I'm well into the third week of Yoga Teacher Training, and it's been quite a ride so far. Much like India itself, it's completely different from what I expected, in a mostly good way.
I wasn't expecting our education to be so heavy on the philosophy. I am enjoying it very much, and that is mostly thanks to the excellent instruction of Swami. Swami has been studying philosophy (and the Yoga Sutras in particular) for 15 years and usually doesn't teach beginners. He is a disciple of logic and dismissed Descartes with a wave of his hand. In between cracking us (and himself) up with jokes, he has opened my mind wide open about what yoga is, exactly.
We begin each day with 40 minutes of meditation. This doesn't sound like much, but for me, it's a lot. My instructor, Krish, likens the mind (when you're trying to meditate) to a monkey that's eaten a chili and then been stung by a scorpion. This is very accurate. I do like the practice, though, and plan to continue the daily battle to pacify my mind when I go home. At least 10 minutes a day seems reasonable.
After meditation, I find myself staring out at the adjacent farm's verdant pastures. The Himalayas rise up behind it, and the sun is usually just starting to crest over the distant peaks. In this bucolic setting, we perform our daily kriyas, or cleansing rituals. This is a decidedly un-beautiful, un-glamorous process that involves neti pots and lots of nose blowing.
I wasn't expecting our education to be so heavy on the philosophy. I am enjoying it very much, and that is mostly thanks to the excellent instruction of Swami. Swami has been studying philosophy (and the Yoga Sutras in particular) for 15 years and usually doesn't teach beginners. He is a disciple of logic and dismissed Descartes with a wave of his hand. In between cracking us (and himself) up with jokes, he has opened my mind wide open about what yoga is, exactly.
Life here is very busy, and always full of surprises. There's a surly monkey named Randall that lurks around whenever we have our afternoon snack (usually someone tosses him a banana). The other night we did an evening dancing meditation, which is something I never thought I'd ever do. On our last day off, they offered a class in Reiki healing, so I took it and now have my certification.
I'm off to class in a minute, but I'll close with a Swami joke: An old woman looked in the mirror one morning and saw she had only 3 hairs left on her head. She thought for a moment, and then pleated the hairs into a braid.
The next morning, she looked in the mirror and saw she had only 2 hairs left. "I guess today it's a center part!" she said.
The next morning, she only had 1 hair left. "Ponytail today!" she thought.
The fourth morning, she looked in the mirror and saw she had no hair left on her head. "Thank goodness," she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"
:)
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