registered with Sheshadri at the Mandala Shala (for Rs 7,500 for a month).

Jay, Myra and I are actually planning to go to on Tuesday afternoon. In guruji's Shala there are about 60 students practicing in the shala at any one time and there are really only 3 postures in the primary series where you will get assisted or adjusted, namely Uthitha Hasta Padangustasana (standing balances), binding of Marichyasana D, and Urdhva Dhanurasana (bending back from standing position and placing your hands on the floor and then coming back up). Apparently Sheshadri has maximum 26 students and pushes you in every posture to your absolute limit... see pictures on his website. The guy from Poland said that the pushing deeper into the posture is nice the first day, but after that it is very very saw.
So there are many many yoga teachers in Mysore although there are only 3 well known ones. I have put some extra links under the Yoga websites section on the Yoga studio's in Mysore.

Wednesday the 21st

Monday, (19th Feb 2007), Tuesday and today were all Mysore style classes and have been great practices for me, but I am going very slowly through the series taking up to one hour and fourty minutes. Jay had a very interesting analogy, in which he described good days of yoga as having the eye of the tiger and moving deeper into the postures with determination and those days where you are stiff and sore as days where you just go "Miaauuuu"... :-)

It was Lori's birthday on Monday and she was very happy because Sharath said she can start coming to practice at 6:30 instead of 7:30. As things are getting a little quieter and as your length of stay becomes longer and your practice improves, you get told to come earlier. Those that have been here for a while arrive for practice at the shala at 5 am. But the best thing for Lori, was that she was told that she can start doing the first posture in the second series, which is really great!!!

We all met around 11:30, soon after breakfast, and went to Lalitha Mahal Palace, which is a palace build by the Mahara of Mysuru, just to host foreign guests (allegedly because they ate meat). The Palace is really beautiful and the first thing that Jay and I did was buy Lori and Myra a ride on the horse-drawn carriage standing in front of the entrance as a birthday gift for Lori. It was a silly thing to ride 3 times around the parking lot, but we all had a laugh. We had a look at one of the rooms for which the going rate is somewhere from $75 to $750 for the Viceroy Suite. We then spent an hour and a half at the pool, for which we had to pay Rs 175, timing it so that we would still get lunch as it closed at 14:30. We had the Royal Silver Thali for Rs 200 excluding any taxes, which is about ten times the normal price of a South Indian Thali. The Thali was served with the normal banana leaf, but on a silver plate. :-) Food was not that impressive though... The restaurant was very elegant though, with live music entertainment.

After that, I had to rush back to Gokulam (the suburb within Mysuru) for my sanskrit class, and then I walked to the main road and shopped for some fruit. From Thursday to Monday, I had driven almost 200 kilometres, which is a lot considering that Gokulum is only about 6km from the centre of town. In the evening I felt I needed to walk around again instead of using the scooter all the time.

Tuesday I took it very easy, and I actually did not mind not having anything on the agenda. I spent a few hours on the internet, adding links to this blog to interesting books I have found, and adding statistics, so now I can see how many people are accessing my blog. I'm a geek I know :-)
I also spent a few hours reading in my yoga books I have purchased.

In the evening I went shopping again... I am running out of cash so I am using my credit card now!!! I had found a Jockey store in town. Because my bill came to over Rs 1,000, I got a free bag as well, so now I do not need to worry about being able to fit all the things I am buying into my backpack... Cool!!!

I then also visited the bookstore again, where I had bought the books by the president of India, as I had seen some computer CD's. I eventually bought ten CD's, one of which is on Indian recipes, the others being for my five year old son to learn vocabulary, maths etc. Two of the CD's are animated stories from the Panchatantra and Ramayana (see weblinks for Indian Deities and Mythology).

When I got home, I had some home made chocolate that I had bought a few days earlier. There is a shop here that caters to the yogi's. Yogi's prefer the dark chocolate to milk chocolate because it is healthier as it has less sugar and because there is no milk in it (vegetarian). But you can order your ingredients with white, milk or dark chocolate the way you like it. I had some chocolate with cashew nuts, another with almonds, another with cinnamon and another with cardamon. Today I ordered some more to take home... cinnamon and cardamon were the best, but I also have now ordered dark chocolate with peanut butter, and best of all, chilli! You eat the sweet chocolate and it leaves your mouth burning... WOW!!!!

Today Myra finally told me that she could not go to Daramsala to see the Dalai Lama, so I will be travelling alone (I am happy with that too) during my last week on holiday... I am looking forward to it, but I am also sad that I will be leaving Mysuru within 8 days and I will miss practicing in the Shala with all that energy around me.

I had already bought a non-refundable ticket from Mysuru to Mumbai for the 11th of March, which I am not going to use anymore because my plans changed, so I lost that money. I had to buy a new ticket from Bangalore to Delhi on the 1st of March, and another from Delhi to Mumbai for the 11th of March. I also bought a night train ticket from Delhi to Pathankot which is a 12 hour train ride, but I am on the waiting list with 2 people ahead of me... So I guess I will have to let the universe take its course and see what happens... maybe I will have to spend a few nights in Delhi as there are a lot of people wanting to go to Daramsala for the Dalai Lama's teachings.



After I organised that I rushed back to Gokulam for another of Tina's cooking courses. Today there were 15 people as opposed to six of us the last time, but all six us were there again. Today we made Kerala stew (vegetables in coconut milk) which was excellent, lemon rice with peanuts which I enjoyed and tomato bhaat (bhaat is cooked rice), which I did not enjoy that much.

After that I went to a tailor, who will make me a pair of pants according to a pair of pants I left with her. She will also do some embroidery for the pockets. After my sanskrit class I went to town to buy the fabric for the pants, which I will give to her tomorrow.

Halfway

Thursday morning we had a led class at 6:15, because Friday was a holiday "Shivarathri". This time it was not Sharath, but guruji who led us through the primary series. It seemed a lot easier than when Sharath led us through, but there was one occasion, in Bujapidasana, where guruji nodded off sitting in his chair while counting. Some of the yogi's started clearing their throats to get guruji to snap out of his little nap. Luckily Saraswati was also on the stage and she gave him a nudge... I was actually practicing right next to him on the stage, but I like all the others was stuck in the pose waiting for him to finish counting the five breaths, which became like 15 breaths :-).

Michael had left the day before, and I had arranged with him to take over his scooter once he left and paid half the rental, Rs 1,200. It is a really new scooter that runs very well and has warning bells when you leave the stand up and switch the engine on WOW... Lots of people are jealous of "Pep+", the name given to the bike (the model).


So Thursday I set myself the task of finally getting to town and finding my way around and I wanted to visit the Ashok bookstore. During breakfast at Tina's I chatted to Misa and she decided to come along for the ride. Town was easy to find but traffic is so hair-raising... I almost hit a cow at one stage, so we parked the bike and walked.

We eventually found the Ashok bookstore after walking through the most amazing market, the Devaraja Fruit & Veg market... more pictures in my album!!!

I found a lot of books on Yoga and India. I have added some books to the books section on the right. Most books are a lot cheaper here in India. I also found bible story comic books for my son. There are also comic books for children of the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata to teach Indian children all about their gods.

Yesterday, Saturday, I found another bookstore, I think it was called Saudhary, that has a lot of computer books at like a quarter of the price of the books you can order on Amazon. These prices are actually printed on the back cover... so they are sold at these prices all over India!
I also found some computer CD's for kids to improve their vocabulary, spelling and other skills. I also bought two books written by the current President of India, Abul Karam. "Wings of fire" is his autobiography and "Mission India - A vision for Indian Youth" that is inspiring the youth of India to become a developed country by 2050.

Misa and I then visited the bookstore at the Rama Krishna Ashram, but this was closed until 4pm, so we went and had lunch and then came back. The book store was interesting and it did have books on other religions. Lica had bought a book here "Jesus lived in India", which I unfortunately did not find.
Then it was sanskrit class because there would be no class on Friday. Afterwards I went to the Internet Cafe to compare the prices of the books I had found with prices on Amazon.com.

Friday was a holiday as mentioned earlier and there was no practice in the morning. Jay, Myra and I had organised a rickshaw driver to come pick us up at 6 am in the morning (still pitch dark) and drive us to the base of Chamunde Hill from where we climbed the 1000 steps to the top. Many Hindu's do this on Sunday's, but today would be a particularly busy day too because of the religious holiday. We started at around 6:30 and got to the top just after 7. On the way we met lots of Indians (I don't recall any women - they seem to prefer driving to the top :-)) We got asked all the time where we were from etc.

The sun was already up when we got to the top. We visited the temple and walked around watching the pilgrims do puja (offering) to their gods, and then we walked the 300 steps back down to the statue of Nandi where the swami had his cave. (This is the swami we had had lunch with the previous week). From there Raju picked us up and we drove to town to a very popular dosa restaurant. Dosa's are made from lentils and rice batter and when done looks like a pancake almost. The restaurant filled up and the Indian people seemed to have idli and then the dosa for breakfast, but we just had the dosa and kept on ordering more :-).

After I got home, I took the scooter to try and find my way to a silk store. On the way I met Misa and Quyen at the coconut store and they decided to come along. I took them both on the scooter, which turned out to be a traffic offense according to policeman on the way. Luckily I did not get fined. I left Misa and Quyen at Fab-India (the silk store) as I had an appointment to have a massage at home. Afterwards I went to find the silk factory. I found it and had a look at the showroom, but the factory was closed because of the holiday.

In the evening we had a Kirtan / Bajan (singing and chanting in Hindi). This time the musicians were playing the Sitar and the Harmonium and drums. Afterwards (8pm), 5 of us decided to visit the temple at the Maharaja's Palace were a lot of the Hindu's were flocking to do Puja. Again we met a lot of people trying to befriend us and children running up to us wanting to have their pictures taken.
At 10pm we then went to the Hotel RRR, which is famous for its Thali's (rice, dhal, curd, raita and a vegetable dish) served on a banana leaf. Dylan entertained us all with his recollections of the naughty adventures he had in Mexico.

On Saturday morning I had breadfast at Tina's where I met Myra. I told Myra my plans for today and she decided to join me on the back of the bike for my excursions for the day. We went to the Silk factory, which was very interesting. Unfortunately however, there was no tourguide or anything and we were not allowed to take our camera's in. When I was in Thailand I visited a silk factory there too and I remember everything was done by hand there. Here they had Japanese machines doing the weaving of the sari's. It was a deafening noise. I noticed that the Indian's were walking around barefeet and no protective gear at all. They were all very proud of what they were doing and as we walked through, somebody would always call us over to show us what exactly they were doing.
Unfortunately they did not show us how they took the silk from the cacoon, as they had in Thailand, we started from the raw silk having been rolled up and washed, from where it was wound onto pins, then the silk strands were doubled and then twisted. They had two colours, one representing left twisted, the other right twisted. Then 438 strands were rolled onto a big roller from where it was used on the sari weaving machines. They also used gold thread in the sari's and the price of the sari's basically just varied on how much gold thread was in the sari. Then the Sari's were dyed, washed and ironed.

