12) My Various Blogs

Here is a list of the various blogs that I have created right from 2006 up till now . They reflect the various interests that I have and how those interests kept evolving over the last few years  .I am not active on all the blogs and right now focused more on My Ashtanga Blog ( http://myashtangajournal.blogspot.com/) as right now that is what keeping me occupied more and it will be like this for the next few more years . However I do keep updating other blogs as and when I have some interesting information to be shared in those blogs .

This post is basically to let people know my varied interests and how it kept evolved over a period of time and what prompted me to start new blogs and also to know what my current interest is .

http://dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com/
1)Spiritual Messages related to Nonduality
This site deals with spiritual quotes and messages from various Spiritual Masters like Swami Sivananda , Swami Vishnu devananda , Osho , Eckhart Tolle , Ramana Maharishi , J .Krishnamurthy ,Papaji , Vernon Howard , Atmananda Krishna Menon , Jean Klein etc .Most of the quotes and teachings here reflect non dual teachings

This was my first ever blog that I started in 2006 when I took to blogging and it had a mixture of yoga and Vedanta related messages ( non dual messages ) but since I felt  the messages of yoga and vedanta conflict with each other ( as yoga involves effort and practice and considers mind to be real and  vedanta involves no practices and considers mind itself to be a non entity ) I decided to start a separate yoga blog ( eyogateacher.blogspot.com ) for my yoga related messages and kept this blog only to deal with pure non dual teachings .

http://eyogateacher.blogspot.com/
2)My Yoga Blog
This blog presents a collection of my thoughts ,views related to Classical Hatha  Yoga and related topics like Diet ,Meditation,Fitness ,Health ,Relaxation ,Breathing and anything to do with improving physical and mental health .

This was my first yoga blog that I started as a Sivananda Yoga Teacher and was started mainly to distinguish my yoga messages from the non dual messages given by me in the other blog ( dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com ) . As I am now practicing ashtanga I did not want to confuse my Ashtanga experience in this  normal yoga blog and  started a separate blog for my ashtanga experience ( myashtangajournal.blogspot.com ) and this blog will continue to have articles / matter related to the Sivananda Style of Classical Hatha Yoga and  other health related topics like diet , relaxation , meditation ,  etc .Though I am currently  learning Ashtanga , I continue to be involved in the teaching of Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga and hence this will contain articles related to Classical Hatha Yoga from time to time .
Note : up to Post 50. this blog had a sort of structured and one dimensional approach of just sharing about Classical Yoga ( Sivananda Style ) but from post 51 onwards this blog is taking an unstructured and multi dimensional approach and deals with issues related to not only yoga but other things happening in my life as well in society .So keep this in mind when you go through the blog .I have explained the intentions behind this new approach in my blog post No.53) A New Approach to this blog .

http://movementtherapies.blogspot.com/
3)Movement Therapies
This blog is to share information about the various Movement therapies like Alexander Technique , Feldenkrais Method , Pilates ,Tai Chi , Continuum movement,Ideokinesis, Hellerwork etc .
This blog I started in year 2010  when I was deeply in quest of addressing some issues of injury related to my lower back ( in 2009 ) and ankle ( in 2010 ) and  while I started it with Pilates , it went to Tai Chi and then I came across various movement therapies and felt that it is high time I start a blog  exclusively for the same and while I am not active in this as I am right now buys with my Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga but definitely this is a blog I will get active in due course as I believe that each movement therapy has some excellent way to address  our injuries and provide healing .

http://livingaconsciouslife.blogspot.com/
4)Living a Conscious Life
The aim of this blog is to help those seeking to live a Conscious life ( a life in present )point out the best available resources(teachers, sayings , book /cd /DVD review , retreats , courses etc) with regard to Conscious Living from sources world over .
This is again a sort of extension of my Non Dual blog and right now not very active as I still continue to share messages related to non duality in my first blog ( i.e dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com ) but will keep this blog updated as and when I get some interesting inputs .

http://myashtangajournal.blogspot.com/
5)My Ashtanga Journal
This blog describes my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Journey .

This is my most recent and currently active blog . As I am new to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  and wanted to document my  Ashtanga experiences exclusively I created this separate blog and this blog will be active as Ashtanga Vinaysa Yoga  is my current activity and will remain so for the next few years .

