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chennai to dubai: 4 hours; dubai to seattle: 15.5 hours; seattle to victoria: 40 minutes.

see you march 8th, victoria! 

(mark is in the background shouting, "ROUND THE WORLD ROUND THE WORLD ROUND THE WORLD.")

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officially certified yoga teachers! 

(if anyone is interested in classes with either/both of us when we return in april, feel free to send an e-mail to afra@uvic.ca or a message on facebook!)

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our certification exam is tomorrow!

here is our study outline:

1. the chakras (functions and locations)

2. the bandhas

3. mechanics of breathing

4. yamas and niyamas (english and sanskrit)

5. musculoskeletal system (including five spinal movements and five types of joints)

6. differences between standard exercise and yoga

7. types of pranayama

8. 8 limbs of yoga (english and sanskrit, details)

9. 3 gunas

10. yogic diet

11. physical benefits of the asanas in our sequence

12. surya namasakara (sanskrit and english, details, benefits)

13. pranic bodies

14. our yoga sequence

15. 4 sutras relating to asana and pranayama (sanskrit and english)

16. concept of abhyasa and vairagya.

ooooof.  wish us luck!

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no power?  no problem!

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yoga schools

we have visited all three of these and were very impressed with them.  

hatha yoga mysore / ashtanga yoga mysore — our school.  it’s amazing.  our teachers are beautiful people who are so excited about education.  they’re really good at marrying traditional yogic philosophy with western anatomy and physiology, and they’re very patient.  they spend loads of their free time reading and researching yoga, yoga therapy, ayurveda, and meditation, too.  any one of the students who have been sick have been taken care of, and all of our needs have been met.  the accommodation is wonderful.  they’re so helpful.  i can’t recommend mahesh and his school highly enough.

mystic school — one of the things which drew me to mystic was noah mckenna, the australian teacher who works there.  he has a background in chiropractics and acupuncture and worked for years as a therapist of yoga injuries.  he is friendly and kind, i’d love the opportunity to learn from him.  also, the facilities are beautiful.

yoga india — bharath is sweet with a beautiful smile.  the shala is gorgeous.  neither mystic nor yoga india offer accommodation but they will help students to find it, and there are lots of options in gokulam (the ‘yoga neighbourhood’) which we have driven by.

ayurvedic pharmacies

patanjali’s —

Patanjali Chikitsalayas

Sh. G. Madhusudan, Door 864, 2nd Stage, Vinay Marg, Siddhartha Nagar

mobile: 09342182468

patanjali is part of the patanjali yogpeeth (yoga trust) which is all across india.  the ayurvedic doctor who does free consultations is lovely.  she’s tiny and cute and speaks perfect english.  from there, you take your prescription to the pharmacy two doors down and they provide you with wonderful herbal products for an absolute song.

ashwini clinic —

285/F-6 Ramanuja Rd. (Near JSS Hospital)

e-mail: dr_mahesh99@yahoo.co.in

cell: 94482 47747 / office: 0821 4250399

we didn’t go into the clinic, but the pharmacy is enormous and the man who runs it has a great smile.  all of the employees were helpful and the selection of products is huge.  we discovered it through our teacher who is studying ayurveda in mysore and we even managed to find spirulina there!

tailor

perfection boutique —

Mrs. Archana Sharma

No. 31, Paachi Complex, T. Narasipura Rd. (Near Gopala Gowda Hospital)

mobile: 9845281924 / phone: 0821 2441241

this tailor was suggested to us by fardoz, our philosophy teacher and a mysore local.  we have yet to go — it’s on our list of things to do this week — so i’ll let you know how it goes.

shopping

rashinkar’s emporium, silks, and book house —

Near Olympia Talkies, Shivarampet

rrashinkar@yahoo.com

mobile: 98451 35328 / phone: 4260622, 22422622

rashinkar’s sells yoga mats; gorgeous mat bags (we each bought a silk one for a total of 800 INR); pants, shirts, and bags; silk and cotton; yoga, meditation, ayurveda, philosophy, homeopathy books (including bihar school books)… and they will also pack it up and ship it home for you at a really good rate.

