Two weeks living in Gokulam

I must have tried writing this blog post at least half a dozen times before realizing what the problem was—I was trying to write this as a continuation of the “getting re-acquainted with India” post, but that post really did not need a “part 2”—the getting “re-acquainted” was getting sick, lol.

What I have been trying to figure out exactly how to share is what I have been doing with my time here and what my life has been like during these first couple of weeks living here in India—well, aside from getting sick and trying to get well, lol.  On that note, I have been feeling much better after seeing an Ayurvedic doctor, Dr Anil Kumar this past Tuesday.  Dr. Kumar came highly recommended by a couple of people and, so far, I can say that the praise is well deserved!  He determined that I have a throat/upper respiratory infection and gave me some powdered herbs and spices to mix with honey for the cough (every time I take it, I hear that Mary Poppins song in my head, "just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down...") and some Ayurvedic medicine tablets to treat the infection (along with, of course, some dietary guidelines since Ayurveda views food as medicine).  I started feeling better the next day and the cough has almost completely subsided.  My energy has started to return too and I am starting to get a little restless, eager to continue to go out and explore; which, between moving to 3 different housing locations, lol, was what I was doing a lot of until the infection made me slow down and take it easy, lol.

I would go out on what I like to call my “neighborhood meanderings,” where I would just set out without any destination in mind or on any schedule and just wander around the streets of my new neighborhood.  These meanderings were not just important in giving me a chance to find where I could buy my groceries, household items, water, clothing, books, and where some of the places are that many of the yoga students like to congregate, but there were crucial in giving me a sense of feeling grounded in a new environment that often felt like it was spinning with activity and new sensory stimuli.  They gave me time to engage my inner-compass (since the street signs are in another language—don’t worry, I do have a small map, though I rarely look at it now) and to casually explore whatever intrigued or just simply amused me.  It has also been important in giving me a chance to interact more with the locals here.  It was intimidating at first because I did not want to unknowingly say or do something rude and because I just thought that I wouldn’t be capable of communicating with people, but the more I let myself do it, the easier it gets.  Interacting with the people who live here is one of my favorite things to do because I love learning about and seeing how other people live, and they seem to enjoy sharing it with me.

Life itself here in Gokulam is….well, I’m not exactly sure what it is yet, lol.  Between getting sick and moving to different housing locations, I haven’t really had much of a chance to establish any routines yet, lol.  I do have a few though: I go to yoga in the morning, obviously, and then either casually linger around outside the shala, drinking a freshly chopped open coconut and soaking in the sunshine, or I slowly walk the long way home and just enjoy not having to rush off to work in the morning.  Now that I have set housing and have finally acquired some basic necessities for cooking, I get to enjoy eating all of my meals at home, prepared fresh—no storage containers, no re-heating, no eating my meals while waiting for the bus, or on the bus, or at work, or on the subway home.  I do my laundry by hand now, via a bucket and the faucet in the shower or, if it is a lot, I use the faucet outside my room.   But I have quickly learned not to go for more than a couple of days without doing the laundry.

~SIDE NOTE: do not wash any new colored Indian-made clothing or towels in the same bucket as your other clothes, unless you are going for the tie-dyed look, lol.  I swear they must add extra ink to everything, lol.  Another note: only use as much soap as you are willing to spend the time to rinse and wring out—you don’t need as much as you think you do and bending down over a bucket will get tiring really quick ;-) 

Having to bend over a bucket and wash, rinse and wring out my clothes by hand has given me a totally new appreciation for the labor that actually goes into washing clothes, and I actually enjoy it more because of that: because I have to put more work/effort into what I am doing.  There is something about actually being connected to the labor/effort that goes into doing or making something that makes it so much more valuable, such as washing clothes by hand, or cooking your own meals, mending your own clothes or walking to places instead of driving or taking a rickshaw.  Or even just simply being more connected to where the labor comes from, such as how seeing the lady who cleans my apartment cleaning the floors with a hand towel instead of a mop makes me appreciate her efforts even more and makes me more conscious of cleaning up after myself and my roommates.  Or how seeing the people digging up the streets with nothing but metal hand tools and carrying away the rocks via a plate that they balance on their head or the construction workers building houses with simple tools turns these creations into works of art in my mind and leaves me in awe of their strength and abilities.  I was waiting in line at a popular vendor the other day and a Western lady was trying to buy some milk and when the vendor came back with the milk in a clear plastic bag, the lady asked where the certificate was, validating it as organic.  The vendor told her that, “this is India, there is no certificate.  This milk comes from an organic farm 10km away, it is fresh.”  In a place like this where you are more connected to the community and to the people who directly provide your goods and services, you quickly learn that someone’s word and reputation become the “certificate” of authenticity or purity.

Anyways, once the clothes are as rinsed out as I can get them, I head up to the roof to hang them up on a clothesline to dry in the sun, and take the time to enjoy being up above the streets and the sounds, just taking in the sight of the neighborhood stretched out in front of me.

