As week three in Mysore begins...

On a daily basis I see that although what I “get” in terms of direct hands-on adjustment, or verbal correction is totally minimal, still I am learning so much. How is this possible – learning without teaching? I suppose to say that suggests that teaching only happens in one way: I tell you, I move your body, I help you. When in fact teaching in this method, through this lineage - it seems to happen in this room. Sharath talked in conference the first day I arrived about how in the West yoga is seen as something you “do”, but when you are really understanding and practicing yoga it is something which happens inside of you. 

We were also reminded by Kino towards the end of the retreat that this practice is not somewhere you go to to get something tangible from another person “it’s not about what you get, it’s about where you go”. She described reliance on a teacher as being like a key to open a door. You need the key initially but over time, as you become grounded in the practice, you don’t need that support in the same way. She said that the purpose of the teacher is to “hold the space” that opens the door to the lineage – sometimes through adjustment or instruction, sometimes just through an energy that they bring. 

It’s not until I looked back at my notes that I saw that what Kino was describing is exactly what I have been experiencing the past two weeks. 

At most, Sharath told me “no no no, this is not correct” in my first led class (relating to my hand and arm position in uttitha parsvakonasana), he told me to go back when I was futzing around before dropping back, one day he told me that I was too slow, and he did his funny disapproval grunt when I went into a warm-up bridge before a backbend one day (and I won’t be doing that again!). In two weeks, c’est tout. 

Bougainvillea love-in 

But I am far (far) from voicing any concern about this. My first two practices were just a sweaty blur, I couldn’t honestly say what went on whilst I was in that room. I was in a state of overwhelm. Then each day since that has started to come into focus a little more. 

I had a eureka moment in realising last week that internal rotation is EVERYTHING. When teachers notice or correct the turning out of the feet through vinyasas, it seems to me that this is why...I think I have probably been guilty of this myself, but realising that when I inwardly rotate my thighs and engage my feet throughout  my upward dog (and take care not to allow them to splay out), I have a strong feeling of engagement throughout my lower back and hips (instead of "escaping it" - just like if you lift the heels when backbending you somehow escape the icky place you don't want to go). Turning straight over my feet (instead of letting them roll over the sides) keeps the rotation firm. As I move into downward dog I notice that I also want to inwardly rotate my arms, engaging the shoulders strongly to keep the foundation strong.

Another eureka moment came a few days later in realising that I can (and must) engage my quads throughout the practice, pulling up the legs strongly in most of the standing poses – especially in trikonasana which my teacher has been adjusting me in consistently for two years and trying to help me understand the action I need to find. In working alone, in true self-practice, but in this space held by Sharath, I think I am somehow finding the answers to some of these ongoing questions. The reason I’m saying all of this is not because I want to tell you to do the same, or even because I think I have discovered something impressive, or clever, or even if it would feel the same or as monumental to anybody else. I suppose I am just keen to express the place I find myself in, almost three years to the day since I first discovered this practice, moving from the gross to the subtle, finding that in the right space that the practice is the teacher, but of course that comes about only because this place and space is so charged, so magical somehow, and (I have no doubt) also because Sharath is here, preserving this lineage, watching over us as we work through and make these discoveries - sometimes with help, sometimes for ourselves.

So maybe another day I’ll find the time to write more about the more general experience of being here: the strange shock of arrival, the settling in, my inability to avoid the constant possibility of socialising, the food, the people; the utterly insane dreams I have every.single.night; the perceived insanity of led classes, and the moment where everything crystallised into one perfect moment of stillness and ease in urdhva padmasana; the fear struck in my heart sitting in the foyer on my first few days realising that I could ignore the fact that “One more!” was finally referring to me. Maybe another day I’ll find the time for all of that, but not tonight.

I couldn't put it better myself.

Briefly..

Once in a while I am capable of brevity (apparently).

