How to Not Get Sick in India

            As an unsuspecting traveler in my early twenties in India, I began my journey with Ayurveda to heal my digestive system from a persistent cornucopia of parasitic infections.  My yoga studies have brought me to India from my home base in New England annually for 15 years now.  That’s a lot of travel in India!  I teach yoga on tours with westerners now, and am responsible for helping keep the students healthy.  It seems I am a good practitioner to be writing for the blog about how to avoid getting sick in India. 

I certainly do lean on Ayurvedic medicines and eating practices to keep the gut in balance.  What follows are my top recommendations, including Ayurvedic meal routines and easy to find herbal formulas to pack in your travel bag.

1.    Get on the plane with a happy belly.  Start now!

This year I traveled right after Christmas, which is historically a bit of a tough time for my gut.  I love Christmas cookies! I had a much harder time keeping healthy this year in my travels because I didn’t come out of the gate strong.  Ayurveda sees what the body is accustomed to as an important element in digestion.  If your diet and routines are far from what you see below, you will do well to start practicing some of the food observations here a month before you fly. 

2.    Eat light. 

Your gut, given the chance, is going to manage the changes in atmosphere nicely.  But overeating is hard to manage.  Avoid overdoing all those amazing delicacies- I know sometimes it feels like you may never see this particular specialty again, but enjoy responsibly, and keep in mind your gut is only able to process the amount of food you can hold in your two palms at each meal.   Avoid eating a lot before you expect to be sitting for long periods.

3.     Keep it movin. 

I have noticed a direct correlation between constipated types and parasite difficulties.  If you are not the type to poop easy, you may consider getting on Triphala (see Banyan Botanicals.com) before you travel, and staying on a routine of 2-3 tabs before bed while you are in India, up to a few months.  I also recommend a short Ayurvedic cleanse before you hit the road.  You can find information about this here: http://www.ayurvedaboston.com/ayurveda/seasonalcleansing, and I am happy to consult with you about a cleansing program before you go.

4.    Paracleanse by Banyan Botanicals

I had great results using this formula as a preventative on my 3-week temple tour this winter.  It helps keep your system inhospitable to invaders, and is a good helper if you are going to be moving about a lot for a time (which is when you need to be most mindful).  Its only helpful if you take it 1-2 tabs, 2-3x/day for at least 2 weeks.  I just used it until the bottle was gone.

5.    Bolster the immune system. 

It is all about the immune system.  Again, get strong before you go.  Start the diet routines now.  Get plenty of rest, bring along some vitamin C.

6.    Avoid excessive sugar.

You know the bugs love sugar.  Go easy on the chai and the sweets.  You can expect if you are in India longer term to have some sweet cravings from the vegetarian, often overcooked food.  Don’t let it take you over.

7.    Rest up.

I know its so exciting, but avoid over scheduling.  You must make sure you are resting enough to give your immunity the time it needs to keep you well.

8.    Yoga for digestion. 

Lie on your back on the floor and take wind-relieving posture.  Bring one knee up alongside the rib cage, keeping the other leg straight.  Hold the knee with same-side hand, compressing the ascending (right side) and then descending (left side) colon.  You can circle the knee gently.  Repeat.  Remember never to suppress the urge to pass wind or move the bowels.

9.    Try not to snack.

Allowing for space between meals will let your gut completely process each meal.  Adding more food into the mix before the stomach is fully emptied can create fermentation, which is the ideal atmosphere for little friend parasites to flourish.

10. Watch where you eat.

Go to places where lots of people are enjoying, good turnover.  Its not out of the question to ask to poke your head in the kitchen to be sure its looking well-kept back there.  You will get lots of smiles!  Avoid raw juices, even though they are always on the menu.  They always have white sugar added.

11. Positive Thinking.

You are going to be fine!  Be kind to you gut, meditate on clean digestion, be thankful for all of your foods, and know that I have seen many travelers enjoy India without any disturbance.

Kate ODonnell is an Ayurvedic Diet and Lifestyle Consultant trained at the Kripalu School of Ayurveda with a practice in Boston.  Her Ayurvedic Lifestyle workshops, yoga classes, and cooking classes are available in person, and on-line.  She specializes in Ayurvedic cleanse programs, offering on-line group programs, as well as individual consultations in Boston and on-line.  She teaches yoga on retreats and temple tours to India annually.  Her website, www.ayurvedaboston.com features seasonal recipes, yoga tips, and resources for education and Ayurveda supplies.

Spring Tasting Guide

Free Spring Tasting Download from Everyday Ayurveda.

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Ayurvedic cooking is a concept: seasonal whole foods, warm, sit-down meals, simply prepared, and generously spiced to stoke digestive fire.  

In collaboration with photographer Cara Brostrom, I am creating the Everyday Ayurveda Food Guide to help you get inspired, motivated, and organized about creating healthy meals for yourself every day, all year long.  

This spring collection of recipes offers a spring day's tasting from the full Guidebook, which will include meal themes that change with the seasons.

The Importance of Pramana; Correct Knowledge and Pratyaksa; Direct Perception

I don’t consider myself one who wanks about all that’s wrong with yoga today, smattering my post with Sanskrit, but here I go.  I’m worked up. 

What’s with yoga teachers sharing information they haven’t allowed to live in themselves through practice?  Each one of my teachers, western and Indian, as well the ancient texts, have cautioned against sharing the practices and the knowledge without having vigilantly allowed this to incubate.

The yoga Sutras tell us that correct knowledge arises from direct experience.  It would seem the western academic model of regurgitated information applied to Yoga is antithetical to the growth of classical yoga.

The Teacher Training prevalence has created a world where one can aspire to make a living as a “yoga teacher.”  In this, the focus is on the teaching before the practice has even begun to find a seat.  I remember 10 years or so ago, Robert Moses giving me the raised eyebrow, “You know,” he said, “the possibility of fame and fortune through yoga is a totally new thing.  There was absolutely no chance of this ever before in the yoga.”  He would speak of visiting the websites of well-known teachers where the site was all about Them.  He found this preposterous.

