During a conversation at lunch yesterday at Chakra House I said I love being the weirdest person I know. What does that mean? To me at home people think I'm crazy to get up and make these weird shapes with my body before the sun even comes up and for an hour and a half, and then do all this breathwork and chant, then go teach others to do the same with themselves.
I love doing asanas, they are weird and sometimes I'm really fucking sore and just don't feel like doing them, but they tame my bad back and keep my mind in a clear place. Here is Mysore I almost feel too normal because there are so many of us here for the same purpose.
Don't get me wrong, it's awesome having conversations that inspire me daily with others who know the practice I love and have been through the same or similar trials and tribulations from this intense asana practice we use as a tool to get our minds together so that maybe, just maybe, we can tap into spirit if even only for a blip of time shorter than you can imagine, and then keep reaching back for that experience again and again.
It's awesome to do this strange stuff every day in a city that mostly no one does the specific practice that I do, but also to know that there are many around the planet doing the same thing, maybe not at exactly the same moment, but at some point during their day. That is one thing I do love about being here in Mysore, that I see those others doing their daily practice, some doing third and fourth series and some just doing half primary, or some like me stuck at a posture and longing for the next one so badly you think you'll quit practicing (really, do we want to get more postures? We just have to do them all then and keep elongating our practice so that we just have to get up even earlier and earlier to do it before we head out to teach others, really?).
I love these teachings, they are crazy, they are awesome, they may or may not be so ancient (whichever really doesn't matter to me because they work) and they are the most challenging thing I do all day long. That microcosm of time on my mat where I go through trials and tribulations daily seem to be preparing me for the macrocosm of life where the trials and tribulations are much bigger, and more intense and can take the breath out of you.
And now here I'm doing additional chanting classes and you think asanas are hard, lol, they are simple in comparison.
Chanting is a pranayama exercise, first and foremost but also the sound current is very powerful and in the ancient Sanskrit language it becomes more powerful, so we're focusing on the Yoga Sutras to begin our classes, then some traditional mantras and then singing, but the sutras are by far the strongest of these sessions. They move the energy up your spine, up and out through your whole body and at times you feel like you're going to burst it's so strong. And again, I love this. Not that I want to burst, but I love learning this ancient stuff in a very traditional way and that's so far removed from the way people live their lives in the West that it makes me happy again to be weird.
But, funny, our weird is this cultures tradition, and has roots back further by thousands of years than the U.S.'s are. So, who are the weird ones? Maybe it's not us. Maybe if we open up our minds enough we can see that this stuff was around before us and maybe that makes it more valid than many or even any of the teachings that are considered traditional over there? Maybe?
To me they for sure are, I remember how at home I felt chanting that first ommmm in Boulder with Guruji and 250 others in a non-denominational church Richard Freeman had rented to host us in. I remember seeing that yogi on That's Incredible in the 80's and feeling like I knew what he was doing and that it wasn't just a physical thing as most who were watching thought it was, and were marveling at. I remember that first class I took at the Solar Yoga Center in St. Louis and I could barely walk the day after because I'd never moved some of those parts of myself and certainly had never moved blood circulation or energy through my whole being as I did that night, but even though I could hardly walk, I still knew something had happened and I went back. I knew when I took that first Intro to Ashtanga 8 week series with Lucy Holmes in March of 2000 that this Ashtanga stuff was something that was going to change my very existence. I knew when Guruji looked at me and told me "you, getting up early, before working, 4am, practicing, then whole life changing..." that he was absolutely right and it was changing then and was going to get more and more "weird" before my normal became a new thing.
We are a weird tribe, but we are a tribe none the less. There are many of us here in Mysore studying with Sharath and his mom Saraswathi because we are drawn here and cannot shut out that call. It's in our very being. So even though we come from Ukraine, Russia, Japan, England, South Africa, Scotland, Canada, Australia, Germany, LA, New York, Chicago, San Antonio, Colorado and everywhere else across the US (which I keep hearing from everyone how big our country is because to us we drive 4-5 hours and are in another state, same language, maybe different dialect, but they drive the same distance and are in another country, with a whole different culture and language) yes, even little old St. Louis, we are all on a common thread with this yoga.
Yes we all interpret the sutras differently, we all interpret the same words coming from Sharath's mouth differently, some are drawn to the Sanskrit courses, some see it as a dead language and think who cares, yes we each are individual and have our own opinions, it's still nice to be a part of something and to have discussions about things and see how differently they are received by others than by you in your little mind and find that common thread, and there usually is one, especially here in Mysore where we're all away from our "normal" lives and can chill a little bit around our mental constructs about how things are "supposed" to be in life.
So, are you trapped in a rut? Come try being weird with me sometime, doesn't mean you have to come to India, but if you dig into this practice sooner than later, I bet you the itch will come to be scratched, it always seems to. Either way, you can be some of the weirdest people in St. Louis with me, or in whatever city or town you are in, I bet there is someone there who teaches Ashtanga, whether or not they're authorized/certified or not, there's probably someone who loves it so much they cannot bear not to share it with you.
Check them out
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