I am back from South India, reeling from jet lag, sorting through the visuals in my mind, and processing various feelings floating around in my heart. This blog post touches upon the yoga we experienced as a group while traveling throughout South India. I say “touch upon” because I don’t think I can ever convey exactly what our overall yoga experience in India was like.

I came across the following lines while reading Jeannette Winterson. She writes these words as she is reflecting on her life. Her words remind me again why I love yoga so much.  Yoga helps me to savor each and every moment in life. Yoga, especially while touring in India, gives me permission to slow down and be in the present moment. These thoughts come through in my teaching:

Why have we learned to hurry through every day when every day is all we have?

Every yoga session I led in India was unique. I’d show up for the yoga session, planning to teach a certain sequence, but, often, the environment took over and influenced me to intuitively sketch out a completely different sequence to teach.  In other words, the environment often influenced our place-specific class themes so we ended up having classes we called Monkey Yoga, Peacock Yoga, Rice Barge Yoga, Hummingbird-Sized Bomber-Bee Yoga (yeah really…you try doing calming yoga in the presence of bomber bees so big they look as if they could take your nose off (Thank you, Jayne for the “take your nose off” description. I told you I’d use it because you weren’t exaggerating!). We were reassured by hotel staff that they don’t sting unless provoked which didn’t sit well with any of us!). There was also Pool Yoga, Windy Beach Yoga, and Sunrise Yoga.

At other times, our yoga sessions were performance inspired. For example, after we watched the martial arts performance known as Kalaripayattu, I added some postures I observed during the performance. Many of these poses were Horse Pose-related moves and hip openers.  I also added a side-thigh thunderous slapping action which was part of the martial arts performance. We had so much fun doing that move! We discovered that side-thigh slapping really wakes you up and makes you feel invincible! No wonder the martial arts men could jump eight feet high!

Going to the temples to see ancient carvings inspired me to give the stories associated with the asanas, including stories of Virabhadra the Avenging Warrior and Kartikeya, Ganesha’s brother who searched and searched to find the center of the universe (he didn’t find it but Ganesha did!), and Shiva the Dancer of the cosmic universe and father of yoga.  Hanuman carvings gave rise to the Monkey Pose, aka the splits. Arjun’s Penance wall carving panel gave rise to a new meaning of Tree Pose.

Our yoga sessions were held outside in a variety of locals: courtyard gardens, next to swimming pools, on a floating rice boat in the backwaters of Kerala, and in a dedicated yoga studio called a “Yoga Hall” in India in the magical lush green jungle of Cardamom Hills.

In India Yoga is most often described as individual union with cosmic energy. I spoke to Arvind about yoga in India today. He says that yoga is definitely a part of most everyone’s life in India. Yoga is not necessarily about doing asana. It is more about meditation, clearing one’s mind, and living yoga, or the union of the individual with the greater cosmic energy. Yoga is acknowledging and feeling the divine within oneself and every living being. Arvind’s mother meditates.  Her meditation is a silent prayer. When Arvind was a child, his mother taught her children how to sit still in a meditative pose, how to clear the mind, how to meditate. Like Arvind, most children in India learn yoga from early childhood.

Below are some photos from our South India 2020 Yoga Experience:

1) Most of the time, we did morning yoga. But in Mahabalipuram, we had an afternoon yoga session and it was hot out.  The pool was so inviting.  No one else was in the pool. Just us.  Pool Yoga made perfect sense. I’ve done Pool Yoga in various places during yoga retreats.  Water adds much fun to the yoga practice.  Here we have twists, arching, half moon, and floating shavasana. At the end of our session, we did a lovely Om which reverberated throughout the resort.

We had two morning yoga sessions in Mahabalipuram held on a wooden platform overlooking the beach. The first session was called Windy Beach Yoga because it was so darned windy. We dedicated the session to Vayu, god of the wind, father of Hanuman. The next day was called Sunrise Yoga. The sun was a giant ball of red and orange fire. A lot of people on the beach and passers-by paused to do yoga with us from their beach chairs or from the beach.

In Tiruchirappalli, I had to do some yoga poses at the temples, especially considering that my outfit matched the temple perfectly!

Then in Madurai, we had Peacock Yoga. The wild peacocks roam the grounds of the hotel and graced our yoga sessions! The peacock, the mayura (and so we have many forms of peacock poses in yoga, most of which are fairly advanced) is the Indian national bird and a symbolizes grace, pride, and beauty. The peacock is Brahma’s winged vehicle. It is fun to do yoga with the peacocks.

In Tekkady, we had our own Yoga Hall and we called the yoga sessions Monkey Yoga because the monkey families were hanging around in the jungle trees just outside our yoga hall.  How often did we stop our session just to watch the mammas and babies hanging out in the trees?

Little monkey brothers, thinking up their next mischievous move! Here they are looking inthe window, probably trying to figure out how to get in.

We had very relaxing yoga on the rice barge / houseboat in Kumarakom. The tranquil waters of Kerala add to the dream-like atmosphere of complete calm. Rice Barge Yoga

And the theme for houseboat yoga meditation has to do with the title of this blog post (I hope you read this blog through so you don’t miss out on the BEST part). While on the houseboat (just like the one above), I did a Loving Kindness Meditation for the group.  Call to mind the people in the list below.

  • oneself
  • people you love
  • people you consider neutral in your life or people whose paths cross with yours (perhaps co-workers or the checkout person at the Trader Joe’s)
  • all living beings, including the difficult people in your life

For each person or people above, including yourself, you will say the following beautiful thoughts:

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you always be a source of love, light, and joy.

May your life unfold with ease.

Namaste, Fran

www.frangallo.com