My Journey of becoming a TCM Physician Chap 13: Yoga in Hospital Basement
I was still contemplating on whether to jump straight to the first sad traumatic part of my journey of becoming a TCM physician and started to rerun my memory drive on what were some other interesting things that occur during my first 2 years stay in Beijing as a Bachelor undergrad. And yes indeed, I recall this small bit.
Now in Beijing and at the region we were staying in, it was indeed more outskirts and there were not many activities around or in fact, the more correct way of putting it was, the gym facilities and workout classes quality were not as comparable as to what we had in Singapore. Also three quarters of the year in Beijing was in a state of coldness, Summer and warmth only lasted 3 to 4 months in a year, so people were rather sedentary and keeping warm in our winter jackets were the priority. So coming from sunny island Singapore where most of us were rather sporty and active, it was indeed a hard switch around and finding opportunities to work out amidst full day lessons and internships was an issue.
Somehow or other, my coursemates got to know I was a yoga teacher (I was into my second year after my Yoga teacher training) and we had the idea to gather those interested for lunchtime yoga classes. In the hospital. Yes. Because our classes and internships were all conducted within the hospital, we had to try to find a space that were big enough to hold everyone within the hospital. Not in spaces outside or parks. