Sign Up Day January 2 2001 Sunday Afternoon 2ish Old Shala Laxmipuram Mysore
When I made the decision to go to Mysore some months previously I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I had no idea how popular Ashtanga Yoga was , I did think that maybe there’d be me and another couple of weirdos and that would be it. Well I was right about one thing – weirdos – except there were more than 2 – there were fucking hundreds of them. All loitering with the intent of signing up to practice with the Ashtanga Yoga Guru – Mr.Pattabhi Jois – or Guruji as he affectionally became known – well for a while. In 2018 – 9 years after he’d passed away he got me too’d big time and the arse fell out of the Ashtanga Yoga lineage. He went from being my late Guruji to the late Pattabhis Jois to that dirty ol bugger in the blink of a drishti ( Ashtanga in joke).
Anyway here I was like a complete fish out of water standing in line to pay my shala fees wearing my best manc twinset of tee -shirt and jeans. And here was my first yoga fashion faux pas – every other weirdo stood in line all dressed head to toe in what can only be described as bed sheets. Well that’s what it looked like to me. Combinations of colours and baggy-ness – I mean I do do baggy but only in jeans not bedsheets , sorry. There was one couple who shall remain nameless stood all dressed in black like Mr and Mrs Count Fucking Dracula -very weird. I believe they left the Ashtanga Yoga community some years later to set up their own system of Yoga ‘inspired’ by the Ashtanga practice – and by ‘inspired’ I mean they totally fucking ripped it off and added their own bullshit chants and postures names. They even had a vegan cat for fucks sake.
There was a bit of bantz going down in the yoga queue – well when I say bantz folk were arguing over the real meaning of Yoga . Yoga is love said one person , Yoga is the journey to the self said another . Deary fucking me was my contribution to the discussion. Then all of a sudden the noise quietened down when a black four by four Range Rover type car drove up and parked next to the OG Shala. I thought it might have been Princess Anne but the windows were tinted so I didn’t have a clue who it was. Hopefully a Priest with a cross and some garlic to see off The Draculas . Then came the whirring sound of an electric window going down wwwhhizzzzzz a face appeared it was the Guru ,complete with black sunglasses and a tonne of gold bling around his neck. If MC’s did Yoga. There was an audible grasp from the crowd and someone started to cry , fuck me I thought this is gonna be a long 2 months.
Finally after what felt like forever standing in line like I was in some sadomasochistic ‘how long can you stand in direct sun light for ‘game show I was ushered in and upstairs to pay my respects and more importantly to pay my dollar to the (ex) Guru! Now I’m gonna be completely honest with you here. I had done some research – not much, but I’d spent an hour or so surfing the world wide web sussing out what to say and what not what to say , to the Guru. One thing that kept cropping up was the touching or kissing of the feet of the aforementioned wise one. Now this to me was very , very weird but when the going gets tough , the tough gets weird and as I approached the ol fella who was sat next to his money counting machine (I kid you not , the whole place was held together with duck tape and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for a few decades but this crazy ol fool had this state of the art machine that counted notes) I knelt down and kissed the Guru’s feet – actually kissed as in puckered my lips and kissed his feet , right foot then left foot. I looked up at him and he looked down at me puzzled in a what the fuck are you doing you stupid western muppet kind of way , I thought I saw a halo appearing hovering just above his head but I think I was going down with sunstroke. Neither of us moved for ages like we were in a weird yoga Mexican stand off. Eventually the lord spoketh the holy words of ‘You got money?’ And I stood up and handed him a big wedge of rupees. I wanted to say to him can we just forget about that foot thing but thought better of it. I paid my money and got the hell out of there as fast as possible. Fuck out my way Drac I said under my breath as I pushed past the dark one who was still loitering even though he’d already paid his money. How the fuck are you still alive anyway in this sunlight ..
Practice Day 1 address as above about 6am
My first day at the shala very nearly became a non event ie I nearly fucked off when I arrived. You see the old shala might look good on the Ashtanga Yoga teacher’s CV but the reality was it was a big shit show. The OG shala was only big enough for 12 people at a time and when there was over 200 who had signed up to practice – well you do the math. I got there at my allotted time of 6am expecting to go straight in and Ashtanga boogie only to be faced with a big fucking queue of people sat on the stairs all looking miserable as fuck. Hmm. I walked up the stairs and eventually found the end of the line in the small ‘take rest’ room which was directly above the actual practice room (shala) below. It was here that I first tasted the nectar of the Ashtanga Yoga good vibz for all (see below Stair Incident Part 2). In this take rest room students who had already practiced downstairs came up to lay down and as the title of the room suggests , to take rest. These students had gotten to practice earlier and the word was that the earlier the time slot you were given by the Guru the higher up the Ashtanga food chain you got. So the students who got the 4.30 am time slot were the fully enlightened paid up members of the Ashtanga Yoga version of the Freemasons. They also practiced alone as PJ didn’t get out of bed til 5.30 am.