11) Moving from One Yoga System to Another to be a complete Movement Teacher

Some of my friends who are Certified  Sivananda  Yoga teachers were surprised to see me starting a new blog  related to my Ashtanga Vinaysa Journey and my new interest in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  .There is a reason for their surprise as I have been associated with the Sivananda System for more than 10 years and have completed all their 3 levels of Certifications i.e TTC ( Teachers Training Course ) , ATTC ( Advanced Teachers Training Course ) and SI ( Sadhana Intensive ) .I told them that I have elaborated very well in my earlier postings about this transition from one Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and that this transition is only for my own personal sadhana and to enrich myself with another system which I will start teaching at a later date when I feel competent to do so and that I still continue to teach the Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga . I still  believe that the Sivananda System  is the best starting point for any one to start their yoga journey and also the best system for those busy house holders and professionals who have less time to spare for their yoga practice on a weekly basis and who need a simple and straight forward method to do yoga to keep their body fit and mind calm .

Also I wish to point out that I never believe in hopping one yoga style to another just like that and I made a transition from Sivananda to Ashtanga only after investing 10 years in the Sivananda System and also after completing all their 3 levels of training and that gave me lot of insights regarding its positive points as well as some of its limitations and my transition to Ashtanga  was  to only to overcome the limitations that are in the Sivananda System to make myself a more complete teacher .Here I wish to point out that neither Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  is free of limitations .All Yoga styles have some limitations in one form or the other and no system can completely address all sections of the population for all of its needs . It does not matter whether it is Sivananda , Iyengar , Ashtanga or Bikram .All Yoga Schools have their own pluses as well as their own limitations and as a Yoga Teacher I feel that I need to equip myself with as many variety  of styles as possible to address  the needs of various types of students .So I will not just stop with Ashtanga but will continue to learn Yin Yoga , Restorative Yoga and why only Yoga , I plan to learn other movement therapies like Pilates , Tai Chi , Feldenkrais Method ,Undulation method etc and be a complete Movement  Teacher /Therapist and I know that this cant be done in a year or two and it involves a life time of learning and I am prepared for the same .I love learning and I am very curious about various Movement therapies beyond Yoga as I believe that the human body is very complex as well as mysterious and no single yoga style can help address the needs of all the people .I am saying this because I found even great Yoga Teachers like BKS Iyengar ,Krishnamacharya  could not solve the problems of people due to their rigid "my method is right "approach  and that resulted in students going to other teachers / other movement systems to have their problems solved . Today many of the Popular Yoga Systems have become institutionalized and hence to maintain the purity of their institutions / teachings they need to be rigid with they teach and I accept that . That is why I never pointed out the limitations of the Sivananda System when I was a student / teacher there and I will never point out the limitations of the Ashtanga Vinyasa System while I am learning the same now . As I am only an individual and not representing any System / Institution I feel quite free to pursue learning  as many styles as possible , of course learning and digesting one at a time and not gobbling all at one go and I want to be known as a Complete Movement Teacher .I believe that best starting point for any healing is to start with the body , more specifically through body movement and that was why Yoga was popular in the last century but now as our lifestyles have changed a lot  and we encounter different form of problems both in the body and mind and sometimes the problem in the body is due to a problem in mind and vice versa and sometimes it is due to both and hence in such cases as a Yoga teacher I feel that I need to have as many tools at my disposal to understand the problem of a person and suggest a suitable remedy  . Before I conclude I give an real life  example as to why I want to have this multi dimensional  approach .

Everyone knows that Krishnamacharya was a great Yoga teacher and he himself had various skills like asanas , pranayama ,mantras , ayurveda etc to treat a person and did cure the ailment of many people who came to him but once the great rebel spiritual teacher U.G.Krishnamurti came to him for treatment regarding some mysterious energy flow in his body that was causing him discomfort and Krishnamacharya was employing alll his yoga skills in treating U.G.Krishnamurti and making him do various asanas but it did not have any positive effect on U.G and U.G got frustrated and left Krishnamacharya as he felt that Asanas wont do him any good and  tried doing tai chi to get some relief .

