#backpackingseasia

It had been a long day since the Argentinian had MIA-ed into the sunset, leaving me groping for serenity that very long Wednesday before yoga teacher training was to begin. "Allo!" The hostel owner who everyone called "Daddy" chimed as I shuffled from my porch to my moped. Damn. I wanted something herbed to counterbalance my lunch of nerves and tempeh and air. Ten more minutes till I was expected to be at the Shala for what would be either a savasana cocktail of celebrity rehab or an om orgasm with taut Nordic goddesses who probably moonlighted as amber-infused Bhagavagita sexologists. I was gonna take my gamble and go find out after shelling out the skrilla G's in a moment of BLANKKKKK upheaval one hungover morning in Bangkok just two weeks prior. Time to smatter my Traggae Surf hostel wall with Giselle Bunchden and "Touch Yourself, Ganesh Offspring" quotes.

I decided to walk and observe everything to get into the practice of being "authentically mindful." It took me 3 times of listening to Yo Gotti's "Act Right" before I reached the tranquil wood sign of "Yoga Searcher, Uluwatu, Bali." There was a happy Buddha emblazoned on the coinage that I had arrived to find myself. Skeptical, a little. Facetious, no… it just dawned on me and probably a million times before that I could be the anti-christ to these types of programs. I'd always simultaneously cringed and fawned over the "yoga gurl" pics insta kept on titillating rotation: yoga gurl stretching into some fantastical bridge position, her bronzed bod entwined with an inspirational quote of having "found inner peace" in Peru. "Yoga gurl" sipping out of a chlorophyll coconut like it was the most delicious double-shot of patron that she'd ever guzzled. "Yoga gurl" beaming at her dreaded washboard abs surfer boyfriend, congratulating her graduation with matching sun and moon tattoos and the coordinates of where they'd once met at a surfer ashram.

Why was I here? Did I want to be yoga gurl? Textbook guilty. It was time to reinvent after spending far too much time withdrawn into a shell of "the post-grad life." I could've just bought a $30 insurance covered therapy session a few times a week with a frumpily dressed yet moderately compassionate shrink but nooooo, no no no... I had to go to BALI to talk about problems and laugh with nonchalance when I realized that my hair salty and my toes so tanned meant the world was so fine now, so fine.  I could envision my previous selves clustering together to meet about this cosmic life transition, sharing kombucha while wondering where the wine and whiskey was hidden, rumpling a NYTimes paper to a Jay Z banger, reflecting then brushing off the meanderings with "oh, please, let's just say fuck it and do it. It'll be a great story." Indeed. I wandered up to the Shala, the grass seeming to emanate inner peace itself as it swayed by the infinity pool, inviting the gorgeous participants to "let that shit go." Beautiful women in flowing bohemian glory wandered up the steps, not breaking a sweat in the 90 degree sun, their smiles like sumptuous macca whirling in a sea of boison berries. "Welcome," one of our instructors, Amy, greeted us. I loved her immediately. Her hair was a fiery crown of auburn and she had a septum and her voice was as soothing as dark chocolate dashed in Jameson; when she said "gra" in her Irish lilt I wondered why Hozier hadn't married her already.

We all settled into our crimson pillows and were told to interview a partner so we could learn, embrace, introduce, get to know each other. My partner, Rebecca, was a holistic wunderkind platonic supermodel with a dash of sass who I assumed could do the splits with the conviction of the Dalai Lama's blessing. When it came time to go around the circle, she read my answers as I challenged myself to unravel from a painful expression of half-lotus that I could definitely not do: "Isabelle loves the color black, Bobby Shmurda club bangerz, painting, reading. She is currently traveling on her own for three months and has no expectations of what her experience will be here. She just wants to learn how to breathe and connect with parts of herself that she feels like she has lost." Goddamn, I wanted to cry for myself. Thank god everyone going around the circle wasn't set on this teacher track, they  just wanted some expensive therapy with prayer beads and Shiva and all that. There would undoubtedly be the Eat Pray Lover who had found her moksha in India and in her rose-smelling coitus, but om mani padmi om to her.

