Relaxation

So our practice continues to go well, Aaron has moved on past Supta kurmasana and is now essentially completing the entire primary series. I am still stuck in Marichyasana D, and continue to get closer to binding in the pose. It'll be a while, but I'm hopeful I may bind at least before our time here is up.

After a led class at the end of our week, while drinking some coconuts with other students, we were invited to breakfast at a place called Anokhi Garden Cafe. We'd walked past this place almost every day, but never bothered to go in. Big mistake. This cafe is perfect. It has a French/European style breakfast menu, with amazing fruit salads, oatmeals, crepes, quiche etc. The dining area is in a small garden in the shade, with ground level tables and cushions to sit on.

They serve masala coffee, which I instantly became ridiculously addicted to. It's coffee flavored with cinnamon cardamom and ginger. I highly recommend trying it out. Here's the way it's made at the restaurant.

-Boil 50/50 water and milk in a pot, stirring, on medium - medium-high so the milk doesn't burn.
-Add ground coffee, crushed cardamom pods (about 1 per cup of fluid), a little fresh ginger and half of a cinnamon stick.
-Reduce the heat and stir.
-After about 3-4 minutes, strain and serve.

I've been told it can be made in a coffee machine by simply adding a little ground cinnamon and ground or crushed cardamom, but I'd recommend trying it the real way first.

As well as the coffee they have the best fruit salad I've ever had. Called Flora's fruit salad. It has watermelon, papaya, banana, pineapple, date pieces, raisins, pomegranate seeds, shredded coconut and your choice of mint or basil. Fresh papaya and pomegranate might be hard to find depending on your location, but I believe the papaya could be replaced by a nice mango or peach (maybe both!), and cherries could make due for the pomegranate. If you can find all the ingredients, you HAVE to try this fruit salad out!

So, needless to say we've been forgoing our hotel breakfasts for Anokhi garden on occasion since.

During our first breakfast at Anokhi, an American couple mentioned going to a pool later that day. Having heard about a pool in the area we asked them for details and found out there was a pool at Hotel Regalis, just a few minutes rickshaw ride away. Their description made it sound nice, so we made plans to head down later that day.

A few hours later we arrived at the hotel. This was the nicest area we'd been in India so far. As good if not better than some of the fancier hotels I've been to in Canada. Once inside we speak to a man at the desk, pay the entry fee to the pool (250 rupees each, $5) and make our way downstairs.

Walking into the pool area was one of the most beautiful sights we could have wished for; A nice big blue pool surrounded by reclining chairs in the sunlight, with rows of palm trees as the backdrop.... Heaven. You have to come early (which we weren't) to get one of the reclining chairs. The alternative, almost better yet, is for us to place our towels down on a nice flat grassy area in the sun. Laying out, we start by soaking in the sun before going for a swim. Here it takes only a few seconds before the sun's heat encompasses your body. When feeling too hot, the pool is nice and cool. The perfect temperature to jump in and feel refreshed.

Hours melt away while poolside. Before we know it, 4 hours have passed and we have to make our way back to Gokulam to grab food and get ready to sleep before practice the next day.

A few more photos from the palace

Mysore Palace

We finally got out to see the palace! It was pretty incredible. The palace grounds are massive, probably about 3 square kilometers. Inside the grounds are the palace, four very old temples and several large garden areas.

As we got out of the rickshaw, just as we arrived, we were swarmed by street salesman. They held carved wooden fans, jewelry, postcards etc in front of our faces and called out various prices. A simple "No, thank you" is far from enough for these man, as they follow you offering you lower prices and more items. After telling one man "no" about 8 times as we walked, with increasing seriousness, we decided that ignoring them and walking away was the best solution. After a short walk we were at the gates.

Below: the architecture above the entrance to on of the temples.

Paying entry and passing security, we entered the grounds and were stunned by some of the beautiful architecture and gardens. Slowly exploring the grounds before we went in to any temples or the palace, we made our way around taking photos.

Below: Mysore palace seen from across the gardens

The palace is massive. It's a truly amazing building. On sunday nights, once it's dark they turn on the lights and the palace lights up covered in something like 90,000 small bulbs. We were there on a Sunday, but unfortunately couldn't stay until dark as we had to be up for practice at 4am.

