Friday 8th April 2005
Had to get up at 4.30am this morning to catch the 6.10am sunrise flight to Sydney – my first time in a plane for 24 years and my first trip to Sydney. Despite only being here until Monday (3 days) with my boyfriend, I arranged to squeeze in at least one class at Yogamoves.
To get there we caught a train from North Sydney over the Sydney Harbour bridge into the city centre; then it was a 30 minute sprint to get to the shala on time by 4.30pm for the afternoon Mysore class with Eileen Hall. Silly me – being a Mysore class I could have started any time between 4.30 and 5.30pm - we didn’t have to sprint after all.
I got pretty revved up and warm racing through the city with my bag and mat in tow, so by the time I got there my feet were hot and smelly. Yikes, I took off my shoes in front of the Buddha at the top of the shala stairs and my feet were almost black– the sweat/dye alchemy had patchworked my feet. I apologised to the Buddha. Entering what I thought was a toilet with the possible intention of washing my feet in it, by sheer fluke it turned out to be a shower, so I vainly tried to scrub off as much of the dye as I could and then took a few minutes to calm my nerves before venturing back out to the main room.
The mats here are placed so that you’re facing the front of the room which felt a bit strange at first - at Simi’s we line up our mats in two rows that face towards centre so you look at the person opposite you. Being an outsider, I chose an unassuming spot next to the wall, unrolled my mat and joined in the universal opening chant along with about 10 others and moved into the Surya Namasakars. Over the next hour about another 10 people trickled in.
This was my first experience at an afternoon Mysore session, not the most ideal time for practice, but yogis living in the 21st century can’t always manage a pre-sunrise practice. Early mornings are infinitely better for yoga and spiritual practice. You’re fresh, your stomach is empty, the body isn’t burdened with digesting inappropriate foodstuffs (unless you were naughty and ate late the night before), your nervous system is rested; but more importantly I think is that your mind is unpolluted by the distractions of the day so it more clearly reveals what is beneath the surface. As the day wears on, all our physical, mental and emotional coping mechanisms are mobilised on full alert to get us through another day in the midst of consumer society: working, shopping, mass media bombardment, chemical infused and gene manipulated food, polluted air and water, radio waves, micro waves, mobile phones... It’s no wonder that we often come to the yoga mat exhausted, with little energy left to work on ourselves with the conviction to really change. Early morning practice is invaluable for setting a meditative and reflective spiritual intention for the rest of the day.
My Surya Bs marked me as a foreigner today. They’re a little different to what seems to be the currently accepted form. I’ve been doing them as I was taught, but they may be taught differently now.
I start and finish every Surya B with my hands in Anjali Mudra (prayer position at the heart centre), then squat and extend my arms forward to touch the earth with my fingers (which invokes a humble, thank-you-earth kind of feeling), then as I rise to Utkatasana on the inhale, my arms trace a wide outer circle as if gathering the energy of the universe, and my hands come together at the pinnacle of Utkatasana, containing and compressing this energy between my palms. This is an amazing position, very powerful. The body resembles a lightning rod, a conductor of energy from sky to earth. As I fold forward to Uttanasana, I bring my hands down the centreline, passing my face, my heart and my solar plexus, until they naturally peel apart at the last moment and reconnect with the earth. This arm movement mirrors that of Surya Namasakar A, so it feels like there’s a familiar connection between them.
Everyone else in the room did it the other way, where your arms remain extended out in front as you rise up to Utkatasana (ekam), then they trace the wide circle out and down as you swan dive into Uttanasana (dve).
So now I’m wondering if there is a ‘correct’ way and if so, why so? Does it come down to personal preference, or is it fashion, or is it how you were originally taught, or is it however Guruji is teaching it now….
Whatever the consensus, I’ll probably just keep on doing my version until I get told otherwise.
Insufficient sleep, insufficient food, new city buzzy-brain, new shala nerves, the novelty of an afternoon practice and pre-menstrual psychosomatic insanity all resulted in dissipated energy and zero internal focus, but I managed to get through all of primary series without copping out and got some good, deep adjustments from Eileen in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Marichy A and D, Baddha Konasana (she stepped up onto my thighs). The water bottle I spotted at the start of the session had disappeared by the time I got to Garbha Pindasana so I had to rely on sweat alone to get my arms through and couldn’t get them as far as usual, so my roll around was pretty insipid and came to a standstill about half way round. Eileen’s assistant Paul got my feet crossed behind my head in Supta Kurmasana (he deserves a medal for that effort – they were so slippery and yuk, so black still).
