Mysore 2014 - Indian yoga adventures with Felix

Two weeks after arriving in Mysore, we have worked out how to "drive" this blog site again. For this trip, we have decided that Felix would be the voice. Here are two things he wrote within the first few days of getting here.

Well, so far, this trip to India has been quite interesting.  We arrived at Gokulam, Mysore, at about 2am, unpacked our stuff, and went to sleep.  Well, maybe not sleep.  See, when we arrived, our bodies thought it was time to wake up.  So we dozed till about 7am local time, then got dressed and went down the road for our first cup of Chai in India.  Mum saw some yoga friends and we sat on the step of some building sipping away at our Chai.  When we left there we went straight to another Café were we had breakfast.  After a well-needed meal we came back to the house and rested till around midday when we left to go to lunch.  On the way down the street we encountered one of the common cows that roam the city.  I was expecting it to just let me pass, as I intended, but obviously this cow was having a bad day, and decided to take its anger out on me.  I copped a cow horn in the belly and a nice serving of cow slobber all over the left side of my body.  I didn’t know I could move as quickly as I did when I got out of the cows way.  I now have a fear of cows and won’t go in a ten metre radius of one.  After that unexpected turn of events we arrived at the restaurant where we were planning on having lunch, but it was shut.  Luckily, two of mums friends came past in a Rickshaw (kinda like a taxi) and told us they were going to lunch at a place just up the road so we went with them and had a nice lunch.  When that was finished we caught a rickshaw to the Shala (yoga place) and waited till we got in.  Sharath then spoke about breathing and yoga for an hour, then mum and I registered for classes then we went home, chilled, and went to bed.

And soon we were registered to practice yoga at our respective shalas (me with Sharath, Felix with Saraswati). Felix on practice:

PRACTICE #1

The original plan was that two of mum's friends would walk me to the Shala I was practising at.   When they didn’t show up, mum asked the gatekeeper of the main Shala to take me.  He said yes so I jumped on the back of his scooter and he drove me there, at a frighteningly fast speed.  So fast that I lost track of the way and had no idea how to get home.  I arrived at the shala, kicked my thongs off and went inside and waited for a spot.  When Saraswati called me in, I set up my mat and got to practice.  Saraswati and her assistant managed to push me into all the poses I have never been able to do properly, which left me sore the next day.  It didn’t really feel that different to me to be in a space with lots of other people as I was mainly just focused on myself.  After practice, I got myself a coconut and asked a fellow yogi if he knew the way back.  He showed me a faster route and I made a friend in the process.