Supta Kurmasana

So, I think that finally, after 14 years of practicing this system of Ashtanga Yoga, minus 4 years in there, coming back to it and, again, finally making my way to its source in Mysore, India, I may be understanding this yoga path.

So when I arrived after I'd had so much trouble getting here, 52.5 hours worth of travel specifically, my back wasn't happy and had seized up in the lumbar region, sacrum as well, or so it seemed.

I did my first class, which was on a Sunday and on Sundays here all classes are led ones, not my favorite, but I got to Marichasana D and Sharath attempted to get me into it and couldn't. Maybe a little close, but no, not really lol...

So the next day in the typical Mysore style class I came in last person of the day and went into the practice with great focus and made it through Marichasana D on my own, he even came by and asked me if I got it and one of his assistants had seen me, so I referred him to the assistant for confirmation that I in fact had. So he went into his office and I continued onward through the series. He stopped me at supta kurmasana, which was fine. I wasn't used to the heat and it was killing me, my body wasn't opening up so much just yet and I was fine with it. And I since restarting the system I hadn't been able to bind in said posture yet anyway, so technically I wasn't supposed to move past it.

So for the next two and a half weeks I've been stuck at that posture. I decided when I arrived here I was going to surrender to Sharath and embrace him as my teacher and so I was, and in that room you can't go past where he tells you to stop anyway, it's just not allowed. But I was doing fine with it the first week, then the second week I began to get frustrated. This week Monday and Tuesday (today is Wednesday) I was so close, so close.

One day Nnadi, one of Sharath's assistants helped me get into it but I couldn't hold it, too sweaty, then yesterday he helped me again and put my hand towel in my palm so that I could get the traction to maintain it, and I was able to. Felt amazing too! Then I came out, all happy with myself and started backbending, leading into the closing sequence. Sharath saw me at my first lift up, and when I lowered down he caught my eye and said "you did supta kurma?" "Yes," I said. "Do it again now, so I can see." So I promptly went into kurmasana and then started transitioning into supta kurmasana where his assistant Ganapati came and started getting me into it, then quickly I saw brown feet move into what little vision I had and realized Sharath had come and moved him out of the way and was doing the surgery himself...lol.

He got me there, he's very skillful and better at adjusting than anyone I've ever seen or felt, but again, I was too sweaty and couldnt' hold it. He last week had admitted his frustration with me not getting this pose and even said he wanted me to get it, so was personally going to help me with it, and so it became a mission with him. But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon I went and had trigger point therapy where I found out my right QL was tigher and shorter than my left and so the guy proceeded to use the technique to release my right one and gave me exercises to do that would correct the problem in two weeks. So that in mind I went to practice this morning and found much more space in my torso, front and back, which was nice, so I made my way through the series of postures as I know them and realized that I was going to get into the pose today, maybe even by myself.

Now Sharath, whether by design or not, positioned me right in front of the dais he sits on when not moving around the room and so when I was in navasana I realized he was there, and he was reading the paper, but never to let that fool you, he still knows everything going on in that room. So I made my way into kurmasana, ahhh, it felt nice with all that space, then I began the transition, and got to a point and off the stage he comes and gets behind me to move my bones into place. He got my shoulders deeply under my legs and then made me move my arm back on my own, not the normal way, but he obviously wanted to see how far I could get them, then bound my fingers, and yes I was holding them tightly, then moved my legs behind my head with his leg in between them so I could squeeze it with mine and make the bind tighter (very nice adjustment trick) and I held it and he yelled "Pass!" " go onto Garbha Pindasana after vinyasa." So I did, he stopped me at supta padangusthasana so that I didn't do too much with the new space, telling me "slowly, slowly... we open you."

But the elation and release I felt is really what this was all about. I had been stuck at that posture and was dealing with physical feelings, emotional feeling and energetic blocks that I had never even realized were there, but this process showed me a lot about that, and now I state I think I actually understand why this system is taught the way it is, amazing!

>So when I come back and teach, know that if I stop you in your practice, it's not at all because I'm being mean, it's completely so that you can get into that space and work through the issue, mental or energetic, that is causing that tightness or that block and release it, let it go, get rid of it and move on in life!

Saturday, our day off..

