30 January 2009

Practicing with Lino Miele in Kovalam

Day 1: Sunday (25) - first practice with Lino and workshop on jump through
This morning I was woken up the sound of "Vande Gurunam" being chanted by the class on the rooftop. Lino had asked me to come at 7am or earlier. It was obviously around 6am, as this is when he starts with the first bunch of students, the ones who have been here for some time. It is interesting that both Lino and Nancy did not do lead class like in Mysore. I snoozed some more and then got ready and went upstairs to do my first practice with Lino. Lino and Desiree, his partner, who is from Denmark I found out, and another assistant, were busy adjusting students, of which there were probably just fewer than 20. Apparently they have up to 150 students practicing with them in December and January. But I was also told that Lino then has 5 assistants helping him. I have asked myself why students would come to India to practice with Lino for long periods of time rather than at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (AYRI) in Mysore, especially since you can only be authorized as a teacher if you go to Mysore yearly for at least a month. Maybe it is because there is a little more personal attention with Lino, maybe because Mysore is very daunting and maybe because Lino is just such a respected teacher.

The shala is quite nice with a bluish greenish tiled floor and open sides, like a balcony. There are roll down bamboo blinds surrounding the sides and as you get up the stair case, about 4 floors, there is a little area where has his DVD's and posters for sale and they have a water filtration system where students can fill up their water bottles with filtered water. Kovalam has huge litter problem and the Indian people are just burying all the rubbish, in particular the plastic bottles, which is causing lots of pollution.

After I was practicing, there were more people that walked in and placed their mats in the back of the room and started practicing. This was a Mysore style class and people are asked to come in at staggered time intervals of 15 mins, with the beginners or new people coming in at the end. I was a little early, but Lino is very easy going and does not mind I am sure. My practice felt fine. Lino gave me one adjustment in Parsvakonasana, and then he came to me just before finishing series and said that I have just arrived and that I should take it easy, indicating that I was forcing my breath too much. I took that as a sign that I should definitely not start doing any second series poses. I had been feeling a little pain in my sacro illiac joint, so I took my back bends quite easy but completed on drop back. After a long rest (I do not say Savasana on purpose - see later) trying to still the mind, I spoke to Lino, who I think was getting ready to do his own practice. He mentioned that in Mysore the etiquette is to practice primary series for whole month before doing another series. I thought it was only a week. Anyway, tomorrow is full moon day, so in Mysore there will be no practice, but Lino does keep his shala open and we can come practice, but he said it should only be primary. He said on Wednesday I could start with some second series, being very aware that I am only spending one week with him.

Lino has his book that I already bought on my last trip to Mysore, but he also has 3 DVD's, one of which is him doing second and third with a woman who started Ashtanga when she was 60 and the video was done when she was 70, and a poster of third series, all of which I would like to buy. Desiree told me that the prices have been reduced because we are in India, but they are actually still quite expensive. The only bonus is that I would not have to pay shipping charges if I bought them here.

I had breakfast at Hotel California, which is a heavily advertising its Ayurvedic facilities, but the restaurant is a straw hut underneath palm trees behind the hotel. I then went back to my room, which I realised was a dingy dark place, so I was glad I had searched for room elsewhere. I took a walk to see if the people in the room I wanted had checked out, then I packed and moved my stuff. I am now on the second floor of the Hotel Sky Palace, just behind the beach, close to some good Indian vegetarian restaurants, which Bindu, an Indian woman from the UK showed me to in the evening. I could have gotten a room downstairs at Rs 350, but upstairs is a little more private. It took some bargaining to get the room at Rs 450, down from 500. The downstairs room was also offered to me at 500 to start with. The room has 2 beds, warm water, but there is no real shower. There is a western toilet and there is a showering handle, but this only has cold water... hot water comes from a separate tap and the pipe attached to the showering handle is not very long, so I basically have to practice chair pose while I am holding the shower handle over my head.

I then went in search of an ATM as I had run out of cash and this took me on an excursion of the area. I ended up at the Leela Hotel on the top of the hill, which is absolutely beautiful, but room rates go all the way to Rs 110 000 for the presidential suite during high season. I then had a swim in the ocean which was really nice. The bay does create some nice waves you can body surf on and the water is really warm. As I was swimming a wooden boat with 6 rowers in the back came past me with a long rope attached to the back. At the beach it just turned around and left. Soon I saw a group of men hauling on the rope, which went on for at least an hour. They were pulling in a net. I had to leave before the whole spectacle was over, to get ready for the workshop with Lino at five.

Before the workshop I paid for the week, € 160, but as I did not have Euro, he allowed me to pay in US. Waiting for the workshop to start, I finally met some of the other students. I found it interesting that there were 2 girls who were from Russia. There were people from Brazil, obviously Scandinavia, Scotland, the US of course and some Italians of course.
Lino is very charismatic and funny. He came in, leant against a pole and began by saying that he is a teacher but he feels that his brain is empty and that we should help him come up with his own questions so that we can answer these questions together. Nobody quite knew what to do with that, but eventually someone asked him how to deal with injuries. He said there are 2 types of injuries, one which we feel only during our practice and then we are fine and another, which we feel all the time... "Mamma Mia!" He told us that he had knee problems for 3 years when he started yoga and he showed us how he used to limp. He acts and role plays all the time. He acted as his friends asking him if he does yoga and he says yes, and then the friend asks, "aren't yogis supposed to be flexible?" and he limps on like a geriatric and says "Yes"... quite funny when you see him to it. His friends used to tell him to stop yoga. He says doctors just tell you to go have an operation, but he says if you go have an operation then you are a dead man. He says, all it takes is time!!! showing us how his knee's move now. When his leg is broken, then he'll go to a surgeon.


He then discussed becoming a teacher. He says who cares how many certificates you have, rather than go spend thousands going on teacher training, give the money to him and he will say, "ok, now you are a teacher". He said, you must know the system and when somebody comes to you and says show me, you say "No" and then eventually you will begin to teach. The students make you a teacher. He says you must become the system, you must swallow the pill and then you are the system. It is a scientific system. He asks "scientific, what is scientific about yoga?" He said he asked guruji, who said the breath, working with the energy in your body through your breath. Every movement is a breath, there are no poses in the vinyasa... you never hold your posture. He says there is not warrior pose in Surya Namaskar B. It is 7 and 11. He imitated a student taking forever to get into Trikonasana, making sure every bone is aligned and says "No!" You move in exhale, hold for 5 breaths and move out on the inhale. He then asked us questions like how many vinyasas (counts) for Paschimottanasana (15), and we all did it together and he then showed us that when moving from A to B, you exhale come out of A on count 10, then 11 would be to lift up and then kick back, but if you count 8 now, everybody knows you are going to B, inhale engage bandhas and 9 move into B. So he asked us to do Surya Namaskar with Desiree counting in Danish. He said we all understand because we know the system. He then went on to say that some students stay in led class for 3 years. Then he uses his leg imitating a pushing action and says, "No, you go Mysore style". He says we need to take responsibility in life and so it is with Yoga, we need to learn the system and then practice by ourselves. That is the beauty of Ashtanga and he imitated students just doing what a teacher says blindly following. He then went on to say that we need to experience the yoga for ourselves.

Since last week already, I have been thinking a lot about my classes, and am becoming more and more decided that I should use Mysore style from now on when I teach. It just means the beginners get so much more personal attention, which they need, and since there are too few classes currently so that they can be separated into beginner or intermediate lead class, beginners come out of lead, completely exhausted, saying it is far too hard for them. Mysore will work much better and advancing students will begin to feel the wonder of having their own practice.

