More things I learned in Thailand - Part two

This is continued from part one....

Asana specifics – these are all changes I have noticed in my practice since coming home. I'll say that of course not all changes or lessons become permanently ingrained, and even since I started drafting this post some of these things have changed...but let's go back in time and consider what I learned before I started unlearning it again!

• Clayton explained the hip opening action in the janu sirsasanas – I’ve often heard these explained as hip openers, but until he talked about rolling the bent leg hip back and down, and came and adjusted me in it, I never really felt it. I also found a feeling of opening in the straight leg hip crease which I’d not experienced before, and in B I finally took the weight off my poor underneath foot (which has a scar to show for all the weight that’s been loaded onto it this past year) by working into my hips instead.
• Mari A – I was left with some latent uncertainty about the foot position actually in all of the marichyasanas as this was tweaked in almost every practice by the assistant teacher. However one day she also talked me through pushing down into the bent leg hip to open the psoas – I have been taught in the past to push down into the foot, but pushing the hip down towards the floor seemed to produce a new feeling of opening there.
• In teaching headstand to beginners, Clayton emphasised how important it is to keep the elbows close together and move the shoulders away from the ears. I didn’t realise that this had changed until shalamate Susan, covering the first mysore class after I came home, whispered whilst giving me my balasana massage “I really liked the way your elbows were close together”. Well I never had a compliment during child’s pose before! I have also found that my headstand feels a million times stronger than ever before through a combination of Clayton’s teaching and the conversation I had with Susan after that practice, where she said that pushing into the inside of the elbows (even if you can’t move them closer together) also really helps. So I tried it and you’re right – thanks Susan! And actually even in this past week I have been really working on the shoulders which introduces so much stability that I have even begun working on floating the legs up – up until now I have been tucking my knees to go up into sirsasana.

• I videoed the last full practice of our retreat and through this I learned ALL sorts. One was that I massively hyperextend my elbows in downward dog, which is why my head is getting close to the mat, and also why I had a strange adjustment almost every day from Elonne, the assistant teacher. It wasn’t until I saw the video that I understood the adjustment itself, and why I had been getting it. And on returning home and trying to adjust myself to correct this what did I find? As if by magic, my heels were able to reach the floor much closer to the floor (somehow they have risen up again since I wrote the first draft)! A less fabulous thing I discovered from watching the film is that I am a million miles away from being able to jump back properly, somehow I am still launching off one foot, and my legs are kicking way up in the air. Having seen this I was really discouraged and it did actually make the process seem harder though my practice for a few days. But generally speaking seeing the video was a positive experience, especially as I got more adjustments that day than I got the whole of the rest of the week! It’s quite weird to watch yourself being adjusted and my mum was horrified by Clayton’s full-body downdog adjustment when I showed it to her (“but he’ll hurt you!”) – I just told her it feels great!

EDIT: I did originally post some of the video here but as it features other practitioners I can't decide if that's good blogging etiquette or not - any thoughts?

• I learned that chakras aren’t a load of hippie claptrap. Sorry but that’s what I had always thought! I put them in the same camp as crystals and aura reading and fairies...you know, kind of weird bullshit. But as part of the daily breathwork as well as chanting the bija seed mantras (which we universally loved!) we did the internal sunrise meditation (which I misheard as ETERNAL and now can’t separate it from the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...but anyway!), working through each chakra point, visualising the chakra as a disc and breathing at 4 points around it before moving up to the next point, and then sitting and breathing for a few minutes at the end. I think it was on Tuesday, so three days into the course (and a day that we had a led class) that I had a very powerful experience in this meditation. As we moved up to the third eye, and then the crown of the head, I felt something really moving upwards in a very powerful way. I needed to sit with it, which I was able to do for a few minutes, but then we were told to come to stand at the top of our mats to begin the class – but I really, really needed to stay where I was and sit with whatever this thing was. Of course it wasn’t possible, so I did stand up and practice, but after coming out of savasana I still felt that I wanted to sit quietly. I went to breakfast but really just wanted to be by myself, so I cancelled my plan to go out for the day with my roomie and took my lovely Argentinian friend’s advise (“Maybe today you need some lonely time...”) and I did just that. I walked along the beach with my camera, I lay on the sand, I swam and I read, and later I felt able to rejoin the group for dinner. I was a bit scared though that this shouldn’t have happened, and was apprehensive about doing the meditation again the next day. But I did it, and then after the class had finished I spoke to Clayton and explained what I had experienced. I said that I am vata, and recently went through an experience of having too much vata at which he said “Oh me too...” and he then went on to talk about feeling like there was nothing to anchor you to the earth, feeling like a balloon that could just float away, and needing a lead weight to be tied on to keep you here. Now this was strange in the extreme, because in my life before yoga I often had this feeling, that I needed to be anchored somehow and that it was only through the way other people saw me that I could be pinned to the earth (as in, being somebody’s girlfriend, somebody’s friend) – those were the things that stopped me from floating away, and without them I was so insubstantial it was like I barely existed (such were the existential crises of my pre-yoga life!!). It was just really odd that he used the exact same analogy that I had thought, but never vocalised, for years and years in my early twenties. As I walked away I couldn’t even remember the full extent of this conversation with Clayton, only that he hadn’t said “oh my goodness, how WEIRD... you probably shouldn’t do that again “ which was of course what I was afraid he would say. He talked about engaging mula bandha to give that feeling of being grounded, but I think the most useful part of the conversation was feeling that what I had experienced was OK, and that it was normal.  And even that it had happened to him!

The last thing I feel I learned on this trip was something which came up in my very last few hours in Koh Samui. As I mentioned while I was away, I am not a very strong swimmer, but having ventured into the sea on my first day I was determined to make the most of the wonderful location and enjoy being in the water. I have always had a fear of deep water, so in a regular swimming pool I could never swim lengths because I wouldn’t go to the deep end – as soon as I know my feet won’t touch the bottom I start to panic and feel like my arms won’t come up high enough to swim. Likewise I was never particularly keen on being in the sea, not knowing how deep it would get, if anything was lurking on the bottom, and of course there are no edges to stay near to for safety. But just being in the water every day (if not really swimming much) was such a joy. Towards the end of the week my roommate and I cottoned on the fact that going swimming right after practice (on day 1 of this – IN our drenched practice clothes...though I took of my yoga pants and went in in my vest & knickers in full view of everyone, haha!) was where it was at, and often we would just go into the water and then hang about chatting. So it’s not like I can’t swim, or that I’m completely afraid of the water, but I don’t like going under, I don’t like getting water in my face, and I am definitely “on edge” when in the water. But there I was on my last day, my case was packed, and about an hour before I had to leave I decided to go for one last dip. Heading out into the clear calm water I lay on my back and just floated as I often do...but realised for the first time that in doing this you don’t have to keep moving your fingers to keep afloat. You don’t have to strive and struggle....you can just lie there, arms outstretched in a T shape and the water will support you. And the thought came into my head: If I can just float, what is there to be afraid of?

