In order to work on the trouble area,

Here is a sequence of poses for hips and pelvic opening, learnt at the TTC Nirvana Yoga Shala.

1. Adho Mukha Mandukasana (Down Frog)

Face down frog

2. Kailashasana (Mountain)

Mountain Pose

• Open your legs around one leg apart
• Right 90º
• Left 90º
• Low your hips down, tail bone pointing down.

3. Supta Virasana (Reclined Hero)

Reclined hero pose

With bolsters for beginners.

• Kneel down
• Separate your legs
• Seat down in between the legs
• Bend back

4. Ustrasana (Camel)

Camel Pose

Better with blocks for beginners

5. Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge)

Low Lunge Pose o luna creciente

• From downward facing dog, bring Right foot forward in between hands
• Place right knee on the floor
• Stretch arms up, gaze to the fingertips
• Push hips down and front

6. Parivrtta Anjaneyasana (Revolved Low Lunge)

Revolved Low Lunge Pose

7. Virabhadrasana B, adjusted on the wall (Warrior B)

 Warrior B pose

• Separate feet about one 2/3 of your body
• Left straight, Right 90º
• Left heel touching the wall, Right foot separate from wall
• Touch the wall with both buttocks
• Bend right knee, trying to keep buttocks on the wall

8. Baddha Konasana (Butterfly)

Butterfly Pose

9. Malasana (Garland)

Garland Pose

• Open your legs around shoulders distance apart
• Right and Left open 45º
• Go down with hips, tail bone pointing down, spine straight, chin up gaze forward

When I read about the 8 limbs in The Illustrated Light on Yoga the biggest conflict that jumped up and stayed was that we shouldn´t save.

A yogi must have just enough to live today, maybe also tomorrow, but not much more than that.

Because a yogi trusts on his current and future abilities to get enough food to survive.

So you don´t need to save.

And that collapses with my western mindset, where it is important to save, because we don´t know what the future will bring.

You need to save

Why do I need to save?

Because I am not elevated enough.

Only an enlightened yogi, who doesn´t depend on eating for many days straight, who doesn´t need clothing and is detatched from physical necessities can skip saving.

For the rest of us, saving is normal.

And it is recommended.

Especially if you have a family, if you have people that are depending on you.

Because the purpose of life is double:

1. Liberate yourself
2. Help others get liberated

Therefore it is your responsibility to save money and food to feed yourself and the people depending on you.

Saving and donating

During our Philosophy class in the Yoga TTC in Nirvana Shala, the teacher told us that the best option was saving a part of your income and donating the rest that you might not need soon.

«But I never know who to donate to» – I said.

That is also fine.

It´s your responsibility to chose:

1. The right person
2. The right time
3. The right place

You cannot just make your donation to anyone and on anytime, because there is big chance of misuse.

It is also recommended to give hand to hand, not through any intermediaries, because you don´t know what is going to happen to the donated resources.

Also it is important to not keep donating forever, because you create a bad habit and don´t help other people grow. Better follow the chinese proverb:

Don´t just give them fish. Teach them how to fish.

So donating once (and more times) is okay. Donating forever is not okay. 

Therefore, if you can´t find the right person, right time and right place to donate, it is okay to look for it and wait until you find it.

It is also okay to wait until you can develop your own project, your own donation, your own mission.

Find your trouble area and work on it.
You will see amazing improvements in a few days.
(Dr. Shashirekha C.K.)

Yesterday during the practice I experienced 5 minutes of freedom in my hips.

It´s like my hips were not mine.

Like there was not the normal resistance.

It was as if my hips were full of air, and I could move freely, without effort.

Really, Vinyasa was fluent like a breeze.

It all came after these last 2 weeks of intensive practice at the Yoga TTC in Mysore, and especially after the last 2 days of focused work on the hips opening and hamstring stretching.

Following the advice of Dr. Shashirehka, I found my trouble area, worked on it and saw amazing improvements in just a couple of days.

We´ve been in Mysore (India) for less than 2 weeks and this culture is starting to be surprisingly captivating in subtle ways.

Here are just 3 simple things that I have experienced in that sense.

1. Honesty

A taxi picked us up at International Airport of Bangalore to take us during 2.5 hours to Mysore at night.

After one hour our driver asked my wife:

• Madam, my daughter also goes to Mysore. Can she join us in the car?

We agreed.

But I immediately thought that it wouldn´t be his daughter; that it would be some client and that way he would make more money in one trip.

And a couple minutes later I thought to myself:

• Maybe it´s really his daughter. Why should I think bad of him? Just because we do this kind of things in my country?

Finally it was his daughter.

He was an honest man.

And I have seen it once and again. Indians are honest.

Despite how much money they have, despite how they live, despite what we think of them from our very-developed countries, you can trust indians.

2. Energy

A couple days ago, a partner from the course of yoga asked me:

• Don´t you feel lighter in India? Don´t you feel a better energy here than in Europe? Like everything flows easier?

I replied no to everything.

I said I am not that sensitive.

But then, I thought again.

When we just left the airport of Bangalore and saw our taxi driver, he welcomed us with a smile even if it was 4:30 am, even if we had left the airport more than 1.5 hours after the landing because of all the passport and visa controls,.

Two minutes later, I told Marta:

• I feel that this is not the last time that we are coming to India

That was after our first 2 minutes walking in India, just in the car park of the airport.

