Only three more days to go.

Anyone who does body work will tell you that we humans carry all our emotional baggage in our hips. All of life’s disappointment, heartaches, pain, trauma from injury or violence, as well as all our good experiences in life and our self image, that has been shaped by those experiences are all stored in our hips. In general open hips are reflected by an open, easy going and flexible attitude and closed hips, the opposite. This week has been the hip opener week and I am just amazed at how I can now stretch into positions I never thought could ever do. Of course this did come at a cost, a few times I was in tears for no apparent reason, had headaches, dizziness, grumpy moods and just exhausted from all the dredging up of past emotions and muscles being stretched to the max. Anyway I feel great now. In many ways,  I am not surprised at being so tight in the hips and emotional, having just spent the last few years going through university with all of its stresses, drama, and major head trips of professor who teach by intimidation. Also the efforts at trying to find work in DC, which is only one of the worlds most competitive and political cities along with hours in front of the computer and just sitting in chairs too much with no exercise, I am not surprised that my old hips had closed up. Anyway watch out world, this is the old me back again, hopefully just a wee bit wiser and possibly an inch taller, and hey what does not kill yi just makes yi stronger; right!

So what else this week? News from Agonda.

Found a great German bakery which serves fantastic breakfast muesli, funny how food can become a distraction and a comfort at the same time. The guys are from Nepal and one of them, with buzzed hair, baggy shorts and chain, cool baggy T shirts and flaming heart tattoo, reminds me on certain Hawaiian/Pilipino guy I used to know in Santa Cruz.

There is a very interesting old Indian guy, who must be in his 70’s who walks the beach every day. His long grey hair is tied up in a ponytail and he has a habit of combing his even longer grey bread with his hands. He wears white short shorts and has spindly long legs with well toned muscles. His bright pink vest T shirt with an OM design on the front and he has the most radiant smile. He always smiles or nods as he passes me by and I wonder is he a yogi, a Sikh, a local guy, or tourist. Whatever and whomever he is he has the nicest demeanor and is healthy and happy and I wanna have that vibrancy when I am that age.

 Some guy on a motor bike knocked over a cow. There are a more than a few cows in Agonda but very few hit and runs involving cows; obviously the guy is not of the Hindu faith. The cow was stunned but got up and walk away fine but must have a few bruises.

The puppies at Saxon restaurant are so fun. On Monday they followed me along the beach and showed of their chasing sand crabs skills. What a laugh I had but the poor wee pups did not catch any crabs. There are some funny looking dogs here too; one overweight sausage dog; a big black dog with a shaggy almost dreadlocks coat,  a three legged lab, a wee terrier thing with old man whiskers and of course an array of multicolored scruffy mutts, all of which look happy and health and are friendly with the tourists.

Many businesses are closing up now as the season is just about over. Soon the winds will kick up, it will be too hot and humid and monsoon will start. So every day I see more boarded up shops and restaurants.

So this weekend it will be study, study, study and I hope I can remember all the Sanskrit names for all these poses. Exams on Tuesday and on Thursday I will fly back to Delhi.

I am glad to say that after another week of aches and pains that this wee body is beginning to function better on the yoga mat. I just never realized I was so stiff, but now touching toes is a breeze; okay well maybe not a breeze yet but give me another week.  I am enjoying learning and seeing how the body adapts pretty quickly to postures, but it is an effort. It has also been so hot and humid this week and people on the course have suffered from exhaustion, sicknesses, muscle injuries, vertigo. A few folks skipped classes, in particular the meditation class at 6.30 am and that philosophy class from 11am till 1pm is just the toughest part of the day. The week seems to have been tough on everyone, I got grumpy and frustrated but I was luck to have a wee distraction this week. Ashley’s sister Kacey, from San Francisco showed up in Goa  yahoo!!!   So we had a couple of dinners out and drinks, chatted about her travel plans and experiences of all the weird things that happen in India, as well as discuss just how tough the job market is in the USA and how these days employers demand their pound and a half of flesh for every dollar in wages they give. We both seem to be making career decisions as well as decision about whether to stay in the USA or not, so it was great to chat and have a few laughs, at ourselves and life in general. Anyway I was glad of her visit and came back to the yoga mat revived. So thanks Kacey and safe travels on your adventures, I am looking forward to reading your blog. Kaceys Blog is    www.jaidecouvert.tumblr.com

