There was a moment, I’m not exactly sure when it happened but it did. I haven’t posted much of anything since I’ve been gone but if you look back 2 blog entries you’ll see what seemed to be my seething abhor for Goa, specifically Arambol, which is the small town I’ve been living the past 2 months. I couldn’t wait to get away and to get out but there was a moment, once Jade, Yaniv and Clive left, where I started to LOVE this place. It’s not because they left that I loved it, don’t mistake that comment but what happened was my friends, meaning my security, comfort, sounding boards were no longer here and I had 3 weeks left in a place that I couldn’t stand and I needed to figure out how to not be miserable. I already knew how stupid it was to even say or think that I hated my time here so one day I just made the decision to not hate it! I stopped seeing Goa for what it wasn’t, I stopped seeing Vijay, my yoga teacher for the TTC, for what he wasn’t, I stopped trying to make both something they weren’t and I instead started seeing them for what they were. I’d like to think I did this on my own but I’ll admit, I did meet a sweet, ridiculously gorgeous Italian, Alba, who asked me at dinner why I wasn’t going to stay longer in Arambol and I said, “I hate it! It’s gross and it’s just a bunch of smoking, drinking, psytrance loving party freaks.” She was confused and said, “but why? You have the beach, it’s sunny, there are good places to eat, good yoga, you have everything you need.” That moment was the beginning of my transition and not because of the smoking hot Italian but because I really needed to make a shift and I knew that. You know that phrase that goes something like, “if you criticize you should look at yourself first”? Well, I would always be disheartened when speaking to my now former lady because every situation she was in was negative to her and I was a big proponent of switching the mind to look at the positive and she just was so resistant and here I was doing the same fucking thing. Arambol isn’t a horrible place to be, I was making it horrible, and granted Vijay is quite an awful, discriminating, morally fucked up teacher but like with all teachers, you take what you can learn and you leave what you don’t like. Sometimes the lessons you learn from the people who come into your life is not what you want to emulate but what you NEVER want to emulate but still, that lesson is beyond valuable and it forces you to keep yourself in check and grow...differently.
My TTC didn’t get any better but where I could, I made every effort to distance myself from Vijay as much as possible and sometimes the fucking god awful teachers he hired to teach us various parts of the curriculum. His anatomy teacher kept calling capillaries, veins and arteries “pipes”… PIPES! What the fuck are pipes?! When the “Doctor” told me that if you just look at a muscle and wish for it to be stronger it will be, I walked out of class, went to my room, opened my laptop and opened one of the 7 FULL Anatomy and Physiology text books Jade and I had scored in what I like to call our “Yoga Resource JACKPOT.” Dr. Ganesh was the only light we had in that entire course, well and when Prabu, his head assistant, came back from gallivanting around India with his then girlfriend, I had a little bit of sanity among the insanity that is bipolar Vijay. I don’t say that as to just be calling names, as those who know me well know I have no reason do to that, but I really think he is. Prabu is probably the sweetest Indian man I’ve ever met and each night, he, Dominic, my new German climbing, ashtangie, stone sculpting, pilgrim of a man, would meet at “the yoga wall” and talk for an hour, plus, before dominic and I would go get dinner somewhere, usually the Rice Bowl (NOMNOMNOM VEG HAKKA NOODLE IN MY MOUTH HOLE!).
What I took away from the training was knowing I want to be a teacher that is the opposite of Vijay. I want to always be present, aware, focused on my students, well, this all granted I do end up teaching somewhere, someday. I don’t want to ever discriminate anyone based on gender, age or ability and I never want to show a preference for those students naturally bendy students or ones who have had their own ridiculously beautiful practice for over a decade. This was rather insightful because as a personal trainer, I always thought I’d want to work with those athletes who are already awesome to make them more awesome but one of my favorite times in class was when one of Alba’s friends, an older woman who didn’t speak of lick of English and who obviously had never set foot on a yoga mat before in her life, came to our evening Hatha class. I was doing my own practice right in front of her, Alba behind her and when we were in Triangle pose, I glanced over and saw none of “my boys,” as I loving call Vijay’s 3 assistants (with Prabu, is Praba and Siva), knew what the fuck to do with her completely and totally misaligned body by way of corrections. It’s already been made painfully clear to me after this month that Vijay has NO idea how to take a completely novice Western body and teach them yoga, so she was ignored. Granted, this woman may not take up yoga as her new lifetime hobby, but I’ll be damned if she’s going to get hurt and it would be unfortunate if she never set foot on a mat again because she was left frustrated not knowing what to do and no one bothered to help her. I stopped my own practice, made eye contact, positioned myself so she could see exactly what we were doing and did my practice at her level so she could mimic me and spent the rest of the time correcting her. You don’t need to speak the language to do basic posturing, I learned that after teaching little kids in the flat rock danga in Lesotho how to do sun salutations after they spent 2 hours watching me do my own practice and I caught them out of the corner of my eye trying to emulate my movements. The woman was so happy I helped and she had Alba ask me, “so you’ll be here every day yes?!” I smiled and said I would but that next day, they didn’t come but was also the day I ended up dysentery for a week and was laid flat for 3 of those days, unable to keep anything in my body for longer than 10-20 minutes and unable to be anything but horizontal.
