Finding the Groove (Dunedin, take 1)

I just came from my first kiwi yoga class. Instead of the hour that I'm used to, it was 90 minutes. Instead of a cozy Korean basement, it was a chilly wooden loft. Instead of everyone lined up side by side, facing the teacher, everyone laid their mats along the walls, facing inwards. Instead of nearly identical uniforms of baggy, traditional style pants gathered at the ankles and fitted t-shirts, everyone wore running tights and layers of hippy accessories. The teacher was a man, transplanted from Scotland light years ago, with an accent so thick I couldn't understand anything he said. THIS is culture shock.

I am no hard core yogi, by any means. But yoga has come to be a pretty integral part of my life over the past 18 months. It keeps me limber (somewhat) and calm (somewhat). And it makes me strong. More than any gym routine I ever did or any sport I ever played. The kind of yoga I have been blessed to find is serious exercise, disguised as serious relaxation. Pretty much an ideal workout in my books. So when I got to Dunedin, finding a space to continue my practice was high on my list of priorities. I tried working out in my room, with a hefty book I carried first from America and then from Korea, and my trusty mat. But I am really abysmal at solo practice...lazy, lazy, lazy! Studio space needed, pronto!

I figured in a place like this (the entire grocery store is FULL of organic, free-range, locally grown, eco-friendly...) there would be a yoga studio on every corner. But if there is, they are well disguised. This place had a flag on google maps (no website, a phone number that no one answers), so after two days of nothing from them, I decided to take matters into my own hands and show up on their doorstep. I got there just in time to stop the teacher from MAILING me a timetable. As in, a paper schedule in an actual envelope with a stamp. This place is such a trip!!

According to the schedule, today's class was a '2' - for people who have sustained a practice for 6 or more months. Right. The class was full of lithe waifs, gliding through each pose like the dancers they surely are. Not that the moves were any more difficult than anything I do in Korea (my sense, after one class, is that my Korean teachers use a far more integrated approach to poses, meaning everyone does a lot of every level of difficulty with a lot of support right from the beginning), just that I felt really inept. When I told the teacher at one point that I couldn't understand what he wanted me to do, having never taken a class in English before, so was taking a moment to see what everyone else was doing, he responded derisively 'the asanas are SANscrit!'

Yet, despite the heavy dose of righteousness that I could have done without, the smiles on the women's faces were warm and friendly, the movements both incredibly refreshing and intensely relaxing, and for the first time in days I feel really at ease. So I will go back. Often. Thankfully the studio has a reduced rate for students, making it about the most affordable thing in this town.

Dunedin is charming. Utterly charming. The main street looks like something out of midwestern America (for those who are familiar with it), with the foliage of Canada's Vancouver Island. I live in a 150 year old mansion, in a great big, bright room with lead-paned windows that go from the floor to the very tall ceiling all the way around a terrific rounded front. Although the kitchen and bathrooms are shared, I rarely have the sense that there is anyone else around, except in that comforting 'people around' kind of way. Most of the other residents are PhD candidates like me, lost in their own worlds of books and research.

The house is at the very edge of campus, across the street from New Zealand's oldest and largest botanical gardens. In the mornings I have been running through the grounds, around 8am when the sun is just coming up (I am really far south here people!), the heavy scent of wild eucalyptus clearing the sleep out of my lungs. I always stop at the peak of the hill, at the aviary, where a flock of wild parrots likes to tease the caged residents by snacking on the shrubbery. The birds have brilliant red heads and electric lime bodies that light up the bushes. Absolutely amazing.

Today I ran through the botanical gardens and out the far side, at the edge of the wildnerness preserve that forms the other border of the house where I live. From there you can see straight down across the water that separates town from the narrow peninsula where sea lions, albatross and two kinds of penguins nest (do sea lions nest?). At that time of the morning the water glistens gold, illuminating every window and making the whole town glow. On the other side of the peninsula is the open sea.

There is more to say (especially about that divine carrot cake...this town is HEAVEN for baked goods), but my stomach is growling fiercely, reminding me that I haven't eaten yet. Time to go home and cook up a couple of those local lamb and mint sausages I got for next to nothing at the grocery store, to go alongside the roasted pumpkin salad that is ubiquitous here and which I am already addicted to. More soon. Much love.