Speaking of sounds, you know what sound I don’t hear out here?  Sirens.  That was one of the things that I never really felt like I re-adjusted to when I came back from India the first time.  They drove me crazy because they made me feel like I was living in a constant state of emergency.  It seemed like every 10 minutes or so an ambulance, fire truck or police vehicle would come careening down the streets, screaming, “EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY!!!  EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WAY NOW!!!!  EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY!!!!!”  Really?!  That often?  Every day?!   Here--no sirens, even though there is a hospital just around the corner from where I live.  I don’t doubt that there are life and death situations happening here every day—how could there not be with the way people drive, lol?  But, for some reason, there are no sirens here announcing every single situation at every moment of the day.  Do you know what sound I hear more of out here (besides horns and motors, lol)?  Birds.  So many new bird sounds.  I hear them when I wake up in the morning and throughout the day.  Mix that with morning calls to prayer for people of the Islamic faith and the sounds of water running in the morning for laundry or cleaning and it’s like getting to hear some sort of sweet new music.

Other things I have not been missing from back home:  chairs, cell phones and television/movies.  Coming from a job where I spent a large majority of my day sitting at a desk, no one needs to convince me of the damaging effects of sitting in chairs on the body.  Or, rather, the position you typically sit in while on a chair.  Now that I am sitting cross-legged on the floor for the majority of the times that I need to sit down, my knees hurt less and my hips are no where near as tight as they used to be.  I have a cell phone here but I rarely use it and have only a couple of contacts in it; most of the time, I leave it at home.  I can’t even begin to describe how nice it feels to not be tethered to a phone and constantly hearing that thing go off, demanding immediate attention.  Television and movies?  I was surprised to see how little I missed being able to watch them.  They are just something to keep the mind entertained and there is plenty going on here that is just as engaging, if not more.  I even don't listen to my MP3 player as much.

So, that is what my days have been like here right now: yoga, chanting class 3 days/week, conference (discussion) at the Shala with Sharath on Sundays with the rest of the time filled up with neighborhood wandering, laundry by hand, cooking at home, a couple of hours on the internet every other day or so down at the “Net Corner” internet box (I can’t call it a café, there are no food or drinks, just computer booths in a room on the second floor of a building, it’s a box, lol), reading and journaling whenever I manage to make myself stop moving (it’s a stubborn habit to break, this feeling like I always have to be doing something) and doing my best to not over-exert myself while my body is recovering from being sick.  Occasionally I go out and socialize with fellow students, but most of the time right now I prefer less socializing and more time to myself to just be in my new surroundings.  I do have plenty of photos to share with all of you, but the internet is slow right now and I have to go, so I will post some photos later :-)

Practicing at the Ashtanga Yoga "Mothership"

So, now that you have an idea of how the Ashtanga Yoga system works.  Here, at the main shala for Ashtanga Yoga (a.k.a, “Ashtanga Yoga Home Base,” “Ashtanga Yoga Mothership,” lol), it is very much the same, but also quite a bit different.

For one there are MANY more people practicing at the same time, lol.  So many students have been coming over the years that not only was a new shala built (the original one in the neighborhood of Lakshmipuram could only hold 10-15 students, I think; the current one, in the Gokulam neighborhood, holds probably close to 100, and even then students end up practicing in the locker rooms!) but they also had to assign people to time slots, with the first group starting at 4:30 in the morning, and the last as late as 11:00 in the morning.  Sharath gets up even earlier and does his practice I think around 2 in the morning.  I know, I wonder the same thing—when does he sleep?!  Anyways, when you arrive in Mysore, you go and see Sharath (if you are practicing with him) and he gives you a start time, usually on the later end (unless you are a regularly returning student of his, then you are likely to be put in an earlier start time, with the chance that it could be 4:30am, lol).  Then, as people leave to go back to their homes, your time gets pushed back to an earlier time.  I started out at 10:30am and am now at 9:00am.  Now, don’t think for a moment that because there are so many students practicing there that Sharath does not somehow know who you are, because he does.  I don’t know how, but he does.  He may not know your name yet, but he knows you, and what time he gave you.  I’ve seen him catch people trying to get in earlier, “you, why are you here?  I gave you 10:00 start time.  You’re too early, go home.”  He also has his own method for when he lets people come into the room.  When you arrive for your start time, there will usually already be people waiting either in the lobby outside the practice room

or, if it’s really busy, on the stairs outside.  

You sit down behind everyone else and wait until someone in the room finishes their practice and Sharath calls, “One more!” or “Two More!”  Prior to coming here, I had heard how some people try to push their way to the front, but my time group is so incredibly polite and courteous.  Sometimes when Sharath calls one more, there is a delay and he calls out, “no fighting,” but we are not fighting saying, “it’s my turn!” we are trying to figure out who’s turn it is, saying, “no, you were here first, you go!”  But, as I said, Sharath also has his own method.  Sometimes it depends on where there is space.  If the open space is up on the stage (there is a small stage up front where he usually sits, with just enough space to have 2 students practicing on either side of him), then he calls, “One more!...Small!” (I think that if he ever plays Tetris, he is probably a master Tetris player, lol).  Or, in the case with the group of the time slot that I practice with, he usually has one guy move to the front of the line because his practice tends to be slower, “Slow man, you come front!”  Other times, it has to do with not who arrived at practice first that day, but with who has seniority.  I saw that yesterday when he pointed to a lady and said, “You, come front, she is senior student,” or “you come front, you registered first.”  Other times, there is just no obvious reason, such as when he had me and another girl move to the front of the line even though I believe both of us are in Mysore for the first time, both of us arrived at class today a little behind everyone else and both of us registered around the same time as everyone else—who knows, lol!  What’s really amusing is to hear him call for a specific person but he does not know their name, so he calls, “One more—Japanese!” or “One more—Russian!”  So, though he may not know your name, he definitely knows who you are, and where you are at in your practice.