I am reminded of Pattabhi Jois’s tales of his wife owning one saree during his first teaching tenure in Mysore.  His daughter Saraswati tells me now she herself owns around 500.  Times change.

Pramana, correct knowledge (which requires deep understanding) results from practice and observance (which requires patience).

There is nothing about the wisdom traditions of India that suggests a quick fix, a next-best-thing, or a marketing gimmick.  I’m not stating anything you don’t already know, even with some small amount of knowledge of these traditions.  The touting out of American style sound bites, from individuals who feel their several years of experience of one tradition or another merits the next workshop, is cheap.

Small amounts of information and experience are just the beginning.  Offering practices up to the public before they live inside us does a great disservice to the art of yoga, and even more so, to the self. 

As the Prana required to experience and integrate our own yogas goes outward to the act of teaching, we miss the chance, the greatest chance of this lifetime to practice deeply and truly Svadhyaya; self-study.  We miss the chance to percolate through the filter of experience down to the field of Pramana.  We miss the opportunity to follow the yoga along the journey it leads us on when the mind is going outwards to teach new information and practice.  It takes years, it takes patience, it takes above all a commitment to the path of self to Self.

Meaningful teaching arises naturally from those who have embodied some Truth.

Addressing a group of teachers a few years ago, Sharath assured us:

“You have the honey.  Don’t worry, bees will come.  You don’t see some flowers making posts in the newspaper about their nectar.”

A South End Fire Escape

Construction vehicles, Rubbermaid trash cans, and sunlight through knobbled iron grates.  I am closer to the clouds and the roof decks of the affluent.  Somehow a difficult winter in India makes it so perfect to…be…here.  I inhale whatever sun comes in this spring, molasses-slow in its arrival.

Last year, high on Darshan, I came home to a 190ft sublet with no closet, the traffic and consumerism of the Back Bay a thorn in my spiritual side.  I would pace that little neighborhood, trying to reconcile the slow receding of India’s subtle awareness with the sensory assault of jackhammers and searchlights on Route 90 at 10PM.  Man, was I pissed.

This year, America is a breath of fresh air,  literally.  With the re-growth of clean and happy lung tissue, and the support of a very special community of yoga practitioners, I feel- watch the cliché- renewed.

There is nothing like a difficult and toxic time to clear the way for gratitude.  It reminds me of the experience that follows time spent slogging through my tissues’ mire at the Ayurveda center.  Those who are joining the spring cleanse this year can look forward to just this sense of renewal. 

Aaah, Boston, the other lover.  You are not the one I pine for, but the one I keep coming back to.  Like any family home, this city folds me into a stifling, centering embrace.  I step back, gasping and giddy.  Time spent here, and a life slowly built, are money in the bank.  Heart bank.

Let it be known, I am happy to be here.  Maybe for the first time in this deep way that threatens to precede a total surrender to the place.    

Tonight at the Pine Tree Saloon: God! No Cover.

I sit to write

the universe ignites

Dreaming life sprouts

pierce the heart of doubt

I can't decide

for whom I write

A single silhouette?

Or entire worlds unmet

The smell of chai

the symphony of sky

Hanging half moons

over pine tree saloons

Everywhere is godliness.

Everything is remembrance.

Of the one the only

True Love Story

Inside me inside you

whether we are three or two

Dreaming of Divinity

Reaching for Reality.

2009- Poland Spring, ME.  Blast from the past.

March 22- 3000 Years of Snot, Stool, Sex, and Death

My doctor Ramdas at Vaidygrama said a few very profound things this time.  One of these:

“So,” he sits back in his chair, peering over the glasses, “what is the plan?”  Ooh. He’s been working with westerners.  I blink, taken aback.  This is not the usual line of questioning and I suddenly just want to cry.  Fuck the plan.  Plans make me crazy and I obsess over them.  I want to kill them all. 

“You know Charaka?” he asks.  I nod.  Charaka is the name of the body of textual knowledge of Ayurveda.  It has been around maybe 3000 years, 7 fat volumes covering all manner of disease and treatment.  I think of it as 3000 years of human trial and error, recorded.  3000 years of snot, stool, sex, and death.

“Those people were all travelers,” he says, closing his eyes as he speaks.  I feel he knows he’s about to school me and he is a little bit shy in it.  “All that knowledge was gained by traveling.  Charaka were a nomadic people.  Charaka went everywhere and saw so many things.  This is a life of learning.  You don’t have to be attached to this house place.  You can be free in your self.”

Not surprisingly, earlier that day I was lying on the day bed outside my room. Contemplating, no, more like berating myself for not reading more texts on this trip.  And bam, he says it.  Just what I came to see on the day bed (as if I haven’t seen it so many times already- but wouldn’t our culture pat me on the back if I just went to MIT instead?) my truth is that I learn by being, or about being.   I’m being, ok?  That’s what I’m up to.

There I sit, exposed beside the dear old Dr Ramdas in all his sweetness.  He pierces me quickly by seeing me through to the quick, and saying it like it is.  Now, that’s Ayurveda. 

I came all that way for this man to tell me I’m ok.  Travel on.

Being “free in myself” is the state of mind the yoga is encouraging.  Believing that this life down here on the ground is the end-all: not free.  Deluded.  And I’ll tell you this is why I have, historically, kept moving.  Fear of indentifying with a life situation.  It was fear, all this time it was fear. 

In the past few years, exhausted and confused, I began to release the fear.  I began to contemplate house-holding and life situations of a more “permanent” kind.  And I feel safe in it, now, because the yoga will keep on kicking my ass if I go astray.  I don’t see my self going in one way or the other at this time, and I don’t think it matters.  Neither lifestyle is more or less “free.”  Becoming skillful with the practice, I can take smaller bites.  Move along at a modest pace.  Understand the mind’s hang-ups and let them dissolve in their own time.  Understand some of them may haunt me from the causal regions until the next go-around, and this doesn’t make me a bad person.  Push the wheel, gently, persistently.  Observe.  Learn.  Like Charaka.

