It's amazing to think that one month ago, I started the yoga teacher training course at Ashiyana with all of the jitters of a kid attending the first day of school and now I've left with a the credentials necessary to begin teaching yoga, over 30 new friends from all over the world, and more information and inspiration within myself. We can mark this off in the "success" column!
For those who are curious, I thought I'd paint a bit of a picture of what day-to-day life in the training was like.
My roommate Anna and I both had our alarms set for around 7am every morning, but we were usually woken up before that either pleasantly by the ringing of the nearby church bells, or somewhat violently by the calls of an incredibly obnoxious bird that I swear must have been living on our roof. The morning time until after 10:30 is supposed to be reserved for silence and solitude, but Anna and I started to break that after the second or third week while still in our hut so that we could discuss how much we hated that bird, any exciting international text messages we might have received, or freaky dreams. We got back to silence though the moment we stepped out of the hut and did our own thing from there.
Usually I'd try to make time for a chai tea before 7:30 yoga practice so that I'd have something in my stomach for the two hours before we'd finish and gather for breakfast. Early morning tea time was perfect for reflecting, writing in my journal, studying anatomy notes or planning one of our practice classes.
For the following two hours we either had a yoga class with one of the teachers, usually Linda, or we had self-practice where we did whatever sequence of asana (poses) that we wanted to. I enjoyed Linda's classes so much that I kinda hated self-practice, even though I know it was good to get more into the habit.
Then came BREAKFAST!! Wonderful, wonderful breakfast. It was basically the exact same every single day and I never got sick of it. The meals at Ashiyana were always served buffet-style and the breakfast spread was always a mixture of fresh-cut fruit that you could then mix with a variety of things including a nut/seed mixture, yogurt, porridge, cinnamon, and honey. Then there was always toast with some sort of fresh jam, eggs done either hard-boiled, scrambled or in an omelet, and a different kinda of fresh juice every day. My favorite was a mint juice but they were all really delicious.
After breakfast, we could break the silence and begin going to our various classes of the day. They included anatomy classes, classes where we learned how to teach and got to practice teaching one another, and classes about the philosophy and spiritual aspects of yoga. It was always a well-rounded, action-packed day that was broken up only by lunch and an hour-and-a-half of free time. We usually used that time to go down to the beach or to go to a local cafe to try and get some internet working. It was also a good time to take care of "chores" like laundry and showering.
As the weeks went by, we wrapped up some of our sections such as anatomy and started using that class time to teach full mini-classes and get evaluated. I was a nervous wreck the first time I taught my short class but it flew by and went more smoothly than I'd imagined, so it made teaching a longer class much more relaxing.
After dinner every evening, we had some sort of activity, usually of the music/dancing/chanting variety. They had different local artists come in and perform for us, including a didgeridoo player who is a San Fransisco native, the guitarists I'd mentioned in my last post, and a girl named Storia with a really awesome and unique sounding steel drum from Switzerland called a HANG.
The nights that we did the more spiritual and chanting stuff (Bhakti yoga) really grew on me over time. I wasn't' sure how to feel about it at first because I don't consider myself a religious person and some of it frankly seemed a little silly. However I kept an open mind about it and found the sounds beautiful and the impact really bringing me into greater awareness for being "in the moment." Nothing really having to do with any God in my view, and yet a un-intrusive, spiritual feeling experience. It turns out it was really my kind of thing. One night we also watched a movie that was pretty groovy to look at called Ashes and Snow and I recommend you check it out if you can handle that it doesn't have a lot of words but is very visually stimulating.
It wasn't all yoga stuff though. Everything in moderation :) We had half-days on Wednesday for free time, as well as from dinner on Saturday night until 8pm on Sundays to do as we pleased. A lot of that time was spent on the beach, out to try new meals or at the markets. I'll write more about extracurricular activities in another post though.
Namaste! नमस्ते
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