17 Mar It’s all in the hips..!
Thursday already…! 4 days down and feeling good. It is a little bit of information overload but all very interesting. We are learning a lot about many different subjects and it’s just a matter of putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. It all makes a lot of sense but will make a lot more once we have had time to digest all the information.
Today was another really great day. We had our normal 3 hour opening session which was pretty tough. This morning my body was feeling a little lethargic but once you are into the practise you get into it and forget about that pretty quickly. At the end of a two hour Ashtanga class you can certainly feel the energy levels waining and you sometimes have to modify your asanas (postures) to get through it. I am always saweeeeaaating at least half way through because they don’t turn the fans on, even though everything in the shala (studio) is outside and in the open, the temperature must be 25 degrees at 7am already.
Our pranayama meditation class was tough too as we had to try out 3 different ways of sitting for 10mins each while we meditated. Sounds easy but when you are sitting on your toes or on your shins with your ankles flat you start to feel the burn and strange sensations in your feet and body!
I can’t believe that it’s Day 4 and we still have no loud farts in the class – I was expecting at least someone to have dropped one by now. They obviously all have very tight Mula Bandhas! (Perineum locks – haha) We also have a pretty strong, determined group of people as nobody has missed a class yet which I think is quite unusual for these sorts of courses.
After brekkie we had our Anatomy and Alignment class. We only really touch on the basics of anatomy but we go quite deep on the alignments of the body in the different postures so that you are able to practise correctly yourself but then also know how to align or adjust your students or suggest modifications to them. In a couple of weeks we need to be able to teach an hour long yoga class. It will be an Ashtanga Vinyasa flow class so not a strict regimented Ashtanga class although we will know how to teach that as we study the full practise. They don’t make it easy either as we have to know all the posture names in Sanskrit and can’t use the English names. To give you a taste, the opening few asanas (postures) of the Primary Series A are
Samasthiti
Urdhva Hastasana
Uttanasana
Ardha Uttanasana
Chaturanga Dandasana
Urdhva Mukha Shvanasana (Upward Facing Dog)
Adho Mukha`Shvanasana (Downward Facing Dog)
Ardha Uttanasana
Urdhva Hastasana
Uttanasana
Samasthiti
The names get even more funky in Series B and later on in the practise. Hahaha, so it’s fun trying to recite and remember all of them!!
Lunch was once again spot on but I can imagine after week 4 that some of the meals can get a little repetitive….what am I talking about…I flippin love rice, lentils, veggies and curry!! I probably won’t get bored to be honest because it’s so nice not having to cook food and just pitch up and eat. For that I will be massively thankful and appreciate every mouthful!!
I had a bit of a revelation today, when I was walking to the beach, I felt like I was walking on air. It feels like my hip flexors have just completely loosened up now and it just made walking seem so different and easy. I hope that is still the case tomorrow because my hips have been seriously tight since I can remember and inhibit my movement when walking or exercising I reckon. Progress!!!
Our afternoon was just theory which is our only day where we don’t have a second Yoga practise in the afternoon so that was a little bit of relent on the body. We had a Teaching Methodology class which was really good and then after that Yoga Philosophy. The Philosophy is very interesting and definitely helps you understand your Yoga practise and want to better yourself at it too because you have a greater understanding.
Wifi here is abysmal to say the least. Which in a way is a good thing because people are not distracted too much (not that there is enough time to!) but it does suck if you want to send/receive a video message or just have a WhatsApp chat with somebody!
Anyway my 30mins is up and time for bed now
Much love
Gareth / BB / China / Token
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