Similarly to when you first start practicing Ashtanga Yoga, on your first trip to Mysore to study with Sharath, everyone practices the Primary Series first, even if you are practicing from a series further in the system with your teacher at home (for example, I am about ¾ of the way through the 2^nd series with my teacher, Kate O’Donnell back in Boston).  There are a couple of reasons for this.  The first of which is that you are new to Sharath, so he needs time to observe and get to know you and your practice, from the beginning.  The second is that the Primary Series has a very grounding energetic effect.  Traveling at any time has the ability to leave you feeling very disoriented, let alone traveling (for many of us) across multiple time zones to a completely unfamiliar place.  You will likely be tired, so practicing only the Primary Series in the beginning is also help get you settled.  I must say that for these first couple of weeks, my yoga practice has been just about the only thing that has felt familiar and safe (meaning that I didn’t have to worry about it making me sick, lol).  Which brings me back to the point I was trying to make at the beginning of all of this, lol—practicing in the main shala is very different than practicing at your home studio and with your home group.

With more people practicing there, the energy of the room is literally different.  It is stronger.  During my first practice, aside from being full of nervous energy (since it was the first practice) I literally felt carried along by the strong energy of so many people practicing in the same place.  So, in some ways, practice has felt easier here because I am being helped along by the strong energy of all the people there practicing in the shala--kind of like how it is easier, sometimes, to run faster, or just easier, when you are running with a strong group of people (like in a race or something).  But, that also means that it is easier to get carried away by the energy, and you have to really make sure that you keep the focus on you and your breath and your dristhi (gazing point).  I have noticed that if I let my mind wander for a moment (to either what the person next to me is doing or to some random thought that floats through my mind) then I lose track of where I am in the practice, “what number breath was that?” “Did I already do that pose on this side?”  So, for me, I have noticed that I have become much more focused while I am practicing here…you know what else has helped in putting my mind in a more quiet and receptive state?  Being sick, lol!  Anyways, with the practice taking on a much stronger internally-oriented focus, a lot of the more subtle aspects of the practice have become more noticeable—such as how the connected pose-breath pattern creates a rhythm and when you pause or fidget, you break that rhythm, or, similarly, how letting even the smallest bit of aggression into your practice (either in trying to force your way into a pose or in feeling competitive with the people around you) also breaks the rhythm of the practice; or seeing how much letting your gaze wander invites wandering thoughts.  Or, from a more physical standpoint, how making a small adjustment in how you do a pose really changes how it feels—such as noticing that when I focus more on pressing down on the actual tops of my feet, and not the tops of the toes, in Upward-facing dog

 it creates a much more anchored feeling in the pose, making the back bend part of the pose feel more accessible, and making it feel like I’m also more connected to the rest of my legs.   But, even though the internal focus seems to be heightened here, practicing at the main shala is simultaneously also a practice in being aware of your surroundings because you are likely to not have more than one hand’s distance on all sides of your mat between you and the people practicing next to you.  So, when you move into and out of postures, you have to be aware of where the people are around you, otherwise you could end up knocking someone in the head when you jump into or out of a pose, or end up sticking your foot in someone’s face, or having all of those things done to you, lol.  I know everyone expects that they will often have another person’s body part either touching them or on their mat, but I still feel awkward letting that happen, lol.

~SIDE NOTE: Sharath’s led classes are both hard, as he makes you hold all of the more challenging postures longer (such as in the last posture, Utpluthi

 where he gradually counts slower as the numbers get closer to the final number, 10: “Seven, don’t come down…………….Eight…………………………Nine……………………………………………………………..(walks out of view to check in on students in another area of the room while your arms are shaking from effort and you don’t know if you will be able to stay up for another microsecond)…….oh, why you come down?!………Ten!”) and they are totally amusing, because it’s a bit like a game of “Simon Says:” “Inhale, lift your head, exhale there.  Don’t move!  I said, ‘exhale there,’ why you hurry?”~

Another thing I have found about practicing here, thus far, is that there seems to always be something that you need to give up, usually it’s a sense of control.  As I mentioned, one of the benefits of this practice being taught in the self-practice method is that it makes us responsible for our own practices, and starts making us into our own teachers.  However, there is a danger of becoming rigid in our practices, clinging to our old habits and becoming closed off to new ways of teaching, thinking that, “hey, I’ve got this down!”  And we forget that we are all still students, learning both from the teacher and from the practice itself.  I had thought that I have always been pretty open and receptive in my practice, until I came here and Sharath started to change my back bends.  For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, each series goes like this: surya namaskar (“salute to the sun,” picture this as part of your “warm-up”), standing poses (again, like a warm up, the suyra namaskar and standing poses are the same for everyone), the postures from whatever series you are practicing, a back bending sequence (with varying degrees of intensity or “bendy-ness”), and the finishing postures (which everyone does, no matter which series you are practicing).  Currently, my back bending practice has become advanced, but it was not always like that.  I had to really work for it to be where it is at now.  At first, it was issues with pain in the lower back (courtesy of old back issues related to a hiking injury and imbalances from a foot injury).  Then it was issues with extreme light-headedness, to the point where I felt nauseous and thought I might black out.  I became quite nervous and fearful of doing them.  But, after years of patience and caring attention, both from my teachers and from the attention that I, myself, was bringing to those poses, my back bends are now in a really good place.  Even at their deepest, they feel very freeing, empowering and like there is literally more space in my back.  So, when Sharath started to change them, I immediately felt resistance.  They were not big changes, just move the feet wider apart (well, a lot wider for me, I currently prefer them hips-distance apart, he wants them almost as wide as the mat) and do not work to straighten the legs.  Currently, in my deepest back bend, I am “catching” (Sharath’s word of choice, lol) my own ankles (without assistance) and balancing and breathing in that posture for several breaths before coming up on my own.  

