Two weeks from yesterday, I leave for six weeks in India. I have a constant churn in my stomach these days. Half anticipation, half anxiety... but it doesn't really seem real yet.



I am going to India to take a four week Teacher's Training Course in Yoga at an Ashram in a town called Neyyar Dam. It's in the South West of India, about hand an hour outside of Trivandrum. Why am I going all the way to India to take this course? Good question. It all started 3 years ago when Matt and I moved to Amsterdam for his job. Desperate to make friends (and I mean desperate - I was following english speakers around in the grocery store) I found an english speaking yoga class online. I had never done yoga before, but I was willing to try anything, even physical exertion, in order to make friends.



It worked. The class was taught in an art gallery on a side alley from Spui Square, one of Matt's favourite spots in Amsterdam for its classic "dutchness". The yoga "studio" was run by an American woman who had married a dutch man and relocated to Amsterdam. She had a slew of younger women teachers, and many of them had gotten their teaching certifications through this same four week, sivananda yoga program that I am planning to attend, in different places around the world. One of those teachers became a good friend, who I still keep in touch with. And in the process, I became a fan of yoga. Or at least a fan of the very structured, civilized yoga taught amongst an ever changing array of Amsterdam art work. We drank tea afterwards!



We moved back to the US about a year later, and I struggled to find a way to continue my practice. It was an adjustment. I tried several locations before settling on a studio in Dupont Circle, where the teaching style differs dramatically from teacher to teacher, and none of them are quite what I was used to, but some of them are satisfying, and the atmosphere and spirit of the studio is very genuine. Then in about May or June, they announced that they would be offering a teacher's training course in their studio from September through December of this year.



I took the information home to Matt and told him this was something I was interested in doing, if we could find the money for the exorbitant registration fees. His response - "well, if you are going to learn how to be a yoga teacher, wouldn't you rather go to India and do it there like your girls in Amsterdam did?" So really, this whole thing is all his fault.



And here I am - four months later, feeling completely overwhelmed by the result of that conversation. I hemmed and hawed for at least two of those months over which course to take, but in the end the prospect of travel, of conquering another country and adding another photo to the wall by our stairs where we have some of our greatest hits displayed, won out. And that's how I ended up with plane tickets through Dubai to Trivandrum, leaving Nov 13, and returning to the US after the new year. Insane.