Volunteer
Donate
ShopTeaching Isha Hata Yoga – 6 Months Later
With a new batch of Isha Hata Yoga trainees starting their teacher training next month, we catch up with last year’s participants for an update.
With a new batch of Isha Hata Yoga trainees starting their teacher training next month, we catch up with last year’s participants for an update.
The Isha Hata Yoga Teacher Training Program for 2012 ended on 27th November last year. It has been about six months since the Hata Yoga teachers went back to their respective homes and lives, eager to start teaching the wonderful science of Classical Hata Yoga.
With a fresh batch of Hata Yoga teachers about to start training from 22nd July this year, we wondered how the participants of the first batch were faring. Were they teaching yoga? What has the response been like? How were they feeling about their own sadhana and about teaching? What has their experience been like so far?
Subscribe
The participants of the first batch came from an array of backgrounds: one has gone back to Geneva, one to Johannesburg in South Africa, several to the USA and Canada, and many more are in the process of setting up a clientele in India. Each of these locations brings with it its own possibilities and its own challenges. The Isha meditator base in each of these places is eager to benefit from a trained Hata Yoga teacher in their midst and classes have been enthusiastically greeted. However, the clientele is widening to include non-meditators as well.
The teachers are involved with setting up their new business, marketing their offering, looking at issues such as appropriate space and rents as well as planning events, travelling, teaching and supporting their students with further guidance. No doubt, every one of them is working very hard to make it happen. Jordan Funk, who is based in San Francisco, USA, tells us: “I am VERY BUSY... it is non-stop. I have taken on some outside work as well to help raise capital during this initial phase. My schedule is manageable only with the support of my sadhana.”
Talking of his practices, he says: “It is clear that the Hata Yoga Teacher Training Program has set my life on a course that would not have otherwise been possible. Each day is a new day to look at the practices we learned and see the depth and dimension that is unfolding. The discipline to take the time every day to do this is now rooted deeply within.”
After 21 intense weeks at the ashram, back home, many of the participants confessed to being “ashram-sick.” Michelle Mayes, who is based in Geneva says, “I found it quite tough to readjust to life in the ‘outside world!’ I also felt a bit isolated here, as there isn’t an established Isha community.” But support from the team at the ashram has been there whenever required and the actual teaching seems to be going very well. “Generally after the class, I’m buzzing,” Michelle shares.
The 65-year-old Steven Bleeke of Ohio, USA, says, “Teaching feels like I am giving a huge gift to people but they are giving it right back to me. It feels like I am Sadhguru's partner in transmitting this. What could be better than that?”
What, indeed? We wish them all the very best!
Editor’s Note: Isha Hatha Yoga programs are an extensive exploration of classical hatha yoga, which revive various dimensions of this ancient science that are largely absent in the world today. These programs offer an unparalleled opportunity to explore Upa-yoga, Angamardana, Surya Kriya, Surya Shakti, Yogasanas and Bhuta Shuddhi, among other potent yogic practices.