being a student, mysore in london

Very non-descript placard beside the door of the shala.
From outside, you would never guess the magic going on in there!

“One more,” calls Hamish Hendry from the main room. I come up from uthita trikonasana, fold my mat  and walk into the steamy room, condensation on the walls and windows, steam rising from hot bodies in practice. I can feel the humidity on my skin but also in my lungs. It might be on the edge of oppressively hot but I love it, I am so happy to put my mat down. I take a few moments to inhale and exhale in samasthitihi, getting used to the thickness of the air in the room before restarting my practice. Ekam…

These months of being on the road have been beautiful lessons in self-practice, in learning to motivate myself, to be patient and sensible when it comes to the limits of the body, to forgive and be loving towards myself when necessary. I have relished the time on my own, but I have to admit, it’s been difficult, and also a little lonely.

Being on a mini-holiday to visit with friends in London, with no particular agenda, has been a great opportunity to go to class, to step into the cauldron, so to speak, to be a student.

In late 2013, when I last breezed through London, a trip to Dharma Shala was on my agenda. I only managed a couple of days but attending class there left a strong impression on me. Returning this time around, taking class super-ceeded being a tourist. It's been nearly a year since my last Mysore trip. A year of self-practice. So entering a warm room again, one buzzing with the energy generated by bodies moving with breath and thoughtful intention...It's like magic. 

Dharma Shala on Drummond Street is a gem of a shala, where the connection to Mysore, India feels very alive, so tangible you can feel it. I’ve not practiced in so many places, but it’s at Dharma shala where I feel Mysore-mysore the most outside of India. It’s the similarity in the process, the continuously rolling in and out of students, finishing postures in another room, the practice-generated heat.

And then, there’s Hamish, very down-to-earth, friendly but also straight to the point sort of man who is among the small number of certified teachers in the tradition. In Mysore, it’s impossible to not meet a student of Hamish’s. And if you speak to them, impossible to miss the tone of love and respect they have for their London teacher and shala. His presence, very much his own, is not so dissimilar to Sharath's non-obtrusiveness. I felt very much how he gave me space, knowing full well I need to do my own work. But I also felt his compassion, how knowing I have not practiced with anyone for a long time, he tried to give me as much support as I needed, inviting me to try new things, giving me something new thing to work on. 

I've been told that Hamish is a teacher's teacher, with many London ashtanga teachers attending Mysore either before or after their own classes, many assisting him as well.  And you can feel that in the assistance, very skilled and sensitive. And you can see that in the room: some really amazing practices, intermediate A, B, not uncommon. The depth of practice, no matter what level, the concerted effort, full deep breath is truly prevalent in the room. And it was a joy to be there myself, even for a handful of days, practicing in the thick of it.

This morning, I returned to my mat, returned to my solo practice. Again, not easy. I couldn't even break a sweat with this fresh spring air in Barcelona, my body stiff from travel yesterday. But I feel good, that even that bit of time in such a room, with such a teacher, has given me some "homework"to stoke my practice.

A wonderful companion to yoga practice:
It starts: "Before you start reading this book breathe long and deep.
This in the only practice in this book and may be the most important."
Yes!

Yoga Dharma is on sale at Dharma Shala.

  

new openings

Maybe it's the inspiring airy, light-filled Espacio Vacio, where I practice in the mornings after class, with its high ceilings and wood floors...

Maybe it's Barcelona, the newness of it and the change of pace that it's allowed me...

Maybe it's Cairo with its unfathomable intensity, perhaps this is its parting gift...

Maybe it's the season and my body is simply used to being pushed to its limits right about now were it in Mysore, India--that somehow I've developed an automated response to diving into the deep end this time of year because for the first time in my life of solo self-practice, I feel like I'm really going for it...

Maybe it's a combination of all these factors.... Or maybe it's just finally time...

Whatever the cause, it feels as if something is once again shifting. But in a very different way from what I'm used to. I don't feel exhausted, or pushed or frayed. I'm eating right, I am sleeping enough, I feel loved. I'm not having a hard time of practice. I'm not wracked with internal egoic debates nor am I plagued by the usual issues of fear or self doubt. I don't feel delicate, though admittedly some tears have come recently but they feel largely like an emotional release, a catharsis without much attachment.

