The second half of my quali leave was dedicated to yoga. I used this month to complete my 200 hours yoga teacher training, not because of an imminent career switch to a yoga teacher, but because this is the best way to deepen, and get serious, about your own practice. Since yoga became an essential part of my life at university, I knew I would do the training at some point and, after I had become increasingly interested in the philosophy and non-physical limbs of yoga in the last two years, felt that this was the time. My priority for the training was to learn about the traditional style of yoga and the philosophy that underpins in, and so I chose a program which aligned with this. I also thought that if I was going to India to do this, I might as well do it properly. I chose an ashram (a site for spiritual study) with strict rules and an emphasis on tradition. I was ready to be open to all of its teachings, but was mindful that I would likely only resonate and choose to take home some of them (in particular, I had a feeling there would be heavy links to Hinduism which, as a staunch atheist, I would be resistant towards). I had little expectations otherwise.
The training
Intense. We had classes 6 days a week, each day following an identical schedule. See below for this schedule, and note the starting time of 5:45am (ouch).
The day began with pranayama (breathwork) and shatkarma (traditional cleansing techniques). The pranayama was enjoyable and fairly familiar. The shatkarma was less so… This saw us pouring salt water into one nostril and letting it pour out of the other (surprisingly refreshing after I’d got the angle right and the water stopped pouring down my throat instead). It saw us washing our eyes with eye cups (also quite pleasant). And, finally, it saw us threading a rubber tube up our nostril and down the nasal passage to emerge at the back of our throats, where we reached in and pulled it out of our mouth (or attempt to, I couldn’t stop sneezing long enough to get it round the curve at the top of my nose) (definitely not pleasant!). Beyond the eye washing, I’ve decided these techniques are something I’ll leave at the ashram, but I’ve made a commitment to floss everyday - modern day shatkarma if you will.
We had three 1.5 hour classes of asana practice each day (asanas being the physical postures that you probably think of when thinking of yoga), covering Hatha (the original form of physical yoga), Ashtanga (a set sequence which originated from Hatha), and Yin (a more modern, restorative form of yoga where poses are held for extended periods of time). In these classes we would go through different postures, understanding the correct alignment, learning modifications and hands-on assists. In Yin, we would discuss additional stretches that we could use to help increase how deep we could go other postures. In Ashtanga, our teacher would show us the correct transitions between the postures, which included impossibly controlled handstands and flipping yourself from lying on your back to a push-up position by rolling over your neck. We watched in amazement and entertained his insistences that we at least attempt these, only to fail miserably. As time went on, we would sometimes be asked to lead a surya namaskara (sun salutation) or cue a posture, but overall the emphasis was on us learning the correct postures ourselves. I completely loved the asana classes and especially learning the correct alignments. After the first proper ashtanga class I remember thinking that my body really felt like it was made to move in the sequence of the sun salutation.
We had two theory classes - anatomy and philosophy. I didn’t care much for the anatomy class, with it being either a repeat of A level biology or mostly irrelevant (do I really need to know the names of each of the four muscles that make up the quadriceps?). In contrast, I lived for the philosophy class. The theory was so interesting and, for the most part, lined up exactly with how I saw the world and how I believe that you should live your life. Having it laid out in a logical way was so pleasing. And our teacher was just incredible. There’s a risk in India, and anywhere, that the teachings of traditional philosophy are warped to excuse or justify certain cultural beliefs and practices. This has been done for hundreds of years, and so if a different interpretation is taken, you are accused of changing the philosophy to keep with modern times (whether this is wrong to do is a different question). However, our philosophy teacher took a different angle. He argued that the true interpretation of the philosophy had been changed by the cultural beliefs of the past, and that if you went back to the original philosophy, a more pure meaning was apparent. We were not updating the philosophy to reflect modern times, but removing the past cultural distortment of it. For example, people argue that the philosophy provides that homosexuality is “unnatural”. But in fact, the philosophy states that when two souls connect it is natural for the subtle body (the physical body) of these two beings to connect. It does not mention the gender of these beings, and further, according to the yogic philosophy there is no gender, we are all one. This was so refreshing to hear. I won’t go into the theory we covered here as I’m sure most people won’t be particularly interested, but if you are, you can read my summary of what we covered here.
Our final class of the day was meditation, with another incredible teacher. She would shed insight on difficult topics surrounding living a yogic life, and brought humour and lightness into these. We would do a different mediation technique each evening, and I struggled through them with differing levels of success in terms of quietening my mind. My least favourite was mantra jappa, where you use a necklace with 108 beads on it to keep count of chanting a mantra 108 times. I nodded off at one point and lost my place, and kept fumbling the beads. My favourite was candle gazing - staring at a candle then closing your eyes and focusing on your third eye, then back to the candle. This was the only meditation where I truly managed to quieten my mind, and actually experienced something other than just my mind rolling through a jumble of random thoughts.