March 21- Home Again, My Love

I am back in Boston. Yesterday’s wet snow sticks to the boughs of city trees and power lines.  As I write, the chai is bubbling on the stove.  The tea, the spices, the jaggery, all brought from India.  Now it’s almond milk instead of the cow’s gift from Shakti Agro Farm outside of Mysore.  Some things that enter my body must stay familiar for just a minute here.  Some rituals must remain undisturbed, even as the ground shivers beneath me.  My head is still ringing, and I am meditating on how far my astral body might be from my gross body today.  The elements of air and space oscillating.

The chai is done and the color is wrong.  I miss some things of India, already, though I was so ready to come back here. It is some twisted love affair.  I am always plotting our next meeting, though never sure why.  Just drawn by some seed that craves the smelly and sacred waters of India.  Craves a unique rain of color, smell, and ever-present sound.  Like any love affair, there is also diesel, poop, and profanity backstage.

The brightest thing out my window is a red automobile.  The only thing moving is a squirrel.  This is the ripest of moments, homecoming.  The bliss of travel I seek: new eyes, new ears, new tongue, new life.  It can be like this every day, but I travel for 24 hours, scrunched and rumpled to find this simple sense of renewal.  This complete juxtaposition of cultural climates that reminds: none of it’s real, babe.

Where am I?  What happened? And most of all, Who Am I?

Yoga, you brought me here, to this place.  And I trust you will bring me along to so many others.  Yes, I know when I walk into the yoga room you will be waiting there to welcome me, as always, my love.  

My years with Nancy Gilgoff, half-way up the road to Makawao.

March 9- 

Nancy Gilgoff was my ashtanga-mom.  I was like a pre-teen in the practice when I moved to Maui, age 23, in 2002.  I remember being at Robert Moses’ place for breakfast one time when Govinda Kai was there from NYC.  It was NH winter, we were eating Meenakshi’s pumpkin pie with freshly whipped cream for breakfast.  I was complaining about the weather, and then about the parasites in India. 

“I wish I could have the warmth and fruits of the tropics without the parasites,” I said.

“You should go to Maui,” Govinda said.  “If you don’t like the weather, drive an hour.”

“Who’s teaching there?” I asked.

“Nancy Gilgoff.”

And so it began.  My years of weather-chasing at full tilt, I spent the last $500 on a ticket to Kahalui airport, packed a carry-on sized pack, and the name of an old friend of Robert’s from the ashram who might give me work.

I ran into Nancy in the dressing room after Guruji’s class in NYC.  I recognized her from photos, and I went right up there and told her I was moving there in 2 weeks to study with her, and could she help me find a place to land.

She looked at me, and into me, in a Nancy kind of way.

“Well, I guess you could land on my porch,” she said.

She told me later that she saw the energy swirling around me, the high after my first-ever class with Guruji, and while not everyone is welcome to sleep on the porch, she thought there was something going on here.

6 months on the porch, and 5 years on Maui.  Nancy took me through 3^rd series and the first 6 poses of 4^th, as is her way- she learned those 6 as part of advanced A section.  Ouch.

I have since moved to Boston to teach a community of my own, and now study exclusively with Sharath and am working my way back through third in the way it is being taught now.  I teach the practice as it is being taught in Mysore (veering off into the therapeutic when necessary).  But I feel lucky to know first-hand the way it has changed, the way it has been presented differently to different individuals over the years.  And knowing these individuals, as teachers/people: Nancy, David, Ricky, Nicki Doane, Eddie Modestini, Tim Miller- everybody’s got a different body type, personality, and mindscape.  I’ve watched the style of teaching in Mysore change as things got busier and the reigns moved from Guruji to Sharath and Saraswati.  Things start to make sense, why the practice is taught differently, and why now, we all gravitate towards different teachers that balance or complement us with the way they bring the practice. 

But when I learned third from Nancy, here’s how it went down:

I practiced the arm balances after intermediate.  Broke myself, rested and started again for 1.5 years.  During that time, I wanted it so bad, the ole third series.  The dangling carrot of my life.  At some point, I just gave it up.  I remember a day where I thought, well, it may just not be this lifetime, it’s ok, Kate, back down.  And that very day, after intermediate, Nancy came to my mat and said

“I think it’s time for you to try third series again.” I said to myself,

“Nancy is crazy.”

But that was no surprise.  And if you study with Nancy, you go along with the crazy because this is her greatest gift, the surrender to a current not born of the mind- hers or mine.

To my astonishment, that day I went through the entire series, one by one. She kept saying, “one more.”

I could do them all and it felt awesome.  When I got to the poses from 4^th, although I didn’t know there was a split there now, my body knew it had gone beyond the ok-place.  The awesome thing about it, is that Nancy couldn’t exactly remember the order and we all kept trying to write it down, and practiced in different ways, learned it slightly different ways.  We got worked up, we laughed, we fought.  It was a circus; it was not linear; and it left me at some point to just figure it out and do my best.  As my studies of traditional arts in India expand, I find there is a penchant for confusing students on purpose.  Whether Nancy did this on purpose or through her mystical-guide, she was right in line with tradition. 

In a pile with the document Steve Cahn just posted, there was a drawing on yellow sketch-pad, and a cut-and-paste sequence we made stuffed into this dusty old desk in the corner of the yoga room on Larry’s property, half-way up the road to Makawao.  When a student seemed ready, Nancy would pull the wrinkled papers out and begin the journey.  Not one pose at a time, but until the student seemed pretty much exhausted, I’d say.

For me, what followed was a dance between practice and the rest of life for a good 3 years.  The energies unleashed, yes unleashed, by that series required a whole new level of commitment and focus:  food, drink, right speech, rest- all the time, not just in practice.  I fell down and got back up so many times.  Cried, pained, avoided Nancy, moved to another part of the island even.  This is when the Ayurveda really became an important part of my life.

Then I began teaching Mysore in Boston, and my practice had to shift to accommodate and its taken me 5 years, and the help of Dominic Corrigliano who lived in Boston for a spell, to get me back into Third, in the sequence it is now taught in Mysore.  Why?  I have decided it feels best for my body in the new order.

