EASEOFMOVEMENTby Jess Holl

Points South

Freedom is riding in the open-air sleeper car through the Western Ghats. There are peacockson the train tracks and palm tree forests planted on the city outskirts. The Sabari Express isbound for Kerala, and I with it.

The train speeds past farms and cows and thatch-roof villages that pass quickly. Themountains in the distance remain mostly the same. We pass Indian Railway workers withuniform indigo turbans, happy babies being held by their grandmothers, roadside Sadhuswith painted faces, buffalos with companion egrets.

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EASEOFMOVEMENTby Jess Holl

Ooty’s Beauty

There is a distinct point, when driving into the Nilgiri range from the steamy flatlands of TamilNadu, when you feel the air change. It’s almost literally as your car turns a bend: the humiditylifts, the roadside monkeys are more energetic, and you conjure a doctor’s voice from the

19th century: “The mountain air will do you good.”

This was no doubt the advice of physicians to many a pallid and sweltering colonialist

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headed for Ooty, the British hill station known locally as Ootacamund, located near thehighest point in southern India—and the farthest away from summer’s heat you could get.

I’d connected with a wonderful new friend, Isabelle, who’d come to India just for the ashramprogram where we met. She now had three days left before her flight home and wanted tosee a slice of India, but had gotten quite ill and was still recovering from her stomach bug. I,on the other hand, had a grant-writing deadline and needed a quick retreat. “Come with me,“ I suggested, “The mountain air will do you good.”

Among the joys of traveling alone, the consistent quality of one’s accommodations may notnumber. But when traveling as a pair, there are times when a palace stay presents itself andyou can say “yes!” And so we booked ourselves as guests for the weekend at FernhillsPalace, the Majaraja of Mysore’s summer retreat. 

EASEOFMOVEMENTby Jess Holl

DYI: Doing Yoga in India

I thought I would first come to India to Do Yoga. You know: the ashram in the middle of thejungle on the banks of a large, placid river. I wear loose cotton pants and walk barefoot onmarble floors. I bunk on a hard cot in a large dorm building. I eat lentils, wake up at 5 a.m.,do yoga 5 times a day, meditate, chant while sitting on said marble floors. Here is where Iwould find an Enlightened Practice through a little starvation and a lot of uncomfortableseating.  

And then I came to India for a documentary film instead. And in Udaipur, where the team wasbased, was a spare blue concrete building with a cardboard sign out front:

Yoga: 7 a.m.  8 a.m. and 7 p.m.

 Anja, my director, and I decided to go.

The floor’s short-pile green rug looked like AstroTurf, and there were person-size throw rugseverywhere. Hmm, could we Do Yoga without our Lululemon Non-Slip Travel Mats? Theyseemed rather out of place and we hid them in the corner with our shoes.

Turns out: yoga is very possible on a throw rug. It’s even pleasurable. And this challengingclass was moreover one of the most meditative I’d ever been to. In one hour, I realized thiswas a very different kind of yoga than a lot of what I’d been doing. Not physically, butphilosophically. It dawned on me that this was yoga as preparation for meditation, a way ofwringing out the body to prep it for something next.

In Pushkar, I sought out a yoga class again, this time tucked away on the second floor of ahotel.  Also on a rug in an even smaller blue concrete room, I practiced what most NYstudios would bill as a restorative class, and then we immediately followed it with meditation. I was finally able to sit still. I even got my brain to stop chattering for a few minutes.

I began realizing maybe I’d been missing the point of yoga. The toning and flexibility andgeneral well-being that happen—these are side effects. The purpose here is to lay thegroundwork for something greater. But I’m not sure the class descriptions at the local gymchains mention that part.

Ah: I had figured it out. Yoga in the U.S. is, like, totally commercialized, industrialized,fetishized. It’s lost its focus, lost touch with its roots. I need to bring Yoga back to thePeople! Ahem. And so in Mumbai, when a new friend recommended his ashram, I thought:Absolutely! Bring on the cinderblocks and rag rugs! 

It was like a spa visit. My room was air conditioned, and I got a required massage once aday. There were hot showers, the food had inspired its own cookbook—there’s even a giftshop.

Wait, wait, wait, I was just getting used to calm-as-marble yogis gently stretching me to ahigher plane in their carpeted cells. What does this place think it’s doing with its own café?

And then I took its program and none of that mattered. Their blissful corner of the foothills insouthern India was actually really nice to be in while undergoing some intensive mentalexercise.

Inevitable conclusion: it’s not where but what. It’s not content but context. I have a newunderstanding of yoga in service to a much higher aim for your brain. Had I gone directly toEat, Pray, Love and not passed this circuitous route of circumstance, would I have realized

Posted March 20, 2012 at 6:23pm | 3 notes

the same thing? Or maybe you connect the dots toward meditation as you’re ready. Howeverit happened, I’m grateful for it. After two years of regular yoga practice, I am just nowbeginning.

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