He then told us that he went to a bookstore the other day and picked up an Ashtanga book and got really angry when he saw that they were teaching jump through by lifting the hips up and then going down and through. He demonstrated how it should be done. I was amazed how high he lifted his body of the floor and the ease with which he did it... he is about fifty I think. He kept his legs parallel. There was some confusion after the class as to whether he meant straight legs and after I asked him he explained that he did not mean straight legs, but he did not want us to cross the legs. I have been doing it with crossed legs from the very time I started Ashtanga and Nancy last week had said that Sharath does not allow straight legs anymore because people jump through with momentum, rather we should jump through with crossed legs and get control with the bandhas. I will need to ask Sharath exactly what he wants. Anyway, I tried to go through with parallel legs and Lino explained that I must not lift the hips, but go straight through. These are actually two different methods that I had researched when doing my jump through workshop at home - I think Matthew Sweeney says we must lift and lower, whereas ??? says we should go straight through. Nancy had not commented to me about my jump through and I don't know if Lino would have said anything to me if it was not for the workshop. I guess that it is fine if you can do it, but someone did say to me that lifting up caused her some shoulder pain and when she stopped jumping through by lifting up the hips, the shoulder pain went away. So Lino's stance is not to lift, but jump straight through. I practiced this a few times and for the first time in my life I actually got my legs through, although I was practicing without my mat so that my feet could slide through easily.

In the evening Bindu showed me the Indian vegetarian restaurants which were a little way behind the beach, but were more authentic and cheaper to all the restaurants on the beach.

Day 2: Monday (26) - sweaty stuff
It is Republic Day in India. I remember that this is the day I arrived in Mumbai 2 years ago. Today is also full moon day and there was going to be an annular eclipse of the sun. I woke up feeling like a train had hit me, even though I had had six hours sleep. I dozed until 6:50 and then quickly got ready and walked to the Hotel Peacock. I did not feel like practicing at all. It was extremely warm and humid and I perspired like a pig. By the end of my practice there were literally puddles on the floor around my mat so I felt quite bad for the adjusters. When I stood up to do drop backs I was amazed to see about 2 to 3 drops falling off me almost every second. Lino had actually talked about people drinking water during practice at the workshop the day before and mentioned Stefano sweating a lot. He made a joke that Stefano will bless the rest of us with his sweat when he wipes the sweat off his forehead and then shakes his hand. He did not mean that there was anything wrong with sweating, it is good to cleanse the body and we are all different, some people don't sweat at all, but we should not drink water just before or during practice, just to sweat more.
Today, Lino asked me to change my hands to the other position in Prasarita Padotanasana C, which I found extremely difficult, especially with sweaty fingers. I need to be adjusted in this position in future. He also showed me that I am doing too many movements moving from one side to the other in Parsvotanasana. I am probably doing the same in the other standing poses too.

The weather was not fantastic and I spent the day working on my laptop in a restaurant overlooking the beach and the ocean.

Day 3: Tuesday (27) - visiting Trivandrum
My practice today was absolutely fantastic, and I went into the second series. Lino adjusted me into Paschasana and it was the first time I had ever been able to get to my wrist on the left side. Right side I could not get as deep, but I am aware that that side is not as good. I carried on by myself and was helped in Kapotasana by Roxanna. My shin slipped on the wet mat, so I was not happy with it but carried on. I was wondering when Lino would stop me. Roxanna, the assistant, assisted me again in Supta Laguvajrasana (sitting in lotus and crossing the arms behind your back grabbing hold of your toes and then leaning back and placing your head on the floor) and then I made a mistake and started with the twists instead of going into Bakasana A (Crow Pose). Roxanna corrected me, and then Lino came over and asked if I had bound my hands in Supta Laguvajrasana. I cannot keep the bind when dropping my head back onto the floor, so in other words that meant I had to stop there... pity :-)

I did not carry my cotton mat to India and am intending to purchase another one here, but have not found one yet, so my mat is extremely slippery as it is so wet and Lino remarked that it is quite dangerous doing drop backs on the wet mat, which is totally true.

During breakfast Lea from Denmark mentioned she wanted to go to Trivandrum to see the town before she leaves on Wednesday night to go back home. I decided that I'd go with her, partly because I wanted to see the town and partly because she did not seem too comfortable going by herself and nobody else was keen to go. I found out later that it was her first time to India, the hotel had arranged transport from the airport to Kovalam for her, so she had never even been in a Rickshaw before and she was very conscious about walking around in town and being looked, because of not following the Indian customs. We took the bus from Kovalam to Trivandrum (half an hour), which was dirt cheap at Rs 9 each (less than 2 Rand, for the international reader, 1 USD = 49 INR). In the buses, it is custom for the women to sit in front and the men to sit in the back, so we sat near the middle with her in front of me.

During the trip, Lea told me that she had done the trip to the tip of India, which I was interested in, but it is a whole day trip and would be quite expensive for me to do by myself. I also found out that Lino allows her to carry on past Supta Laguvajrasana, but she get stuck in Eka Pada Sirsasana (One foot behind the head), which is something I can do, so it seems Lino is pushing me a little to concentrate more on this pose :-). Some schoolboys got onto the bus and the one sitting next to me was quite helpful, telling me about the Attakul temple and showing us where to get off. In one of the restaurants I had heard some nice music and found out it was a CD of music from the Attakul temple in Trivandrum, which is supposed to be very famous. The mantra is not in Sanskrit, but in the local Malayalam language, but I thought the music would be really nice to do yoga to.

In Trivandrum we went to the Chalai Market, the Big Bazaar store and then took a taxi to see the oldest Zoo in India, established in 1857. The state we are in is called Kerala and has a socialist government style, which is very successful. The state has almost 99% literacy and a very good health care system according to the Lonely Planet guidebook. I found the Zoo very sad though. The enclosures were not as big as the Lonely Planet made them out to be. Lots of the enclosures did not have signboards explaining what animals were inside and the signboard that were there looked like they had not been maintained since the British left. However, many enclosures did have a big marble stone put into the wall of the enclosure inscribed with which town official had opened the enclosure and these were all dated between 2001 and 2003.
We saw two Indian elephants chained to posts, not being able to move more than a meter away from the post, and in one of the bear enclosures, a bear had fallen into the 5 meter deep trench behind the wall of the enclosure meant to safeguard the visitors from the bears. I don't know how long he had been stuck there, but he definitely did not seem that healthy anymore.

We then had to head back so we could make the 5:30 Pranayama session in the afternoon. The rickshaw driver took us to the wrong bus station, so it took us ages to walk to the KSRTC bus station and my feet were quite sore. We finally got onto the bus which was quite crowded and the bus driver was driving like a bat out of hell. Quite an experience when you're not sitting down!

Day 4: Wednesday (28) - where is my hair?
I guess my body is starting to get tired or I am not sleeping enough. I had been working again last night and I woke up with a slight headache. I had tried to wake up early so that I could watch the first half hour of the practice. Diego from Brazil is practicing third series and the thought had crossed my mind that I should just skip second series and just do third... just kidding... but it looks so beautiful, and like a lot of fun... I know I will enjoy if I ever get there :-).
I started off slowly, but by the time I had finished my third Surya Namaskar B (Sun Salutation), I realised my headache was gone. The beauty of doing yoga! My back felt great, I had no Sacro Illiac joint pain, not even a hint, for the first time in many months. My upward dogs, arching and extending the upper back, were feeling very good. My twists were really deep, holding on to my shins almost in Marichyasana D and being able to straighten my spine and sit up tall.
My shoulders had been getting tired yesterday and today from doing the jump through's with legs parallel. When I jump through with my legs crossed, I have a lot more control using my bandhas (core strength) and so I jump slower and so in my opinion, jumping through with legs parallel is a little harder on the shoulders. However, maybe I will develop even more core strength in time and be able to jump through slowly with parallel legs...

I had no adjustments today until I got to Bekasana (Frog pose). Roxanna helped me again in Kapotasana and I got really deep, being able to touch just beyond the balls of my big toes. In Supta Laguvajrasana, I was able to keep hold with my right big toe with my right hand. Not good enough for Lino :-). He assisted me with my drop backs again. He said again, "Ai ai ai, Andreas, why no mat?" He suggested I wait to buy a mat in Mysore as they are cheaper there and there will be more variety. This is what I had been planning.

After practice I asked Lino what would be the easiest way to get to Mysore (Colonial name - new name is Mysuru), as he had obviously done the trip many times and I have not been able to find a direct train. He suggested that there is a train via Bangalore (new name Bangaluru) that takes 18 hours, but the easiest is to fly to Bangalore.

After breakfast with everybody at the Hotel California, I went and got my head shaved... yes, I did it again :-) The guy did not use a machine, did not cut my hair first and did not use any shaving cream.... he just wet my hair, and used a wet shaving blade. Afterwards I went to the beach to get a tan on my white scalp... I met Stuart and Leena at the beach and they were very concerned about me burning and offered hats and suntan lotion :-)

My thoracic spine and back did feel a little tight all day, I think it is just the muscles being stiff from all the deep upward dog back extension and back extensions and back bending in second series, which it is not used to yet, but no lower back issues anymore.

For dinner I went to the Fusion restaurant, a very expensive place at the beachfront, because it was Lea's last evening. The menu looked great, with Indian food on the left hand side, western food on the right and fusion dishes in the middle, but the food was not that great and I was still hungry after my meal, so afterwards, I went back to one of the cheap Indian vegetarian restaurants behind the beach and got some more food. Then I went onto the net and finally I purchased my plane ticket to Bangalore for Saturday. I had heard that the trains from Trivandrum to Bangalore were booked out until the middle of February. I have found out that there are many buses travelling to Mysore daily from Bangalore, which I will do rather than going by train, which was my original plan. I also sent out some mails requesting help with accommodation in Mysore, and the response was that there is nothing available.

Day 5: Thursday (29) - Mysore or Lino?
This morning I got up early to watch the beginning of class at 6. When I got there, students had already begun practicing and Lino and Desiree were not there yet. These are all students who know what they are doing and you don't want to be adjusted in your first few sun salutations anyway. Lino did not remark about my haircut when he arrived, but greeted me with a smile and asked if I wanted to take photos. After another 15 mins or so, he stopped the class and did the opening chant. This is the same procedure that was done at the Miami Life Centre, Kino McGregor's studio, when I was there in December 2007.
I then started my practice. In the two weeks I have been in India so far, my practice has already changed immensely and I have learnt a great deal. I enjoyed my primary series and even began working on jumping directly into Titibasana (Firefly pose) without touching the feet onto the floor from down dog, which I had never had the courage to try before.
Lino came to me during Paschasana (noose pose - first pose in second) and said I should use a towel rolled up under my heels when I practice at home, to give me more balance. When I got to Kapotasana, I think Lino and Desiree were busy (Roxanna had left yesterday) so I did Kapotasana twice by myself and then Lino came and assisted me. Today I touched the arches of my feet, and then he said to me... "Come Andreas, you have to make a plan" referring to Supta Laguvajrasana. He really wanted me to succeed in this posture today. I had brought an extra towel for him to sit on while he adjusted me, because the floor is always so sweaty around me... and I used a towel around my toes so I would not slip off. He took hold of my arms really strongly and I went into the full posture without slipping off... I had imagined this taking me another year to achieve so I was pleasantly surprised, happy and thankful for Lino's help. I then asked Lino if I could do Bakasana, which he was happy with. I knew that I could do these quite well and then I think I should have waited for him, but since I knew the postures I carried on doing the two twists and then did Eka Pada Sirschasana and then Yoga Nidrasana (both legs behind the head). I did not know if I should be sitting upright or lying down getting into the pose, so I don't know if I did it incorrectly, but he came to me and said, "You have no teacher, you learn from book, from video. Basta, Basta!". I need to mention here that the reason I was pushing so hard was because it was my last Mysore style class with Lino, Friday is lead class, in which I cannot practice second series and I am not expecting to get to practice much of second series if any at all with Sharath in Mysore, as he has so many students that he cannot give much individual attention. I do not know how long it will be before I can learn from a certified Ashtanga teacher again.
I am barely just beginning to practice second series, yet I was surprised to see some of the other students who had finished, some also practicing second, were watching me practice. I was actually a bit self conscious and wondering about all the things I might be doing wrong. Anyway, I enjoy doing yoga and that is what yoga is about, not which postures you are doing or which series you are doing... I am actually considering doing primary series with full vinyasa (coming back to Samasthithih (standing) after every pose) for a while, so I get a better understanding of the vinyasa count, but I am also quite keen to continue practicing second series.

Anyway, Lino came back to me after I had done my 3 Urdhva Dhanurasana (upward facing wheel - backbends) and my 3 drop backs and said I should do "boom - boom". We had all been laughing about his expressions the day before... by boom - boom, he meant going into handstand, dropping the legs over into urdhva dhanurasana and then standing up. After he understood that I had never done them before, he told me how he wanted me to start and helped me through 3 repetitions and then we did one more drop back, leaning back 5 times and going all the way back on the 5th rep. He said in future I should do 5 urdhva dhanurasana, 3 drop backs, 3 boom-booms and then the 5 rep drop back. The boom - boom is actually a preparation to the tic-tac's, which is going from standing with hands on the floor to hand stand to urdhva dhanurasana, back up to handstand, back to standing with hands on the floor and repeating this.
Nancy had told me that she would get people to start practicing the "boom - boom" (not her expression) after second series and then tic-tac's when doing third series. I think I will be happy practicing just boom - boom for a long time to come. Coming back to hand stand from Urdhva Dhanurasana is extremely difficult.

I spent the day walking around in the sun and for lunch I had a thali (Indian traditional meal consisting of rice and some vegetables served on a rectangular plate that has got separate sections for the sauces and vegetables and the main are for the rice), which one of the very poor women prepares from her home for a mere Rs 50. Some of the yogi's decided to eat there to support her. Bindu and Rebecca were asking me why I was going to Mysore and that I should rather stay and practice with Lino, because I will learn so much more from Lino. Mysore is also much more expensive than Lino. Lino has just begun to know me, and there are such few students in the shala, that it definitely a very good question that I needed to address for myself. Am I going to Mysore just to be authorised or certified to teach? That is not what yoga is about for me... I am passionate about the practice and the experience of yoga. I could learn so much more from Lino during my time here in India. Am I after the certificate or the knowledge? This is exactly what Lino talked about on Monday... who cares if you have the certificates... have you got the knowledge... have you experienced it yourself?
It is sad that Mysore is not what it used to be. The Ashtanga sequence of postures is even being reduced in order to make the practice shorter, so that Sharath can handle the number of people coming to Mysore. Later in the evening, after the pranayama session, I talked to Desiree about it and for the following reasons, I have decided to carry on with my original plan to go to Mysore, I have the plane ticket, Lino's workshop is finished in two weeks time (although I could then travel to Mysore and practice with Sheshadri or BNS Iyengar), it will be interesting for me to see the changes since I my last visit, I am hoping that Sharath will give returning students more attention (I will try to have more interaction with him), I will be able to ask Sharath questions about some of the conflicting things I have learnt, and I will go with no expectations and an open heart, and the energy of the shala will be a great experience again I am sure. In future, I might decide to rather practice for a few weeks with Lino Miele or Paul Dallaghan in Thailand, Nancy Gilgoff in Berlin or Maui, Richard Freeman in Colorado, Matthew Sweeney in Byron Bay, Tim Miller in California, Danny Paradise, Eddie Stern or many others.

