I just found this blog that someone else wrote about the best ways to stay connected via cell phone and internet when in India. I found it very helpful. Hope you do too!
I will just give you the link because I do not have permission to reprint the article.
http://path2yoga.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-stay-connected-with-mobile.html
By this time in my blog you are probably wondering if I am doing any studies at all at the KYM. I am! My days are very full. I get up at 5:00 a.m. to do my practice, I have breakfast by 7:30 and I am at the KYM by 8:00 a.m. For the Yoga Therapy Internship you are supposed to be at the KYM from 8:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. each day. But they do give a several hour lunch break in the middle of the day and it is plenty of time to eat and go home for a rest.
The reason I have gotten to do so many fun things is that during the Yoga Therapy Internship, the homework and test taking does not exists. I watch my room-mates who are in the 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training study their brains out. They study for hours each night and all weekend long. So depending on which program you are in will determine if you can have fun or not! I think the chanting programs are pretty intense too. But my feeling is that if you come for a 3-week asana program, or international studies program there will be much less homework. Anything that ends with a certification is going to be much more intense.
My internship has been a blessing in so many ways. I think that personally I benefitted greatly by spending this time at KYM. I realized through watching the Yoga Therapy sessions that 1) discipline with food is the key to many diseases, 2) disease cannot be healed without lifestyle modifications and then 3) the yoga practice can work. This is not to say that the yoga practice will not help you get food and lifestyle in order. But you must have all 3 happening to heal This was a big wake-up call for my ice-cream eating, overstimulated, workaholic body and mind. It has really caused me to think about how I am living my life and how it needs to change if my body and mind are going to last another 60 years! I just turned 41 and I want to make it to 100:-)
Another way that my internship shifted my thinking is around prana flow in the body. It became very clear that working, stretching, pumping the body into submission is not the way to get the prana to flow into an area for healing. Relaxation, gentle breathing and movement with a one-pointed focus is the key to healing. Simple practice that require focus and slow breathing heal people- period. I had always felt like if a practice was not “working the area” that it would not get the prana to flow- a very aggressive approach. The Yoga Sutra tell us these things- citta vrtti nirodaha and sthiram and sukham….but now I have seen it in practice.
I saw some pretty amazing healing taking place at the KYM. It has given me faith in this work and faith in my self as a healer. It is not about me coming up with cool yoga tricks. It is about me sharing my faith that T. Krishnamacharya Yoga really can heal things like asthma and diabetes. Now that I have seen so many people who have benefitted from these practices, I believe in the healing to the depth of my heart. Without this, I am not sure a yoga teacher has any help of healing the student. So a daily yoga practice, staying in sattva, visiting the KYM to see the work they do are all the keys to helping others heal.
The last thing that has really struck me is how when there is a one-pointed focus, prana flows into the body. I saw one man with dementia, unable to speak with clarity, eyes hollow, looking like he no longer wanted to be on the planet. One week later, after having done his practice 3 times a day for a week, he looked like a completely different person. He had taken his mind from total agitation and distraction to a one-pointed focus through mantra and nyasam one-pointed focus. The prana flowed in to his body and changed him at every level. His eyes were bright, his speech clear, his confidence high. I could not believe my eyes. I thought to myself that maybe Jesus himself has touched this man and healed him But no, it was his yoga practice. Imagine how different he will be in 6 months if he continues.
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