It is possible that Guruji was just pulling it out in a sequence for that student, at that time.  The codification of anything dynamic always makes for trouble doesn’t it.  I am so thankful for my crazy days with Nancy, because I was plucked off a rigid yoga path and stirred in the pot.  Yoga is crazy.  Yoga is fun.  Yoga thwarts the mind.  Now I can never see it as a static thing.  Thank goodness.

2 Months of Tough Love.

What is going on in that last backbend, then?  Why is everyone so intent on taking ankles?  So I am not an exclusionary author, let me explain.  After you do all your jumping around, your sun salutations, standing postures, and seated (or not so seated) postures, you do the backbend- upward facing bow.  Urdhva Danurasana.  This is performed by lying down, bending the knees, placing the feet near the bum at hip’s width, placing the palms on the floor beside the ears, now lifting up so your head comes off the floor and you are on all fours, belly facing up.  Over time, you walk the hands in closer to the feet.  Someday you “walk walk walk” the hands until you touch the feet, and someday later, walk up and hold your ankles, balancing freely on the legs while holding on and looking up towards the backs of your knees.

I’m just holding on right below the knees these days and balancing in a tentative way most days.  A teacher can help one by taking the hand for you, up from the ankle and helping you place the hands higher, one by one.  It’s a real trust exercise, and one the most beautiful gifts about teaching.  Not that helping someone do just about anything scary and seemingly-impossible isn’t awesome.  It’s all relative to the individual what is scary and impossible. 

Once the hands are moved up, then we get the cracks in the spine.  We hope they are in the upper back, not the low back.  Everybody needs to learn how to keep the pose in the upper back by keeping the elbows in and lifting the chest.  Thing is, you don’t know which end is up and where your elbows are, and where your feet are, although you are actually standing on them. And wait- am I breathing?  Relaxing?

This year, I realized I need to look up, really open my eyes and look.  The last thing I wanted to do was watch my body get bent, but it seems to be a key.  Then I can see my left arm is out to lunch, as is the right foot.  Once I have a sense of the landscape, I can get to the center of things.  I am still here.  In this unfamiliar zone, I am still me.  Consciousness steps in and begins to marshal the body around again.  That seems to be how I roll in life.  I do better with a little sense of my environment, a little info on the situation before I charge ahead.  Then Sharath comes and takes the hands higher still, so I am again groundless, and that’s how this system works.  Find ground, lose it.  Sounds like life, doesn’t it?  Forget, remember.

Doesn’t this all sound a little, um, extreme?  Well, I’m so careful. So frickin careful with my body.  I come out of the Ayurveda center today, where I’ve been oiled into submission on a wooden table with no pads or pillows, steamed within an inch of proper hydration, and I’m thinking this is so not a spa.  Out on the street, a rabid rickshaw driver skims by me at break speed.  No coddling here.  It’s a part of the culture, things are a little bit rough.  It’s tough love, in the Ayurveda, the yoga, in everything Indian.  Westerners would do good to step back a bit from the safety obsession in yoga classes.  I feel very lucky to have smaller classes, and one-and-one instruction, because I don’t have to think about how to keep a large group safe.  It’s no accident that I teach Mysore-style Ashtanga.  I certainly had chances to make more money and success in vinyasa.  

But ah, I always knew I wouldn’t be happy.  Here, the yoga becomes specific, effective, and mystic.  Sometimes I watch a student hurt themselves, and I think, well the yoga’s doing some teaching over there.  Other times I have to pound them into a new habit before they get hurt, depends on what type of hurt we are talking about here. 

Tough love.  And I’m getting mine over here this winter.

March 7- Ashtanga Yoga is a Breathing System

It’s an endurance contest.  Waking up so early, drinking chai, and making it over to the shala for a very difficult practice.  At the end of 2 months of this and dreaming of sleep, and that distant memory called dinner.  Everybody in there is maxing out.  All together we are sweating, embarrassed, sometimes fearing, sometimes hurting.  This week, Sunday to Thursday, practice has oscillated from awesome to crappy and somewhere in between.  I find myself thinking the most amazing thoughts. Such as:

I’m too old for this.

Will I really keep doing this every day?

Did this used to be easier?

Past and future, past and future.  Then I come back to the present. Breathe Kate, just breathe.  That’s all you have to do to make this yoga enjoyable and keep that crazy mind from tweaking you right out of town.

Ashtanga yoga is a breathing system! Why do I continue to forget and remember this about 20 times every day?  Wacky, I tell you, this whole human thing is just wacky.  I guess knowing is half the battle.  Some humans move on along through life and remember the Truth after illness, accidents, the occasional jolt back to the Now.  The yoga practitioners, well, I guess we are trying to remember at least once/day.  So maybe 20x isn’t bad at all then?

Feb 4- Election Day

It’s coming, election day for the local government post.  We have rickshaws decorated in party colors, flags, and sporting not one, but two bullhorn-shaped speakers per vehicle.  In the back of each one is a man with a microphone, going on about his platform.  There are 7 parties at bat for the position, so we’ve got 7 rickshaws in the neighborhood, coming and going.  It’s loud, really loud.  Last night we had two park on the street in front of the house, facing each other.  There was a debate, via bullhorn-speaker for a few minutes, then the rickshaws rolled off into the early evening light.

There are also marches happening at different times, usually young men with hats all the same color, or bandanas of white, green, and red.  They are handing out pamphlets, staring at me walk by, and generally having a nice time, doing something important. 

I wonder if we can expect the on-street excitement to continue, perhaps escalate, until the election on March 7^th.

Feb 28- Naked Yoga.