As we travelled, we wandered into an area that seemed to have no other tourists (most tourists were gathered by the palace). In the distance, we spotted a group of elephants standing by an enormous tree. We had heard that somewhere in the palace were elephant rides. Some men near the elephants spotted us and called us over.

Below: the enormous tree with elephants underneath.

As we approached they told us to feel free to stand with and pet the elephants. I am a huge fan of elephants, I love them. Getting to stand so close to one has been a life goal of mine. It was an incredible feeling to stand next to a creature who's head is as big as half of my body.

After a moment or so, a man offered to take pictures for us while the handler started to get one of the elephants to bow down. "Come, jump up" he said, pointing to the elephant's leg and back... In complete awe, Aaron was first to jump on. The handler then pointed to me indicating I should get on as well. Also completely amazed and in disbelief, I walked up, stepped up its leg and hopped onto it's back. It was such an amazing, incredible feeling.

Then the elephant stood up. Our minds were blown.

Without anything to hold onto I could do nothing but place my hands on the back of the elephants head, trying to maintain balance as it's body swayed left and right while it walked. The ride didn't last very long, but every second of it was amazing. Before we knew it, the handler had the elephant kneel back down so we could jump off. Once it was over he had it give us 'blessings' (placing its trunk on our heads) while the man with our camera took some more photos.

When it was all over, the guys started telling us that the area we were in was off-limits to tourists. They explained that these elephants were the royal family's personal elephants and we are very lucky guys. We weren't sure if they were telling the truth. It was strange to us that we were the only ones in the area and on our way over we had noticed no signs for prices. The handler and man taking the photos hadn't mentioned anything about payment.

Feeling very happy and grateful, we decided to offer 500 rupees to the guys to thank them. Instead of taking the money, they stressed that elephants belonged to the royal family, that we're lucky etc, and that they wanted 1000 rupees from each of us. We still didn't believe them but we weren't sure what to do. With no one around to talk to, we handed them the money, thanked them for the experience and walked away. We were really confused and felt like we were probably scammed, but weren't sure. After a minute or two we decided that paying $20 each to stand with, pet, and ride elephants was well worth it. In the end, we hope those guys have as much fun with the money as we did spending it.

After leaving the area with elephants, we came across a cow with painted horns walking out front of a temple. It stopped for a moment, so I pulled out my camera and moved in to get a picture.

Right after I snapped the photo the cow quickly turned around, lowered it's head, horns out, and charged towards me. Luckily it only wanted to scare me, so it took a few quick steps and stopped. Caught completely off guard, by the time it stopped I was just starting to move away. Had it kept coming it would have got me for sure! That would have made for a bad day.

Anyway, after seeing the last of the palace grounds we checked out on of the temples, where photos were not usually allowed. Each temple inside the palace has it's own temple grounds, as well as the temple itself. Entering inside the temple itself is only allowed occasionally on special days.

As we walked in, the man at the door said that we could feel free to take pictures, shutting and locking the door behind us. The only ones inside the temple grounds, we were free to explore and snap photos. It was very surreal being inside the grounds. Outside traffic could be heard from the road, honking cars and buses, bustling tourists, guides and merchants shouting to passers-by.

Once inside the grounds it was like passing through an invisible sound barrier. Wind through the trees and the chirping of birds were the only sounds as we walked about examining the statues and architecture of the buildings. After we'd had our fill, we started to make our way out. The man at the door stopped us and brought us to a statue of Ganesha where he said a prayer and dotted our foreheads with a little red paint from the statue. After, he took us to the front door of the temple where he offered to take our photo.

Thanking him we left a tip and made our way out. Once outside we deliberated about going inside the palace (the line-up was massive) or making our way out. Instead of going to the palace we made our way to the last area we hadn't seen which had incredible trees covered in vines. As we passed them we spotted the area that had the "real" elephant and camel rides. Still impressive, these rides didn't seem quite as cool as you had to sit in a large seating area strapped to the elephants back. Rather than getting another ride we snapped a few more photos and moved on. Finally we headed to the gift shop, picked up a few souvenirs and decided to call it a day.

The memories of this day will last a lifetime.

New Apartment!

On February 2nd, we made the move from the hotel (Urban Oasis) into an apartment building called the "Royal House". The apartment will cost us 18,000 rupees a month, plus gas, electricity and Internet. We spoke with the manager and he estimates that all of that combined might come to somewhere around 20,000 rupees, or $400 a month.

