Learnings about Yoga and Me

Apart from software professionals, indian curry and ofcourse bollywood the biggest export India has had is Yoga... my interest in yoga was not kindled till I went to London...until then I had always heard of friends doing yoga and always imagined them in some yogic pose somewhere in the crowded streets of Mumbai....It was however in london that I actually saw yoga classes being conducted... and it all looked so calm....there were strong controlled motions, people balancing on one leg as if it was always the way God intended it..... and then ofcourse the meditation pose which always made me feel like I was missing something....

So it was not such a tough decision for me to join yoga classes.... finally I was going to get back to my roots and get a feel of yoga in India itself rather see some foreign lady doing it in front of me.... so with images of myself in calm yogic poses including ofcourse the balancing act on one foot I joined the highly acclaimed Bharat Thakur artistic yoga classes....

Only to discover a few facts about yoga and me ... firstly I cannot cheat as much in yoga as I could while I was gyming…. and the strong controlled motions are neither strong nor controlled when I DO IT.... and balancing on one foot is a lot more difficult than the yogis or the ladies from London make it look…. They are either experts or they really have big feet!!!!

But it also makes me really proud of the fact that our ancestors knew their stuff...long before any scientific discoveries were made..our ancestors knew which vein goes where, how the mind functions, what effect an image can have on the brain and most importantly how important it is to ensure that you treat your body well….

Ofcourse after a class pride in myself is a thot far far away from my mind… especially when I walk out of the class looking like I have just been in a bad street fight…. Or when I fall ignominiously on the floor while trying to do the one legged act… or when the instructor asks me what I do for a living and on hearing it asks “all the faces and noises that you make while doing yoga – do you use them in your profession as well?”….. hmmm… she might actually have a point there….

Anyways, I hope to redeem myself sometime soon….. today for the first time I did 25 “Suryanamaskarams” without supervision…. I hope to be doing 40 of them tomorrow….. and No People ...these are not the easier exercises … you can ask any yogi... a good one that is...