Afterwards we went to the Maharaja's Palace as I wanted to have seen it by day before I see the palace lit up on Sunday night. Like most tourist attractions in India, there are no signs explaining the attraction, you basically need to hire a tourguide at a relatively expensive price Rs 450 (we paid 200) and after you have seen everything, then they have books etc on sale.
The palace is beautiful, but needs to be maintained better. The stained glass windows that are breaking are just being replaced by normal glass for instance.

After that we went and had lunch at Sixth Main, as most of the other restaurants were closed around 3pm. I then dropped Myra off and went to Coffee Day as I felt like having some Ice Cream. I was constantly hungry. Coffee Day was interesting because their menu was covered with Logo's from Microsoft Windows and advertisement for the new Windows Vista... "The WOW starts now". There was even a Coffee Day magazine with a Microsoft front and back page and one of the meny items was something like a WOW coffee.

At six in the evening I went to the talent show that Lica had invited us all to. She had bought herself a harmonium and was taking music lessons to learn to play it. The music school was putting on a talent show, which was called "East meets West" and the 'western' (including asian foreigners) were doing two performances.
The started 45 minutes late. The first performance was an indian dance by four young girls. This was very cute and nice. The second performance was the westerners singing amazing grace. This did not seem completely rehearsed. The talent show went on, but was very slow and it was obvious that there had been no dress rehearsal. It was a bit chaotic and eventually I left to go to bed. Lica said she got home around 11:30.

Sunday morning Leena and I got to the led class very late. They were already doing Surya Namaskara B when we arrived after running to the Shala... not very good!!! My practice was quite good and enjoyable today.
Afterwards I sat and watched the intermediate series being performed by the led class after us. Guruji was leading the class and he was wearing a T-shirt that had two words on the front "Bad Man", which we thought was quite funny :-).

I went to the organic market at the Green Hotel again and bought some date & flaxseed and ginger and almond cake and some other things. I met Lori and Myra, who told me about a portuguese family that made lunch on Sundays and Wednesdays and Dinners on Fridays. The food was apparently excellent and they were going today, so I decided to phone and reserve a space for myself too. It is served at their house, which they call India.Song. The food was absolutely delicous. Starters was cold potatoe and leek soup, the main course was a greek salad and desert was vanilla ice cream on chocolate sauce... mmmm. It was very expensive though at Rs 230.

After that I went to the Yoga Shala. There was no conference this Sunday, but I bought the Ashtanga Yoga book written by Lino Miele and had Lino, Sharath and guruji sign the book. Then I went home and started reading until 6:30 when I went to pick up Lori.

Lori had asked me if she could come with me on my scooter to see the palace lit up, which happens on Sundays between 7 pm and 8 pm. The Lonely Planet guide said that there are 97 000 light bulbs all over the facade of the palace and the palace walls. Lori had spent the previous day on Jay's bike, which she said was not very comfortable on the bumps, so now she wanted to be on my bike. Myra went on Jay's bike.
The palace was very beautiful lit up, but the band playing english and american fanfare music just seemed totally out of place.

It is Lori's birthday tomorrow and we have made plans to eat lunch at the Lalitha Mahal Palace, which should be a grand experience.

Cooking

Today, Wednesday, was Valentines day, but hardly anybody here took any note of it. My practice was a little rushed and afterwards I bought some pumpkin bread and almond butter. The Almond butter is Rs 175 for 200g, whereas peanut butter is Rs 60. There is also cashew nut butter for Rs 160, which I will try out too some time. Unfortunately though, I did not eat any of this, as I had made arrangements with Mayra and Jay to meet at Shakti house for breakfast. Service is very slow but food is good.
Over breakfast Mayra told me about the books Shantaram and The life of Pi, and we discussed all the things that will be happening over the next few days...

After breakfast there was an hour or two until we would meet again for cooking class, during which time I did my sanskrit homework. Licha also moved into the 3rd room, so now the flat is full and I have made some of my initial outlay of Rs 13,500 back, which I am happy about.
Yes, you read right... I attended a cooking class on Indian food :-). It was excellent. Tina explained the masala (spices) to us, why the north indian people are brawny (because that is where all the bread comes from - wheat is good for muscle tone) and south indian people are the brainy :-) That is what she said!!!
She then explained how curd (yhogurt) is made and then she showed us how to make paneer (cheese) with milk and lime. We all thought it would take hours, like curd, but within minutes we tasted warm cheese that had just seperated from the whey in the boiled milk. That was interesting.
She then started the palak paneer (spinach & cheese dish) and made stuffed eggplant, and we finished with roti / chapati. I actually made some chapati and paratha / prathi (same dough as roti, but square). That was fun.
The course was completed by us eating the food that was made and it was yummy :-).

Later it was time for my sanskrit and changing classes. We had a test today in which I fared very well considering I had not really studied... I think the next test will be a lot harder though!

Strike

Sunday we had another led class as is usual on Sunday's. The shala was a lot emptier I noticed this Sunday compared to the previous week. People are starting to leave now...
My stomach was not happy, after the trip to the ashram in the B.R.Hills, but my practice did not seem to suffer. I think the rest was good as my jumpback and jump throughs were getting better. My thumb went numb again, but today it only lasted for half an hour. After practice I sat and watched the intermediate led class straight after us.

Then I went to the Sunday morning market at the Green Hotel with Leena and afterwards I lay down and looked at options for my week of travelling after Mysuru. I had some bananas and biscuits to eat, which was the first time in two weeks I ate processed food, but my stomach was not up for indian food and then I fell asleep for a while.

Leena woke me up and reminded me that there is a conference with guruji. The conference was interesting, but he's english is very difficult to understand and he often speaks Kanada to his grandson Sharath, the language spoken in Karnataka state, and he quotes a lot of sanskrit passages and then he looses me.

