Ida Mountain

Last Monday, my sister, me and some friends, we all went to Ida mountain by Canakkale. I went up to mountain with few friends, my sister and others stayed down by the camping area. Initially, I was going to stay down as well but Defne, who is another yoga chick, convinced me to go up. The first night we stayed at the peak of the mountain, which was extremely windy. I hardly slept; still, with the sunrise, we woke up for practice! It was windy but it was not as cold as the night, so we could practice. I did my ashtanga practice, while Defne and Yasemin did another style which is called Gravity and Grace. Then we packed our tents and went for a long hike. It took longer than 3 hours probably and my Converses killed my feet, so I recommend not hiking with them! Where our hike ended, there was a small creek where we had our lunch and then we went into the extremely cold water! It was so great! I don’t think I could go into such cold water some years ago but I guess I am stronger now, so it was not so difficult to dip in and of course there was the fact that I did not have any other shower option ☺ . Afterwards, we went to our next camping area in the woods, which was not windy; therefore, the tent was not sticking to my head at night and I had a nice sleep. The next day after practice and breakfast, I took the lazy way and stayed in the camping area, reading and laying around. That was a great choice! In the afternoon, I did two small walks and then me and Yasemin took a shower with our bikinis by this spring which was 100 meters away from our camping area. The water was even colder since it was originating right there. We used a water bottle and my Mysore sandalwood soap to have our shower. The last day, I did a shorter practice, and after breakfast we packed and got back down. It was very nice to practice in the nature. Of course, having a bumpy, rocky ground is not optimal, however, energetically, it is really something else, especially compare to practicing at home amongst furniture. Also, it is so nice to sit before and after practice and listen to the nature. This mini vacation was really nice. All that cold water which we could also drink…
Now I am back to the city… It is hot and sticky. I taught a class yesterday which was a bit strange. Three people showed up, a daughter and a mother and their acquaintance. Before the class, the young girl interrogated me by asking my history of training, whether I was trained here, in Turkey or abroad, etc… Anyway, then I wanted to chant Om at the beginning of the class, this wthen the mother began laughing, which did not really bother me. I don’t expect everyone to enjoy it. But I guess she felt bad, so she apologized after class. Then the other lady had a back injury, which kind of made me anxious. But over all, at the end, they all seemed pleased with the class. That is what matters the most. My only concern is I get different people in every class, I wish same people would show up so I could help them move on with their practice. Hopefully it will happen slowly.