My Ashtanga Journey

So, with this, my second trip to Mysore (finally)I've been having a lot of trouble with my body, within asana and without (via diarrhea) and have been reflecting a lot. Not something I'm wont to do on a regular basis. I tend to process things as they happen so they don't get stuck there and create a problem later, but these past few days my personal journey has been on my mind. I've shared it with a couple people but not all, so if you know the story bear with me, if not, hope you enjoy it.

So, back in late 1999 I had an accident, not a major one, but one that hurt my arm enough that it caused me not to be able to do my little workout I did daily (very little in fact since I smoked two packs a day and drank like a fish, anytime I began to sweat the smell was something I couldn't handle so I would quit! lol). Remembering in my mind from back in the early 90's a friend had tried to get me to take yoga with him at his college and I would never do it. Not that I wasn't interested, but that I lived in Illinois at the time and the college was way out in North County (MO), and I was very lazy.

I'd always been intrigued by yoga since seeing it on That's Incredible in the 80's. They would often have yogis curl themselves into a knot and get in a glass box to prove what the human body/mind was capable of.

Anyhow, that memory popped up. I was about to turn 30, was in my first "real" relationship and so had many different ideas popping into my head and this one was one I acted on. I looked through the yellow pages, yes we all had to do that back then, google didn't exist. And in looking I found about 8 entries in the business section under yoga. I called them all, listened to their voice messages (yes, we did have answering machines still then as well) and found one that the first class was free for. Free?!? Perfect! I was always broke mostly from spending my money on food, cigarettes and liquor, so this was right up my alley.

I went that night while my partner was working late. It was the strangest experience I've ever had in my life, did lots of strange movements called psychophysicals, then were supposed to take a cold shower and put on white clothing, then lie down and they talked us through a sort of yoga nidra, then we did about 15 postures and boom, left.

The next day I could barely walk around my corporate job. Many made comment on my limping and sore back posture as I gallumped through my day. Even though I couldn't walk I knew something had happened, something in me long dormant had awakened, so I decided to go back again on Saturday and this time my partner came with me. The fee for the month was $30 ( I believe at this place it's still only $40) so I borrowed the money, because I was broke remember? And we went.

This was my regular routine for about 2 months going to this place daily, figuring out new things about my body, taking my friends, talking about it incessantly.

Then I decided, there's more to this, so I need to figure out what that means. I knew there was some sort of hippie grocer in the Central West End called Golden Grocer, so I drove there and low and behold they carried Yoga Journal. A magazine even then becoming more dedicated to ads than to great articles, but still more articles then than now for my liking anyway. And this magazine had all this information in it, a article on the many evils of Bikram and food, all sorts of things. then I came across it, an article about Madonna (and yes, I'm gay, it's explicitly in the rule book that one must love Madonna, so I did) who had been doing yoga for about 3 years at this time (and as I read I recalled seeing her on Rosie and Oprah talking about her yoga practice, even teaching Rosie sun salutations) playing a yoga teacher in her latest film and the type of yoga she was practicing was Ashtanga, so they were also going to portray her as an Ashtanga teacher in the film. BTW, the only thing good about the film were the few yoga scenes, one of her teaching and the other of her practicing intermediate series.

This word Ashtanga stuck in my craw, I just couldn't quit thinking about it and wondering about its meaning. So again, I called all those 8 in the yellow pages, until I heard the word Ashtanga and I did, one little Intro to 8 week session, so I left a message, nervously because I was terrible at talking to people back then (yes I know you people who know me now and have been to my 200-400 person thick park class will find that hard to believe lol). Thanking god she didn't answer, but when she called back later we ended up talking for over an hour and I thought it sounded perfect.

So I ended up going to this womans house to take the little intro course and then took the week full primary series. But she had learned it from Beryl Bender Birch, so it was modified and I knew there was something I wanted more from it, so I looked online (my partner was great with the internet and I'd never been on it before, so maybe google did exist?) and found out this system came from this man K. Pattabhi Jois and he still taught at the age of 85 in Mysore, India, but was going on a little tour in the states soon: NYC, Boulder, California, Hawaii, etc.

I kept going to class and found I needed it more than just that once a week so ordered a brand new book by David Swenson so I could find out more about it, also ordered the now infamous vhs videos of Guruji teaching primary and intermediate series and started practicing on my own a bit.

Then decided well, guess I need to see this man, so I called Richard Freeman and talked to his wife Mary Taylor, she was very generous and helped me find free housing in Boulder with one of their students and let me mail them a check to pay for the two weeks there, $150 a week, big bucks for me to spend.

I was so nervous, when it came time to drive to Boulder I did, playing Madonna's Ray of Light cd the whole way so I could get inspired and so I could listen to the Ashtanga mantra and learn it by heart, she'd made a stylized song of it on there called "shanti/ashtangi",track 8 to be exact. It was my first major road trip alone and I was excited and scared shitless, but I went anyway.

Many things happened during my time there, I cried almost daily being overwhelmed with the feel of the community of yoga, something I'd never found in the church environment in which I was raised. I also made a friend from DC who took me rock climbing each day, so for the first time in my life I'd quit smoking (yes I forgot to mention that 17 days after I began Ashtanga I had to quit, couldn't handle it any longer), was doing this daily asana practice that was stronger than anything I'd ever done, was also being even more active during the day climbing around the Front Range and was eating vegetarian and even had my first iced soy chai there!

One thing in particular sticks out though, Guruji did several conferences, Sharath was also there, and in one someone asked a question about practicing in the evening and I was an evening practitioner at home, so seconded the question and he looked right into my eyes and said "You, you take practice, early morning, first thing, before working, 4am. Every day, whole life changing, whole life!" And then did his famous little laugh.