Below: the new apartment building, with it's brain fryer antennas up top

The apartment is great. It's just a few buildings down from the hotel, so we're still in the same area. It has a kitchen area, a living room with tv and chairs, a large bedroom with 2 beds!!! (FINALLY!) and a patio. Also a nice big bathroom with a large shower area. The windows and doors are all constructed slightly better than at the hotel, so there is a decent amount of noise reduction throughout the apartment, which makes for great sleeps.

Below: inside the apartment

Hoping to still have a rooftop for tanning and doing light stretches etc outdoors, we decided to check out the rooftop of our new building. On top of the stairwell exit are 3 huge antennas (antennae?). The minute we stepped outside of the stairwell, we felt something like a fuzziness building in our heads, until after a minute or so, it was developing into a slightly swimmy head - so, no more rooftop visits. We'd like to avoid the high frequency radio-waves radiating our brains.

When we made the arrangements to move in, the building didn't have internet. This was pretty disappointing as I've been using Skype to talk to my girlfriend back in Canada, after I've finished my morning practice every day (international voice/video calls and IMS? For free?! Thank you, creators of Skype!). Knowing I would soon lose my connection, I'd found some internet cafe's that served breakfast. Unfortunately they are all western styled breakfasts and are a fair bit more expensive than I prefer. Just as the day of our move arrived, we received an email telling us that internet was being installed in the building! Problem solved! It didn't work right away, but a repair guy came by after a day or two and got it fixed for us.

Another disappointment was that moving was going to bring an end to our wonderful rooftop breakfasts. Then, the day before we moved, the breakfast server, Jai, explained that if we would like to continue having breakfast there every morning, he could speak with the manager and arrange for us to be able to come. They worked out a price of 55 rupees each, which is 1/4 what we'd be spending elsewhere.

So, all in all the new apartment couldn't have worked out better. We've got everything we need and are still nice and close to everywhere we need to go. At the end of the week we've decided it's time to see a few of the sights, so next week we plan on getting out and touring around!

Adam - Another week passes

Yet another of our deleted/missing posts...
Thanks to a suggestion from a fellow student at KPJAYI, Christoph, we've downloaded the blogger app, after a day or so messing around with layouts and the HTML text in our blog, we've managed to get pictures where we want them, edit previous posts without losing them and changed the layout and look of the blog!
So, here's the post for week 3 of our trip!

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Our practice is always improving. The pains we had both been experiencing in our low backs have gone away and we've become stronger and more flexible. I've progressed past Marichyasana B to Marichyasana D!! Haha, it's not much, but I am getting closer every day and improving in all the other poses. Aaron is being stopped in supta kurmasana and also gets closer by the day. The both of us are hopeful that we'll be practicing the full series, perhaps moving into the second, by the time we are finished here. Moving past our injuries, we've started to do occasional light stretches and extra work on difficult poses. Also, trying to build our core and abdominal strength, we've started doing P90X's ab-ripper X video (an ab-focused workout video) a few times a week as well.

We've fully settled in to the area and begun a little exploration in our free time. The main strip in Gokulam district is called 1st main. It hosts a variety of cafes, fruit vendors, general stores, clothing stores etc. Almost every day we've come to the strip and checked out some new shops in search of clothes, souvenirs, supplies etc. The stores are amazingly disorganized, yet, if you ask the salesman for something he'll quickly dig through some things and bring you what you need.

We still have yet to really get out and explore all Mysore has to offer, but knowing we have 3 months, we're taking it slow and making sure we aren't doing all of the fun stuff there is to do in the first few weeks.

Trying to find some new restaurants, we decided to search for one that was recommended by a server at 6th main, another restaurant we'd recently tried.

In our search to find this other restaurant (I don't recall the name), we stumbled across Authana, another restaurant we'd seen advertisements for and wanted to check. Hungry and still unsure where the restaurant we were searching for was, we have up and headed into Authana.

Best decision we've made so far.

Authana is a large vegetarian restaurant with a beautiful interior. The main area is standard, filled with tables and chairs, however, the upper level has an open ceiling letting in the air and sunlight. In the center of the upper level, under the open ceiling, is a garden area with small bushes surrounding a small palm-bush centerpiece. The walls surrounding are made of lines of a type of bamboo, growing in rows along the outside of the room. For our first meal we ordered Aloo Gobi (aloo is potato, Gobi is cauliflower, served in a spicy cilantro and chili curry) and Mushroom Masala, with a bunch of naan and some pineapple lassis.

