I have been practising yoga for a number of years now. Yoga has been a comfort for me in difficult times and has allowed me to find softness within my mind and body. From a very early age, I learn to be strong, to keep calm and carry on and find peaceful  resolutions to conflict. Yoga seemed so natural to me. Yoga allowed me to find balance.
I first travelled to Rishikesh in 2011. I had quit my job as a producer for an advertising agency and decided to retain as a yoga teacher, however, i felt ill-equipped to teach. I decided to take some time out and travel to India, the spiritual home of yoga. I had been planning my first trip for a while. I was to start in Rishikesh and travel around India. My friend Alpesh had helped me plan my journey and was excited for me to be taking my new lifestyle so seriously.
I arrived in India in Autumn 2011 and was picked up by taxi and driven the 7 hours to Rishikesh. When I arrived and plugged my phone in I was given the devastating news that my friend Alpesh had passed away due to complications with Sickle Cell Anemia. I had only seen him 48 hours before. I was floored, I was helpless and I was alone. My visa didnât allow me to exit India and re-enter for 28 days. I had to make the difficult decision to stay in India and miss his funeral. I spoke to his wife and she assured me that it is what he would have wanted.
The first 3 days I didnât leave my hotel room, I sat on the balcony and took in the sights and sounds of Rishikesh from a safe distance. I eventually left my room and searched for a yoga class. As I said yoga has always helped me in difficult times. I wandered the streets of Rishikesh and came across a small yoga shala on top of a hotel run by a teacher called Yogi Kamal Singh.
Kamal was the teacher I needed in this difficult time. He was energetic, commanding, graceful and most of all he had a glimmer in his eye that reminded me of my playful friend Pesh. I continued to do classes with Kamal night and day for five days. On the fifth day, I was walking down to the Ganga and slipped into a pot hole and broke my foot. I could no longer continue practising with him. I had always vowed to return to learn more for this enigmatic teacher.
I am 42 now and call it a mid-life crisis, a breakdown or a spiritual calling I find myself returning to Rishikesh once more. The last seven years have been the toughest of my life. I have been lost since returning back to the UK. I had started a new career as a yoga teacher. I was working incredibly hard to pay for my a house. I was working sometimes 26 classes a week. My classes were full and I was a respected yoga teacher in my hometown. Something was missing, though, I had lost yoga. I had become a victim of my own success and had stopped practicing apart from a quick warm up to keep my body supple.
Last year whilst trying to short cut a practice I injured myself which meant that practicing had become painful when chest opening. I hated myself for it and true to form I continued to keep going and work harder. I finally crashed at the end of 2016 and decided that I needed to make some changes in my life. I was thinking about going to Thailand for some time out to sit on a beach and get some perspective.
In February of this year, a student asked me where to go in Rishikesh. Straight the way I said he should seek out Kamal at the Tattva Yoga Shala. Then it hit me, I needed to go back to finish what I started. Ashtanga yoga had always appealed to me because it wasnât just Asana it was a system, a system that made sense to me.
I immediately booked the 500 hours teacher training at Tattvaa Yoga Shala. My friends and family thought that I was mad as I already had a 500 hour TTC but to me it made sense. Hopefully, I could put the past seven years behind me and use the ashtanga system to help heal the years of self-abuse and trauma.
I arrived back in Rishikesh in Spring 2017. Rishikesh had changed, it felt more commercial. Kamalâs picture was on posters and banners all over Ram Jhula. The following day I attended the orientation meeting at the Gita ashram. From a class of around 15 in 2011, there was now over 50 in this class.
This time round I knew not to take anything for granted. India always has a way of throwing a curve ball at you. I had learned not to expect anything and to go with the flow. I have to be honest and say that I was disappointed.
I had signed up thinking that I was going to spend 8 weeks practicing and learning from Kamal. This is still the case but this time I had to share him with 53 other people most of whom were new to ashtanga. That meant starting again at the very bottom of the ladder.
I am now in my second week of an 8-week course and I am struggling both physically and mentally. My injury in my chest isnât allowing me to backbend and I am finding twisting really difficult. In yoga backbends are heart openers allowing you to release stored emotional wounds and allowing you to connect deeply to the source of all life, the breath. I canât breathe.
I am suffocating with the amount of people in the class. We sit down, legs crossed, for at least half the day. I find it difficult to sit up straight. I am broken. I find it difficult to have absolute beginners doing traditional Indian yoga adjustments on me. I find it too painful. I find it physically painful but I also find it emotionally painful. I have done this already and feel that I am going backwards. I keep thinking of the very first limb of Yoga; Ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-harm. Am I harming myself by being here? Am I harming myself by continually doubting my myself?
Rishikesh is also opening my emotional wounds, I am finding it difficult to open up. My heart is heavy, there is no room for compassion and no room for the pranic winds of change. Everyday I wake up wanting to run. I revert to source. Keep Calm and carry on. I am tired of everything being so hard. I can not sit and meditate because I have to sit with anger and frustration and I feel like I am going to explode.
I keep remembering the mantra I was given my a Vedic Astrologer the last time I was here;
This means I bow to Shiva or I bow to my inner self. Shiva is the god of destruction, he makes ways for the new.
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