But I heard him, knew he was talking to me, even though the notion of being alive at 4 am sounded awful to me. So I had my experience, so much more to say there, but not all the point of this post, and went home. Told my partner all about it.

He kept bugging me to try and get up at 4am to do what Guruji said and I'm like fuck off, that's crazy, no way...etc. Then one day I'd heard it enough and decided, okay, let's try this, and did it. Not sure why he cared so much because he'd quit practicing completely. Needless to say I've always been drawn to things not in the norm and so this was yet another one and I quickly took to it like a fish to water and quit going to my weekly class even to try and make it work even better, and yes my whole life changed.

My partner and I broke up, I moved back to Illinois from St. Louis, I left my corporate job and took severance and my 401K to travel to Europe to visit an old friend and then I thought I'd finally go to Mysore (my partner had talked me out of going in 2000 and going to see Guruji in Boulder instead), but alas, Guruji would again be on tour.

So looking at the schedule I decided, he'll be in Maui and Nancy Gilgoff is one of the first Americans to study with him, so I'll go there, be there the week he's there and stay with her another 5 weeks and so I did.

Nancy is quite amazing, she's a very strong woman with strong ideas, but a weak physicality and nervous system, someone I could relate to completely. So in my time there I got tan, made lifelong friends, lost a lot of weight (I'd put on 20 lbs eating in Italy and lost 27 lbs that time in Maui), and became a full fledged Ashtangi. Completely obsessed with it, bought every book, read every blog, taught classes back home once I returned and just grew myself a new little life.

I've written before about how I learned intermediate series with Nancy and was teaching myself at home (no teachers there but me) third series and kept hurting myself, so was looking for something else to figure out how to heal myself. A few of my students were going to the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, CO, back near my beloved Boulder, where the pre-conference was based on Ashtanga and would have all these long time teachers of it teaching for the week. So I went with them and had a really hard time with the practice that week. One of the girls and I decided we'd heard this good stuff about Desiree Rumbaugh and she was doing a day long session after our 3 days of Ashtanga was over, so we did that as well, and I immediately connected with her.

So slowly from that point, I dropped my third series practice and began studying Anusara yoga with a local teacher and Desiree when I could, it quickly healed my body and it was more that I felt part of this community again, and I was craving that.

I've also written much about my time away from Ashtanga where I also studied Kundalini yoga in which I became certified and through which I became Sikh, hence my name (yes I legally changed it and even though I'm not fully following Sikhi anymore, it is staying) and how I slowly became someone I was not very familiar with anymore.

So in late 2011 a friend who knew I'd practiced Ashtanga and taught it at one point began bugging me to teach him, he'd heard about it and wanted to learn, I was teaching yoga but not it, so he wanted to do it privately. So after much badgering I relented and decided I'd practice with him, since I found my back hurting a lot (I was mostly exclusively practicing Kundalini by then and you sit a lot. I'd had a degenerative lower spine which the Ashtanga healed, and felt like it was maybe coming back) so knew I needed to do some more asana again. And that started it. Another friend of his started also bugging me and coming on another day to practice with me, then eventually it crept up to a full week practice again, people found out I was practicing it again and immediately began asking me to teach it again. I felt like I'd come home, this was exciting and made me happy, like I felt back in 2000, unlike the time from 2008-2011 teaching other things where I felt like I was trying to make myself happy, instead of feeling genuinely happy from within. It was nice.

Then I decided this time I'd have to do it right, so a friend/student and I went to see Kino in Chicago in 2012, learned a lot and found great inspiration. Then the following year another friend and I went to the Ashtanga Confluence early in the year where Nancy was teaching and I'd not seen her for 11 years, it was a lovely reunion. then went to see Kino again in Chicago, then went to see another certified Ashtanga teacher in Chicago in September, then Kino again in October in Indianapolis this time, then Jodi Blumstein in Springfield, IL. It was a great year. But something more was missing, Mysore.

So I applied for a visa, got it (a 10 year one) and applied to get in, didn't for February but did for March, so came in mid-February and had a great experience in the shala with Sharath but not so great an Indian experience, lol, I was still a wimp.

So, now I'm back in Mysore again, the same year, for even longer. 3 months this time and last trip Sharath told me to work on my dropping back and standing up while I was at home and if it was good when I came back he'd start me on intermediate. So I did and got pretty good at it, came back expecting to wow him and start with pasasana super quickly. But my back started having trouble, then I had diarrhea and couldn't practice, now I'm back practicing and I find my ego whining to me about wanting second series, blah, blah, blah.

All of this to say, I'm here, and I'm doing the work, inner and outer, that is entailed by this practice. I love it, am super happy and do I care if I get pasasana? Maybe but really, I'm here, after 14 fucking years I've now been to Mysore twice and am having this experience that I've always wanted. Have made great friends from around the globe over the course of these two trips and even though by SI joint is a bit locked up and could use a good crack (causing pain during practice) and I got sick from some food, I don't know if I could be anywhere else but here and hope to keep coming back here year after year, maybe I'll be doing third by the time I'm 50, and fourth by the time I'm 55/60, maybe not (I'm now 44, having started this journey the year I turned 30) but this journey has been fulfilling and amazing and I can't complain because I've been here making the decisions the whole while so am embracing them fully and living them completely.

Thank you all who've been a part of this journey, you know who you are, especially Patrice, my first yoga student who still practices primary series daily at the age of 67 (she also still smokes 3 cigarettes a day and drinks one mini bottle of wine!) who is still such a major support in all I do. But all of you, you are all special and have made me a better person, thank you!