So here I am sat like an Ashtanga minion at the end of a ‘it’s gonna be at least 2 hours before you get in that practice room baby’ queue. All the other minions were sat perfectly still bolt upright hoping that the Guru might spot their Yogic poise , most were reading either The BhagavadGita or The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – the bibles of Ashtanga. I sat reading my own bible – The autobiography of Bez from the Happy Mondays. As you might have guessed I’m not very good at ‘playing the game’. I was just being myself. It felt like I was sat with a load of frauds playing a game , pretending to be more spiritual or more something – full of shit maybe. Dunno. I don’t want to be negative as you know I had a great fucking time in Mysore , eventually. Slowly very slowly we went down the stairs . One by One you come came the Guru’s instructions from downstairs instructing the next student into the shala. And one by fucking one we moved from one stair to the next.
Practice Day 2 address as above time as above The Stairs Incident Part 1
So every day pretty much for the whole 2 months I was in Mysore I had to wait at least 2 hours before I could be ‘goin like a boin’ on the mat- I say at least as some days it was nearly 3. On practice day 2 I was at the bottom of the stairs which meant I was next in line to go ‘take practice’. ONE MORE PJ would shout and the person sat on the last stair would step onto the hallowed turf of the OG shala. But just as I was sat on the last step this lass appeared out of nowhere – ready to go in before me. As the ONE MORE instruction came this bloody lass started to make a move on MY spot – scuse me mate I got up double quick and pushed past her and into the shala. She looked a bit startled. But rules are rules init – I had to wait so should she. After all we are all love and peace and equal. But as I learnt rules aren’t necessary the same rules for everyone. Especially in the OG Shala. As it turned out some students are more equal than others. So the gig was if you were an old time student of PJ then you got to forgo the stair marathon and go straight into the shala when a space became available. I didn’t like this rule so I ignored it. I remember a day or two later I was sat in some cafe – ok so this was no Starbucks more like a shack with a couple of tables , when I heard a couple of yoga students speaking loudly obviously the intent was for me to hear them. There’s that rude guy who jumped into the Shala before Radha. RESULT I had only been in the fucking place a couple of days and I had gotten a reputation as a ‘rude guy’. You know looking back as mentioned above I didn’t know the rules or the shala etiquette it wasn’t that I was being intentionally rude, I just don’t like and have never liked bullshit.
Practice Day 3 address and time as above The Stair Incident Part 2
So I spent most of my time at the OG shala sat on those stairs reading Bez’s autobiography. I had covered the book in brown paper and written Yoga Sutra Book across the top so no one sussed that I was reading about a different kind of enlightenment – one that was chemically induced.
When one fellow stair minion had the temerity to whisper something to another they got shouted at by one of the aforementioned early morning practice Enlightened crew who was taking rest – BE QUIET CANT YOU SEE WE ARE RESTING – yikes – see that Ashtanga Yoga aint working so good for you pal. Yoga is love eh ? Or is it Yoga is love as long as you keep your gob shut whilst I’m resting after my oh so important yoga practice. My practice is the Mysore student’s mantra , oh my practice this my practice that and yadder yadder yadder .
You know or maybe you don’t know that all of the stories in this book are 100% true – granted I might add a soupçon of manc-ness here and there plus some floral language in the shape of an f bomb or three. But it’s all true.
Practice Day 4 address as above time as above The Money Incident Part 1
So Shala fees went something like this. 1 month was 3000 rupees and for every month after that the fees went down to 2000 rupees. I only found out this pricing structure after I’d already given PJ 6000 rupees. I’ll give the ol man the benefit of the doubt as he was probably still shell shocked at this freak actually kissing his feet he didn’t notice that I’d given him 6000 instead of 5000 rupees for my 2 months shala fees. So on day 4 after I’d found out about the 2nd month discount I approached the Guru. Er hello Gerugee – so ok yes I was drinking the Kool Aid a little by addressing him as Guruji but ya know I’d already caused a fuss with the refusal to play the Ashtanga hierarchy stair game, I didn’t want to run the risk of being run out of town by the Shala Police. (The Shala Police at the self appointed holier than thou Ashtanga students who have taken it upon themselves to make sure everyone falls in line -they are a rather joyless lot they’ve probably never taken ecstasy ).
Me -I think I gave you too much money for my shala fees.
PJ – checking checking checking
And that was all he said.
Practice Day 5 address as above time as above The Money Incident Part 2
As I walked into the shala I was just about to climb the stairs when PJ appeared out of nowhere like a Yoga version of Mr.Ben and handed me a $100 note. That was it. A refund. A result.