yogic supplies/k.v.v. press -

Nagarathna R. Rao

#844, K.V.V. Press, Chamundeshwari Rd. (Near Siddappa Square), Lakshmipuram

mrvinay@vsnl.com

mobile: 98451 16350 / phone: 91 821 2333876, 2333969

the man who runs k.v.v. wasn’t there but his wife was, and she was such a treat.  her english is spectacular and she loves to have a chat.  the store, yogic supplies, has high-quality mat bags, yoga rugs, props/bolsters, incense, yoga videos, CDs, and a fantastic stock of books.  there were loads of bihar school books when we went, which are beautiful — easy to follow, well written, great diagrams, very informative — and hard to find.  also, much cheaper in india than online.  we bought two for 570 INR and found one on the internet for $123.  HAH.  our teacher buys most of his books there.

yam herbal body shop —

ali spent years in the gulf studying and working.  his english is impeccable and his knowledge of oils is incredibly vast.  he spent a long time educating us on the difference between poor-quality incense and good-quality incense, during which we realised the awful, mysterious allergic reactions we had at home before we left were due to cheap stuff we bought in china town, which is quite toxic apparently.  i even got to try rolling my own incense sticks… and was quickly laughed out of the shop by the tiny, wrinkled old woman who rolls 17,000 a day.  a day.  

my favourite part were the oils, though.  ali’s family was the first essential oil company in mysore and the quality of their products is incredible.  ali took no less than half an hour going over the benefits of all of the oils they offer while allowing us to test them and explaining how they are pressed.  we came away educated and smelling delicious.  note: ask to see the special oil.

i don’t know the address and there’s no website, but you could ask nearly any rickshaw driver and they would know what you meant.

silver nest —

Meena Gupta

#279 7th Cross, 3rd Stage, Gokulam

silvernest2006@yahoo.co.in

mobile: 93421 36763, 96320 01000 / phone: 91 821 4257320

meena is one of the people on this trip that i am happiest to have met.  she has the most radiant, kindest soul.  she out-earns her husband selling silver jewellery, spirulina, wheatgrass, om symbols, pashminas, singing bowls — whatever her western yoga friends suggest people would buy.  and buy they do!  she’s doing so well in the little room in her house and i felt so happy to buy from her.  i cannot sing her praises enough; she is just beautiful. (and her little son is so cute — he doesn’t want to go to school, he just wants to help his mum sell her jewellery!  it was sunday when we went so he was off school, and he was terribly charming and helpful.)

rickshaw drivers

master blaster (mobile: 919880958857) — backstreet boys, the spice girls, akon… master blaster will play it all at top volume while taking you around the best spots in mysore in his decked-out rickshaw.  he’s a laugh and a half and always happy to help. 

naveed (mobile: 8197424126) — a woman in the training program before our group met naveed and found him helpful and trustworthy.  she says he never tried to rip her off, either, and will happily use the meter.

dev (mobile: 9900124784) — our friend darcy has known dev for two years as she’s been coming to mysore to study at pattabhi jois.  she wanted to find a specific om symbol and dev spent a full day figuring out the best places to take her before he picked her up.  we met him and he was friendly, not at all creepy, and gave me a good gut feeling.  since we have a scooter we haven’t used a rickshaw for a while but if we did need one, i’d give dev a call.  he also will help you find a car or an apartment to rent. 

amusements/food

hotel regalis — the pool is 250 INR per person but it’s got hands-down the best showers in mysore.  spotlessly clean, steaming hot, and with enough water pressure to actually get the conditioner out of my hair for the first time in five months, it was totally worth it.  oh yeah, the pool’s nice too.  (so are the hard-bodied pattabhi jois students who flock to it every afternoon.)  (editor’s note: mark wants me to mention that the pool is actually really nice, i was just too busy staring at all of the bronzed, toned flesh around me to notice.)

guru the coconut dude — in gokulam, at the main cross street, there is an enormous pile of coconuts always surrounded by foreigners.  the proprietor, guru, is very friendly and the coconuts are delicious.