One thing I am noticing about blogging:  posts which have sensational titles including concepts such as Attack, Human dung, and Hotties in short shorts get double the reads of yoga/spiritual titles.  I’m going to write about sensational things.  Yeah, no pressure.  Hang on a second while I go on the balcony naked, to taunt that monkey by waving my passport smeared with peanut butter…

We were talking last night (yes, we talk all the time, too much, this happens when women live together in small spaces) about how we are getting older, and after so many trips here, now the practice here just kind of cruises along.  You know that plateau-feeling I’m sure, no matter what your level and where you live.  A couple new things I’m working on: daily deep back bending, a shit ton of asana 1.5 hours before I even get into the finishing room.  But yeah, you know- we’re saying last night- I don’t feel like anything is really happening this year.  When I was in my 20s, I did that stuff every day.

Over-achieve much?

The next morning I go through my rote 2 hour yoga practice with my legs becoming wrapped around sundry body parts while jumping around and breathing with sound all the while.  Savasana was fitful, and when I got to the coconut truck outside the shala, the sound of about 6 people talking was almost shocking- loud, sharp.  Like somebody dropped a metal pan on the tile.  Some sensitive.

Here’s the thing:  when you’ve been at it for over a decade, one would hope the shapes we make, the order we make them in, and the over-all effect of vinyasa would begin to penetrate.

And here’s what is SO COOL ABOUT THE YOGA.  When yoga is penetrating, I generally don’t know what it’s doing.  I’ve had the experience of a shifting vantage point, a subtle change at some level that is just…barely…perceptible, but hazy.  Not enough to make out what in fact the change is.  This knowledge comes much later.  Meantime, there’s no telling how I’ll digest that meal, might break into song at the coconut stand, or see no sleep tonight.  Some sensitive. 

Last year, everyone kept saying my eyes looked different when I came home.  They did.  Another time, I walked into my apartment and it was no longer my home.  A tiniest little square that had nothing to do with me.  My boyfriend was no longer my boyfriend.  My wardrobe was no longer "me."  

I always have trouble dressing myself when I get back.  Look out Boston- here comes the grey Hanes sweatsuit again.

In my defense, and in defense of Ashtanga yoga:  I have stabilized over the years.  I can at least see the reaction now, and I don’t need to completely revamp my outward life-situation all the time.  Oh, old habits die hard though…I am often called to keep an eye on that draw.

My Self.   That’s the rub isn’t it?  This self, this small self that moves in the world and chatters and dresses and makes the rent.  I’m still at the stage where I want to identify with this self.  Who is she?  Who am I?

And there we have it folks, we have made it from last night’s naïve talk in the kitchen back to what the yoga is all about, and the scintillating title of this post. 

Getting naked.  Strippin’ down to the Self.  Naked Yoga, yeaaaaah.

Wrap your leg around your neck, little self, and try to look pulled-together while Sharath yells “Head Up. Kate. Head Up!”  Just try. 

No actually, don’t.  Don’t try this at home.

Feb 25- Yoga Student Attacked by Monkey!

I’m at the Talakad temple, walking along devoutly with my pink bag and red saree, when out of nowhere- shazam! Monkey attack.  A big one, baring his teeth springs up at about waist level, reaching for the handle of my bag.  It’s one of those bags woven out of recycled plastic, what all the folks use here for going to market and carrying the lunch.  It’s great for spillage, keeps its shape so you can load in the tiffin containers of food, and stands up nicely in the car, rickshaw, or dangles safely from the handlebars of the motorbike. 

Thing is: they always contain food, these bags.  And mine is bright pink and yellow,  Yellow, like bananas.

I don’t back down to monkeys.  I’ve got experience with this sort of thing.  Mmm hmm.  Try me, monkey face.

Generally I yell at it, berate it for its thievery, because yes, monkeys are smart.  They know better than this.  But I was in a crowd, at the temple, and trying to be…ladylike.  So I swung the bag to bash it in the head.  Except the monkey wouldn’t release his hold.  He is swinging;  I am swinging, and nobody’s really having any success.

The locals are yelling in Kannada, “Get a stick!  Find the stick!”

The monkey falls back, but now I’m pissed.  I swing again, two-handed, yelling “hey hey!”  The monkey dodges, springs again, and grabs the bag, taking me by surprise, hanging from the bag.  I shake the bag.  It lunges a third time, hissing, and I realize it could go for my face, scratch my arms, or any other manner of rabies-inducing action. 

I decide I had better hit it, in the head, really good.  The wind up, the pink bag cuts through the air, there is a sharp intake of breath from the general public…

“Aaaack!!!” says Sanjay as he kicks sand into the monkey’s face.  Direct hit to the eye!  The monkey veers off to the side, and into the bush.  I am panting.

“You keep the bag,” says a lady nearby, showing me her market bag tucked under the armpit.  I am embarrassed at flaunting my food bag in front of monkeys.  But he came out of nowhere! Only monkey of the day. 

The crowd moves on, chuckling.  I am mad at monkeys for the rest of the afternoon, white-knuckling my bag. 

Thanks Sanjay.

Feb 22- The Neighbors are Fighting

The neighbors are fighting again.  We live about 6 feet from a Brahmin couple.  The evening we moved in, we were talking in the kitchen in our tank tops and shorts.  At some moment, we looked over at the kitchen window just across from ours to see a very tiny old lady watching us.  With a look of distaste, she closed the window.

The next morning they were shouting at each other in Kannada.  I recognized the names of a few foods items and realized they must be fighting about some kitchen related disturbance.  I gathered she was shouting at him to get out of her kitchen.  I began thinking about it, the husband/wife dynamic and the power play that might go on in that Brahmin pairing.  It seems to me, the only place the wife has authority in that situation is in the kitchen.  The husband, in this case, has to acquiesce.  If he doesn’t he will go hungry.  What a beautiful karma.  The man’s very existence dependent upon the state of the woman, and therefore the state of the food.  Although they fight in Kannada and I don’t understand, I can still tell she is coming out on top. 

We know they are Brahmin because the man does lengthy puja several times a day.  The bell is ringing and he is chanting, for quite some time.  It is his duty to keep up the old ways, to please the gods in the ways the Vedas ordained.  He is only allowed to eat food prepared by Brahmins, most likely his wife or the occasional strict Brahmin restaurant. 

