"Go now. Get there early," my wife, Rebekah, told me before I left the house this morning.
But when I get to the shala (yoga studio), the steps are already packed with people waiting for the led class inside to finish. I'm stunned and begin questioning why we're here. This doesn't seem right. Flies in the face of what yoga is all about, doesn't it? I'm 45 minutes early. When did everyone else start arriving? Is it going to be like this for the rest of the time we're here? Have we made a mistake? Flip flops litter the courtyard. A guy on the third to last step has his eyes closed. He's sitting in full lotus with his arms out, thumbs and forefingers touching. I don't know why, but this annoys me.
Shala time
What frustrates me more is that Rebekah arrived for the class now taking place 15 minutes early but was turned away because she was in fact 'late'. What we didn't know before we arrived is that the schedule for classes runs 15 minutes ahead of 'real time'. Or, maybe we did know and this small but important piece of information got lost amongst all the other cognitive driftwood that made up our preparation for our first trip to India, not just Mysore. After so much excitement and expectation, this is not the start my wife had been anticipating.
Two months of yoga
The 'here' I'm referring to is the Shri K Pattabhi Jois Astanga Yoga Institute in Gokulam, Mysore. My wife and I, along with our three-year-old daughter are here to practice for two months. For the next eight weeks, six days a week, we'll be voluntarily dragging ourselves out of bed at a godawful hour to join other like-minded, sweaty, half-naked souls as they turn their bodies inside out in their quest for spiritual enlightenment, good health or ripped abs. I have no idea how I'm going to do. Not that I have to 'do' anything other than what I've been doing for the last year, which is practice. I'm a little nervous. If the lead up to my first class is anything to go by, I'm a little skeptical of the way things are done here, too. But maybe that's just my default setting kicking in. Empathy, understanding and trying to put myself in other people's shoes usually follows soon after.
Ready, set, crush
Some of that gets thrown out the window when people start rising to their feet – as if they've received an exclusive telepathic command – and turn to face the shala entrance. Like robots? I get up, too, because I don't want to miss out, although, I don't know what it is I'll be missing out on. I can hear the director of the institute, Sharath Jois speaking inside. Maybe he said something that indicated we should all stand and I had missed the cue.
Then the crowd surges forward like we're at a rock concert. That moment where the band comes onstage and everyone tries to get as close as they can to their rock idols. I'm not sure I want to be here and for a moment I contemplate turning around and going home but we've paid too much and I'm too tight – and too proud – to do that. The entrance to the shala opens slightly and people start stampeding towards the sliver of light that escapes.
I wait for the students inside to filter out, but that's not how it's done here. The next group of people go in first while the previous class mass around the door on the inside. Mystified, I follow the horde and find an empty space at the back of the room where I roll out of my mat and wait.
The magic of the mat
But not for long. Sharath emerges from out of his office, walks onto a small stage/platform and tells us to stand. So we rise and we begin. A part of me wants to hold onto my skepticism and initial misgivings, but as we move through our first surya namaskar the energy in the room shifts and I feel my anger and frustration slip away. As much as I focus on my breathing, my bandas and my dristi, I cannot help but sneak a glimpse of the close to 100 people doing the same sequence of movements, more or less in unison. It's beautiful.