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Guest: Koman Dubey – Ashtanga Yoga teacher (RYT 200)
Q: A person who does yoga, automatically becomes a positive person? Is that true?
A: Yes, to some extent is gives you a lot of calmness and joy, so that can be true.
What do you do? What’s your routine like?
-I am a new yoga teacher, I’ve a degree in law, I was practicing yoga during my college too, I started yoga in my third year, I was physically active, my yoga journey started because of my obsession with being able to do a headstand.
-I started loving the process, the way it made me feel and last year I had an opportunity where I had some time and my teacher suggested to me that I should get certified, that would give me an opportunity to pursue what I like for 30 days straight.
-I went for the course and I enjoyed it so much, I realised that I love teaching, I gave it a try.
Why yoga? and not other form of fitness?
-In school inlayed a lot of basketball
-In college, it was basketball and lots of running, I was into calisthenics.
-The first time I practiced yoga I loved the way it made me feel.
-I wanted to explore the feeling it gave me, more.
-There’s no end point when it comes to practicing yoga.
-It is nor the physical asana, that’s the purpose of yoga, but asana is one of the limbs of yoga, it’s a third limb of a right limb partita makes you strong enough to sit in a meditative posture for a long time.
-Yoga has become so popular now that people thing that it only has to do with poses and flexibility, but it’s more internal that physical.
–Sheershasan is my favourite.
repetitions in yoga
-Most of the sequences, the point of holding each pose is to lengthen your breath and the number of breaths you can stay in that pose, some people also stop breathing because they are so into the pose. The count is done in breaths.
-Yoga is mostly allowing yourself to be in a certain pose so that your mind is completely engrossed in the thought.
-Mind without thought, that’s yoga.
Why is it more popular in western countries than India?
-Nowadays there are many yoga teachers, its progressive.
-People who come from foreign countries give more value to it than the people of our own country.
-I myself didn’t knew many things, I am glad I enrolled myself in that course.
-It wasn’t that famous before but when social media emerges people got more into it, they saw people doing yoga and it interested them.
What improvements did you see in yourself after practicing yoga?
-I feel it has made me more flexible, I was too harsh, now I know how to talk to myself gently, more self aware, life has become self disciplined.
-If you do any physical activity, your confidence will get better already because you start looking good. Yoga does the same with you.
Where do you take classes for teaching purpose?
-I am a very new teacher, before lockdown I was assisting a yoga teacher, because I wanted to know if it’s for me.
-Then lockdown happens and I was a little nervous because I didn’t want to lose touch with teaching, So I started out by giving more free sessions online, slowly I started putting tweets, conducting classes.
-People registers and showed interest, since then I am taking classes on zoom.
-Now I’ve one group classes and I’ve got enough reservations for a batch.
What are the limitations in online yoga classes?
-I miss the face to face interaction because when there’s a beginner, as a teacher I’ve realised that I;ve to spend double energy, they don’t understand the basic movements because they’ve never done it before.
-Now, I had to learn to be more verbal, that’s a limitation on an online class.
-It really makes a big difference.
if someone wants to get into yoga? How should they approach it?
-If you’ve no option of joining a class, then the best option would be to learn 12 sequence surya namaskar, it’ll help you a lot.
-Start by doing 3 sequences.
What was your shocking experience while doing yoga?
-When I started out, I knew I had a bit of strength, but when it came to flexibility, I was super stiff, my hamstrings were tight, it was bad and painful, but when I get through that entire hour, it felt good later on.
5 tips for a yoga beginner
- Don’t start with a goal because you’ll be frustrated.
- Don’t be intimated by what you see online.
- Don’t complicate your practice.
- When you start, you’ll be frustrated. Don’t let it dictate your practice.
- Do not take yourself very seriously.
Chirag Barjatya 