Doesn't exactly look scary, does it?

BAM! Amazing realisation...and (of course) this is not about swimming. Just think about it: every fear you can imagine, if you just hold in your heart that belief that you will be safe and supported, then there is nothing to be scared of. The moment shook me, it was a profound realisation, but also a completely calm and lovely one. So I lay there a little longer, then I headed up for one last outdoor shower before I headed off for the journey home. And all through my three flights and 30 hours travelling home, instead of thinking constantly that I was going to die (no really, this is what normally happens when I travel) and gripping onto the armrests for dear life during takeoff and landing, I thought back to lying on the water, safe and supported. And I wasn’t afraid.

Marichyasana D...do you or don't you?

A(nother) speed post while I continue to process thoughts & reflections from my time in Thailand...(it is coming, really it is - the problem is there's just too much to say, and not all of it suitable for a public airing!!).

After practice today I asked C about Mari D. As I can now bind at the wrist (well, most days) I asked if I should be slackening off the wrist bind to try and get the bent leg hip to the ground - if I try to take the hip down with the deep bind I lose my balance, so what is the priority? It's only recently (like in the past week or so) that I noticed it feels slightly possible that the hip could come down to the ground so I have been wondering about this. C's answer was interesting; she said that she only teaches hip down when you have finished primary. So as she said, next year when you've finished primary, and been finished with it for a while - then yes, that's how I'd teach it, to slacken off the bind to allow the hip to come down (and then eventually of course we'd hope to get the wrist bind back again). She also said that it's probably because I have been doing my new postures (upavistha konasana, supta konasana) that I can feel the possibility of this happening, as there is some of the same action (I can't remember exactly what she said about this, and it doesn't make much sense to me at the moment...). I also asked her about getting the lotus leg hip to the ground in Mari B, saying that if my knee is up should I not be taking my head right down to the ground? Of course the answer is no, so she's going to take a look at it tomorrow (whoops, I hate asking a question that means I'll get pummelled for something on my next practice, but at least I will know then.)

In other news, a visit to my cranial osteopath on Friday (who also happens to practice & teach yoga) led to a demonstration of a new approach to baddha konasana which I got to try out in practice today. I have been really battling with this one, and every day as I come out of it,adjusted or not, I feel slightly like I'm walking away from the wreckage of a car accident (drama queen, moi?). There have been tears, ragged breath, panic, pain, injury...you name it, baddha k has it all for me. So he had me go into it (just the legs) and asked me where the tension is. Right in the hips/pelvic region was the answer, so he told me to roll the flesh away from the sitbones (oh yes, that favourite trick of all non-ashtanga yoga teachers...) and to lift up from the tailbone, and the pubic bone will lift with it. Then rather than trying to push the knees DOWN as I have been doing, he said to take them OUT in the direction they are pointing, and then engage uddiyana bandha to create the space before even thinking of going forward....and going forward lead with the chest, being aware of the space that's been created. Probably none of this is even approaching revolutionary, but as he reinforced each point to me as he added one more instruction at a time, and I sat in the posture all the while we were talking, he pointed out that my hips had opened even in that short time. And, more to the point, it felt SO different, and altogether more comfortable than my past experiences. Of course there's no room in a Mysore context for all of this fiddling about, but today I tried just to focus on some of these points (happily I wasn't adjusted) and again it felt so so different; it probably helped that I spent a long period sitting in baddha k last night but could it be that I am over my major traumas with this asana? As the osteo pointed out, hate is a very strong word to bring to your practice, so maybe I can kiss it good bye for now. Here's hoping anyway.

Sadness passing through

I have these little mantras, just personal ones, they're not something I use all of the time but sometimes I really need to remember them. Before I even really go into yoga I thought of my first one: "I am here." I was dealing with a breakup and my mind would spin off into daydreams of what had been (and what might have been) and I would just keep reciting "I am here, I am here" to try and bring myself out of the hurtful dream. I added a new one this week (not actually invented by me) "I am not my thoughts" and then I threw in "this too shall pass" (again, I pinched this one). 

It's funny, I was just in the supermarket queue last night and I suddenly went into this major angst which is hard to describe. There was an older African guy with his grown-up son in front of me, the man was in more traditional clothes and I assume was visiting. He bought a few things in two transactions, and one set was for example 3 boxes of razor blades which were all quite expensive (the first purchase cost a lot too - over £30 for just a couple of things). As I watched him peel notes off a wad I went into this mindset of feeling desperately sorry for him, almost drowned by the sense of his vulnerability - but actually seeing him was just the trigger and straight away I experienced all of the same feelings for my parents. The feeling is a mishmash of massive guilt, feeling protective, and overwhelming sympathy and all I know is that the first time I had it I was about 9 years old, and it practically crippled me.

But what I did this time was tried very hard to talk myself down from it - in fact just to let it go, which I did relatively successfully (although just writing about it now is bringing me out in a hot sweaty panic). But before I'd had a chance to get my equilibrium back completely it was thrown up in the air again.

I have a new rule of thumb. Any sentence which begins "I am upset because..." and goes in to contain the words "...on facebook" is not a valid complaint. What is this world we live in where a "like" or a comment (or lack of one) can send us onto a major downer? The fact that I'm 32 years old means I should know better - it's embarrassing and pathetic. But former relationships and social networking are a BAD MIX and thanks to this I went into a major tailspin yesterday evening. I won't go into specifics, just to say that something was confirmed for me that I had suspected for a while, but it suddenly dredged up a lot of the feelings about the relationship - on a plate - BANG and here they were. My first instinct was to pick up my phone to text my friend and say what had happened. I picked it up - and then put it down. I unrolled my mat. I tried some floating up into headstand. I repeated my little mantras a few times (mainly "I am here/I am not my thoughts). I tried not to fixate. In essence, I did everything I could to allow the feelings of sadness, loss, or whatever they may have been to exist, but to feel that they were just passing through. This is something I have read in a book once and also heard recently on one of Kino's podcasts, that instead of saying "I'm so depressed!" you say to yourself "feelings are sadness are there" - in other words, don't become the thoughts that you are experiencing. I think I am coming to understand that this is what non-attachment really means.

