YOGA (THE STRETCHES) Part 2

This is part two of YOGA (THE STRETCHES). Here are some more stretches:

The shoulder stand. To do the shoulder stand you must balance on your head and shoulders. It increases memory power, will power and many other functions of the upper body by making the blood flow in that direction.

Shoulder Stand

The fish is a very simple asana that opens the lungs to the maximum.

Easy Fish

Harder Fish

Half Locust

The half locust strengthens the lower back and thigh.

Savasana is the relaxation pose for all asanas done on your back. It is the best relaxation pose. It calms the body and replenishes lost energy.

Savasana

Lotus is the pose for meditation. It calms the brain and increases flexibility of the legs.

Lotus

Half Wheel Builds up strength in preparation for Wheel.

Half Wheel

Wheel stretches chest and lungs, strengthens arms, wrists, legs, abdomen and spine and helps general fitness.

Wheel

Wheel

Forward bend stretches the complete back and relaxes nerves.

Forward Bend

The 2nd version of crow and flying lotus both improve concentration and increases flexibility of the legs.

2nd version of Crow

Flying Lotus

Leg above head merely increases flexibility of the legs.

Leg above head

Child pose is a good relaxation pose.

Child Pose

These are but 11 asanas of 84 000.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

Kalaripayattu

While we were on our holiday we visited Periyar and while staying there we went to a Kalaripayattu presentation. This is the mother of all martial arts and is spectacular to watch…

First they performed a religious opening ceremony, and after that the real thing kicked in. It included mock fights with swords, daggers and other weapons were one mistake would have meant DEATH. In these mock fights they jumped very high and often struck sparks. These were breathtaking although at the end someone was always disarmed and after that the weapon-less person always won. This was because it would be hard to make the person with the sword win without killing the other fighter. After the mock fights they show how to use a bow staff. First with one and then with two which seemed almost to be touching. After that they lit both the staffs which resulted in an amazing show that looked like two rings of fire! Next they demonstrated how to use an urumi-sword / flexible-sword which looked impossible to block. The last act was jumping through a ring of fire. It was purely amazing.

Sword Fight

A twirling staff with fire on the end.

Two staffs with fire on the end.

Jump through the ring of fire.

Facts:

Kalaripayattu is the mother of all martial arts and was used by the lords of Kerala. It was used when two lords had an argument. It worked by each lord choosing a champion and the champions fighting instead of there being a full scale war. Here are two more pictures I found on the web.

How do they do it?

 

 

Safari 3+4

Safari 3
Place: Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary, Wayanad
Time: 3pm-4pm
The Safari:
We were all looking forward to going on a safari in Wayanad. Wayanad was famed for its amazing range of wildlife. I began to get my doubts when we headed out in the middle of the day. I knew that most animals were active at twilight or around twilight. After arriving we went straight to the reception and were told to wait. After some waiting we finally departed into the sanctuary. The actual safari: not much, a few elephants. Well at least it was interesting seeing how well the animals could hide. 😉

Safari 4:
Place: Periyar Lake
Time: 7am-9am
The Safari:
As we arrived at Periyar Lake we were stunned by the amazing scenery. Fog drifted over the lake in lazy spirals and trees poked bare branches out of the lake. But, unfortunately, the effect was ruined by a few hundred humans chattering excitedly. Our guide lead the way to the ticket counter to get our tickets. When the guide returned people were already shoving and pushing their way onto the narrow path leading to the boats. We stood back waiting for the throng to ease off a bit. Finally we walked down to the boat and boarded with our guide leading the way to our reserved seats. Yay, our seats were at the very front on the second level. At the start of the safari there were barely any wild animals, only a few wild boars with babies, but later we saw elephants coming down to drink, jackals, kingfishers and many more animals! Our guide identified a small black bird with an arrow tail, which seemed to be floating along behind it, as a black drogo. After that he identified many more animals. Unfortunately many of these animals were scared away because most of the people were talking loudly. It was a great safari!

   

White Neck Stork

Snake Bird

   

Jackals!

Indian Bison

And at the end we saw one of the world’s largest squirrels.
75cm<

 

The Two Kabini Safaris

Safari 1
Time: 5pm-7pm
The Safari:
We took the bus to the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. And found a massive safari bus waiting for us. This was a pre-booked safari but unfortunately they waited for an extra ten people to come, so that everyone was squished up and found it hard not to get in each others way. Luckily the bus had massive windows and elevated everyone’s position which helped a lot when it came to spotting animals. Soon we were out, driving through the jungle. After half an hour we had seen wild boars, monkeys, Indian Bison, more deer than we could count, serpent eagles, kingfishers and much more. A little later we headed down to a lake to see elephants. There were at least twenty huge elephants and some miniature – well, only miniature if you compared them to the adult elephants – baby elephants. It was amazing but when we moved on we didn’t stop, well only once. We stopped beside a group of jeeps in which all the people were looking excitedly into the trees and trying to spot something. Finally, after a lot of asking around, we discovered that there was a leopard in the trees. That was when one of the guides came back and took my binoculars because the guides hadn’t brought their own ones. After a while I got them back and after I looked I handed them around to my family and some other people. Next we continued back on a very bumpy track. I was sitting at the back and at some points I almost flew out the window and at others I almost flew down the aisle. As I said, it was a very, very bumpy ride. I felt like someone had put me in a giant tin can and had gotten a giant to shake it around. Oh, wait, the tin can had windows and there were animals outside it. Soon after, a group of shaken people arrived back at the entry to the national park and quickly escaped the iron beast, to go to the holiday resort… and have dinner. So that was the first safari.

