Mysore makes my head sore.

The first yoga class went pretty well yesterday.  Sure, I couldn’t do half the poses, and I was constantly looking around to see what it is that I was supposed to be doing, but it didn’t break my spirits or any part of my body, so that’s always a high point. 

So, today, based on Bessie’s yoga expertise, we went to an Ashtanga class with teachers who studied under Patthabi Jois.  I really don’t know who Patthabi Jois is, but I gather that is a big dude in the Ashtanga yoga world.  And since I really don’t know what Ashtanga is, the name Patthabi Jois is about as random as any other Indian name to me.  Maybe he’s the Michael Jordan of yoga (minus the philandering), but I wouldn’t know the difference.

The other thing I didn’t really understand in this class was that it is all in the Mysore style of instruction.  Well, ok, I knew that, but I didn’t really know what that meant.  My amateur understanding of Mysore is that you do your own yoga practice and then the teachers come around and give you adjustments.  That’s all well and good, but since this is my 2nd day of yoga, I don’t really have my own practice.

I told the instructors this, and they were really patient with me, going through probably thousands of years of yoga theory in about 5 minutes.  There were a lot of words that I didn’t understand, but the gist was “Breathing is important.”  I also found out that there are proper ways to breathe and that I really suck at them.  Who would have thought that I’m not that good at something that I’ve been doing every day of my life?  Oh well - I’ll just put that on the list of things I need to do better at.

The class itself went ok.  I learned the basic Sun Salutation progression and did that over and over again.  When I was able to do that on my own without forgetting anything and breathing correctly, I was given some other postures that I don’t think I really ever did correctly and that I’ve mostly forgotten already (my brain is more like a soft rock than a sponge - I need to do a lot of massaging to get things to soak in). 

Like true yoga teachers, though, they just told me to keep practicing and I’ll get it.  I will keep practicing but I don’t know if I’m going to do Mysore for a while.  For now, I’m just learning how to drive my body, and I need the instructor in the passenger seat, telling me how to use the pedals so that I don’t drive over a cliff.

The Mysore class did come with a sweet view.

- Kyle