Still, it doesn't make it that easy to clear the mind and get to sleep. Nor to get up and practice this morning ("I am here; I am here; I am here"). I was having a bit of a hard time on my mat, not disastrous but I was definitely feeling on a knife edge emotionally. I wasn't sure I'd get through my practice. But then the dreaded triang mukha passed without incident and I started to feel better, things were flowing. As I reached the end of my practice I went into my last pose kurmasana, deeper than before with the feeling that my shoulders were really under my legs, and my hands were there ready to easily bind. But as I went to clasp the hands assistance came, I wriggled my right foot over my left and hooked the feet and was lifted up into the dwi pada exit...but I had a hard time understanding what I was being told to do. "Keep the head down - no down! Keep the feet locked! Move the hands back, PUSH into them - feet locked head down!!" with ongoing encouragement to lift up into titibhasana and then jump back. "Again" she says (2 is normal, this is OK). Again I go into kurmasana, even deeper than before and this time I bind the hands myself then start wriggling the feet in (I find it's harder when the hand bind is more tentative), cross the feet and we go through the same instructions. This time I'm more tired, the feet uncross but C tries to get me to recross them and lift back up, I'm trying to ask questions while in bakasana and she says "NO talking! Jump back - JUMP!" and I think I might cry. And then she says "Now do it again".

On the third attempt it's not so much tremors in my right leg as a 7 on the Richter scale. There is no binding of the hands. I can't even attempt to lift up alone. I collapse panting onto my mat and do the only thing possible - I take child's pose. The tears come in padmasana and as I am putting away my mat C is there. I want to speak to her but don't know where to start. 

But something else I had realised between last night and today's practice is that of course yoga people have negative thoughts sometimes, of course they get into these downward spirals of regret, loss, guilt, whatever it may be. My first teachers J & H seemed like such amazing, peaceful people I felt like they represented all yoga people who must live this charmed life, where they never wake up in a shitty mood just for no reason, they could handle any situation thrown at them with grace and compassion, in short they were not much like me (or anybody else I ever met). Of course this is complete nonsense and my immersion in the world of ashtanga has taught me well enough that we are not angels. But what separates me as a yoga practitioner from the me of my past is self awareness. When these thoughts come, I don't allow them to swamp me - or at least, not for long. I try to do something else that will shift the feeling, I don't wallow in it, spending hours on the phone in a "he said/she said" moaning conversation. So I told C that today I was on the edge - misunderstanding, she thought I meant on the verge of getting this asana and said yes, that's why she was pushing me. I explained (without explaining in detail) that I meant I had some emotional stuff happening before I came to practice, and she started talking about how interesting it is that we have this thread, this continuous thread that binds us, and that people have all this stuff going on that she's not even aware of always, and still they turn up on their mat and keep with it. But as I said to her, what else can we do? If things are happening in our lives that aren't great, what better to do than to show up on our mat - we keep moving forward so that we can move forward. And every day is a new day.

Practice report

Maybe it's time for a practice report; it's been a while. Non ashtangis (are there any reading?!) you might want to look away now unless you want to be bored to death!!

Quite quickly daily practice has become the norm. Aside from missing Sundays the past few weeks (my birthday/moonday and then my niece's 1st birthday - and my other niece's 3rd this weekend, so that'll be 3 in a row) the consecutive 5 weekdays feels tough, but good. That decision making process of whether to go to the shala has gone, and the daily routine is now comfortably established. My alarm is set a little earlier these days (5am) and due to the broken shower at the shala I allow time to wash my hair before practice, have some tea and mill about for a bit before I leave, starting practice around 7am. The little victory this week has been arriving closer to 6.45 and getting onto my mat BEFORE 7! Next thing I know I'll even be on time for work... ;)

I've been concentrating on tidying up my practice too, by which I mean cutting out some of the faffing, and I think I have probably shaved a good 10 minutes off it on a good day, maybe more. Enough time anyway to no longer have any excuse but to do 5 surya As and 5 Bs, my guilty confession is that since having new poses added in April (I think it was) I cut down to 3 Bs as I was feeling knackered and a bit overwhelmed. A wise friend suggested last week that it's very important to do the full quota to warm up the body so this week they are back, and I haven't keeled over and died just yet. My other spot of cheating which I have kicked to the kerb this week is the bent leg navasana...I stopped trying to do it with straight legs months ago as I had a serious case of the leg shakes and felt that I was tipping so far back to prevent it that I might be better off with the legs bent. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was cheating...and then assistant B suggested on Monday that I just tilt my head back a little and it seemed to make all the difference, the straight legs are back and yes, there is a little additional effort but it also seems easier somehow (maybe alleviating my guilty conscience has done me some good).

So what else is new? Prasaritas are feeling STRONG, I have always enjoyed these (mainly A) but with my quite-wide stance the head is now comfortably down in A, loose strands of my fringe are brushing the mat in B, head is down in C and I can feel that sans assistance the hands are nice and far over (they are back to being down to the ground with help, but it doesn't come often) and in D I can move weight back over my hips and not lean all of my weight on the thumbs as I bind around the toes. This sequence is undeniably getting much much stronger with my more consistent practice. Another huge change is in UHP, mostly in my mental attitude. It's gone from being a pose of dread to once where I feel strong and empowered (thanks to twitter friends @yogicaroline and @Dom1985 changing my mindset on this). I am not bowing down to the leg unless I'm assisted but I've gone from veeeery shaky balance and dropping the leg 2 or 3 times before giving up to a good firm A where I  feel strong in the leg and have a firm grip on my toe. Taking the leg to the side for B is the real challenge, some days I can find the right spot and feel I am still lifting and the leg is strong, other days my hip clunks noisily as I rotate it and puts me off, or I just can't find the balance. Led classes tend to bring a complete absence on this posture and I am starting to crave an adjustment so that I can do a "proper" one, it's been a while.

Utkatasana is now a pose of great effort as opposed to one I rushed, the legs are bent trying to feel the burn (it's Susan's fault for saying it's good prep for pasasana, might as well get started early!!) but the warrior sequence is a bit of a trial still. I'm feeling tired in my hips and as I approach it I often consider bailing out before seated, but manage to keep going although I feel like I rush it, hoping not to get adjusted or called out by C to bend my legs more deeply (it's too hard!).

Forward bends are DEEP and I'm trying hard to concentrate on bandhas (everywhere of course, but particularly in paschimottansana) grounding through the pelvis and working on getting chin to shin. I asked for help again with my dreaded Janu sirsasana B this week as it continues to be painful on the right side, C seemed genuinely surprised when I showed her the mark that has developed on my foot and referred to it as a "weird injury"!! As I showed her the problem I realised that the pain comes when I lean forward to take the foot, she suggested that as my body was talking to me that I listen to what it's saying and stop just short of the point where it's hurting. I said I could feel that if I had more bandhabandha strength than anything else. Triang mukha continues to be a challenge though it seems to have lost much of it's emotional content, but perhaps because I am not really pushing it. On days when my bandha focus is better this one seems better too, but B never misses his chance to adjust me in it on his days assisting, due I suspect to the fact he knows about my meltdown. I did wonder this morning why that didn't "clear it", I always thought that if I finally allowed the tears to come I would have burnt away the samskaras and been free of it, so not sure why this hasn't worked in my favour yet? In any case I am done with analysing it to try and gauge what the emotion is, I'm just aware that there's something there.

