Rise & Shine: Mysore in the Morning

Considering the idea of attending a 7am yoga class might make you shudder and tremble at the thought of the poor souls dragging themselves out of bed and braving the yoga studio first thing whilst most of us are pressing the snooze button and rolling over for another five minutes in bed. But have you ever considered the numerous benefits of an early morning practice? Changing the way you feel about the start of the day can radically change the way you feel for the rest of the day. Begin the day negatively and you've a lot of positivity to catch up on, but start with a strong yoga practice and you are much more likely to hit the ground running, with a calm mind and a spring in your step.

Mysore, the traditional way to practice Ashtanga, is a self led practice - students work through the Ashtanga series at their own pace, with guidance and adjustment from the teacher, who will introduce new postures to the student when the student is ready.

Here's what one of our students, a regular Mysore practitioner, has to say about the practice:

"Mysore does mean an early start - getting up and into the city early on a Monday sometimes requires more discipline than attempting straight legs in the fifth round of Navasana - but I like the peace and tranquillity of Cambridge and Camyoga early in the morning and  really enjoy taking the benefits of  a good practice with me for a full day. If, rather than facing Monday morning with a caffeine fuelled ‘Grrrr’, you fancy starting the week with a parasympathetic ‘Ahhh’ then come to Mysore.

Mysore is the traditional method of practicing Ashtanga and I feel it’s probably the class that puts the most responsibility in the student’s hands. You have to learn the poses and their order since it’s not led - an A4 sheet or a teacher’s prompt will help if you find yourself lost between dogs and dandasanas but I found that with the sequence, mostly, embedded in my mind I am freed to enjoy the practice and ultimately feel more involved with it.

I like the amount of personal attention one gets in the Mysore environment. Because the class is effectively self-led there’s more time for the teacher to spend a few minutes with a student, working on the finer details of whatever asana they’re trying to improve. Over the span of the class I might get 3 or 4 adjustments that I can reflect on, even pause my practice to discuss - this leads to byte-sized instruction that I find easer to retain which is not always possible in a led class.

I can and do practice at home but I really like that I can be in a yogic centre with a teacher present for guidance but still able to personalise and tailor my practice to suit my wishes on the day – if my hamstrings decide to fight the lengthening process, despite my intense efforts to engage the quadriceps, then maybe five breaths isn’t enough – I’ll try eight or nine and see who has the most patience / resilience . . . okay, so there’s always next week for another round in that particular battle!"

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Join Emma Lindsay for A Week of Mysore this March, with daily sessions running from 10th to the 14th. Commit to this traditional practice and uncover the astonishing benefits for yourself. With enough support we aim to bring a regular Mysore class back onto our timetable! Click here to book online

Help us put an end to human trafficking in India with the global event, Yoga Stops Traffick.  All monies donated go to the Obanadi Seva Trust. Camyoga is one of many studios around world that will be partaking in this event.  Unroll your mat and join in 108 sun salutations to raise money and awareness. The event kicks off at 2pm and you can join in or just come and watch or donate.  All are welcome. Check out some pictures of the preparations in Mysore.  The salutations will be led by Obanadi residents at the Mysore Palace:

Whether you dabble in  ashtanga or make it a daily practice, the primary series is a lifelong journey.  It unfolds day by day and piece by piece.  As a set series, the system allows for self-practice and a deep understanding of moving within.

"Practice and all is coming"

-Sri K. pattabhi Jois

Camyoga is a excited to welcome Alan O'leary for a weekend of ashtanga workshops in January. Alan teaches Italian Culture at Leeds University and yoga as a balance to his life.  He brings with him experience in the ashtanga intermediate series and from his time spent in the Shala in Mysore.

His first workshop will be on building strength and stamina in the Primary series and is open to ashtanga practitioners of all levels. The next day's workshop will be on making the second series more accessible.  Non-dogmatic in his approach, Alan will  dispel fear and help you find the ways to approach the primary and second series challenges with confidence and fun.

Alan will also be hosting our Camyoga social evening following his first workshop on Saturday January 21.  We will screen the film, "Guru" featuring the late Pattabhi Jois, and have a talk around the tradition of ashtanga yoga in Mysore.

Don't miss these great workshops and discussion.  Further your ashtanga practice and gain new insight into this tradition.

Book here

New to ashtanga?  Get your feet wet in one of our ashtanga led classes.  Then come along to mysore in the mornings. You will be taught how to build your self-practice. Check out the Camyoga schedule for all of our ashtanga classes with Camyoga's own, Howard Daly and Emma Lindsay.

The 'Yoga Dealer' is coming to Camyoga before he hits the London Yoga Show.  Michael Ganoon trained in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd series of Ashtanga with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.  He now travels the world, teaching, inspiring, and sharing his love of the practice.

Camyoga is thrilled to welcome him on Wednesday October 26 for a workshop on opening your heart and finding the elements of backbending.  You don't have to be a backbending superstar for this session, it's open to all levels and abilities.

Love your ashtanga?  Then Join Michael on Thursday for a Full Ashtnaga Vinyasa Count class. It is a rare opportunity to practice the "full form" with the correct vinyasa count in Sanskrit.  Book here for both events.

Want your ashtanga anywhere? There's an app for that. Michael has released the first ever ashtanga app for iPhone and iPad. This app is personally tried, tested, and approved. It has beginner and advanced options, great pictures and instructions, and simple to use features. Check it out! 

