On the roof at Rishikesh Yog Peeth after the opening ceremony
I’m not sure where to start in describing my experience so far doing a 500 hour yoga teacher training with Rishikesh Yog Peeth. It’s the end of the fourth day and I just feel so happy and grateful for the opportunity to be here — especially after having a bit of a headache for the first few days (probably because I’ve stopped drinking tea and coffee).
I’ve wanted to do a yoga teacher training in India for so long and although it’s just the start, I feel that what I’m learning out here, I couldn’t learn anywhere else.
There’s something so magical about being in Rishikesh — so close to the Himalayas and right next to the River Ganges and surrounded by really great interesting people.
Rishikesh — Holy River Ganges
I’ve started to experience a few synchronicities already which makes me feel like my life is heading in exactly the right track. I’ll be talking about something with someone that I’m unsure about and then the next day or a few hours later the answer will appear in a book that I come across or someone’ll mention it. I love it when this happens. Bring on more synchronicities.
Yoga wise, for anyone considering studying yoga in India, the teaching I’ve experienced so far here is brilliant. I’ve learnt a lot in the philosophy and anatomy/ physiology classes that I didn’t already know and we’re being taught how to really teach each asana and make adjustments in such a thorough way. I’ll save my main reviews for the end of both my 200 and 300 hour trainings, but so far, the teaching has exceeded my expectations.
One other thing I will mention is the books here. I was advised by Kelly who commented on my post which yoga TTC should I choose in the Himalayas, to leave lots of space in my bag for books. All the bookshops are pretty much yoga bookshops, filled with any book on yoga, meditation, spirituality, eastern philosophy…you can imagine. You can buy whole books on each individual chakra!
I think I’ll be reading more books than on any course I’ve ever done. All the yoga books from the Bihar School are the equivalent to a few pounds here. You can only buy them in limited places in the UK and they’re really expensive.
This is where I start to imagine opening up a yoga bookshop in London where everyone will be served yogi tea and I own a cute street dog who sleeps by the fire in my bookshop on an old antique rug. I need to be careful about what I write!
Bihar Yoga books and lucid dreaming notebooks. Every morning I’ll be recording my dreams to help induce a lucid dream.
Separate from the course, I’ve decided to really give lucid dreaming or dream yoga another go out here — along with some other people on my course, which is great as I need motivation to keep going with all the reality checks.
I’ve had two lucid dreams in the past after doing a lot of prep work with reality checks, but this was probably almost four years ago now. When I first did it, I used the MILD technique to induce the lucid dream, but would love to learn to do this at will and feel like this is the perfect place to do it. I’m not drinking any alcohol, tea, coffee or sugar so I have no excuse.
If you’re interested in lucid dreaming, I love this website — World of Lucid Dreaming and I Started reading this article the other day: How to have wake induced lucid dreams (WILDs)
And finally, if you’re interested in a very brief outline of how I’ve been spending my days at Rishikesh Yog Peeth, here’s my schedule for the 200 course.
My daily yoga schedule
6am – Wake up
6:30 – 6:45am – Herbal tea
6:45 – 7am – Nasal cleaning
7 – 9am – Pranayama, mantra chanting and asana
9am – Breakfast
10 – 11am – Human anatomy, physiology and yoga
11:15 – 12:15 – Yoga philosophy and its relationship to modern science
12:30 – 1pm – Self practice and group discussion
1pm – Lunch
2 – 4pm – Library time
5 – 6pm – Asana practice
6:30 – 7pm – Pranayama and meditation
7pm – Dinner
10pm – bed
And to finish, here’s a monkey family on the way to the main centre of rishikesh.
Namaste x
