Spent a lot of time at the desk this week, so today I blew off and was a yoga bum. Here’s the schedule. It’s what every day looks like for many people I know, with the exception that most people drive their own scooters instead of rickshaws, and skip the walk to go out for a delicious south Indian dinner.
4:00 Get up, do a little email and skype
4:30 Regina starts chanting downstairs, rumbling the whole house. Get on the mat for abbreviated asana practice, plus pranayama and a short sit.
6:20 Walk 10 minutes to the shala, take a seat among the others in the entry way, watching practice in the big room. Listening to the billows of breath and the occasional calls for “One more” from Saraswati and Sharath. This is the most conscious 40 minutes of my day, an opportunity to enjoy incredible energy of the whole community, and a powerful Shinzenian sight-flow meditation. But I’m often tempted to let the eagerness to get in to the room take over the experience. Each morning, I’m getting better at letting the wait be an end in itself, and am going earlier and earlier to enjoy just sitting there, watching the shapes move inside the room and feeling the rhythm at which the practice in there moves.
7:00-8:30 Practice. Enough said.
8:30-8:45 Drink coconut (still don’t like the ritual, but the electrolytes feel like a good idea and they’re starting to taste good to me), watch monkeys play in the trees, sit around and talk to some practitioners outside the shala
8:45-9:30 Run home, shower, talk to housemates, drink wheatgrass and weird fermented energy tonic with housemates
9:30 – 11:00 Go to coconut stand to meet some sociologists on vacation. Take them to silly ashtangi breakfast joint where we sit in a beautiful courtyard alongside my Indian friend S and several other acquaintances. Eat fruit salad, an omlette and ginger-lemon tea: the exact same breakfast I’d order at any of four identical restaurants in the neighborhood. The bill is scandalously expensive for Mysore: $3.20.
11:00 – 2:00 Do some admin and writing, lunch with housemate.
2:00 – 5:00 Rickshaw over to the Regaalis. Lie out on the grass with some Brazilians and Canadians, Germans, an Austrian and a Portuguese. And an erstwhile American who has just moved permanently to Mysore (from Detroit). Swim intermittently. Read Cosmicomics and laugh out loud (thanks, G.) Others are reading: Murakami, Svoboda, Patanjali. Thank god no Shantaram or EPL. Chodron’sThe Wisdom of No Escape is lying around, unread, under a beach chair. Hahaha.
5:00 – 5:15 Take the hottest shower in town at the hotel changing room, pick up some baked goods at the Regaalis restaurant, catch the best rickshaw in town back to Gokulam. The young driver asks if I would like music, and in response to a yes, blares Bhangra out of speakers behind my head. Yes, the ride is equipped with a pair of sub-woofers. They change everything.
5:15 – 6:15 Quick-change and run out to slackline practice with the regulars at the park. First day of slackline – at one point I get six steps in a row. Frustrating but intriguing. Slacklining. Second only to working on the tan as afternoon business for the Mysore regulars.
6:15 – 6:30 Check messages, change clothes.
6:30 – 7:30 Evening walk
7:30 – 9:00 Skype, blog, meditate, good night.
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