Five Days in September.

Last week I had every intention of blogging on a daily basis. I thought I might ease one or two mild bodily discomforts while learning what this thing called Afrikan Yoga is all about. Certainly, I was looking forward to having a lot of quiet time by the beach to do some writing and thinking and resting and all that good stuff that one associates with a retreat..

...not so much. Who knew these things could be so exhausting?

Day one was fine. I felt like a beached whale trying to do the samba but that was only to be expected after two years of inactivity. Besides, there were six other retreatees to meet and get to know. And lots of fresh teas to consume: cinnamon, vanilla, lime, lemongrass... Babuu, a bouncy young entrepreneur with pecs the size of grapefruits and a plot on a spice farm, would get his mama to brew up some teas for after the evening practice with stuff he picked fresh as we watched him.

On day two I saw the right side of 6:00 am for the first time this year when I woke up for morning meditation... and learned to my surprise and through powerful experience that meditation should come with a mental health warning. I was slightly more graceful at yoga (think gimpy manatee), but the day passed in a haze of total highness brought on by excessive deep breathing of fresh air and consumption of herbal teas. I am starting to understand why some yogic types float and twinkle their way through life sustained by nothing but water and sunshine.

On day three, total system shut-down. Yoga done right is holistic, which means that you experience a lot of physical as well as emotional and psychological sensations as you open up to the practice. Physical detox is hard. While I wasn't as sore as I had expected to be considering the 4+ hours of practice per day, I was certainly ready to rip out someone's liver and eat it raw. Not quite the tranquility I was expecting...

...but on day four, I woke up in peace. I spent the morning smugly enjoying the sensation of being ten kilos lighter and the afternoon being kneaded into a coma by Asha, the most nurturing masseuse who has ever laid hands on me.

Back in Bongo for 24 hours, it is already getting hard to recall that sense of total relaxation. So, what is Afrikan Yoga* in a nutshell? Basically, like any yoga, it is a mind-body system of practice with a spiritual component to it. A couple of hours per day composing blogposts in my head hasn't yielded an answer on how to describe the philosophy or sensations of Afrikan Yoga. So I won't bother trying to reduce the experience. I'll just say this: it is fantastic, and I am hooked. You should try it. Especially if you are African.

There will be some more Afrikan Yoga information/opportunities in the next few months- I'll keep you posted.

*Tamare Smai Taui. Also: there are pictures but my intertubes connection is so slow that I was re-incarnated three times before the damn thing realized it couldn't handle so much data.

That Hudu That You Do So Well...

Pablo The Afrikan Yoga Instructor puts it this way: Hudu is African Tai Chi. And that's some of what we were doing today on the beach in the morning. I cannot answer the question "What is Afrikan Yoga" yet, and I suspect that a week is too little time for me to understand enough to offer a comprehensive answer.

But here's some of what I have picked up so far: this is not a variant of yoga as we understand it, meaning that it does not spring from Hindu tradition. It is in fact called Tamare Smai and springs from ancient Egyptian philosophy. Did the image of Yul Brynner in a loincloth just pop into your head? That's what happened to me. But we're talking about Kemet here, and further back into exogenic creation mythologies. So why bother with terms like Yoga and Tai Chi? Because these are terms that are more widely understood, saving the Tamare Smai practitioner precious explanation time that could be used for meditation.

Thus, most of the movements I know as sun salutation from my brief affair with Ashtanga Yoga I encountered as the Journey of Ra this morning. Which brings me to the second important point: like any mind-body practice it only looks peaceful and easy to the uninitiated. One of the little secrets that yogic types like to keep to themselves is just how much of a physical wake-up call a person's first lesson is. Your body gets an opportunity to vent at you for all the ills you have put it through.

Apparently the old body's not very happy with me. In our first session I felt every single cigarette, every late night and bad posture, every skipped meal and ill-advised "one for the ditch" in my recent past. I discovered I weigh as much as a baby elephant when trying to do my push-ups off the floor, that no amount of exhaling was going to get my fingers to meet my toes in a sitting leg-stretch and that even my fat-tired Suzuki has a nimbler turning circle than my spine.

And we're going to do it all over again this evening...

So. Afrikan Yoga Retreat eh?

Yup. I am in Zanzibar for the week being introduced to Afrikan Yoga courtesy of Umoja Travels in exchange for a slow version of live blogging. The barter system is alive and well :) But honestly, James didn't exactly have to twist my arm. I have a very healthy 'alternative' side that made resisting the offer of a restful retreat in Zanzibar doing two mind-body training and healing sessions a day completely impossible. Also: Afrikan Yoga? I want to know what that is. The free 45-minute massages included in the package had nothing to do with my decision...

My friend James Chagula, who is based in London, started Umoja Travel (website under construction, link will come later) with the intention of putting together packages that afford his clients a chance to experience the Tanzania he knows and loves rather than the rather frightening "Africa" that is so often portrayed in non-African media.

His philosophy is based on personal experience. He found that what affects him most profoundly in his travels has been the people he meets- the human connections that get forged across our differences. Hence the name Umoja Travel, paying homage to the connections of our human experience.

Also, he's had a long-term interest in mind-body practice and this is the first Yoga retreat put together under Umoja- an experiment, if you will. A couple of Facebook messages back and forth between us about a month ago and here I am with our teacher Pablo and a group of ladies from London treating my body to healthfulness while ignoring the thoroughly captivated fishermen watching from the shack twenty meters away.

And you know what? It is perfect. No televisions, free WiFi and I haven't heard a single truck, voice raised in anger or vuvuzela in the past 24 hours. The permanent knot that lives in my upper right shoulder is about to get an eviction notice.