Or, when I am doing them with my teacher, the hands are further up the legs, to maybe about the lower calf muscle.  When I am doing that, I work towards straightening my legs because doing so feels like it helps me really access my legs and stay balanced in the posture well.  So, with his changes, having the feet wider apart and keeping the legs more bent, I felt totally disoriented.  It felt harder to use my legs and like my center of gravity was totally off.  I started feeling pretty annoyed by this, thinking, “Quite messing around with my back bends!  You don’t understand everything I had to go through to get them this way!  I know what I am doing in these, just leave them alone!”  But, I was forgetting something—I am not the teacher.  He knows where he is taking my back bends, I do not.  Furthermore, here, in this place and with this teacher, I am a beginner.  No matter what I practice at home or at what level I think I am at, here, I am a beginner.  I finally let go of trying to stay in charge of my back bends (aided, again, by feeling very sick and not having enough mental energy to resist, lol) and you know what I discovered?  I am just fine.  My back hasn’t broken and after a few practices, I have found my balance again in those poses.  

It all reminds me of something that my friend Cara wrote about her first meeting with Sharath in 2011.  He had asked her if she was a beginner, and she said no.  He questioned her saying that she seemed very sure of that.  And she quickly said, “well, we are always beginners in some way…”  But, now, I am really starting to understand how true those words are—always a beginner :-)

Practicing at the Ashtanga Yoga "Mothership"...but, first, some background

This was originally supposed to be one blog post about what it has been like to practice at the main Ashtanga shala/school (the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute), but then I realized that not everyone reading my blog is familiar with the Ashtanga Yoga lineage or with how it is practiced.  So this first part is a brief introduction to all of those things.  For everyone who is already familiar with Ashtanga Yoga, feel free to skip this…or read it anyways and feel free to correct or clarify anything that I write ;-)

So, the guru of Ashtanga Yoga was Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (a.k.a “Guruji").  He learned the Ashtanga Yoga method from his guru Krishnamacharya (who was also the teacher of B.K.S. Iyengar and T.K.V. Desikachar, the heads of two other primary modern yoga systems; as such, Krishnamacharya is often referred to as the grandfather of the modern yoga movement).  Guruji first started teaching the Ashtanga Yoga method to westerners in the mid 1960's and early 1970's, but I believe that it wasn't until the 1990's that it really started to gain momentum, with many Westerners traveling to India to study directly with him.  There also just weren’t many peopl­­e teaching Ashtanga Yoga yet, so the only way to learn more of it was to travel to Mysore and study directly with Guruji.  As Guruji was the only guru of Ashtanga Yoga, he was also the only one who could officially authorize/certify anyone to teach it.  Of course one could do a regular yoga teacher training and then just teach the sequence, but Ashtanga Yoga is a method/tradition of yoga based on lineage—our teachers learned the method directly from Guruji (or from some of his first students), Guruji learned it from Krishnamacharya, Krishnamacharya from his teacher and so on and so forth.  So, when you receive an authorization/certification to teach it, there is more that you are receiving than just a piece of paper.  By receiving authorization/certification directly from the Jois family, you are receiving a blessing to teach this method, and are being entrusted with preserving the integrity of a lineage/tradition and with being a part of its continued growth.  Pattabhi Jois passed away in 2009 (I know, the KPJAYI website, says 2007, it's 2009) and left his grandson, Sharath, as the head of the lineage/director of the institute.  I say “head” and “director” because, as Sharath himself will tell you, he is not a guru; his grandfather was/is the guru of Ashtanga Yoga.  Sharath’s mother, Saraswati also teaches in Mysore.  She and Sharath used to assist Guruji when he was alive, and then she continued to assist Sharath until she started teaching her own classes at a second shala, just up the road from the main shala.  She used to go and assist Sharath after her classes were finished, but I think that both shalas have become so busy that she no longer assists Sharath (or at least she is not during my trip here--by the way, she is in her early 70s!  How cool is that?!).   

The system and practice of Ashtanga Yoga itself is quite unique.  It is a system of 6 series of specific sequences of asanas/poses (the 1st/Primary, 2nd/Intermediate, 3rd/Advanced A, 4th/Advanced B, 5th and 6th) with each asana being linked to another through a vinyasa, meaning each pose is connected to the next via the breath in a specific way.  Each pose also has a specific number of breaths that you take while in each posture.  So, with the focus being on keeping a smooth and steady breath, and with the movements all being linked together by the breath, when you practice the poses, the sequence becomes a kind of moving meditation.  Each sequence is also designed to achieve and work on different aspects of the body and mind.  Many other modern yoga classes follow this idea, of linking one pose to then next through the breath and of working around a theme or peak pose (shoulder opening, arm balances, back bending, etc), but in the Ashtanga system, the poses and sequence that you practice do not change (except for when you learn new poses or have to modify because of an injury or something else that affects your ability to do your regular practice). 