So I landed in Mysore late on Saturday after *that* car ride from Bangalore - four a half hours of the craziest driving, during which I went through every emotion on the planet, from pure joy to total despair, wondering why on earth I ever decided to make this trip, thinking I was going to die, realising that in the end there was no getting out of it and that I just had to suck it up and experience it (yeah yeah, it's all yoga, I know). My arrival and first morning were awash with tears as I wondered just how and why I ended up here, I cried through my first shower, I ran round the corner to my friend's apartment where she fed me while I cried some more, and then once I was done eating and crying she took me to my first conference with Sharath and the social whirlwind that is Gokulam began. That first day I was passed from one sweet friend to another, so as it turned out I was out from 8am to 7pm and had many adventures in the time in between. Yesterday I had my first practice in the shala and yet more social and culinary adventures to fill the day. There is so much to say about how I feel having arrived here, and so much to say about the past two weeks in Goa and how much I learned and experienced with the wonderful Tim and Kino, but somehow I just can't summon the energy to do any of that right now - hopefully as I feel myself growing more settled here the words will come. 

But for now I just wanted to say a quick hello from Mysore, that I'm alive and well and figuring out how things work, and that I'm so so grateful for having so many wonderful friends here - some from home, some from retreats I have taken in the past, some friends I hadn't met yet, but on every corner I run into somebody I know. I have a feeling that this is going to be a big part of the whole experience. Speaking of which, I'm just waiting on Susan for breakfast before heading off on a moonday outing to Mysore palace and into the city, but first I need to run some beetroot and banana bread over to K's apartment in exchange for some home-made vegan chikoo ice-cream. Life is pretty tough, isn't it?

Never enough time

So once more I find myself in Goa for my annual pilgrimage to Purple Valley, this being my 4^th trip in as many seasons (but my first visit was in year zero as it was here that I started ashtanga...so 4 trips equals three years of practice). I’m here with the same teachers as last year, Kino & Tim, but instead of heading straight home from here after two weeks this time I will head to Mysore for my first trip there.  The other significant difference about this trip is that back in November I received an email from Tim asking if I would like to assist him and Kino in the shala here...so after leaping up and down and feeling like I’d won the lottery I replied that yes of course, I would be honoured to do so. I count myself especially lucky to be asked as this is my first experience of assisting, and despite my huge resistance (to the point of vehement opposition) to the idea of ever teaching it was a huge honour that Tim and Kino asked, which was apparently based on my having practiced with them both a number of times and them wanting to introduce me to a whole other dimension of the practice (plus of course needing all the hands they can get with our group of 50-ish students).

Three days in to the practice and assisting I am already finding some of those lessons. There are two of us assisting at the moment, me and my friend A who also works here. She completed a teacher training at the end of last year she can help a little more than I can. I assist first for around an hour (6.30-7.30), she practices first and then we switch, and I finish my practice around 9.30. On day one Tim gave me some whispered gems (which for the sake of discretion I can’t share) which made me giggle, and showed me how to assist downward dog. I did a lot of dogs that day. Then Kino told me to assist anyone in UHP who couldn’t get their chin to their leg. I stood looking mystified for a moment before she realised I didn’t know how to assist, so she showed me, and then I tried it on a few poor unsuspecting practitioners...and I totally buggered it up. The following afternoon A and I had a session with Tim where he talked us through a few different downward dog adjustments (and anyone who’s been lucky enough to practice with Tim knows that his version of this assist rocks...) with the main version being using my chest to work the hips up and back, in other words lying the whole body over the practitioner, holding the front of their knees to gently coax them straight. Then he talked us through the UHP assist, thank goodness, and we had to do the assists on him, then on each other, and by the next day I must have done about 10 of them to much better effect.