Afterwards I went to see Borat at Ken's place (anatomy teacher). There were 20 or more people there. The movie was interrupted by power cuts, which we thought were likely the lighting of the palace, which occurs on Sunday nights at 7pm. I then walked Quyen home and she made some stirfry noodles for supper because neither of us had eaten.

Monday was a bandh (general strike), which seemed to be enforced by police, because even the rickshaw drivers would not take any passengers... so it was extremely quiet considering I am in India!!! There were no restaurants open, no shops opened until late in the afternoon, even then internet place was closed the entire day...
Practice on Monday morning was Mysore style, so you start practicing at your alloted time, which is still 7:30 am for me. I am actually not keen on getting an earlier time slot which happens as you get better or have been there for some time. The reason is because when I finish my practice at around 9 am the shala is a little less crowded and I do not have to move my mat into the change rooms to do the finishing sequence. Once you finish the back bend, the last pose where you will get assisted, you are expected to move your mat to the back of the shala, the stage or the change rooms to make space for the people that are arriving to practice, and do your finishing sequence there.

After practice I just ate some papaya at home and then lay down for 4 hours (stomach still not happy). I slept a little and researched my plans for the final week of my stay in India after my month in Mysore is finished. I am planning to go to Daramsala to see the Dalai Lama teach at Mcleod Ganj.
I then cleaned up around the flat a little because we had invited a whole bunch of people for dinner again. In the afternoon I went to my sanskrit classes and then back home for dinner. Leena and Quyen had cooked again and there were a total of 11 of us, so we had to do a round robin with plates etc... Misa and Nea from Finland had brought 3 big slabs of chocolate and of course I had too much of that!!!

Today, Tuesday, practice was good again, except that I kicked Michael in the head on a jump back... yes, that is how close you are to the people around you. Often you will be halfway on another person's mat for a particular asana...
Did not go out for breakfast again today, because we went to the Metropole Hotel for lunch today, as Michael is leaving tomorrow. He is flying to Mocambique to be with his girlfriend. He has been a love sick puppy and time has not been passing fast enough for him :-)
The hotel was stunning, a heritage building... sixteen people arrived, and the food was great!!! It was a buffet and cost Rs 220, which is very expensive here, but about ZAR 40 or USD 5, 50.

Afterwards Michael and I went to the Southern Star Hotel next door where he had a shave, and I had my head and beard shaved. Still getting used to the funny feeling when I put my hand on my head :-).

Visiting the ashram of Swami Nirmalananda

I noted yesterday that I have been on holiday in India for two weeks now, but it feels like I have had so many experiences in that time that it feels like I have been away for many weeks.

I lacked energy in my practice yesterday so I basically went through the motions. Looking around in the shala, I definitely feel like a complete beginner as most of the students here have been practicing for a long time and easily bind Marichyasana D etc, holding their wrists without a problem, while I am still grapling to get hold of my finger tips...
When the backbend (Urdvha Dhanurasana) came I pushed myself to overcome my fear of it and did it all three times. On the last repetition, I felt a twang in my spine, which is not uncommon and normally just means a tendon or ligament has moved over a bone. However, when I finished my practice, I realised that my thumb on my left hand was numb, which was a little worrying.

I then rushed home, to shower and pack some gear. Michael had told me very little of where we were going, only that we were going to sleep over and that there was only space for 3. I now can tell you that we (Michael, Licha and I) went to visit the ashram of Swami Nirmalananda, Viswa Shanti Nikethana. A swami is somebody who renounces all wordly things. This man lived from 1924 to 1997. He travelled outside of India for many years visiting holy men from all different religions. He then came back to India in 1964 where he created the ashram in the B.R.Hills (Biligiri Rada region) and then spent 11 years in silence. He then wrote some books, teaching his insights, which have won a few awards. His teachings are similar to those of the Bahaii faith, the idea that all religions believe in one and the same god. Often after a yoga class, a yoga instructor will read something during meditation that you can ponder on. Michael uses the teaching of this spiritual man.

The ashram is just over 100km from Mysore, but this is a three hour drive because of the state of the roads and the constant traffic of bicycles, scooters, rickshaws and trucks. We arrived around 12:30 and met Swami Pravananda who currently stays there. It was incredibly peaceful at the ashram without the any of the noises from the busy indian cities and there were lots of birds chirping, wind rustling through the trees... wonderful. Around 1:30 we had lunch, which was the usual rice and sambar, but served on a banana tree leaf. Of course I had to eat with my hands the entire weekend and swamiji actually remarked that I am obviously not used to eating with my hands.

After lunch we headed to the back of the ashram, where we sat for an hour and a bit looking over the valley, enjoying the smell and sounds of nature... Slowly I also got my feeling back in my thumb, but the muscles down the left side of my spine had spasmed and this remained.
Then we rested a bit and later that afternoon we visited a temple on a nearby hill.

Dinner was around six and we had upoma, which is similar to couscous. After every meal we also got served chai, which was incredibly sweet and no matter how often we requested that the woman who prepared the food and served us to use less sugar, it always came tasting like syrup. She also seemed unaware that westerners cannot stomach the indian water and would serve us water to drink every time and we would have to insist "Ila" (no) every time, then we would dry the cup and pour our bottled water. She also would wash the banana leaf, the plate, and try to put the food on the wet banana leaf, which we tried to quickly dry...

After supper we headed back to the lookout point and lay on the rocks watching the stars come out, seeing some shooting stars and the most amazing was seeing 3 satellites, two of which at the same time, crossing each others path. Two of them also seemed to reflect the suns rays on their solar panels at a certain point as they moved across the night sky, because they became brighter and brighter and almost sending a bright flash down to earth and then suddenly appearing like a very fast moving star again. I also identified the constellation of Orion and the little dipper, which I do not ever see in the southern hemisphere.