She said: «Let´s wait and see the country».

And I replied: «It´s only a feeling»

Maybe there is some captivating energy in this country, and maybe I am not that insensitive.

3. Happiness

Whenever there is a conflict, I can see that the principle of indians is:

I prefer to be happy than to be right.

They don´t discuss.

I haven´t seen any of them nervous, histeric.

And they don´t try to be right.

If you say something that they did wrong, that you don´t agree with something or if you say something that they don´t understand, they will smile very kindly and go on with their happy lives.

They don´t care who is right.

They are happy.

The early morning sets the mood for the day.

1. Go to bed early the previous night
2. Wake up before the sunrise, you get all the energy in the atmosphere for the new day
3. Go to the washroom and get rid of all the waste from the day before
4. Practice yoga, 45-90 minutes, including pranayama and meditation
5. Get a warm shower
6. Have your breakfast

Traditionally my morning routine was very similar.

I had 40 minutes reading and less physical exercise, about 10 minutes, but for the rest it was quite similar.

I still like reading 5 minutes of philosophy of yoga before practicing asanas, because it sets the right attitude for the practice.

When you show yourself vulnerable,

People connect with you immediately,

They connect with your soul.

Share your fears, your frustrations, your emotions….

Not only will people give you their advice to your doubts / problem / question,

But also you will receive support, sometimes from people you didn´t expect, usually much bigger than you could imagine.

Practice of asanas without the backing of yama and niyama (ethics and individual discipline) is mere acrobatics.

The Illustrated Light on Yoga (Iyengar)

I came to Mysore to do a Yoga Teacher´s Traing Course, in order to become a Yoga teacher.

From the beginning, I feel almost retarded because I am not as flexible as most of the people.

I know: I am a trunk.

But Yoga is not about being flexible.

It is also not about making postures.

Yoga is a way of living, a way to keep your mind clear.

Asanas (postures), pranayama (breathing) and meditation are the necessary techniques to keep your body healthy and energetic, and to clear your mind and let it focus on here and now.

Life can be stressful.

Our minds run aroud like a wild animal and can make our lives miserable.

Yoga is the tool that helps us calm our minds down and connect body, mind and soul.

It´s not about being flexible or making the best asanas.

I still have to interiorize this, believe it for real.

Because I still believe that I cannot be a good Yoga teacher if I am not flexible.

When you are the last one in the group,

There´s is one sure thing:

You have a lot of room to improve.

I tend to judge myself and hate me when everybody around does things better than I do.

It´s much better to treat myself gently, accept that I am in my own process of learning, appreciate that I have people around with better skills, keep going on with my process and  learn from them, kindly.

This is no competition.

With your students, be strict, but be gentle. Be loving.

Same with yourself:

Be strict, but be gentle.

Be loving.

Be disciplined.

If we were not disciplined at all, soon we would end up living in the street, with months-long beard, fat and laying on the ground.

So be disciplined.

Take care of yourself, do your work, practice some sports, eat properly.

But at the same time also be loving.

Don´t demand to much from yourself.

Be to yourself the way that you want to be to others.

If a friend comes to you saying he can´t do something, you are probably not going to say that he is stupid and that he should be able to do it. More probably you would say that we all have our times, our process, and that he should be gentle with himself and learn at his own pace, step by step.

Be to yourself like that.

Speak to yourself in that loving and understanding way.

For the past 4 or 5 years I have felt bored and lonely often.

I felt bored

Business was working more or less on autopilot.

I had a lot of free time and didn´t know what to do with it. I didn´t get any special satisfaction from work, but I also didn´t know what else I could do to have more fun.

So I travelled and walked a lot.

I felt lonely

Before getting married is more or less normal, because I was lonely.

But even after getting married.

I demanded from my wife that she paid more attention to me, instead of to her interests. Even if I knew that that was not right. I felt jealous when she dedicated time to friends. And I felt that I was just running behind her because I didn´t have anything better to do. So I felt useless, like a burden.

The tipping point

One day my wife (who never gets mad and is always in good mood) got mad at me because of my attitude.

That was the tipping point.

I saw very clearly that I couldn´t be doing that to my wife, that if I continued like that I was putting in risk our beautiful marriage, and that I was harming a beautiful person that was guilty of nothing.

The simple decision that solved both problems

I finally saw that I had to get involved into something that I wanted to do.

That´s when I made the decision.

I had 2 options:

1. Start a hostel
2. Follow the path of yoga

Starting a hostel was not an option in that moment.

First because the world was still recovering from Covid. And second because we were still finishing two renovations of our flats, and thinking of buying, renting or renovating a house in order to make a hostel felt like a huge thing, too big for us in that moment, in terms of energy and money.

Therefore the decision was clear: I would follow my interest for yoga.

I decided that I would become a Yoga Teacher

Ever since:

• I don´t feel bored. The day is too short to work, practice yoga, read about yoga and take care of the family, all of which are very meaningful
• I don´t feel lonely. I am very happy when my wife meets friends, because she is happy and because I can either join them and have fun or make use of the time for myself, for my things.

So having a goal and pursuing it solved my two biggest problems of the previous 4-5 years.

But I needed some time and especial conditions.

Sometimes we have to see the consequences of our actions or inactions.