WEEK 3: MONKEYS, YIN YOGA AND DANCING MEDITATION

Week 3 began with about 10 of us being very poorly from some food we ate at The Space Goa. Monday was a write off for me after the mornings Ashtanga class. I felt so weak and couldn’t get out of bed. The best thing was to just rest. I didn’t get out of bed until Tuesday lunchtime. It was comforting to know that you weren’t the only one going through the awful ordeal, so we all prepared ourselves for it only lasting 24hrs or so.

This week was full of interesting and fun yoga experiences, it began with Thursday afternoon with John taking us upto the top shala where we saw all the monkeys in their natural setting jumping from tree to tree, loving life whilst a few of them kept a close eye on us as we all walked past. The views of the sea from the top shala were amazing. We all placed our yoga mats in one large circle and had a very different kind of yoga class. Crawling under each other whilst in downward dog, sitting on each other whilst in chair pose, it was a very fun class and our energy as a group was so intense, it’s moments like that that we will never be able to recreate but will stay in a special place in my heart. We all stopped to watch and take pictures of the glorious sunset from up high on the hill before concluding our class.

Finally on Friday we had our Yin Yoga class. I can safely say we were all awaiting this much needed class to relax, and stretch deeper into our tight muscles. The next day I felt like I did after my first ever yoga class, sore.

On Saturday morning all Sudhir told us to bring was a blind fold. It turns out we were going to be doing dancing meditation. Blind folds on, music on. I felt so stupid to start off with but as each song came on I started to let go. It was song number 2 or 3 (DJ Sudhir has given us the set list so I will have to repost) it had a reggae/Indian kind of vibe, well that set me off and from then I got my groove back. It was so long since I had done any kind of dancing so I just pretend I was at a party and I was off. I had to have a sneaky peak at everyone so I adjusted my blind fold slightly and I could see Marina flaring her arms up and down, letting her body go in all kinds of directions and to her left was Katie B who was doing some kind of New Zealand rugby stomp… It was hilarious, I had to stop looking otherwise I would have burst into uncontrollable laughter but it brought a big smile upon my face and I continued dancing. Once we finally came to a stop we did 15 minutes of seated mediation to begin our day. What a meditation session that was… We knighted Sudhir as DJ Sudhir for playing some great Indian tunes and Bollywood bangers.

We concluded our Week 3 with Acro Yoga. At first I was skeptical I didn’t enjoy this kind of thing, I have always had this uncertainty about people not being able to hold my weight but I’m not exactly fat just got a lot of muscle. So I always chose to be the base, but in this class we kept switching it round so everyone got to try. By the end of the class I was loving being the flyer and got into some great positions. Photos to follow!

During Week 3 you could really start to see everyone’s personalities starting to shine through. It’s so nice to see how we have all grown individually and as a group. With only 4 males in our group it’s so great to have their presence in a group of 29 women. But Sudhir really stole the show with his funny Indian head movements when no means yes and yes means yes, along with his funny and quirky answers which has us all in stitches without him even trying to.

Everyone’s journey is so different but the same, as we have all come and united as one in India at Sampoorna with one thing in common… Yoga.