In the traditional method (called “Mysore style,” as this is how Guruji originally taught it in the city of Mysore in India) the student will learn the Ashtanga Yoga series from a teacher on a one-on-one basis.  Everyone starts with the Primary (1^st) series.  It does not matter if you have been practicing another style of yoga for 10 years or if you are capable of balancing in a handstand on one hand in the middle of the room—if you are new to the practice of Ashtanga Yoga, then you start with the Primary Series.  When the teacher sees that the student understands and remembers the postures and sequence, and feels that he/she is ready for more, then the teacher “gives” the student the next pose in the series (or two, depending on the student and what the poses are).  All of the students practice together during a certain time window (usually 6:00am-8:30am during the weekdays, a little later on Sundays) but each person is moving at their own pace and doing the practice up to whatever point/pose the teacher has taught them.  The teacher is not leading everyone through a sequence at the same time—except for when the class is specifically being taught as “led,” usually on Fridays.  During those led classes, the focus shifts from the students’ individual practices and from doing the postures to their fullest expression, to staying with and learning the correct counts and vinyasas of the series.  Ashtanga is traditionally taught in silence (no music here) so that you can really hear and focus on your breath.  Practicing in silence also gives you ample time to see exactly how your mind and emotions react to things and provides you with a unique opportunity to begin to control/change your reactions to things ;-).  The teacher is present in the room to, of course, teach new poses to students when it is time, but also to help students with whatever they are currently working on.  The teaching in Ashtanga is not usually done through a lot of talking, but more through physical adjustments (See pictures of practice in a Mysore room here).  I think this is largely because Guruji did not speak much English, so he literally moved students into the correct asana positions.  But this also helps keep the room relatively silent so that the students’ focus can be drawn inward.  Also, as I have learned, sometimes words are not really adequate for trying to describe how to move the body.

All of this is very different from the way that most yoga classes are held these days.  It is unique because the student quickly becomes a bit like their own teacher and, by doing the practice from memory and at their own pace, he/she becomes more responsible for their practice than they might in a regular yoga class.  It is also unique because it really builds a strong relationship between student and teacher, as the teacher is the one who decides when the student is ready to learn a new posture, and, with the practice being done in this specific way (a self-practice in a group setting), it gives the teacher a good opportunity to really see each student—to work with them individually (instead of having to try and keep the rest of the class going while trying to help a student with something) and to really see where each students’ strengths are and where they need to work more (or not work more in some cases).

Ok, I think that will give you a pretty good basic understanding so that you can better follow along when I talk about my practice here on the blog, if not, I'll describe it as I go ;-)

Getting Re-acquainted with India, part 1

Hello All!

Yes, I know, it has been a week since I last posted something…bad blogger lady!  So, what have I been up to?  And why the absence?

Well, there are a few reasons for not posting something sooner.  The first of which is not always reliable internet connection where I was staying.  During the first 6 days of being in Mysore, I lived in 3 different places.  The first was with a friend of a friend at a place called Rashinkar’s Mansion.  I crashed on her couch from Saturday through Monday evening.  It was a very nice place, close to the KPJAYI shala, in a relatively quiet neighborhood (except for when the neighboring school’s marching band was out practicing in the morning, lol) and the internet was good, which is where the first two blogs were posted from.   But, I could stay with her past Monday evening and, in typical Indian fashion, I did not know where I was going to be staying that night until just a few hours before I moved.  Just about everything here happens on a much more casual and relaxed time frame—which is why the time at the shala is 15 minutes fast (“shala time”).  Anyways, I ran into a teacher who used to teach in Boston on Sunday and she was able to talk with her landlord and he let me stay there for the remaining 3 nights before I could move into my housing for the rest of the time that I am here.  I liked the set-up of that apartment, having my own room and my own key, so I could come and go on my own schedule instead of having to maneuver around another person’s, and getting to stay with someone that I already knew.  One of my favorite things about that apartment was that the back of the building faced east, so when I went outside to use the bathroom in the morning, I got to see the sun come up (see new blog cover picture).  Yes, you read that correctly, the bathrooms were outside (only one of the bedrooms in the apartment had a bathroom attached to it).  They were not porter-potties, just bathroom stalls (toilet, shower, and sink) separate from the individual apartment.  But, the internet connection was touch and go.  In the morning and early afternoon, no internet connection, same for at night sometimes.  During the day time, internet worked fine.  So, why no blogging during that time?  Well, there are a couple of reasons, the first of which I am hesitant to admit because I don’t want people to worry, but no posting about my experience here thus far would be complete without it, because it is affecting everything right now; and that is that I am already sick.

