Can you imagine a better combination than picturesque views, a new culture, and delicious food paired with your yoga practice? yoga instructor training Bali might be the thing for you! Not ready for this step yet? Well, the next best thing is to take yoga with you while on vacation. Whether it’s an adventurous trip, a relaxing holiday, or somewhere in between, staying consistent with your practice helps in a multitude of ways.
- Mindfulness: Yoga enhances the habit of mindfulness, grounding us back to the present moment. It trains the mind to be fully present with an experience, and while it’s a beautiful feeling to look back on memories, nothing can beat staring at a sunset, completely immersed in the yellows and pinks, filled with contentment.
- Maintaining health: Travelling to a new place means adjusting to new sleep schedules, routines, food, water, literally everything!! As creatures of habit, it becomes quite a challenge to keep a level head and a happy gut. Including even a few minutes of yoga into your day can help balance the stress of a new environment, letting you only worry about having fun.
- Building discipline: “I missed my practice for a week because I was in Bali” is not the worst excuse for skipping yoga, but it still isn’t a good one! The true benefits of yoga can only be accessed through consistency and discipline, doing the difficult but the right thing- showing up on the mat every day.
- Yoga everywhere: Why limit the bliss of yoga only to your room or studio when you could be practising on a beach, under clear skies, at an ancient site, in front of the seven wonders? Integrating the energies of a place into your practice could be a magical experience.
- New connections: Taking a local class while travelling helps you meet the yoga community in the area, learn new styles and make new friends through the shared passion. After all, knowledge grows through sharing. And you can never make enough yoga friends!
- Online presence: The massive online space of learning and sharing demands a unique and aesthetically pleasing perspective to capture the heart of yoga. Adding your travels to your hat, like a Yoga Teacher Training Course in Bali or a Vinyasa Flow in the thick of the forest, can set you apart on the Internet.
That said, it can be tricky to maintain your everyday yoga routine when travelling. There are many unpredictable factors in play, and one needs to be a little flexible (pun intended) in including yoga in the schedule.
- Setting an intention: Setting an intention before the trip, like how you set an intention before a class, helps in getting your priorities in order. Looking over your itinerary, figuring out the blocks where you’re free of obligations, and deciding if you want to practice gentle stretching to keep away stress and tension or to keep training for holding the plank for 8 hours (and 30 seconds)! Everyone is different; knowing what you want to achieve gives you a head start on planning.
- Getting in the zone: If the mat is laid, the clothes picked out, and the flow sorted the night before, it would be much easier to show up for the practice in the morning than when you have to worry about the nitty gritty at the last minute. Similarly, setting the time and space, carrying your yoga essentials, downloading your playlist beforehand signals to the brain that while the place is new, the habit is not and that the practice must go on! Our environment determines most of our willpower, and when we replicate the energies of our practice through these tools, we are signalling to our brain and, in turn, our bodies to get into the zone of practice.
- The screen or the studio: Travelling gives you many opportunities to explore but limits you if you don’t enjoy change. Depending on what feels aligned with your values, you can subscribe to online classes in the comfort of your stay, making the practice private or dropping into local classes, trying popular styles, learning from new teachers, and expanding your knowledge with cultural significance.
- Consistency over perfection: The goal is not to have an hour-long session every single day. This is unrealistic and can often lead to frustration and giving up on the practice entirely. Because let’s be honest, we travel to have fun and not necessarily do all our Chaturangas. Instead, even spending a few minutes moving the body in a way that feels intuitive and nourishing can make a world of difference in our energies. We’re never trying to become perfect but always striving to be consistent. That is where all the growth lies.
- The ‘real’ yoga: So far, we’ve only been focusing on the asanas, but yoga goes beyond just the physical. Perhaps all the walking around the city is enough exertion; adding ashtanga might make you feel worse. Instead, including various pranayama, meditation, and mantra chanting can induce a deep sense of calm and stability in your days. Breathwork is a powerful tool to centre oneself and revitalise the body’s energy system. Meditation and mantra chants conserve the prana by taking the awareness inward, creating a balance of introverted and extroverted energies.
- Beyond the mat: Whether or not you find the time and energy for your yoga practice, you can always live yoga through its philosophy and actions. Doing acts of kindness for the locals, throwing the trash in the bin, shopping from small businesses, tipping the servers; all of it is yoga. After all, everything we strive for on the mat is to make a difference beyond it!
Integrating a solid yoga routine doesn’t happen in a day, and definitely not before a big trip. It’s important to build habits and resilience through small daily changes, whether choosing to wake up an hour earlier or practicing meditation instead of binge-watching before bed. You can initiate these changes through yoga instructor course Bali, where you learn to build and sustain routines that support your holistic wellness with fellow yoginis and yogis so you are prepared to take yoga with you on your next adventure!