I had always loved yoga, but like with everything else, I tended to conceptualize the whole experience into a tangent web of intellectualized thoughts and associations. Or inappropriate metaphors. I loved the feeling of the actual exercise, but all of this head business made it so that it was an experience outside of me usually; the spirituality had not yet caught me, although that was why I was precisely in Bali at the golden temple shala at that very moment. I wanted a jolt and so I was going to throw caution to the wind with a degree of control based on the internet's blessing of great reviews of women who were trying to do the same thing as me at yoga retreats and teacher trainings abroad. I'd felt like I'd been unraveling for a bit already, so decluttering some of the mess seemed beyond essential and spiritual tourism was what I thought would be quite the graceful quick fix.

The next few weeks turned into an amalgamation of self-discovery and trying to do certain asana positions and also some penetrating flares of frustration but also laughter at the absurdity of some "unfoldings." Every morning started at 5:30 am in the shala, which meant rolling out of bed and spraying myself with delicious DEET at 5:10 AM before sauntering out the door to walk with my neighborhood bombshells, Greta (from Wisconsin) and Becks (from Norway). Thankfully, Becks and I would sprint back to "Daddy" come 7:30 AM to guzzle buttloads of delish Balinese coffee while commiserating about how our hips couldn't open and yet how we loved Dipa's lectures on the feminine and the masculine merged into perception within the concept of the 8 folds of yoga. After this ritual I would usually blare Schoolboy Q and practice twrking (always come prepared) for a solid 40 minutes before going back to the shala for some alignment where I prayed that we would have partner massage sessions that would make my celibate self feel some firing synapses.

I found some soul sistahs in my atypical American peers. Erin and I found each other at the next door warung when she explained how she wanted some body bounce and less namestes. She became #1 woe. She is the baddest bitch of them all, especially when we listened to E-40 by the pool and she claimed in-person basis with the bay's pride and glory. And she worked at Twitter and claimed a title in an Aussie wet t-shirt contest and has traveled the whole world and is an acclaimed blogger. And would do neck shots of tequila with me. We became each other's co-dependent trap queens at the local Single Fin club. Thank god I wasn't in love while I was incorporating into this yogini program. Instead I meditated on everything I was looking for and why I was alone and why I was so ecstatic to be single (until 10 pm). It was like a study abroad for starving yourself on green juice and breathing and all I had to do was make decisions for me. My agenda was to get everything out of my system, although that comes at a cost: because then you actually discover yourself. And that can be... hard. But necessary. I realized I was a whole person and so was everyone else no matter what point in life they were at. Basically, yoga teacher training is like a caftan clad sorority who hold a cave open for worshipping Jack Johnson and period moon goddess parties. The worst part was feeling simultaneously annoyed and a little crestfallen that I couldn't cry post-meditation while others sobbed about varying levels of tragedy and spontaneous emotion. It was as if a little Eagle perched on my soul and clawed at any inkling of a tear. I cried when the nutritionist talked about how her old friends who drank cheap wine and smoked cigs didn't accept her newfound love affair with kale and B12 shots. Figures.

On a lighter note, I would check my Tinder abroad after an arduous day of leg flexing. Here is what I found that led me to keep doing downward dog to soul search and not find men.

Not too savory. But I would often wash away the unsightlyness of it all with a good ol' gin and tonic with the American girls, especially after getting our yoga certificates in our crocheted crop tops. One interesting note: Americans cannot accept awards without looking like complete douche bags. We all joked about it afterwards that the four of us couldn't make heartfelt speeches like the fellow Europeans did. We just collect those trophies like candies, stating after the acceptance, "yeah, thanks guys, love you" as a token of our appreciation. Point of relation, apparently.

The whole yoga experience has made wonder what acceptance is other than just where you are right now. It's also made me curious as to how it is apart of the woman I hope to be or already am. I mostly feel humbled and grateful for the women I got to know for a solid month straight x 1000 hypothetical days of deep talks. And for the times that I wondered about who I was; well, that will continue, and so will the sideways splits of discovering bad-assness that yoga training taps you into. I was gonna write a blog on travel tips and then I ended up writing a blog on inappropriate metaphors. Because that's just me.