Girl Meets Canada: My Yoga Vacation

The ongoing story of a girl and her van on an epic journey across Canada.

Day 61-68 (Friday, July 9th – Friday, July 16th)

Bev, I’ve been trying to take good pictures of every provincial border crossing. I swear I have! But sometimes (like when you’re crossing into Quebec at Hawkesbury), they just sneak up on you suddenly when you’re on a bridge and there’s nowhere to pull over.

So this is the best you get for Quebec. My camera thought it was better to focus on the dead bugs on my windshield than the actual sign.

Now folks, you know that feeling when you’ve been working so long and so hard and you’re burnt out and you need a nice, relaxing vacation? Maybe some of you have experienced that.

More common is when you’ve worked so little and lazily and have pretty much been on a slacker’s vacation for a year that you feel like you’re going to burn out on fun and relaxation. You need a vacation from your vacation.

I know we’ve all been there.

Right?

Hello?

This is why I booked myself a yoga vacation at the Sivananda Ashram in Val Morin, Quebec. One week of yoga, meditation, meals prepared for me, and calm, serene good times.

I should mention that I’ve been going to yoga classes (or what we in North America call Yoga, which are the physical postures, or asanas. For true yogis the asanas are a very small part of yoga.) on and off for the last eight years. So I felt pretty confident that I’d be able to handle a week of yoga camp. How hard could it be?

Daily Schedule

• 5:30am Bell to wake up.
• 6am Satsang (30 minutes of silent meditation, some chanting, and a discussion on an aspect of yoga)
• 8am Two hour yoga class
• 10am Brunch
• 11am Karma yoga (volunteer work)
• 12pm Yoga coaching (help with any asanas you are having trouble with)
• 2pm A lecture on some aspect of yoga
• 4pm Two hour yoga class
• 6pm Dinner
• 8pm Satsang again
• 10pm Fall into bed exhausted

I had my first yoga class Friday afternoon. By the Saturday afternoon class every muscle in my body was shaky and sore. Including my brain, which could not see a way to survive another 11 classes in 4 1/2 days.

What did not surprise me at all was how difficult I found the meditation. I’ve never really meditated before, and being thrown into it for half hour twice a day was more than my brain could handle. I was familiar with the concept behind it. Breathe, try to still your mind and not think, be present in the moment — all activities that I thought I understood. Until I tried it.

Breathing was no problem. I’m pretty darn good at that, if I do say so myself. It was the “still your mind” part that was so challenging. At first, it saw meditating as a great opportunity to chat.

Mind: Oh, perfect, just you and me. We never get to spend one on one time together any more!

Me: Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore the Mind.

Mind: Haha! Funny. Okay, what should we talk about?

Me: Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore the Mind.

Mind: How about all that yoga! Good for us. We’re the bomb.

Me: Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore the Mind.

Mind: Don’t want to talk about yoga? Okay, let’s talk about our van. Jeez, I hope nothing else breaks for a while.

Me: Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore the Mind.

Mind: Hey, did you close the windows? Because I think it might rain.

Me: Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore the Mind.

Mind: We’ll need to do some hand washing in a few days or your bras will be really stinky. Okay? Will you remember that?

Me: …

Mind: Hello? McFly?

Me: Can we talk about this later? I’m trying to meditate.

Mind: Ppht! Good luck with that. Hey, that guy in front of you has really nice forearms.

Me: Not appropriate!

Mind: Just take a quick look.

Me: Shh!

Once my mind figured out that I was serious about stilling it, it took particular offence and started to throw out anything to distract me. And I mean anything.

Mind: Remember when you had a job and you were managing a project that was super stressful? Hmmm? Let’s think about that for a while. Do you want some chocolate? Let’s think about chocolate chocolate CHOCOLATE! Your last apartment had a fire escape with a blue door and it was raining when you were in Winnipeg and you haven’t picked up your sketch book at all even though you took that stupid drawing class and in grade six you were teased about your frizzy hair and you really enjoyed the A-Team movie and remember the scene where Bradley Cooper is tied up in some tires and have you noticed how much your back hurts RIGHT NOW and you’re not going to win this, so just give up. Look at me! LOVE ME!!!!

I could go on. But I won’t.

Fortunately after the third day my body started to adjust and the yoga classes became very enjoyable, especially when I started to be able to do postures I’ve never been able to achieve before. The meditation didn’t really got easier, but I did manage to come to a sort of cease-fire with my mind. It would try to behave for the 30 minutes and  I wouldn’t yell at it when it did wander off. But I have to admit that I never really got to the 3rd part of meditation — being present in the moment. It’s a heck of a lot harder than it sounds. Just ask my mind. It’ll tell you aalllll about it.

On Thursday a group of us went canoeing on the Rivière du Nord to Val David and then cycled back. My canoe partner Melissa and I had very little experience and we spent the first ten minutes spinning around in a circle, to the delight of several people observing us from the river bank. But we got the hang of it…eventually…and had a lovely afternoon floating through the Laurentiens.

Friday came to quickly. I left the yoga camp feeling relaxed and calm and slightly more bendy than the week before. Now the question became, how long would I be able to maintain that feeling?

Photo Credits

All photos by Sarah Gignac

Quebec Border in all its blurry glory

Ashram Pool

Ashram in the morning

Portaging with the Raccoons

This article was first published on Raggedy Threads in July 2010.

Recent Sarah Gignac Articles:

• Filmmaking 101 Part 6 - Shoot Day
• Filmmaking 101 Part 5 - Casting & Crew & Catering, Oh My!
• Filmmaking 101 Part 4 – The Pre-Production Dance Of Insanity
• Filmmaking 101 Part 3 – A Lesson In Passion and Partnerships
• Filmmaking 101 Part 2 — The Script