It sounds ridiculous but I was genuinely pressurised and even threatened with not completing my yoga teacher training if I wasn’t willing to partake in activities such as making myself sick or giving myself diarrhoea. Apparently it was a requirement of the course.

Bollocks to that!

What I’m talking about is a practice in yoga called Shatkarma. Shatkarma describes a group of “cleansing” techniques which are practiced in yoga as part of ensuring we uphold the Niyama called Shaucha; cleanliness both internally and external as well as mentally (Niyamas are just the personal code of conduct all should adhere to in yoga).

Now I can under understand how in order to be able to meditate for hours and have clear thoughts internal cleanliness is important. No one is at their best when they’ve been eating unhealthly, overindulging and essentially not keeping their internal bodies clean (just think of that post Christmas feeling) . Given this eating clean, healthy food would naturally seem important to yoga.

Making yourself sick however is 100% not something I can get on board with being considered as an essential part of any practice. Or being preached about to impressionable 20 year olds who are clearly there because they’re looking for something missing in their lives and haven’t quite yet learnt that it’s ok to take a step back and a minute to think in any situation to decide whether you are actually ok with something rather than just following what you’re told to do.

At the yoga school Shatkarma was scheduled in our timetable for 3 mornings in one week and then for added fun there was a full day cleanse (that’s the diarrhoea bit) at the end of the week.

The Shatkarma was carried out first thing in the morning and consisted of:

A nose cleanse -pouring salt water into one nostril and letting it come out the other)
Rubber netti – pushing a rubber tube up your nose and down and out through your mouth *retching from just thinking about it*
Making yourself sick – this was done by drinking as many glasses of warm salt water as possible in quick succession then sticking your fingers down your throat

When these were discussed in class it was repeatedly mentioned that we had to try all of them and at one point even stated it was a requirement of the course to do so.

We’ll I refused. If it was genuinely a requirement of the course to do it then I just wouldn’t be qualifying as a yoga teacher.

It amazed me how pretty much everyone else just went along with it though. Unless they had a health issue that meant they couldn’t (I.e. One girl had Chrones) they just all did it.

I even got into an argument with one of the girls about it who was saying I had to and it was just part of the course. To which I was trying to argue that if there was a yoga posture that I thought would be detrimental to my health for whatever reason I wouldn’t do it but I wouldn’t expect not to pass for that reason. Especially if I still learnt how to teach it (which I did for the Shatkarma too, although really what’s to teach in that one and it’s not like I’m ever going to teach anyone else it). But still it turned into quite a heated debate.

I then also had one other girl tell me that I was just objecting to it because I was thinking of it as throwing up but that’s just what it’s called it in the West. In the East it’s called cleansing which makes it ok.

Bhahahahahahhaha. No my objection is not a semantic one. It’s to the physical process that takes place when you throw up (sorry “cleanse”) that will take place whatever you call it.

Oh well that was the first bit of fun.

Then there was diarrhoea day. That was supposed to start with vomiting *natch* and then drinking more warm salt water, doing some twisting postures, more salt water, more twisting etc. until you started going to the toilet but even once that started you were supposed to continue the salt water and twisting until all you would expel would be clear water from a part of your body that is never supposed to expel water. Anyway that was the day cleanse which according to the school required a gross combo of rice, lentil and butter to be the only food you eat for 2 days after. According to the text book they gave us, that was true but also you were supposed to eat simple, not fired, rich or spicy food for 30 days after (probably because the cleanse will have stripped your stomach of all it’s good bacteria to fight infection).

Ummmmmm, rich, spicy and fried is pretty much every meal in India so given we were leaving just 7 days after the “cleanse” and I would then be fully back in the throngs of India and at its mercy for what I could eat, again it didn’t seem like the greatest of plans.

This time though we were told that unless we had a medical condition preventing us from joining in it was compulsory.

I debated making up a medical condition but in the end decided to go with honesty (it is one of the codes of social conduct in yoga after all), say I didn’t agree that the cleanse was healthy but that I would compromise and take part until the first inkling I needed the bathroom and then stop.

So I did and that was fine. All of the other girls weren’t though. One got so sick she couldn’t eat or sleep for about a week after due to stomach cramps.

Needless to say if I do ever become a yoga teacher I will not be teaching Shatkarma (unless it’s to give people my unfettered options of it).