In another case BKS Iyengar was teaching J Krishnamurti ( JK ) and JK did not like his rigid approach to asanas and preferred the gentler style of Desikachar for his yoga practice and Vanda Scravelli who was herself a very dedicated BKS Iyengar Practitioner /teacher  finally quit the Iyengar System as she felt it was all wrong and while she was grateful to BKS Iyengar for putting her on the path of Yoga ,she felt that time had come to discover her own approach to Yoga and she developed her own unstructured approach to Yoga and did not want it to be named as any style though it is popularly referred to as Scravelli Yoga by her students .

I am giving the examples of Krishnamacharya as well as BKS Iyengar not to belittle them ( in fact I hold both of them in very high respect ) but to point out as to how even great yoga teachers like them could not address the needs of all the people who came to them . So let us not be rigid in our approach to yoga and adopt a flexible approach to it without compromising the discipline .

10) My first Mysore Ashtanga Yoga Class experience

When I first started to investigate about Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga after completing my Sivananda Advanced Yoga Teachers Training Course ( ATTC ) in 2004 , I came across Louise Ellis through the net .It was quite an accident that I came across her name at the ashtanga.com site and when I went through her website I was thrilled that she too had a back ground at the Sivananda System and had done the Sivananda Yoga Teachers Training Course (TTC ) in 1971 directly under its founder Swami Vishnu devananda .Soon I was in touch with her through emails /chats but could never meet her directly until September 2010 . As my interest in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga was not very great in 2004 I dropped it and started to focus on the Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga itself .  But in 2010 after I completed the Sivananda Sadhana Intensive Course ( SI) in Jan 2010 for the second time ( I did the first one in Jan 2009 ) ,I decided that it is time to move ahead of the Sivananda System and came across Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in Summer of 2010 .I have detailed in my earlier blog post  titled "2 How my Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga practice began " about this journey .

So in the summer of 2010 when I started seriously getting interested in the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga I decided to learn it myself using Books , DVD's as there was  no proper Ashtanga Shala in my City ,Chennai .In fact in India itself there is no proper Ashtanga Shala except the one of Pattabhi Joise  in Mysore run now by Sharath and Saraswathi .Of course there are few others in Mysore and other places but those are being run by people not directly Certified by Pattabhi Joise . So as a first step I got the relevant books related Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga like David Swenson's Ashtanga Yoga Manual ,Gregor Maehle's Ashtanga Yoga books ( both Primary as well as Intermediate series ) , downloaded the Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A,B Charts as well the entire Primary series Charts from the internet , downloaded David Swenson's Primary series videos from you tube and started learning on my own and practicing the same . As there is a wonderful online ashtanga community on the net  ( and some even maintaining detailed blogs of their practice right from the start ) I could very much connect with the way many people have started their ashtanga journey ,the challenges they faced etc etc .

Once I got bit familiar with the Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A,B and the standing poses I felt the need for a guided audio practice and got hold of Sharath's Ashtanga Primary Audio CD (Available from the site ashtanga.com ) and started to practice the same . It felt as though Sharath was personally instructing me . Though my practice was only up to the completion of the standing sequences ,I felt that I have got a good start as far as my ashtanga vinyasa practice was concerned .It took me a while to get used to this Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice as I come from a different style whose sequence and method are very much different from that of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and whose style I have been practicing for more than  10 years . Even though I was happy with my personal  Ashtanga Vinaysa practice I felt the need for a direct initiation of the practice under a proper certified ashtanga vinyasa teacher  as I felt that while books , DVDs ,CDs can give you knowledge , inspiration and instructions they cant give you the energy of a live teacher . So while I was probing over how to solve this problem of finding a proper live ashtanga teacher to initiate my Ashtanga Journey I came across again Louise Ellis and got to know from her website that she is giving her Mysore style ashtanga classes in Rishikesh from September - December 2010 . This was like a spiritual call to me as Rishikesh in the land of Yoga where my first spiritual Guru Swami Sivananda started his Global spiritual mission and since Louise Ellis also started her Yoga journey with Sivananda Tradition in 1971 ,I felt that nothing better can be than having my first proper ashtanga initiation at Rishikesh ,the land of Yoga under a senior Ashtanga Vinyasa Teacher  who also has a Sivananda background .So I immediately booked my ticket as well as the hotel reservations to Rishikesh for end of september 2010 and luckily a friend of mine also wanted to join me ( though he was not interested in practicing ashtyanga yoga and  he wanted to just have a spiritual break in Rishikesh ) .Luckily for me the flight was available at very cheap rates and the hotel was also not expensive( I stayed at Hotel Narayan Kunj , Swarg Ashram , near Ram Jhula Rishikesh ) and  since it was being shared by my friend  I have to pay only half the rate and I felt like things were all falling in place . As I was visiting North India itself after a gap of 14 years and Rishikesh after 19 years and I was full of excitement .I sent an email to Louise Ellis informing my confirmation of my trip to Rishikesh to take her classes .