Salute the sun ashtanga style.  Howard demos this key piece of many yoga practices. Having a hard time taking flight?  Look back at some past videos on jumping with Howard. Looking for modifications and conditioning for the salutations?  Check out Louise Lloyd's 4 part video series in the videos section of our blog.  Happy practicing! http://youtu.be/dg4MFHcGLDU

When breakfast looks this good it's hard to skip the most important meal of the day. Come in early for class or stay late after Mysore.  We are dishing up fresh fruit salads. Have it au naturale or with organic yoghurt, granola, nuts/seeds, and honey or agave. Not a fruit and seeds kind of person?  Try Rachel's special scrambled egg recipe.  Or, feel like a kid again with the tahini on toast loaded with banana and honey.

Don't worry if you're not an early bird, breakfast is available throughout the day.  Check out the menu on the cafe tables for more breakfast items and our selection of teas, illy coffees, and fresh made juices.

By Vanessa Menendez-Covelo In the summer of 2005 I travelled to Mysore, Karnataka, India to spend three months studying yoga at Sri K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (then known as Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute). I had discovered Ashtanga yoga in early 2003 during a trip to San Francisco and was instantly hooked. For the next couple of years I developed my practice, first from books and DVDs and then within the Camyoga community.

I visited Mysore for the first time in 2004, but a month there felt like not enough time to absorb and incorporate Guruji and Sharath's teaching and everyone kept telling me that "first month paining, second month tired, third month flying". So I planned for a longer stay of a minimum of three months with an open return ticket should I wish to stay for longer.

The preparations were straightforward: you had to send a letter of intent to the shala (I actually skipped this step!) to which you were not to expect a response. The next step was to book my flight to Bangalore and arrange for a car to drive me to Mysore. At the time, the highway between Bangalore and Mysore wasn't there yet and the road was bumpy and quite perilous. I arrived in Bangalore well past midnight and even though it was my second time, I was still unprepared for how overwhelming it can be to walk out of the door to dozens if not hundreds of Indian men waiting for passengers or trying to pick up some transportation business on the spot.

There had been a mixup with my arrival date and I had to negotiate a price for a new car, extortionately expensive for India but still within the parameters of cheap in terms of British pounds. Four hours later I arrived in Mysore just as the sun set up. I had booked three days of accommodation in a lovely guest house and it didn't take me long to find a great duplex apartment not far from the shala, to share with another yoga student. Being split over two floors, it provided us with privacy since each one of us had a bedroom, bathroom and sitting room but we still benefited from each other's company. The most prized piece of furniture in this flat was an archaic washing machine that you had to fill up using a hose. All this luxury cost me £70 per month!

This was probably one of the busiest summers in the shala for a long time; hundreds of students were there to celebrate Guruji's 90th birthday. Guruji was born on the full moon of Guru Purnima in 1915, which was considered a very auspicious day. For his 90th birthday no expense was spared: all the yoga students were invited to two days of celebrations that involved food, music, charity events, food, and oh did I mention food? Most students dressed in Indian clothes. I had bought two sarees for the ocassion, one in pink and another one in red and green, which I wore with a silk blouse and a cotton petticoat, colour coordinated bangles (12 in each wrist) and jasmine on my hair. Still, it didn't stop a few Indian women from pointing and laughing at the white girl trying to not trip over her clothes on the way back from the party.

In the background of preparing for the party and taking a course on Ayurvedic massage therapy, my yoga practice was developing. It didn't take Sharath long to realize that my nemesis pose was Supta Kurmasana and as Mysore style practice goes, I was instructed to stop my practice at this pose every day. I didn't mind very much because to be honest, it looked so bad: my knees were bent at what felt like 90 degrees, my shoulders refused to slid under my legs, my hands were a mile away from each other and do not get me started on the distance between my ankles. In a Mysore room, Supta Kurmasana is one of the adjustments you are always expected to get, since it is very difficult to get your legs behind your head unless you enter the pose from Dwi Pada, which only Second Series students are allowed to do. So every day I lay there in Kurmasana, feeling the weight of my legs pressing on my arms, quite miserable until Guruji, Sharath or Saraswati came along and tried to wrestle me into the pose, not always successfully.

But Mysore did its magic and little by little the pose came along. It was a very interesting process of letting go and observing the interesting physical side effects. For example, every time Sharath adjusted me I would lose my otherwise very healthy appetite for most of the day. No one, including myself, could understand why this happened. My theory is that Sharath's super strong adjustments were stimulating my inner organs including my pancreas which had some scarring from a horseback riding accident when I was a teenager. With time, this side effect slowly disappeared and once he could tie me in a tidy little knot on a daily basis he started giving me poses until I completed the Primary series during my third month in Mysore.

The rest of the time when I wasn't practicing I was mostly eating, sleeping or talking yoga with the other students, hundreds of them from all corners of the world; some came in groups but most, like myself, came alone and soon made friends. We all had the same passion for this yoga and many had been visiting Mysore regularly for many years. A favourite yoga student hangout was the pool at the Southern Star; Tina and Anu's cafes fed us well with healthy, safe (you have to be careful with the water!) vegetarian food and there were plenty of bookshops and clothes shops downtown to keep us entertained. Many students enrolled in Sanskrit, chanting or Sutras classes, and there were plenty of bodywork treatments to be had for a fraction of the price.

My favourite one was the castor oil massage at the Three Sisters, where you would lie in a plastic sheet on the floor of a hut, with only a cotton cloth to protect your modesty, while Harini oiled you up from head to toe and then, hanging from a rope, walked all over you, digging her heels deeply in those very sore yoga spots: hamstrings, glutes, upper back. Brutal, but very effective!

I had initially set out to stay somewhere between three and six months but once my third month was over, I felt ready to go back home. I now had an established Primary series practice and wanted to take it back to "the real world". My time in Mysore was instrumental in helping me decide what direction I wanted my to take in my life, and it strengthened my faith in this wonderful practice that, if done with faith and devotion...all is coming.