We were in the kitchen a few days back, in our housedresses (we bought Indian housedresses so as not to offend anyone while we are in our own house. .. Sheer numbers make it so we don't get as much the luxury of individual mind here in India.  It's group-mind, community spirit.  Or the whole thing will just cease to flow.  Traffic is a great example.  That's another post, though, and so I am sweating indoors in my poly-blend housedress...  We were talking loudly, as Tasia is running the mixy (blender) to make date-coconut pie.  We looked over to see the old lady smiling through her window.  We waved.  The husband appeared over her shoulder with full ash on the forehead after puja, “you make the breakfast?”  They are both smiling and we say yes.

I think they approve of our cooking habits, and also our housedresses, most likely.  It’s good to get along with the neighbors.  We are hoping they invite us for lunch.  We’ll bring the pie.

Feb 20: Brahmamuhurtha- Part 2

Q.  Sharath, can you talk about the benefits of taking practice before the sunrise?
The answer, as I don't have the technology to record the response, I will give in my own words.  My teacher did, as expected, bring up Brahmamahurtha, God's Hour.  This was at the end, and all he said was the practice is more "energetic" at that time.  Like his Grandfather, he is a man of few words when it comes to expounding on concepts of "energy."
Sharath also did mention the purity of the atmosphere in terms of quiet.  As we spoke about in the first B-Mahurtha post, the senses remain undisturbed when the world is quiet.

But he was more into talking about the air.  Air quality, in India, is huge.  "If your breathing is disturbed, your mind will be disturbed also," he said.  At 4AM, people have not yet started their vehicles- auto rickshaws with the 2-stroke diesel are disgusting culprits, and then you must imagine the increasing number of personal automobiles expelling their exhaust into humid air on skinny, overcrowded streets.  In rural areas, it is the cookfires.  There are still a majority of people here, "workers" who farm, clean, etc., who don't have electricity, or enough money for propane and gas stoves.  When I have sat on high  at the sunrise, I have watched the haze begin to form over the land as millions of little fires are started to warm the chai and cook the rice.

So it's practical then, the 2:30 wake-up.  Ashtanga Yoga is a breathing system, and the quality of our air is paramount.  It's like eating, the sensation of building Prana from good breathing.  I feel it coming in the nostrils sometimes, and when the air is good, and the channel is clear, it's the most nourishing thing on earth.  Truly.  I've had a flu/cold bug since Tamil Nadu this year, and I notice my breath is shallow and my throat is tight.  The all-important "free-breathing" has been a challenge and requring my full attention.  So, I guess it's true that Im happy to practice first batch, in the pure atmosphere.  It is quiet, with all 50-some of us moving and breathing, working and aspiring together.  This human life.  A procession of mornings like this one, breathing in Prana.  Pulling it through from the other side of whatever crap is lodged, moving out, or just beginning to gain a place in my tissues and channels.  The other side of existance, the land of pure Prana and pure consciousness.  I can't believe it is limitless, this gift of vitality and dancing of form and formless.  And I can't believe I resist it sometimes, forget it, turn my back on it, it would seem.

I will say, for whatever slogging through I must do here on the sub-continent this year, I am taking benefit.  Think of us in Mysore when you pull in that air next time in whichever fine city you find yourself today.  Dedicate your practice to the families at the cookfires in the fields.

Feb 16- Short Shorts, Part 2: Friction, Feminism, or Respect?

I have to thank my friend in Barcelona who wrote to me regarding the "short shorts are a statement" post.  She remembers Sharath, about 5 years ago, asking students to “cover up in the shala. Respect please.”

Now, I don’t remember that, but I always assumed it.  This is India.  More and more these days, students are coming straight to Gokulam, the hamlet outside of Mysore where the school is now.  Taxi from the airport to your guest house, and bam you are at the shala registering for class.  There isn’t much of India happening yet.

You get a little etiquette card when you register that states students should cover up outside the shala, and not go about in their yoga clothes.  It seemed to me reading this, the yoga room itself has become pretty lax on the covering up.  Sort of a free-for-all western zone.  And in truth, we are all westerners in there.  I have never gotten the impression that Sharath is giving a care at all about the clothes. 

I always remember my mom asking me why we don’t all practice in Salwar Kameez in India like the Indian ladies do.  She was adamant.  I’ve seen it, it’s happening.  Lots of fabric there.  I do not have the patience. 

I came to India on 2, 6-month trips before I ever came to Mysore.  I was wearing sarees and Salwars (tunic and poofy pants with scarf).  I was uncomfortable with any show of my skin, and with good reason after much harrassment in my travels as a young lady. So I was, and am, a bit shocked by some of the skin showing around the town.  The first time I came into the shala, I was a little surprised by the number of shirtless ladies.  Whoa!  And yes, short shorts.  It actually wasn’t until the last trip that I rocked the shorts here.  I kind of look around, here in Gokulam, at how the local teens are dressing: skinny jeans and shorter kirtas.  No shorts, very rarely a strappy tank.  The yoga students look like a bunch of Bohemian thrift-store shoppers for the most part, as they try to figure out the covering up in the heat with Thai fisherman pants, flowing skirts, and scarves.  But yes, you see ladies without scarves, exposing strappy tanks and exciting bosoms.  Ladies in tights without long tops to cover the bum.  It’s not correct.  I always think of being a mom here with a pubescent son, the village overrun with westerners enacting their personal dramas without an awareness of the effect on the local environment.

Inside the shala, I have to say I’m still not sure, but Im leaning towards the free-zone.  I heard a rumor Sharath told a lady to go put a T-shirt on this year. Others routinely wear bra tops with no comment.    ?

Anyhow, I’d like to close with my friend’s words:  So I guess in Mysore it has nothing to do with friction feminism etc, is just awareness, sort of ahimsa in respect to Indian culture, no? 

I would say that’s a very good point.

Feb 14- Pain is Assumed

An illuminating moment for me in the office last week. 
Usha is the sweet young lady who runs the office here at KPJAYI.  She shows up at 6AM every day and puts her mat near to where I usually am.  I asked her how her practice is going.  She kind of grimaced/smiled and did the head bob.
“Some pain?” I asked.  “Me too.  So much pain, old lady.”
“I don’t speak too much about it,” she said.  “It is assumed.  Everyone is having.”