In the afternoon I lay on the beach with Ilona, a tall beautiful girl who I thought was Russian. I found out that she is from the Ukraine, had emigrated to Canada and now teaches yoga in Moscow. There are about four other Russian yogis here and all of my neighbours at my hotel are Russian or east European, which I found quite interesting because in all my travels I don't think I have ever met any Russian travellers. Ilona is the only one of them who can really speak English with ease, although not absolutely perfect. She told me a little about the Ukraine and the people and also talked about Andre Lappa , a very well known Yoga Instructor from Kiev, who did not like Ashtanga. Apparently he went to Mysore and was not allowed to go past primary series and did not like it and has now created his own style of yoga called universal freestyle yoga.

We then rushed to the pranayama session at 5:30. Lino spent the first half an hour again answering our questions. The first discussion was whether we should feel guilty when we cannot do our daily practice. Lino says, yoga must not become a religion to us and we should not feel guilty if we did not practice for a day or two, but we should not go past 3 days without a practice because firstly your practice goes downhill and secondly your mind will get affected and then he related it to his experience in 1991 when he was working so hard (theatre director) he did not sleep for 1 and a half months, so no practice. Eventually they went out in Germany after everything was finished and he asked for a beer and a cigarette, both of which he does not normally do.
Being sick is also not an excuse not to do practice. Of course if you have Delhi Belly, you won't practice for two or3 days, but flu for 2 or 3 weeks is not an excuse... then you have to research your own body... something is wrong... you are not supposed to get sick :-) and he referred to the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute with emphasis on the word "research".
He said the only excuses for not practicing though are 1. travelling, 2. travelling and 3... travelling. He told us that a student had once told him that he was doing headstand on the toilets in the aeroplane. If we do this, then we are sick! (in the head).
He went on to explain that even if we are pregnant, have a slipped disk etc, we can do the yoga, with modification of the poses and he gave examples and explained that we must practice with patience and never push, because that is when injuries re-occur and then people say Ashtanga is not for them. And he said all we need is primary series talking about the fact that primary is called yoga chikitsa, yoga therapy. He asked guruji how this healing sequence came about and guruji said his guru told him, but Lino did not believe him and eventually Lino realised that guruji was referring to the guru being his own insight and understanding that comes with many years of practicing and as one becomes wiser. He said guruji is extremely intelligent. Lino also made the point that in the west we want to always progress to the next series, but this is not what Ashtanga is about.

Then Dimitri from Russia brought the discussion back to jump through's, asking if beginners do not find jumping through with crossed legs easier rather than parallel. Lino said that he thinks it will create a habit that will be difficult to break and in his opinion, parallel legs is easier. Use the breath, not muscle strength. Diego from Brazil, who practices third series, made the point that you are more likely to injure hands and knees with crossed legs.

Day 6: Friday (30) - Auroville
I woke up to an overcast sky. The air was very humid, so much so that when I placed my mat down in the shala, there were water droplets on the floor, which I could not explain, but as I was practicing, water droplets were dropping from the roof onto me. It was lead class today and Lino did it the pure traditional way, just counting in Sanskrit and articulating the breath. His count was very even, so the class was not that hard, but I struggled through the practice because I was getting sick. I thought it was just a reaction from the smoking of my new neighbours who had moved in yesterday, but by Saturday I realised that it was a cold, probably because I had left the fan on the night before to try and keep the mosquitoes away. I ended up also straining a muscle inside of my left shoulder blade.

Afterwards I said goodbye to Lino and asked him about learning from books and video's because I was about to buy some of his DVD's of his. He said I should move away from South Africa... haha... or that I should go to an instructor at least twice a year for a week or two. When we took a picture together, he was quite funny because he said only if he can stand on his toes and I bend my knees. Hi is quite a small chap :-)

I spent the day on the beach and again, thoughts of postponing my trip to Mysore came up. Could I change my plane ticket and spend an extra week with Lino? A number of people were leaving this week, but I found out that at least four other people decided to stay another unplanned week. In the evening though, I received an email from one of the people I had contacted in Mysore stating that they had a room available for me, so I did feel better (accommodation was a huge worry) and I took it as a sign that I should go.
Rebecca mentioned that there had been a hijacking in Mumbai, but nobody had heard anything about it.

At dinner I met Anneke, a French girl who told me she had been living in Auroville, close to Pondicherry on the east coast of India. Auroville is an international community, a project in 'human unity' apparently started in the 60's by some hippies and now encompasses more than 80 rural settlements spread over 20 km with about 1700 residents, two thirds of which are foreigners from about 35 different countries. She said that you can stay there for a minimum of a week and you can help out with the work there, but she ended up spending six months there because it was so nice, referring to the atmosphere and attitude of the people.
I also met Kristine from Norway, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting, as I was putting off having to pack!

24 January 2009

Travelling to Kovalam

Saturday (24) - guruji's family tree
On Saturday morning some students actually did get up early to practice by themselves because they felt that because Monday was a moon-day (no practice), that they wanted to get another practice in. I took it easy and after breakfast Ellen showed me her new electrical Shruti box, which Dena Kinsberg, who was here before Nancy, uses in her Ashtanga classes apparently. Then I packed and waited for the taxi, which had been ordered by Linda who was also going to the airport today. Linda is from Sweden, but lives in Bangalore now and we had an interesting chat.
First we chatted about the Jois family tree. Sri K Pattabhi Jois had two sons and a daughter, namely Manju, who now lives and teaches in the USA, Saraswathi, who had two children, Sharath and Sharmilla who now lives and teaches in Bangalore, and another son who killed himself. I found out later from Lino that guruji actually stopped practicing the physical asanas after his son committed suicide. This is an interesting fact to know, because people tend to compare BKS Iyengar, who still practices asanas, with guruji, as they are only about a year apart in age and both were taught by Krishnamacharya, but they have followed two very different styles of doing asana practice.
Apparently suicide is quite common in India, because people are not scared of death. They will be reincarnated anyway, so it is an easy way of escaping debt or a bad marriage, which are often still arranged marriages.

At the airport, we split up, as I was flying to Trivandrum via Chennai (Madras is the old name) on Paramount airways, and she was flying back to Bangalore. Chennai is on the east coast of India and Goa and Trivandrum are both on the west coast of India, so I was flying across the country twice in order to get to my destination, however, the trip would have taken days by train, and I could not find a direct flight to Trivandrum. Paramount Airways is a relatively new airline in India, (there are many airlines here, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Red, Deccan, IndiGo, SpiceJet to name a few) that currently only operates in the south of India, and it is based in Chennai. I had an hour flight to Chennai, 45 minute stopover, and another hour to Trivandrum. As we were coming in to land in Trivandrum, I saw the Lighthouse and surrounding beaches of Kovalam. This is where I would spend the next week.

