This past weekend I completed my third weekend of yoga teacher training. I feel like I’ve finally gotten into the flow of these trainings and have a better idea of what to expect now when I go into them on Friday evenings.
Friday PM
We started off the weekend by doing a couple breathing exercises – bhramari (humming bee breath_ and kumbhaka (breath retention). I’d never tried either of them before, so they were both brand new to me. We talked a bit about breathing before we finished off the night with an hour long yoga nidra practice.
Saturday AM
The topic for Saturday morning was rooting and grounding. We did a practice where we focused on grounding ourselves with each movement. We did it with out eyes closed so that we could focus more on the grounding instead of watching what was going on around us. Having my eyes closed for the practice was new to me. It turned out to be a pretty cool experience because I was less worried about doing the poses just like everyone else because I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see it.
Saturday PM
We started off Saturday talking about the muscles of the hips that we didn’t cover last week. We then covered the adductor muscles and discussed how they worked. We ended off the day with practice that focused on the muscles of the hips that we had been talking about.
Sunday AM
Our last day of yoga teacher training for the weekend started off with going over the external hip rotators, the quads, and the hamstrings. It was great to get a refresher on those muscles because they’re so important to so many yoga poses.We ended the morning with a great yin practice that focused on the hips. I typically have tight hips so it felt great to focus on that area.
Sunday PM
We finished off the weekend with some yoga philosophy. We discussed the paths of yoga (kharma yoga, jhana yoga, bhatki yoga, raja yoga, and hatha yoga). We didn’t do any meditations or breath work during this sessions, and instead just focused on the lecture.
Final thoughts
The philosophy that we discussed this weekend made more sense to me than the weekend before. I’m not sure if it was because I was more open to it this time around or the content was just easier to understand, but I “got” more of it this weekend that I did the last weekend. I spoke to the teacher and told her that I was struggling with the philosophy side of things, and she recommended a cook to me called Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy and reading it.
Have you ever looked into the philosophy side of yoga outside of a yoga teacher training? Have any book suggestions about it for me?