Ashram life
For the duration of the course, we lived on-site at the ashram. In fact, we were not allowed to leave the ashram except for on our one day off a week (Wednesday). There were a set of very strict, and sometimes seemingly meaningless, rules which we had to follow. These included:
- No saying hello or namaste to anyone, instead say “aum namah shivaya”.
- No hugging or touching in general.
- Breakfast and lunch had to be eaten in silence, with a continuous droning chant of “aum namah shivaya” played over speakers.
- No singing or dancing, except when thinking about spiritual things (we learnt this after our impromptu karaoke and dance party which emerged after our meditation teacher couldn’t make it was shut down).
I didn’t mind the rules too much, deciding just to accept and follow them without worrying too much about the rationale behind them. What did bother me, and many others, slightly however, was the fact that the aloof management team seemed above these rules and also the general ethics that we were being taught. But this joint distaste fostered even more of a community spirit between us as students.
I think it is probably inevitable that a small group of people (there were 13 of us on the 200 hour course and 4 on the 300 hour course) living in the same place, eating all meals together, attending classes for the majority of the day together, and sharing rooms together (I had 2 roommates), will bond together tightly. The moments of laughter and joy shared between classes and just before bed in our room with my 2 roommates were paramount in keeping me sane. Even more essential to our sanity were the weekly pilgrimages into the town on our day off, our aptly named “girls’ day”, filled with coffee and cake stops, eating as many eggs as we could (all our meals were pure vegetarian, meaning no eggs in India, and sattvic, meaning easy to digest), and keeping the clothes and jewellery shops of Rishikesh in business. Conversations would flow effortlessly between discussion on the philosophical teachings from the week, to our love lives and boys, to our favourite yoga styles and features of classes. It was pure bliss. I had always wanted a little group of yoga friends, and it felt wonderful to finally have this. Even more so when 2 of the girls were also based in London so I knew that the yoga friendships would continue. Perhaps surprisingly, 5 out of the 17 students were lawyers, including one working in corporate law in London, at a similar firm to mine, on her delayed qualification leave (just like me!). But there was still a huge variety in backgrounds and origins, and in purposes for doing the course, resulting in a hum of cultures and community. Whilst I was friends with everyone on the course, I became especially close to my roommates. If everyone else is a yoga friend, these two are something a bit wider, expanding past just yoga, and a bit deeper. They are my maitris, a sanskrit term meaning a close friend, or more specifically, someone you wish to share your senses with. We each saw one another move through the emotional tolls of the training, being there to listen and to offer an illegal hug where needed. Because it was emotionally confronting at times, and it brought up things that we perhaps thought we had finished working through. So a very special thank you to Jess and Christine, and also Prerna (our honoury roommate!), for making this training even more rich.
Whilst our course progressed, so did the monsoon. It usually finished in August, but in recent years it had been lingering further and further into September. Just as in Pakistan, it was all again shocking to have the impacts of climate change placed so closely in front of you. I watched the rain pouring in sheets as we ate breakfast, and struggled to hear teachers over it crashing on the roof of the yoga shala. It provided white noise to our meditations, and lulled us to sleep at night. Except for one night, where a storm rolled in that was so aggressive, the lightning and thunder so completely on top of us, that no one slept until late into the night. It wasn’t just the volume of the storm, but its vibrations. You could feel them through the bed every time the thunder came. For the next 4 days after the storm, we had no electricity (except when the generator was running), limited water with intermittently flushing toilets, and we even had to miss a morning of classes as the road had been blocked by fallen trees, so our teachers couldn’t make it to the ashra. It was by the far the biggest storm I’ve ever experienced. But once it was done, it seemed the monsoon was finally over.
What I’ll take with me, and what I’ll leave behind
Taking with me:
- Friendships, and the practice of being there for people in any way you can.
- Sanskrit names for asanas.
- Pranayama each morning before asanas.
- Yin before bed (or even in bed).
- Occasionally meditating.
Leaving behind:
- Threading string up my nose and out of my mouth.
- Attempting to do full Ashtanga chaturanga transitions.
- Being silent for meals (but I will still try to be more present whilst eating).
- Mantra chanting.
- All the bugs and damp in the rooms.
- The lack of chocolate.
Our meditation teacher told us that it’s important to not go shouting about the things we have learnt. To simply live them and share them this way. So I’m not going to go into the feelings and foundations I uncovered during this month (and I would struggle to verbalise them even if I did). But I hope that when you next see me you will notice a little more ease, a little more intention, and a little more joy in the person in front of you.