Once I got my luggage, I did not get a prepaid taxi for about Rs 330; instead I walked all the way out of the parking lot and asked the first Rickshaw driver for a price, who quoted me Rs 200. I got him down to Rs 150 for the half hour trip back to Kovalam. The taxi driver did not speak much English and he wanted the business, but as I suspected, he took me to the wrong beach and did not know where the Peacock Hotel was. He then asked me for more money, which I flatly refused. To the Indian people, it seems to be a game to try and get the most money they can out of you. Somebody actually told me to look at it as a game, which helps not to get upset with it. So I try to smile from now on, when they begin with their tactics. Eventually he dropped me off near a sign pointing to the hotel and I had to walk down a steep hill to the hotel as the sun was setting and people were starting to light fires for cooking dinner.

Lino runs his yoga retreat from the roof of the hotel, which is why I asked to come here. I intended to find a hotel close by, but as it happened, the hotel did have a very cheap room available. It was dark, and there was no electricity, which was a daily half hour occurrence around this time, so I did not feel like searching for a better deal. I dumped my stuff and explored the waterfront, which is a very loud, busy area, with lots of inflated prices at restaurants and hotels serving western food. The fish is apparently supposed to be very good here, but I was going to stick to my vegetarian diet while in India.

Who is Lino Miele?
Let me start this post by explaining why I chose to practice with Lino Miele. As you can read in my posts about my previous trip to India for yoga, I became really passionate about Ashtanga Yoga after doing Michael Gannon's workshops in SA and then coming to India to practice with him and join him to Mysore. Michael Gannon is a student of Lino Miele. Lino Miele has been practicing since 1984 or 1988? and started teaching in 1994. He is Italian and has opened up schools in Rome, Finland and Denmark. He is opening a new school in Italy in March this year.

Lino also wrote the book "Ashtanga Yoga", which Lino himself jokingly refers to as The Bible. In the book he explains how guruji became his teacher, and the book seems to have been a close collaboration with guruji and Sharath. There are many many good Ashtanga instructors, but I think none have the kind of relationship with guruji that Lino has. Lino is in his 50's I think, but is still like a naughty child and has the ability to make you like him straight away and apparently he and guruji are quite close. Lino still visits guruji every year and will again this year after his workshop finishes on the 13th of February. Lino has this workshop in Kovalam, India, every year for 12 weeks, from November. (Guruji has been in and out of hospital regularly over the past year.)

Practicing with Nancy Gilgoff at Purple Valley in Goa

Sunday (18) - "Yoga is self discovery"
Sunday morning on the 18th was our first practice, which was Mysore style (for explanation refer to my blog on my previous trip). Normally, in Mysore though, Sunday practice would be led. We start the practice at 8am every day, which I was unhappy about because I am used to 6am and it means half the day is over when I finish practicing and have breakfast, but I was actually woken up by my alarm clock, which is unusual for me... I normally wake up before my alarm goes off at 5 to get ready for my six o'clock practice. I had decided the night before that I needed to rest and did not do any work, so I did get a good night sleep (approx. 7 hours).

The first thing that Nancy made us do in the shala, was for the right side of the room to face the left side of the room and vice versa. She said this is how guruji made them do it in the early days, and a psychologist had mentioned to her that it creates more of a sense of being a group and when the teacher walks through the class, the teacher becomes part of the group as opposed to being seperate. I think this is a very interesting way of setting up the class and I liked it.
My practice was alright. I just did primary series and left out the drop backs. Nancy actually said that guruji would tell them not to practice the first day after flying, to allow the body to settle, so we should take it easy. I did get some comments from other students that my practice looked beautiful. That is just because I can do jump backs and jump throughs. If I had to compare my practice with that of Jason (he started practicing third series as I was finishing) or Jeff (who practiced with us) I had a long way to go.
Nancy adjusted me in one of the twisting postures and then waited for me to do a "vinyasa" (jump back and jump through) before going into the other side. She later in the discourse told us that the etiquette when a teacher is adjusting you in Mysore style, is to not do the vinyasa, so that the teacher can adjust you in both sides without having to wait and then move on to another student.

I learnt later that primary series is supposed to be nurturing (hard to believe for a beginner :-)) and we are not supposed to be doing fancy stuff in primary. Lots of people have added fancy moves because they have been held back from doing second series for so long. When we jump into a posture and out of a posture we are supposed to have straight legs, except for Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana (one leg folded back forward bend). Nancy is very traditional and does not like people adding any poses to the series.

After breakfast Dr. Vahed gave us an introduction into Ayurveda, a system of traditional medicine native to India. In Sanskrit, the word Ayurveda comprises the words ayus, meaning 'life' and veda, meaning 'science'. He talked about moksha (liberation) from the cycle of death and rebirth, but I have forgotten since I am writing this 2 weeks after the event. Traditional beliefs hold that humans possess a unique constellation of Doshas (biological humors), namely vata (wind/spirit/air), pitta (bile) and kapha (phlegm). In ordre to determine what kind of person you are, i.e.: what qualities you have more of (vata, pitta, kapha) you fill out a questionaire and an ayurveda practitionist will perform some tests. Basically, vata people are dry and slow, whereas the pitta people are more fiery and energetic (I guess this is where I fit in :-)) and kapha people are more grounded moist people. Ayurveda stresses a balance of these three doshas, and imbalances are cured using oil, ghee and honey.
Nancy told us that a vata person should practice after between 9 and 12 in the morning or between 6 and 8 in the evening (now it makes sense that we are practicing so late with Nancy, since she is vata), a pitta person should practice first thing in the morning to get rid of the energy, and a kapha person can practice anytime. According to guruji, the ashtanga vinyasa yoga practice is more suited to the pitta person??? ( I need to check this fact.)

After lunch I went to the german bakery with Sylvia and two girls from the UK. At the bakery we met the four people from Turkey. I saw flyers of the brahmani yoga studio, where they offer "Superhero Acro Yoga Flow" on Thursday evenings, which was interesting to me because I am trying to organise an Acro Yoga teacher to come to South Africa to do a workshop with us. As fate would have it, the couple (girl from germany and guy from Spain) who teach the class actually came to our table because Can was organising for them to go to Turkey. I of course found out when their schedule would be open to come to SA.

At 17:00 we had our first discourse session with Nancy. We began with some breathing exercises to determine if our breath was longer on the inhale or the exhale. Most people's breath is longer on the exhale. Ideally they should be equal. She then talked about the placement of the tongue in the mouth, which was quite interesting because if you place the tongue correctly, (don't place the tip of the tongue, but just behind that, on to the ridge of the palate behind the top teeth) the throat seems to open up more and it becomes easier to make your breath audible, especially the inhale. However, she said the guruji never ever used the word ujjayi when teaching the breath to them and she thinks that that was brought in by westerners. The breath should be audible to ourselves but not like darth vader!

