Ghosh Training, Final Exam

Today is our final exam. It is in two parts: practical and prescriptions. 

At 11am we gather in the women’s practice room; it is the bigger of the two rooms and where we have been doing group practices for the past few weeks. One by one, Muktamala calls on us to demonstrate a given exercise, asana or pranayama. We are expected to know their names, how to execute them and how to assist a student with them. We don’t know when she will call on us or what she will ask us to do. Some of the requests are easy and familiar: Singhasana, Pelvic Tilt. Others are more complicated or less practiced: Static Neck Exercises with Ball, 4 kinds; Standing Jastiasana with Contraction of Buttocks and Dorsi Flexion of Ankle Joints.

At 4pm we meet up in the dining room around the big circular table where we have had many lectures. Muktamala gives us 2 cases for which we will write prescriptions. She gives us the sex, age, weight and height of each patient, along with their ailments, injuries and limitations. Our job, over the course of an hour or so, is to write yoga prescriptions for them. 

We have done this many times over the past few weeks as homework, but the test now is if we can do it without the help of our notes. Muktamala is forgiving. She allows us to use our notes if we’d like. I am eager to try the prescriptions completely from memory. It takes me about 30 minutes to finish the two cases, then we are done.