Indian Bison

Monkeys

Safari 2
Time: 7am-9am
The Safari:
It was very early morning, but we were already awake. We knocked on Vinod’s door and found out that he wasn’t coming. Dave, Apurv and Riminda weren’t coming either. At least Laura, Adam and Julia were coming. By the way, these are all trainers from Thoughtworks. Anyway, we were finally departing to go to the safari. The second safari was better than the first even though we didn’t see as many animals, this was because the hundreds of deer we saw on the last safari weren’t up yet. The thing was, that everything that was up, was wide awake. Some deer were fighting and even some wild chickens were awake.

 

We saw so much. We must have seen all the species from the first safari and more. We saw peacocks and boars, elephants and… a mongoose, and… while we were on the way back we saw a (drum role) leopard! It was so close. Barely 20 metres away. It was in a tree but after a while it climbed off the tree and into plain sight. We were amazed. And even now as I sit here typing and remembering that safari… I remember it as the best.

Mongoose

 

 

Apologies

This is just to say sorry that no posts have been published for a while. We went on a proper holiday down to Kerala, so it was hard to find internet connection and time.

Our adventures will be published soon, continue viewing our blog to hear all about them.

 

Temple Opening!

On Friday as we were walking home from yoga, one of the yoga teachers came out of the yoga centre and asked us if we wanted to come see a new temple which was just opening. The teacher said that it was the third and final day of celebration and the official opening. When we arrived in the large temple we realised that there were more than 1000 people attending. Because 1000 people couldn’t fit in the temple there was a great, massive pavilion. We looked around a while as we waited for the main temple to empty a bit because there must have been three-hundred people in the main room. The yoga teacher showed us around while we were waiting. He showed us the fire and how many times you needed to walk around it. It is one of the amazing things about Hinduism, that instead of being annoyed if you go into their temples, they are happy that you join in their rituals because they think it is respectful. When the temple began to empty, we went inside and looked around. Everyone was leaving as they began walking down the road carrying coconut offerings. We rang a large bell and our yoga teacher explained that the bell would create a vibration to alert the gods that we were there. Then a priest handed us a coconut offering and we joined the procession with the coconuts in beakers on our heads. As we walked our teacher explained that the walk was to pay respect to the gods. So we were walking along the road barefoot with coconuts on our heads and cars behind us honking to get past. As I said before, it was amazing that people just smiled instead of shoving us from the procession. When we got back our teacher told us that we had done something for the gods and now they would look out for us.

It was an unforgettable experience.

P.S. Sorry that there aren’t any pictures.

 

YOGA (THE STRETCHES) Part 1

I know that I already wrote a post about yoga but that was hurried. Now I will go into the details of some of the stretches:

1.The plough (below) is a yoga stretch that makes the spine and neck more flexible, strengthens the arms, back and shoulders and is good for internal organs.

FIRE!

Recently, one evening, while we were going about our work my sister shouted, “Fire!” Everyone immediately ran to the windows and yes, there on on an electricity wire was a bright, crackling fire. It was an electrical fire and had some strange properties. For one, it wasn’t only red, orange and yellow but also purple and pink and blue and many other colours. “Stay away from the windows,” my parents warned. Anyway, inside it was like a disco with the fire projecting all types of colours through the windows. A moment later there was a, “Bang!” and all the power went out until the generator came on.

It was a strange experience. 🙂

 

The Big Banyan Tree

Yesterday we went to Doda Alada Mara. Doda Alada Mara is a massive Banyan Tree that is three acers big (12000 square metres) that means it is about as big as the Dalmain Primary School oval. Also it is 400 years old. It is amazing.

Some of the Big Banyan Tree

After wondering through this shady paradise for a while I spotted a family of monkeys playing around on a car. They kept jumping on to the car and falling off again. It was hilarious to watch but after a while they got bored and left for more of their monkey business.

Poor owner of this car.

 

10 Ways to Die in Bangalore

As you may know, Bangalore is not the safest of places. Actually it is not very safe at all. So to help you understand how dangerous it really is, I will write a list of the 10 most popular ways to die in Bangalore:

1. The most popular method is to get run over by a car, truck, auto-rickshaw, motorbike, bike or any other random vehicle. This usually happens when you forget that you are not as holy as a cow, so cars are less likely to stop for you.

2. Still quiet popular. Get involved in a car accident. This happens because there aren’t any traffic rules, well at least none that anyone follows.

3.Time for some variety. Falling in a hole would be quiet dangerous. Bumping your head against the side of a hole could give you concussion. In India that is no far away thought. There are holes in the pavements. So don’t fall in one because it could be fatal.

4. Getting a heart attack because of the smell (no exaggeration). Pretty self explanatory.

5. If a mosquito bites you, you might get malaria. If you get malaria it might be fatal.

6. Getting bitten by an animal that has rabies. If you don’t get medical treatment you will die.

7. Getting Hepatitus A or B. Both of these diseases can be fatal.

8. Drinking tap water. A bit gives you bad diarrhoea and you would probably be sick. Too much is fatal.

9. Getting an Asthma attack because of all the dust and dirt.

10. Something falling on your head. You may not think this is fatal… but look below…

Sausage tree