Were I a heaving mess, I'd understand it better. I've been through the process where it felt like practice was slowly prying me open. I, likewise, am familiar with the all-the-sudden bam! sneaky sledge-hammer style it can have at times. I am used to being broken, cracked like an egg, having my guts spill out onto the sidewalk. Used to the dirty process of picking up the pieces in order to put myself together again (albeit better than when it all started).

This. This is new. First of all, I feel well. I know that's a strange one to note, but it's definitely notable. More than anything there's this new awareness, a strong sense that something is happening in my body. On the gross level, there's a deep muscle soreness--not so unusual with practice. Beyond that, there's this more subtle feeling that within my body things are being rearranged, the process of which has resulted in both a lovely yet strange new spaciousness in deep down areas I've never felt before and a quivering sensation, like there's a certain weakness in the limbs, as if they don't quite know how to hold themselves. What in the world?!

Whatever this is, I'm excited. It's thrilling to feel changes in the body. Having been in a practice plateau (physically) for sometime, the prospect of an opening in the body makes me want to celebrate, throw a party, send out announcements--instead, a blog entry will do. Moreover, it's amazing to be able to be aware that something within is moving. Staggering, too, to experience it so calmly, so steadily.

What exactly is happening, I can't really say. One thing is certain: shifts will come and I have a feeling this might be the one I've been waiting for and for quite some time.

It's especially reaffirming to feel how deeply the practice works. That the spirit of Mysore, the movements it inspires, is not a fixed experience. It exists wherever one practices, whenever one practices. 

mysore withdrawal

For me, 'tis the season for Mysore. It's not been so very long for me but since 2010, I've spent this time of year in India to study with Sharath at KPJAYI. Until now, that is.

When the season started in Mysore this October, it made me smile to know that the shala life around Gokulam was restarting, that even from afar I felt I could revel in it.

The more time passes, however, the more I feel the shakes for shala practice, for that intense energy that goes into practice, preparing for practice, eating early for practice, pre-practice coffee, post-practice chai...

There's this itch to check on the Ashtanga Mysore Community Facebook page--just to see what's going on--or to stalk friends who I know are there now or are headed that way. Then, there's this deep down feeling of longing that I feel when I see a Mysore shot on Instagram or an update on my newsfeed.

Mysore withdrawal symptoms, all of them, confirming my (healthy! at least on most days) addiction to Mysore, India. (The informal definition in the dictionary for "addict" is "devotee" incidentally, which I think applies well here.)

My body, heart, mind, spirit are having a Pavlovian response to this time of year! I'm not salivating, thank goodness, but am definitely having an interesting reaction to shots of random cows walking the streets, coco stand portraits and especially wide-angle shots of the packed room and expectant faces at conferences. There is a craving for depth of practice with my teacher, the camaraderie of friends who understand similarly the experience of yoga practice in their muscles and their joints and the intensity of the more subtle clenches and the openings that come with it.

And it's not just the practice. Missing Mysore in so many different levels, from the most mundane simple acts that typify a day in the life there, (i.e. morning post-practice chai, Sri Durg Indian breakfast or trip to the Chocolate man for curd) to special Sunday afternoons a capela kirtan in Saraswathipuram leading to conference at the shala with Sharath.

It's interesting now to observe how my attention is drawn to that part of the world, all the way here in Egypt, how connected I continue to feel despite skipping a season, but also how that connection constantly craves for more...how to explain...deepening--which I think is a pretty good kind of addiction. 

committed

Portable portrait of Guruji (Sri K. Pattabhi Jois), which travels with me.
Makeshift altar at La Zone, Maadi in Cairo, where I am subbing for friend Iman Elsherbiny. 

It's not perfect. But I've stuck to it--out of some deep internal compulsion, out of a great need and desire, out of love. And even though, on occasion, especially as the alarm harps on at crazy o'clock in the morning and there is this small sense of drudgery, that oh-here-we-go-again! feeling, mostly I wake up joyfully knowing that I will be met with both its unpredictable spontaneity and steady consistency. My eyes open and I am happy to breathe with it. The longing does not abate. I know that it is there for me, waiting and welcoming. Mostly, I can't wait to be with it, to spend the hours touching an intimacy like no other.