The interesting part for me is how assisting makes me feel, and how it affects my practice. I feel like in three days, even only assisting one or two poses, I have already learned so much. Tim said that by watching somebody’s sun salutations you can really learn everything you need to know about their practice. Through adjusting them you can feel those who resist you, those who struggle to find an even breath, those to whom their whole body seems alien (and of course those on the other end of the spectrum with smooth breath, strength and flexibility and who seem at home in their bodies). Immediately after finishing up as I unroll my mat in the middle of the busy room, I go straight into a very internal, focussed space. My breath is deep and even. There is a level of calmness I am unaccustomed to. I feel confident in my practice, and that (mostly) my fellow practitioners accept my help (as I have already had some lovely post-practice thank yous), but I also feel a humbleness. My body is warm and open. On previous visits I have worked myself up on the first day of practice, leaving the shala in tears because I’m so happy and overwhelmed to be here. But this time? No drama. My first practice was incredibly flexible and deep, heels popping up in kurmasana (which almost never happens), spying my feet in my backbends from the floor before being terrorised by Tim (yes, I did the death-rattle breathing just a little, but I also got the hug). Monday’s practice was a little stiff and sore, the pay-off for Sunday’s pixie-dust coated practice, and I had a day of awesome Kino-help, a lot more assists than on the previous day (when I assised until almost 8 and then practiced mostly unassisted until the end), culminating in backbending with her. As it was a moonday (but different rules apply on retreats, right?) she was going more gently with the assisted backbending, so I was hoping to have her rather than Tim, who I know always takes me to my edge and beyond. I dropped back by myself and she was helping my neighbour with something, and after doing a little rocking and giving up she told me to stay in the backbend, push right up onto my fingertips (making a sort of stand with my fingers and thumb) and then she gave me the slightest pull on the hips and I came to stand. I laughed, saying that it was less scary then I thought it was going to be, so she said let’s do that again – we did three like that, and I realised that this new technique of course means I need to transfer the weight into my legs to be able to try and go up on my fingertips, which Kino was having me do by myself. I love how you think you have heard it all and then somebody comes along and gives you a whole new technique...anyway I did backbending with Kino again today, and I tried as much as possible to do it by myself, I feel like I’m coming up by myself from about three quarters of the way up (according to Cary before I left I was coming up myself from about half-way down), but right now I’m scrunching up the muscles in my lower back and clenching my bum and thighs to try and move the weight forward. She says that’s OK for now as long as there is no pain, but that I need to focus on pushing my knees forward, and maybe taking my feet wider when I go back. Apparently I have proper duck feet and a super narrow stance, which makes it much harder (as I told her, I don’t like to make things easy for myself...). Having missed out on giving me the backbend treatment Tim instead decided to make me do chakrasana after uttana padasana about fifteen times (and I’m not even exaggerating!) despite me insisting that I really can’t do it...and yes, I got bad lady’d there, and elsewhere in my practice today.

Actually this wasn’t intended to be a practice report but look what just happened...what I was meaning to write more about was how the days are just so packed that I barely even have time to relax let alone to blog, or just to write for myself about how I’m processing my time here. I know this doesn’t exactly sound like the toughest schedule, but the days so far have gone like this...

Day 1:

6.30 – 7.45 – assisting

7.45 – 9.45 – practice

Breakfast

Shower

Half an hour of emailing

Lunch

Adjustment lesson with tim

Afternoon workshop

Dinner

Err – that was the whole day. The second day I had a massage between breakfast and lunch, and an hour’s nap instead of the adjustment lesson, but so far I haven’t even been down to the pool, left the compound to go to Villa Blanche, or even drunk any coffee yet (which could be why I spent to whole of Tim’s breath workshop painfully falling asleep whilst sitting up). I know woe is me and all that, but somehow I need to shoe-horn time in to write, to be by myself, and yet to enjoy socialising and being around people too. My room-mate said that at Yoga Plus in Crete (where she has been going for ten years) it’s called “sitting on a rock”, and that here there’s not really anywhere to do it. Apparently the other downside to it is that you’re the weirdo who sits on a rock, but still, I would like to be able to achieve some sort of balance. Mind you from what I hear of Mysore it can be even more difficult there to carve out some time. But I’m not talking about finding time for two hours meditation a day (though my ayurvedic doctor has prescribed me twenty minutes twice a day which I should probably at least start trying to do), I’m talking about managing to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing and maybe to email my mum and dad and let them know how I’m getting on (and to write of course). Talk about first world problems eh?