So, in the Ashtanga tradition we take Saturdays off, to rub ourselves down with oil which helps to relieve tension in our muscles and our mind as well, to have a full day of integration of the insights that come from our practice. I believe also to have the day to practice feeling okay without doing the physical practice, which can be a crutch to our well being. If you practice yoga you know that it makes you feel better, it does. But you also may never take a day off from the asana practice to be able to practice those good feelings just by using the power of your mind, which all said is what yoga is anyway, right? Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah=yoga is the cessation of fluctuations of the mind. So we're using the asana practice to calm the nervous system down so that we can enact the practice of the yamas and niyamas, google them, I may write about them some day but their interpretation is neverending through the eyes of many different individuals, so I'll save my opinion for another time. So today, I slowly woke up, or rather my bowels which move very quickly and frequently here, woke me up and I lay down for a bit longer after answering their call. The sun was just coming up, which by our standards in Missouri is late at almost 7am, but it was lovely. The women were just starting to sweep their front stoops, the birds were calling their neverending call, a sound I can't explain as we just have nothing to compare it to (but it's lovley), and so I finally got up, did a neti pot, put oil in my mouth to pull with, got on Facebook, answered some messages, meditated, did pranayama, chanted to Lakshmi for abundance,did my castor oil bath, showered, washed a few shirts while I was in there chilled for a bit then left to meet a friend for breakfast at Khushi, thinking I would get a chai beforehand. I was sitting on the steps at Khushi waiting for him and decided to write in my journal. What I realized while writing there was that everyone here seems to be so distraught and dealing with all of their shit, so quickly, almost as soon as you get here. Here, we are so outside our comfort zone that our emotions, thoughts, our very inner being is so close to the surface and we're just not used to that. At home we sit very deeply in our comfort zone and when you're there your emotions allow themselves to get buried, sometimes fairly deeply and so we have to postulate, or take a few days to see how we feel about things as they come up. Here, very much outside our comfort zone, they sit near the surface and when something comes up, out the words and feelings come very much before we've given anything a second thought, so we feel odd because in the west we just aren't used to dealing with them like this. So now I'm thinking of how to maintain this closeness and intouchness with my emotions and even with my body when I get home. Do I move? Somewhere new in St. Louis, or completely away from St. Louis? Do I shave my head and become a monk, or maybe never cut my hair again and become a monk? Do I get lots of tattoos and peircings? Get my point? It's about taking myself outside my comfort zone, daily, not just sporadically as we tend to do in the midwest, if at all, but daily. This too can be part of my yoga practice and should be as far as I'm concerned. I make my students uncomfortable daily, so I have to do this with myself as well. One person suggested I start a Sanskrit study group once I'm back, to keep my studies of this lovely, ancient language going, but to spark the beginnings of their interest in it. One thing I'll probable also do is change all or most of classes to the Ashtanga practice, which is something I can't not teach, even though I'm not authorized or certified (yet), what else can I do? What makes you uncomfortable? Do you avoid it completely, or embrace it and dive in? One thing I love about the Lululemon company is their manifesto, which consists of many one liners about embracing life more fully, but the one I've always resonated with the most is Do Something Once A Day That Scares You... Do you?

India, so far...

So I've been here for two weeks, having taken four days to get here because of flight delays and new flights arranged, overnight hotel stays in Germany, then flying backwards to the UK, sitting at Heathrow for 6 hours then finally flying to Bangalore, only to take the cruelest 4 hour cab ride of any humans life...lol.

At first I was so overwhelmed by all the noise, all the smells, but more than anything all the people that I almost thought I would turn around and go home. But thankfully I didn't. I went in to register for classes the first day I got here and Sharath graciously let me start early, which helped. The yoga integrated me into the place more than I would even have guessed.

Everything here is cheap, dirt cheap by Americans standards because our penny is worth about 60 cents, depending on who's changing the money for you it can even be more than that, or less if you're at the airport! So, eating out, taking rickshaws and just about everything else is very affordable and it becomes easy to overdo it, especially eating in my case.

Sharath first day noticed how much eating I'd been doing and said "only one meal a day." Now, anyone who knows me knows this is a virtual impossibility because I love eating more even than yoga. But I got his point, mindlessly eating wasn't going to serve my practice, so I started paying attention to when I was really hungry and when it was just I'm bored so let's eat, or I'm overwhelmed by this place, let's pacify ourself by eating, or even what the hell else is there to do other than eat?!? lol

My waist is actually quite a bit thinner in those two weeks, most likely due to the intensity of the yoga practice in this place where it originates from and the shear amount of people practicing with me, when I'm used to being alone at home all the time, but even more so probably because of the heat. I sweat like I may never sweat at home, or ever have. But really the energy in that room is just intense and can really pull some shit out of you.

Speaking of that, Seabrook and I, who are sharing a space while here, are both having our shit coming out, a lot. Which is fine, this is what we're here for, to transform ourselves. And boy is it ever deeper than anything at home. Westerners have been coming here since the 70's to do this work with this particular practice and so the energetic intention of self-healing and transformation is just in the place, not just the shala, but damn in the whole area. We've had a few disagreements, but for the most part we know this is what's going to happen and have to embrace it and need to quit saying sorry since it's going to keep happening until we go home, maybe even after we get home, who knows!

On Tuesday I started taking classes with Jayashree and her husband, chanting the Yoga Sutras and then discussing philosophy. It's amazing, I love it. Her energy just radiates, and today he started the class and she walked in a bit later and I could just feel her as she walked by, I have a lot of love for her. This trip I am taking the Sanskrit classes at the shala that also include disseminating the Hatha Yoga Pradapika, but I know that the next trip will be about just sucking up the knowledge these people have in them and going with it, not that I don't love the shala classes, but I know she's my teacher on this subject, much as Sharath is my teacher in the yoga.

Speaking of that, so when I got here I'd spent about 52.5 hours traveling here, miserable. And my body had locked up with that, especially my sacrum and lumbar spine, so in my first class he stopped me at Marichasana D because I couldn't even get close to realizing it in my body. The next day though I opened up enough to get it and he stopped me at supta kurmasana, which I am still being stopped at on my second week. Today I held the bind in it, having gotten there with help of one of his assistants but he didn't see. He had been personally helping me until today and said when I could hold it, even with help, I'd be able to move on. So, tomorrow being a led class I don't know if I'll get it or not, I'm much better in the Mysore style classes where I can move at my own pace with my own breath, so we'll see how it goes. My goal is to at least get through the primary series and working on standing up and dropping back at the end before closing sequence.

I say that and at the same time I know that I am not overly concerned with that goal. I am here to realize this practice as a sadhana, a spiritual practice, that I can take with me for life and use as a way to connect to source on those days when my mind isn't necessarily able to get there on it's own. I think it's happening, I feel closer and closer each day to source. But then again maybe that is part of being here, maybe it's just having had that intention for this journey, who knows, but the work is working and I'm loving it more and more.

There is so much more to tell, kirtan with Mark Robberds, Abhyanga (Ayurvedic oil massage) with two men working on me at once, all of the lovely people I've met, either who I already knew from Facebook or just met here because there are so many awesome people here, just tons more stuff. And maybe I will write them as they come to me, probably more after I get home and start integrating this experience, but not now. This is a good start...see you all soon.