After seven years, this is the longest relationship I have ever had, this partnership with this mad beautiful ashtanga practice.

I realize that I've never been so committed; that no other part of my life has ever received such attention, such loyalty, such love and devotion. And while that in itself may be flawed, I cannot help but feel gratitude that something has inspired me so, calling me on to act day after day with remarkable presence. Even if the sense of fullness is sometimes fleeting, it has made me look upon each day as filled with the potential for growth. It has inspired me to love in so many levels--to love yoga, to love the practice itself, to love my teachers, and to love my fellow beings. Most of all it has helped me cultivate a profound sense of self love that I hadn't realized was even missing.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article likening my relationship with the ashtanga practice to dating, that we'd moved beyond flirtation and how we were properly, happily seeing each other. And what a beautiful time that was, how joyful to see our bond blossom.

We've been through a lot more since then, the practice and I. 

There have had some golden moments. The last couple of years have taught us to be easy and comfortable with each other, more forgiving, more patient.  

But there have been difficulties too. Being with practice is not easy. Frustrations at feeling stalled have played on me. Things don't always move forward at the same lightning pace. Being unable to move beyond one posture, for example, made feel as if we'd reached a plateau, that nothing new was coming and I feared the stagnancy of routine. 
  
I phased through moments of doubts. I scrutinized our compatibility. I wondered whether we were truly right for each other, whether it could truly satisfy me, and whether I could truly represent it and be the kind of practitioner/teacher that I felt like I needed to be for it. I feared its rejection, that I wouldn't be good enough. And then there were times that I felt fidgety and nervous and craved for more. I had to ask: could I truly commit? 

And, yet, here we are: wandering the world together, navigating the strange unknown with remarkable strength and flexibility, adapting to different cultures, coping with the stress of work, travel and movement, being mutually supportive but allowing each other the space to be. I could not imagine this life of mine now without it. 

The question of commitment, a non issue at this point, as I survey my life of, well, commitment to practice. The challenges come and go, yet the practice remains, however sweet, however difficult. It would not have stuck around if I hadn't willed it. If I hadn't stepped on to the mat and breathed it into my body day after day.

These days, I feel committed on a whole new level. 

That while the practice continues to be deeply personal, it has also become greater. That by teaching, my relationship with my own practice now extends to others. 

The authorization, the blessing from Sharath Jois to teach, I must admit, has brought a new sense of commitment to it. Fear, as well. Like a marriage, it feels a great deal more official. More serious. There is a greater sense of responsibility and accountability on my part. That comes with its own set of worries. But this, too, we are navigating together. The practice seems to understand my deeply ingrained fear of commitment and makes no demands. It accepts me just as I am. It bends to my need for independence, it allows me to be the autonomous, creative being that I need to be. 

And what I've realized is, that despite the piece of paper, the intricacies of our relationship is up to us, that we create the kind of loving, respectful exchange that works, that allows love to simply flow easily. 

Want to read more about the evolution of this constantly changing relationship to practice? To read the "dating yoga" blog article: http://realizingmysore.blogspot.jp/2011/12/dating-yoga.html

a skip season

Guruji's portrait in the shala. 

I would not have thought it possible. Towards the end of my first trip, so certain was I, so gung-ho, so totally obsessed with Mysore, that I was sure I would spend a portion of every year of my life in Mysore, India to practice at the shala--at least until my brittle bones would prevent me from doing so!

And now... as friends and, yes, my yoga family converge in India, I sit during spare in-between-teaching moments reading updates on facebook, viewing photos on instagram, and breathing--I breathe into the space in my heart that tightens because I long for it so: India, the shala, the energy and the practice there, the grace of the teacher, the community in and around Gokulam, the yoga folks, the chocolate, the random livestock wandering around the streets. Oh my goodness, I miss it all!

