Welcome !

Hello and welcome to Samasthiti, my yoga journal. The idea to start blogging about yoga struck me suddenly this last Sunday. I have signed up for a "Hot Journey" at my yoga studio : Hom Yoga. The challenge is to practice yoga every day for 30 days in a row. Of course you have different classes to choose from, the point is to get on your mat every day of the month. Now, I already do this. But the minute someone repackages this as a challenge, it's tempting to accept it, isn't it? The last time the studio had a hot journey was sometime back, I think Feb/March and I was relatively new and didn't know if I'd like the studio enough to stay there for a month. So i didn't sign up. But what caught my eye was this big board with a cell for each day of the month and you had to put a round brightly colored sticker (differs according to the class you do) on that cell every time you completed a class.  

It was so pretty, i wanted those stickers against my name! So that's my materialistic reason for signing up for this journey. Now for the spiritual reason. I am of course a firm believer (now!) of exercising regularly. By regularly I mean every day, so my exercise is 60 minutes of hot yoga. I have tried multiple times, alone and with my friends, to join a gym and have failed every time. I think the longest I have lasted is 2 weeks (weekends excluded). Somehow, sitting on a cycle or running on a treadmill is just not something that kept me interested for too long. To make sure that I don't quit, I remember even bringing in my book and placing it in front of me while on the cycle. Haha. But of course, there is much more to the gym than what i tried out. When I started yoga with Hom, i almost fainted in the first class. Literally. I have done yoga before, but hot yoga was a completely different deal. I decided to go back the second time and realized, it's not that bad. And in subsequent classes i got better at balancing and at poses in general. 

But I reached a stage of being peaceful and calm after a 60 min regular hot yoga class, only when I learnt how to control my breath. And it was then that I went into this parallel world as soon as I start my class in samasthiti. I can now close my eyes, focus on my breathing and go into a pose. I am yet to of course master anything, I'm still learning, but I've gotten better at balancing, gotten more flexible and stable in a pose. I always wanted to try out the morning 7 am class. And I am sucker for sleep. If you let me, I will sleep the whole day. So waking up in the morning for anything is a challenge for me. Even as a student, I would rather study until 6 am than wake up 6 am. But nevertheless, I tried this 7 am class. Woke up at 6 am, got ready and left the house by 6:15. Took the train at 6:25 and reached my studio by 6:45. gave me enough time to sneak in a couple of winks more before my teacher came in as well! And after the class, i felt such energy and peace, I was ready for anything! The other beauty of it is, you don't have to deal with the crazy office-going train crowd post 8am. This I added to my ongoing evening yoga practice at 6pm. So I start the day with it and i 'end' the day with it. And I love it. 

Among other things, I have lost weight, im calmer and happier, my father is finally proud of me and i impressed my brother with a shoulder-stand this time when I went home! :)

So I'll pause with the rambling, I have signed up for the hot journey this time around and I start tomorrow. I wanted to record it in some manner and since I love to write, I decided to start this blog. Why I call it Samasthiti is because it's the one pose that gives me the direction, stability, and energy whenever I lose focus and allows me to get my breath and calmness back to my practice. I will log in an entry everyday for the next 30 days. It'll include details of my class, teacher, my general day, my ever growing colorful board at the studio and any other nonsense that I decide to talk about that day !

Here's hoping for a kick ass month! 

Namaste.

Date: Monday, September 30th
Day : - 1