During meal times, we would chat with swamiji, who gave us each a copy of a book written by Swami Nirmalananda. After getting back from stargazing I started reading and was engrossed for the rest of the evening. We all had a bucket shower, seperately :-), using water heated from a coconut shell fire and then went to bed.
I had a rough night because the muscles in my back had cooled down and the cramp on my spine was agonising. I had to lie on my back with my arms over my head to try keep an arch in my spine to relieve the pain.

Saturday being our day off, we did not put on alarm, but we woke around 6:30 and went to the lookout at the back and meditated for about an hour while the sun rose.

Breakfast at eight was bhat (rice mixed with vegetables), and I really had not appetite, but I had to eat to be polite. After breakfast, the three of us discussed the retreat Michael was building in Mexico and Michael asked us for advice on some ideas he had for a new DVD.
Lunch again at one. Again I had no appetite, but this time at least the food was lighter... beaten rice with coconut.

Later we packed, paid our respects to swami and made our donations and then headed back to the city. Even though I have been sitting all day, I am absolutely exhausted. I am also not sure if I will be able to do my practice tomorrow, but the experience was wonderful and I am really happy that I have a copy of the book "A Garland of Forest Flowers".

Ancient vs. Contemporary

Yesterday and today practice was slow, but I felt I went deeper in some of the postures, even if just a millimeter. But I learnt in the anatomy class that it might even be better not to push the limit all the time. Guruji always says, "Slowly slowly, all shall come!"
Tomorrow, Friday, will be a led class again at 6:15 in the morning, and this usually takes about 1 hour and 15 mins to go through the series. I am looking forward to the led class. It is good because it allows you to reaffirm that your sequence and breath is all correct. This morning I actually left out the headstand Sirsasana, which is my favourite part of the series.

After the anatomy class yesterday, Quin (Vietnamese girl) and I went to the pool at the Southern Star hotel for an hour before my sanskrit course started. It is quite expensive. Rs 30 for the rickshaw, plus Rs 180 for a day visit at the hotel with yogi discount :-).
Today, in anatomy we went through the hand, wrist, arm and shoulder and it made some things clearer to me especially regarding the weight bearing exercises that often cause pain for my pilates students as well. After anatomy, Leena and I took a rickshaw to charamunde hill, where there is a huge black statue of a bull, nandi, representing a daemon, that was conquered by charamunde, which is a reincarnation of one of the gods. Michael had organised a visit with the Sadhu there. We had lunch with the Sadhu, who spoke english very well. One of the guys was asked if he was a good friend of another, and he replied, "No, I just see him every day (at practice) but rarely speak to him." So the Sadhu said, "Just like the relationship most of us have with god."

Leena cooked her first indian meal yesterday evening. She comes from a well off family in Chennai and they have a cook. She made dosa's, which look like pancakes but are made from rice and lentils that are soaked overnight and then made into a batter. So she was very excited.
I also had an invitation from Quin, so after that Leena and I visited Quin and Dyllan and had some nice yummy veggies.
This evening, the two of them (Leena and Quin) decided to cook a meal together at our place and we invited Misa (Finnish girl), Michael and Dylan. So we had 6 people at our place and it felt like a house warming. The food was excellent (indian and vietnamese) and Michael brought music.

The internet cafe that I am using is very popular. There are 6 computers that are always full. It closes at 10pm and yesterday I came at 8:45 and waited until 9:30 for a computer. They also have wi-fi broadband and sometimes there are 10 people here with laptops...

I was thinking today, that I teach Stott Pilates, which is a contemporary approach to the teachings of Joseph Pilates, but when it comes to yoga, I have chosen the very ancient and original practice of Ashtanga as opposed to the more recent offshoots such as power yoga, bikram, anusara etc. But I love the fact that Ashtanga puts sooo much emphasis on the breath when performing any movement... the 'vinyasa' system.
I also learnt recently that the backbend never used to be in the primary series, but in the intermediate series, and maybe this was done to give the western man the ability to progress to something because there is so much emphasis on Padmasana (lotus) position in primary series, which western man is not at all accustomed to because of the daily use of chairs, so the ankles, knees and hips are really stiff.

Interesting community these yogi's

Backpackers anywhere else in the world will go out late, drink alcohol, eat whatever is cheap etc. But here in Mysore, you will find a community of westerners (I don't know if I can call them backpackers, because most of them stay right here for a few months) that will not drink any alcohol, will strictly not eat any meat, go to bed around 8:30 or 9pm and wake up between 3:30 and 6am for their daily practice. All very very nice people from all over the world.

I have met americans (of course), mexicans, chinese, taiwanese, koreans, austrian, german and finnish people. In my anatomy class there is a lady from the Phillipines and a lady from Vietnam and guy from Iceland. Extremely diverse, which is awesome.

It is nice to see some comments on my blog... good to know it is being read :-)
Under the links section on the right I have added a news link under the yoga websites section, and I have added a section on indian mythology and deities.

Yesterday's practice was not great for me because I started getting a throat infection the night before. After practice I had a fruit salad for breakfast at Tina's (which contained pommegranate seeds) and then I headed for a medical store (synonymous with a pharmacy back home)... I found one that looked clean and a little more modern than the other dingy little cubicles. I knew I was not going to stop my daily practice and rest, and I did not want to take a chance of getting really sick, so I bought some anti-biotics, which is not something I would normally go for straight away. So I got a schedule H drug over the counter without a prescription, which I hear is the norm in India.