I'm working on going straight into the Maris from my jumpthrough, or at least with little hesitation, and have had a few days of wrist-binding in D this week. Adjustments in C feel delicious, it seems to be so easy to turn what feels like 180 degrees and take hold of my inner thigh, in B and D (and all half lotus postures) I am being cautious with my right hip/knee and taking a few breaths of cradling the leg before diving on in. Bhuja is...well, bloody difficult, but my new strategy is to lower down reeeeeeally slowly maintaining control, which means I get about halfway down in 5 breaths. Avoiding a faceplant/bum-landing means no head on the ground for now. Or I try it twice, once this controlled way (trying to avoid the wild swinging back and forth which sometimes happens) and once with the head down, where I inevitably dive down and then get trapped, leading to the crash-landing exit.

Kurmasana and supta kurmasana have benefited most from my new daily schedule. This morning I had a firm grip on the rib cage with the legs in kurmasana and felt like the legs were all-but straight/flat, and I am halfway between comfortably getting my forehead and my chin down. If I try it twice the second one always feels SUPER strong on this rib-squeeze. And on Monday I was given a little gift to keep me motivated when I managed to bind my fingers in supta k all by myself! True the feet were not crossed at the same time but this is just step one (and the self-binding has been absent ever since). In the days that followed I have just missed the bind and have had assistance some days but not others, with C getting me to try and cross the right foot over left and then ram my head down under the locked feet, on some days she lifts my legs up and I hold for a breath or two in dwi pada. I asked her what it takes to get the foot to cross as it feels impossible (like learning to fly or something) and her answer was WILLPOWER! As she said, it's just not logical, the only thing that will get it there is sheer determination. My exit is getting stronger too, though up into titibhasana is improving, but coming into bakasana still has a long way to go - I can bring my right leg around but not to the back of my knee (it's sort of resting at the side I think) then as the left leg comes around the toes just meet the floor and I go into a sort of squat...where I recover briefly while I consider that backbends come next!

The next thing on the list for C's bootcamp this week is my headstand. Given what a battle it was to get up into the inversion I have been happy just to get on with it these past few months, but she has now got me working on floating up into it. She gave me the balasana back massage one day this week and after she finished I became aware she was on the floor beside me. When I eventually roused myself (quite zoned out by the stage) she told me to come back up, walk my feet in ("no more! even closer!") tuck one knee into the chest, and then try to float the other leg up. "No jumping!" Another WTF?? moment (like learning to fly), there was no way my toes were coming up without a little hop! A few days of trying this and I found that one leg would lift a few inches and felt magical when it did (it actually FLOATS! Who knew?!) eliciting a noise of surprise (sorry Susan) but the other side stubbornly refuses to lift. And getting into a full inversion in this way is another story - I have a few tries then go back to my usual tucking the knees in then shooting the legs up version and hang out in headstand. A few days into these experiments C comes over in balasana and this time says "halfway down?". Bootcamp I tell you! I told her I can't do it (haha - I never tried, it just looks too hard) so she suggested I can bend my knees down then try to straighten one leg at a time. So I go back up into headstand (struggling to get back up) and as soon as I try to bend the knees it all happens too fast and I think I'm going to go over the top. Slowly is the key apparently. Too tired I vow to try again the next day. Yesterday I went to the wall to experiment with both new tricks and without the fear of going over I walked both legs in and BOTH legs floated up - I can't explain how great it felt, though admitedly I felt too far forward on my head and the legs clunked against the wall and I came back down again. Still, it's a start - and the same with halfway down, I gave it a whirl at the wall, it's just all about getting used to the feeling I suppose and this is just week one.

This practice, there's always so much to work on! Led class tomorrow, love that group energy. More soon on how all this yogaing is changing the off the mat stuff too! 

Monkey Mind

Sometimes a vivid and colourful mind is a blessing during yoga practice, sometimes a curse. 

Thoughts float into my mind unbidden and I don’t stop them coming. This has led to some weird and wonderful realisations, profound ideas, pictures of my future and interesting occurrences. Once as I was sitting in my moment of quiet post-practice (which I traditionally use to practice gratitude but can become a bit automatic...) the Lord’s Prayer popped into my brain. Weird, I thought, but I let it continue, recited from the age of 5 at Sunday school in a strange stylised fashion. When I go to a kirtan I tend to find I can think clearly and have had some great realisations there – so I forgive my brain for not being quiet (if you can’t be still, at least say something worth saying). Feelings of resistance pop up during practice, moments where I want to run from the room, but I don’t consider these bad thoughts, just intriguing: where they pop up (and why) comes and goes over time. 

The most frequent unwanted thought during practice always comes near to the end. “There’s nothing left to dread” it says. Intellectually speaking, I don’t like this thought, and wouldn’t say that I even consciously agree with it. I don’t feel like I dread anything very much in practice, certain postures have moments of hesitation beforehand, but no actual dread. There did used to be dread in the run-up to headstand, but not anymore. But still the thought pops in more often than not, usually when I’m most of the way through closing – but not today. Interesting when the thought is there, interesting too when it’s not, but no judgements. It’s hard not to assess these things and just to allow them to come, or not, but that’s what I’m going for.

Savasana has become all about the visualisations. I sometimes used to focus on a point above the third eye, feeling something radiating out from there and covering my body, almost like the readybrek glow. Now it’s a point somewhere right at the centre of my body – since reading about the concept of Buddha mind there’s a strong visual picture of a small gold statue buried deep within me. I peel away the layers to let it’s light shine through, with every exhalation the glow reaches a little closer to the surface until finally it feels like I can barely contain it. It’s like lying in the hot sun, this feeling, and a smile becomes involuntary as I let the light radiate out through my skin, allowing it to reach out beyond my physical body.

There's no place like...Yoga Place

(thanks to Jen for the revised title - much better than the original one!)

The biggest motivating factor in getting me into a regular practice has been finding the right shala and the right teacher. Although I started practicing ashtanga in March 2009 (when I accidentally booked an ashtanga retreat in Goa, mistakenly thinking I knew what it was...!!) it wasn't until after my second retreat this January that I settled into a regular practice. I tried a couple of teachers in London in the months that followed my baptism of fire at Purple Valley and although I loved the second of them (the first one was nowhere near traditional enough for my liking) I couldn't make it stick and at best was practising two evenings a week. I was convinced that a morning practice was impossible for me due to where I live in London, the cost of classes, the fact we have no showers at my office, you name it and I could come up with an excuse about it.

