Before the logistics, some fun stuff. Here's a link to a series of photographs on Flickr, showing people practicing ashtanga. The pictures are a mixture of the primary series (what I'll be doing) and more advanced stuff (which I won't). You can also see Guruji (the older teacher, who passed away in May), his grandson Sharath (the current leading teacher in the world), and Saraswati, a woman who will be teaching me:
Ashtanga photos from Flickr
I fly out on Monday, October 5, traveling through Chicago, Frankfurt, Germany, and on to Bangalore, where a driver will pick me up to drive to Mysore. It's over 17 hours of air time from Chicago, and I arrive in Bangalore very early on Wednesday morning, October 7 (Banglaore time). Bangalore is 9.5 hours ahead of Louisville.
I will take Wednesday to try to adjust to the time change -- something which will undoubtedly take more than one day. I hope to be able to register at the yoga shala on Wednesday, and with some luck can start practice on Thursday morning.
I should have easy access to e-mail and the internet. I'll be carrying my Blackberry, which will have the international package activated. I'll be able to receive both work e-mail and my personal, Google mail (gmail). In addition, I'll be carrying a small netbook, which I hope to use to post updates on the trip,and on practice, via this weblog.
I am doing the blog for two broad groups: (i) friends and family; and (ii) local yoga people with whom I've practiced ashtanga for the last 5 1/2 years. I'll try to identify clearly those postings which tend toward technical yoga stuff, not of general interest.
In the past, when traveling, I've tended to send e-mails home from internet cafes and the like, and I thought that by putting them in one place -- a blog -- they would be relatively easy to find for non-yoga and yoga friends. I promise not to overindulge in excessive, trivial, self-indulgent detail.
Finally, here's a Google-based map of Mysore.
Mysore map
Jim
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Cloudy with a Chance of Vegetarian Meatballs
The Mysore Palace, when the weather is nice but the sun is down.
The Mysore weather is here:
www.wunderground.com/global/stations/43291.html
A bit rainy at the moment.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Introducng Mysore
If you're an amateur runner, dedicated but not world class, you might aspire to run at the Boston Marathon. If you're a mountaineer of some moderate experience and accomplishment, you may daydream about climbing Denali, or Mt. Blanc -- difficult, but achievable summits for the mere mortal. If you're a triathlete, perhaps you plan someday to do the Ironman in Kona -- probably through a lottery opening.
There are other, less athletic travels which ordinary people undertake. A Catholic might want to go to Rome, historic center of the faith, and other Christians do long walking treks in Spain on routes followed by medieval pilgrims. A Bahai wants to undertake a trip to the faith's world center in Haifa, and a Jew wants to visit Jerusalem at least once.
With yoga, one goes to India. India is to yoga as Scotland is to golf: the source.
In the United States, yoga is popularly associated with fitness. It's a way to get better abs, perhaps to reduce stress. The most common question an American yoga practicioner hears from friends is, "Are you doing hot yoga?" The reference is to Bikram yoga, an American system of fitness franchises for busy urban people, which has stripped out any Sanskrit, incense, or hint of cultural edginess.
Ashtanga yoga is less well-known, and is one of the major schools of physical yoga which developed in the twentieth century. Its center is in a city in southern India called Mysore. Ashtanga practicioners -- ashtangi, they are called -- think of going to Mysore the way the a cook dreams about going to Cordon Bleu in Paris. This series of postings is about a typical yoga aficionado -- neither a yoga teacher nor a long-haired, backpacking seeker -- traveling to Mysore.
A bit of background. I will be studying at the (long name) K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, commonly called just "Mysore" by practicioners. Their website is here:
http://www.kpjayi.org/
The pictures are of the young Mr. Jois, who passed away earlier this year. Basic information on the city of Mysore is widely available, and I cite you to the lazy man's reference, Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysore
There are other, less athletic travels which ordinary people undertake. A Catholic might want to go to Rome, historic center of the faith, and other Christians do long walking treks in Spain on routes followed by medieval pilgrims. A Bahai wants to undertake a trip to the faith's world center in Haifa, and a Jew wants to visit Jerusalem at least once.
With yoga, one goes to India. India is to yoga as Scotland is to golf: the source.
In the United States, yoga is popularly associated with fitness. It's a way to get better abs, perhaps to reduce stress. The most common question an American yoga practicioner hears from friends is, "Are you doing hot yoga?" The reference is to Bikram yoga, an American system of fitness franchises for busy urban people, which has stripped out any Sanskrit, incense, or hint of cultural edginess.
Ashtanga yoga is less well-known, and is one of the major schools of physical yoga which developed in the twentieth century. Its center is in a city in southern India called Mysore. Ashtanga practicioners -- ashtangi, they are called -- think of going to Mysore the way the a cook dreams about going to Cordon Bleu in Paris. This series of postings is about a typical yoga aficionado -- neither a yoga teacher nor a long-haired, backpacking seeker -- traveling to Mysore.
A bit of background. I will be studying at the (long name) K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, commonly called just "Mysore" by practicioners. Their website is here:
http://www.kpjayi.org/
The pictures are of the young Mr. Jois, who passed away earlier this year. Basic information on the city of Mysore is widely available, and I cite you to the lazy man's reference, Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysore
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