Today has been a long day. Up at 5am to catch the 5:49 train to London to practice at the Dharma Shala in Euston. I had a mid morning client meeting which meant that I had to buy a peak-time train ticket – £42! So I thought why not use the opportunity to go and practice at the Dharma Shala, aka Astanga Yoga London (AYL) aka Hamish’s.

Hamish is one of 2 certified (see footnote) teachers in the UK and he’s backed by a team of highly regarded authorised teachers at the shala. You can check out their biographies on the AYL website. You really do get a sense of the lineage of Ashtanga Yoga at the shala which I really appreciate.

Door to door the journey took 2 hours. The shala is a house with the front rooms converted into practice rooms, changing rooms and what may have been a shower or toilet. You start practicing in one room and Hamish calls out ‘One more’ and you move into the bigger room as someone else is finishing up.

The room was much warmer (hot!) than I’m used to so I was sweating profusely half way through the sun salutations. I was also really nervous. I’ve not practiced Mysore style outside of Brighton and I’d never met anyone (teachers or students) so it was all new, exciting and a bit edgy. In order to keep myself grounded I really focused on my breathe and dristi.

I may have been a little too focused because I couldn’t identity in a police line-up any of the people who I practiced with this morning!

The atmosphere in the shala is amazing and it reminded me of the first time I experienced a Mysore room here in Brighton. It’s a place of warm, silent, sweaty devotional intensity. I love it! I flew through my practice and what normally takes 2 hours took 1.5 hours. I’m not sure how that happened!

It’s well worth the trip and I’d love to do a couple of weeks practicing there and am just in the process of working out the costs. A big thank you to my friend who shall remain nameless for all the details on getting to the shala, most helpful indeed

Now it’s time to cook dinner and get an early night to get to practice in Brighton tomorrow. Oh the luxury of a short walk!

Footnote: The other certified teacher is Philippa Asher who teaches at Triyoga Soho.

I found this on Hamish’s website:

Sharath Rangaswamy, Assistant Director of the Astanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, will be teaching in London this summer as part of his European Tour.

There will be 2 classes each day:

Led primary series and Led Intermediate Series
Dates: 23rd – 28th August, 2009
Venue: Camden Centre, Bidborough Street, Kings Cross WC1H 9AU
Cost: £170 for full week (6 days)
£32 drop in

Hello there Brighton ashtangis.
I just thought I’d stop by and say hello as I’m in Mysore at the moment, but will be returning at the end of November and moving myself down to Lovely Brighton. I’m looking forward to dipping my paddle into the ashtanga scene when I’m there.

I’ve put a few pics on the flickr  page taken during a trip last summer, and am currently writing a piece on yoga in mysore for my teacher in London (James Bradford www.astangayogasurrey.com) which i might run past you guys when I’m finished to see what you think.I’ve spent 9 out of the last 15 months out here, so I’ve got a fairly good feel for the place.
Most of my practice is with Ajay Kumar at Sthalam8 (who is an absolute legend), but have spent some time at the AYRI, and also tried Venkatesh.
In August I’m starting the teacher training with Bharath Shetty at Yoga India which is going to be intense and a real challenge. It’s a hatha course and I’ve never done anything but ashtanga, so I know my brain is going to struggle with all those extra breaths! Still, I’m looking forward to the challenge (maybe less so the group kriyas), and I know it’ll do me good to simply focus on the asana for a while, without all the flashy ashtangi stuff )

It’s ‘vinyasa’ class tomorrow (be afraid) so I’m off to get some rest.
Hope you’re all enjoying your practice and talk to you again soon.

Cheers

John-Mark

Over the last 6 months everything has changed. I’ve injured my back, ended a relationship, moved office and finally moved home. So I’ve not done much posting on the website for a while.

2 weeks ago I committed to practicing 5 days a week. Fortunately there was a moon day on the first week ; )

I’ll be writing regularly (now that things are a bit more settled) about how I find the Mysore practice over the coming months.

Today I’m off to Chris Swain’s workshop on the spine which I’m looking forward to. I’ll be taking some pictures so check out the gallery later in the week – You might even see yourself!

It’s good to be back!

At the post-practice coffee this morning we had a lively discussion about injuries.

I’m sure you’ve never done this yourself ; )

My recent back injury was the trigger for the conversation. It went something like this:

Every person who I told about my injury who doesn’t do Yoga suggested I stop doing it.  My Dad in particular was rather vocal: “Guy you must stop this crazy Yoga!” I patiently tried to explain (again) that my injury was caused by me not listening to my body and that it wasn’t the Yoga that was doing it to me. This was followed by a long silence on the phone.

When having this conversation face to face this is normally the point when people start rolling their eyes and looking rather bored. With a “if you’re not going to take my advice then you deserve it” attitude. I’m exaggerating for effect slightly here but not much.

So am I crazy to continue to practice through my injury? In the quest to get some answers I’ve been to a doctor, osteopath and sports masseur and spoken to nearly everyone I know about back injuries.

Noone knows what is wrong with my back. I have no answers. I’m on the waiting list for a referral to the back clinic which could take a few months. I’m skeptical that I’ll get any answers there either.

So I’m faced with taking responsibility for my injury and recovery, how do I do this? I make mistakes (mostly) and I do my best to listen to my body. I know we’ve all heard it before in virtually every Yoga class or workshop “Just listen to your body”. Well it took a very painful experience for me to start listening. If you’d asked me 2 months ago if I was “listening to my body” I would have been rather offended at even being asked.

I now have a zero tolerance attitude towards any pain in my back when I practice, I bend my knees as much as I need to when doing forward bends and I’m real gentle on my back-bends.