Then she began speaking about energy flows and she told us the story of when her dog died, that she could see the soul leaving through the eyes. Apparently in human beings the soul leaves via the armpits if we have not reached an enlightened state and we are reborn. When we have reached moksha, our soul leaves the body via the crown chakra. She then asked us to down dog and asked us if we were pushing from the shoulder into the ground. We should be pushing down from the elbows into the palms, but the feeling in the armpits should be that of pulling inwards. In other words, when we do our yoga practice, our energy should not be escaping our bodies. (Sharath mentioned two weeks later at the first conference I attended in Mysore, that we should not do yoga outside, because the air will take our energy. I guess this will be difficult for a non-yogi to understand, but I have tried to practice yoga outside and the energy is very different.)
She then compared this to Iyengar practice of extending out of the arm when going into trikonasana. She said in Ashtanga, we don't extend forward, but move straight into the posture and we grab hold of the big toe, in order to create a mudra - an energy circle.
When we do Virabhadrasana II (warrior pose 2), we should have the feeling of drawing our arms inwards even though we are extending the arms out. To me this makes sense, since what you are actually doing is tightening the muscles around the shoulder joint, using a subtle energetic feeling.
She also made us aware that we should not come to Namaste (bent arms) between sun salutations. We should keep the arms strong and straight to keep the energy flowing strong.
She said that the bhandas help us seal the energy inside our bodies. When we practice we want to slow the breath down and keep drawing our energy inwards, otherwise we age faster.
Later during the course, it became even more evident to me how important this energy circle was in Ashtanga. She said that the extension of the spine going into Paschimottanasana (forward bend) for instance, comes from other styles of yoga. Guruji said first put the forehead onto the knee to create the mudra, and then start extending forward. The other effect this has is to enable the student to engage uddiyana bandha more. (See later).

Practicing with Nancy Gilgoff at Purple Valley in Goa

Nancy mentioned that the asanas wring our body out, and the final resting posture is a healing or receiving posture. She also seems to have learnt a lot from a spiritual teacher called Baba Hari Das, who when asked if one should learn from one teacher or many, he replied, "Bee's do not make honey from only one flower!". This was relevant for me, as I had chosen not spend two weeks with either Nancy or Lino, but 1 week with each. I have been questioning this decision often, because each teacher needs some time to get to know you, so you can progress much more if you stay with one teacher for two weeks rather than just one. When I had to prepare to leave Kovalam, see Thursday the 29th, I was even considering giving up one week in Mysore, to be able to study an extra week with Lino.

Day 2: Monday (19) - moving into second series - Nadi Sodhana
Today I was still a little stiff from travelling. I completed primary series and then went into second series as far as Kapotasana (Dove pose - on your knees bend backwards, put your head between your feet and grab your heels - well that is what you're supposed to do!) as this is how far I practice when I practice by myself at home. I also knew the next posture, but Nadia at home had told me that I was not ready for it, so I waited for Nancy, and she gave me the next posture, Supta Vajrasana (Sleeping Thunderbolt pose - sitting in lotus and crossing the arms behind your back grabbing hold of your toes and then leaning back and placing your head on the floor). I did not know it, but this pose was going to be my gateway pose with Lino Miele (see post for the 27th Jan). Nancy told me later that I should always do all the way up to Supta Laguvajrasana (not leave it out) as this really opens up the back and releases the back after the three previous back bends.
When guruji taught her and David, the first time in India, guruji did not give them back bends until the end of second series, whereas these days in Mysore, you are not allowed to move into second series until you are able to come back up from dropping back by yourself. Nancy and David were with guruji for four months the first time and they used to do yoga twice a day and by the end of the four months, they were doing both primary and second series, so they moved through primary and into second very quickly. Manju Jois, David Williams and Nancy still do not teach back bending until the end of second series.

I spent most of Monday morning frantically finishing up the document I had been doing for work, which I had also spent most of the last night on.

In the afternoons discourse session, Nancy talked more about the breath and how it speeds up when we are in difficult postures, or on days we don't feel like practicing. She then moved on to diet and mentioned that when we practice in the mornings, we are not burning off the calories from the dinner the night before, but the lunch from the day before. She told us that she was a vegetarian when she started yoga with guruji and he force-fed her according to ayurveda, which by the way does not decree vegetarianism. Apparently papaya (paw-paw) is the most heating food on the planet and should not be eaten by women who menstruating or are pregnant. A cooling diet is not for vata people, but more for pitta people. Kapha people can eat anything they want. Cooling food includes, coconut and curd, whereas yoghurt (west) is heating. Fasting is not only not recommended, but is considered dangerous, especially if practicing yoga. Garlic is bad for the joints, is not good to eat every day and should be used for medicinal purposes.
Chinese medicine and ayurveda do not promote eating too much raw food. Nancy said it takes twice as much energy to digest raw food than cooked food and it is a fad in the west right now.

She then told us of a three year old boy who wanted to show the adults that he was going to do yoga. He stood on his mat, then adjusted the mat, stood upright again, looked around and adjusted the mat again etc and he never actually did a vinyasa. The adult yogi's laughed, but realised that the child was actually imitating them... She told us that we should not allow ourselves these moments during our practice to wipe the sweat etc, because what we are actually doing is coming out of our practice. Just do the posture without thinking so much. That is actually good advice because so often we struggle to get into a posture because we fear it!

Nancy then asked us to do uddiyana kriya, which is supposed to be very good for digestion. This is just exhaling completely and then pulling the abdominal wall in and upwards as much as possible, holding for ten counts and then releasing and doing it three times. She told us that guruji was always very secretive about something and would never teach her, but would teach other women. Only when she was past menopause, did she find out that it was nauli kriya, which guruji does not recommend for women who wanted to become pregnant as it apparently has a shredding effect on the uterus.

She finished by asking us if we had seen the 1938 video on YouTube of Krishnamacharya doing yoga asanas. She said that they looked sloppy, which we agreed with. The point was that in Ashtanga, there is less importance placed on the posture, but what is important is what is happening on the inside of your body, the breath, the dristi (focus) and the bandhas. At the end of the video, Krishnamacharya does some pretty amazing uddiyana kriya.

Day 3: Tuesday (20) - women and ashtanga
In today's practice Nancy progressed me through Bakasana (Crow pose) A & B, Bharadvajasana, Ardha Matsyendrasana (two twists) and Eka Pada Sirsasana (One Foot behind the head pose). Normally a teacher would never give more than two poses per day, but Nancy knew that I did not have a teacher at home, and that I was only staying for one week, so she advanced me quickly. She was also very impressed that I was able to do the postures straight away, such as Bakasana B which you jump into from down dog. I was shaky because of all the sweat running down my arms, but I held it. When I do my practice, it is hard to see what anybody else is doing as I try to be very focused, but I have noticed that there are a number of other students doing part of second series as well.

In the discourse in the afternoon, Nancy began by telling us that each series of postures in Ashtanga Yoga has a different energy:
- Primary becomes nurturing (hard to believe for a beginner :-)). It is not meant to be an advanced series, and we are not supposed to be doing fancy stuff in primary.
- Intermediate becomes emotional. The liver, which holds anger, is cleansed, so you might get angry during or after your practice.
- Advanced A works more on the channels, so it becomes electrifying.
We should keep the series pure and should not add postures or jump directly into a posture and out of a posture in primary (always straighten both legs first, except for Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana (one leg folded back forward bend)). Lots of people have added fancy moves because they have been held back from doing second series for so long. Nancy is very traditional and does not like people adding any poses to the series. She also said that Sharath does not allow people to jump through with parallel legs, but wants them to be crossed because this requires more bandha control and uses less momentum.

