Frist Week of Yoga Teacher Training in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Yoga Teacher Training 200 hr
July 8-16th.
We landed in to Chiang Mai on Saturday around 1:30pm and went straight to get an hour massage. After almost 40 hrs of travel, you would this too for only 200bht (about $6 U.S.). No way can you get that good of a deal back home (Washington, you usually pay around 100/hr)!
I've had my fare share of massages, especially these last 3 months with my sciatica and let me tell you that the Thai massage I got here in Chiang Mai has been my favorite. They completely work through your entire body pulling and stretching out your muscles and working out all the kinks so wonderfully!
Then off to get some vegetarian thai food! YUMM!! We found this cute little restaurant down a smaller street, decorated with lively lush plants all around the outside. I ordered a ginger fried tofu dish and it was absolutely scrumptious. This only cost 60bht which comes out to about $2 U.S.
The next thing we were going to do was to exchange the rest of our American money into Thai bht but we had no idea that it was a buddhist holiday and so all the banks were closed, talk about unlucky. We would have to wait another week until we came back to the big city the next Saturday as there aren't any money exchanges around the ashram where we are staying.
So we hailed a "tuktuk" (a very small taxi car with open sides) and headed for our ashram. It took us about 48 minitues to get there and it is located near the mountains north of Chiang Mai. Seriously one of the most beautiful and lush places I have ever been. So many foreign plants that thrive here because of the humidity and sunlight. Tifani and I are so jealous that we will never be able to get our house plants to be the same.
When we first got to our ashram we met with one of the students that does a lot of the secretary work and we had to fill out a form that asks about your personal life, bad habits (like smoking, drinking and sugar addictions), history of family illnesses, what acitivites we like doing and how often we eat junk food!
I was actually a little taken aback when filling this form out, thinking why do they need to know this and what purpose it serves them. Still not exactly sure after a week of being here. My only guess is that they want to know what type of foods they should be giving us to help with getting over our addictions and if we need any personal therapy.
They say that the food here is medicine. It has been a very strict diet of vegan foods, so many medicinal properties in it for healing the body and giving us the energy and nutrients that we need to work all day and stay focused and concentrated in a pure and healthy way.
Our whole focus of this last week was getting on schedule with living the yogic lifestyle. We learned how important the food we eat is and how it should be taken mindfully and gratefully.
We wake up at 5:30 every morning, have a glass of tea then have meditation at 6:30 for half an hour. Then an asana (posture) routine until breakfast is served at 8:30.
Our breakfast has mainly consisted of oats with nuts and raisin or dates, a nut and oat milk (seriously want this recipe, it's delicious!), the most colorful fruits I've ever seen (guavas, watermelon, mango, pineapple, dragonfruit) and sometimes we get scrambled tofu with veggies or a vegan omelette.
We then have a class with our teacher Daniel who has taught us about the history and background of yoga. There is a 15 minute break between our next class that is with our other teacher Jeenal who has taught us about the yogic lifestyle.
We then get a break for lunch at noon. This has consisted of curries and salads with all kinds of squash, rice, lentils, potatoes, peas, barley, cucumbers and many more.
We then have a class with Jeenal again for the Yoga Sutras of Pantajali which are basically guidlines for classical yoga. It teaches us all about the traditional ways of yoga and how we can use it in our daily lives and apply it towards everything we do. This is my favorite part of yoga. Truly a beautiful sense of living a fulling and meaningful life. I will touch on this in a later article, as I don't have many hours of using the internet and have a lot of studies to do at night!
After the Yoga Sutras, we then have our last class of going over the asana's that we learned in the morning of that day and practice them again.
It was surprisingly easy to get into the routine of this lifestyle, especially since I was worried about jet lag for the first few days but we had no problem at all getting into it. And I am loving all the studies and asana practices we get every day.
That is it for now. I will add photo's and more of what we are learning later on. Thanks for reading!
Namaste
Yoga Teacher Training 200 hr
July 8-16th.