caffe pascucci —

No.2713, NR Mathru Mandali Circle, Adi Pampa Road, Jayalakshmipuram

phone: 0821 2511125, 4000505, 9945046306

if you want salad or a brick-oven pizza, go to pascucci.  while not the best pizza i’ve ever eaten, it’s certainly the best in india, and it was such a relief to see a caesar salad.  honestly, i could have wept: the crust was paper-thin and the cheese all imported.  pricy but great for those “i am going to kill someone if they show me a menu full of curries” days.

hotel rrr —

Gandhi Square, near Domino’s Pizza.

the banana-leaf thalis are all-you-can-eat and they’re so delicious that, in order to secure a seat, you have to stand beside a table and stare down whoever is eating while elbowing anyone else out of the way.  once the diners get up to wash their hands, you snag their chairs and lay claim to the table, dirty dishes and all.  and it’s so worth it.  i don’t know what any of the food we’ve eaten there is called, but it’s all veg (with non-veg options on the menu too) and spectacular.  bring your eating pants.

little woods —

Chamundi Hill Road.

ask for surya, the sweetest 14-year-old server you’ve ever met.  he insists on calling me madame and knows that i always want a fanta before my meal.  the food is very cheap, the curries are spicy and yummy, and the coffee is strong.  due to its proximity to our apartment, we go every day.

a little guide to mysore.

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our itinerary (or, this one's for you, mum &mom).

i just woke up from one of those feels-like-you've-died naps -- apparently we're a wee bit tired -- and figured, with the end of this course in sight, i'd post our itinerary for the next month.  it's all sorted, finally, train tickets in hand after only a brief almost-breakdown which nearly ended in tears at the booking counter. 

march 3: mysore to chennai (7 hours, 20 minutes).

march 4: chennai to bhubaneswar (19 hours, 50 minutes).

on to puri by bus for beach time!

march 14: puri to gaya (16 hours, 50 minutes).

on to bodhgaya by bus to see where buddha attained enlightenment.

march 17: gaya to varanasi (5 hours, 20 minutes).

march 23: varanasi to agra (13 hours).

march 24: agra to delhi.

march 29: delhi to taipei.

april 1: taipei to victoria.

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end of yoga teacher training, week three.

body: exhausted; brain: full; bed time: 8 p.m.

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we were given an extra few hours of freedom (read: study time) today after a test.  i decided to use them productively for the most part, but took a break to assemble some of my favourite pictures from the last few weeks.  having such an intense routine for this course makes it seem as though our previous adventures were months, not weeks, ago.

(the story behind the yellow cows: for a harvest festival here in mysore, cows and sheep are painted bright yellow and lead through a fire.  this is said to purify them and kill any bacteria.  they're STILL yellow and it's been almost three weeks.)

love, a.

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m. taught his first full-length class today!

it was fantastic: an hour and a half, and he was brilliant. 

lesson of the day: in the hands of a bass player, even tibetan meditation chimes become weapons.  it's quite the rude awakening from savasana.

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monkeys in our kitchen, stealing our bananas.

an entire family!

never a dull moment in mysore.

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The Hatha Yoga Pradipika

I've been reading a recent translation of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (Explanation of Hatha Yoga) which was written in the 15th century by Swami Svatmarama.  In the introduction, the Translator urges the reader: "learn Hatha Yoga under the guidance of and experienced teacher, not solely from this book.  Some practices in this book I don't recommend at all (you'll know them when you read them)."

I was intrigued.  I randomly flipped to a page in the middle and read the first verse.

"Mix the lunar nectar released from this practice with cow-dung ashes and smear one's important parts. Divine sight is born."

Hmmmmmm...

Then the next one down.

"If a woman, with the experience from proper practice, draws up the semen of a man and preserves her seminal fluid with Vajroli, then she, too, is a yogini."

.... I see.

So.  Perhaps these are the practices which need the guidance of an experienced teacher.

I still have a lot to learn about Yoga.

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an indian breathalyser test:

a man in tilly hat, reflective vest, and nondescript white uniform stepped in front of our scooter around 7 p.m. on a monday night.  surprised, m.quickly hit the breaks.  without so much as flashing a badge or a word of hello, the man wobbled toward us.  he leaned in as if to kiss mark and with a sloppy smile, mumbled, "drinking?"  his breath stank of booze and his demeanour was undoubtedly drunk.  he inhaled m.'s face as though sniffing the perfume of an absent beloved and, seemingly satisfied with our sobriety, waved us on.

when we asked our teacher, mahesh, about the situation, he laughed.  "oh, he was probably out of money."  turns out it's a common practice for cops to finance their benders with the bribes they get from drunk drivers.

incredible india.

