My Practices 37 and 38 + Thanksgiving Lunch

This week has gone extremely fast. Time is really flying here and a couple of my best friends are leaving now. Quite many people are traveling back home for the Christmas or they are going to Goa to practice with Rolf and Marcy. Many people here respect Rolf highly and have told that he is really amazing. I am happy to be here with Sharath. Goa is a cool place to go, but I feel that for me it’s better to stay here the whole time in India. In any case Sharath is the reason, why I am here.

Yesterday I practiced next to Malissa. I got the last spot in the Shala and I was on the last row, really in the corner. However, I liked the spot and we had much fun with Malissa, when she was transfering from Bjudapidasana to Bakasana and I was practicing Supta Kurma. She literally put her foot over my head and went all the way down to my lower back. We just giggled there like little kids. It was so funny, maybe the most relaxed Supta Kurma ever!

I had a very focused practice anyway, even that I was a bit nervous, because Sharath told me yesterday to start my backbendings now. I went to talk with him yesterday and told him about my back problems as well as long the break. He was as nice as he always is for me. I told him too that I haven’t really learned to do the backbendings and he said, that he will teach me. He told me to take it easy and do three backbendings during this week and next week we start to do more. So I did my normal Urdva Dhanurasana three times and then watched him, but he showed me that no more today. I was quite releaved, because now I have a couple of more days to practice mentally and build up my courage.

After the practice I went home and had a little nap. After that I rushed to Aimee’s and we started the preparations for Thanksgiving lunch. Me and Malissa made Polish pies with potato and onion filling. It was so much fun, because Malissa hadn’t done those ever before and the dough was so sticky. Hah. Finally be managed to do some pretty ones. Aimee made pumpkin pie and we went to Santosha to cook it (that’s the only place where is the oven here). Ann and Magnus weren’t in, so we just walked in and started to figure out, how to light the oven. That was really an adventure and we called a cook and finally went online and found the instructions, how to turn the Indian oven on… And the funniest thing was, when we arrived and the cleaning lady told us to close the door, because ”Problem. Monkey coming!”. Yes, here we have to close the door, so that the monkeys are not coming in and stealing the food.

Brian’s Thanksgiving was an enormous success. We had over 50 yogis packed in to his place. And the food!!! I so wished that all the meat eaters would have been there. I mean there was all sorts of delicious dishes on the table from various countries. American pumpkin pie, Turkish rice, Polish potato pies, Indian rice, various different salads, coconut-cashew energy balls, hummus and corn bread, icecream and cakes just to start… Here I have had so many good dishes, that I am all the time telling that in India the food is always good, you never know, what it is exactly, but it’s always good.

On Friday morning I woke up and felt that little flu was coming. I was very exhausted last night, because my sleeping problems have continued during the whole week. I woke up again at 1 a.m. and couldn’t get a sleep after that. I went to the Shala anyway, because my body didn’t feel too sore. The led class went actually quite well. It’s good to notice, that my practice goes ok, even when I am not in the best shape. Sharath again entertaining us, when he said: ”Why hurrying?” ”Chinese!!!”, when some people went too fast. The energy in the Shala is extremely good. Sharath is always very relaxed with our group and students are pushing, but not in a bad way. We have had many good laughts together and you can feel the joy of the practice around you. Ashtanga is perfect, when it is not too serious.