In one of my practices, Nancy adjusted my hips in Parivrita Trikonasana (revolved triangle) by pulling them back and upwards. I struggled with the concept for a few days, but basically she was saying that when moving into the pose or into another pose like Paschimottanasana (forward bend), we should be protecting the hamstrings and sacrum and keep the hips rotated back, put the forehead onto the legs and then extend forward. It also allows us to engage uddiyana bandha more. (The dristi is an eye exercise and helps focus the mind. We don't actually need to see the toes.)
I relate the uddiyana bandha to the transverse abdominus muscle, which we use heavily in Pilates too. Nancy touches people four fingers below the belly button as a tactile queue to help them understand from where to engage it. It should not just be a sucking back, but also an internal lifting or pulling up feeling. She said that this point is exactly where women are cut when a scecaerian section is performed.

She then told us that she used to have 10 day periods and guruji would not allow her to practice for the entire ten days, nor would he even talk to her. (Nowadays, the rule in India is not to practice for three days and in the west, woman are just told not to do any inversions, however, since Ashtanga is such a vigorous practice using a lot of upward lifting of the bandhas, opposing the natural flow of menstruation, and remembering that even down dog is an inversion, I believe it is quite dangerous to practice during menstruation). Nancy complained to guruji's wife who quickly responded with, "shhhh, shhhh". She found out that it was actually a matriarchal society, in that the women started the whole thing. The women stayed in a separate room in which the male children were not even allowed. They did not do any cooking, so the men cooked for the women and the men could not talk to the women. So this gave the women a break from the men. Nancy was 24 at the time and she said she was quite sick and weak, but after spending four months with guruji, her period was down to 7 days and a couple of years later of following guruji advice, she was down to three days. Nancy concluded by saying that men and women really are different and that we should acknowledge and honour this and women should not practice during menstruation. She also noted that her daughter's periods improved after she started practicing Ashtanga yoga.

In the evening, there was a lot of excitement, especially within the American crowd, because Barack Obama was going to be inaugurated as the new president. People were trying to find a place with a TV, and two or three eventually did go to a nearby hotel late in the evening to watch the inauguration.

Day 4: Wednesday (21)
Nancy asked us all to dedicate our practice today to Barack Obama. I went through my practice concentrating on not procrastinating by wiping away sweat etc, and Nancy and her assistants gave me no adjustments in the postures even the really difficult new postures in second series such as Kapotasana (Dove Pose). I did touch my toes in Kapotasana though, which seemed to impress Jason. I was very tired afterwards and Nancy said I should stop and I don't even think I did drop backs.

In Goa, there is a Saturday night market, which I did go to two years ago, which was really enjoyable, however, it has not been running for a few weeks now. On Wednesdays, there is a market in Anjuna. A whole bunch of us went. Vibeke came with me on the back of my scooter. The market was absolutely huge, spreading out from the entrance where we parked the bike on a dusty field, all the way back to the beach. We looked around for a bit, but then decided to escape the hustle and the bustle, by going to the Shore Restaurant on the beach and had something cool to drink.

There was no evening discourse.

Day 5: Thursday (22) - loving kindness meditation
Today was the last day that I could practice the second series, because Friday would be a lead class. Nancy said I should go directly into second series today (no primary series) and I went as far as she had taken me before and then she gave me new postures. At one point she hesitated to give me another posture wondering how tired I was, but I said to her, that I would take whatever posture she gives me and ended up doing the entire second series. Nancy still adds the scorpion pose after Karandayasana (Himalaya Goose Pose). This appears to have been in the series before.

On Thursday evening, Nancy did not do a discourse, but we had a meditation session after dinner. Katie is a friend of Nancy's, who has a very interesting lifestory of when she went to Burma to learn vipassana (meditation) in a monastery. She told us how slowly they would move so that they were aware of every moment, which was quite funny. It was in the late 1980's and she decided to stay longer and longer at the monastery and eventually they got word that the country was in a civil revolution and she eventually got to speak to the ambassodor from england who said, "It is quite alright, everything is under control, but the embassy staff are leaving the country today." She eventually did get out, but it was a very interesting story.

She compared yoga, which uses dristi (focus), breath and concentration during the physical practice of asana to the Tibetan tradition of meditation, which includes a lot of prostrations, which I had seen in my last trip in India, when I visited Dharamsala to see the annual teachings of the Dalai Lama. She said that Yoga is intrinsically linked to meditation. In meditation, we sit on our mats and our minds do not stop. We want to know how to ride our thoughts a little better, was the phrase she used. We want to be present and be completely aware, which is also the aim of yoga. After yoga we tend to be much more grounded and calmer, which is also an outcome of meditation.

She said that our minds set us up, it makes us believe things, which are not true or have not happened yet. The practice of meditation in Buddhism is used to relieve ourselves of this suffering.
Nancy introduced Katie to us by telling us how she was worried one night about her daughter who had gone out and was late. She said that Katie had given her the Loving Kindness meditation, which is an antidote to fear, and she practiced it that night and has used it ever since. I have quoted the meditation below, however, you can make up your own four lines that are more personal. First you would meditate, by repeating the phrases in your mind for yourself, "May I..." and then if you want to, you would send the meditation out to somebody else, starting off with a person you do not have a complicated relationship with.

May you be filled with loving kindness
May you be well
May you be peaceful
and at ease
May you be happy

Day 6: Friday (23)
Friday morning was lead class. Nancy was strict and told us that we are not allowed to move past a position, if she has not counted us into the next move. In lead class, people sometimes move on by their own, because their breath is dictating how fast they move, and the breath varies in all of us. So, to ensure that everyone moves as a group, teachers use position four (chatvari in sanskrit) when everybody is in Chaturanga Dandasana (four limbed staff pose, which is the same as the bottom part of a tricep pushup). This means if you are fast, you have to hold that position until she counts the next breath, number five (pancha). When you are doing a posture and she is busy assisting someone, you have to hold the posture for as long as she is busy adjusting that person no matter if you have done five breaths or not, and it does not matter if one side is much longer than the other.
I hardly ever practice a lead primary class at home, so it was quite difficult relinquishing control over the speed of my practice to someone else, and I found myself playing with the mind in postures that we had to hold for a long time, instead of just accepting it.

At one of the mealtimes, Nancy told me that I should practice primary and second series on alternate days when I get back home.


17 January 2009

Going back to India

Well, I am finally going back to India (my third, but second time for yoga). I have been thinking about coming back since at least May last year and had hoped to be able to make it a 6 month adventure fulfilling a lot of my dreams all in one go, such as completing a Yoga Teacher Trainer course, studying with Iyengar in Pune, doing some volunteer work in a foreign country, doing a vipassana (sitting and meditating for 10 days), learning to do Thai Yoga massage and more. I knew that my priorities were to practice with Lino Miele, to go back to study in Mysore and to attend the International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh. Negotiating with my boss, he did allow me to take 2 months off and I am very thankful for this. I guess having a clear goal in my consciousness helped me manifest it.

My company did ask that I take a laptop with, check my mail regularly and that I be available to assist. As it turned out I was getting a brand new light and small laptop, whjich I am looking forward to travelling with. I have been working very hard for the last few weeks designing the IT architecture roadmap for MTN for the next 3 to 5 years, and I needed to complete the first draft of the document before I left the country. So as usual I had neglected a lot of my personal things I needed to do. I only started packing the night before I left at about 10pm and I have forgotten to pack a number of things. I also never had time to organise an International drivers license, which ended up costing me on my very first day in India... see later.

My laptop was delayed, but it was finally delivered around 10 am on Thursday morning (15th Jan). I had planned on leaving the office at 1pm to go get a massage and then go home to finish packing and get to the airport before rush hour traffic as my flight was at 19:30. Setting up the laptop and copying all my files across was not complete, so I left work, got a half hour quick massage and had to drive back to work. Then home to finish packing and rush off to the airport. I was so stressed about missing my flight I even phoned Emirates Airlines to see if they could put me on the 22:30 flight. They were extremely helpful, but I made it on time for my scheduled flight.

