Mysore... again

So, India, more specifically Mysore, even more specifically Gokulam, a small area in Mysore that houses the K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, has not left my being since I went in February. I came home April 8th, over 4 months ago, and can still feel the heat of the sun, the dryness in the air, can tell you how to get to the chocolate man and Dhatu, can remember walking home from the movies with Petros...etc.

In other words, this place is stuck in my craw. Or rather, I can't get it out of my head. My friend Kelly is in love with Iceland and wrote this great Facebook status about her two trips and going back for her third in a couple weeks and it made me want to write about Mysore, again.

So, just two weeks ago I applied to go back in November, which would mean I would head back that last week of October, and guess what? I got in. Haven't bought my plane ticket yet, but am about to do a search on that. So, I'm going back and I'm excited beyond words.

In 2000 I picked up a Yoga Journal after attending one yoga class at a local place and in it was an article about Madonna playing a yoga teacher in her new movie, and of course, she was practicing Ashtanga Yoga so the movie was to have scenes of yoga in it, including an opening Mysore style scene, but I read the word Ashtanga and never having heard it before didn't know if I was pronouncing it correctly, but knew I'd heard that word before, or felt it in my being before, so did a search in the Yellow Pages (yes, that was how we searched back then) and found one lady who taught a little class in her house, so went.

In about the third class of this Intro to Ashtanga series I remember being in down dog, sweating profusely, crying a bit and shaking, wondering how I found myself there but knowing that I was in love and it was going to change my life.

Cut to about June or July and I'd read somewhere that Guruji, K. Pattabhi Jois, was going to be touring around the states and found myself calling Richard Freeman and talking to his wife, signing up for the week in Boulder they were hosting him for, she even also found me housing with one of their studios current students, and I drove out there by myself and took this mans led classes.

His grandson adjusted me in Marichasana C and D, my spine was always locked up due to being degenerative from about the mid-back down, so I'd never been able to do much with the postures. He talked me through breathing and allowing him to take me into the full postures, both of them. Yes, I thought I was going to die or shit myself, or both, couldnt' breathe, couldn't think, nothing. So I did the whole week, survived and drove home, but during the week they had three nights of conference with Guruji, where he would take questions and answer them. He was asked something about when to practice and looking at me (of course, everyone probably felt he was looking at them directly) he said "you, you getting up, before working, before sunrise, practicing then. Whole life changing!"

Of course for me that would mean at 4am, iiiicccckkkk, no fucking way! But, I went home, told my partner and he said he thought I should do it if I was going to call this guy my teacher. So I did, and yes, my whole life changed. We broke up, I left my job of 14 years and many other things. Not quite right that moment, so before we broke up I planned to go to India to see this man and sent the infamous letter you had to write back then, but quickly found out he wasn't happy about me thinking I was going to India and so I allowed my trip to be vetoed. So no India then, but we broke up...

Since I was off and had a severance package after leaving my job I decided to go to India then, but alas, look online and Guruji was on tour again, so I went to Hawaii to see him this time, and ended up being there for almost 6 weeks and studied with Nancy Gilgoff as well, what a great time. Sharath, the grandson, even remembered me from the Boulder trip two years prior! This was in 2002, two years after I'd seen Pattabhi and he on my first Asthanga trip.

Anyhow, the next Ashtanga trip I took was in 2007 to the Yoga Journal pre-conference with a group I'd been teaching in Illinois, and it was great, but it was also my last great hurrah before leaving Ashtanga, studying KUndalini and Anusara for almost 4 years before coming back to Ashtanga full time in 2012. I've written much about these times in previous entries, so won't go there again now.

So now, after being into Ashtanga again for just over 2 years, I'm already about to embark on my second trip!

It's amazing to get what you want in life, especially when for 40 years you've convinced yourself that you can't ever have what you want. That same friend I mentioned who wrote about Iceland, also wrote another status about observing folks who live the life they want because they believe they can, and the others who live self-limitations that they put on themselves. Each is our choice, so I'm choosing to live an amazing life!