Overwhelmed

I got the books yesterday and I’ve been browsing through and taking a quick glance at them (in Spanish: “hojeándolos y ojeándolos“, two homophones. That’s it for today’s lesson). All of them have instantly become favourites, despite that I haven’t read any of them from cover to cover. They are loaded with lots of useful information and I really recommend them to anyone planning to do a teacher training or just deepening their personal practice.

The ones by the Mohans are excellent textbooks which serve as nice introductions to yoga and its therapeutic applications. The more I read about them and the more I get to know about their work, I can’t help but think that they are being greatly overlooked. The books are packed with graphics and charts and lots of valuable tips and information.

The ones on instructing, assisting and adjusting will undoubtedly prove to be exceptionally useful once I start teaching because there’s lots of practical information in both of them. I like how the information for each pose is presented in “Instructing Hatha Yoga“, especially the kinetic aspects. Despite not being as thorough, “Yoga Posture Adujstments and Assisting” is an excellent complement to the former because its graphics are somewhat clearer, making it easier to understand where to “push and pull” at a glance.

Yoga Journal’s “Yoga as Medicine“, by Dr. McCall, looks promising. First of all, it’s huge yet unbelievably cheap (600 pages for less than 15 bucks!). Secondly, it covers an aspect of Yoga that I find extremely interesting and in a rigorous way. Instead of using an authroritative tone, the author simply explains that Yoga can many times help when Western medicine fails.

Finally, Donna Farhi’s book on the Ethics of teaching yoga is my least favourite. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great one and it’ll be nice to own it in case I find myself in a delicate situation. It’s just that most of what she shares is commonsense and I don’t think I’ll have to face all those problems, either.

Now, I don’t know where to start!

Bitter

My best friend leaves tomorrow, heading to Amsterdam, where he’s spending a few months working on his final year project. He came over today to say goodbye and it was a little awkward for both. We’ve known each other since age 4 and have been best friends for almost half of our lives. We’ve fallen out a couple of times and there’s still things about him that piss me off but I’ve come to accept him the way he is. I know I’ll miss him because he’s my only real friend and, even if we don’t hook up as often lately, we always try to find the way to squeeze some time to chat.

He’s trying to convince me to pay him a visit sometime in November and I’m really keen on the idea because it sounds really fun. However, I still have to ponder whether I should do it. First of all, I don’t know if I can afford it. I still have to pay a couple of installments of the teacher training and I’ve just bought tickets to pay my grandma a visit in December (she lives in Galicia, in Northern Spain). Sure, there won’t be many more chances to spend a week in Amsterdam not having to pay for accomodation – still, the tickets aren’t cheap and they obviously won’t be the only expenses. Besides, I’ll be travelling alone, because The Girlfriend can’t afford it and, as much as I’d love to pay for her costs, it isn’t possible. The good thing about that is that it’ll be just the two of us and that sounds lots of fun. The downside is that I know we’ll miss each other (we’re that silly) and I will feel slightly guilty because I won’t be seeing her much during the teacher training, either. We’ll see.

Other than that, there’s not much to say. I’ve been feeling really guilty over my academic life these days. This should’ve been my final year but I’m only halfways. I’ve been very slack this past year and though I’m trying to make it up in the September tests, I know it won’t make me feel any better. I haven’t made my mind up yet as to whether this is what I want to do but, mainly out of inertia, I’m still on the boat. I feel the need to take control of my life for once and for all yet I keep procrastinating day after day. Someone please wake me up!

Chillin’

I’ve been spending these past few days in the apartment I mentioned in my last post. I’ve been studying, reading a lot about yoga and just relaxing and disconnecting from the world. I came back home today because I’ve got some errands to run tomorrow in the morning but after that I’l go back there at least until Thursday (The Girlfriend’s birthday).

I practised yoga there on Wednesday. I did Pilates on Thursday and Sunday. I would have practised yoga again today but:

- It’s New Moon
- I had a birthday party (had lots of fun)

On a different note, I finally ordered some of the books I had on my wishlist:

- Yoga Journal’s “Yoga as Medicine“
- “Yoga Posture Adjustments and Assisting” by Stephanie Pappas
- “Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship” by Donna Farhi
- “Instructing Hatha Yoga” by Kathy Lee Kappmeier

The first one is pretty new and the reviews sound good. I’m interested in the therapeutic use of yoga and that one looks like a reliable source of information. The other 3 books are all aimed at yoga teachers and, being a newbie, I’m sure they’ll come handy.

