For me, yoga started as just any bodily exercises. I started slowly with one class a week and it soon increased to twice and I started classes on the weekends too. My first exposure to yoga was Bikram style, 24 postures in a hot room with super sweaty yogis. I mastered those postures over 6 months and continued my practice for 2 years. Although I had the best body, there was something missing and I was looking for more. Then in Sydney, I started Hatha yoga practice, which was very enriching and changed my lifestyle pretty radically and I wanted to get deeper into the subject and I read about different styles of yoga and went into the deeper meaning of yoga and realised that I know so little as there is so much to know. Then I came across a very fine teacher from India who exposed me to Ashtanga, Sivananda style of practices and from him, I developed the interest to teach. Then I moved to Singapore 6-7 months and joined the BKS Iyengar school and again, it was a very explosive experience because I never practiced so slowly and with so many props before (bolsters, straps, blocks, blankets belts etc.) and somewhere I got deeper into my body and understood alignment and the benefits of knowing your body better at a deeper level. One day, I was signaled to take teachers training and started to research for a well-established yoga institute for a certified yogas teacher training. I came across Tirisula Training School and it fitted in with my schedule and the timing was so divinely aligned that I could not move back from my dream of becoming a yoga teacher. After spending 4 weeks with some amazing teachers, I understood unconditional commitment to yoga community. Monday, I will be graduating as a yoga instructor/teacher, but there is lots to learn to be a teacher with compassion, love and kindness and to keep the karma yoga philosophy in mind to give without any expectations/gratifications. My journey from a student to a teacher cannot be expressed in few words, it can only be felt and hopefeully, I can can convey it to my students. 🙂
BY: NEHA WASAN
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”
- – The Bhagavad Gita