Once I landed in Rishikesh on Mon 27 September 2010 evening ,the first thing that I did was to  visit the Holy Ganges river and wash my hands ,legs and sprinkle few drops of the holy ganges water  on my head as a symbolic holy bath and then  visited  the Samadhi Shrine of my spiritual Guru Swami Sivananda at Divine Life Society to receive his blessings before starting my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey . When I came back to the hotel I got in touch with Louise Ellis over her cell and informed her of my arrival and she told me to come for class the next day at 7 a.m at the Yoga Hall at  the Divine  Ganga Cottage near Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh .

I went half an hour early and when Louise Ellis came I informed her about my lack of real life  training in Ashtanga and she told me not to be worried about the same and just relax as this was a Mysore class and there is absolutely no pressure on me to be intimidated by other's performance .She handed out to me a photo copy of Ashtanga Primary series sheet as well as the copy of Ashtanga Prayer sheet .

The class started it at 7 a.m ( Tue 28 September 2010 ) with the Ashtanga Prayer and after that everyone started to do their own self practice and I started doing on my own Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A-5 rounds and B - 5 rounds and Louise Ellis was watching me over and she said they were correct and after that she demonstrated one by one each of the Standing Sequence and asked me to do the same . I had no problem in doing most of them except  Utthita Hast Padangushtasana ( Upright Hand to Big Toe Posture )  .After the standing poses were over , she introduced  to me one by one  the basic sitting poses  along with the Vinyasyas between the sides as well as between the postures up  to Navasan and said  that for any beginner to Ashtanga Vinyasa practice Navasan is the stopping point and after that one can continue with the concluding postures.For me the sitting postures some were easy and some were challenging  and it was quite a new challenging experience for me doing the Vinyasas between the sides as well as between  the postures  and finally  and I did the concluding postures on my own  and I got wonderful adjustments from Louise Ellis for Paschimottasana( Intense Western Stretch )  and Urdhva Padmasana ( Upwards Lotus Posture ) .The concluding postures were not a great difficulty for me as I am used to head stand , shoulder stand , halasan etc as part of the Sivananda Asana routine .Then I had a very good final relaxation for  10 mts .The entire session lasted 90 mts and I concluded around 8.30 a.m and she told me that this will up my regular practice for the next few months and I need to master all the postures up to Navsan before proceeding to the other postures in the primary series .
So this was my first ever real life Mysore Ashtanga practice in a Shala under a real life teacher and happy that I got my formal Ashtanga Initiation under Louise Ellis and I can never forget this first ever Mysore Ashtanga Class experience  on Tue 28 September 2010 at Rishikesh  under Louise Ellis and I consider that date to be my date of formal initiation in to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .

9) Yoga Beyond the Mat

While most of us are aware of the type of yoga to be done on the mat but when it comes to practicing Yoga beyond the mat many of us are confused as to how it should be done . Some consider Yoga to be just what is being done on the Mat and nothing more than that . So when someone says that they are practicing Yoga they mean that they are practicing Yoga on the Mat and nothing more than that and they evaluate themselves as to how far they have progressed in Yoga by how many postures they have learnt , how long they can hold the postures , how many rounds of Surya Namaskar they can do , whether they can stand upside down in Headstand or  do advanced balancing postures like Peacock ( Mayur Asan)  , Scorpion , Crow etc . Some measure their yogic life by how many time a week they practice Yoga , how many times a week they take sattvic food , how many times they meditate , how many yoga sutras or Bhagavad Gita verses they have mastered  etc etc .First of all we must understand that Yoga means joining or integrating and hence when we say that we are practicing yoga we need to include in it all aspects of our life and not just confine it to yoga on the mat .While Yoga on the Mat is the very visible part of this journey ,there is a larger invisible yogic journey that is happening beyond the mat but since it does not have a structure like Ashtanga , Iyengar , Sivananda ,Anusara etc it is never discussed much and many do not know what it means to practice yoga beyond the mat . Yoga beyond the mat varies from person to person and situation to situation and there can be no standard yardstick for the same .Take for example the topic on Being Honest or Truthful . While we need to be honest and truthful in our speech most of the time but there are circumstances where we need to lie ,say for example your friend/family member  is seriously ill and admitted in the hospital and while the Doctor says to you personally that he/she will not be alive for long but request you not to reveal the same to the patient , you must not say No No I practice honesty in my speech and if the patient asks me what they Doctor is saying ,I will reveal to him the truth that he will not live for long . This is the most cruel way of practicing Honesty or truth in speech .So in each and every situation in life we need to weight the pros and cons and act accordingly and there is no standard rule for everyone /every situation .While scriptures like Bhagavad Gita , Yoga Sutras talk about Good /Bad , right /wrong ,standard set of universal values  like Yamas ,Niyamas etc etc but kindly note that  life is no black and white where all things are either all  black or  all white and there are hundreds of shades of grey between them and it is these  grey situations that are tricky and need to be handled and no scripture can come to your Guidance under these grey circumstances .So what is to be done under these circumstances ? There is no easy answer but Sages of the past have given 2 tools to be used when we are confronted with a difficult situation :

1) Put yourself in the shoes of the other person and see what you would do in a similar situation 

2) Introspect yourself as to your  motive behind doing anything i.e are u doing it for some seeking some rewards ( monetary or otherwise ) , are u doing it to seek love , approval or appreciation from the other .

 Putting urself in to the  shoes of the other person and verifying whether you are doing anything for selfish reasons will help you un condition your mind and give your more mental space and this extra mental space will help you get the necessary clarity to take proper decisions appropriate to the situation . But this is easily said than done as the mind has been conditioned  for centuries to think in terms of what benefit it will get directly or indirectly and suddenly asking it to revert to an unselfish situation will not work so easily .But all said and done this is the only way we can see things for clear as they are and not what we want it to be .

While the entire yoga market is flooded with Books and DVDs related to yoga postures only few are related to practicing yoga beyond the mat and I found the following 2 books very good ( links given above ):

1) Bringing Yoga to Life : The Everyday practice of Enlightened Living by Donna Farhi 

 2) Living your Yoga : Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Lasater

Both Donna Farhi and Judith Lasater are seasoned yoga practitioners and teachers and have a rich experience of  not only yoga in general but life itself in particular and the wisdom accumulated by them in their many years of teaching yoga to people from various walks of life in various countries world over  are very much reflected in both these books and  I suggest every serious Yoga practitioner / teacher  to have these books as a guiding tool in their yoga journey as many of the tricky situations we encounter in our yogic life either as a practitioner / teacher have been already encountered by them before and they have given their own insights as to how they have handled them .

8)Best Introductory books for Practising Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga

When I started on my Ashtanga Journey first in 2004 I had Pattabhi Joise book "Yoga Mala" but I found it difficult to use that book for my personal practice as the book had lots of instructions and only few pictures and moreover the instructions and pictures were in different places and I had to keep turning back and forth the pages to know which instruction is for which pose . Since I was fully immersed in the Sivananada System of Classical Hatha Yoga at that time I was not motivated much by Ashtanga Yoga and though "Yoga Mala "was rich in content but  the way in which the instructions and pictures were laid out put me off in seriously pursing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga . When I restarted my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey in Mid 2010 ( I consider 2010 to be the real starting point of my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey ) I was on lookout for a good Introductory Ashtanga Instruction Manual to follow and found the following 2 books to be very excellent books for any student beginning their Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey and the books are :

                                  1)Total Ashtanga by Tara Fraser

                                  2) Ashtanga Yoga the Practice Manual by David Swenson .

