Samasthiti

(Saturday sky in Singapore as i write this post, it's just.... perfect)  I knew sometime in January this year that I wanted to gift myself a yoga teacher training. Take a month off to go learn about  yoga. I wanted to do it just for the love of yoga. I have no intentions of becoming a teacher anytime soon, if ever. I spoke to few of my teachers, read extensively on the style of yoga I'd like to practice, where I'd like to spend 30 days, how expensive is it.. I read a lot, spent hours looking up schools and eventually settled on a school called High Vibe Yoga. They're located in Ubud in Bali and the lead teacher is Emily Kuser. One of my all-time favourite yoga teachers, Leigh, trained with Emily and had only great things to say. I wasn't looking for a Bikram style practice and wanted to select a school that didn't treat yoga as a business and High Vibe was exactly that. Leigh spoke highly of Emily and her philosophy around yoga and I just knew. Like with...

My 2 year long membership with Hom yoga ended on Thursday, December 2nd. I was dreading the day that would happen. It did. And like everything else, I survived it. I woke up that morning, went to the morning class, went for the lunchtime class and almost went for the evening class, but had a Christmas dinner to go to and so couldn't make it for the third class. I bid the studio at Boat Quay goodbye and as I climbed down those stairs, I looked back one last time and heaved a sigh. I'm dramatic like that. I'll obviously go back to the studio now and then to meet my teachers, maybe sign up sometimes for their workshops as well or who knows sign up for a membership :) But for now, it's a goodbye. I already have a membership at Pure Yoga, which I have mixed feelings about, and it doesn't make (financial) sense for me to renew my Hom yoga one. Plus, I am also going to be in Bali for a month in Jan to go learn how to become a yoga teacher at High Vibe Yoga  (more about th...

It's been ages since I posted something about yoga. I often think about writing about yoga or about a particular experience in a class or a random thought that somehow I manage to connect to my practice, and by the time I get down to clicking on "New Post", I lose that spark or that energy that I was so full of a minute ago. And I don't like writing for the sake of writing, hence the absence from this blog for so long. I've said this before, but I'll repeat it, off late my practice has taken a softer dimension. I still appreciate it for the awesome workout that it is, hot ashtanga at Hom or even a hot vinyasa at Pure still leaves me sweating (and it's not just the heat) after 60 minutes. But what I appreciate more and more is the way i feel after a class, and it's not the exercise high that leaves you high strung after a workout. For me, lately, it's been how open my heart feels after a lovely yoga class. I feel capable of so much more goodn...

Sounds simple enough right? But we often miss the point while pursuing things and people we love. Thanks to my new membership at Pure and my trial package at Sound & Light studio, combined with my twice a day practice at Hom, I've ended up with a knee injury. Sigh. I'd like to blame it on myself, saying there were a couple of asanas I did wrong and messed up with the alignment. But the truth is, I pushed my body to the edge, it gave me signs of breaking down, my knees starting hurting, particularly my left knee and I could see the difference in the simple asanas like the Vriksasana, or the tree pose. While I had no problem bending my right knee, my left knee pained like crazy and I had to support it with both my hands. Also, Saturday and Sunday my usual rest days started getting busy with morning and evening practices as well. Add to that my intense focus on Ashtanga yoga! My jump backs and jump-throughs, the marchiyasanas, I think just about everything in my ashtang...

I was so comfortable being at Hom that I didn't find the need to venture out. Even now, I love the coziness of Hom, i love the teachers there, I love the friends I have at Hom, basically i love everything about it. I tend to get like that about places, people and situations I am comfortable with. Irrespective of what anyone says, I'll turn a blind eye and continue on the path. But this one discussion with some of my HOM friends, and the fact that a teacher i love : Deborah : is at Pure Yoga, I decided to give it a try and signed up for their free trial. They have a beautiful Universal Mandala class Copper Crow teaches on Saturdays. I did my first universal class with Daphne in Ubud, and absolutely loved it. I liked the fact that the class was relatively small, not heated, the teacher was jovial and fun. Copper is a brilliant teacher, I could see that from the minute Deb introduced me to him before class. You can sometimes feel the aura around a person and i felt that with Copp...

(Source:  http://my-beautiful-words.blogspot.sg/2012/11/courage-is-love-affair.html ) I've been wanting to write something for so long now. When I am in a class and something beautiful and moving pops into my mind or enters my body as a feeling and not a thought, I try and tell myself that I need to put it down on my blog or my diary. It needs to be captured. But I invariably forget, get too busy with work or with other mundane stuff on weekends. And sometimes when I do want to sit and write about it, my mind turns into this blank slate and all my thoughts scatter away. Anyway, I got this urge to write in the middle of my work day and I've set everything aside to do it! Off late I have been vegetarian (1 month and 1 week !) and it's been pretty awesome actually. I have no meat cravings even though I have gone out for kebab dinners with my meat loving friends. Thankfully they haven't abandoned me and still invite me to these things! I drink a lot more milk, eat ...

For most months this year, I have something or the other planned. And in a way, that keeps me going. March was this awesome, life changing, baking course in London and April, was a visit to the Philippines. May was my BIG month! I was going for my first ever yoga retreat and then back to Hyderabad, for a very dear friend’s wedding and then home to Jaipur and then finally to the city that has my dil : Dilli. Like most things in life, you are extremely excited when something you’ve been looking forward to is approaching. My best example for this is my birthday. I look forward to it. BIG TIME. And then it quietly comes and goes. And then suddenly, this whole excitement that filled you up for so long, suddenly disappears. Leaving you a little empty. The feeling is almost akin to the ending of a beautiful book. When it’s over, you’re left feeling as though people you had dearly loved and lived so long with and shared a journey with, have suddenly left you for an unknown destinat...