In my anatomy class we dealt with the knee, which was really intereting again. We looked at the shape and angles of the bones from different bodies and how it would affect how deep each one could get into specific Yoga postures before getting to the limit of bone on bone. I love Ken's analogy: "Do not take the door off the hinge instead of loosening the hinge." In my Pilates anatomy classes we concentrated on the spine, so a lot of this is new and interesting.

In today's anatomy class we dealt with the hip and a little of the lumbar spine, which was again fantastic and I gained greater insight into the differences between the male and female hips and hip joints and the effect these have on the forward and back bends. One of the things that I thought I would mention was what Ken said the first day when I told him I did Stott Pilates. He said, "valuable improvement" and "nice to honour the curves of the spine", referring to the changes Moira Stott had made to the original exercised designed by Joseph Pilates. Coming from him it was a nice validation of the Pilates method I teach.
In class today we actually worked with a partner like the previous day and felt each other's ASIS, PSIS, sacrum, coccyx and pubic bones. You might thing this a little strange, but it worked. All you have to do is stay on the bone while palpating your partners body, and not move off to soft tissue otherwise your partner will think... what the *** are you doing?

In the afternoon I tried to get my Mosquito repellent that I bought earlier, by buying an adapter. After buying 2 different adapters I was still unsuccessful. They have 3 different sizes of plugs/sockets, but my flat only has the middle size socket, and the mosquito repellent only comes in the very small size. However, there is a very small difference between the 2 prong small size and the 3 prong middle size and eventually I found out that I just have to force it in. That is how it is done in India :-) Then I visited Quin, the girl from Vietnam and she invited me around for some supper later, because she was cooking for herself.

At 16:30 I went to the shala to buy Sharath's poster on the primary and intermediary sequence and juruji's little book on Suriya Namaskara A and B. I also found out about the sanskrit course and immediately registered. There are 2 courses, 1 for reading and writing and 1 for chanting, and each cost Rs 700. The reading and writing will be interesting, but the chanting one will teach me the correct pronunciation of the names of the asanas. The courses are for an entire month on Monday, Wed and Friday evenings at 5 till 6 and 6 till 6:45. I had missed the first class for this course which was last week, but there were a few others, and the teacher Laksmi spent some time with us revising the vowels before going on to consonants.
I was going to put an example of a sanskrit letter in this post but cannot even find the font in MS Word...

In the evening I shopped some more and bought a sheet because my sleeping bag was too hot and then Leena moved into one of the other rooms. By this time it was 21:30 and it was time to go to bed, so I did not get a chance to post a message to the blog yesterday.

This mornings practice I took very easy and slowly. It took me a full hour and 35 minutes to get through the full series. Saraswati helped me with the back bend from standing posture and it was the very first time I dropped back all the way to touch my hands on the floor. Saraswati had to really pull me back up to the standing posture.
My lower back is in a little bit of discomfort, but not really painful and I think this is just from the spine opening up. I am not the only yogi feeling this sensation.
In the change room afterwards Michael said that he forgot to warn us about Saraswati. Apparently she pushes people a little further than they are used to...
Sharath's daughter Raddha comes in to the shala around 8 and even though she is probably 3 or 4 years old, she tries to help stretch people or lies on her dads back while he is lying on the back of a student doing Paschimittanasana. Very cute.

At 10 I met Myra, Lori and Michael at the coconut stand (the main landmark everybody refers to here) and then took a rickshaw for about 10 mins (Rs 50) to have breakfast at a particular street vendor that Michael knows about. So the food probably cost about half the price of the transport, but the journey was well worth it because the idli and vaddha was devine.
Then I had to rush back to Gokulam (the area within Mysore where the shala is) to go the anatomy course, which I talked about earlier in this post.

After the course we went next door to a woman's private home. Every Tuesday and Thursday she cooks for yogi's to come to her home and eat a south indian tali for Rs 75.

At 5pm I went to Shakti house for Kirtan, which is sanskrit chanting. There was a guy with a guitar and another one with a violin and they played and sang and we sang along. It was quite a lot of fun and enjoyable.

At 6 Michael and I picked up Leena and we went for supper at the green leaf. I had masala dosa (savoury dosa, which looks like pancake but is not sweet) and a Paneer Palak (spinach and cheese). Leena had a cucumber raita (cucumber mixed with curd) and Micheal had rava idli and shared the paneer palak.
It is interesting that I have not had any cravings for any sweet things since landing in India. At home I have a serious sweet tooth for chocolate and ice cream. I am surprised at the quality of ice cream and cakes and chocolate that they have now in India. I do not remember this from my trip in 1996.

We talked a little philosophy and later went home...

First class with guruji

Last night after writing the blog entry I went to Anu's where a wrapper by the name of Nicholas was saying good-bye to everybody after a lengthy stay here. He calls himself MC Yogi and what he does is rap about India, the Baghavat Gita, and Ashtanga etc. I did not expect anything spectacular, but Michael left a message at Randy's for me to come. I am very glad he did, because he was brilliant. Every verse had the audience laughing.

Afterwards I had some supper, which was very oily and gave me heartburn. Still trying to find all the good restaurants. I then had a bucket shower... A lot of homes don't have baths or showers. The toilet has a drain and you basically pour the water over yourself, then wash yourself and then rinse yourself by pouring water over yourself again. Then you use a squeegy to dry the floor. At least Randy's home had a proper western toilet. Most Indian homes have holes in the ground you squat over, just like in South East Asia.

