We took at train from Goa to Mumbai and were greeted by a friend of a friend, named Anshul. We hit it off immediately and he has taken wonderful care of us! We are so happy to have crossed paths with him and his family. He runs a hotel called Hotel Kum Kum in the southern area of the city. We spent several days resting up, getting organizing, and hanging with our new friends. Anshul’s father went to school with Rob’s dad back in the day!
Mumbai is where we made arrangements to take a 7-day yoga course at a place called The Yoga Institute. It is the oldest yoga institute in the world! We were very excited for this retreat, although we weren't quite sure what to expect. Were we going to be doing yoga poses all day? What if it's too difficult for us?
Unfortunately, we had a bit of an issue with the yoga course at first, and we almost couldn’t attend. We called a few days before to confirm; they had me listed, but not Rob. Many phone calls and emails later, we got permission for him to attend, but accommodation at the facility was not guaranteed. We had decided that if he couldn’t stay, Amy would go to the class while Rob did some traveling on his own. Fortunately, when we arrived at the camp, everything was good to go! Note: always reconfirm ahead of time!
All our talk about nice weather got us very optimistic, so we were a bit surprised to find SO much rain in Mumbai. Rain, rain, and more rain. Heavy rain, all day, everyday! We’ve never seen so much in our lives! This rain caused quite a few problems our first day of yoga camp because most of the teachers were not able to reach the school. There were four volunteers running the program who were doing their best to figure out what to do with us. We had about 24 people in our class. It was a bit chaotic and we weren’t sure if this camp was going to really work out or not. Imagine us being herded from room to room, given bouncy balls and various toys, and told to make games out of them. This is yoga? But, we took our first yoga lesson to heart, "cultivate a positive mind," and hoped for the best. Day 2 was back on schedule and we were in for an amazing week!
Where do we begin to describe our experience? We learned that yoga is much more than just poses and physical exercise (poses are called asanas). This is definitely an important part, but it's just a part, of the whole yoga lifestyle. We learned that's what yoga is - a way a life, a way of bringing balance to your mind and body. It's amazing how much time and energy we spend caring for our bodies, the external part of us. We clean it, try to keep it healthy by exercising and eating the right food, dress it in nice clothes, etc., but what we learned at yoga camp was that even more important, is the health of our mind, our internal self. An unhealthy mind can cause many problems in life with our self happiness and acceptance, our relationships with others, our view of the world, and even the health of our physical body.
Yoga has been around for thousands of years and yogis have developed a system to help us create a healthy mind. This was the bulk of our time at yoga camp: learning about how the mind works and how a small change in perspective can have a huge impact on your happiness. We had various classes throughout the day taught by different instructors (all of whom were incredible teachers) and had about three hours of asana practice (split between morning and evening sessions).
Amy's favorite class was Karma Yoga. This class focused on selfless acts and finding happiness in your tasks. The number one lesson here was: Do your duty, and leave the rest to a larger force. Do your duty. This brought up many questions: What is your duty? How do you know what your duty is? How do you accept your duty while still wanting to progress? It's wonderful when a simple idea can make you think so hard! The instructor also spoke a lot about faith. This is a challenging subject for both of us, since we are not religious people. Having faith in a larger force, having faith that there is a reason for everything, is not something we can accept easily. This is one reason why this course was so wonderful. It made us think, and think deeply, which enables you to truly learn about yourself. No one can give you the answers, you have to discover them yourself.
Rob's favorite was the Bhava class, which was the class that linked the yogic philosophy of mind to the physical exercises of yoga. They explained how each asana, when performed with the right frame of mind, can lead to changes in the mind and in the personality of the yoga student. They talked about Bhavas, or mental attitudes, that are intentionally cultivated when you practice the asanas. Rob was fascinated by the concept that you could combine meditation with physical training in order to intentionally create a more balanced, peaceful mind.
We both also found the Pranayama class very fascinating. This was one that could be simply described as "learning to breathe," but as with all the other classes, it was much more than a mechanical technique. The founder of The Yoga Institute simplified nine breathing techniques for laypersons to learn in order to master their breath. Interestingly, they discovered thousands of years ago what medical science has only recently confirmed, which is that the breath is intimately linked with mental activity. Control over your breath provides control over your mind. If your breath is short and rapid, so are your thoughts. If your breathing is slow and deep, you will find the same pattern in your brain waves. At the beginning of the seven day camp, they had us sit in a meditative posture and just count the number of breaths we took in a single minute. They did this again at the end, and the results were pretty impressive. Almost everyone reduced the number of breaths they took in a minute by 30% - 60%. A few examples were people who went from 40 to 18, 25 to 12, and 10 down to 7. If you have asthma, it would definitely be worth your while to find someone who can teach you yogic breathing as a way to control the symptoms - they have had some pretty good success with treating asthma patients at the Institute. (Sorry, we aren't qualified to teach any of this stuff yet!)
