Options for body movement during India’s COVID-19 nationwide lockdown are severely limited in a city of two million. I’ve had more time than ever to offer to the creative and disciplinary sides of my yoga.

 

I feel impelled to share more on my personal journey with yoga, because I recently uploaded my second yoga video, and because these four letters have become such a trigger word.

Lately, Y-O-G-A is everywhere and can mean anything.

“Anything” includes an unhealthy source of comparing oneself to flawless Instagram posts that make it look so darn easy and wholesome, and an industry for booming capitalistic profit (around $11.6 billion in the United States this year, to be more specific).

The first time I got on a mat and into downward dog, all I felt was resistance.

It seemed like my posture was corrected in one class, and then the same pose was corrected to a completely different position in the next class.

I could focus on my form and alignment, or focus on my inhales and exhales, but to give attention to both aspects at the same time? This was beyond me.

It took me years, as well as access to free and unlimited classes offered by my university’s gyms, to start to like and understand yoga.

That first embrace was nearly six years ago. At the beginning of each semester I started picking my favorite instructor (a fellow university student certified in teaching yoga). I searched for the most suitable time slot, and tried to show up regularly for that class. The next semester the schedules would change. As new styles of yoga class were added to the schedules at my university gyms, I would give them a try, but usually stuck to “vinyasa.”

Today I can do my own flow completely fasted (12-14 hours), completely un-caffeinated (ginger-turmeric-hot water), and first thing in the morning. I can keep myself entertained on the mat for over an hour, followed by 30-60 minutes of meditation exercises.

I know that yoga and meditation are very much morning time, empty-stomach activities for me. I know this because I spent years listening to my body and undergoing plenty of trial and error.

I have too many memories of juggling a full schedule of classes and volunteering, and squeezing in a night yoga class. I’d eat something for dinner because I was stressed I had to rush to the gym, and curse myself during the yoga class feeling like I had to hold not only plank position, but also the undigested contents of my stomach.

So glad my self-love has ripened from those days.

Despite these years of experience, it is only now, from the perspective of being within India, do I feel like I’m finally starting to “get it.”

No matter how fun and exercising a yoga flow feels, I always remind myself that the main intention of this ancient practice was to physically prepare the body for meditation.

A sequence of physical poses is merely one aspect of a whole system and science of “yoga,” originating from thousands of years ago.

Asana, the Sanskrit word most of us know to translate to “pose,” or “body position,” originally meant “seat.” Referring to the seated posture of meditation.

For that reason I invariably include standing balances in my sequences. Without the flexibility of a professional ballerina, these poses are not particularly interesting or showy. Yet one day the value of these one-legged asanas just hit me in the head, literally. I realized that in order to hold these poses, I had to silence my mind and let it go flat.

On Yoga Courses

Money spent on yoga in India: $12
Teacher training courses (TTCs) done: 0

The more everyone starts to do something, the less likely that thing appeals to me.

Being an American girl in India without a TTC slid into my itinerary can feel like going to the Disney Parks and skipping Magic Kingdom, having Thanksgiving without a turkey, going to Paris and ignoring the Eiffel tower.

Yes, I came to India for CURRY and NAAN and to see how 1.3 billion people of the world are spending their time. Yoga was secondary.

Thus, I’ve been in India for nearly four months and I still don’t have my own yoga mat.

I simply enjoy traveling with 36 liters on my back.

In addition to how trending TTCs are, there’s another good reason I feel aversion to them. It recently came to my attention that sexual assault and rape happen more frequently than we think in these yoga courses and TTCs, with Wikipedia now having it’s own Sexual Abuse by Yoga Gurus page. This isn’t something I want to accidentally support.

One of my best friends opened up to me about the horror stories from behind the scenes of her 200-hour TTC in Bali, Indonesia. The events were so traumatic that it felt too draining and painful to even talk about for months, much less report to Yoga Alliance.

When the founder of your carefully chosen TTC program shoves his genitals against your body while he “corrects your alignment,” shock and doubt overcome any thoughts of confrontation. Especially when the assault comes from someone you trust, look up to, seek approval from, read glowing online reviews about, and have handed over thousands of dollars to.

“Did that really just happen, or was it my imagination?”

Other girls complained too. When my friend confided in the female teacher leading the trainings, the teacher only word-vomited out even more repulsive details about the male staff members.

When my friend returned home with her yoga teacher certificate and her newly acquired traumas, she found out her roommate had similar TTC stories of sexual assault. Her roommate’s TTC program was in the United States.

That made me think of a recent headline I’d read. I wanted to see if Rishikesh had closed its borders to tourism in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Instead, the news Google pulled up was describing an American woman who was raped at her yoga center. The article stated she reported her rape, was medically examined, and results were pending.

What the fuck? We have to be thrown on a table and inspected to get taken seriously?

Then you hear about famous ashrams like The Beatles Ashram, which was personally graced with a visit by The Beatles themselves back in the day, and now receives 50,000 visitors a year. And then you pull up shady articles like this.

I don’t mean I think lowly of all TTCs. This is not a vow saying I will never do one. I just don’t know if I will. I have to connect with the teachers and see the location of the program. I have to feel it.

Besides, at the moment, I’m kind of forbidden to step out the front door. Like the rest of us on quarantine/ lockdown, I’m left to sit with my own shit (in the meditative sense)…

On the other hand, I led rooftop yoga last week. I’m at a hostel in India, waiting out the pandemic. All the Yoga Alliance-certified travelers have gone back to their homes. Homes which all happen to be in wealthy, powerful, and developed countries, perhaps because these days it takes $1,000-3000 to become a “real yoga teacher.”

To my pleasant 7:00am surprise, I genuinely enjoyed sharing my flow, and found that I always had something to say during the poses. We were just three. Another traveler also led some sun salutations. A staff member asked me to teach him some basics next time.

I am well aware that I am untrained in giving advice on two things I care deeply about: alignment and yoga safety. I don’t pretend I am trained. I would never call myself a yoga teacher.

But to impart what I know from experience, and invite the others to demonstrate their own knowledge, so that instead of vegging around for weeks of quarantine, we all simply do yoga together?

That, that I can do.