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What did you learn in school today, son? (an essay of sorts)

                    “Atha, Yoganusasanam”                 Now, we roar into the discipline of Yoga     This is the first of the Yoga Sutras, written sometime around 200 a.d. by the Indian philosopher Patanjali.  I had not heard of these writings until a week ago, much less studied their meanings or more than one eighth of the practices which make up the discipline. At home, I have often heard people discussing how the yoga we know and practice isn't really Yoga like they know in India. I would smile and nod and agree, totally ignorant of how right they were, but aware of how little I knew about the subject.  I enjoyed practicing the postures and would often feel energized and blissfully calm after a session or class. I don't know if I would have ever gone beyond what I now realize to be a truly superficial understanding had Afra not insisted we take Yoga teacher training here in India.  One week in the course has totally changed my perspective on, and understanding of who I really am. (God, did I really write that?  Ugh... am I one of those people who came to India and found myself? How cliché.)         Patanjali's ideas and writings were heavily influenced by all the beliefs cycling around India at the time. He did not invent yoga, nor was he the first to write about it. Yoga is first mentioned in the Katha Upanishad, around 5 b.c. and images depicting people in yogic postures have been found in  Indus Valley archeological sites which date to 2300 b.c.  What Patanjali did was to further develop and  compile a set of philosophical ideas and physical practices which had been evolving for thousands of years already.  He incorporated ideas from the traditions of the Vedic peoples, who migrated into India as nomads in the decline of the Indus Valley civilization and who, once settled, began a search for a path to spiritual liberation through meditation and austerities. They composed a set of four texts which comprised their understanding of reality and religion called the Vedas. The people who conceptualized many of the important ideas of the Vedas followed a tradition called Shramana which involved living on the edges of society, in forest and mountain regions as hermits and contemplating the nature of reality: Shaman.  Developing in India at the same time, parallel to the Vedic tradition, was the philosophy of Sankhya which viewed the world a dualistic: prakrti and purusha, nature and person. These ideas are carried over into the Yoga sutras. To a small degree, Patanjali also borrowed ideas of morality from Buddhism and,  more liberally, Jainism.  Both of these religions had been circulating India for nearly 500 years when Patanjali wrote his sutras.  That all of these ideas are so old and all present in Yoga totally blows my mind.     What has gripped me most is the idea of duality which is present in Yoga.  Prakrti and purusha: nature and person.  I understand this idea to be the core of Ha (Sanskrit for sun) and Tha (moon) of Hatha Yoga. Yoga's conception of the two ideas differs from Western views in several ways which have really hit home with me.  In Yoga, nature makes up everything which is not purusha (I'll call purusha the soul, because that's how I understand it at this point). In turn, nature is comprised of three qualities or gunas: Sattva (illumination and balance), Rajas (action, pain), and  Tamas (darkness and stillness).  Yoga says that every object in the world, animate or inanimate, is made of sattva, rajas, and tamas.  I find it incredible that the idea of nature being comprised of three parts was conceived thousands of years before modern science proved it with the neutron, the proton, and the electron.           The three gunas comprise everything which our souls are not. This includes our mind, our emotions, our thoughts, and our beliefs.  We have been taught in our philosophy class that these aforementioned manifestations of the gunas are a type of action, much like walking.  When you stop walking, where does the walking go?  When you stop the mind, where does mind go?  It is still a potential, still there if we so desire it, but when it ceases we are able to see what is behind it: the soul, the witness of nature, the inhabitant of our body and mind, consciousness itself.  This leads to the second sutra. It is a simple explanation that I have never heard in the West, but one which would have helped me when I was smiling and nodding to those people telling me that foreigners don't understand Yoga:                             “Yogas chitta vritti nirodha”                     Yoga is the cessation of mind   

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tomorrow, i teach my first mini class!

i'm nervous but also excited.  after all, it can't be any worse than today, when mark was teaching and lek fainted into his knee...

