Adventures in Mysore

The next 'hurdle' I needed to overcome was to get to grips with the ashtanga primary series, and find more ways and places to practice (part of my course work includes submitting a monthly diary of how often I have practiced, where, and what my learnings and reflections are).  Mysore was the elephant in the room - a class format I had never tried, which also relies on you being relatively capable in the asana.

Mysore style is named after the traditional method taught by Sri K Pattabhi Jois in the southern Indian city of Mysore.  It is not the 'led' teaching method I am used to, and relies on one-on-one instruction within a group class setting.  Thus as a student you can practice the sequence at your own pace, and receive individual instruction and adjustments based on your progress.

Getting to Glasgow to embrace this within the setting of Merchant City Yoga was proving challenging from a diary perspective, so I looked closer to home, finding a class in Bridge of Allan at The Wee Yoga room that I could manage to fit into my diary.  

Take a brave pill and email....got booked into 2 Thursday classes a week apart, followed by a 'led' class in between.  First hurdle overcome.

Now to actually show up.

I didn't really know what to expect, so arrived stupidly early, along with my print out of the primary series sequence,  to intercept the teacher (Julie Patterson, who it turns out did her initial training with CYS too) and confess that I may be a complete disaster....  As you can expect, she was lovely, and this news didn't phase her in the slightest!

The other students (4 of them) turned up (one of whom turned out to be my friend Pauline (duuuuh)) and we were ushered into the room (which as the name suggests is small), and I quickly ensured I was right at the back!  After a quick run through of the opening chant we were off...... heart rate hits the roof, panic ensues and I promptly forget how to do a sun salutation!  This was only the start of my challenges, as I don't know all the asanas yet, and the print out doesn't tell you when to do the transitions or vinyasas between them.  So hey, I muddled my way through, with Julie kindly keeping me broadly on track and giving me tips which asanas to skip and how to keep moving through, while the rest of the students flowed through with ease and grace.

At least that's the hardest part out of the way, I've found another place to practice and another way to learn.  I wasn't appalling (or at lest Julie didn't tell me I was), and I've a benchmark now to improve from.  I've written some notes on my print out to help me this week, and have tried some more You Tube videos to work on my sequencing.  

Onwards we move!