But then in October November (wow, was it really? I just re-read the post to confirm it...22nd November to be precise!) I rocked up at Yoga Place, having been encouraged by reading Susan and Globie's accounts of the teacher there via their blogs. But what with YP closing for Christmas and all of the madness in the run-up to it I didn't get there very often, just Sundays to begin with. But as I just reminded myself in reading what I wrote that first day, I instantly felt like I had found my teacher. Then for the first two weeks of January this year I was in Goa practising with Noah Williams, and despite being in a world of pain (it had been months and months since I had practised two days back-to-back before then, let alone 6 days - twice!) I came back determined to get to the shala more regularly. In conversation with one of my friends there I made my excuses as to why I couldn't get to the shala regularly before work (the commute, the timing of getting to work, etc etc)  and she matched every one of them with her own situation in Washington D.C. (actually she trumped me -as she has to be at her desk for 8.30am and I start an hour later). There came a point during the retreat that I just thought "Come on then Mel. 2010: the primary series. Let's do this thing." I vowed to throw away my dissatisfaction with where I was up to in my practice and just bloody get on with it.

And so far so good...I started off slowly, getting to the shala two weekdays plus Sundays, and it was hard to begin with. Going to bed really early, having my bag packed the night before with my yoga and work clothes all laid out...it was like a military operation. The first few months really were tough. But then came the turning point where I stopped paying drop-in and and paid for a full month. Cary was so fabulously encouraging (she used to practically applaud every day that I showed up at the start) especially the first time I signed up for the month. Two weekdays became three and I settled into a pattern - practice Sunday Monday, rest Tuesday, practice Wednesday Thursday, rest Friday and Saturday. And then only in the past month or so I broke the pattern and started getting to led classes, and sometimes even *shock horror* practicing on Tuesdays! I broke the exception of "never having done three days in a row" and soon I had done four days in a row. Going to the shala became the rule not the exception (and gone were the clothes laid out and pre-planned...and the early nights!). 

But the thing that inspired me to write this today was this feeling of what has grown over the past few months for me - and that is the energy I get from practising with my shala-mates. Whilst my feeling that Cary was my teacher was immediate, the feeling that this was my sangha has taken months to evolve, but I can honestly say that the first few hours of every day are now my favourites. I am blessed to practise with such wonderful, lovely and supportive people who come from a variety of walks of life, some of whom I know well, some I speak to briefly but know nothing about their lives, others I just exchange smiles with. But all of them make the shala. On a bad day you can always find somebody to speak to in the changing room who will give you a suggestion or just somehow make you feel better. On a good day you can share you triumphs. They sympathise when you talk about your tears, tell you what to eat (or not to eat) when you have a cold, share recipes for the best ever curry, talk about where to get the best coffee - what's not to love? When I first visited Yoga Place I said that I felt what I had been missing before was the feeling of friendliness and community; there's no doubt I found it at YP. Having a wonderful teacher is of course massively important, but you will only get so many adjustments on any given day - and it's being surrounded by the familiar faces day-in day-out that really keeps me motivated. And when I take a day off (Tuesdays usually!) I miss it and feel like I've been away forever which means I will always go back the next day.

Now watch somebody go and spray me in the face when they're doing garba pindasana tomorrow morning and I'll take back all this soppy load of sap  ;)

But enough of the sarcastic ending...instead I'll finish with a picture of my touchstone - this is the sign on the front door, and every day as I open the door I make sure I touch my hand to it... and I leave behind my worries and take a deep, deep breath.

Fear and loathing in triang mukha...

I know it’s called triang mukha ekapeda pashimottanasana really but isn’t that just to much of a mouthful?

As I may have mentioned before, I have some serious issues with this pose. Innocuous as it may seem to others, for as long as I can remember I have been experiencing overwhelming emotions when practicing it, mainly on the second side. I remember asking Noah about it when I was in India in January, at which point my issue was anger. Now I always preface this with “I’m not an angry person, but...” which I am beginning to realise is a false statement. Just because I don’t consider myself an angry person, we all get angry, it’s just what we do with the anger that makes a difference. Some shout and scream and swear or break things (of course nobody reading this blog would do any of those things I’m sure...) but I suppose I fall into the "burying it" category - so which is healthier? Unless I’m at work that is, where I seem to just explode momentarily and then get back to normal quickly (and I’m going to blame the office environment for that!). Anyway, a few months ago I wrote that I got a really really strong adjustment in the pose and got so angry I actually thought I was going to yell or hit my teacher. For such a long time afterwards I would dread the pose just in case I got adjusted, and was probably rushing my 5 breaths – after the first side I would always think “yes!! I got away with it!” knowing I was unlikely to get adjusted on the dreaded second side as nobody likes an un-even adjustment. 

And so this continued, right up until I went to Edinburgh to study with Kino. And while I was there, the anger changed to border-line tears, which then became the status quo. Just as I approached the fifth count I would almost reach the point where the breath would become the deep inhalation that precedes sobbing. But as this would hit just as I was about to come out of the pose I would breathe my way out, relieved to have dodged it for another day. I was even modifying the pose to make the feeling less extreme, and something my friend J said about Cary spotting that she wasn’t flexing her whole foot made me realise I was doing exactly the same, with my right leg outstretched I could minimise the depth of the discomfort in my right hip by easing off the stretch. So all the while I was half wishing that the tears would come, and that this thing would shift and be gone, I was also cheating and backing off. This wasn’t a huge feature of my practice, just one of those many little things that goes on every day but has peaks and troughs. Until last week that is...

I have been reading this amazing book called Awakening the Buddha Within (sorry to those who know me, I have been raving non-stop about this for weeks) which started opening my eyes to a lot of things. So there I was during practice last Thursday morning, and as I reached triang mukha and I slipped into my recent routine where as I experienced the pull in my hip I started my mental trick of telling myself that it was actually a lovely feeling. I think I was doing this on and off for a few weeks, just trying to play a game with my brain and make it believe that something unpleasant was actually pleasant – it should be possible shouldn’t it? Surely it’s just conditioning? So there I was, pretending it was OK, and as I got to about the count of 4 I had a profound thought. My own voice said very clearly: “You can’t hide from pain, you have to experience it.”  And BAM! There it was, the floodgates opened.

