Some ayurvedic advice

No practice today, but the shoulder is much better, I can breathe without pain, and move reasonably well. I had another massage and am looking forward to tomorrow morning, back on the mat. Bodies are all different and all of them need a rest now and again, I know a few people taking time out right now, just a day or so. The practice is there to enrich life no make us a slave to it. With no practice I couldn't justify eating banana pancake this morning though!

Tabla class was loads of fun, it's hard because you really really need to concentrate and you need to be able to empty your mind and focus only on the rythm. I can do this only for a few minutes at a time. I am still trying to coordinate my mind, fingers and hands. Where you hit the drum matters very much, and with how many fingers, and how hard. Who knew having 2 hands 8 fingers and 2 thumbs could be such a headache! Practice makes me passable right now, which means that I need to practice a whole lot more. I might come and practice with Ganesh at some point.

Last night I was speaking to Anu and mentioned that I had really liked desert the night before. She took me to the kitchen and gave me a big bowl of it to take home. I feel utterly spoilt here. I have been eating Anu's food the whole time I've been here, it's wonderful, and she does a good cooking class. (btw I am not going to be sharing the bowl of desert I have in the fridge, so don't even ask).

Ayurveda class was excellent Dr Nagaraj is a very sweet man and is a fountain of knowledge. Today we looked at the 3 doshas and how things are diagnosed. Anything above the chest is kapha, in the middle of the body pitta, and at the bottom part of the body vata. A headache however is considered a vata problem, because it is pure pain, there can be no pain without vata. The lower abdomen is treated to remedy this using purging methods. Paralysis is also a vata problem he said. Anything diagnosed as Kapha is treated through vomiting, because certain methods make the badness gather in the stomach and it was then be flushed from the body. Vata things are treated through purging and pitta things can be cured using either vomiting or purging.

It was good to understand more about how best to live our days! Over-sleeping leads to too much Kapha, because Kapha is already present in the morning. To limit it we have to get up before sunrise. If you sleep in the morning, you mustn't eat, and sleeping in the day is a definate no-no as it also dulls hunger. We should only eat in the morning and at lunchtime, not in the evening, and definately no snacks, or caffeine. Chocolate is allowed but as part of your meal. People often complain of being tired after a meal, so he explained that if you're hungry before you eat you don't get tired, and you should never feel full. I have to say that the no-eating-dinner thing has really worked for me these last few weeks. He also says to not eat unless you are hungry. I've not done so well at that.

I went on a memorable scooter ride to get a new laptop bag (seeing as mine appears to not have a hope in hell of re-emerging from the tailors) and Violetta needed something too. We ended up in these tiny tiny little streets full of chickens, carts, cows, and people who like to just stand in the road and not move even though traffic is coming towards them. I like to call them coffin dodgers. There were an awful lot of potholes and things to avoid, but it was pretty amongst all the chaos and noise. Colourful saris, piles of strange and beautiful fruits, old bicycles, tiny shops selling just one item (just pots for example), little children in school uniform, rickshaws beeping madly and squeezing past, flowers on the wooden carts...My ankle slid along the edge of another scooter and just left a small red mark. For some reason it felt like rush hour in Mysore and it might well have been or perhaps the fact that I've been hidden away in leafy quiet Gokulam these past few days.

Tune of the Day: "I know what you want" - Mariah Carey & Busta Rhymes (suggested by Rasal)