Oh, you mean it’s not just me and my pain?  Everyone else isn’t sailing through the practice?  Gee, they kind of look like they do (except for that heavy breathing over there). 

Hearing Usha’s reminder was kind of an Aha moment.  Ashtanga kind of hurts.  And me bitching about it doesn’t really help things.  Her attitude was admirable, Indian, and a reminder to me to step away from the talk.

My roommate asked me, as I was complaining about this year’s stiffness, when was the last time it did feel awesome.  I can remember a few days here and there, but consistently, no.
But, I noted, it’s because so much is coming up and out. Hala hala.  Not like that’s going to feel awesome. And if we didn’t work it out in daily batches now, wouldn’t we get sick later?

One Ayurvedic use for Yoga is to help us avoid disease.  Reduce stress.  Reduce stagnation.  Move the body during the 6-10AM Kapha hours.  Without some practice, we might expect to age less gracefully, and with more pain.

So perhaps medicinal doses of pain now, help us to avoid future suffering. 
I embark on a mission to say nothing, unless it’s positive, about the how’s-your-practice-going.  Please leave me a comment if you catch me complaining.

Fashion Chronicle of an Ashtangi

Since we are on the topic of clothing.  And I'm hoping to get a Lululemon sponsorship in Boston, please enjoy my

Fashion Chronicle of an Ashtangi
home from the first trip in India, a journey begins...


1999
I remember my first practice in Milford, NH with Robert Moses in 1999. Just home from India, where I had been riding bicycles to the village school in a saree, temporarily dropped out of college to follow my yoga-love path.  Pray tell, Kate, at this Mysore class in the basement of the Milford Town Hall--what did you wear???

A thong-style gray leotard stolen 5 years ago from Walmart (in my stealing phase for I which I still pay Karma), a pair of shorty board shorts from the thrift store that were a little too big after parasitic weight-loss.  The shorts hung low so you could I was indeed wearing a thong.  I don't think Robert gave a care.  It's NH after all, Live Free or Die is on the license plates.  I didn't shave my legs at the time, I just shaved my head after a battle with lice.  You get the picture.

2001
Fast forward to 6 months in Encinitas with Tim Miller.  Brought 1 outfit in my pack for the move to SoCal, both purchased on clearance at Marshall's.  Danskin capri tights, cotton, and an Asics purple top.  I still only wore natural fabrics as a rule.  By the end of 3 months it smelled bad, elastic wearing out so I do believe my ass crack was at times visible.  I went to TJ Max and bought a repeat outfit on clearance.  

2002
Moved to Maui, a new chapter begins.  I began the shorts phase here.  Anything goes on Maui and its humid.  Things mold and go rank quickly.  Sweaty clothes may or may not get a chance to dry on the line at Nancy's (no dryer, we're on solar). So I'll tell you the real reasons I began wearing less clothing:  
Laundry.  Mold.
A sports bra and shorter than short shorts, synthetic.  I got used to the feeling of air on skin, was proclaimed a nudist by my housemates.  I was really into being able to see my Uddiyana.  The sight of my protruding belly always a great reminder.  Others used to comment on how nice it was that I was "so comfortable with my belly". Well, I was until you said that.  Thanks.  Which resulted in me, live free or die, wearing even smaller clothing as a way to daily confront my vanity and supercede it, rise into the breath and the focus of the practice where I am Not This Body.  

2003
Everything I owned stolen from the car on the way back from the airport at Kahalui (can you say Karma?).  On my way to Mysore.  The merchants in Paia pooled together to make me a care package of clearance items: a bikini, a pair of booty-jeans, and a black Gaiam unitard.  
I showed up in Mysore with the unitard, hand me down navy capri tights and a rainbow striped sports bra.  Alternated the two for 3 months.  I was so glad to get rid of that unitard.

2004
Began modeling for my friends' company Inner Waves on Maui and got tons of free, colorful, organic cotton yoga clothes.  To this day, they are my favorite.

2008
Fast forward to Kate gets tired of hitchhiking, hand-me-downs, and being broke on the islands.  Move to Boston to teach where a student as well an old friend are working for Lululemon and style me out with a few outfits made of Luon.  In the cold, it is warmer than cotton.  The days of styled-out yoga fashions begin.  

I still practiced in short shorts, would never teach in them because that's too much of other people's sweat on my legs.  But Kino's got a great point.  I started wearing pants for the friction to practice the advanced series.  I didn't have the humility to fall off my sweaty arms, as she describes.  Now, I miss my shorts, which is why I pack them for friday primary days.
I actually can't even imagine practicing here, mad mad sweaty, with my leg slipping from behind my head and off my arms and just sweat sweat everywhere.  I think what Kino does defies the laws of physics.  I salute her and aspire to this level of core strength, totally worth all the shit-talking about my clothes if I end up able to balance without friction.

2013
So, what is Kate wearing in Mysore this year?  Hard Tail cotton pants (cotton pants in the tropics seem like a good idea and its dry enough to resolve the laundry issue) and yes, I'll admit they are hand-me-downs from a Yatri who outgrew her suitcase.  You can take the girl out of NH but...

In my middle-age, with continuous trips to India and digestive distress that comes and goes, I am no longer "comfortable with my belly".  I wear long tops that cover my muffin-tops and keep my belly warm and mosquito free.  Bites on the sides itch the worst!! Presently rocking Barry Silver's Sita Ram tank because it makes me smile (http://www.facebook.com/GBSKglobal) with a Jockey sports bra I buy a few of every year on Devarajas-Urs Road.  I haven’t found anything in the states that I like better!

There you have it friends, the How Why When and What of one Ashtangi’s fashion choices.  I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing it.

