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Travels Yoga

Mysore Diaries – Day #3

December 2, 2015

I woke up today with the familiarity of routine.  The absence of the possibility of an unknown factor enables you to be a tad bit quicker and streamlines your movement.  As a result I was ready in a minutes and driving down the main road to my class.  Even before this trip started I had several misgivings.  Was I going to be able to get to Mysore OK?  What if something happened on the way to prevent me from getting there?  What if by some weird twist of fate I’m unable to register for the classes?  What if I get there and my What if I get there and my accommodation isn’t available?  In short, I would hyperventilate thinking that everything that could possibly go wrong will go wrong.  And my fears were well founded.  The room I had booked for the first night seemed a pretty amateurish

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The first pose Saraswati asked me to practice.

setup.  They never sent me a confirmation mail though I asked them repeatedly.  When I reached the main institute for registration I realized that I was supposed to bring a copy of the confirmation mail, a copy of my passport and a passport sized photograph.  I had a copy of my passport, but had missed the part about the photograph and copy of the confirmation mail.  I kept on affirming to myself that everything would work out.  And whad’ya know?  So far things have worked out.  The accomodation was clean and the staff was friendly.  I managed to find it with a little help from my GPS and phone calls.  I showed the insitute my confirmation mail on the phone and managed by a sheer stroke of luck to find many passport sized photographs in my wallet.  I was one of the first few in line for registration so didn’t have to wait for hours.  I managed to get acquainted with a few people while in line, so whatever little wait I had wasn’t boring.  I shared the one and only pen I have on this trip, and it miraculously did make its way back to me and didn’t get lost in the hordes that had to fill out their registration forms.  I actually managed to find Saraswati’s class on my first day and made it through.  I ate well and slept well.  It’s my third day in Mysore and there are a few people who I recognize and say hi to.  I feel my teacher also recognizes me and so I feel ‘connected’ to the class.  After a few hiccups, I’ve moved into the guesthouse that will be my home until the 14th of this month (see, everything is slowly working out!).  The room is clean, the staff is awesome.  I get to decide my meal times and what I want to eat.  Someone comes in regularly to clean the place.  It is safe and comfortable, and the best part is that it’s only 3 minutes from my class!  And I affirm: Things Work Out.

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Being nostalgic about classes.

The shala was as usual full today when I walked in.  What’s more, the place I had yesterday was also taken.  I decided to at least change and see what Saraswati deemed I should do today.  As if on cue, I walked out of the changing room just as Saraswati was telling the girls in front of the door to scoot a bit to the sides to make space for one more mat.  And that is where I practiced toay, cramped between two other students who also had to duck whenever someone opened the door.  Just as I was about to start my practice, Saraswati came up to me and said ‘What I told yesterday? 20 Surya Namaskars no? Start.’  And I did virtual cartwheels in my head.  Saraswati remembered me, amongst the hordes of students that she meets daily!!!  Not only that, she remembered what she had said to me yesterday!!!!  I was in yoga student heaven.  Outwardly calm I started the Surya Namaskars.
The pose I learned today is the Padangushtasana.  I notice Saraswati tells me to do one pose a day, as though building up my pose arsenal.  And once she guides me through the pose twice she asks me to continue practicing the same pose for the remaining class.  And both days she’s only taught me one asana.  She focuses on the breath, asking me to breath with her counts.  She has me repeat the asana until she’s happy with the way I’m doing it, and then tells me to practice that for the rest of the class.  So far she’s been telling me when I’m done for the day and what to  do tomorrow.  Today she dismissed me with ‘Today this is enough.  Tomorrow you come and show everything correctly.’  I nodded, did the Savasana for some time and left.  Before gettting back to the guesthouse I had the obligatory nariyal paani.
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I was unaware that this was being taken.  One of my colleagues found it on Facebook!

In the afternoon I attended my first chanting class.  During my teachers’ training we used to have this every day and it was called bhajan class.  To this day it remains my least favorite, and one that I bunk if I can help it.  We were handed printouts of a bunch of Sanskirt shlokas and asked to chant after a panditji.  It was hot, stuffy, and chanting isn’t my thing.  I lived through it.  I had considered registering for a Sanskrit and Hatha Yoga Pradipika class.  However, after the chanting class I decided that maybe I’m not ready for more Sanskrit just yet.

As usual, I came back to my room and spent the rest of my day reading and sleeping.  I could really get used to this life!

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Travels Yoga

Mysore Diaries – Day 2

December 1, 2015

When it comes to classes with old and traditional Indian teachers, the first class is always a bit unexpected.  This morning I woke up at 3.59 am (thanks to my body clock).  I promptly got ready and drove off towards the direction of Saraswati’s class.  In the dark all the houses in Gokulam 3rd Stage look the same.  I asked a lone man on a walk about where #55 3rd main was, and he told me he had no clue.  Finally, I met two people on a moped carrying yoga mats, and I flagged them to help me out.  Seeing that I was new, somewhat flustered and utterly confused, they decided to take me there!  Grateful that they did because I would never have been able to find it. 

From the number of people I had seen at the registration, I had expected a large crowd converging to the institute.  But I only saw a couple of mopeds parked outside.  I climbed up to the 1st floor of the house and let myself in.  The room was full of A bunch of students were already there in various asanas.  I looked around for what to do next.  It didn’t look like these students had just started their practice, but I thought the first session started at 5 am.  Plus there was no space to place my mat.  The room was stuffed with people and reminded me a bit of the Bikram Yoga studio I went to a couple of months ago.  Not a pleasant feeling.  I spotted Saraswati in the centre of the room, busy helping a student.  Once she was done, I went up to her and told her that I’m new and had no clue what I should do.  She pointed to a room and said, ‘You wait there.’  I did as I was told.  After some time, she told me to place my mat in front of the door I had just walked in from.  I’m knew a lot of students were going to be coming in through that door, and I’d have to watch that the door didn’t slam into me every single time.  What can I say?  Yoga teachers and their eccentricities.  I did what I was told.

I sat on my mat and started stretching.  Finally Saraswati came over and asked me if ‘I knew anything.’  I told her no.  So she stared by teaching me a very basic Surya Namakar  which she asked me to do 5 times.  After a while she came to me again and taught me another version of the Surya Namaskar and asked me to do it 6 times.  After some time she came up to me again and asked me if I knew how to do the Padmasana.  I told her yes.  She explained a variation of the padmasana to me and told me to practice that.  After some more time she told me that this is it for me today.  Tomorrow I have to start the class by doing each Surya Namaskar variation 10 times.  I nodded my head.  She then pointed to a room on the other side of the main hall and said ‘Now you go there.’  I did a little Savasana and then left.  I saw some people that met yesterday.  Once I was done I came back to my room and for some reason slept for about 3 hours! 

My friends have booked me into a guesthouse here and I moved in today.  As it turns out, this new room is closer to Saraswati’s class, so it works well for me.  Once I checked into this room I slept again for a couple of hours and woke up to polish off every single thing that was placed before me during lunch.  So I basically woke up, did yoga, slept, woke up, slept some more, indulged in some more gluttony, read, slept, woke up, had coffee and now I’m blogging with a rerun of ‘Desperate Housewives’ in the background.  Before starting this break a student of mine gave me an article that talked about leisure for the sake of leisure.  According to the article, the art of leisure has been ignored over the ages to the point that now people don’t take vacations to indulge in leisure, but to ‘do’ something.  I think I pretty much nailed doing nothing today.

  

 

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