I stayed in the pose for a few more breaths, trying to fight the tears, but also remembering what I had been taught that when these things come up, you have to let them (it was Kino who really emphasised this, she talked about “letting your ego bleed” though that may have been in a different context!). I moved through the vinyasa struggling to keep the ujayi breath going, but it turns iut it is contraindicated by sobbing. I moved into janu sirsasana A on the first side, I caught my foot, I bent forward, I took a breath...I realised I couldn’t breathe and it would be ridiculous to keep going. So I did something I never ever do, I got up from my mat and I left the room. I walked into our open plan changing room and I stood with hands on my knees and I sobbed. Just for a minute or two, but I let it go. And there was nothing specific happening in my mind, I wasn’t thinking about anything, or anyone, or even a situation, I was just crying. Then I found a tissue, took the pack with me for good measure, and went and got back on my mat. And the rest of my practice was OKish, though I thought I was going to cry again in savasana, but the other thing that was strange was post-practice. In the past when I have had tears, I’ve felt OK afterwards.But last Thursday this wasn't the case at all - I felt wounded and vulnerable. I just wanted to curl up into a ball until the world went away. Later my colleague said that I looked like I was smiling because if I didn't I might cry - and she hit the nail on the head. as the day went on the mood shifted slightly, a trip to Starbucks for a mocha helped, and by home-time I was feeling fine again. But what about the fear of what would happen next time I had to do the asana? Well Friday is led primary, so feeling like I wasn't doing the pose my own, there was no issue – in fact I had a great practice.

Then on Friday afternoon I went to see my wonderful acupuncture/holistic Chinese medicine/ osteopath guy (I need to come up with a snappier title for him) and I spoke to him about it. He believes fully in the theory that the body holds “trauma” (to use a very generic coverall term) in specific areas of the body which could relate back as far as since birth. Through yoga we start to rub up against these kleshas (this from Kino) in a way that we don’t in normal life which is why sometimes bizarre emotions can come to us unbidden during a yoga practice – for me, extreme hamstring stretches can make me feel intensely bored, instantly! A very long time ago I was told that hips relate to family issues, so my feeling is that this lock in my hip is the huge can of worms I DO NOT WANT TO FACE for fear of having a complete mental unravelling....hence the fact I have been completely backing off from it and just hoping it will go away without a big drama. So he did lots and lots of work on my hips as I have been experiencing some knee pain and other hip issues, and practice on Sunday was madly open – I felt like I was wearing somebody else’s hips. But when it came to triang mukha I got a sweet, gentle assist, and I was absolutely fine. And the next day, the same thing happened. In fact today was the first day since the meltdown that I practiced the asana alone. Getting adjusted in it these past few days felt like I was a child having my hand held through a bad dream. I had the overwhelming feeling that I didn’t have to go though it on my own, that I was being looked after. And having had the monsters chased away from beneath my bed for a few days, I was less terrified to try it by myself today.

So I suppose the big question is, how did it feel today? The total genius of the situation is...it now seems to have moved to my left side. So I suppose I just have to keep breathing, keep working through it, and hope that this means something is shifting...and tomorrow is another day!

Ch-ch-changes...

Funny, if I’d written last week as I planned to then this post would be nothing but excitement and positivity - this blog tends to polarise my life & practice into great or terrible, when of course most of it is made up of a lot of days which are neither perfect nor dreadful. But I suppose the desire to write is greater when there’s something really significant to say, so perhaps you should just assume that in the days and weeks I write nothing what I’m actually saying is “everything is fine”.

Anyway I digress (before I’ve even begun) but maybe I should start with last week’s positive stuff. So last week was great, practice-wise. After being given kurmasana and supta kurmasana on Sunday, I went to the shala Monday, Wednesday and Thursday – a huge improvement from the days of once a week. Despite the fact I felt completely destroyed on Monday after two days in a row (that’s two days of 2 or 3 attempts at bujapidasana and 2 kurmasana/supta k, 1 lone, 1 assisted), resting on Tuesday I felt better than I felt beforehand in terms of my body. I expect (and usually find) the next day to be when you’re most sore, so it was a pleasant surprise to feel like I had a new body instead. Wednesday and Thursday it felt good to practice two days in a row again, I really think it makes a difference, and instead of the usual grand decision the night before, on Thursday I turned up at the shala by default: it just seemed easier than making a decision whether to go or not. I sort of came-to on the tube and wondered how on earth I got there and still felt a bit puzzled when I arrived but it felt like progress that going to practice was the default option. I went out at lunchtime on Thursday and made some notes over coffee about the changes I have started to notice

•  I’m amazed that my body doesn’t feel sore – I know I’ve worked, but nothing feels unmanageable. On Tuesday when I expected to feel really sore I felt amazing, like the day after a terrible hangover when you wake up expecting to feel ill but instead feel back to normal. 
•  I have been feeling totally blissed out after savasana. I normally sit quietly for a moment or two  afterwards, but this period has lengthened as I stay and lap up the waves of whatever this amazing feeling is. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but it happened three times in a row so hopefully it’s here to stay.
• On Monday night at my choir rehearsal, I was knackered and being told we were going to sing a difficult new song through from the top again I had the familiar feeling of I can’t do it! But my mind went to the brutal effort of buja & kurmasana that morning and I thought if I can do that, I can surely sing a bit more too. 
•  My stomach has been reacting weirdly though I don’t know if it’s connected (think India!). I felt so terrible on Monday I went and got some rehydration salts and took them before my singing class, remembering how much better they made me feel when I was exhausted in Goa. It seemed to work – though I don’t remember accompanying them with a bar of Dairy Milk when I was at Purple Valley! 
• So the week went like this: Monday – wrecked, no energy, body felt broken. Tuesday – rest, felt great. Wednesday & Thursday – cut down to 3 surya B’s to conserve energy. Mad sweating & high energy but Thursday felt like real progress in the exit – I got a real lift up in the arm balance and straightened my legs before lowering gently down. Almost got the bind in supta kurmasana but got so excited (I giggled) that I lost it. Right foot came in over left as C helped me with the bind but I couldn’t quite work the heel up onto my left foot (and yes, I’m sorry but I now make involuntary sound effects while being adjusted) and then she had me hold it for ten breaths – every one of them panted.
•  I feel like buja is making no real progress, some days its better and other days much worse again – definitely no linear progress with this one. But according to Noah this asana is about hip flexors and stamina plus a bit of arm strength, so surely the more I practice the easier this will become?
•  I think getting new poses has changed my attitude to the whole practice because before I felt like I was just going there to get on with it, and getting the odd adjustment, now I feel like I am really working on something and I can start to see a future where my practice will progress. I can understand now why people get hooked on the physical progress and it’s hard not to but I don’t want to become asana-centric. I’m not sure what the answer is but I know that what’s driving me now is that I want to keep practicing more just to make it all come more easily.

