Blissful times in Pokhara

After the Annapurna trek I was, to put it lightly, completely buggered.  I wanted to do nothing more than eat and sleep and drink.  It truly was an assault on my body after months travelling through the undeveloped world.  I was well out of balance, and, after a nice evening of cheeses, cocktails, steaks and wine I fell VERY ill.

It was the type of ill where I was at a restaurant and I thought I’d passed wind, but I hadn’t – the fluids began.  A bit later I was vomiting – so I went to the trusty local Nepali pharmacist who diagnosed me with food poisoning.  He gave me anti-biotics, which I needed to take with food.  Unfortunately, I could not even keep the tablets down that were meant to stop me from vomiting!

After a few more days, things finally started to settle down, and I relaxed into the lazy pace of not doing much and really looking after myself.  I took strolls along the lake and up to the view points while I researched yoga schools in Pokhara – my next goal for Nepal – to study yoga.

I tried a few different centres – all of different costs, styles and arrangements.  All very good and quite reasonably priced.

Eventually I came across a dude named Rishi, whose yoga centre was a very unpretentious room next to his house.  His classes were 350 Nepali Rupees per  1-2 hour class.  That’s about $5 dollars or about 3 pounds.  He was unconventional in some ways, but unlike any teacher that I’ve had before – he really helped me to find the keys to yoga that I’d been looking  for.

Yoga is breath.  Yoga is life.  These are some of the things that Rishi would say.  But it is true!

After a few years of practising yoga I still had a lot of stiffness in my hips, shoulders and back.  These are some of the worst places to be stiff.  In addition, my ankles and wrists were stiff.  This basically means that energy was trapped in my body, and also, that I wasn’t letting energy into my body!  Crazy eh?  With Rishi’s help, I began to loosen these stiff joints – using  the Iyengar technique mostly – which is a series of repetitive movements that you co-ordinate with the breath.

This was the other thing – after many years of meditation and breathing practice – I was still not breathing properly!  Many people would be surprised to know that many of their ills are tied to the breath.  This is why techniques such as deep breathwork are useful in breaking patterns in the body and mind, because the breath is the key to all of this.

Rishi’s classes began with a good 30 minutes of intensive Pranayama.  What is pranayama?  Well my first answer to that was “breathing exercises”, but Rishi was quick to correct me.... Pranayama  is about “The life”.  It’s about moving dead energy in the lungs, increasing the air circulation in the body and activating the chakras along the spine.   Asana alone (ie. yogic postures) only exercises the muscles and joints, but without the breath moving properly, there can be no extension, change or benefit from the practice!  Now, I knew this before, but what I didn’t understand that pranayama, as a prelude to asana practice helps to extend the lungs and get the primary chakras activated so the body can engage the asanas at a deeper level, and so the mind is focussed and quiet...

So I studied with Rishi for a good few weeks and my body and my mind was opening up to a completely new way of being.  I was reading a lot, journaling a lot, and blogging all of my India posts.  This process of focussing almost entirely within for this extended period was blissful. I was deprogramming all of the issues that were tying up my mind and body in knots for years.  The asthma as a child, the traumas of school and being a teenager, and the cycles and patterns of years of work all made way for my pure essential being to come to the centre.  I was clear, worry-free, relaxed, full of energy, alive, healthy and happy!

And Pokhara was the most amazing place to do this.  My lodging at New Parent Guesthouse, was basic.  I survived on less than $100 a week; including accommodation, yoga classes, food, internet.  Yes, life was basic, but the sun was shining, and the pace of my existence was exactly of my own definition.

I would do this again... in a minute...  and I will.

In the meantime, here is a video montage from my time in Nepal to take me back to the bliss of Pokhara...