Below: The upper level of Authana

We've been several times now and the food is spectacular every time. This restaurant is by far the nicest we've seen and serves the best food we've tasted so far.Later in the week, we planned on going back to Authana for another meal.

After smashing my toes on a bad jump forward during morning practice, we decided to take a rickshaw to Authana, to save me the walk. Our driver didn't know where the restaurant was and wound up taking us on a bit of a journey through an area of Mysore we hadn't seen before. We drove along a street which had some high-end stores, as well as some buildings with interesting architecture.

Making sure to remember the location, we headed back the next day. Here, we got some photos of interesting buildings and I finally found a shop (Bata) which had a pair of sandals that I loved, so I picked them up for $30 or 1,500 rupees. After some exploring, we stopped in at one of the many stores selling Indian sweets and tried a few different snacks/candies. Along the strip we also spotted a pizza hut and domino's pizza, which we may allow ourselves to have on a weekend at some point.

Below: Domino's Pizza, Mysore! Check out all those delivery bikes!

It's been great to do a little exploring. The "newness" of the everything had begun to wear off and the reality of the length of our stay was setting in. The exploration has helped to freshen things up and add some excitement to our days.

There have been some bumps and bruises along the way, a few bad decisions, disappointments and unfortunate happenings here and there. Still, so far this trip is proving to be exactly what we had hoped for. It's been amazing to experience the culture and lifestyle of the area and has been a fantastic learning experience.

We've learned more about several new locations to check out, Mysore Zoo, Mysore Palace, various gardens, the bird sanctuary, and a wildlife reserve with lots of elephants etc.

We plan on checking a few out in the coming week or so.

Adam - Week 2

So this is a re-post of one of our posts which was lost while re-configuring the blog:

As we move into our second week, so do we move into our 4:30 timing.

Actually, the 4:30 timing is not that bad. Little has changed in our daily routine. Now we wake up at 3:50 instead of 5:00 and after practice we have more time to shower, change and relax a little before breakfast. We had previously been getting to bed around 8-9pm, now we try to be in bed around 7. It can be a little difficult getting to sleep while the traffic is heavier, but it really doesn't slow down much until 10pm anyway.

Below: Saraswathi's place at 6am after practice.

Our practice hit a bit of a wall this week as we both found ourselves having some issues with our lower backs. We had planned on picking up the intensity for week 2, adding in extra workouts, runs and a little extra yoga here and there, instead, we are nursing our tender backs. Still, the experience of taking it a little easy on ourselves in class has been good. We'd both been very eager to push our limits and make a lot of progress while we are here and wound up pushing ourselves too far. We've since decided to take it easy, let the progress come, take the practice day by day and really feel where our bodies will allow us to go. When we recover, we'll slowly start to increase our intensity and feel out how much extra work we can put in each day.

The mistake we'd made in booking the first apartment we saw turned out to be a larger mistake than we'd thought.

We'd only taken a brief look at the apartment. We saw that it was an ok size, it was clean, it had an attached bathroom, had two beds and lockers large enough for our needs. It basically met all of our immediate criteria. So, midway through the week we moved in. Having already payed a 14,000 rupee downpayment (a months rent), we were surprised when the building manager asked us for another 14,000... We'd already packed our bags and moved, so with few other options, after making certain that we'd get our deposit back at the end of our term, we payed the additional money and prepared ourselves to spend the night.

After unpacking our bags, settling in and going out for dinner, we arrive back to our apartment. As the night progresses we begin to notice the details we'd overlooked.

The room had windows, however, we discovered that these windows did not close, allowing all of the sounds and insects from the outside, in. Also, the room had windows into the hallway of the building as well, covered by drapes which appeared, while the lights are ON in the room, to be thick. However with the lights OFF in the room, and on in the hallyway, people could be seen and heard walking past, looking in, as we lay in our beds. Also, We had seen the toilet, but for some reason neither of us had noticed that it had no seat. Just the bowl. These were the small problems.