This pretty much sums it up...

Scheduling moans aside, I feel so grateful to be working with these amazing teachers once again, and to be given the opportunity to help out a little and learn so much more about myself and the practice in the process. Spending three hours in the shala each morning is definitely taking it out of me, my legs are aching and my right bicep is very sore (people really drop their weight into you in UHP don’t they?!) but I also feel strong and calm in my practice. I’m not stressing so much about what’s going on around me as I normally would, and with a few minor exceptions I am able to view my fellow practitioners with compassion and see that each of us have our own struggles, and our own take on the practice but we all can benefit from it to the degree that we offer our dedication and surrender. Now if I could just find the time for some outings for cake and ice-cream to retox, I think this trip would just about count as perfect so far J

p.s. I just sat writing this with my teachers sat beside me at the wifi table...which feels kind of weird ;) 

New Year ritual

This year at the age of 33, for the first time ever in my life, I spent the evening of 31st December alone and was very very happy to do so. It was enough really just to be home alone, contented and without any need for a big New Year hoop-la (although yes I was playing with my new kindle, and yes it might just possibly be the end of the civilised world as we know it, but also I think I am already in love with it), but then I read this and got a little inspired.

So here is what I am letting go of.

Happy 2012, and may we all let go of those things which do not serve us.

The role of my teacher

This morning after backbending on the floor (and finding that for the first time since I first spotted my feet a few weeks ago, today they were just a vague glimpse of pink) I stood to prepare for dropbacks, and after a couple of half-hearted warm-up hangbacks, I sat down to take my forward bend.

The room was quiet, and unbeknownst to me C was watching me from her perch on the other side of the room. As I sat down she called out "MEL! get up!"

I tried to explain across the room (until she came over to my mat) that on Friday I went to see the osteopath, and after the adjustments he gave me (and the nauseating noises which accompanied them) he advised me to not practice for 2 or 3 days, and to very definitely back off the backbending for at least 3 or 4 days. "But did you have an injury when you went?" C asked.

When I gave her a head-wobble as my answer (i.e. I had a slight twinge in my lower back which bothered me only in shoulder-stand, halasana and any legs over-head poses - so not really an injury) she said "If you went with an injury that's one thing, but if you just went along on a whim because your job allows you to see an osteopath, then I don't go along with that advice." I giggled (a lot). Then I stood up. 

By this stage I was giggling so much that I could barely control my first dropback. She had completely got the measure of me....so going straight to the top of the list today of the numerous roles of a mysore teacher is...

...calling you out on your bullshit.

Blogging dilemma

So, just a petit post for a petit dilemma (which, incidentally, I prefer to spell with an n, but apparently is with a double m. Who knew?!). 

As I may have mentioned ;) I will be heading off to India in the Spring for my fourth trip to Goa and my first trip to Mysore, a trip of just under three months. And (considering how shite I am at committing to regular blogging when I say this) I am debating what to do about writing whilst I am there. The matter of blog secrecy/openness has oft before been debated - and whilst it's obvious that my blog is not private, nor do I attempt to conceal my identity, nor do I openly discuss it's existence with my family or friends outside of the yoga world. I have once posted a link to it on facebook thanks to the new privacy features but it almost gave me palpitations to do so. But I can't help but feel that at least some of what I want to share from Mysore would be interesting to my family who will (I know) be hanging on any and every bit of news they can get out of me while I'm away. But letting them in on the blog secret now would mean admitting to having fibbed about it's existence in the past, not to mention an immediate censorship of what I post here (including going back and hiding old posts I'd prefer not to share). So do I create a whole new blog for my trip? What if people don't find it - or worse - mention the existence of this blog when they do?? The thought of two separate bogs - one more yoga related and one just about the trip has occurred to me but seriously, how likely is that to happen? 

