TRAVELMAN INDIA: I stood on my head in yoga class today but it’s not going to magically make me healthier than any other exercise routine.

I stood on my head today! I’ve done it on previous days, but today I got my legs up on my own, somebody steadied me, she let go, and I stayed up until I was ready to come down. I’ve never done that before. It was an awesome feeling of accomplishment. My friend Kelsey, who is a yoga teacher at home, was my partner. It felt like when I learned how to ride a bicycle when I was three years-old (maybe four, can’t remember exactly, but I remember my sister letting go of the back of the bike and me continueing onward).

The headstand is an upside to this class. I think the downside is that this is a little more yoga than I want in my life. On the other hand, I signed up for this knowing that I’d be eating, sleeping, and breathing yoga for a month. My logic is that this way, I’ll really know what it’s about, what I want to take and what I want to leave behind. When it comes to the stuff I want to leave behind, I get frustrated and want to leave town early.

We are going to be tested on our knowledge before we are certified. This is what is most troubling to me. I don’t foresee myself being a yoga teacher, so it’s not the end of the world if I don’t pass the tests. On the other hand, I think that since I’m doing this I should get everything I can out of it, study hard, learn everything I can in the month, and leave no question that I will become certified. ...However, I don’t want to go into nursing school student mode, cramming information into my head past the point that it’s enjoyable. I’m trying to find a balance.

As a solution, so far, I’m paying close attention in class (but not freaking out and not frantically taking notes and frantically ask other students afterward about every detail to the poses). I’m learning in the way that I learn something on my own. I push my self a little bit to stay focused, but only because I know it will enhance my enjoyment. I’m not going to push myself past the point that I want to push.

Also, I was talking with another student and neither of us think it’s likely that someone will not pass. This isn’t nursing school, it’s yoga school. I’m guessing that they will prepare us well for the tests in class, if not, oh well. If the tests focus on Kriyas (cleansing exercises that I find ridiculous, with a ridiculous list of rules and times of day to practice), pranayama and Bandhas (more energy breathing silliness) then I will willingly fail that test. I enjoy learning about it in class, but only to the point that I’d enjoy watching a show about it on the discovery channel. I refuse to spend anytime memorizing any of it.

A student asked one of the assistant teachers the other day if we could cut the mantras out of the lesson for time. The look on the teacher’s face was like the student had asked if we could cut off a baby’s foot to fit it into our carry-on luggage. “No. ...All of it is equally important, the asanas are not more important or less important than the others. It is all yoga practice.”

...Um, yeahhh. I gotta disagree with that.

Here’s what I gather so far. Yoga is beneficial, but yoga is not magical, nor is it a cure to disease anymore than another exercise routine. If you Google “yoga hypothyroid,” many websites will pop up with articles about yoga poses that help your thyroid. I even saw one that said “Top Ten yoga poses to help your thyroid.” They’re all full of shit. If you go deeper and look for research articles on the matter, there are very few, and the research that I did find confirmed that the claims are grossly exaggerated. Yoga can help your thyroid in the same that many other exercise routines can help it, it gets your body fit. Exercise makes you healthier, and yoga is exercise.

I have to give a five minute speech on the 20th on any topic relating to yoga. I think that this will be my topic. I don’t think some of the students will like it, nor will some of the teachers, but the truth will set you free. It’s these overinflated claims that bug me the most. Yogi Bear mentions things in class as we do a pose “this is very good for your thyroid, this is good for your pancreas, this is good for your bank account...” And he offers no science to back it up. I asked him yesterday after he taught us about a kind of pranayama breathing why we had to do it in two directions with exhale first and inhale first, and all he could offer was a circular argument, “because that’s the way it’s done, it’s the way it’s always been done.”

I’m taking the physical health, balance, and flexibility and leaving the rest here in Rishikesh.

Hardline Republicans would not like the cows in Rishikesh. They’re a bunch of freeloadin’ bovine beggars. They stand in front of shops or food carts until the owners give them something, then because the city doesn’t provide public cow toilets, they shit on the streets. They’re probably all hopped up on goofballs as well... They really make me laugh. They meander around super slowly, like big deer on qualudes, they don’t move for anyone or anything, civilization for them is simply a possibility to acquire some lettuce.