I learned SO much about myself from the experience with Vijay and one of the students from this last round, Aquila, and I said that as awful as the training had been, we’d recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about themselves than they ever thought imaginable. I learned I am VERY susceptible to other people’s energy and negative emotions, conversely, I get exceptionally amped around those who are happy and positive. Since this revelation I’ve been doing tons of work to make sure I remain as even keeled as possible around others and keep balanced in myself and this will be something I have to be aware of for a long time to come. I learned that while my self-discipline absolutely SUCKS for restraining myself on sugar binges and having a consistent meditating practice, it’s on point when it comes to self study and I’ve learned more about the sutras and anatomy in general and anatomy concepts specific to yoga in the past 2 months than I’ve ever learned before. I make a point to keep my studies and reading balanced between pleasure (just finished Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and holy hell, it was a phenomenal read!), the sutras and the science behind yoga and the body. I also have the self-discipline in my own asana practice and have no problem making my way to the other side of the rooftop shala across the street to do my own 2+ hour self practice, which I LOVE doing. If/when I move back to Seattle, I’m going to need to make one part of my place specific for yoga and only yoga so I can continue a self practice… unless Anne Phyfe will let me use one of the 8 Limbs studios for self practice during non class hours… heh J
Ok, enough about all that yoga, even though that was the only reason I came to Goa to begin with. This new found appreciation I gained for Arambol opened me up to some other experiences and allowed me to better enjoy the ones I was already having. It also meant that as soon as Jan 29th came and I was done with my TTC, I didn’t bolt the hell out of this place like I had originally intended. Low and behold, I was extending my stay and for a duration I wasn’t totally aware of. Walking home from dinner one night I saw a fresh flier taped to a palm tree on the walk back to my room that was for an aerial silks workshop. I don’t know when this happened but I not so secretly want to be a circus freak and I’ve always been fascinated by aerial. I couldn’t contain my excitement! I snapped a pic of the contact information, got home, sat on it for about .0034 minutes and then shot them an email. That next week an 8 day workshop was going to start for 2 ½ hours a day and it would span the course of 2 weeks. I met with Arianna and Enrique, the lovely and adorable couple from Spain and Mexico, respectively, at the thali/coconut stand and they told me a bit about themselves, took me deep to the other side of Arambol to their backyard where they have a massive tree with 2 glorious silks suspended from the hefty, curved trunk. That next Tuesday I met them and 4 other people for our first class. It was love at first climb! The week before, thanks to me getting a little over zealous in my yoga practice post dysentery week, I was nursing my old shoulder injury from rowing that flared up. I wanted to be in prime shape for this workshop and on the day we started I was about 80% there. Holy hell almighty this shit is not easy. Not only is it not easy, I realized my least favorite exercise had to soon become my favorite, PULL UPS! We managed, on our first day, to learn the basic climb, the angel, splits, the shoe, cocoon and I feel like we learned some more but I can’t think that far back right now. It was amazing and the feeling I had leaving that first day was like the feeling I had the first time I slipped into a rowing shell at River Place on the Willamette River when I was 15 years old. I was exhilarated and on such a high for the rest of the day it was bordering on insanely ridiculous. I took myself out to lunch on the way home at this place called Magic Park which cuisine wise, takes me to Seattle with their local, vegan organic menu. They have napping/meditation areas, a large expanse just to the side of the restaurant for dancers to practice, yogi and yogini’s to twist and jugglers to well, juggle. It’s super chill and so NOT india but remember, I’m not trying to make this place what it’s not anymore and enjoying what it is. Aerial has humbled me in my strength to weight ratio and I’m missing my rowing muscles like crazy right now but I’ll get there. Enrique actually coordinated, with his friend in Mumbai, to get us each our own set of silks if we wanted. For the nice low price of $20 I know am the proud owner of shimmery, deep wine fabric that I can tie up wherever I find a worthy tree or support. Aerial conditioning during my travels has been added as a “must do.” =)
Another shining moment in life lessons was when I decided I was going to finally take pois lessons. Sanne, one of the girls I met who came to yoga every day, had taken a 3 day workshop with this Indian dude named Sunny and after I was over taking Vijay’s horrific Hatha class in the evenings, I supplemented that time with Sunny. I said before I left Seattle that I was going to be cliché and learn to spin fire on the beaches of Goa, but it turns out, it was more up the street and on the rooftop of an Auryvedic massage joint that I’d learn. Pois is fun, it’s frustrating and I finished my 3 days and since I was going to be here longer, Sunny was going to be here longer, I asked him if I could keep coming. The more I learned the more everything felt unnatural, until you get it, then you wonder how you never got it before. On the 3rd or 4th day Sunny asked me, “soooo did Sanne tell you anything about me?” I stopped spinning and gave him a funny look, which I had done a lot because he just solicits funny looks and shit talking banter. “Um, she told me you teach pois and that after 3 classes she felt like she could actually do some stuff. Is there something else I should know?!”
