Our flat

After the first few days in Agonda I moved into a three bedroom flat with Joanna who I met in Mysore and her friend Laure who came to visit for a couple weeks. Both are tall, smart, gorgeous women from Switzerland. They speak English with me but are used to speaking in French together. So I am listening and learning and sometimes Laure gives me vocab lessons. I feel incredibly blessed to spend so much time in their company.

Our flat is cuuuuute! I wish it could be my house back in the states. It's got cool marble floors, a pink and blue banister surrounding the sweet covered porch, a small kitchen, and a balcony out back where you can glimpse the ocean and hear the waves. We make amazing fruit salads with muesli or granola for breakfast and eat them out in the breeze. Downstairs our landlords are a quiet old fisherman who sits cross legged repairing his nets in the afternoon and his absolutely gorgeous wife who gives the warmest smiles.

In a couple days I fly out of Goa to Delhi and from there I'm headed to Rishikesh to study with another certified ashtanga teacher named Louise Ellis for the month of March. I have absolutely loved being part of this slow little beach town and now I'm excited for the change of pace and some fresh scenery. But one thing I know for sure is that I'll miss this flat and these lovely women.

front porch

the flat

lil bed

balcony view

when we come home at night

the neighbor

I wish I knew

cathedral

netting

downstairs

Jo

beach sketchin

Self practice

In Agonda, where I have no main teacher or yoga shala, I am developing my self practice. There is a different kind of discipline required to get up and practice on my own, and when I am done a different sense of accomplishment.

When practicing in a large group there is an energy that builds and carries me in a way. And the relationship I have with my teachers is like that of an athlete with a coach. My teachers know my body, the postures I struggle with, when to push me and where to ease up.

So practicing on my own can seem daunting. The biggest challenge of self practice is keeping my head in it and not getting lazy. I must find inner motivation to push myself to the limits where improvement happens.

I think self practice is valuable. Much of what I need to improve my asanas (yoga postures) is simply time: time for muscles to lengthen and strengthen, for breathing and focus to develop. So there is much that I can work on by myself. And self practice helps me realize that yoga is my lifestyle, not just a class that I take. It is part of who I am. No matter where I am in the world I bring my practice with me.

I also love getting to do my self practice with a few friends. Here I've been lucky to get to practice next to friends who are actually yoga teachers. Sometimes they even give me an adjustment or two.

I have also gone to a few Ashtanga-based drop-in classes. The teachers often modify the Ashtanga primary series to make it a little less lengthy and challenging. These classes give me a different perspective on the strength of my practice. In the shala in Mysore I often felt like a complete newbie next to people with astoundingly powerful practices. In these drop-in classes I get to experience what it is like to have one of the more developed practices in the room. I relish in my straight legged Utthita Hasta Padangustasana and unwavering Sirsasana. The other day during a drop-in the teacher said "If it looks like some people in the class have been doing this everyday it's probably because they have." And I thought: yeah, I have. And it's working.

lovely Agonda

I am living now in Agonda in southern Goa. Agonda is a small relaxed town, much more laid back than Anjuna. Everything is situated on a road right along the beach and I can walk everywhere I need to go, or take a rickshaw if I want to visit Palolem, a bigger town not too far away.

 I found a very sweet place to live: a room connected the house of a cute Goan family. The room has its own entrance and bathroom and my favorite part is the lovely porch. My neighbors are a nice older man from Germany who rents the other guest room, and the family of course. They are several generations living together and I mainly talk to Elisa the matriarch, and her daughter because they speak the best english.

 

My days begin with yoga. Sometimes self practice with my friend Joanna on the beach or alone on the porch, and sometimes a drop in class that in offered on a beautiful balcony just a 20 minute walk down the road.

And they end with the sunset. Cliche perhaps but it is truly amazing. I think I had forgotten how magical it is when that big burning entity too bright for the eyes becomes a small gold coin touching the distant waters before it slips out of sight faster than you'd think.

Ofrendas (de Anjuna)

Abandoned house

The other day after dinner at Blossom Foods (my favorite place to eat in Anjuna) my friend Joanna and I decided to skip the taxi and walk home. Here in Goa there are many beautiful old houses and often they look quite derelict.

We climbed the fence to visit one that seemed to have been abandoned for a long time. Big and gorgeous once. I imagined the family that must have lived here, sat on the porch, kids playing in the yard.

 There was so much old stuff lying around. Pots and branches and nails...it was beautiful

Four elusive peacocks hid when as we walked around back. I picked up some of their tiny underside feathers with green-gold tips.

We dearly wished to see the inside and tried peering in the windows. Then all of a sudden Joanna gasped and grabbed my arm. "I saw a face!" she whispered. Yes, there was someone inside. We were terrified for a moment. I could hardly believe that it was not in fact abandoned. My first instinct was to run but instead we got up the courage to go around front and knock on the front door. It took a while and a couple more knocks before the door opened a hair and then a little more. A woman's face peeked out. She was small, Indian, older but not ancient. I wish I'd taken her photo but I felt it would be rude. We told her we admired her house and she spoke to us in perfect English. She seemed embarrassed that it was so out of sorts, told us she was born in Africa, that she'd lived here for a long time. I wanted to see the inside but didn't ask. We thanked her and left.

Jo and I thought how nice it would be to go back and bring a gift to her. We daydreamed about having tea inside the house and listening to her stories. But we didn't go back. And now we are gone.