{"id":94,"date":"2012-08-16T13:10:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T13:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/?p=94"},"modified":"2012-08-17T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T14:35:09","slug":"reflections-from-my-teenage-son-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"Reflections from my teenage Son in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Parker Williams, 17<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>How does one begin to describe the experience I&#8217;ve had only 6 days into this amazing journey? My first impressions of this foreign land tell me that &#8220;this is not normal&#8221;, but the truth is its just life that I&#8217;m not accustomed to. Cows and dogs roaming the streets, garbage and a polluted stench in the air. I&#8217;m thinking &#8220;how could someone survive more than a day here?&#8221; However as I&#8217;ve settled in to this place I call home for the next few weeks I&#8217;ve come to realize that its really not bad at all, its rather amazing. The people are friendly, the food isn&#8217;t to shabby and the smell&#8230;well it still smells.<\/p>\n<p>As a beginner to the Ashtanga practice my body has aches and pains all over after only 4 days. The thought of waking up at 4:30 am was unappealing to me at first and now though i find its really not bad at all. It just means ending my day early although that&#8217;s not a problem at all. \u00a0The walk to the Shala in the morning is tedious but after my practice I feel refreshed and rejuvenated. \u00a0Every day my practice seems to ease along up to the point where Saraswathi tells me to contort my not so flexible body into postures I&#8217;ve never done before. I love it though. I&#8217;m really becoming to understand why my Mom has such an obsession with the Ashtanga yoga practice.<\/p>\n<p>Chanting is at 10 am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Yoga Sutra on days in between and on Sunday. The 2 other classes really seem to compliment my practice and give me an understanding of what the point of everything I&#8217;m doing here is.<\/p>\n<p>At first I thought that my Mother and I were the only &#8220;white people&#8221; in this city, but as the days went on we met more people from all other the world. Brazilians, Spaniards, English and even people from Wisconsin. It&#8217;s great to finally find out were not in this alone. I&#8217;ve really come to be more relaxed with this whole situation.<\/p>\n<p>Though I&#8217;m not strictly a vegetarian and would much rather enjoy a juicy steak and a fat burger with fries and a milkshake, I&#8217;ve come to really like the masala dosas and briani, but its always great to get a &#8220;western breakfast&#8221; of pancakes and french toast.<\/p>\n<p>I have a long trip ahead of me and can&#8217;t wait to discover more of this incredible country. \u00a0Only thing I have to worry about now is avoiding the chaotic driving system, that amazingly enough seems to be in a way organized.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/DSCN1979.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-98 \" title=\"Parker at Anokhis Cafe\" src=\"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/DSCN1979-300x251.jpg\" alt=\"Where the yogis go for breakfast\" width=\"300\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/DSCN1979-300x251.jpg 300w, https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/DSCN1979-1024x857.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/DSCN1979-358x300.jpg 358w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parker enjoying pancakes at Anokhis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Parker Williams, 17 How does one begin to describe the experience I&#8217;ve had only 6 days into this amazing journey? My first impressions of this foreign land tell me that &#8220;this is not normal&#8221;, but the truth is its just life that I&#8217;m not accustomed to. Cows and dogs roaming the streets, garbage and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/?p=94\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Reflections from my teenage Son in India<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysore-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatbreathedoyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}