It started Tuesday morning with the ominous sore throat.  The prelude to this was a night of almost no sleep due to where the second apartment that I stayed at was located.  It was located on a main road of Mysore and my room happened to be on the street side.  I swear the motors from all the cars, scooters, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles and trucks are either designed to be twice as loud as the vehicles back in the States, or that Indian vehicles lack mufflers.  Or maybe it is just that all sounds seem amplified here, as though they seem to just carry further on the air?  Whatever it is, I barely slept at all that night and when I did, it was fitful, full of tossing and turning from one side of my body to the other.  That first morning after moving in, I woke up with a sore throat.  No sleep + air pollution + sensory overload = perfect recipe for getting sick.  The second night, still not much sleep and the sore throat progressed to general sinus pressure that quickly focused to mostly near my ears.  Fatigue was also setting in along with an increasingly wimpy digestion and the hint of a cough and increased mucus.  I started recognizing the pattern—this was almost exactly the same way I got sick the first time that I was here.  And not just the pattern of symptoms, but also the things leading up to it: poor sleep, increased air pollution and an increase of “noise pollution.”  I started using Echinacea and the nasal spray as soon as I felt the sore throat, but this seemed to be progressing too quickly to rely solely on homeopathic remedies.  So I have also been taking the Mucinex and Sudafed that I brought with me from home.  I also have some cough medicine and cough drops that I picked up the Ayurvedic chemist (that’s “pharmacy” back in the States).  All of those help to mitigate the worst of the symptoms, but we all know that it does not treat the thing causing them.  By my own diagnosis, I am pretty sure that I have a sinus infection.  So how I am I treating it?  I have acquired a neti pot and have cleaned out the nasal cavity (don’t worry, I use bottled water and boil it first—of course I let it cool down before I use it, lol) and am steaming with tea tree oil (a strong natural antibacterial) and eucalyptus oil (because it helps me breathe easier).  I am also drinking a lot of fluids including ginger, lemon and honey tea.  I have noticed some small improvements during the last couple of days, so hopefully this direction continues.  If not, rest assured that there is help here if I need it, both of the modern and homeopathic variety.  It has been almost a full week since the first sign of all this and I barely have a voice at this point, courtesy of all the coughing (don’t worry, it does not seem to be coming from my lungs, it seems to be just my body’s attempt to clear the gunk out from my throat).  My back muscles are also very tired and sore from all the coughing and there is a general sense of fatigue.  So, with all that going on, I have not really felt like blogging, though there is definitely much to talk about, almost too much…which leads me to point number 2 regarding the absence in posting.

As many people know, India is a place where all the senses are almost instantly assaulted with large amounts of information, all at once.  The air (as I mentioned) tends to be polluted even in the best of cities (Mysore is supposed to be on the lower end)—exhaust from diesel-powered vehicles, dust, smoke from trash fires (a lot of people here use small, controlled fires as a trash disposal method), new plant allergens all mixed with the smells of spices, animals and poorly disposed of trash (that was not burned).  That is a lot of information just in one sense!  Then there are the sounds—the loud vehicle motors, people calling out to each other in languages that are foreign to the ears, ringing bells from temples, barking dogs, new bird sounds, and the never-ending honking of horns.  For those of you who do not know, people use their horns here as a general form of communication when driving: “Hello!  I’m coming up behind you and am going to pass you!” “Hello!  I am coming out from this side street!” “Hello!  I am making a turn across traffic!” “Hi there!  I know you!” “Hello!  I’m coming out from this blind spot!” and, of course, “Hey!  Watch where you are going!”  It takes a while to recognize that not every honk of the horn is meant to be aggressive.  But, until that settles in, it still makes me tense up against the sound.  The sight also has a plethora of information coming at it: new buildings, bright colors, new trees, new fruits and vegetables, street traffic that seems to have no sense of order—with motor vehicles sharing roads with bicycles, pedestrians, cows and dogs plus human and animal-drawn carts.  I read in one of the guidebooks that my dad got me that there are only 2 rules to driving in India: “fill/use every possible space and the largest vehicle has the right of way.”  I would amend that last portion to, “the fastest vehicle has the right of way.”  You know who doesn’t have the right of way?  Pedestrians.  This is not Boston—the cars here will not stop for you to cross the street.  It is more like a game of Frogger, you jump/hurry across the street as soon as you see an opening.  And even when you see an opening, you have to look in all 4 directions (ahead of you, behind you and to both sides) as you cross to make sure that no one is going to run you over.  Sometimes it feels like vehicles materialize out of nowhere!  Then there is the paradox of modern technology and living mixed with still rural ways of life.  There are “internet cafes,” new cars, big beautiful houses, American junk food, such as Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Lays Potato chips (with flavor varieties never seen in the States!) and there are also people who still walk barefoot, carry packages on their head, construct buildings using bamboo scaffolding, use the bush on the side of the road as a toilet, dig a ditch in a street using nothing but a large hoe (and most of the people I have seen doing this work are women—working in their sarees or skirts, wearing no shoes or gloves.  It is sad to see but I also marvel at their strength), cows walking freely through the streets (which I actually love to see), vendors and stalls for specific items (such as the stainless steel vendor who calculated the price of my new cooking pot using an old-fashioned scale and weights), holy men walking the street asking for alms (offerings), temples that seem to come straight out of “old world,” and that you have probably only seen in movies or documentaries…there is so much to take in that it often feels impossible to try and describe it without having spent a significant amount of time just absorbing it—even though this is my second trip to India!

So, in addition to not really having the energy to blog because I am not feeling well (half the time it doesn't even feel like my brain is working enough to form sentences, lol), I just have not really been able to put words to my experiences just yet.  Each day feels so very different from the last, and the things that I wanted to blog about one day no longer feel relevant or important the next (or even at different parts of the same day).  Whatever this cold/sinus infection is that I am fighting is definitely affecting how I am feeling about being in India right now--being sick is hard, being sick in a foreign country is even harder and there are many times that I miss home right now.  But, with all that being said, there are still so many things here that I marvel at and love seeing.  I have spent a few hours hours each day (before I started feeling too drained from fighting this cold) going outside and just wandering around the streets for a while, exploring my surroundings, and taking some pictures, but that gets its own blog post ;-)  For now, I am tired and need to give my eyes a rest from the computer.  So, I will talk with you all later; to tide you over, here are a few pictures:

My current practice home: the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (shala is on first floor, Sharath and family live in upper levels)

Me sitting in what has become my post-practice perch outside the shala in the mornings...with, of course, a coconut in hand ;-)

Building under construction with old-school style scaffolding

"Spanish Tomato Tango!" "India's Magic Masala!" "American Cream & Onion!" and, on the second shelf, "Naughty Tomato" snack sticks

Gorgeous hand-painted elephant on the wall of the Krishna Temple in Gokulam

Cows enjoy coconuts too :-)

Strong ladies

One of the all-important coconut stands...18 rupees/coconut here (about 30 cents)

The palm trees here are not solely for decoration, watch out for falling coconuts ;-)

What are these odd-looking fruits you ask?  These are jack fruits!  And they are HUGE--picture 2 human heads next to each other and you'll get an idea of how big they are.  Can you imagine the explosion they make when they fall?!

Registered

Here it is, I'm all official now:

It was an extremely busy time at the shala when I went to register.  On Sundays, the time for registration is between 3:30 and 4:30, but the Sunday conference (the time set aside for students to ask Sharath questions in a group setting about the practice) also started at 4:00pm.  I got in to see him about 5 minutes before 4:00 (the rest of the people had to wait until after conference).  It was really quick: he asked me who my teacher in Boston was and how long I planned on staying and then told me how much the shala fees were (47,100 rupees, between $750-$800).  I handed him my giant stack of rupees and he ran it through his cash machine and then complimented me on my "good counting," lol.  As he was filling out my card he asked how to pronounce my name and I told him it was pronounced "t/air-a" (not "t/ar-a") but that so many people pronounce it differently that it doesn't matter as long as it is close.  He also said, "Tara means 'star.'" (in Hindi).  I smiled and told him that I loved the stars, and, also, that in Irish, my name means earth (well, technically "rock," but I didn't feel like getting too specific).  He handed me my registration card and then I thanked him and went to sit outside in the practice room for the conference, with at least 200 other people (everyone who is currently practicing at the shala comes to conference on Sunday)!  It was literally standing room only.  There were many good things that he said (and some I have heard other people talk about in their blogs) but I have not really had time to reflect on them yet.

So, tomorrow will be my first day of practice in the shala...at 10:30am.  I normally start practice around 5:45/5:50 in the morning, so this is a much later start time for me--for those of you unfamiliar with how the practice times at the shala work, there are so many people that come here now that there are different time slots that people have to practice in.  When you first register (especially during the later months) you start in a later time slot.  Then, as more people leave, you get moved to an earlier start time (the earliest one is 4:30am).  So, it's 10:30am for now, but it will eventually change.  

I'm still feeling quite tired, so, as the girl I am staying with right now said, it will probably be good to start later right now.  Though I am feeling a little less like a zombie now, especially after having a chance to do some wandering around the neighborhood on my own (don't worry, I have a map and I'm not venturing too far right now).  I've always preferred to explore on my own because it gives me time to move at my own pace, explore the things that I catch my interest and gives me a chance to practice listening to my own intuition.  So, I'm starting to feel more acquainted with my surroundings here and getting a little more grounded.

And now, it is time to disconnect from the electronics and let the mind wind down before going to sleep.  This was one thing that Sharath mentioned during conference today, and that I have heard from many sources: have time before going to sleep where you do not watch TV, go on the Internet, talk on the phone, etc, because it gives your mind a break from all that stimulation and can help you have a more restful sleep.  So, on that note, I will talk to you all later :-)

Returning to India

Well, after months of planning, waiting and preparing, I am finally here--Mysore, India.  My brain doesn't even really seem to comprehend it yet, possibly due to sleep deprivation (so please excuse any mis-spellings or grammatical errors, lol).  I kind of feel like a zombie right now.  Is anyone curious to see what Tara looks like after 30+ hours of travel on about 7 hours of interrupted sleep?  Yes?  I thought you might, let me show you ;-)

Zombie Tara

I snapped this lovely self-portrait shortly after I arrived at the place where I am temporarily staying until I can move into my own place on February 6.  After so many hours of travel, I felt so far beyond the point of exhaustion that I wanted a picture of what that looked like.  Air travel does such weird things to the body--my digestion feels wimpy and my eyes and my face tend to feel puffy.  And my mind cannot really seem to focus on anything.  I brought books thinking I would read during all those hours on the planes, but I never did, my eyes felt too tired and the brain sluggish or panicky, so I watched movies instead and occasionally got a couple of hours of sleep here and there.  It's interesting, the flight from the United States to my connection in Europe (Frankfurt) was much harder to sit with than the flight from Europe to India, even though it was longer.  I noticed the same thing during my first trip to India in 2012: my legs muscles feel achy and restless and the mind tends to flutter in and out of tiny states of panic over being in an seated and closed in space for so many hours.  But the other flight?  I am much more relaxed and the long hours pass by easier.  I think it might be because during that first half the mind and body are still in their normal time zone--but by the time I get off the plane in Europe, my mind and body are so confused with the difference in time that I really feel like I lose a sense of where I'm at, so it's a little easier for everything to relax.  But, for some reason, sleep still does not happen for too long, and sleep deprivation kicks in and I end up looking like that picture above, lol.