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the blessings of having our own kitchen.

lunch today:

fresh watermelon & pineapple;

julienned cucumber, carrot, beet, and sweet pepper;

a bit of rice with mint-garlic-potato hummus made by josie;

two hardboiled eggs each;

an apple with peanut butter;

one huge coconut each (they were AMAZING - probably a litre of water in each and loads of delicious meat).

altogether, it cost us 125 rupees.

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cast of characters.

we were sitting in our room, smearing peanut butter on apple slices and reveling in the novelty of having a kitchen where we can wash and cut our own produce. josie, our venezuelan housemate, peeked in the door and asked, with her ever-present smile, if we would like a piece of coconut blessed today by a hindu priest for the mother goddess.  m. carved the hard fruit away from the shell and it occurred to me how beautiful our time in mysore is. the apartment in which we are staying is simple: three rooms with two beds each open to a large common space with a computer, four straw mats, and a bookshelf.  there may not be a refrigerator but we do have a full kitchen, stocked with mismatched pots and dishes.  glass doors lead to a deck which faces a grassy field and beyond that, a street.  laundry dries on the rail, washed and hung by a tall woman with a divine smile named lakshmi.  she comes every day to clean, pearl-white teeth flashing as she sweeps quietly around our studying bodies.  on the road, we can see a man selling sugar cane juice from a cart with a hand-powered juicing mill.    there are five of us in the flat. nori is from japan but lives now in st. tropez.  she eats a macrobiotic diet and when she laughs, her eyes become two half-moons like a perfect anime character.  hrund is her roommate, an icelandic woman of middle years living in brussels.  a lawyer originally, she has worked for the past nine years in the foreign service as a speech writer.  both she and nori speak perfect, lightly-accented english and are intent, questioning students.   josie and lek are in the room just beside nori and hrund.  from venezuela, josie came to india alone – without her infant son or scottish fiance – a week before the course started.  she has completely fallen in love with the country and plans to marry brendan in an indian ceremony when he comes in march with their little boy4.  the two of them run an adventure travel cum spanish language school together.   lek is thai but her job as a flight attendant with kuwait airways means she has lived for 13 years in kuwait.  her proper first name is beautiful but practically unpronounceable and she has learned not to bother with clumsy, english tongues.  she has perfect eyebrows, the same yoga mat as i do, and a quiet, gentle disposition.  like josie, hrund, and nori, her english is impeccable.   m., hrund, lek, and i are all studying hatha yoga and yoga therapy.  nori is studying yoga therapy but not hatha, and josie is taking ashtanga.  in the evenings we all spread out on the floor and study, discuss the philosophy we learned that afternoon, demonstrate different asana techniques, and attempt to memorise our opening and closing prayers.  someone usually makes tea using ingredients bought fresh from a fruit stand – m.'s lemon-honey-ginger, nori's mint, or hrund's chamomile – and i seem to always be snacking.  m. and i, the indian veterans with three restaurant-only months under our belts, are taking advantage of the opportunity to wash and prepare our own food by eating fruit and veggies constantly.  tonight we had pasta with green beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and jalapenos, all fried together in ghee and a healthy squeeze of lemon.  it was simple, flavourful, and delicious. it is almost 10 p.m. now.   m. is reviewing asana methodology and the ladies have gone to bed.  i ought to follow their example – we have another long day tomorrow, and many more after that.  i have to admit, though, that i go to sleep every night excited about what the next day will bring.   goodnight, mysore – see you tomorrow.

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mysore yoga teacher training schedule:

monday through friday

8:00 - 9:00 led class

9:30 - 10:15 breakfast break

10:15 - 11:45 asana methodology

12:00 - 12:45 yoga therapy

12:45 - 4:00 study

4:00 - 5:00 pranayama theory &practice/anatomy

5:00 - 6:30 yoga philosophy/anatomy

6:30 - 7:00 meditation

* karma yoga to be performed between 1:00 and 2:45.

saturday

8:00 - 9:30 mysore style

9:30 - 10:00 breakfast break

10:00 - 12:00 yoga therapy with ayurvedic doctor