I also ordered the two books by A.G. Mohan:

-”Yoga Therapy“
-”Yoga for Body, Breath, and Mind“

They’ll be selling both of them here, during the teacher training but I just couldn’t wait until then. After all, the Mohans are going to be my teachers and I’d like to have some background. Can’t you tell I’m eager for the course to start?

Can’t Stand Wasting Time

And that comes from a self-proclaimed procastinator.

Don’t you just hate it when something you know will only last 5 minutes gets delayed longer and longer and ends up ruining you a whole morning or afternoon? Well, that’s precisely what happened to me yesterday.

You see, my mother works for a small (almost familiar) company that owns a couple of apartments near the beach. Employees can use them for free whenever they want, which is great. There’s one apartment in particular that nobody ever goes except my family (it sometimes feels as if it were our own). It’s tiny and old but the building has two swimming pools, a tennis court… It’s our small retreat.

The thing is Mom recently decided that she couldn’t bear another night sleeping in those utterly uncomfortable, backache-inducing beds and resolved to buy some new ones. She finally bought them two weeks ago but it wasn’t until yesterday that they could take them to the apartment. Someone had to be in there when they arrived and, of course, that was me.

The last thing on my mind was that they’d arrive not 10 or 20 minutes late but a whole 4 hours and a half. And they didn’t even call to let us know they’d be late, it was Mom who had to (repeatedly) ring them until she got an answer and an explanation. When they finally got there, they didn’t apologise, despite knowing we don’t live there and that I had gone exclusively to be there when they arrived.

My plans to practise once back home (which was supposed to be at 5 or so) were, of course, cancelled. We were both in such a bad mood (my girlfriend had gone to the apartment with me) that we just had dinner and went to bed. I was seriously pissed off.

I’ve just done some Pilates and then I have to prepare my bags because we’re staying at the apartment for a week starting tomorrow. It’ll be the three of us (Elvis the Frenchie is coming, too) and I’m so looking forward to it.

BE

B is for busy, E is for exhausted

In my previous post, I wrote that I’d be having a busy day on Thursday and that I didn’t know if I’d be able to practise. Well, the day ended up being even more hectic than I had first thought. I woke up early and, after walking the dog, I had my hair cut. Then I went out and washed the car. Back home, I sat on my desk to study Anatomy for a couple of hours. After lunch, I took the car to its first MOT test and afterwards came back home again, earlier than I had expected. It was then when I squeezed a 1-hour long practice. I did a slightly modified version of Primary Series (because I was short on time) and then ran to the Spa I work in to teach 2 Pilates classes in a row. As I’ve said, I’m on vacation but my boss asked me to sub her before I left last Tuesday (although it was meant to be only for an hour). I’m good like that.

After all this rush and activity, I slept like a baby and didn’t for a moment consider practising yesterday. I was sore and preferred not to overdo it. I studied some more Anatomy and read a few more chapters of “The Heart of Yoga” by Desikachar.

On the subject of books, I’d like to share my current Amazon wishlist with you. I plan to place an order this month and I’d love it if any of you out there shared your opinion, in case you own or have read any of the following:

- “The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga” by Srivatsa Ramaswami
- Yoga Journal’s “Yoga as Medicine“
- “Yoga Posture Adjustments and Assisting” by Stephanie Pappas
- “Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship” by Donna Farhi
- “Instructing Hatha Yoga” by Kathy Lee Kappmeier

Lots Of Yoga Reading

Today, I’ve spent most of the day reading. I went through a few chapters of Desikachar’s “The Heart Of Yoga” and Tara Fraser’s “Total Yoga” as well. I’ve had them both for a couple of years and have read them from cover to cover but I want to use this time on vacation to get a clear picture of the basics of yoga in preparation for the course. The Mohans studied directly with Krisnamacharya, Desikachar’s father, so their ideas have a common root. “The Heart Of Yoga” is one of my favourite yoga books and I think he does an excellent job in thoroughly explaning the most important aspects of yogic philosophy. Besides, the book is completed with Patanjali’s “Yoga Sutra” with Desikachar’s commentary.

No practice today. I intended to practise right after helping The Girlfriend do some Pilates but I wasn’t really in the mood and it had got a bit too late. I’m having a busy day tomorrow but I’ll still try to squeeze an hour of yoga before lunch. Not necessarily Ashtanga, by the way, as I’m trying to make my yoga practice more varied. I’ll design a short vinyasa-style asana sequence favouring standing postures and twists, things I’m not getting much of with Pilates. We’ll see how that goes.