[QUOTE=Terence;56378]There’s no such thing as ‘luxury, typical ashram life.’ In India, an ashram is not luxurious. Its a place of discipline. But as a teacher of teachers, I’m sure you already knew this.
The other classes in Risikesh aren’t necessarily cheap, just cheaper than yours.
As I’ve said above, I encourage anyone considering a course in Risikesh to take the time to train with various teachers first. Feel the energy of the Center and the teacher before committing. Parting with $1000 online before actually seeing the place is ridiculous. The best teachers in Risikesh don’t use any advertising, least of all a post like the one above.[/QUOTE]
Dear Terence,
I don’t mean to contradict you and to a certain extent I agree to what you’ve written above. Here, I’m trying to explain my own quote.
First of all, one shouldn’t combine…luxury, ashram life and cheap classes as they all exist separately.
We have yoga courses in India which costs approx. US$ 3500 for five weeks. This course is not only luxurious but highly professional as well.
Typical ashram life certainly represents simplicity, discipline and it’s quite good for spiritual upliftment. But there are hardly one or two ashrams in Rishikesh which are offering yoga teacher training courses. Moreover, there are few foreigners (specially those who are interested in yoga teacher training courses) who really enjoy ashram life. Personally, I’ve come across many foreigners who stay at an ashram, eat outside the ashram and learn yoga elsewhere.
When it comes to cheap yoga classes (with good quality), there are plenty of options available in Rishikesh. You can have a yoga class for free or for approx. US$ 2 and so on.
Traveling to Rishikesh without a plan to do yoga teacher training might suit to a few people but certainly not to all. Most of the professional course providers here ask for just 10 or 20% of the course fee as booking amount which is quite justified.
[B]Bottom line is:[/B] I’d like to recommend yoga teacher training aspirants to look for ex-students of the institute where they want to enroll and make a decision based on the feedbacks provided by them.
Please note that I don’t live in Rishikesh and information provided by me might not be 100% correct as it’s been gathered from my personal trips to Rishikesh and also from various yoga forums on the net.