I then stretched for almost an hour before going to bed. Lots of nervous energy before the 6:15 led class with guruji.
I did not feel that well when I woke up, but after doing Nauli Kriya to cleanse the colon I felt better. Nauli Kriya is a technique shown to me by Michael last year in which you use your abdominus rectus muscles to massage the colon and get a bowel movement going. He said you should do it every morning before your practice so that you are empty when doing your practice. I have been doing it for about 3 months now and am getting better at it and it seem particularly useful at times like this.
Ok, you might have felt that that was overshare :-)

I arrived at the shala at 6. The first class that started at 5 was busy finishing. (It is quite impressive that guruji at 91 gets up that early every morning to teach.) Once they were done we all rushed in. It was so crowded, 2 girls had to actually do their practice on the stage next to guruji's chair. We formed 5 rows of about 14 or 15 people in each. I spoke to a Mexican girl today, Licha, who arrived in September last year and said that it was very different when she arrived.
I landed up in the very front, right under the nose of Sharath and Saraswati. Guruji, who led the first class seemed to take a break for this class and just sat in his chair watching us (and dozing off sometimes). Sharath led the class walking around, correcting, adjusting and saying the dreaded word "Stop". One of the things you agreed to when registering is that you have to stop when one of the teachers says you have to stop in your sequence. Basically this means that you are not ready to continue in the series and you have to wait for everyone else to get to the finishing sequence and then you finish with the rest of the class. Leena was just behing me and was told to stop at Bujapeedasana. I luckily got through the whole series, but that does not mean it will not happen in future.
After our led class was the intermediate series led class at 7:30, which Michael was part of. I sat outside the doors to the room and watched. Guruji led this class again and Sharath walked around and told people when to stop. There were about 4 rows of people that started the session which was far less cramped. 40 minutes into the practice the dreaded stop started and by the end of the class there were only 22 people left. In this session, I guess because there was enough space, when people were told to stop, they moved to the back and did the finishing sequence.
Interesting to note is that the ratio of men to women here is almost 50:50. Of the 22 people who did the whole intermediate series, I think 12 were men.

Afterwards I went back to Randy's and had another bucket shower and then had a red banana for breakfast. Very sweet and slightly thicker than the bananas at home. They also have the small yellow bananas here, but the red ones are the best.
Then I registered for the yoga anatomy course that started at 11:30 and I had an Id photo taken, which I did not have when I registered with guruji yesterday.

Then I took a rickshaw to the green hotel where they have an organic market every Sunday morning. Had some more to eat and then back to start the anatomy course. The course is Rs 1500 for 4 days from 11:30 to 13:30. I know my anatomy from my exercise science courses, but I was told this will be different and will relate to yoga. We covered the feet and legs today and it was very good. Ken, the teacher, is referred to here as the rolfer, as there are many Kens here. He has been "rolfing" for about 12 years and when he teaches he also talks about the Gestalt theory, the Alexander technique and the Feldenkrais method. So he is very knowledgeable and had some good material including videos of the feet of cadavres that have all the outer tissue removed and show the muscles and tendons moving the bones in the foot. We finished applying the knowledge by "sensing" our feet on the ground while doing a simple forward bend and back bend, mainly understanding how the muscles even to the back and neck are affected when we are not balanced or "grounded" properly.

After that I had an appointment with Anne to look at her flat, which I took. It is on the 2nd floor, with balconies, has a nice view, is new and modern with shower heads in the toilets and proper toilets. It will cost Rs 13,500 for a month plus electricity. It has 3 bedrooms so now I need to find some house mates.
Michael then took me to the Green Leaf on his scooter where we met Licha and we had a South Indian Thali for lunch... and yes, I did eat with my fingers... that felt strange!!! Could have used a spoon, but I decided to give it a try :-)

Afterwards, I went back to Randy's to figure out the details of renting the flat... have to organise some mattresses and maybe some chairs and get the one bathroom fixed.
Some Sunday afternoons guruji has a conference session which is basically a Q & A session, but when we arrived there today, we were told that there would not be one.

Now I need to go and move my stuff into the new place...

Settling in Mysuru

Mysore, renamed to Mysuru last year, is a city in southern India famous for its temples, Maharaja's palace, silks and sandalwood. Yet despite being dubbed the cultural capital of Karnataka state, the term "Mysore style" has become famous the world over for its reference to the traditional mode of practising Ashtanga Yoga, a potent method of Self-realisation propagated by the renowned Sanskrit professor and yoga master Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (Guruji).

Yesterday morning, Friday, was a led class, not a Mysore style class. Mysore style means that people come in at different times depending on their ability, do the practice by themselves and the guru is around and watches, corrects and adjusts postures where he sees anything wrong or where he can help deepen the asana.
My body was extremely tired and after breakfast all I did was lay at the pool and doze.

I packed just before lunch (last minute... not unusual for me) and after lunch at 2pm, Michael and I took the taxi to the airport. We arrived at 3:15, which was late, so he checked us in while I tried to get out bags through security. Managed to get it done just before boarding at 15:35. We flew Jet Airways, which is probably the best domestic airline in India. Leena, Lori and Myra had left Purple Valley about an hour before us and were waiting in the waiting lounge for their flight with Daecon Air (cheaper flight that left 15 min after ours). There are very many domestic carriers in India, like the 2 I just mentioned, Indian Airlines I flew to Goa, Kingfisher Air and more.