This week we also began to make up our own yoga routines and teach the others in the class. This was a bit verve wracking and for as easy as teaching yoga looks  it is pretty darn hard to remember  the order of poses, if it is the turn of the right or left arm to go forward or backward and if it is a breath in or out. Needless to say I had my group of three all out of sink and laughing at my fumbling of instruction, with a strong Scottish accent. I guess my accent get pretty think when I am thinking out loud. I was just happy to be able to give folks a laugh.

trying to get in knots

What else now; have got in an application to volunteer with an NGO in Delhi called Apne Aap, which works to end sex trafficking in India. It was funny but I met the founder in Washington the day before I left for India; she was giving a talk at the Wilson Centre. So I have been cashing her by e-mail for the past few months and hopefully it will all work out for me to be volunteering with them in Delhi from April to June  pe Apne Aap.   A Grassroot Movement end Sex Traffiking.   http://apneaap.org/index.php

I also this week go an e-mail from Vinita who is also working to end sex slavery but in Nepal. Her NGO is called Anarardristi. Antardristi Nepal is a project run by women with an aim to offer support to sexually abused survivors, both women and Children.  www.antardristi.com.np She is also doing some amazing work on a shoestring. I would love to get up to Nepal and work with her too, hopefully someday soon. Lets see where I end up.

Good news also from the idea on a woman sanctuary in Bodhgaya. The founder for the NGO I volunteered with, likes the idea and will pursue funding. I will meet him in Delhi in a few weeks. So I am very happy about that and lets see where this goes. In the mean time I have to perfect his downward facing dog pose and remember tomorrows sequence.

10 days in

Ten days into the yoga teacher training course and this wee body and mind are literal being stretched. It has been a tough past week not only physically but mentally as well. We have more philosophy that I had expected and just memorizing the asana series is a lot far let remember the muscles and bone that work in a posture. So now that the toughest part is over I hope it will become much easier from now on. We are learning Ashtanga yoga as taught in the lineage of the historical Indian yogi, Pratangali. In recent times this lineage has been taught by Swami Sivananda, who died in 1924 then his student Swami Satyananda who died in 1984, followed by his students Swamis Niranjanananda, Satyasangananda and Suryaprakash who are presently holders of this lineage and teaching.  You can check out the web site below.

The postures or asanas work on building strength, opening up the hips but are only one of the eight aspects of Astanga yoga. The other aspects include living an ethical life and meditation and together these 8 aspects are a path toward “self realization”. I am discovering that there are quite a few similarities in this yogic path and Buddhism but there are also major differences in their view of how the self exists; i.e. the atma v’s anatma, or self v’s no-self. This debate has been going on for centauries in fact Indian Buddhist and Vedic scholars would have big debates over his point and one of the largest seats of philosophy and debate was at a monastery in Bihar called Nalanda, which today lies in ruins. Anyway not meaning to get all technical but I find it fascinating to investigate how the different traditions of the world interoperate and understand the self, the universe and just why various codes of conduct and particular practices of asanas and mediation came about, as well as and what in the human body and mind they effect and for what purpose.

So anyway back to Agonda. Today we started the Mysore style learning method. Which is teaching yourself the postures by doing them yourself and having the teacher walk around the class and adjust people as needed. I must admit I was resistant at first thinking “I am not ready for this yet, I can’t remember all this stuff now, they should teach us another week or so, what am I paying them for anyway!” But after the first few sun salutations I discovered it was actually really great to go at my own pace and really focus on which postures and positions this wee body could do easy and not so easy. It was great to have the time to watch my resistant mind, often screaming at not wanting to do a posture and begin to work with relaxing and surrendering into the pain or tension. As you yoga practitioners will already know it is working with the resistance and learning to transform it into pleasure is the real work of a yogi. Anyway I had to have a wee laugh at myself as I admitted I had fun with this style of learning and in many ways found a child like curiosity in examining, “just how far can I stretch my spine, if I breath out more and try to smile at the experience, and let it all go.” So it seems that mental attitude and how I hold and use my body go hand in hand. I am sure a lot more mental blocks, or should I say stiff muscles will be unblocked, stretched and released in the next few weeks and I will not be a bit surprised if the pain of either has me in tears in the next few days, but till then I am laughing and going off for a swim. Hope that all is well and relaxed in your world. .http://www.biharyoga.net/

