The students and pics of the ashram

So, who would choose to do a Yoga Teachers Training Course in Madurai, India for much of December with barely time to squeak back home by New Year’s eve? Sixty-five fellow students from 18 different countries chose to do so but for a wide variety of reasons.

Some did so because the holiday season is a slow time of the year for yoga teachers, personal trainers, corporate trainers, doctors or healers, school teachers, and business people. Three students took the class because it fit within their six week long winter holiday from their three year yoga sciences degree program in Bangalore. Two Indian ayervedic doctors and a naturopath did it then to get to the official credentials for what they already had learned. There were a few people like me who did it because the timing was right and because being with a group of by that time friends was better than sitting around in a lonely guest house where Christmas has little or no meaning.

Whatever the reasons for coming and the length of previous yoga involvement, the sixty-five of us who completed the course were committed and serious about our studies in a course with no grades and a nebulous but fearsome sounding final exam. Swami Govindananda said that the average age of our class was 30 where usually it was in the 20’s. At the end of the program, he also said that we didn’t complain about little things like other classes did and felt our class was exceptionally strong and emotionally mature. On the mat, we had surprised even Mani when more than 40 of us went right into a headstand on the first day of class. He pushed us harder than but we all just kept trying our best within our capabilities. In lecture, when some students struggled with hard to understand metaphysical concepts even for native English speakers, the latter group gladly shared their notes or ideas on what the main points were..or what they understood them to be.

I am not sure how much the leavening agent of age had to do with the general strength and group energy as there were many mature 20s something in the group. One guy, Kerem, turned 20 on New Year’s eve yet he has already won international competitions in bicycling and is famous throughout the Turkish rock climbing world. He had even read the course manual and the suggested reading list before the class even started. His youth was balanced by at least 18 of us who were in our early to mid-40s and two in the respective later decades but age, beyond some creaking joints, didn’t matter in this group. Almost all were just trying to learn as much as we could in this intensive, “don’t waste a moment” atmosphere. You could literally feel the positive energy and vital life force, prana in yoga speak, through our pores because the energy just radiated out of us as individuals and as a group. We laughed together, worked together, ate together, meditated together, and sometimes even cried together.

Was it the diet? This lacto-vegetarian diet which was carefully calibrated to cleanse but nourish the body? Was it the cleansing exercises so a group that vomits together stays together? Was it the twice daily pranayamas (controlling the breath exercises) which purify and energize the body? Was is just group energy focused on a common goal and thus multiplying on itself? Was it the early wake up calls and the singing? Was it all the sweating? Was it the inspirational teachers and supportive staff? Or were all these ingredients within a pressure cooker just the right ones for the recipe?

According to yogic theory, students learn 100% of their knowledge in the following four and roughly equal ways: from the guru, from the student’s own efforts, from fellow students and people around them; and the remaining 25% is there but learned only when the student is ready to learn it. I know that remaining 25% is a huge pool of knowledge as I learned so much from the other three components in such a short time. Maybe swami-ji was right, it was our karma to all be there at that time, that place.

Notes on the pictures:

We learned six different kriyas (body cleansing exercises) during the class. One involved drinking as much warm salted water as we could and then vomiting it up. The other involved trying to swallow a long piece of linen until it reached deep into our chest to clear out our trachea and digestive system. Another involved a small rubber hose inserted up the hole in your nostril and then pulling that end out of the mouth – picks up the flem and other toxins in that area. The neti cleaning with the white bottle does the same thing but with warm salted water and the water gets flushed into the nasal cavities. She was my podmate.

Christmas eve was marked by a demonstration of yoga performed by kids who have won international yoga competitions, singing of christmas carols, and even Santa came bearing wrapped gifts of Hindu deities. There is also a picture of our christmas day feast on a banana leaf – the small red dab on the upper right was a hot, sour pickle – which just topped off a really delicious meal. I wasn’t allowed seconds though on the hot stuff – too rajasic!

A picture of us enjoying a skit from the talent show and Danesh the clap master who taught us funny but charming new ways to applaud. Then, two pictures from two different pujas (religious ceremonies) that occurred during our stay.

Then some pictures of us in class during a lecture, the class where we pretended to be pregnant women so we could learn how to teach them, and then how we taught our small groups.

The class picture with the staff in the second row. The students were all asked to line up by height, that’s why I’m in the last row.  All the photos except the last were taken by Penny Ohana.

The official class photo

Danesh the clap master

Christmas day feast

yoga champions at work

our desks and the classroom

laughing at a skit

“Santa” and his elves

the biggest puja

Ashram priest at a puja

The pregnancy class

My pod mate and the neti

when the rubber hits the nose

i couldn’t gag this one down…

vomiting – didn’t want to show a face