School's in Session

Episode 4

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Two full weeks have passed in the course, signifying one-third completion toward my RYT 300, which will eventually be RYT 500. I’m trying to stay in the present to absorb every moment, but when deadlines loom it behooves the student to stay organized. The first few days of classes were exhausting, to say the least. I was looking forward to working with Krishna. I’d seen him around RYP last year, and I heard he’s a tough teacher. “Tough” is a relative word, as it can be subjective. I arrived with an open mind and ready to learn.

WEEK ONE – May 16-21

In retrospect, I’m not sure how I survived the first week. I wasn’t intestinally sick at all, but the heat was debilitating and adjusting to a regular yoga schedule was intense. I have a relatively consistent practice at home, but it also involves teaching. Here in India, I am forced into solely student mode.

Our schedule adheres to the following timeframe:

I’m the furthest thing from a morning person, but I enjoy waking up to kriya practice and morning asana class. We cleanse our nasal passages with jala neti each morning in the courtyard and enjoy a glass of tea. Fridays are special kriya days, the topic of Episode 3. Read that post if you want to know more! In place on our mats in the yoga hall at 7am, Krishna ensures that the curtains block out any trace of sunlight for our pranayama and mantra chanting session. On our first day, I was pleased to learn that our main mantra is the mantra I’ve been teaching my students back home. It’s the “Rishikesh Yog Peeth” mantra in the sense that the 200-hour course focuses on it as well. After the opening mantra, we perform kapalabhati (skull-shining breath), a vigorous cleansing breath with a forceful exhale. Next comes bhastrika (forceful inhale and exhale), ujjayi (constricting breath), and anulom vilom (alternate nostril breath). We wrap up the opening 30 minutes with a few more mantras. Krishna then gives us a quick toilet break before moving into asana practice.

I was skeptical of Krishna’s teaching style at first. He would ask us to perform an asana without instruction, then he would choose someone to model it for the class. During the demonstration, he points out the adjustments that need to be made. I thought this practice was slightly embarrassing and humiliating, and I haven’t even been chosen yet. After a few days, I realized that I had to let go of my perfectionism and ego in order to learn from Krishna. He was using the instructional strategy as just that: practical instruction. During our philosophy lecture, he reiterated how much he cares about us and wants us to learn, so I realized he has the best intentions.

Deepti-ji’s anatomy class comes directly after philosophy class. I had a difficult time grasping anatomy in my 200-hour course, but I made an effort over the past year to attend Gina Decker’s class at Open Door when my schedule permitted. Gina’s teaching embraces a stylized method of incorporating anatomy into her regular teaching. The first two weeks with Deepti have been a comprehensive review, with numerous anecdotal snippets to reinforce and extend the concepts from the 200-hour course. We are working our way to analyzing poses anatomically, and I’m grasping the anatomy more readily.

After lunch, the four-hour chunk of time between seminars is both fortuitous and financially dangerous. On our schedule, it’s labeled “library/self-study,” and I’ve used it almost exclusively for that purpose. Almost. However, it really is our only time to walk around, get a treat, and take brain break from the intensity. I’ve found that a quick trip to the corner chai stall is effective in boosting my energy for the afternoon and evening commitments. I’ve visited the library a few times, but find that I study better in my room, under the fan, free from the distraction of new books for my perusal. That way, I can work on laundry, studying, and take my 4:00-4:30 nap before the evening commences.

Our afternoon asana class was torturous the first week. I couldn’t stay awake, thus the implementation of the compulsory “nap/eyes closed with music” time at 4pm. Sometimes I had to rest in child’s pose on my mat to get through the two-hour session. Luckily, Deepti took pity on us at times and spent extended periods on pranayama techniques. I like Deepti as a teacher, but I dreaded her class, as I had a difficult time contorting myself into some of her more advanced flexibility poses.

The most difficult adjustment should have been the most welcome. In the 200-hour course, the evening is your own after dinner. In this course, we have a mandatory 30-minute meditation Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights at 8:30pm. The nights we don’t meet are to be filled with personal meditation. I was so exhausted the first few days that I couldn’t even hold my head up during meditation. Luckily, the room was darkened as Krishna guided us through pranayama and meditation, as my head bobbed from side to side, almost toppling onto my neighbor. I was so upset that we were expected to continue our physical participation until 9pm, and I wasn’t sure how my body would allow this continuous abuse. As the week wore on, the meditation session became easier and more enjoyable.

WEEK TWO – May 23-28

The same schedule continued through Week Two, but the heat abated somewhat and my body acquiesced, somewhat. Almost immediately upon arrival in the 100F+ temperatures, I developed a heat rash on my hands, prickly heat on my forearms that stung unrelentingly with sweat contact, and dry skin on my neck that slowly spread each day. I bought some lotion at the local ayurvedic shop and tried baby powder in the morning and evening. The prickly heat and hand irritation responded positively but the neck rash didn’t. I consulted the Internet and learned so much about dry skin that I was sure the affliction was life-threatening. The spreading continued down to my chest, so I bought a bottle of my stalwart remedy: COCONUT OIL! As predicted, though slowly, the dry skin healed and I was no longer mistaken for the gecko who insists on rooming with me.

I’m battling the desire to do all the shopping and restaurant eating that I didn’t have time for last year, but I also want the course to function as complete immersion. Now I realize why some people opt to study in the mountains or in a town without tempting distractions! The “chai guy” was a prevalent figure as a quick respite from the ashram. My friends Kae and Alina invited me to join them after lunch one day as they walked down to the corner, watched the precise concoction of masala chai, and walked back. Last year, sometimes several days would pass before I would emerge through the gates of the ashram. Everything was self-contained during my 200-hour course, but our residence this year requires walking outside the gates to the same dining hall. Again, fortuitous and financially dangerous.

With one-third of the 300-hour course completed, I can already tell I will emerge from this program as a transformed teacher and student.