But that was last week. So what of this week? I went to practice on Sunday, a tough one as I’d been out late on Saturday night and then the clocks went forward, so I only had 5 hours sleep. There were only 6 of us there and Cary didn’t arrive until 8.45 having been let down by her phone not auto-updating when the time changed. With the shala that quiet I had quite a lot of adjustments, but practice felt like a real slog on that little sleep (after a week of 5-6 hours sleep I really need to catch up on a weekend). For my last three poses the routine was the same: two attempts at buja (actually three, I fell out of the arm balance on the first try and went straight into the second without taking vinyasa), followed by kurmasana & supta solo, and then assisted. After practice my collar bone was feeling really sore on the left side and over the last two days it hasn’t gone away: it feels really badly like it needs to click but won’t. I woke up on Monday at 5.30 and even though my bag was packed for the shala I decided to go back to sleep, and today was a moon day, so I haven’t tried to practice, but it hurts just to have a small bag on my left shoulder. So I went to the osteopath tonight, expecting a lecture about the demon ashtanga and lots of painful adjustments, but actually it was quite good. She explained that my right side is much tighter than my left, so my left side is working harder to compensate. Also my right hip is a bit misaligned which will be affecting my left shoulder/collarbone – it’s true that in supta k on Sunday I felt really tipped over to the left side, and I have definitely been feeling the kurmasana adjustment in my hips all week. She did some huge clicks of my lumbar spine, which made me giggle, and of my neck which made me feel sick, but weirdly nothing on the desperate-to-click collar bone. And although I was determined to go to the shala tomorrow she made me promise that I will practice at home and work on gentle stretching and opening up the hips and shoulders. So this is where the ego kicks in and starts counting how many practices I’ve made it to this week...this inconsistency is driving me mad. I suppose the answer is to just let it go and breathe...

Sharath: more questions than answers.

If I were to sum this post up in a few sentences it would go like this; on Sunday I took a led class with Sharath, and although I got all the way through full primary the experience wasn't quite what I expected it to be and left me with some pretty big questions - about places to practice, and about how an Indian tradition is interpreted for a western audience.

All ashtangis (and probably a lot of yogis) will know exactly who I am talking about, but for anybody who doesn't know, Sharath Rangaswamy is the director of the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (AYRI) in Mysore in India, a position he took over following the death of his Grandfather Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in May 2009. And of course, Mysore is the focal point for ashtanga yoga, and Pattabhi Jois (or Guruji as he was known) was the grandfather not just to Sharath, but to this style of yoga itself. He is widely credited with having brought yoga to the West, and many thousands of students (both from India and around the world) studied with Guruji in Mysore over the 70 plus years that he was teaching. But enough of the history lesson.

The level of anticipation I had about taking this class was huge - and I mean huge. Having been introduced to ashtanga in March 2009 by J and H, two wonderful teachers who had been given Guruji's blessing to teach, I had learnt the importance of the lineage of this practice, the direct handing down of teaching from Guruji and Sharath to authorised yoga teachers. For this reason, after a failed early experiment with an unauthorised teacher (at a cheap & convenient yoga centre) I now study in London with a teacher I love who is also blessed by Guruji to teach.

Of course I saw the opportunity to take this class with Sharath as being the direct line to ashtanga in it's purest form, and for all I know could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to practice with him. So I put aside my huge fears, my concerns that after only 5 months of ashtanga I wasn't ready, and that as I usually only practice up to navasana (about half way through the primary series) that I would get stopped by Sharath, not to mention the worries about how I would get into central London for 7am on a Sunday, when by happy coincidence I managed to get a place.

Now I should say at this point that I grew up being told that if you look forward to something too much, it is bound to be a disappointment. Having followed this maxim for all of my childhood and much of my adult life, I have tried in recent years to embrace the optimism which sits rather more comfortably with me. So I looked forward to the class with great excitement, and was sure that the energy of the group would carry me through the whole series even though some of it was unfamiliar to me. Having travelled to Europe to revisit my teachers J&H three months after I first met them in India, I had already experienced the energy that incredible teachers can create and which takes you through a wonderful, powerful practice from the first breath, so it was this in particular that I was looking forward to.

So with all of this background, I am almost afraid to admit to how I felt during and after the class. Honestly? On the face of it, I found the led class a little underwhelming. Although I really don't know what I was expecting (although the mental dialogue went a little like this: "It'll be amazing! You'll have the best practice EVER! Everything will just magically come, and you'll be headstanding in the middle of the room for hours and floating into jumpbacks like David Swenson"), I know that I didn't quite get what I anticipated out of it. True, I completed the full primary series, I wasn't stopped at any point, and I didn't fall on my backside during Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana - with my leg in half lotus - as I did on the workshop with J&H in Antwerp...(I bounced). Mind you I did nearly land on my face in my first over-enthusiastically floating vinyasa which would have been quite a way to start the class!

Other than this near miss there were no disasters, but also no triumphs - and notably, no adjustments from Sharath. In fact, I was surprised by how few adjustments he did throughout the class. Having watched films of him and Guruji taking led classes on world tours before, Guruji would do the count while Sharath scuttled around the room adjusting somebody on every count, and more often than not his Mother Saraswati was adjusting too. This time it was just him on his own, so he was concentrating on leading the class, although I was a little distracted when I realised that the man behind me had at least three or four adjustments. The funny thing is, in the run up to the class I was hoping that I got lots of adjustments, and because I got there so early I was right up the front with Sharath mainly in front or beside me for the whole class, I was actually willing him to keep away from me. I was so worried that either he'd touch me and I'd cry, or that he'd push me too far and it would hurt me, that I probably sent him enough stay away vibes to ensure he steered well clear.

I want to make it really clear that none of this to be taken as a form of criticism of Sharath personally, or of the system of Ashtanga yoga. I feel to a certain extent that the stage I am getting to now is a healthy one of discovery. When I arrived in Goa in February 2009 knowing nothing about ashtanga yoga, and nothing about yoga itself outside of weekly asana practice, I learnt all about this incredible man and his family lineage, and despite some difficulties adjusting to some of the ideas (which I'll write about another time), in terms of Guriji and Sharath I accepted everything as a child would - unquestioningly. On my return to London, and my further research into the world of ashtanga both through a new teacher and extensive reading online, I began to hear some criticisms of the practice, and even of Guruji himself (and that was from the teacher - needless to say, not somebody I continued to practice with) which I just could not accept. But my feelings during and after the class this weekend led me onto thinking about a couple of things.

Firstly, I think the space had an enormous amount to do with the 'energy' you get during your practice. Thinking about the shala where I first studied in India, it is constantly filled with people getting on their mat with great sincerity & pure intention; it's filled with unshod feet, quiet voices and some of the finest teachers in the world; it feels to me that it has become a sacred space. It doesn't get used for discos and wedding receptions or church fetes on off days.