We landed in to Chiang Mai on Saturday around 1:30pm and went straight to get an hour massage. After almost 40 hrs of travel, you would this too for only 200bht (about $6 U.S.). No way can you get that good of a deal back home (Washington, you usually pay around 100/hr)!
I've had my fare share of massages, especially these last 3 months with my sciatica and let me tell you that the Thai massage I got here in Chiang Mai has been my favorite. They completely work through your entire body pulling and stretching out your muscles and working out all the kinks so wonderfully!
Then off to get some vegetarian thai food! YUMM!! We found this cute little restaurant down a smaller street, decorated with lively lush plants all around the outside. I ordered a ginger fried tofu dish and it was absolutely scrumptious. This only cost 60bht which comes out to about $2 U.S.
The next thing we were going to do was to exchange the rest of our American money into Thai bht but we had no idea that it was a buddhist holiday and so all the banks were closed, talk about unlucky. We would have to wait another week until we came back to the big city the next Saturday as there aren't any money exchanges around the ashram where we are staying.
So we hailed a "tuktuk" (a very small taxi car with open sides) and headed for our ashram. It took us about 48 minitues to get there and it is located near the mountains north of Chiang Mai. Seriously one of the most beautiful and lush places I have ever been. So many foreign plants that thrive here because of the humidity and sunlight. Tifani and I are so jealous that we will never be able to get our house plants to be the same.
When we first got to our ashram we met with one of the students that does a lot of the secretary work and we had to fill out a form that asks about your personal life, bad habits (like smoking, drinking and sugar addictions), history of family illnesses, what acitivites we like doing and how often we eat junk food!
I was actually a little taken aback when filling this form out, thinking why do they need to know this and what purpose it serves them. Still not exactly sure after a week of being here. My only guess is that they want to know what type of foods they should be giving us to help with getting over our addictions and if we need any personal therapy.
They say that the food here is medicine. It has been a very strict diet of vegan foods, so many medicinal properties in it for healing the body and giving us the energy and nutrients that we need to work all day and stay focused and concentrated in a pure and healthy way.
Our whole focus of this last week was getting on schedule with living the yogic lifestyle. We learned how important the food we eat is and how it should be taken mindfully and gratefully.
We wake up at 5:30 every morning, have a glass of tea then have meditation at 6:30 for half an hour. Then an asana (posture) routine until breakfast is served at 8:30.
Our breakfast has mainly consisted of oats with nuts and raisin or dates, a nut and oat milk (seriously want this recipe, it's delicious!), the most colorful fruits I've ever seen (guavas, watermelon, mango, pineapple, dragonfruit) and sometimes we get scrambled tofu with veggies or a vegan omelette.
We then have a class with our teacher Daniel who has taught us about the history and background of yoga. There is a 15 minute break between our next class that is with our other teacher Jeenal who has taught us about the yogic lifestyle.
We then get a break for lunch at noon. This has consisted of curries and salads with all kinds of squash, rice, lentils, potatoes, peas, barley, cucumbers and many more.
We then have a class with Jeenal again for the Yoga Sutras of Pantajali which are basically guidlines for classical yoga. It teaches us all about the traditional ways of yoga and how we can use it in our daily lives and apply it towards everything we do. This is my favorite part of yoga. Truly a beautiful sense of living a fulling and meaningful life. I will touch on this in a later article, as I don't have many hours of using the internet and have a lot of studies to do at night!
After the Yoga Sutras, we then have our last class of going over the asana's that we learned in the morning of that day and practice them again.
It was surprisingly easy to get into the routine of this lifestyle, especially since I was worried about jet lag for the first few days but we had no problem at all getting into it. And I am loving all the studies and asana practices we get every day.
That is it for now. I will add photo's and more of what we are learning later on. Thanks for reading!
Namaste
Woo sounds like a perfect routine for you. I'm sure you enjoying it and learning lots! Thanks for sharing <3
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