MY YOGA JOURNEY IN INDIA
BY FRANCESCA GIUSTI
I am recently back from a winter spent in the South of India. No matter how long and how intensely you prepare for such a trip, India is always a fantastic challenge and an incredible discovery for those who venture there. I did prepare long and hard, maybe even too much. I read travel literature on India, I read Yoga books on India, I asked countless people about their trip to India, I got information on the internet on India…. only to get partially prepared to the intensity of the experience. Too much preparation almost spoiled my experience by setting expectations that sometimes couldn’t be fulfilled. Also, it made me so aware of certain things that I might have missed other things. It literally took several weeks to finally let go and to “land” in the Great Mother’s lap: to let go of the struggle of the daily living, and to accept that everything has their course in the Great Universe. To let go of the idea that we govern our lives. And to accept that there are different planes to this life.
I practiced yoga in different traditions. I did an intensive 4 week programme with the teacher Mr Venkatesh from Atma Vikhasa in Mysore, where I would wake up at 4.30 am (Mysore is CHILLY in December…!!) to attend my asana class (yoga postures). I filled my day with Pranayama and Philosophy classes still with Mr Venkatesh. I found the energy in Mysore a bit disconnected from the tradition of Yoga: it is a fast growing city with little space for spiritual practices. But at the same time cycling to my class at 5 am made me witness the number of people attending at the little shrines that would be cleaned and made ready for morning pujas, just as people would approach them to welcome their day with an invocation to their favourite deity. Everywhere around me I slowly found this deep spirituality coupled with a fast, young, growing society that at times seems not to have time for devotion anymore.
I spent time at Amma’s Ashram in Kerala, and even did yoga classes there. Trying to explain the experience of a living Ashram is very hard, as it is hard to explain life near the ashram of Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai. I was there for a month, and I completed my second module on Somatic Movement Education in the Hanna tradition.
Somatic Movement Education sheds a light on the pain management world.
It is a discipline based on activating the nervous system by moving slowly and consciously through a set of simple and soothing movements. This stimulates the nervous system so that habituated movement patterns and postural “mistakes” are corrected. A typical example: sitting on a chair and working on a pc for the whole day, day after day, makes our shoulder round forward, causing an increase on our upper spine’s forward curvature (kyphosis). Doing this year after year causes our nervous system to lose awareness of how a correct spine should be and kyphosis increases as we become older. The way to reverse this tendency are Somatic exercises. With the somatic movements we are re-educating the nervous system to gain control of the muscles that have become weak and “habituated” in a wrong postural pattern. The pain is reduced as the nervous system goes back into controlling the way to a straight, effortless posture. I have experienced this on my own self, and it takes only few minutes of somatic exercises every day to maintain the well being of my body.
I completed my stay in India with self enquiry sessions and meditations, as well as sufi dances and bhajans (chanting) session, losing my voice in several occasions due to too much chanting!
I had the pleasure to try the Shivananda Yoga method, with classes exploring different pranayamas and gentle sequences of postures. I also studied more yoga in the Iyengar Yoga method, finding new ways to approach classical asanas and guiding my perception in my daily practice, as well as getting inspirations for my teachings.
My Ashtanga Yoga intensive with Chuck Miller and Maty Ezraty came at the end of my stay and it somehow summed up the whole experience, leading to a mindful practice coming from the Heart: Yoga meaning union of body, mind, spirit.