About a month and a half ago, my husband mentioned that he was going to India to do research for a month. I immediately said that I would go with him and that I would do yoga in India.
I had been regularly going to vinyasa yoga classes for about a year and really loved it. My teacher was great and with the help of his adjustments I could already do things that I never thought I could do before. The class was dynamic, fast-paced, strenuous and challenging. I sweated a lot in the class. This was the kind of yoga I wanted and I thought that going to India would enrich my yoga experience for of course, where is the source of yoga, except India!
When I had this idea, I started looking up places where I could take yoga classes. I found a list of the top yoga schools, basically the following: Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandira in Chennai, Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanawartai in Trivandum, and Pharmath Niketan in Rishikesh. At this point, the schools and types of yoga were quite unknown to me, and I just knew that there was hatha yoga, then the vinyasa yoga that I was doing. As we were first going to Delhi, I ended up with the idea of going to Rishikesh as it was only about 250 kms from Delhi and seemed an interesting place -- where the Beatles went to an ashram, up near the Himalayas. It also seemed to be a big yoga place with lots of yoga classes and teacher trainings. I thought that maybe I could do a teacher training class for 200 hours or one month. I searched for places that had "vinyasa yoga" as their specialty, and finally ended up with several possibilities -- Rishikesh yoga peeth, Taatvayoga, Arhanta Yoga. I kept looking at these places, and thinking about what I really wanted and where I should go.
I don't know exactly how I ended up with the idea of ashtanga yoga. Maybe it was when I asked my sister about the teacher training she did (in Thailand with Paul Dallaghan). Maybe it was after seeing the videos on youtube of the ashtanga yoga practice. Maybe it was all the Kino MacGregor ashtanga videos that I watched and followed on myyogaonline (which I had a membership with). I suddenly had the idea that maybe it was ashtanga yoga that I wanted to focus on, not really knowing much about it. I read more and learned that the center of this style of yoga was in Mysore. Later, I thought that if I were to study ashtanga yoga, it might as well be at the source, and from then on everything fell into place.
In late October, I looked up the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute and found that all their classes were booked from November to February the next year! I could try for March but I needed to send in my application early -- in November. Thus, exactly on November 1, early in the morning, I sent in my application to study at the shala with Sharath Jois. I checked their website after a few days and it said that all the March classes were now fully booked! I sent my application just in time it seems, as after 2 weeks a reply came back that I could enrol but since I was a beginner, I had to study with Saraswathi (I had indicated that I wanted to study with Sharath). I replied that I really was not a complete beginner as I had done "yoga" a few years and focused on vinyasa yoga for the past year. The answer I got was that "... though you practice other styles or teach other styles of yoga, here we will take you as a beginner." Chastened, I wrote back that I would attend the beginner yoga with Saraswathi.
With that plan of attending a month of yoga in Mysore, I began my ashtanga yoga training in earnest. I collected everything I could read about it, read a lot of ashtanga yoga blogs, and started almost a daily practice following ashtanga yoga videos on youtube and myyogaonline. The first 2 weeks of the practice -- practically everything hurt. I drank ibuprofen or paracetamol, or rubbed some liniment on aching limbs. I iced my back, my shoulders, my knees, my legs and could hardly do any other exercise the rest of the day. The next two weeks were a little better -- I cut back the medicines but continued the icing for the inflammation. Now, after a little more than a month, I do not even have to ice as much!
I did a video of myself in November and realized how much I still had to improve and learn. I looked absolutely nothing like the youtube ashtanga videos I saw!!! They were videos of strong, lithe and fit men and women, easily pushing into handstands and placing their limbs in impossible poses. Could I ever do that, I thought to myself?!? But I also read somewhere that Pattabhi Jois said "practice, practice, practice and all is coming" and that yoga can be done by everyone -- the old, the young, the infirm -- all one needed was focus and practice.
And in fact maybe that is true, a year ago when I started I could not even push into a plank, let alone lower myself to a chatturanga dandasana. Pushing up into a wheel position was for me out of the question. Now I can actually follow a one hour ashtanga yoga class, with 5 suryanamaskar A and 5 suryanamasker B, do some of the primary series and closing sequences, without significant aching, and in fact, the funny thing is I feel much more energized. In fact, I couldn't believe that some of the aches and pains are now gone. Could the yoga have cured it? I also read that the master said that the suryanamaskar is a healing practice and again it seems true.
I seem to be now totally and completely hooked on ashtanga. With a little less than 3 months more to get ready for Mysore, I have been doing as much practice as I can -- meaning that apart from my regular vinyasa yoga and hatha yoga day, I do at least 3 more days of the ashtanga yoga practice (keeping Saturdays as rest day per the ashtanga yoga practice). I feel I am improving in tiny little increments. I just keep in mind that " practice, practice and all is coming." I totally have an absolutely long long way to go!