Below: Santrupthi Apartment (our room's window is at the bottom on the left)

Our room was on the bottom floor, first room on the left. Directly beside the front entrance of the building. The front entrance of the building was a fence-door with wooden strips through the fence loops. Above the door, rather than a wall, there was a barred metal design built into the building, open to the outside noise and air. Coupled with our street side window which doesn't close, every sound from the street, just feet from our room, was let in. As a motorcycle drove by it sounded as though the motorcycle was inside our room, next to our beds, revving it's engine while people walked past our room, trying to look in through the curtains, entering and exiting the building through the clanking front door and gate.

We didn't get the best of sleeps that night.

Thinking it over, we decided that sleep was more valuable than saving a little money, and packed our bags to move out. We made arrangements to move into the nicer apartment as soon as it was available, and upon inspecting it with our new list of criteria, we were satisfied. For the time in-between, we moved back into our previous hotel. When we spoke with the building manager of the apartment we had moved out of, he informed us that they cannot refund us for the month we'd payed for, but that we could get our deposit back. Disappointed, we decided to bite the bullet and accept the loss.

Saying goodbye to weeks of sleepless nights, we came back to our hotel and enjoyed a very pleasant night's sleep.

Technical difficulties

So, after some research and playing around, we've managed to edit our posts and arrange paragraphs as we had originally intended. Also, we've managed to add some pictures!!! We haven't figured out how to size the pictures to the page, or edit the location of the pictures in the text, but I'm sure with more research and playing around that will get sorted out. Unfortunately, in the process a few posts were deleted, our sidebar seems to have moved to the bottom of the page, this blogging thing seems more complicated than we had thought... Please browse the new layout, post edits and pics! We're working on sorting out the rest of the issues, and will have to re-write deleted posts.

Aaron - Thoughts on the practice

We're about a month in now, and I feel like we're at a point where we've got a good handle on the practice and can make some objective comments.

I will say that this has unequivocally improved my practice.

The focus and dedication of our teacher is inspiring, the six day a week practice is incredible and the energy present in the room is powerful.

I can also say that there is a little disappointment in terms of the method of instruction. In our YTT at the Yoga Sanctuary, we were constantly reinforced the idea of safety in your practice. If we were unable to do a certain pose, we were given prep poses that emulated the results of a given pose, that would prepare us for the eventual full expression of the pose.

Here, they teach that you cannot proceed in the series unless you have mastered each successive pose, at least to a certain level - the goal of which is typically, as we have heard Saraswathi say so many times "you are catching"? That is to say, you are reaching your feet in the forward folds, binding in Marichyasana's, and so on. I understand the principle behind this method - that is, to build strength and capability gradually, however, as it is employed here, there seems to be little attention paid to a western sense of "safe" or "healthy" alignment.

We were taught flat backs and hinged hips for forward folding; here all that is important is that "you are catching". Student are often encouraged to do whatever they can to reach their feet, or bind in a pose, regardless of the shape of their back. Even gasps of pain and expressions of extreme discomfort are not enough to stop attempted assists at times, which is contrary to everything we learned in the west.

To be clear, I don't want to paint Saraswathi as a cruel woman making her way around the room yanking terrified, crying students into poses they simply can't do... There is clearly levels of ability she is looking for that tell her that a person is able to begin attempting certain postures - and she is a caring, gentle woman who clearly loves seeing people progress and embrace the practice.

We simply cannot help but look around at times and notice students clearly feeling pain and discomfort as they attempt to force themselves into a pose. The counter to this is, and the philosophy of the teaching here, is the discipline of swadhyaya, or "self-study" - the fact is, we are responsible for our own practice and it is our own imperative to listen to our bodies, to know when to push further and when to back off. A teacher can talk about correct alignment and safety all they want, but in the end these things need to be experienced and understood by the student directly, or there can be no hope of true development in ones practice. This is a valuable lesson to learn, the importance of which cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately, this is something that remains largely unsaid; there is little to no formal "teaching" here, more a monitoring of progression and assistance with the more complicated poses.

I think in the end there are great benefits to this system, things that western yoga teaching and particularly students could benefit greatly from, yet there are also things that could be learned from the west as well.

I don't regret a second of the time I've spent here, and I look forward to the progression in my practice that will take place over the coming months (I am finishing the primary series right now and will likely be receiving second series poses in next couple of weeks) as well as potentially many return trips.