SAY HELLO TO…
My Yoga Teachers In India
Meet my yoga teachers in India! Ever wondered what it’s like to study yoga in India? You’re in the right place.
Rahul Bhatt
Rahul Bhatt is a yoga instructor in Rishikesh, India at Vidya Yoga School. Nearly every evening, I attended Rahul’s Yoga Alignment course. Each class was 90 minutes of intense yoga asana practice, with the focus of perfectly performing usually two or three asanas. He would work our bodies with very hardy, dynamic asanas until all students were drenched in sweat in the 100 degree room. I felt almost as if I was with a personal trainer instead of a yoga instructor.
Rahul would target particular muscles to help prepare our bodies for the asanas he had chosen to focus on for that class. We would sometimes do 50 chaturanga push-ups in a row, spaced only with one breath in mountain pose (or downward facing dog) between each push up. Rahul liked us to push us to our edge. Then after touching the edge with a single tow, he would show us how to perform a particular asana with complete perfection. Such as camel pose, ustrasana, or Scorpion pose, vschikasana. He would spend ten minutes pointing out how each and every part of the body needed to be placed, and then discussing how certain muscles would need to be engaged, tensed, or relaxed.
Such great detail would then be followed with each student attempting the asana and Rahul would adjust our bodies accordingly. We would then, often, form pairs and help another student achieve the asana and monitor their positioning of their body.
These Yoga Alignment courses felt like proper workshops that I would pay $75 for back in the USA. I was blown away by the exquisite detail Rahul could give to every asana, and to his ability to shape a class to prepare the body to achieve a desired asana.
I had usually considered classes as a whole 60-90 minute session that focuses on releasing and strengthening the entire body. I had never decided to make a class with the goal of stretching or strengthening just one part of it. Rahul’s teaching gave me a new perspective on what a yoga class could look like.
I often thought of Rahul as a lion. He possesses an internal fire that is clear whenever he enters the yoga shala. He is firm, yet respectful. He is not an expressive individual, nor highly communicative, yet he conveys his commands with brisque, tight, “hmms.” His lion-like energy demanded I give him one hundred percent of my energy and my attention in his yoga shala. Rahul is a phenomenal yoga instructor who I hope to be able to study again with one day.
With grace and gratitude, thank you for being a part of the Wild Yoga Tribe, Rahul.
Pratap Rawatt
Pratap Rawat is a yoga instructor at Vidya Yoga School in Rishikesh. He is also an employee at Sonu Guest House in Luxman Jhula, Rishikesh. I never actually took one of Pratap’s classes, but as he worked at the guest house I was staying at during my month stay in Rishikesh, Pratap and I talked about yoga daily. We didn’t just talk about yoga, but we often did asanas together. Pratap and I would sit on the floor in the lobby, or we’d walk up to the yoga studio on the third floor of our guest house (yes, my guest house had its own private yoga hall – how awesome is that?!).
Pratap’s perspective on yoga is that yoga is life. Yoga is his whole life. His life and yoga are intertwined to the point that one doesn’t just twist around the other, but one becomes the other. The definition of yoga is “YUJ” which means “to yoke.” Yoga is the union between two things. Pratap has melted his life into yoga. It’s a lovely thing to witness.
Pratap has told me to do things like “learn to eat air” and to “focus on my knees” in everyday life. Whenever Pratap finds his mind wandering, he focuses his attention on the alignment of his knees and how the joints feel at that moment in time, whether his body is still or in motion.
Even after I left Rishikesh, Pratap still offers me guidance on yoga asanas by video or by messages. I will take videos of me working on a yoga pose such as a handstand, and he will offer me tips or provide me with constructive criticism on my form so I can better know how to work.
I was always dazzled with Pratap’s generosity of time and spirit. He spent an enormous amount of time with me going over sanskrit pronunciation, going over which muscles were engaged or relaxed in particular asanas, and watching me perform asanas and offering guidance on how to position my body more effectively.
I am lucky to consider Pratap a friend who I hope to have in my life for many years to come. With grace and gratitude, thank you for being a part of the Wild Yoga Tribe, Pratap.
To read more about my time in Rishikesh, please click HERE.
Want to know more?
Send me a note and I’ll happily answer your questions!