So getting settled into Agonda and getting used to the aches and pains of yoga.The village is just beautifully and we have a great group of people on the course. Participants come from England, Germany, Canada, Hong Kong and USA. Today is Sunday and a day off to relax and do all the course reading, which is pretty heavy into anatomy and Indian yogic philosophy which luckily is along the lines of Buddhism  so I can get my head around it. Funny but today I found myself alone on a beach lounger, in the shade, reading a philosophy book surrounded by people, eating, smoking; both tobacco and ganja, making out and just frying themselves in the sun, when the though came " I have turned into a nerd!"   arghghghghh  hahahahahah  oh well.

street sellers

beach hut

beach cow

Church in the center of the village

local lads celebrating Holi

On to Goa

Well coming out of silence and retreat and jumping on the overnight bus to Delhi was mind blowing! The senses go on overload and everything is amplified but at the same time feels surreal and calm.  Hmmmm?  So no sleep all night; a quick breakfast with Pema in Delhi then the plane to Goa and bus to Agonda beach, where I now find myself. Just a wee bit disorientated after a long journey but happy to be here in the heat because McLeod Ganj was freezing. Thanks goodness for the hot water bottle stuffed under my meditation blanket. I came here to Agonda to do a yoga teacher training course another thing I always promised myself I would do. Sampoorna Yoga Studio, which is the Ashtanga variety of yoga is small and informal on the rooftop of the guest house and overlook the ocean. So lots of ocean breezes. It also is a lot cheaper than some other course in India. Since the mid 80’s I have been doing yoga off and on but as I am getting older (imagine that) and especially after a couple of surgeries, I am realizing that yoga is not only preventative medicine but great for the health of the body and mind. So the main motivation for doing this is to get started on a daily practice and also deepen my knowledge to compliment the Tibetan Buddhist practices as well. Why I am taking teacher training is so that I can possible teach as I search for a real job on my return to D.C. but also I may be able to share yoga with the women I work with here in India or in other countries where I will eventually find work. So I have a wee bit of self indulgent motivation, a practical motivation and a motivation to share is knowledge with others who could benefit from yoga. So we have meditation and breathing techniques from 6.30am till 8am followed by asana class for 2 hours, yoga/Hindu philosophy, lunch, then anatomy class followed by a 2 hour class focusing on perfecting the postures. I managed to also get in a swim, so my wee body is just a wee bit sore tonight but the teacher assures me that in one month I will be feeling great and also one inch taller  hahahah,  we will see. This month promises to be challenging, especially Yoga/Hindu philosophy, and physically with such intensive asana practice, the one thing I do have going for me is that I can sit still in the meditation sessions, thank you Tushita

Samooprna Yoga studio.http://sampoornayoga.com/gallery8.html

Post Retreat

Feels like a long time since I last wrote but it has only been 2 weeks. The retreat at Tushita, by the end of it, was a great experience. Oh course as some of you will know, you go though difficult time wrestling with the body’s aches and pains because it does not want to sit still 8 to 10 hours a day and the mind always wanders to the past and the future and defy all efforts to stay focused on the present, but this is how I goes. Retreat is never easy in the beginning, so where these great notions come from of attaining tranquility just because you sit on a meditation cushion is a mystery. It was only on the last few days, after perseverance and effort you can get a small incline of inner peace. So what did we all do for 12 days you may wonder? There were 21 of us on the retreat, we stayed in silence for the duration and did meditations on the Buddhist path such as examining the nature of the human condition, (which in general sucks) but that went hand in hand with the development of kindness and compassion. We also spent some time on and developing an appreciation for the fact that we can practice to perfect the mind. We also did meditations on death and meditations on the Buddhist doctrine of the nature of all phenomena, i.e. empty of inherent existence and dependently arisen. Our day started at 5am and we did four 2 hours per day and if we wanted to do a fifth session that we could do that on the 3 hour lunch break. To start with I was so sluggish and my mind filled with distraction and anger but by the fifth day I needed less sleep, less food and the mind had calmed down. The practice was beautiful and it was so good to sit with a group of people who are also attempting to travel the Tibetan Buddhist path, especially since I had felt very alone in my Buddhist practice in Washington DC.  So I feel rejuvenated, more open hearted, re-focused on the important things in life and very enthusiastic to continue with the practice. I have to give a huge thank you so everyone on the retreat because without everyone being there it would never have happened, to Andy who lead the retreat and to everyone at Tushita for all their work in setting up the retreat and looking after all of us so well.