I arrived in Dubai at 5:15 after a very good flight on Emirates Airlines... The crew even seemed to give up one of their vegetarian meals for me as I had not known that I needed to order vegetarian more than 24 hours before check-in. I did not have very much sleep on the flight as the flight is only 8 hours long. There is a two hour time difference between SA and the UAE. The airport terminal is absolutely huge and extravagant. I considered finding a secluded seating area to get some shuteye, but could not find anything, so I sat down, I opened my new laptop and enjoyed the wi-fi access. After about 2 hours I started reading my Lonely Planet on Dubai. At 10am I decided to phone Kavita, my friend, whom I met in Singapore in 2005. I woke her up... nothing unusual :-) She is a hostess on Emirates. She was very sweet and invited me to get a few hours sleep at her place, which I jumped at. The bus system is really difficult to figure out, which I tried for about half an hour and eventually I just took the taxi, which cost me 45 Dirhams. The exchange rate is about 2.74 ZAR to 1 AED.

It was really good to see Kavita again as we had not seen in each other in at least a year, the last time she came to SA on one of her flights. I had 2 hours nap and a shower and by then I was starving, so we walked to the Dubai Mall, which I learnt had just been completed a month or so ago and is the largest mall in the world with 12 million square feet of retail space and is in the shadow of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai. My Lonely Planet mentions though that the Mall of Arabia, which will open this year, will be even bigger than the Dubai Mall.
Even with all of this, I could not find a store that was able to open my Guess watch to replace the battery. Anyway, after having some food , we went back home to her place and had some tea before I headed back to the airport to catch my 22:00 flight on Jet Airways. Terminal 3 that I had arrived at in the morning was exclusively for Emirates Airlines, so I had to go to the much smaller and older Terminal 2 this time.

Jet Airlines is an Emirates partner and is a very good Indian Airline. I was already impressed by them the last time I had travelled in India. We landed on time at about half past two in the morning. Now the time difference between me and SA was three and a half hours, i.e.: it was a three hour flight to Mumbai. In Mumbai I immediately went to the ticketing counter and enquired about flights to Goa, another thing I had lacked the time to accomplish in SA. I was also not certain if I was going to be able to change terminals and make the 5 am flight to Goa, so I did not purchase it on the net in SA.
The 5 am flight on Kingfisher Airlines was the cheapest and the guy at the counter said I could make it in time and if the terminal shuttle bus was not there that I should not wait for it but take a taxi. I paid for the ticket and started running. Fortunately the bus was just being loaded with baggage and was almost full with passengers so it was going to depart soon, as I did not want to start haggling with rickshaw drivers, nor had I exchanged any currency yet.

I landed at the Dabolim airport in Goa around 6am completely exhausted and sat down and started planning how I would get to the Purple Valley Yoga retreat centre. Check-in was only at 15:00 but I knew they would try to assist if I arrived earlier. To my surprise there were absolutely no rickshaws at the airport, only taxi's which cost a lot more. A taxi would cost 780 Rupees to Assagao where the retreat is, about an hours drive. The exchange rate currently is about 4.8 INR to 1 ZAR. Eventually I got a motor cyclist to take me for 350 Rs. My backpack placed over his handle bar we set off and we also found a store on the way that sold me an adapter for my laptop plug on the way. Riding on a motor cycle is more pleasant than a taxi, but a lot more dangerous!!! For the first 15 or 20 mins I was holding on to the baggage rack for dear life, but eventually I let go and used bandha's :-) so I got a good core workout at the same time hehehe.

At the retreat, I checked-in, while the people who had attended the previous course were still having breakfast and getting ready to leave. My room was not ready, but I ended up sleeping in the shade outside until my room was ready. The price I paid for the retreat, 450 pounds, includes the yoga, the food and shared accommodation. I was lucky that there are only 3 guys on course, the 2 others came together from Turkey, so I got a room with two beds to myself.
Harmony and Jeff are Ashtanga Yoga teachers who have done the last 3 courses here, and Zephyr is the manager currently. Zephyr used to be called Sarah and was Michael Gannon's assistant when I came to the retreat two years ago. Unfortunately I won't see her, as she had to leave the country on a visa run. So Harmony and Jeff are doing the management for the next couple of weeks.

In the afternoon I organized a scooter. Rent is Rs 200 per day, but at least then I am not relying on taxi's. I found out where the internet cafe's are and took a ride out. Guess what! 5 mins into my journey I get stopped by 2 traffic cops because my number plate has white writing reserved for locals, whereas all foreigners are supposed to be riding on vehicles registered with yellow writing... and I did not have an international driver's license. So I told him it was my first day in India etc etc and he asked me for a bribe, so I gave him R 20. I actually turned around after I left to go find him and try and demand my money back, but they were gone. I am very angry with myself for having given him the money, I guess at the time I was not thinking objectively.
Then I got to the internet cafe and found out it was closed for the day, every Saturday. Pretty unsuccessful.

Back at the retreat at 6 was a briefing on what the schedule was for the next two weeks (I am only staying 1 week). I am not allowed to work on my laptop outside... Harmony introduced us to Nancy and her assistants, Jayson and Shayla, as well as the cooks, Sayumi from Japan is doing the lunches, usually raw food, and in the evenings there is an indian cook who makes traditional Indian food.
The evening was spent getting to know the rest of the people on the retreat. There are 35 people on the retreat and I am still meeting new people 3 days into the retreat. Aoibheana (Irish and it is pronounced like Yvan) was at the retreat with me back in Jan 2007. She was also here last year when she was pregnant. Oni, her little 6 month old is with her and she has brought a friend to mind the child while she is doing yoga. There is Hiromi from Tokyo, Seyda and her boyfriend Can (pronounced Jan) and two others from Istanbul, Turkey. Can owns 3 yoga studios in Istanbul and Ankara. There are a number of ladies from the UK, Vibeke and Aletta are from Oslo, Norway. I found out later that Vibeke is actually a TV presenter in Norway and is quite famous. She is busy going through a divorce which is being publicized in all the media back home at the moment. Sylvia from New York is an art consultant, so she travels a lot and knows so much about all the Ashtanga Yoga teachers etc. I am definitely going to pick her brain a bit and I get on very well with her. She charges 10% on sales and right now with the Credit Crunch is taking a holiday. She is married to a french man who does not do any yoga. They have been together for about 10 years and lived in different cities for 9 of those years. Now she is in India for about 3 months without him.

I actually asked Nancy one evening, what she thinks about relationships where one partner does not do yoga and she said, "They don't work, unless the partner is extremely understanding!" She also said that when she was still together with David Williams (Nancy is the first western woman to have studied Ashtanga Yoga with guruji, and she came to India with her boyfriend David Williams when she was 24 (she is 60 now)), and a new person would come to David to be taught Yoga, he would make them watch once and then say, "Next time you bring your partner". He would tell the partner that if they did not start yoga with their spouse, that they would not be together anymore in 2 years, because with yoga you grow in a new direction. David did this because he did not want to have the karma of splitting up relationships.

Nancy now lives on Maui in Hawaii and has recently made a movie of Ashtangi's over 50 doing the practice... She said it was a led class and she was very worried that they would not listen to (follow) her as most of them were the generation of yogi's who brought Ashtanga to the west, the pioneers who studied with guruji right at the beginning. It would be so interesting to see that.