THROWBACK: JUNGLE ROOFTOP KARANDAVASANA

Another video from my "when we were young" file. Tara filmed this during a weeklong trip to Auroville in 2005. The Jois shala had closed for a week, so we had traveled to just north of Puducherry (Pondicherry) on the bay of Bengal.

I watched this video again and thought, "Boy, we've practiced Ashtanga in some great and crazy places." Chad Herst was teaching with his then-partner Monica Marinoni on the rooftop of her house. One side had a cement ledge that faced raw green jungle.

It looks sunny during this video, which is weird because a cyclone tore through and dumped rain for what seemed like an entire week. I woke one night with our bedsheets soaked through, and thought, "Did I pee the bed?" Turns out our bed was touching the wall, and the walls sweated had enough water to soak our sheets. 

We had a family motorcycle (a Ninja), and would finish journies covered up to the knee in mud.

It was, to say the least, a very trying trip.

I had just learned to press back up from the bottom position of this pose and was still enamored with the feeling.

The other detail that really pops out to me is that, during this period of my life more than 10 years ago, I weighed about 145 pounds. 

I have since "filled in," as my wife charitably puts it, to about 175. It is quite remarkable the different sensations in the postures, especially the twists, given the 30 additional pounds.