I finished with two long holds in Urdhva Dhanurasana, 8 long breaths in each, walking my hands in to deepen the backbend both times. I was hoping Eileen or Paul would come over and make me do some dropbacks but they didn’t so I opted out of them today. Eileen did the Paschimottanasana crush on me then whispered to go to the back of the room for the finishing sequence. Good thing she did as I hadn’t noticed people were doing this. I would have just continued on where I was and megabroadcast my foreign status and total ignorance to everyone. (At Simi’s we stay in the same spot for the entire series).
I went to the back – no teachers here. It felt a bit like when you tell an Iyengar teacher you’re menstruating and you get banished to the corner and treated like an invalid on sloppy food.
I find it quite an interruption to the flow of my practice when I have to get up and move my mat somewhere else. Doing the finishing inversions in another space must be a recent tradition which emerged from lack of space in the Indian shalas.
After a very brief chat with Eileen, I met up with my boyfriend and we went off for an exquisite Indian meal just down the road from the shala (can highly recommend Tandoori House if you’re visiting).
Practising at another shala has made me even more appreciative of my home town teachers Simi and David. Their shala is imbued with a sense of the spiritual. It’s a divinely sacred space to practice in which is a credit to Simi. She embodies all that is grace, Love and light.
“One who is aware of the divine perfection becomes a source of tremendous power and light and joy and peace and radiance.”
For me this is Simi.
We are very lucky to have her teaching here in Adelaide and I‘m sooo looking forward to getting back to a more regular attendance at her morning Mysore classes when I get back from the 10 day Vipassana retreat at the end of April.
But in the meantime here I am in SYDNEY. Tomorrow I’ll try for the 4pm led class with Trevor at Yogamoves in between our sightseeing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Had to get up at 4.30am this morning to catch the 6.10am sunrise flight to Sydney – my first time in a plane for 24 years and my first trip to Sydney. Despite only being here until Monday (3 days) with my boyfriend, I arranged to squeeze in at least one class at Yogamoves.
To get there we caught a train from North Sydney over the Sydney Harbour bridge into the city centre; then it was a 30 minute sprint to get to the shala on time by 4.30pm for the afternoon Mysore class with Eileen Hall. Silly me – being a Mysore class I could have started any time between 4.30 and 5.30pm - we didn’t have to sprint after all.
I got pretty revved up and warm racing through the city with my bag and mat in tow, so by the time I got there my feet were hot and smelly. Yikes, I took off my shoes in front of the Buddha at the top of the shala stairs and my feet were almost black– the sweat/dye alchemy had patchworked my feet. I apologised to the Buddha. Entering what I thought was a toilet with the possible intention of washing my feet in it, by sheer fluke it turned out to be a shower, so I vainly tried to scrub off as much of the dye as I could and then took a few minutes to calm my nerves before venturing back out to the main room.
The mats here are placed so that you’re facing the front of the room which felt a bit strange at first - at Simi’s we line up our mats in two rows that face towards centre so you look at the person opposite you. Being an outsider, I chose an unassuming spot next to the wall, unrolled my mat and joined in the universal opening chant along with about 10 others and moved into the Surya Namasakars. Over the next hour about another 10 people trickled in.
This was my first experience at an afternoon Mysore session, not the most ideal time for practice, but yogis living in the 21st century can’t always manage a pre-sunrise practice. Early mornings are infinitely better for yoga and spiritual practice. You’re fresh, your stomach is empty, the body isn’t burdened with digesting inappropriate foodstuffs (unless you were naughty and ate late the night before), your nervous system is rested; but more importantly I think is that your mind is unpolluted by the distractions of the day so it more clearly reveals what is beneath the surface. As the day wears on, all our physical, mental and emotional coping mechanisms are mobilised on full alert to get us through another day in the midst of consumer society: working, shopping, mass media bombardment, chemical infused and gene manipulated food, polluted air and water, radio waves, micro waves, mobile phones... It’s no wonder that we often come to the yoga mat exhausted, with little energy left to work on ourselves with the conviction to really change. Early morning practice is invaluable for setting a meditative and reflective spiritual intention for the rest of the day.