The food on Jet Airways was absolutely fantastic and so was the service. Michael actually commented that it was probably the best indian food he had ever tasted!!! We landed quite late around 17:45 (supposed to be 17:05) and then we could not find the driver who was supposed to pick us up. Eventually the three ladies arrived and after many phone calls we finally saw our driver. We piled the luggage and ourselves into the SUV and drove to Mysuru. We left at 18:30 and expeced the 135 km drive to be around 2:45 hours long. I took about 1,5 hours of traffic jam in Bangalore to finally get on the highway, which was still a harassing experience because Indian drivers tend to drive in the middle between two lanes with their lights switched off, because they think the light uses up either petrol or the battery!!! When they are about to pass somebody, they hoot and flash their lights and then switch them off again. They also take their side view mirrors and fold them in completely against the car... The driver said this is because the flashing lights hurts his eyes. Our baggage was piled very high in the back so that he could not see out of the back window, so we were driving around blind it seemed. You must also realise that the "highway" has numerous turnoffs (not offramps) with many a bicycle without lights crossing the road!!!

We stopped off at a hotel to have something to eat... ended up being quite oily and very hot and we finally arrived around 23:00. We dropped the 3 ladies off at a place Myra had organised and Michael and I crashed at Randy's place. Randy is an american, who is retired and has spent the last 5 years in Mysuru. Michael originally introduced him to Mysuru. We stayed up chatting until about 1 am and then went to sleep. This was the first glimpse I had of the western community that has been flocking to Mysuru since the 1970's to learn from guruji.

We woke up very late and Leena, Michael and I started searching for rooms. Michael introduced us to Tina, a lady he calls his indian mother, as she had taught him how to cook indian food. I also saw some flyers at her restaurant for an Anatomy course with specific emphasis on Yoga that will start tomorrow for 4 days. I am extremely worried about being bored out of my mind, staying for a whole month in 1 city in India, so I am considering this, but first let me get registered. Went to the bank and withdrew enough money to pay the required 1 month minimum registration fee of Rs 26,900. In the meantime Lori and Myra had found a 3 bedroom place for Rs 12,000 that Leena will also stay at if she can get registered with guruji. At 4pm we phoned one of the places I had decided upon (Rs 7,500 for the month) but were told that it had already been rented out.

Then at 4:15 we walked the block from Randy's house to the Yoga Shala and because Michael knew guruji very well he got us registered first (we were not the first in the queue). I was quite nervous about not getting in, but was relieved after that was sorted out. We all are in the 7:30 am class. Tomorrow morning though we have to be there at 6 for the led class at 6:15. Fridays and Sundays are led classes.
Meeting guruji, his daughter Saraswati, grandson Sharath and Sharath's daughter was also nice. Sharath had taught at Purple Valley before while Lori was there and she gave Sharath a picture of him, his wife and their daughter at the retreat as a gift.

Then I drove to another place about 15min walk from the Shala, which I hope to rent for Rs 13,000 with 3 bedrooms, but the lady was not there so I will have to try again later.

Second last day at Purple Valley

My body is not feeling that sore anymore, but a little tired. I usually get to the Shala before the rest of the 7:45 group and Michael told me to start immediately when he saw me come in today. For the last 2 days, I have been working alone, without Candice and Sarah. I went through my practice and while doing Mareechyasana I realised I had left out 3 asanas, Prasaritha Padothanasana, Purvatanasana and Janu Sarushasana C. Damn!!!
When I got to Supta Kurmasana, Michael assisted me to bind my hands behind my back and get my feet over my head as best as possible. He then led me through the rest of the series. I did the backbend 5 times today and then he assisted me with the start of going into the backbend from standing. Today was the last time we would practice Mysore style. Tomorrow is full moon and Michael will take us through a led class tomorrow morning at 6:45. PJ, like most Indian people, does things taking the stars into account and in Mysore, there will be no class on full moon and new moon days.

Since we had another afternoon session today, I did not go outside today to explore... I will still have lots of time going to Markets when in Mysuru. I spent some time cooking in the sun, swimming, and practicing on the slackline. Yesterday I had finally been able to stand up onto it and stay up for 4 to 5 seconds before falling off. Today I took 1 or 2 steps. Just like in yoga... progress slowly slowly :-)

The afternoon session with Michael started with a Q & A session as usual. The most interesting question I remember was what the chants at the beginning and end of practice meant. The first is literally bowing to the lotus feet of the past gurus and Patanjali who wrote down the yoga scriptures. The chant at the end asks that the rulers rule with justice, that knowledge be available to everyone etc.
We then worked on backbends. We did a short series of asanas so that we were nice and warm and then he started by telling us to lie on our stomach and keep the straightened legs on the floor as we lifted the upper torso. Then lift the torso and the legs, keeping the legs together and straight. Then we grabbed the ankles and lifted up again but keeping the knees together. He then asked us where we felt that. Then we did the same thing again this time allowing us to open the knees, which is the same as the Bikram backbend in prone position. He then asked us again where we felt that and everybody said the back!!! So his point is that the legs are so important in the backbend and when we walk hands and feet together, we should walk the hands towards the feet and not the feet to the hands. When people say they don't like Ashtanga, because their spine hurts but they feel nothing in the legs, it is because they are not using the legs properly.
We talked about the spine having its greatest mobility in the lower back (because the ribs are attached to the Thoracic spine) but that we should not just rely on that. We then worked on opening the shoulders and the upper spine. First we stood on our knees and grabbed our feet from behind while bending back. Then we placed the hands against the wall with our knees on the floor and arched the back and held that for about a minute. Then we did the stretch I would normally consider a tricep stretch but he showed us how to stretch the shoulders by lifting the gaze and pushing the head against the arm. Then we worked with partners as in the picture on the left and lastly we did handstands against the wall, but the hands placed some distance from the wall and then dropping the bum and legs against the wall, the back arching towards the wall.
We finished with the finishing series and then some meditation.

Dinner had a festive spirit to it, because we all knew it would be our last dinner together as most people will be going home or going elsewhere in India. After that we put on some music and Iman did some belly dancing for us...