One more!

Today ends my first full week of practice here - this week everyday so far has been mysore style, but today is a led class and tomorrow is a rest day. Remember that first day when I said that I touched my heels in urdvha dhanurasana - well I think I must have been touching Sharath's feet or maybe the person next to me - because that is not happening. Yesterday I think my left foot felt the air move a little bit from my left hand flailing around in it's vicinity but I think that is about as close as it is getting. My focus everday is to do all the vinyasas correctly, so breathing. On my first two days Sharath corrected the following things:

• to narrow my stance in trikonasana
• not to spread my fingers (oh by the way I saw him correct a persons closed hand in marichiasna a - told him to open it up)
• and to close my heels in urdvha mukha paschimattonasana - which has opened up a whole new world for me as it applies to a lot of postures
  

But get ready for this: I've not gotten one adjustment this week - what, I travel half way around the world, pay $700 for a month of yoga classes, I mean the least they can be doing is adjusting me - right? In fact pretty much the only interaction between them and me is when they yell "one more!" and I jump up to try to find the spot they are talking about. That is not to say that Sharath and Saraswathi are sitting around drinking latte's, quite the opposite they are pretty much full-on helping what seems closer to maybe 200 people batching through that room each morning. (I asked the coconut guy who brings his cart to the shala how many coconuts he goes through each morning and he said 300!) I think it is Tim Miller who says something like "the practice is the teacher" and that is really how I feel. I feel like I'm getting adjusted, and corrected in every posture practically each day.

The teachers Sharath and Saraswathi are holding the sanctity of the practice and the space for me and they will tell me when I need to work on something else either by adjusting me or otherwise and until then I have plenty to do. It makes me believe even more that this practice works best in the mysore style and that it WORKS. It is also being strongly reinforced in me how important it is to do the postures in their order, not skipping around. There are plenty of people here who are stopping at one of the marichiasana's. My one friend Jonathon who I will tell you about later came here after 6 weeks of Ashtanga, and feeling like he can barely complete 10 surya namaskaras, after one week is is already up to marichiasana a, and I suspect he will stay there for quite some time until he can bind, which I have no doubt he will do. It is inspiring to watch him.