I've been in Cairo over three weeks now, my coming here has allowed another, my friend and fellow ashtangi Iman Elsherbiny, to go and study with Sharath in KPJAYI. The last three months has been this way, me holding space for others. Before this I was in Japan, subbing for a mysore program in Osaka. After this, I will be doing the same in Barcelona. And the current Mysore season will have come and gone by the time I am done with the commitments that I have made.

I have chosen to skip a season, I have to remind myself. I am the architect of this anomaly.

This was not so methodically planned. I do have a ticket leaving London in the end of December going to back to Asia. My intention was to be in India by the new year, in keeping with my "tradition" of spending the eve at the Shiva temple in Chamundi Hill, giving puja, burning old karmas, making new intentions. But so much has changed since I left South East Asia in early June. And life has challenged me to be flexible off the mat as well.

As the year ends, my puja, my offering is my life. Burning old patterns writ on paper isn't enough anymore. I simply need to stop cycling into them. And the intentions, well, my plate is still full there as I toil over the ones from previous years.

Ultimately, I know it doesn't matter where I celebrate the new year. It doesn't matter where I practice, or where I bow to the teachings of my teacher.

Still, I am missing practice at the shala and Sharath's stealthy hawk-eyed gaze. I can feel my body miss the deep down soreness, the depth of self-discovery, the intensity of moving amongst the breath of 70 some odd students, that indescribable push to the edge. But this time, choosing to teach, rather than to study, also seems right.

While studying regularly with Sharath is important to me as a human being and as a student, I can't help but feel his hand in my learning now, that it is because of his blessing that I am out here. That this is my "off-campus" self-study; it is also a part of my expanding education. And when it's time to return to the mother ship, Mysore will still be there. It will still be the same crazy, pressure cooking home away from home.

Life, I try to remember, is an extension of this practice. That "realizing mysore" is not exclusive to being physically in Mysore the Karnatakan city in Southern India. It is a state of being, a process and a tool for living. We go to Mysore to experience it and when we leave, we don't forget its lessons, which have seeped into our muscle memory, into our bones and into our cellular beings. When we leave, that energy goes with us.

And even though I am missing Mysore very much at the moment, I also know that like the practice, Mysore is always with me. 

wandering student to traveling teacher

One of my first mysore-style classes
at Spirit Yoga, Osaka.

A couple of weeks ago, I arrived in Osaka and met up with two people I had met very briefly in Mysore: Rosangela and Simon from Brazil. I had just arrived to cover two months for one mysore program and they were a day shy of leaving after two months of covering another program in the city.

Such meetings are not unusual within the community of ashtanga-practioners who go in and out of Mysore. What was different, however, as we traded stories about the months since the shala closed in March, is that I was like them, I realized. They'd been moving around Asia and were then going to Europe to cover another program. And like them, I was traveling and teaching. Properly. Not just when I was at home in the Philippines. Not just on the side. Not by accident, which was a lot last summer. I was moving intentionally to teach and share.

I had been to the Philippines to assist after India, followed by teaching in Spain. After Osaka I'll be heading to Egypt, again to cover a mysore program. I had made a transition without being fully aware of it. I was a little shocked at first, then amazed, then grateful...

In 2010, I took my first trip to Mysore. Realized I knew so very little. The director of KPJAYI, Sharath Jois emphasized a lot during conference those months the importance of being a student first. It deeply resonated. And even though I had been teaching already, I felt that it was time to drop the idea that I was a teacher and simply embrace being a student.

And the Universe was good, complying and giving me the opportunities to move about, learn from amazing master teachers, from friends, and from loved ones. When the opportunity arose, I would teach but it was not my focus. I returned to Mysore again. Svadyaya, was a key word. I was constantly, it seemed, self-studying--on the mat, off the mat, from books, and from experience. I often emphasized how I was a student first. But what of teaching?

I still wanted to teach but didn't hanker for it, content to take the time to learn. Perhaps there was a part of me that took refuge in being the student, that my lot wasn't to teach--not yet! maybe never?--but instead to simply prepare. In the beginning, I honestly didn't believe I was ready. But in recent times, I think maybe I was scared. There was safe-ness to being the student. As a student, I was accountable mostly for my own learning. I was responsible to grow and expand for my own good only. And what if... what if I didn't make a good teacher?