Thank god I don't have to live a double-life for real, I think the stress would kill me....Talk about first world problems.

p.s. am in backbending bootcamp. Had to do about ten dropbacks today and still no solo standing....le sigh.

Nothing's changed and everything's different

It's maybe untrue to say that "nothing's changed" but given that the topic of my last post was hitting the two year mark with my teacher, this past week I've been noticing the extent to which my practice has changed. I am doing exactly the same asanas I was doing this time last year, but everything is completely different - I have started to experience the practice on an energetic level to some extent and it feels like it is starting to feel like it's been transformed, and that it's transforming me. True, I'm also in the midst of ayurvedic treatment, taking herbs and doing practices which are supposed to heal me and open my heart (and are in fact merrily fucking with my head) but I seem to be finding life a series of almost unbearably sweet days with the odd overwhelmingly disastrous tear-ridden thrown in for good measure. And I feel like when it comes to practice if these feelings continue, where I can find an immense sense of grounding with the energy WHOOSHING down and pinning me to the earth, whilst bouncing off itself and sending my flying with grace and ease, then I couldn't care less if I never get given another asana. I think the "secret" to this change is this: three years. My first year was all about figuring out the practice (and how to fit it into my life and find a teacher). My second year was about claiming the primary series, asana by asana, and my third year seems to have been about solidifying and beginning, in some small way, to understand what all of this craziness is really here for. I'm just scratching the surface, but I have greater respect for this system day by day.

And on the subject of unbearable sweetness, and inspired by Serene Flavor's occasional happy life lists (and memories of the weekly "What we Like" lists in Just Seventeen magazine...) these things are currently making me happy (in no particular order)...

• Hearing Blue by Joni Mitchell over a lovely impromptu catch-up breakfast and coming home to download it and listen on repeat. Favourite tracks...A Case of You and California. Listening to it transports me to the imaginary life where I live in an attic in Paris and drink black coffee and smoke cigarettes (see also: Madeleine Peyroux).
• Re-reading the copy of Chocolat by Joanne Harris that I bought second-hand (and last read) on my travels in Thailand in 2000 and still bears the 200baht price sticker....and trying to not picture the beautiful Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp as I read...)

• My shiny new epilator. I am way too lazy and disorganised for any sort of leg hair removal that needs doing more than once a week.
• Blowing the dust off my sewing machine to make dolls for my nieces for Christmas...crafty, satisfying AND saves money. Win win win.
• Navigating my way through my ayurvedic treatment and coming up against some of the craziness that I've been burying for years...or decades. It's not always fun, but finding appreciation in each little change and gain that I can find.
• The huge new shopping centre 1 tube stop from my house which it turns out is not the work of the devil (as I first thought) because it means I can stop off for porridge or a pastry and coffee on the way home from practice. On the days when I am less than happy it seems that my mental health can be tipped back into balance by one of these excursions...oh AND there is a Waitrose there. Fully stocked up on rye bread, mung beans and avocados after this morning's excursion....and wheat-free vegan chocolate-chip shortbread biscuits. Oops.
• The sweet and possibly naive thrill of anticipation. Sometimes this is the best bit.
• Going to work...no really. I'll have worked 39 hours by the end of this week and I am loving being there. Every time I go I end up getting therapy of some sort...whether I'm lying on a couch or not. Reflexology after a 9 hour shift that started at 5.30am on Monday, an impromptu dunno-what healing session in the office to cure my migraine on Wednesday night (and it really did), a conversation with the ayurvedic doctor which turned into therapy....I am so blessed to work in this environment. What's not to love??

On my break at work. I look pretty miserable don't I?

Knowing that my trip to Mysore is oh so close, but appreciating every moment of the here and now.

That should do for now.