Time is flying!
It’s been about three weeks since I left the U.S., and a little more than two weeks since I started my 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) program in northern India’s Uttarakhand state.
My program is four weeks long with graduation planned for Nov. 16, which means I’m just about halfway through.
Time feels like it’s flying by — but at the same time, it feels like it was years ago that I first hiked my way up the mountain to get here and caught my first glimpse of this little paradise hidden away in the Himalayas.
Again: I apologize for the brevity of this post, and the lack of photos/ lack of photo quality. My internet and cell connection are both subpar at best (which I’m actually pretty grateful for, as it keeps me mostly offline!) so my updates for now will be short and sparse.
Now that I’m two weeks in, our daily routine is starting to feel normal and comfortable, even if it is a little long.
We’ve been busy diving deep into every aspect of yoga: From the physical asana practice (which we do twice a day for three hours total), to pose alignment and adjustment workshops, to mantra repetition, to lectures on history and philosophy.
Our 300-hour schedule is pretty demanding! While Thursday through Tuesday follow a very strict 15-hour-long schedule, our weekend starts at 4 p.m. Tuesday and runs through Wednesday night — so we get one evening and one day “off” every week.
I last left off getting ready for my first day off from the program, which I spent in Rishikesh with a few friends.
Valerie (one of the friends I made here) suggested we spend our first day off sleeping in and getting massages, so we did just that!
We slept in until about 7 a.m. (which felt like a total luxury) and then hiked down our trailhead, took a taxi for the three miles it takes to get from our ashram into town, and arrived at Prana Spa for our 10 a.m. appointments.
Then, we walked around for a bit and had lunch at Shivani’s Cafe, which I highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Rishikesh.
Afterward, we spent the rest of the day mostly running errands. We went to an ATM for cash, and then bought things we need (hair conditioner, lotion) and things we wanted (more scarves… all of the scarves).
We finished our day by meeting up with other friends at Little Buddha Cafe (again).
We took a taxi from town back to our ashram’s trailhead, and then hiked our way back up to our temporary home so we could clean, get our lives in order, and prepare for the coming week.
Then, we dove right back into it.
We start our morning classes by reciting mantras, before translating them, learning about them and then memorizing them.
After mantra work, we spend time learning about (and practicing) different regulatory breaths, like nadi shohana (both same and alternate nostril breathing), the traditional three-part yogic breath, kapalabhati and the ujyaii pranayama.
We spent our second week learning and practicing a ton of adjustments for forward folds (both seated and standing), backbends, hand-to-big-toe pose, butterfly pose and downward facing dog pose.
We’ve spent our philosophy classes diving deep into Patanjali’s yoga sutras. Our class textbook is “Four Chapters on Freedom: Commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Sage Patanjali” by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, and in addition to flipping through it during class, I’ve been spending most of my free* time reading it.
*free time meaning self-study time… which isn’t really actually free time.
While we have a few 15-minute and 30-minute breaks in our schedule, our biggest chunk of “free” time during the day is our self-study (“svadhyaya”) hour, which I like to spend either in the ashram’s cafe with a mug of chai and a sweet treat of some kind…
…or laying in the garden under the sun.
We’ve learned quite a bit during our anatomy and physiology lectures as well. We learned about cell anatomy and how it relates to koshas, about the musculoskeletal system and how it works during asana practice, about the respiratory system and how it guides the practice of pranayama (breath), and about the digestive system and the various kriya (cleansing) practices that yogis traditionally practice to purify their bodies in accordance with saucha (cleanliness) — one of the yogic niyamas.
I even had the chance to make a consultation appointment with an Ayurvedic doctor to learn about my dosha imbalances, and how to treat them.
Turns out my job (as much as I love it) is very stress-inducing. Who knew?!
During and outside of classes, I spend as much time as possible getting to know as many of the other students here as possible. There are about 25 of us in the 300-hour training group. Some of us have been teaching for years (me included), some just finished their 200-hour class right before they started their 300-hour class, and some are just here to learn more about this beautiful practice and all that accompanies it.
I also love making friends with the local wildlife — especially the monkeys. They’re so mischievous!
I am learning so, so much — to the point where I fear I’ve been a completely unqualified yoga instructor for the past several years, and the point where I wonder if I will ever actually know enough about this ancient practice to feel qualified enough to teach it to others.
Just when I started to feel slightly overwhelmed with the expanse of this training earlier this week, it was time for our second day off, which was a much-needed break.
Valerie and I spent our most recent day off this past Wednesday hiking down from the ashram and heading into town (again) for more food (we picked the Secret Garden Cafe this time), more shopping (AKA: more scarves), and more errands (AKA: buying instant coffee).
We’ve also been busy celebrating Diwali this week, which I’ll write more about soon!
I remain grateful for this experience, and in absolute awe of this incredible life I am so privileged to live.