While David Swenson's Ashtanga Yoga Practice Manual is quite popular and famous among the Ashtanga Community , Tara Fraser's book "Total Ashtanga" is not that much popular but it is equally an excellent book for beginners . This book by Tara Fraser was never in my list of Ashtanga Books as no one in the Ashtanga Community talked about it ( except for one serious Ashtanga blogger ) and every one were talking more about David Swenson's Ashtanga Practice Manual followed by John Scott's book on Ashtanga Yoga and Gregor Maehle's books on Ashtanga Primary and Secondary series . I came to know of Tara Fraser's book while I was on a Trip to Rishikesh in the end of Sept 2010 to learn formally Ashtanga Vinaysa Yoga under Louise Ellis . As I was going through a book shop in Rishikesh I was surprised to find this excellent introductory book on AsIhtanga Vinyasa Yoga by Tara Fraser and immediately bought it and since then have started using  it more often   as reference for my Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice . I  would say that John Scott and Gregor Maehle's books would suit more for a person who has had a quite an in depth practice  and for a beginner it is better they choose either Tara Fraser or David Swenson's book on Ashtanga Yoga .The reason why I am suggesting these 2 books are :

 1) They are like a ready reference manual with each page having a picture of the posture and its basic instructions .

2) Modifications are given for difficult postures .( While Hard Core Ashtangis refuse to use props , these books make use of basic props to attempt the difficult postures ) .

3) The layout of the book is that there is a perfect balance between pictures and instructions and makes it easy for a beginner to follow the instructions looking at the picture .

 4) The instructions are also quite simple and not too technical and easy to follow .

5) David Swenson's book covers both the primary as well as secondary sequence and if a person is keen on learning both these sequence it is better to get David Swenson's book . Tara Fraser's book covers only the primary sequence .

5) Both these books at the end give a complete Ashtanga Primary Sequence in Picture format .David Swenson's book also has the Secondary series sequence .So even if u do not have an Ashtanga Vinayas  Poster , this picture sequence can help guide you properly . In fact I keep Tara Fraser book by my side when I practice my Ashtanga sequence .

 6) Both these books give a short primary sequence and while  I have not tried them ,it would be very helpful for those who want to have a short primary practice .

So in  conclusion I would say that if you serious in learning both the primary and secondary ashtanga vinyasa sequence then it is better get David Swenson's book but if you are unsure about your own commitment to Ashtanga Vinaysa Practice then better get Tara Fraser's book as it is a simple one  and deals with just the  primary series .

Note : No book can substitute for the instructions received from a qualified real life  teacher but in the absence of a proper Ashtanga Teacher these 2 books are the best guides for you as a beginner to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .

7) Yoga and my Journaling journey

Eventhough I started my yoga journey through the Sivananda System in Mid 1997 I never got in to serious journaling from 2008 onwards .I never had  maintained a dedicated personal  journal so far and during my college days I used to just make some short notes in my diary and in some cases some long notes but never have I seriously documented my life and its happenings in detail .Though Swami Sivananda had urged people on the path of Yoga to maintain a spiritual diary and had also provided a basic template of the same in his books I never felt motivated to develop it as a proper discipline .I used to maintain notes of my practice /  teaching for a few weeks and give it up . It was only in April 2008 when I read an article  titled "Words Heal the world " on the importance of  maintaining a personal journal by Anita Anand  from a magazine called "Life Positive" that I decided that enough is enough and it is high time I started maintaining a dedicated personal journal . Even though I was motivated to start maintaining a personal journal I had my own doubts about how far I will be successful in the same and hence did not to waste any money buying fresh and expensive  writing journals and decided to start writing using an old diary that was virtually empty barring few odd jottings here and there .I could not write properly as I had lost the habit of writing using a pen as most of the time I was using only the Computer to type my letters and I was using the pen only for signing cheques / credit card bills , filling forms and  making short notes and it was years since I wrote a letter to my family / friends as all communications were only through net / emails /phone /cell phones etc . There was heavy mental resistance to writing and I just wrote some short notes for the sake of writing . My  handwriting was horrible and there was no focus on what I wrote and I was just writing for the sake of writing . I wanted to find whether there was any course related to Journal writing for me to get some basic inputs about how to write and maintain a journal as I felt I was not progressing much in my journaling and it was during that time I came across the book "Journal to The Self :by Kathleen Adams " from amazon.com . After reading the initial pages of the book from amazon.com  called" The 79 Cent Therapist " I was totally blown over as to what a powerful tool this journaling was for my own self growth .I immediately got that book and started going over that to see whether there are any rules for maintaining a journal and I was surprised by Kathleen Adams advice is that even though she has suggested various formats and styles for journal writing in her book , in reality there are no rules for journal writing and one just need to write naturally and enjoy the same and that one need not bother about handwriting , grammer , spelling mistakes ,style etc etc . This was a huge relief to me as I all along believed that journal writing should be neat , organized and focused etc etc .So I continued to keep writing whatever came to me and sometimes I wrote short notes , sometimes long notes and sometimes there was a long gap between 2 notes and here again Kathleen Adams advised one need not worry about writing daily or keeping a quota for month or week as journal writing is purely to communicate with ourselves and not to meet any deadlines or win a prize or to fulfill some one's expectation .In that book regarding this  there was an excellent quote from Jim Rohn , the popular motivational speaker and he says " There are 2 things to avoid with your journal .One is never writing in it ; the other is always writing in it . In the first case ,you participate in life without observing it .In the second case , you observe life without participating in it ."