He gives me an odd look and asks, “so she didn’t tell you that I have... premonitions?” This is something I’ve found is actually pretty common in India, people claiming to have this additional insight whether it be a guru, which Sanjay’s by the way was SPOT ON, a shop owner or now, my pois teacher. “So, I’m not sure how you would take it but if you want me to say anything I will, or I can just keep quiet. People react differently or they think they want to know and then when I say something they really didn’t but I let you decide.”
I was game, it can’t hurt so I respond, “I don’t mind if you tell me. Does this mean that you knew I was going to be taking lessons with you then?!”
He laughed, “no, not like that but now that you’re here, I see things. You’ve made one big mistake in your life and if you make it again, you may not survive. Ok, now do forward butterfly.”
I give him the "you-tell-me-THAT-and-want-me-to-just-start-doing-forward-butterfly look" and reluctantly start to do forward butterfly. While doing my forward butterfly I ask him, “so what was my big mistake?”
“That’s not for me to tell you but for you to figure out for yourself,” he replied.
“But I’ve made TOOOONS of mistakes in my life!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah yeah, we all have, but you’ve made one really BIG BIG BIIIIIIG ONE!” I went back to trying to focus on my pois spinning but was, rightfully, a little thrown off and not at all thinking about my forward butterfly but what I've already done in my life that could kill me if I did it again. I like to think I've reached a point where I'm ok with dying because let's be honest now, we are ALL going to die and each day that passes is one day closer to our end but if it's for something stupid, that's just dumb! He had me doing some new trick thing where I take one pois behind my head at a time, alternating with each completed circle and I kept messing up. He looks at me and says, “before you make a mistake, come back to the front and balance the pois.” Two more cycles and I fucked it up and they were all tangled again. “I told you to come back and balance before you made a mistake!” he yelled. He liked to yell and swear under his breath when I fucked up.
I was unwinding my pois from each other and glared at him, like I tended to do, and said, “I didn’t know I was going to make a mistake!” He asked me, “why not? I knew you were going to make a mistake. Why didn’t you know?” I thought on it for a little while and answered, “because I don’t think I’m quite here right now, I’m a little spacey thinking about HOW I'M GOING TO DIE.”
At that very moment, I knew exactly what BIIIIIG mistake he was talking about and that opened up the opportunity for us to have a lovely conversation on the rooftop, while he smoked his Beedies and I sipped my water when my lesson was done. I tend to have really profound and wonderful discussions with people while traveling, usually yogis and yogini’s but this conversation with Sunny was unlike any other. The things we discussed, the places our conversation went, the thoughts it triggered and what it continues to trigger, were all really incredible. I was going to cover some highlights here but I’m thinking against that now and only because I think it’s best left as a discussion between friends than a conversation written down. Pois to him isn’t just pois, it’s a metaphor for life and how people react, how they behave, how they make decisions, how they anticipate what’s coming, how they learn, etc. I don’t know if he really has premonitions or if he’s like S.N. Goenka (the Vipassana teacher extraordinaire) and has just had SO many students over the years that he’s paid special attention to every aspect of them and allowed himself to be completely aware of all types. I learned more from Sunny in the 2 weeks I was with him than I’ve learned from anyone else in that short span of time and I’d almost be tempted to come back to Goa next year to study with him some more. I was hoping for a teacher in Vijay when I came to Goa but I found, instead, a silly man who apologizes incessantly from Pushkar who spins pois who became my teacher.
I met with Sanjay’s guru when I was in Rishikesh this past july and he told me a bunch of stuff that, when translated, seemed like they were things I didn’t already know but where actually all things that were presently happening and that I was aware of. One thing he did say was, “you’re going through a hard time right now and in 6 months time, things will be better, they will start getting better in September but they will be better in 6 months.” I took all this with a grain of salt but I have to say, once I made the conscious decision to change my attitude towards my present situation, my life completely transformed and I’ve been happier now than I’ve ever remembered. About a week ago I remembered the words of the guru and did the math and low and behold, it was almost 6 months to the day that things became awesome. I’m not too sure what the “improvement” was in September he was talking about because that span from October to December was rather hellacious but having that allowed me to be in the place I am now, fully open to accepting pure happiness into my life and experiences of all shapes. It’s all been a lesson and it’s all been great, even if it didn’t feel great while the gross was happening but you know, that always changes. Feelings and emotions are fleeting and constantly changing so focusing on the balance has been paramount in my shift and if there is anything I want to take away from this experience, it's finding that! anicca... anicca... ANICCA mother fuckers!
Until later...
xxxxxx
Dirty
