Life Lessons From A Yoga Practice

Yoga teachers discuss the asanas that tested them and the life lessons that they learnt while practising various forms of yoga

- Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran

Yoga teachers they are just like us. Before becoming masters of the practice, they too had to fall down multiple times; spend hours, days and months to perfect asanas or poses that perplexed them; most of all, they had to face their fears and overcome them-all on the yoga mat. Medha Bhaskar, co-founder of Bengaluru-based Amrutha Bindu Yoga School remembers falling off while doing the Trikonasana (Triangle pose) during the initial days of her Yoga Teacher Training course. "This was 12 years back. I was 21 and my cousin had asked me to join the teacher training course he was conducting. Because I had been practicing karate for many years, I joined thinking how difficult could it be? And so there I was, in my first class, falling off doing the Trikonasana. I remember wondering how I had managed to fall off with both my feet on the ground?" laughs Bhaskar recalling those early days.

Bhaskar's journey into yoga, like a sine curve, has had its share of ups and downs. During the initial months of the teacher training course, she remembers skipping classes for the simplest of reasons. "I'd call my cousin and say, 'I wasn't coming because I had a cold. Or I was feeling tired. My cousin would ignore me and my messages but after a point, I realised that I couldn't just keep giving him excuses and skip classes. So, one day, when my body was in extraordinary pain, I decided to just show up for the class. And that day, just the act of showing up made me feel so open that I decided that I would keep showing up," Bhaskar recalls.

KEEP SHOWING UP