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...