About a month ago I began "pre-yoga" classes for a form called SwaSthya. For those of you who have some concept of yoga, I guarantee you aren't imagining SwaSthya. A Brazilian Yogi developed this style, the DeRose Method, in the 60s or 70s, based completely from ancient Yoga. SwaSthya has a performative aspect, practitioners develop a "choreografia" which they perfect over a long period of time. It looks like a slow, athletic, yogic dance. If you're interested, you can youtube SwaSthya Yoga and find lots of examples. Buenos Aires has five or so DeRose "sedes", but all more or less exist as one entity I think. Young people pretty much run the whole operation, and they run it quite well. The director of my Sede, Sol, is in her early 30s. She treats me like I'm already a member of the DeRose family. The place is gorgeous and connects to a delicious vegetarian health food restaurant which offers some of the best food I've had in Buenos Aires. The first time I came to class, I brought along my trusty yoga mat, but I didn't need it. The floor of the practice room is entirely padded so you can move about freely. Classes are always kept intimate, maybe 7 students when it's packed, but 4 on an average day. Each student basically sticks with one teacher who leads him/her through the various steps of pre-yoga and SwaSthya. My teacher, Mariana, an excited 21-year-old newbie has tons of energy to devote to my Yogic development. Between the two of us, she certainly seems the more invested in my ascent through the SwaSthya process. Everyday after class students stick around to have a delicious hot spicy chai and chat a bit before going on with their respective days. It's quite a "buena onda" (good vibe), the whole thing.
I bring this up now because last night I witnessed a very special SwaSthya tradition, a Sat Chakra (or something like that). On Monday, Mariana asked me if I would come to this thing, and I said, "no sorry, I have a class." She proceeded to tell me, "OH NO! This is a once a year event. You really should try to come! Cancel your class! it's incredible!!" So I said to myself, "Self, this is a once a year event! It's incredible! And if I don't go on Wednesday I might miss my only chance! You must be freed from class!" So I called up my student to see if we could reschedule Wednesday night's appointment. She said no problem, so Wednesday afternoon after my usual pre-yoga class I announced to Marina that I would make it after all. She looked at me a bit askew and explained, (this is a loose translation), "Wellllll, this is really only for advanced SwaSthya students (I have not yet graduated to SwaSthya)." Let me just stop for a moment and note this perfect example of Argenine-ism. Monday she tells me I HAVE to go, and Wednesday she's telling me that, actually, I can't really go. So I said, "but I canceled a class to come." "Ok then, great, come on. Stick with me and I'll make sure you know what's going on," Mariana told me.
So last night as I headed out the door and my roommate inquired as to where I was going, I answered, "I haven't the first clue." I showed up at the Sede to find oodles and oodles of young, exceedingly friendly (mostly beautiful) Argentines. I still had no idea what we were doing there. I saw Marina, but she just gave me the customary kiss on the cheek and went about her preparations with the other instructors. I followed the crowd piling into yoga studio where everyone else seemed to know to sit encircling a blanket covered with flowers, candles, fruit and brownies. I looked around the circle for Marina, who had promised to keep me under her watch, but she seemed completely occupied. Just as I'd accepted that I'd have to fend for myself, Will, an American from Chicago grabbed my hand and pulled me down next to him. Will and I had met on a few occasions between classes. At some point while traveling in Buenos Aires he discovered, and subsequently fell in love with, SwaSthya, and is currently studying to be an instructor. He looks like an American basketball player--not a dude you'd take for a yogi. "Yo!" he said as he pulled me over to sit next to him. "Dude, this shit is ca-razzzzy, right! Don't worry, you stick with me, I'll show you what to do! I'm psyched to show this shit to another American. When I first went to one of these things I was like, YO, this would never happen in the states! All this hippy dippy shit! HaHA! But man, here it's dope! Don't worry girl, I got cho back! Just follow me." And with that, "the dope shit" commenced. The SwaSthya Maestro of Argentina led the ceremony which involved clapping and chanting in Hindi or Sanskrit...or something...come to think of it, I don't know which. Now and then Will would elbow me, beam a huge smile and shake his head as if to say, "yeah I know, right!" After the clapping and chanting, we did some sort of energy/meditation circle, then everyone dug on into the fruit and sweets and we watched a couple of choreografias. These people can certainly move beautifully!
And so, in the end, I have no regrets about rescheduling my class! The Sat Chakra (?), whatever it was, was CA-RAZZZZY!
- People live with their families until they are 27, 28, 29...35 years old! A lot of people just live in their parents' house until they get married. I suppose this is the reason why there's lots of smoochin' in the streets!
- Apparently the Argentine solution to "decaf" coffee is to serve a mixture of hot water and milk with a hint of coffee flavoring.
- Human labor is very very cheap here. Anyone with any money has a maid. Many of these maids live with the family, and they actually dress is maids' uniforms--a collared black dress with stockings and a smock! More than one of my students has one. In these homes, the maid is the one to let me into the house when I arrive, and then she attends to the needs of my student and myself, bringing us drinks or a snack or whatever. Very strange for me indeed!
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