So again I was relaxed that having gaps between 2 journal entries is not a sin and it is perfectly natural . So as I was going through this process of journal writing I felt that I  was only writing randomly on issues that come to my mind but I have not yet developed the discipline of maintaining a proper personal diary of my  yoga practice / teaching and here again I started reading an article from a  magazine called Frozen Thoughts Magazine September 2008 by Lata Krishnaswamy titled "Practicing towards Perfection" pg.52 . She  describes how her Bharatanatyam  Dance teacher Vasanthalakshmi would ask her to maintain a practice notebook where she would be asked to record her practice schedules and what she did and she would always give excuse for not doing that but later felt quite ashamed of it and started practicing regularly . I too felt that it is high time I also maintain a dedicated practice journal to document what I did , what insights I learned , what was my mental state during my practice etc etc and I had the perfect opportunity for the same when I enrolled for the Sadhana Intensive Program in the Sivananda Ashram in Madurai in Jan 2009 . One beauty of this program was that it was purely a personal practice and except for the instructions and basic guidelines each participant had to do their practice independently and also maintain a record of the same and later share their experiences in the afternoon group discussions .I started maintaining a very meticulous record of my own personal practice along with my own mental states of how they were during each practice session . Since it was an intense practice of pranayama ,it gave an excellent opportunity to observe my own mood during the practice as prana and mind originate from the same source .I not only documented my practice sessions but also what happened during discussions and the satsangs , what sort of food was offered to us  each day (  as it was a strict diet conducive for advanced pranayama practice ) .So by the end of the 14 day course I had my entire journal book complete with all details about my practice and other details I observed in the course and was thrilled to have maintained a full comprehensive document of my intensive sadhana .So these 14 days were an excellent training period for me in not only focusing my mind but also in developing a discipline of maintaining a personal journal both for my practice as well as for my own self growth .Apart from my written journal I also started a private  online journal to record my thoughts and feelings and used to alternate between writing on note book  to writing on my online journal .The entire 2009 went like this though there were gaps in between .I got an opportunity to rekindle my Sadhana in 2010 as  I once again redid the Sadhana Intensive Course in  Jan 2010 at the Sivananda Ashram in Madurai and this time it was more easy both during my practice as well as in maintaining my own journal during the course and once again by the time the course was over I had m journal fully filled with all the details about my practice , the discussions , the diet etc .Now I knew that no longer I need to fight in maintaining my journal and that it has become a part of my life .It was at this juncture that on coming back home I bought my first new spiral journal on Feb 2010 exclusively for my journaling and till date I have been quite consistent in my journal writing and while I write more offline in my personal journal I do at times write in my online private journal apart from making entries in my 3 blogs .I am not yet a serious blogger but I am happy to have finally developed a good journaling practice and I can see my own improvement in my writing and like my own personal yoga practice I have started to give equal importance to my journaling activity and consider it to be a very excellent tool for helping me develop more clarity with regard to my life and as I do not have any personal real life Gurus /Mentors I find my journals themselves apart from my extensive reading of books to be good tools to help me evaluate myself and check my own progress and help me move ahead .Though I missed out in documenting my first decade of Yoga Journey i.e 1999-2009  ( tlhough I remember many of them ) I intend not to miss  documenting the next phase of my yoga journey i.e from 2010 (  my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga journey also started seriously from 2010)  and happy that I have made journaling a very important aspect of my life from 2010 onwards and so far I have maintained up to date accounts of my Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice and hope to maintain the same .