Becoming a yoga teacher in India - HOLY COW! (part 1)

About a year ago I decided I would like to become a yoga teacher. Wait, that's not entirely correct. About a year ago I decided I wantet to do a yoga teacher training course, with little intention to become a yoga teacher in first place. Then, why do a yoga teacher training? And why travel all the way to India for it?

Well, if you ever tried yoga, you might know how amazing one can feel after a good yoga practice. The body feels strong yet wonderfully relaxed, and so does the mind. That's probably the main reason I love yoga so much, because it is not only a physical exercise (in fact, the postures is only one limb of the original yoga), but also includes the mental body into the practice.

That said, I imagined spending a whole month exclusively with my body, my mind and my soul could be one of the best gifts I can give to myself. Also, I have been looking for more spirituality and connectedness in my life for quite some time, and I felt that yoga could give me exactly that.

This is also the answer to the question why it had to be India. As most people know, India is the birthplace of many ancient philosophies and spiritual practices, like ayurveda, tantra, and of course yoga. And because I was seeking a little more than just learning 150 different asanas (yoga postures), I decided India was the right place to go to really learn more about the yogic philosophy, traditions and lifestyle. And boy, I did!

But, facts first:
- How long does it take? The yoga teacher training course (YTTC) takes around one month, 200 hours to be precise. After completing and passing the test, one becomes an official Yoga Alliance certified teacher.
- What's the cost? Also one of the reasons I came to India. In Europe and even Asia the course fee ranges from around 2000-4000 € for the training, sometimes even without food and accommodation included. Sounds like a lot? So it did to me. Luckily, India has some cheaper options in offer! Prices range from 900-2000 €, with food and accommodation usually included. I paid 1600 € for the month, with 3 meals per day and my own room inlcuded! I think that's quite fair :)
- Where did the YTTC take place? My yoga school (Sarvaguna yoga) is located in Agonda, which is a wonderful little beach town in South Goa, Western India. The beach was absolutely beautiful, magical even! Not only were there waves to surf (one of my biggest passions!) but it was also home to holy cows and this random white horse strolling up and down the beach or just chilling under a sunbrella - I could swear I saw a horn growing out it's forehead one of those days haha!!

As you can see, the place was pretty special, and so was the school! The teacher at Sarvaguna were amazing, from our main teacher, an indian doctor that studied yoga, indian philosophy and spiritual intelligence for decades, to our award-winning super yogi Babu, who showed us what an asana should really look like!

The yoga styles my course focused on where Hatha (slow & steady) and Vinyasa (fast & flowing). Of course there are loads of different styles to choose from, but I like the mix between the traditional Hatha and the more modern Vinyasa. But of course we didn't only learn different styles of yoga. We were taught in yoga philosophy, meditation, breathing techniques, alignment & adjustment, teaching methodology, anatomy, mantras, mudras, indian history, chanting, and so on.

Schedule
The day started at 6.15 AM with some mantra chanting, breathing and meditation until 7.45 AM. From 8-10 AM we had a yoga class, and only after that we got served breakfast. At the beginning it was a little hard to go that long without food, but after a while we all got used to it and enjoyed the lightless of the body of the morning! Of course by then we were really hungry and ate A LOT, but luckily there was always a huge platter of fruits so that was great! At 11 AM we had philosophy or anatomy for 2 hours, and lunchbreak after that. Even if we weren't really hungry by then, again we put loads on our plates, as we knew we were not having anything until 7 PM!

After a 2 hour break, which I used every day to go to the beach and have a little swim, we had more theory, followed by a 1 hour yoga class and teaching practice after that. Needless to say the we were all digging in like hungry wolves for dinner, which means that we were basically overeating 3 times a day! Additionally the food just tasted sensational and it was hard to not have a 2nd or 3rd serving at the all vegetarian buffet. I thought I would leave this place slender and toned, but this daily food fiesta made me strongly question my hopes, haha!

So yes, the food was a big highlight, but of course it is a lot more important what we acutally ingested mentally, right?

So, I will cover that in a following post, together with those holy cows, the long path to enlightenment, a pretty crazy nostril-cleansing experience, ecstatic dance and our farting only male-participant in his 50s. It's gonna get wild.

Stay tuned Steemians!!