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...