We really enjoyed the course and hope to continue incorporating yoga in our lives!
Mumbai is where we made arrangements to take a 7-day yoga course at a place called The Yoga Institute. It is the oldest yoga institute in the world! We were very excited for this retreat, although we weren't quite sure what to expect. Were we going to be doing yoga poses all day? What if it's too difficult for us?
Unfortunately, we had a bit of an issue with the yoga course at first, and we almost couldn’t attend. We called a few days before to confirm; they had me listed, but not Rob. Many phone calls and emails later, we got permission for him to attend, but accommodation at the facility was not guaranteed. We had decided that if he couldn’t stay, Amy would go to the class while Rob did some traveling on his own. Fortunately, when we arrived at the camp, everything was good to go! Note: always reconfirm ahead of time!
All our talk about nice weather got us very optimistic, so we were a bit surprised to find SO much rain in Mumbai. Rain, rain, and more rain. Heavy rain, all day, everyday! We’ve never seen so much in our lives! This rain caused quite a few problems our first day of yoga camp because most of the teachers were not able to reach the school. There were four volunteers running the program who were doing their best to figure out what to do with us. We had about 24 people in our class. It was a bit chaotic and we weren’t sure if this camp was going to really work out or not. Imagine us being herded from room to room, given bouncy balls and various toys, and told to make games out of them. This is yoga? But, we took our first yoga lesson to heart, "cultivate a positive mind," and hoped for the best. Day 2 was back on schedule and we were in for an amazing week!
Where do we begin to describe our experience? We learned that yoga is much more than just poses and physical exercise (poses are called asanas). This is definitely an important part, but it's just a part, of the whole yoga lifestyle. We learned that's what yoga is - a way a life, a way of bringing balance to your mind and body. It's amazing how much time and energy we spend caring for our bodies, the external part of us. We clean it, try to keep it healthy by exercising and eating the right food, dress it in nice clothes, etc., but what we learned at yoga camp was that even more important, is the health of our mind, our internal self. An unhealthy mind can cause many problems in life with our self happiness and acceptance, our relationships with others, our view of the world, and even the health of our physical body.
Yoga has been around for thousands of years and yogis have developed a system to help us create a healthy mind. This was the bulk of our time at yoga camp: learning about how the mind works and how a small change in perspective can have a huge impact on your happiness. We had various classes throughout the day taught by different instructors (all of whom were incredible teachers) and had about three hours of asana practice (split between morning and evening sessions).
Amy's favorite class was Karma Yoga. This class focused on selfless acts and finding happiness in your tasks. The number one lesson here was: Do your duty, and leave the rest to a larger force. Do your duty. This brought up many questions: What is your duty? How do you know what your duty is? How do you accept your duty while still wanting to progress? It's wonderful when a simple idea can make you think so hard! The instructor also spoke a lot about faith. This is a challenging subject for both of us, since we are not religious people. Having faith in a larger force, having faith that there is a reason for everything, is not something we can accept easily. This is one reason why this course was so wonderful. It made us think, and think deeply, which enables you to truly learn about yourself. No one can give you the answers, you have to discover them yourself.
Rob's favorite was the Bhava class, which was the class that linked the yogic philosophy of mind to the physical exercises of yoga. They explained how each asana, when performed with the right frame of mind, can lead to changes in the mind and in the personality of the yoga student. They talked about Bhavas, or mental attitudes, that are intentionally cultivated when you practice the asanas. Rob was fascinated by the concept that you could combine meditation with physical training in order to intentionally create a more balanced, peaceful mind.
We both also found the Pranayama class very fascinating. This was one that could be simply described as "learning to breathe," but as with all the other classes, it was much more than a mechanical technique. The founder of The Yoga Institute simplified nine breathing techniques for laypersons to learn in order to master their breath. Interestingly, they discovered thousands of years ago what medical science has only recently confirmed, which is that the breath is intimately linked with mental activity. Control over your breath provides control over your mind. If your breath is short and rapid, so are your thoughts. If your breathing is slow and deep, you will find the same pattern in your brain waves. At the beginning of the seven day camp, they had us sit in a meditative posture and just count the number of breaths we took in a single minute. They did this again at the end, and the results were pretty impressive. Almost everyone reduced the number of breaths they took in a minute by 30% - 60%. A few examples were people who went from 40 to 18, 25 to 12, and 10 down to 7. If you have asthma, it would definitely be worth your while to find someone who can teach you yogic breathing as a way to control the symptoms - they have had some pretty good success with treating asthma patients at the Institute. (Sorry, we aren't qualified to teach any of this stuff yet!)
We really enjoyed the course and hope to continue incorporating yoga in our lives!
