My teachers in Mysore – Part 2: Opening the body inside out

22/Mar/16

I wrote this piece a while ago, just before leaving Mysore last summer. I am about to finish my short 2-week practice with Ajay once again, and its incredible that months later, I feel exactly the same about it. If I were to write it again, I think it would be pretty much the same:) except that this time I got to share the experience with a beautiful friend<3 my almost 1 year travel companion. Feeling blessed to have a witness and be someone’s witness in this deep journey of yoga, to be happy together and “devastated” together. Thank you!

13/Jul/15 – Ajay Kumar.

Sthalam8 it’s a small shala in the area of Lakshmipuram, one of the main towns of Mysore, where the lately well-known Ajay Kumar along with his assistant Shiva Prakash, teaches the traditional Asthanga yoga as taught by BNS Iyengar.

After having spent one month with M.V. Chidananda, the first impression as soon as I started my first class with Ajay was that it would be a bit hard to get used to a completely different style of teaching, different breathing tempo, adjustments, opening & closing prayer… Everything was different.

I was a bit resistant for change because I wondered if I was going to get the same benefits as my previous teacher already got to know my body and its weakest points, and now knew how to tackle them!

But… I have to say, I was very well surprised!

Day 1, adjustment number 1 in downward dog, and Ajay already tells me that my main problem is in my shoulders… my sweet little shoulders. They are tight as hell (not quoting him by the way). I couldn’t do anything but smile because I knew that he knew, not only about my shoulders or whichever part of my body… but I mean, he knew stuff… he can feel stuff… I was in good hands.

His main approach in teaching is of course Ashtanga, which you do most days of the week in a traditional way, but there are a few variations which makes it quite enjoyable for a change:

On Thursdays we start with the normal sequence but after warming up for a while he stops everyone to start his Vinyasa class. It is really REALLY good! This is an opportunity to learn and properly practice jump backs, jump-throughs, bandhas, breath. He also shows you different bodies to start training your eyes to notice things – in yourself and others. It’s my favourite class so far :).

On Sundays there is a self-practice in the morning where no teacher is adjusting, so you can feel free to roll as you wish. The reason for this is because later that day he does a back-bending class. No… wait, let me say this again… He does an AMAZING back-bending class! It is beyond what I was expecting and he makes you work a lot! If you do it just as he tells you, you will feel your quads working like crazy. With a variety of sun salutations, you also learn to feel what he calls the ‘dead’ part of our bodies, which is mainly the upper & middle part of the back, as well as working the lower one in a safe way.

He makes you work your shoulders, your arms, your hips, your legs… e v e r y t h i n g. And I apologize in advance as this is not a very nice thing to imagine but I have never seen my sweat coming out of my pores like that. I had my body activated every single second, or at least I felt so.

What’s funny though is that after more than 2 hours of class, only the last 20 minutes are actually about the traditional back bending & dropping back, but by that time you already had felt whatever you were meant to feel, and so much more. You’ve opened your body so much that the sensation goes not only to the physical but to more subtle layers, especially on the heart area. You’ve prepared your body for the real thing and at this point it seems now a little bit less impossible to do.

I loved it, although I can’t do most of the things, but as he says: “You are not here to show what you can do good, but what you can’t, so that I can help”.

Sthalam8

Ajay is really an excellent teacher and I am very happy that I had the chance to study with him during my last weeks in Mysore. He might seem a little bit intimidating at first, but he is very sweet actually, nice to talk to and to be with. He cares about bonding with students and every once in a while has breakfast with everyone in the cafe. He makes you laugh at class sometimes with his jokes about “bleeding his eyes out” for seeing you do the poses so wrong!

But he is also very strict and doesn’t play any games. He doesn’t hesitate to tell you what you are doing wrong and that you are not listening to his simple instructions. He teaches you to listen, to focus, to breath and use bandhas. He is very aware of how the energy flows in the room. He will never push you further than your limits (and he won’t allow you to go there) but still he will always encourage you to try new things. It’s like his personal challenge… you have to walk out of there with something new to take with you.

After a week of practice he allowed me to do the whole primary series, and even though I did it horribly with no modifications, I know he just wants me to try! To feel what its like to do things you’ve never even try to do, and that you tell yourself you just can’t. The key is just to do your part: breathe “good and proper”, and let him do his. Then all is coming 🙂

My teachers in Mysore – Part 1: Breath, my dancing partner

June 2015

My first time in Mysore and I was lucky enough to have fallen into good hands. Before coming here my plans regarding the teacher I would be practicing with were completely different; but on the process of emailing and investigating about the teachers here I realized that I have decided to come precisely on the months where most of them are away on tour. It’s a common thing and most of them will have specific dates they go away during the year but being new to all this I had no clue. Thankfully I got sooo many recommendations from people that I know who put me in contact with a friend or a friend of a friend who have been here, and that helped a lot! It’s incredible how the information just comes to you when you really really want it. Thank you everyone who helped:)

One of the teachers that came up on that list was M V Chidananda, a disciple of BNS Iyengar. I went to the web and started searching. Many of my decisions are based on my first gut feeling, even when choosing a wine – I don’t look at the price or the grape or the bottle, it’s something about the label calling me that I just know it will be good. Same as with this, I didn’t overstudy how recognized the teachers were or how many qualifications they had, I just knew that this one felt right and something said to me: Go for it!

M V Chidananda is a very good, knowledgeable and respectable ashtanga teacher in Mysore. He is a good man and he will always happily welcome you and guide you step by step in your practice regardless of your level. It’s so inspiring to see how much energy he puts into each of his students and on each and every single adjustment. He does really deep adjustments by the way, and I must say that before I secretly hated it (or maybe not that secretly). I thought that if you get adjusted too much, you wouldn’t be able to work hard enough as someone was kind of doing the job for you. And also I was really scared that one day one of those adjustments would injure me or break me into half. I was wrong! This is not necessarily true, especially if you have someone who can guide you safely. Being a stiff person myself I have to say I felt really very safe with him since day one – that kind of feeling where you completely surrender into whatever your teacher is doing and telling you to do. He genuinely wants to help you, he wants you to feel that part of your body you have never felt, even if it’s hard to get to. But you´re in good hands; he is intuitive enough to know where and when to stop without a word.

I didn’t open my mouth once during practice – he didn’t either. There was no need for it, the key was on breathing long and deep and moving with that, pretty much like a dance. Inhale…… Exhale…… It was a little magical.

Mysore Mandala, yoga shala in Lakshmipuram

I was practicing with him for a month, but one month, two months, three months… it’s never enough when you are seeing and feeling the results, you just want to keep doing it. I have never gone as deep in forward folds as I did here, nor have ever felt my hips and groin stretching this much. It was painful, but it’s a good kind of pain, the pain where you know that you’ve just found the exact place where the blockage is, and now you can focus and breathe into it. In the same way, I have never twisted my body in such a way that I could barely find my breath in between all that squeeze, it was intense. But he is always there.. to show you where your body can go, and you can count on full 5 long and deep breaths with him guiding you passionately, in a silence where only breath is allowed to be.

You come here to learn, to try new things, even if you think they look horrible and go against what you have learned before. Relax and forget about all these ideas you have in your mind about how good or how bad you look in a pose. You will be wasting your time because during this month I couldn’t find space for our little egos who sometimes are just waiting to come out. You are here to feel. You are trapped into this practice where there is no need to pretend anything at all. No one knows you, you don´t know anyone. Its just you and your practice, like it should be.

Namaste:)