And at AYL, my London shala of choice, it's the same situation. It's filled on a daily basis with ashtanga practioners working their way through their practice, and the first time I ever practiced there it just felt so so right. Contrast it with the places I have been to with the same teacher which weren't dedicated shalas, and something just doesn't click. I wondered initially if it was to do with size of the room, and the bigger the room (and further you are from the incense!) the lesser the feeling, but that argument doesn't work when I think about the large shala in Goa. So instead I come back to the idea that somehow all of the practicing, chanting and meditating that goes on in the space somehow charges it with this incredible energy. In fact when I went to J&H's Antwerp intensive where a friend has just started teaching a few classes a week in an empty space beneath a photographic studio, there was the most powerful feeling of that connection and energy that I've felt so far - which either had to be down to the space, to J's chanting for an hour in there before we began, or perhaps it's a straight-forward teacher-student connection which of course I didn't have with Sharath having never met him before.

And the class on Sunday was in a large civic centre no doubt used for all types of functions, packed with people, and although everybody talks about the incredible energy when you practice with Sharath, I got - well, not nothing exactly, but not much. Maybe because I was at the front, I wasn't packed in with people on all sides, maybe all sorts of things, but it just didn't feel like I thought it would. I wonder though whether this will feel different by the end of the week of workshops, primary followed by intermediate every day, which if my "charging up" theory holds any weight, it should.

The other thing I have been really wondering about, is the westernisation and western interpretation of Indian ideas, and how in some ways it seems that the very few words spoken in English by Guruji or Sharath are taken and built upon by western teachers and turned into something beautifully written, or spoken, which speaks to you and affects you when you hear it. Actually though, the memorial piece written in Yoga Journal last month quoted Guruji's direct words to many famous teachers and they made me cry, but of course that's not what you get in a led class.

This is all part of a much larger philosophical debate I started having with myself. Again I want to stress that I'm not making any judgements here, and I'm certainly not criticising anybody or losing any faith in the system or those who have set it out in Mysore, but I do think it's inevitable that I would eventually move from the unquestioning acceptance that I began ashtanga with and begin to intellectualise it a bit. To be honest I'm still just trying to make some sense of my feelings in the class, and how flat I felt - whilst at the same time feeling I don't want to admit to it for fear of seeming less than a proper ashtangi.

I think what it comes down to is that whilst yoga is a spiritual practice which works on turning your thoughts inwards and quietening the mind, what I miss with the Mysore self-practice system is those short-cuts to feeling amazing. It's those moments when the teacher says just the right thing and suddenly you're filled with the sense of persisting peace that I love, and that kept me coming to yoga classes before I started ashtanga. And perhaps this was what I was looking for on Sunday, not the physical practice but the direct line to the soul that J&H seem to have with me. What I got instead was a focus on the physical practice, but I realise that I have now overcome my long-held fear of moving on beyond navasana. Most importantly though, I realised that in the face of my confusion and trying to make sense of how I felt during the class, I didn't freak out. Yes I have written a very (very) long analysis of it, but I seem to be starting to rid myself of the drama addiction that would in the past of turned this into "oh my god! the class was a huge let-down, what am I going to do now?" and have instead treated it quietly and calmly as another interesting step on the path.

Story time.

"Yoga is about letting go of your own story of yourself", so says my wonderful teacher J.
True as that may be, everybody has a story, and more precisely, every yogi has the story of how they began. Often when you read the website of a great teacher, they will talk about how they were working in this industry or that industry (usually film/music/advertising - the more hectic and less spiritual the better) when this practice "found them". That may be dismissed as bunkum by the general population, but the further I go with my journey on this path, the more I begin to think that there is a design, and that it cannot be mere chance that led to where I am now.
So how did I come to be throwing myself so whole-heartedly into this new lifestyle aged 31? It's not like yoga is completely new to me. I took my first class at 18, and for the year between finishing school and starting University my best friend and I met in the local leisure centre on a Wednesday night for an hour and a half of stretching. The best part was the final relaxation (a luxurious half an hour) where the un-yogicly named Debbie (who also had rather un-yogic spikey hair from what I remember) would talk us into a state of complete bliss, so much so that I feared for my friend having to drive me and then herself home. The teacher explained the meaning of the greeting "Namaste" and every practice finished with this exchange, and a deep bow to the ground which I took with me into every class I attended ever since.

I tried and failed through the years that followed to find a class that I liked. There was the man in my University city who made me feel uncomfortable from the second I arrived (I think I was a minute late and he crucified me in front of the whole class - bad manners yes, but hardly the appropriate response); the lady at the sports centre near my first London flat who talked about nothing but ovaries and fertility, and then about two years ago I started going to a class at my local gym. It was a fairly easy hatha class, the type that probably the majority of once-a-weekers would experience in church halls and gyms around the country: some light stretching, nothing too challenging, with a final relaxation before you floated home feeling sleepy and relaxed, all to the back-drop of some spiritual sounding music (though this may have been there to drown out the pumping R&B and sound of grown men grunting in weight-lifting-effort that floated in from the gym). In the time I took that class there were four different teachers with varying styles along the same theme, but I tried to go every week and I enjoyed the new feeling I got when I bent to pick something up, a new opening around my hips, as well as it helping me to feel more relaxed. And I loved downward dog with a passion, I'd have happily stayed in it all day (I still feel the same - this is the special treat to reward for your efforts in Suryanamaskara A & B).
I enjoyed the class so much I wanted to try doing more that once a week, so I started going to a weekend class also at my gym, and found a much tougher, more dynamic class - ashtanga, or so I thought (I later discovered it was actually a dynamic hatha class - but possibly from the Sivananda school). After a few false starts something clicked with the weekend class, and at a time when my life was in great turmoil, I had a eureka moment one Sunday afternoon. This teacher was more spiritual, it was clear that yoga was his life, not just something nice he thought he might teach. After our final relaxation we would sit cross legged, eyes closed, heads bowed, and at that moment of great peace he said "If you can keep this feeling inside you, nothing can touch you". Click - I have no idea why, but this was it. I had an overwhelming sensation of peace, I felt unstoppable, I was incredibly relaxed but felt powerful too - and the feeling lasted for days. I became a regular at both classes, though the midweek class then changed to Iyengar which I really struggled to enjoy - now it was all about the "ashtanga". Life continued to throw some bumps into my road, but I carried on going to classes when I could, and as I lay on the floor in my relaxation I remember thinking I always want to be doing this. I could picture this being the start of my life including yoga: pre and during pregnancy, with children, as an old lady, I always want to be taking classes and giving myself this time to devote to yoga. It's hard to look back on how I felt without colouring it with what I know now, but I do remember feeling this very strong desire to have a lifelong relationship with asana, and the deeper I go with my practice, this feeling has just grown and grown.