Crowded house

There were about 14 students in mysore this morning, the most I've witnessed in a long time.

Now that there is light early in the morning, I think people are starting to return to their practices. At first I thought it was the beginning of an exodus of students from The Other Studio that is currently on the selling block, but there were only two possible refugees that I noticed (Carl being one of them). The rest of the gang were regulars and semi-regulars.

I'm really hoping that the Diver will have more students making the switch and coming to our shala, but as Pi'ikea mentioned, there's a part of me that is selfish and wants to keep the class sizes small enough for focused attention on ME, ME, ME!

It's funny that I used to fear being the only one in class when I first started going to his classes. I wasn't used to getting so many intense adjustments. Now, I want as much instruction as I can get. Often, it's just one or two adjustments he does on any given day.

This video above is kinda cool. I know, models doing yoga. Try not to hate them for being so twisty and beautiful. Agustin's not too much like a mannequin though and his accent makes him seem so sweet.

This morning the Diver did a similar backbending partner yoga pose with me that opened up my chest and upper back tremendously. He didn't twirl me around and it wasn't so intimate, but it was good.

Angry Fruit

Our friends Karim and Laura, who stayed with us in Bali, are adventurous travelers. One of the things that Karim likes to search for is unusual, tropical fruit.

Salak, or snake fruit, was a great find of his. Indigenous to Indonesia and Malaysia, it has reddish-brown scales that make it look like snake skin. Pretty scary looking. But when you peel off the skin, you'll find three white lobes resembling large garlic cloves and a round, black pit. The taste is actually pretty good--crisp and juicy with a sweet-tart taste, sort of like a lime.












Now here is the durian, one of the angriest looking fruits around. Also, the most controversial. Considered the king of all fruits in SE Asia, you either love or hate them. Karim, who loves them, was on the hunt for the Indonesian version. It has bigger and longer spikes than the one in this picture.

I had forgotten that my partner had not tried this fruit before. After dinner, we all gathered around to marvel and open this thing, but my partner had to flee the table, because its smell, similar to rotting socks, had overwhelmed him. It's too bad he didn't notice that the Indonesian durian actually has some additional fruity notes to it. With a bit of coaxing and much taunting, he did come back to try the sweet, custardy insides. He wasn't completely sold on it, but hey, Karim and I loved it.

Photo credits to giftrap.com and mission-base.com

Memories of Bali

After our big safari adventure in South Africa, we relaxed for six glorious days in the seaside town of Amed on the east side of Bali. It's a 2.5 hour drive from the big city of Denpasar, where tourists and surfers flock to their famous white sandy beaches.

Here's a backview of the villa we rented for our friends and family. You can see part of the pool in the lower right hand corner.

A view of the verdant rice fields next door.











Our guide who took us out fishing for mackerel at 5:00 am.















A Balinese dancer whose dramatic eye, hand and foot movements signify different meanings and emotions, and are tightly synchronized with ethereal bell-like gamelan music.

Just in case yoga isn't hard enough for you

How about doing yoga on a inch-wide slackline? Looks like a great way to practice a singular focus.

Where I've been

Can't believe that I'm sick again.

I was fine last week, but then my allergies hit me big. Runny nose, sneezing, scratchy eyes. I wasn't feeling great, but I got through work. Yesterday, the congestion traveled down my chest and stayed there when I got up this morning. No yoga.

I'll spare you all the details, but basically I've been sleeping all day. I feel too weak even to do some restorative yin poses.

I need to drain my nose now.

One of the hardest poses ever

I think it was one of my old, sadistic Iyengar teachers who said that savasana was the hardest pose EVAH.

I have to admit it is pretty difficult for me too, because I hover so closely between sleep and consciousness during the day anyway. And when I get to savasana after an exhausting practice, I just conk out.

At the end of this morning's practice I decided to go for it. I was so tired from the weekend of activities; I didn't even have a catch-up nap on Saturday to get me through the coming week. So after doing my half 2s, I pulled out my Hello Kitty lucky eye pillow (made by ever craft-y Laksmi) and immediately flaked out for 15 minutes. Just what I needed.

Lax came for her first mysore in a long time (Yay!). She even noticed that I took this unusual rest and mentioned that I snored. Not too loud, but loud enough. Yeah, I'm a snorer. Sorry! I apologize to everyone who's ever been in a class with me and had to endure it, past, present and future.

At least I didn't pop a boner like the dude in the pic. Photo credits go to Bindu Magazine.

Oh yes, where did we last leave off?

I got distracted with other posts and forgot to continue posting pics from my trip.

Well, this is a nice one (not mine, from http://www.tallestbuildingoftheworld.com/). From the safari near Johannesburg, S.A. we flew 10 hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for an overnight stop before going to Bali. We had a chance to walk around and check out these 88-storey twin towers. The observation deck which joins the two is on the 41st floor. This sky bridge does feel like a bit of a sky walk as you take in the near 360 view degree view. On ground level there is a high-end shopping mall (that made me happy even though I didn't buy anything) and also a symphony hall (which made my partner very happy but we ended up not going).

OK, so people there seem to very proud of this building, but I know there will be comments by architectual critics from Lax's blog. Have at it!

I have to mention that the KL airport has got to be one of the best in the world. Has anyone else been there? It's so smartly laid out and the service is unbelievably amazing and efficient. When we arrived, we took a half-hour train ride that takes you into central area. When we got out at the train station, there were young porters who enthusiastically offer to help you to get a cab or whatever. We were prepared to schlep our bags and stumble our way over to Le Meridien Hotel, thinking we would have to grab a cab. But instead he said it was just next door to the station and walked over with us right up to the registation desk with our luggage cart. Boy, it's this kind of attention and service that is so welcoming after a long plane ride.

Here's a view of the water park below:















Here are some other quick pics:


The main drag in Chinatown where you can get fake watches, "Louis Vuitton" handbags and other fun things.

Some random graffiti on the wall of a train station.

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Back to yoga. I was practising this Sunday morning at Ashtanga Yoga Vancouver. It got pretty crowded in that little space, but it was nice and warm which opened up my body considerably. There were two fellows adjusting. I didn't get anything heavy duty, which is what I would have preferred anyway. They don't know me; I don't know them. That last thing I need is someone to sit on me in supta kurmasana and shred the piriformis muscle in the right hip area (which is what someone did to me in NY a few years ago). But I'm okay now, since I've been able to relearn how to walk. ;)

Dude, where's my true self?

OK, so here's another lazybones check-it-out post. Sorry. Hope you'll feel it was worth watching nonetheless. (And no, I'm not refunding 3 minutes of your life back!) It's a movie trailer by a filmmaker who thinks anyone who does yoga will become "transformed." So she gets this somewhat sceptical guy from NY as the subject of her film to try different kinds of yoga around the country and finally to Mysore with the Man, all in the hopes that he will become "enlightened." According to the summary, things don't quite go as expected. But hijinks and much introspection do ensue.

Bet you thought I was going to post about The Love Guru with Mike Myers, eh? Well, you can find that yourself on Youtube. It's okay. This other movie has a considerably smaller budget, so I don't mind plugging it. Let me know what you think. I can't really tell if it's going to be good or bad.