Bali Teacher Training 2023 #YogaStory

This adventure was years in the making for me. I had originally planned to travel to Italy after graduating from university in 2021 and would stop in Bologna to do the training. The fates, however, had different ideas. As the world locked down in 2020, I saw my plans change before my eyes and I started saving for a longer flight. The covid pandemic had changed many people’s plans and it turned out that I wasn’t the only member of the Bali teacher training that had originally booked Bologna for that year. Upon meeting our small group I was met by similar stories and familiar feelings. Nerves were high, our expectations of ourselves and of the course had been building up for so long. Needless to say we did not have time to allow these feelings to settle in and they soon gave way to excitement, and some welcomed hard work. 

Bali is truly a wondrous country; everything from the food to the people to the landscape had my British brain in awe. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to spend a month than the secluded Balian Beach; we even befriended a shark (well sort of) and enjoyed swimming in the Indian ocean after practice. We had a fantastic range of vegetarian and vegan food cooked from local, in-season produce by local hands, and the hotel took the best care of us and made us feel very welcome. Some of us took time to learn something of the culture and tried our best to speak the language, Balinese is a difficult language to pick up!

Split into three modules, the course revealed itself to be very well thought out. As a postgraduate philosophy student, at first I had lamented the seeming lack of intellectual stimulus. However, by the end of the course I felt enriched, having learned so much over such a short space of time. Module One was anatomy-heavy, focused on the mechanics of individual postures. I was not the only member of the group that saw my asana practice improve by leaps and bounds, performing postures I had never thought I could do. Module Two taught class structure and teaching techniques. This broke a shell I did not know I was encased in; my confidence grew tremendously thanks to the careful guidance of Juliette and Zafea. For Module Three, we were introduced to Mark, and a very different teaching style. Philosophical discussions opened the world of yoga science to my keen eyes. From the classroom to our group meditations, this module was even more transformative for me than the previous two. 

Each module included an introspective element. Who am I? We were encouraged to ask ourselves this at certain points through the training. At first this seemed like a straightforward task: I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a student, I am working on myself. Even at a base level, this did not come so easy as I thought. By the second module I fell deeply into myself, questioning how I had got here and discovering ways to answer myself that I was unaware of previously. Yoga has taught me so much about the world by opening up the parts of myself I did not know were there. My experiences reflected the world and the world showed my experience like a mirror. One thing we can use yoga science for is to clean the mirror and see with clarity what lays around us. By the final module I had seen this in action and found something I think the whole world deserves to know about. 

The days were long, so I slept well at night. I soon learned that time was best spent with all energies focused on the present. Expectation no longer served me as it did before and acceptance of something greater than myself had aided me when I needed support. By the end of the training, I could definitely see myself anew. Old habits I had grown stuck inside started to crumble and a fresher mindset was taking their place. There were tears, and there was lots  of laughter, there were times when not everything made everyone happy. But on the whole we stuck together like a newly formed family, pushed together by our willingness to learn, help each other, and help ourselves. I would like to say thank you to  Mark, Zefea, and Juliette for their work to bring these trainings together and for the positive impact it has had on my life. I could not have made a better decision for myself, and I am so excited to put what I have learned into practice and bring yoga to others in my community. 

By Rae Winters

Finally, if you are interested in having a teacher training experience in Bali, evolation is going to host another teacher training in Bali this year! Click here for more information about Bali, or apply here to a training program.

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