Many people have been asking me about my personal asana practice. I'm not a big one to share about it because to me the yoga should show in my daily life through my interactions with others and myself. But I did just do my first photo shoot ever, after 17 years of practicing so I'm going to write a bit about it.
I began practicing on March 1 of the year 2000, I was two months short of turning 30. I was taking an Intro to Ashtanga course taught by someone who wasn't really an Ashtangi but had studied it a bit, I did in fact learn a lot from her about the breath and a few other things, but that's not for this entry.
Very shortly after beginning this class I was trying to do some of it at home but was still going to a cheap local yoga centre a few other days of the week, then David Swenson's book came out and I ordered it and began practicing only Ashtanga at home except for this one day a week going to her Intro class, and then her primary series class.
I remember being in the third class in downward dog sweating profusely, it was dripping into my eyes and running up my nose. I was shaking from the openings happening in my nervous system, and I was crying, and I was overwhelmed with how good I felt because feeling good had never been something I'd encountered so I was quite surprised, but I'd just gotten David's book in the mail and so decided in this class to only practice this hard yoga that I thought might kill me, but was actually making me change, physically, mentally and emotionally.
In August of this same year, I had turned 30 already and decided that somehow I needed to go to India to practice with Pattabhi Jois at his little shala. I found online that he was not going to be in Lakshmipuram that summer though, but that he was going on tour around the US and so I checked out where he was going to be. At this time I'd been practicing about 5 months and was only able to barely bind in Marichasana B, C, because of the degeneration that had occurred in my lumbar spine, seemed like it was far, far away and never going to happen. But I was quite content stopping at this point and doing the closing sequence as best as I could, which wasn't very good either, but it helped me feel better so I did what I could.
I called the Yoga Workshop and Mary Taylor called me back, or answered, I can't remember. I didn't know who she was at the time, but later found out that she's Richard Freeman's wife and I'd been watching that famous VHS tape that he was in almost daily just to figure out how to do this stuff on my own. I mailed her a check which back then was for $150 for the week of primary series and I thought that was so expensive, but if you look now for one week with Sharath it is triple or quadruple this amount... inflation! Anyhow, she also found me a student at their shala who was willing to put up someone coming from out of town for the week or both weeks, and I stayed with her, Mary Lou Robles, and her husband and blue haired son. It was a great time and a great connection but that is also not for this entry, but it's a good story so sometime remind me to tell you.
Anyhow, I went, I drove by myself, listening to Madonna's rendition of the Ashtanga mantra the whole way so I could get it in my mind because I'd not been very good at remembering it. After my time in Boulder though I never forgot the words again. It was a most powerful experience for me there, 250 people practicing mat to mat in a room, a church actually that they'd rented. I was helped into Marichasana C and D by Sharath who was assisting Guruji, and after that I was able to do almost all the postures on my own, but each day of the week he came and helped me into these two, which I really couldn't breathe in at all, even though I could hold them once he got me in them. I also was adjusted once by Guruji and it was the moola bandha in karnapidasana adjustment that you've seen a meme for on social media most likely, but I'm a guy and he did the adjustment on me, so it was a cop a feel sort of moment as it was often thought, anyhow, again, that is not for this entry but remind me to tell you about in person some time, its a good story too.
Anyhow, I was there, I hiked with a friend I made, I got inspired by this eco positive family I was staying with and when I went home I was inspired and practiced even more and with more gusto. And I was able to do the full primary series when I went home. Also in one of the conferences Guruji held that week he told me to get up at 4am, practicing before working, and my whole life would change. It took me almost 2-3 months after going home to make this change because I was living with a partner and we only had the evenings together at that time, but he encouraged me to follow my teachers guidance and so I eventually did. And yes my whole life changed, but again that is another story for another time.
So I told my teacher I was seeing once a week back home that I was going to start practicing in the early morning, and I did but I kept going to her class in the evening for another month maybe before realising that I needed to commit to doing it always in the early morning and I did that.
It was a couple years later I left my corporate job and had money in the bank and time off enough to go to Mysore finally I though, this was 2002, and when I searched online I again found out that Pattabhi was not going to be there, but going to be on tour. I almost went to NYC for the entire month he was there teaching, but decided to go to Maui instead and see him. This time we, a group from Nancy Gilgoff's shala, picked them all up at the airport and Sharath was again there, this time with a wife and baby, his father was also there along with his mom Saraswathi, and Guruji of course. It was a great week there with him but I also stayed and practiced with Nancy for about 5 weeks as well.
At home I'd started adding on some of the intermediate series of postures to the end of my primary series practice, and so while there with Nancy she over those weeks taught me the full intermediate series, which felt very different than primary, but amazing. And so when I went home that became my daily practice and primary a couple times a week as Nancy had instructed me, but also then I slowly started adding on third series postures to the end of my intermediate practice. So that by 2005 I was doing almost half of third series, but I was also not a great one to be teaching myself these postures and so often was hurting myself. I had a bad back so was having trouble getting it to settle into the swing of things, but also was slowly hurting my knees, elbows and shoulders. Not having a teacher was killing me!
But I trucked along with this until very late 2007, and finally in about March of 2008 quit that practice altogether maybe doing primary series a couple times a week, but had begun studying Anusara with Desiree Rumbaugh and so was doing a practice she had given me that was slowly healing my body and making me feel good again. I learned a lot about myself during this time and realised I needed this yoga thing to be much more than just forcing my body into these asanas. So I also got into a daily practice of Kundalini Yoga which gave me more energy and taught me a lot about spirituality and how to bring that into my physical practices.
Eventually I only was doing Kundalini Yoga and for about four years and during that time getting certified in Kundalini Yoga and becoming baptized as a Sikh as a part of this also, I slowly changed my life into something more like I wanted it to be.
Then I would find myself practicing the primary series here and there unexpectedly, and realizing how much I'd missed it, and how much I could get from it now that I'd shifted my focus to a more internal awareness of deep intention. So someone who was coming to my Kundalini Yoga classes was interested in Ashtanga and by doing an internet search found out I had been the only teacher in the area we lived in, but was no longer teaching it. So he set out to badger me until I gave in and taught him, but I only decided to practice and he could practice with me and that would be how I taught him, and so I did.
And slowly over that time I built back up most of my primary series practice. But my body had changed a lot doing only kundalini and I was not able to bind again in Marichasana C or D or Supta Kurmasana, but went past them all anyway. Slowly getting them back after studying with some certified teachers and beginning to finally come to Mysore to study with Sharath, since Guruji had left his body.
My back went out one trip in Mysore for over a month of the three I was here practicing for, yes I live in Mysore now, and from that Sharath decided that I should stay in primary for a long time until the problems in my back sorted themselves out. And now four trips later they have sorted themselves out and I'm adding on intermediate. I'm in no rush to get back to practicing full intermediate or third series, but I do find it a cool idea to be this 50 something year old, I am now 47, starting third and learning fourth, but I'm not attached to these ideas as they are just that, ideas. So if it happens, cool, but if it doesn't I'm okay with that as well.
But the first posture of intermediate this time around became a nemesis and so it took me almost three full years to get it again, now I can do it daily and am going further into the backhanding of the series, and some days a little further, but most days I'm content to be working on what I'm working on.
Also Sharath has authorised me to teach primary series. I've been practicing, often struggling with, primary series for over 17 years and had my fair share of issues with my body and have now learned to allow things to happen rather than try to force them to happen, so I'm really great at teaching primary series and have a different approach to the further asanas in the practice from this experience.
Okay, that was longer than I originally intended, but I'll write more maybe this week and dig into some of the stories this has stirred up in my mind now. Enjoy your day!
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