I realize now how much I stepped away from the role of teaching. How I was happy to be the student around other great teachers, how I stepped aside for them, not just my seniors but my peers too. But if I were totally honest, I guess there has also been a certain amount of dissonance in this act, because I have learned a lot, because I also have things to share now--and because, I am coming to realize, I've always had to something to share.

Yes, I am a student. Yes, I will always be a student. I will always honor and respect and give time to my own teacher. To my Guru. And that there is always time and space to humbly be the student. 

But, yes, I am also a teacher. And am feeling my teacher-ness more now than last March when I received my teacher's blessing to teach. The authorization from Sharath matters to me, of course--the reasons for which could be an article in itself but I had wondered sometime in June as I blundered nervously through a guided class, whether I was really really ready, had Sharath made a mistake, had he misjudged me, perhaps I hadn't ripened? 

Yet, here I am. In Osaka. Called here to teach. Teaching. I get up very very early so that I can practice for myself but also for the students who will come and lay their mats down after I've finished. And when they come into the 6th floor studio of Spirit Yoga, they are under my gaze and guidance. For a brief moment, their practice is an extension of my own, their breath is my breath. And I try my best to be present in order to help facilitate the subtest of movements.  

Maybe Sharath's blessing is a part of an initiation, this coming of age that we perpetual students must also go through. 

Perhaps being really ready entails stepping into the role, not running away from it or being scared by it. Instead, accepting the responsibility that being a good student now also includes working towards being a good teacher. That all that self-study has to be good for more that just one person, that knowledge so dearly earned is meant to be shared.

And this fear of teaching? Trying to face it, to stare it down. I still freak out just a little bit here and there, I get nervous--about stupid stuff, really, like forgetting the opening prayer midway, or the counting, oh God, the counting! But those evil, little nagging moments of self-doubt, they are coming less and less, they are loosing their power. Last June, after my train-wreck of a class (mind you, the students were fine, only the teacherly were critical, god bless them!), my friend Paul was giving me feedback, I needed to simply practice teaching, he said. I guess that time was also a part of this transition. And, yes, I am reminded that everything comes down to practice.  

So, here I am in Osaka where students call me "Sensei Kaz," which for an American like myself is just so odd and yet so obscenely cool because I learned that word from the movie "Karate Kid." But it's also weighty. It comes with this new sense of responsibility. I'm not in my comfort zone anymore, but it's ok because I know that this is also the place where the magic happens. So, bring it!

new shala registration process

The buzz word continues to be change. And even with Sharath on tour this summer, the world continues to turn. Mysore is no exception. Saraswathi started to teach in July or June. And now she too is conducting weekly conference for her students. And the shala, well, the shala rules on registration is as fluid as ever.

For some of us on the ride, it feels a little like a raging rapid what with the ever changing rules in registration for the next season: trips starting only at the 6th of every month, registration changed to the first of every month, and a glut of applicants filling up an entire month all in two days.

December was full by August 3. And the fall months which are usually considered quieter months filled up quickly too. And the question "Do I go to Mysore?" has been edited by the new circumstances into "Can I go to Mysore?" Will Mysore accept me, will I even be able to register? We'll see once September rolls around.

Non-attachment. I've not been going to Mysore so long that I have old-school expectations. I'm actually pretty new school. Still, change is unrelenting. And I am fighting the reaction to have any resistance to it. Relax, I remind myself. Be steady but relax also.

With ashtanga growing so rapidly, with more and more people wanting to come and study with Sharath in India, we must be prepared that the Mysore experience will continue to change, evolve, grow, this is yoga in action, isn't it?--and if we are really practicing, how we too must also expand with it.

Some useful tips for first timers: 

1) Make sure your photo is sized properly and is in the right format

2) Applications sent before the 4 month mark of the month you are applying for will most likely not be counted

3) After registration you should receive an automated response that the shala has received your application. This is not your acceptance letter into the program. But it is important that you receive this 

4) You will receive an acceptance letter from the shala. This may take a little, sometimes a lot of time. Also important, if you do not receive this, I suggest you follow it up

For updated rules on registration process, see www.kpjayi.org.