At some point though, during that second flight, I remember looking at the flight map and saw our little digital airplane halfway across the Arabian Sea (the sea on the west side of India) and the reality of what I am doing started to sink in--I was actually doing this: I left my job (a good job, where I was treated well, valued and good at what I did), packed away all the belongings in my room for a sublettor to come in and was going to be living in India for 2 months, without any plans (or even a hint of one) of what I would be doing afterwards.  The only thing I knew, and was focused on, was: go to Mysore to study with Sharath Jois for 2 months, but more on that later ;-)  Anyways, reality started setting in and I could feel myself starting to really get nervous, scared even, about whether or not I could actually live in another country for 2 months, even though I had already been to the country barely more than a year before.  But as soon as I got off the plane and walked into the airport, I was greeted by that wonderfully familiar smell of Indian spices in the heaviness of the damp India air and fear started to melt away.  It brought back all those wonderful memories of my first trip and reminded me of everything that I love about this country, and I knew I would be ok.  

...and then I went outside to find my driver among the dozens of drivers holding signs of the people they were picking up, and guess who's sign was missing.  Yep, mine.  I must have walked up and down the row of drivers for at least 20 minutes before finally accepting that my driver was not there, and that I was in a country where I did not speak the language and I did not have a cell phone, at 2-something in the morning, by myself.  Welcome back, fear.  What was I going to do?  Keep breathing for one, lol, and then nervously ask someone for help.  Fortunately I did remember to write down the number of the man that I booked the taxi through and an airport representative was kind enough to let me use his cell phone.  I reached him and he said that the driver was there and said that he would call the driver and tell him to go closer to the front so I could see him.  Relieved, I went back to the waiting in front of all the drivers.  I waited for what must have been another 20 minutes.  I walked the row again--maybe he was in the back and I could not see him?  Nope, he was not there.  One of the airport security guards approached me and said, "you have been waiting a long time!"  He directed me to a payphone that I could use and I, again called the man I booked the car with, who, again, said that the driver should be there.  After another 20 or so minutes, I called him again from another person's cell phone.  This time, he informed me that it turns out that the driver was indeed not there.  It turns out that he had gotten into a small fender-bender and was still sorting out details with the police, but had not informed anyone about what happened.  So, a new driver was on the way.  He apologized profusely and suggested that I wait by the Subway (yes, there are Subway restaurants in India, lol), get some coffee and "take rest, the driver is coming, everything will be fine."  I did not get coffee, but I felt much better and more relaxed knowing exactly what was happening and that it was being resolved.  It gave me time to sit and just take in my new environment, and smile a bit at all of the advertising and decorations here that make me smile, such as these little gems:

While "America runs on Dunkin," "India runs on Chai!"

Have no fear falling recyclables, your buddies await inside, ready to catch you! 

It also gave me time to look around and remember that I was not actually alone, there were other people there, foreigners and Indians as well--some there laughing and having food and chai with friends, some waiting for their drivers and drivers waiting for their customers, just like any other airport in the world.  It also reminded me of something from one of the movies that I watched on the plane ride over, After Earth.  The acting wasn't overly impressive and the story was predictable at times, but there were many parts that stayed with me, especially the point where Will Smith's character is talking to his son, trying to help him calm his panic and fear.  He had his son "take a knee" (so, stop moving) and ground himself in the present moment through his senses: sight, smells, sounds, touch.  That came to my mind--that once I finally stopped moving around, I was able to connect more with my surroundings and what was actually going on, and disconnect from the thoughts of fear in my head, and realize that I was going to be fine (which, ironically, is also what the yoga practice is attempting to teach you as well).

The new driver, Vinay, arrived shortly after 4:00 in the morning, a full 2 hours after my plane landed.  I was so happy to see him that if it wouldn't have been extremely inappropriate, I would have hugged him, lol.  He was very nice and I immediately felt safe with him.  We started on our drive to Mysore and Vinay weaved in and out of traffic and through narrow city streets with such expertise that it was like watching moving art.  Just like my first visit to India, I couldn't help but stare out the window for at least half of the ride, completely enchanted by the Indian city streets and landscape.  I so wanted to take pictures of everything that I saw, to share it with all of you, but, just like the first time, it felt like there was so much going on that I could not distinguish any one thing or scene to single out for a picture that could fully represent what I was seeing.  Not to mention we were moving far too fast!  The drive from Bangalore to Mysore usually takes about 4 hours--Vinay got me there in about 3.  

To say that I was running on fumes by the time I arrived to my friend's place would be an understatement.  I crashed for about 2 or 3 hours before joining her for breakfast and then getting a tour of some of the area and important local spots--such as where the KPJAYI shala is at, where to change money, where good places to shop and eat are at.  She would show me how to get to a place and then have me direct our way back, to make sure that I remembered it.  It is difficult to say exactly how I felt about my first day here in Mysore, other than general feelings of being off-balance and over-stimulated.  Though I guess it must not have seemed that way to everyone, because when I met with the person who arranged my taxi from the airport, aside from sincerely apologizing again, he thanked me for handling it so calmly!  

It has been an extremely long and interesting re-introduction to India, and I am ready for some real and (hopefully) uninterrupted sleep.  Tomorrow, I will go to the shala to finally meet with Sharath and register for practice.  I will see how my body is feeling as to whether or not I want to do a self-practice when I wake up, but I am definitely eager to get back to my yoga asana practice--it has been the thing that best completely grounds and centers me, so I have really been missing it through all of this travel.  So, until next time, I leave you with a picture of one of the things I was most eager to see upon my return to India :-)

Hello again, sweet cows :-)