Yoga – My Hatha Exam

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Despite my blog name relating heavily to yoga, I have failed to so far explain my relationship with yoga. I do intend to do so, but, that is for another time.

I am training and will hopefully pass my exam to qualify as an Integral Yoga Hatha Level 1 teacher on Wednesday – i.e. tomorrow! And while I have been teaching for a few months at uni, I am now really nervous.

Yoga, class and my brief background:

The basic integral yoga class is wonderful, it works with the bodily systems in a straightforward order and through the asanas, a student is encouraged to tune in to their body and listen to what it tells them. As someone who grew up doing yoga and attending satsangs with my mum, this feeling is a beautiful one that I have learned to appreciate as I got older. I love that yoga has taken off and people are interested in it, but for me, yoga has always been more than posture and I am blessed that my mum has brought me up with the Yoga Centre in Gibraltar playing a big part in my childhood life.

Now as a teacher in training, the joy I feel when I can see my students reach this peace and comfort is immense. In some ways, I actually prefer teaching to my physical practice because I love sharing yoga with other people.

Yoga Society:

I started a society at uni with a couple of other students and we have really enjoyed it, plus I have been privileged to develop a lot of friendships through it.
If my classes continue next year with the baby that will be wonderful… but at the moment I am not committing 100% to anything because I have no idea what Theo will be like and I of course want to put him first. That said, I hope to have a yogi baby so maybe he will just come to class with me and inspire others until he can join in.

My course:

The course is a basic 200 hour qualification… encompassing Raja Yoga (science of the mind), Hatha (physical) postures or Asanas, aspects of the yogic diet, lifestyle, meditation and much more.
There is chanting which I absolutely adore and being pregnant I am trying to encourage chanting with my baby – for example my alarm in the mornings is the ‘Hari Om’ chant so I can wake up connecting to higher energy fields.
We also, of course, do a lot of pranayama and right now I am nervous about teaching kapalabati (the skull shining breath) because during pregnancy it is recommended that women refrain from the breath so I haven’t taught it at uni BUT I have to teach it for my exam.
So now, I am studying for my written theory exam which has a lot of Anatomy and Physiology in it as well as general knowledge about Integral Yoga; and, I am also preparing for my oral exam where I have to demonstrate teaching a class to a few students and my teacher.
Luckily I have my mum! She has been a teacher for over 20 years, has helped with the training for various other groups of students and has been my personal guide through the entire training. Since I have done a lot of it long distance at university, this has meant lots of Skype sessions and late night chats about body systems, Sanskrit names and other yoga related things. Basically mum has been my saviour and she is about to go over some last minute bits with me now too.
I will write more about yoga and what it means to me, and yoga during pregnancy too… but for now, I am going to practice and hopefully I won’t over think and complicate my life.

Post script – I passed!

I took the exam and barring the Kapalabati breath, which of course I was so worried about that I entirely messed up, I passed the exam and got some wonderful feedback.
Thank you so much to my mum and Aunty Nalanie for encouraging me and training me through the last year. I definitely feel like going back to uni there is a lot more I have to offer now as well.

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