twenty eight april

self practise today.yes, the '5 more minutes' after switching off the 5 am alarm.you know how your body feels after the first day of practise, all it wants it rest and recovery and fluids.

but need to combat this feeling- its just the first few days (5 I think) and then my body toughens up.instead of despairing at my 5 am miss (well I despaired a little, and also am still working up the guts to ask Hamish if I can come at 10 am when I miss 6 am,surely the shaala is not so busy then?) I got on the mat at home and did my whole practice except Marichi D and Sirsasana.

With regards to awareness, mine hasn't been amazing recently but I'm not worrying about it.Nor am I worryin about Mula Bandha(also am still finishing moonday). Even during Savasana mind will wander, well,race actually.But I've found the thing to do is not worry and keep going with my practise.

I want to apply the lessons I learn in yoga to my life- so for my studies, just keep going, don't worry if mind wanders, just do it..

Noticed my bleeding foot afterwards-deja vu of the time the same happened at AYL, and I took the mat home to wash, fell asleep on the long bus ride home, and left the mat on the bus being disorientated and waking up at just my stop.I was so embarassed to tell Guruji!But he was cool, he said now someone else can use it:)

Need to put my bandage on, and get my irie on :)

twenty seventh april

according to movement, the last time I did a session at the shala was on 15th December. So congratulations to me for getting back on the mat :)

I'm just reminded of the excruciating pain we put ourselves through! All the forward bending poses, ouch on the legs. Oo today in the king of asanas, while going up, and again coming down, I felt a vicious pain in my lower back. Didn't warm myself up enough? Didn't stay long enough in Navasana (I didn't cheat Navasana, was tempted to stop at 4, but I didn't, couldn't lift myself up though).

And my favourite scratch on the upside of foot while trying to to do the jump-through is back!

All in all, a good practice, good sweat, feelin' fine :)

The evening after- had to nap today in the evening-up at 9 pm and some crazy body aches and dhydration going on,aah the first day back...

Sharath Ragaswamy coming to London!No way I can miss this!

Was thinking about taking up the 30 day challenge but I'm sure I've done more before..so just as long as I'm in London wil suffice

Between yoga and Madeleine Peyroux (listening to Careless Love now) I feel so happy to be alive.

21 days to exams. I can do this.

one song for everyone

wouldn't it be nice, if we all knew one song, and could sing along?

the idea came to be during Trilok Gurty's encore at the Jazz Cafe- he played a tune that many were singing along to, pretty and melodic.It's so nice when people share like that..

good show.not mind blowing,but I REALLY enjoyed the last song he played (encore time). It makes sense to not madly love everything for me though, firstly I've become more critical (hey I went to see Hervie Hancock live!!) and also I can't take all his albums. But I am a big fan of his, no doubt, and I enjoyed. Just didn't go into the trance like state I sometimes do. Enjoyed him speaking though, very articulate, funny, audience engaging.

Bought a Songlines magazine + now listening to Songlines Top of the Worls. Fun!

Recovering from yesterday's eye operation still.

Off to listen to the apprentice now :)Trilok Gurtu – Ten Fifty Two

(download spotify if ur in the UK or anywhere else they have it.Trilok Gurtu – Have We Lost Our Dream?

Trust me, you won't regret it..)

Trilok played a track based upon an event in the Bhagavad Gita and another called Glimpses..about the Lord we never get to glimpse yet try so hard..

No Line on The Horizon

'The bit that distracted me from the triumphant performance was the moment the band began to play “City of Blinding Lights,” from “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.” The crowd went berserk, as it had been doing fairly consistently all night. (Many big arena shows hit a perceptible longueur somewhere around Hour 2, but U2’s don’t.) The audience was going perceptibly more berserk for this particular song. I realized that I was hearing, for the third or fourth time, the evening’s loudest applause for a recent single. When the band played the first U2 song I ever encountered, 1980’s “I Will Follow,” the crowd seemed fairly happy, though in a slightly polite way. (This is the inverse of the “Satisfaction” effect, easily witnessed at any Stones show.) What other band, three decades into the game, gets its most intense audience reaction with new songs? There is no need to stage a legend Olympics between U2 and AC/DC and the Eagles and the Allman Brothers and the Stones—plenty of bands are holding up well into their rock-and-roll winter. But the only band of this vintage consistently generating new hits that bring in a younger crop of fans every five years is U2. What U2 song do my pre-teen sons know? “Vertigo,” from 2004.'

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2009/04/06/090406crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all

No plagiarism issues please- I didn't write this- above is a quote from the article in The New Yorker by Sasha Frere -Jones.

Brilliant observation. I observe myself, U2 fan since the days of my own pre-teens. And surely, when I go to see them (you note I say when, yes we must be optimistic), I will feel a rush when i hear the opening sounds of Magnificent- at present my 'on repeat' track from No Line.

Revisiting this post to write more about No Line.This album was the reason I downloaded Spotify, having heard that U2's new album was out via trusty facebook, and that I could listen to it for free from Spotify (whose name I had memorised from an In-Flight magazine flying from Dubai-London).. and the rest is history. I don't search for random stuff on Spotify, it's more like repeat listening to 'No Line' and some other albums I like.I really like No Line.Some may say its familiar but since I've already established I like U2's sound...works for me !!Fez-Being Born, I must say is very different. Magnificent is my all time favourite. My top song.

gettin' ma groove on

i have realised that all i need to do to ace my exams is get my confidence back. and i'm not talking smug,secret smiley confidence (although that is definitely part of the deal). I'm talkin' confidence to the point of being arrogant, unbearably smug and just being one of those totally up themselves jackasses who you just cannot bear to be in the same room as. The type of person who you think really needs to realise that they are just one of a million, and it takes all of your 'DESTROY THE EGO' mantras just to stand each sentence that comes out of their mouths.

The type of person who makes you think, dam, that's why the world is so harsh for some, its because this type of arrogant egoistic twits exist who think SO MUCH of themselves that no one else matters.The kind of person that makes you realise that you are so happy you didn't get trapped in that bubble, that you know better and in this realisation you realise that you consider yourself one up on them, exactly what you (presumably) want to avoid...

And the type of person that makes you feel glad that you can hold your own. That you are young, beautiful, fit, intelligent, come from a good family (oh yes it matters) and whether or not you believe in them, according to 'CRITERIA' you fit- you worked in top places, got good grades, know the right people, or better yet, don't care about the people cos you can.

You know who I mean?

Well that's who I need to be. And believe it or not, that person ain't too far from my former self. Before I accepted (why did I ever accept) that I'm the lazy, confused type of jackass, I had that confidence. The confidence to believe that I am a FORMIDABLE OPPONENT. That I could lead not only LSE's debate team but WIN against Harvard (or NSU, they seem pretty formidable too). That I could be on LSE's Mooting Team and take my team to the Finals. That I can be the best dancer without practising except in my head. That I could win essay competitions and have my articles published in the Times.and most importantly, that i could skip all my lectures, all my classes, bunk my readings, sleep if I felt like it, wake up and bunk school cos I felt watching Dance Like A Man was better for my happiness and my soul, and continue to do so for THREE YEARS, and at the end, study for 3 weeks (maybe 16 days realistically, of real studying) and still KICK EVERYONE'S ASS and continue to live the same way for the rest of my life. I AM THE FORMIDABLE OPPONENT whom other students see and think its not FAIR that I have to compete with HER.