My Surya Bs marked me as a foreigner today. They’re a little different to what seems to be the currently accepted form. I’ve been doing them as I was taught, but they may be taught differently now.
I start and finish every Surya B with my hands in Anjali Mudra (prayer position at the heart centre), then squat and extend my arms forward to touch the earth with my fingers (which invokes a humble, thank-you-earth kind of feeling), then as I rise to Utkatasana on the inhale, my arms trace a wide outer circle as if gathering the energy of the universe, and my hands come together at the pinnacle of Utkatasana, containing and compressing this energy between my palms. This is an amazing position, very powerful. The body resembles a lightning rod, a conductor of energy from sky to earth. As I fold forward to Uttanasana, I bring my hands down the centreline, passing my face, my heart and my solar plexus, until they naturally peel apart at the last moment and reconnect with the earth. This arm movement mirrors that of Surya Namasakar A, so it feels like there’s a familiar connection between them.
Everyone else in the room did it the other way, where your arms remain extended out in front as you rise up to Utkatasana (ekam), then they trace the wide circle out and down as you swan dive into Uttanasana (dve).
So now I’m wondering if there is a ‘correct’ way and if so, why so? Does it come down to personal preference, or is it fashion, or is it how you were originally taught, or is it however Guruji is teaching it now….
Whatever the consensus, I’ll probably just keep on doing my version until I get told otherwise.
Insufficient sleep, insufficient food, new city buzzy-brain, new shala nerves, the novelty of an afternoon practice and pre-menstrual psychosomatic insanity all resulted in dissipated energy and zero internal focus, but I managed to get through all of primary series without copping out and got some good, deep adjustments from Eileen in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Marichy A and D, Baddha Konasana (she stepped up onto my thighs). The water bottle I spotted at the start of the session had disappeared by the time I got to Garbha Pindasana so I had to rely on sweat alone to get my arms through and couldn’t get them as far as usual, so my roll around was pretty insipid and came to a standstill about half way round. Eileen’s assistant Paul got my feet crossed behind my head in Supta Kurmasana (he deserves a medal for that effort – they were so slippery and yuk, so black still).
I finished with two long holds in Urdhva Dhanurasana, 8 long breaths in each, walking my hands in to deepen the backbend both times. I was hoping Eileen or Paul would come over and make me do some dropbacks but they didn’t so I opted out of them today. Eileen did the Paschimottanasana crush on me then whispered to go to the back of the room for the finishing sequence. Good thing she did as I hadn’t noticed people were doing this. I would have just continued on where I was and megabroadcast my foreign status and total ignorance to everyone. (At Simi’s we stay in the same spot for the entire series).
I went to the back – no teachers here. It felt a bit like when you tell an Iyengar teacher you’re menstruating and you get banished to the corner and treated like an invalid on sloppy food.
I find it quite an interruption to the flow of my practice when I have to get up and move my mat somewhere else. Doing the finishing inversions in another space must be a recent tradition which emerged from lack of space in the Indian shalas.
After a very brief chat with Eileen, I met up with my boyfriend and we went off for an exquisite Indian meal just down the road from the shala (can highly recommend Tandoori House if you’re visiting).
Practising at another shala has made me even more appreciative of my home town teachers Simi and David. Their shala is imbued with a sense of the spiritual. It’s a divinely sacred space to practice in which is a credit to Simi. She embodies all that is grace, Love and light.
“One who is aware of the divine perfection becomes a source of tremendous power and light and joy and peace and radiance.”
For me this is Simi.
We are very lucky to have her teaching here in Adelaide and I‘m sooo looking forward to getting back to a more regular attendance at her morning Mysore classes when I get back from the 10 day Vipassana retreat at the end of April.
But in the meantime here I am in SYDNEY. Tomorrow I’ll try for the 4pm led class with Trevor at Yogamoves in between our sightseeing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
