Armed with a Teacher Training Certificate (TTC), I came back home and was already in love with the yoga practice. The first asana in the Sivananda Sequence in the headstand and I hadn’t yet mastered it. That itself provided the necessary motivation to roll out the mat morning and evening and do the practice. In fact, right after TTC, me and my husband went on a road trip covering southern Tamil Nadu for 8 days and I carried the mat and continued the practice in all the hotel rooms.
By this time, I had started working with an NGO – a school for children with autism and related challenges based out of Chennai. I was handling communications to promote awareness, raise donations and liaising with various stake holders. The work was very satisfying and offered a lot of challenge and learning! It also gave me enough time to pursue my practice.
By Jan, my running group friends asked me to start leading yoga class once a week at the beach – the place where we meet up for runs. To prepare myself, I took a private class to another dear runner friend and her husband at their terrace one morning. After class, her kind words and positive feedback gave me the confidence to lead a weekly yoga class at the beach. I feel I was very lucky to start my teaching with a group of friends because it really put me at ease. Their encouragement and positive feedback worked wonders on my confidence.
By this time, I started thinking about regular yoga classes. I was still sticking only to the Sivananda sequence and my practice was also primarily revolved around the sequence. I thought, why not teach the Sivananda sequence as a 15 day module, because that will truly equip the practitioners for self practice and they don’t have to depend upon a “class” or a “teacher” to take them through their practice.
To prepare myself for teaching this course, I enlisted the help of my brother in law and two of his friends. Our terrace became our yoga centre. Every evening, for one and a half hours, I led them through the yoga class. All three of them were absolute novices as far as yoga was concerned and this was their first exposure to a yoga class. So I was lucky because they had nothing to compare their experience with 😉
The three of them were so regular in their participation and practice and soon the magic of yoga became evident. Their bodies responded so beautifully to regular practice and it was so gratifying to see their progress. By the 12th day, they could do the entire sequence by themselves and by 15th day, I was ready to share this 15 day program with the general public.
But where there any takers? to be continued….
Its like you read my mind You appear to know so much about this like you wrote the book in it or something I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit but instead of that this is excellent blog A fantastic read Ill certainly be back