Yoga - the fashionable antidote to everything...Part II

Part II.  The part where I introduce you all to my ego

• My yoga teacher training course. Girls
• The purpose of yoga?....."Go f@ck yourself"
• Rishikesh, Gurus, Love and all that mumbo jumbo spiritual stuff
• My spiritual status now.  Blimey.....it's changed (but there are still girls ;) )

For most people who love to travel India is the ultimate destination on the itinerary.  The culture introduces the most intense experiences to your mind and your body I have ever endured.  You could train to be a yoga instructor online (seriously?) or outside of India (usually yoga 2.0....see below) but for me it made total sense to practice the union of body and mind in the one country that is continuously testing it.

I did my yoga teacher training with Yoga Vidya in Kerela earlier this year. I arrived with a big ego, an eye on the ladies, and, at the back of my mind an intention to get a deep understanding of yoga.  I was at the right place for the latter.  I didn’t know at the time but I’d broken my left ankle a month before and that proved to be the biggest teaching to me in the whole course.

We had a packed 4 weeks and this is what we were told to expect:

Week 1 - Physical Pain

Week 2 - Mental Pain

Week 3 - Both

Week 4 - Bliss

….this is what I experienced:

Week 1 - I am a legend

Week 2 - I am a legend .....my ankle hurts a bit

Week 3 - X-Ray, crutches, told it was ‘the course of the universe’ and way too much time confined to my room

Week 4 - Chris vs. Ego

Our lectures, practical and study amounted to +12 hour days starting at 0530 everyday with silence until 1200.  That introduced a core part of yoga that is 'off the mat'.  Discipline.  However, waking up at 0530 didn't seem so bad once the day started like this.

In week 3 my ego gave in to pain as I was unable to walk so I got an x-ray and the news that it was broken really hit me hard  (as you'll see from my post at the time).  To be honest I was a mess, it was the hardest part of my trip. I did, however, plough ahead studying more, focusing on what I could do (a lot of breathing techniques!) and swimming in the river (using only my arms!) everyday just to let out a bit of 'Grumpy old man syndrome'. 

Here's a pic of me just before my teaching exam. What would you do if you walked into a yoga studio and your teacher had that look on their face?

The Graduation Photo – The only day when I actually got angry and tried to use my crutches as a weapon :)

Despite the +12 hour days the course was great fun.  I ended up taking photos on the sidelines of most asana (the stuff with the mat) classes and caught some happy times.  I also dumped my crutches at the beach and hopped into the sea on our day off to sabotage that jumbo jet 

Despite exams, apart from the Asanas and Pranayama (breathing) very little of the theory sunk in.  It wasn't until after I left that I appreciated the calm of silence.  The one class I wish I’d paid more attention to was the Sutras (we all know the Kama Sutra right?).  It was the heaviest of our lectures and in midday +35 degree heat so we often dozed through it missing the core of the ancient yoga teachings. For more on the relevant Sutras to yoga click here.

There are some conspiracy theories that asanas aren’t even yoga that they are just part of the modern west influence (ie. Yoga 2.0).  I think that's bollocks but like the idea upgrading modern yoga to '2.0'.  Yoga 1.0 is more about meditation to find inner peace (Yoga-Vedanta, a complete science of spiritual growth).  Another way of looking at it is politely stated by Norman Allen, the first American to take Ashtanga (a type of yoga asanas which I would call yoga 2.5 as it’s hard ;) ) to the US.  He claims that in order to find inner peace you have to "Go F@ck yourself".  A silly message but it gets the point across.  You as a person don't need anyone else.  To see more of Norman check out this docu about whether yoga can change the average Joe (or Nick in this case):

 

After the YTT I wanted to go somewhere to that was ‘crutch friendly’  to reflect on the course.  So I chose a hilly town at the bottom of the Himalayas, Rishikesh.  Clever Boy.  Oddly, despite the workout on the crutches, this is where I found my little bubble of bliss.   On the banks of the sacred Ganges (or Lady Ganga), Rishikesh is a holy city said to have been home to one of the first yogis many centuries ago; and in modern times is where the most famous yogi of the last century (Swami Sivananda) setup his first Ashram in 1936. In the 1960s was where The Beatles discovered yoga.  As a result Rishikesh is big pilgrimage for any yogi and had it not been for Mr Lennon and the gang rocking out with The Maharishi I don't think yoga would have become the phenomenon it has in the west.  And lucky for us Beatles fans Indian musical instruments also influenced The Beatles. A lovely bit of Sitar in Norwegian Wood:

A friend had suggested that Satsangs and Bhajans would be a good idea for me.   Satsangs are an audience with a guru (like Friday night with Jonathon Ross if he had found inner peace and wore white robes) and Bhajans are devotional singing (or a happy clappy sing song).  Oddly enough I've just read Mr Ross's autobiography and he's quite damning toward spirituality but when you look at the goal of finding 'inner peace' where's the harm in that?!

I was dubious about the Satsangs as I said in my blog at the time.  It appeared that a lot of the audience was either there as they were randomly searching for answers to life’s problems or being in the presence of a guru was quite the fashion.  I’m sure part of me fitted both of those descriptions (I had even blinged up my crutches for fecks sake).  However, to give you an example of what sort of a life changing event these Satsangs were one girl went up for a chat with Mooji (a well known guru) saying she was angry and was fighting with herself not to be.  He simply held her hand and told her to scream.  Sounds simple right?  Now, this girl was quite normal, no fruit looper but she screamed for about 5 minutes in a room of +500 people and not for one minute did it feel odd, it felt right like she was ridding of some ill fitting energy.   I am also not a fruit looper (honest governor) but the whole room felt so refreshed after she’d screamed.  And that was just one person.  

That was what the sutras are about, that 90% of yoga that isn’t Asanas.  It’s about relationships, senses, body, breath and mind ie. what we all face everyday.  Like a swarmi (a hindu priest/teacher) I met in Rishikesh later in the year said ‘finding a good guru is just like going to the supermarket these days’.  But when you do find one it will change your life.   Sometimes soundbites are just words but the power of change is within you...

I practice yoga asanas everyday and try to practice a yogi lifestyle.  It wasn't until after my yoga teacher training when I’d surrendered to the fact that my ankle was banjaxed, I accepted that everything happens for a reason; and the silence of my quieter (no running for me!) life focused me on relationships, senses, body, breath and mind.  For me, I do, however, still love among other things wine and sex with lovely ladies which are seen in those same scripts as the sutras as rather naughty.   In Part III I’ll explain how these desires can be controlled (or at least are supposed to be) after all in the words of the great Tim Minchin we are 'just monkeys in shoes' ………damn you GIRLS!