Feb 10- Short Shorts are a Statement

Well, of course I've read it: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/02/confessions-of-a-loved-hated-ashtangi-kino-macgregor/

I may be the last one here to read it, and still havent seen the video Mysore Magic.  I had no idea it was such a small, social media connected world over here in Mysore.  But I heard the Kino-talk, and I did have some feelings about it.  Actions speak louder than words, so I voiced my opinion by wearing my very loud, very short Lululemon shorts to lead primary on Friday.  Word.  Wish I had photo for you- eat your heart out.

Humor.  Relativity.  Open-mindedness.
All a part of the yoga, as represented by the Jois family.

For more on the evolution of yoga fashions, please see next post.  To stick to politics, avoid viewing.

Feb 8- Brahmamuhurtha, God’s Hour

“I do understand that in a hot country like India it makes sense to practice early in the morning - but the middle of the night? What's up with that?”

I have been wanting to ask this question in conference, and it came up on the last blog post (THANKS for asking).  I have my own idea of the answer, but I’ll ask in next conference (10 days time) and let you know Sharath’s take on it.

I like to translate Brahmamhurtha as “God’s Hour.”  I actually began learning about it more through my Ayurveda studies, as some spiritual therapies are likely to be administered in these early morning hours.  Wikipedia defines the measurement of time as 48 minutes before sunrise, but I’ve heard also 2 hours and 3 hours before sunset, and more specifically 3:30-5:30, and it does shift a bit in the winter.  Read:

“During the hour before dawn, saints and yogis establish themselves in their yogic pose, facing north, chant Omkar, and meditate on Brahma. Yogis believe that during this pre-dawn period, the aspect of Brahma is prevalent in the atmosphere. As a result, the entire atmosphere in is charged with powerful electro-magnetic-intelligent carriers generally called spiritual vibrations that travel in a north-south direction. Aspirants sit in the direction of the flow and meditate on their deity or Omkara Brahman. With this their expectation is that their minds will be spiritually linked in those powerful vibrations. The desired result is to obtain communion with the Yogis and saints spiritually; that their minds will freely float and get merged in that peaceful and serene atmosphere; and that they will receive blessings and guidance. Aspirants who follow this meditation method are said to quickly evolve in their Sadhana or practice.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha

What are the benefits of practicing so early?  Well it’s true, its all true, the floating of mind, the ease of meditation, yes.  This would be an easy experiment for all to do.  You don’t have to take my word for it.

But Practical notes: 

The world is quiet before sunrise.  Because I am often up and listening in a variety of geographies before sunrise, I can attest to it: people in west and east, city and country, begin to stir only after the light begins to come.  As I am sitting there, undisturbed (listen to Mysore:  guy across the street I can hear snoring- across the street! His poor wife.  A few street dogs jogging along.  Bats in the trees.  Mosquito. Oh! Yoga student starting a scooter), opportunity awaits.  Aren’t we always putting the mind on tasks and duties of householding?  I tell you, if I hear footsteps in the morning, I feel a visceral response in my muscle-body.  I am hard wired to respond/react in some way to other people.  Had I not spent some years waking before sunrise, I would not have had the consistency to notice this. 

In Ayurveda, the majority of Dinacharya, or daily regimen, happens before leaving the house, or before the family is up.  I explain it like this: Once you go into the world, you are FAIR GAME. 

Brahmamuhurta is the time for God’s play.  The communication between mind-God-Universe is all happening.  The senses are quiet (not much to disturb) not hungry, half awake, nothing going on in this waking plane where we spend most of our time.  Making space for the B-Muhurta can only result in success.

Why then, am I wanking about the 2:30AM?  Well, I tell you I have spent many of my B-Muhurta hours in service as an Ashtanga teacher.  My students begin arriving at 5:45.  I get up at 4:15 to allow myself an hour of quiet, at home.  Because once I have left there, even if it’s to practice, I am...FAIR GAME.  I see this as a worthy sacrifice, a blessing in fact.  I get to devote my life to supporting people in finding God.

Gots to find my own God first, though, most days.  I have to say I find it jarring here to walk into a packed room at 4AM.  I’m used to my quiet time.  And that’s one reason I’m wanking.  The other is constipation (that’s another blog post altogther).

Sharath gets 4-5 hours sleep, he says.  Bedtime probably 7:30-8, which is what most of us do here.  Then we lie under the ceiling fan and listen to them make dinner next door.  For him, he’s got to find his God before 4:30AM when we all come in.  It is traditional to begin Hindu practices (not for the householder, necessarily, because there are some years when sleep is as important as worship on the hierarchy of family duties) around 2:30.  Gives you 3 hours before the world wakes for the chanting, bathing, ringing of bells, burning of things, and all that is necessary to unite Self and universe (the Union of Yoga). 

If its true that nothing is more important to me than my Sadhana, or spiritual works, there is nothing happening after 8PM that interests me anyhow.  Boob tube, bars, French fries, sex.  Yet another reason Im wanking: I went from 0-60 in one week here.  From 4:15 to 2:30 AM wake up.  That kind of thing takes a few years to ease into.  8PM desires do begin to drop away, but so suddenly, here I am, staunch as can be.  Grrr.

How goes the practice: I’m way stiffer that early.  My bowels are not empty (even if I don’t eat after lunch).  It’s harder to talk to God with all those people around.  I can’t wait to get home and be quiet and alone and take good poops.

BUT.  There is something happening, unbeknownst to us in that room.  We ARE being “charged with powerful electro-magnetic-intelligent carriers” as we practice together with all the hubbub at 4AM.  This is the kind of thing I don’t notice until I get home.  Here, I’m just in it.  Im struggling, I’m stiff, I’m distracted, I’m disappointed in myself.  And I do believe one has natural defenses to guard against too much Shakti too fast.  Stiffness is one, mental stiffness included.  My bad attitude about the mornings I do hope will give way to the willingness, the openness, the beauty of the B-Mahurta.

And, back in Boston on the fire escape in the AM, I will long for it again.  In hindsight, feeling the sparkle of that room, the quality of being as we wake the energies together through movement.   I will find it in the little room where my students and I are working together, and as always, the only place I feel at home in the USA is in the yoga room.