Week 2 in Thailand - Practice is going on

I have chosen a new place for my Mysore practice. Directly from the balcony of my room.

Big enough for 2 mats, outside and ocean view. What else do I need?

Morning practice starts at 6.40 AM and finishing at 8.35 AM.

It was a sweaty practice, peaceful, with birds singing all over the place, very pleasant. No mosquitos so nothing to fear.

I have also started (again) the pranayama practice and hopefully will continue the all week. I don't know why I am so reluctant in practicing Pranayama as it is just essential to my practice.....

Nothing really to say about my practice, there is a huge improvement as my body is not sore anymore as weeks/months are passing by and actually I am in need of my regular practice. Some people says that to create an habit it takes 21 days, I will say it takes at least 6 months because after 21 days you don't really notice the change in your body as after 6 months you are not the same person at all and your body is completely changed.

I am looking forward to practice again with Iain Grysak next month.

Maybe I have travelled too much, this Island is of course beautiful, sunsets are amazing (but in Goa they are also amazing), people are really nice, beaches are too shallow to swim but the swimming pool is perfect and I do feel lucky to be here because I have chosen to come here, but I do not feel that much connection with this place. 

Sunset - Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand March 25th, 2017

It is not that I am looking for a special connection here neither that I had the plan on setting up myself here, not at all, but it is not home.

In fact I am realising that "home" can be everywhere not only in a particular place but mostly home is where the people I love are. Even thought I am criticising a lot India and mostly because of men behaviour, as it is the place where my Samyak family is living it is my home as well. I am thinking of Lipi, Megana, Arvind, Rakesh, Tipo, Aryan, Trupta, Adya, Tiagaraj even Jitou and Sidaraj and of course Shanti (our dog).

For the next 4 months I will be roaming, it is and was my choice as well, I don't really miss them but I know where is home for sure ;-)

- Namaste -

Jangalika Yoga Shala - No joke with Ashtanga :-)

After 9 Urdhva Dhanurasana, I was skipping the Chakrasana for a normal Vinyasa....

Teacher: What are you doing? You are supposed to do Chakrasana.

Me: I know.....

Teacher: Then why you are not doing it??

Me: Because I am lazy..... (not proud about this one)....

Well in the end I did Chakrasana.

Practicing with Mannu puts me back together. My shoulders are very painful because I never ever opened them like this before.

I really love his adjustments, today it was the best Supta Kurmasana I ever did and I completely rely to his hands, he said "relax" I relax and let him bounding my legs behind my head in a soft and gentle touch.

Happy to practice with Mannu and highly recommended. If you want to explore the Mysore style in Thailand go to Koh Pha Ngan and practice with him. 

I must say I came here ONLY to practice with him and I have absolutely no regret. 

Visit his website:

https://mannuyoga.com/mysore-ashtanga-yoga-thailand/

And book your flight ticket :-)

- Namaste -

Opening the chest and shoulders

The beautiful thing practicing here with Mannu is we are a small group, but I do believe that in the next 12 months Mannu will be probably in need of a bigger shala. Therefore there are more adjustments and more indications.

Today he adjusted my Supta Kurmasana, I never had this adjustment before, I think he was sitting on my back and it felt so great, no pain at all, I really like the adjustment.

Regarding my backbend he explained me how I should be opening more my chest, that is very special to me because I knew I was not working properly with my upper body but due to my laziness I never ever really focused on it.

As a result my shoulders are very painful right now, which means that for the last months I have been working with a chest slightly closed. So this is my mission for this month, opening my chest and my shoulders.

It was definitely a very good practice.

First morning practice with Mannu - Jangalika Yoga Shala - Koh Pha Ngan

The shala is located in the middle of nowhere, 3 kms from my accommodation. I took a taxi scooter in the morning to go and walked to come back.

The shala is small, only 12 students can practice altogether but the atmosphere is just awesome. Mannu is Ian Grysak's student.

He adjusted me very nicely in Prasaritta Padotanasana D, Paschimotanasana, Tryanga Mukha Eka Pada.

I have what we can call a baby kyphosis, my upper body is slightly rounded because of bad habit and mainly because of bad posture. I know it and yesterday while I was watching my back I thought that I should really work on that point.

And this is exactly that part of my body that Mannu focused on this morning. His mojo "chest forward, shoulders back". Therefore I worked a lot of pulling my shoulders down and as I am typing I am having a huge pain into my shoulder blade and my upper back.... which is good as I never really focused on that part of my body before.

Mannu asked me for the backben and I told him that no one so far (except David Roche with Sarawasti) "authorise" me to do it... so he said, tomorrow before Setu Bandasana wait for me and will do it.

2 and half week of backbend, it will be my first time, can't wait to see how my body will react to that!

I do believe that tomorrow I will be completely sore as I have been traveling quite a lot these last week and it has been a week without any real practice.... but will hold on, my body will be rewarding me.

- Namaste -

Body and Mind are getting stronger with the Practice

After putting on weight when I first started the daily Ashtanga Yoga practice I am now in a phase where I am loosing it. I have been gaining weight from the last 7 months, my upper body was getting huge while my waist was getting smaller.

I was not very happy about it but curiously was not worried that much. I felt stronger than ever.

Then suddenly my muscles got refine.

And so did my mind.

I am more peaceful than ever. Still I am a human being so I can get slightly pissed off but I am not stuck in that circle for a long time.

The hardest part is to get rid off of all negative emotions. Sometimes while doing an asana which requires a lot of balance and stability (I am directly thinking of Uttitha Hasta Padanghustasana) for an unknown reason a bad memory will just pop up.

Yesterday I was thinking of an argument I had with a "so call" yoga teacher on a social network. He is a new yoga teacher, very young and from France. Each time he is speaking or shall I say writing a comment because we never met (and hopefully we will never) he is putting is ego on the very first place. He is the one who wrote to me that Ashtanga Yoga is a commercial Yoga, a Yoga marketing. He is practicing Hatha Yoga and of course he knows everything......

He is the one who teach his classes with closed eyes........ (here I am laughing). Anyway we had an argument and after digging on him I just realised that he was one of many empty shells in the stratosphere of Yoga.

Not to mention that this argument happened 3 months ago...... so why I was thinking of him lately I have absolutely no clue but it seems that my mind was in need of clearing it. Hopefully it won't happen anymore.

When we are practicing we process a lot of things in our body and I realised that all emotions good or bad has its own chemical. There are probably billion of it in our body, travelling from one part to another part and by practicing Yoga slowly but surely we are processing it one by one and eliminating all of them.

In order to avoid all negative thoughts we should stay positive all the time. Is it really possible? I have no clue because also I do believe that anger and frustration are part of our own being, we should and can not ignore them by completely suppressing them but however we should be able to receive them and to process them.

Unfortunately it appears that the process is happening when the asana is requiring the more stability.... but I do believe it is the path that has to be crossed.

With Love & Light,
OM.