Yoga in Hikkaduwa with Lyndon Mason
It was on the third day that I stumbled across a poster on a wall on the main street in Hikkaduwa. The following morning I arrived at the roof top studio and met Lyndon Mason.
I was around 15 minutes early so had the awkward pleasure of being the only person until exactly 8:30am when the second and only other student arrived. I didn’t tell Lyndon that I was also a Yoga teacher as for some reason it makes me nervous, like there will be an expectation about how good I should be. He didn’t ask about my experience anyway. For those 15 minutes Lyndon told me that he teaches the “alphabet of yoga” which if I’m honest, I still don’t understand. We also talked about the modern mind and how it is so easily distracted. Lyndon called this the “monkey mind” and compared thoughts popping in and out of our heads to a monkey swinging from tree to tree. It made perfect sense. We agreed that our aim should be to make the heart the master and the mind/our ego the slave – easier said than done. I found the physical practice difficult. I’m not sure whether it was the heat, jetlag, my inexperience of some of the poses or his unique teaching style. He taught most of the class with his eyes closed and offered no hands on assistance. At first I was getting frustrated with myself and started to slip into a negative frame of mind which is so easily done when a Yoga class isn’t going your way. Back off ego!!
Eventually I managed to ground myself, wave goodbye to my ego and begin to absorb everything that was being taught. Lyndon was a fountain of knowledge on Yoga and Tai Chi and I found everything he said so interesting and relatable.
What stuck with me most was a metaphor he used about the human body being like a car. He said we listen to our cars and can tell when there’s a problem. We fill them with water, oil, fuel and regularly service and MOT them. We also ensure that our cars are driven regularly as the engine can seize through lack of movement…how often do we do that with our bodies? How often do we listen to our bodies and give them what they need? We easily ignore the aches and pains in hope that they’ll fade, when sometimes all we need to do is move and stretch. Like a car, our bodies can become stagnant without movement.
Overall, although his teaching style is different, I would definitely recommend attending his class if ever you’re in Hikkaduwa.
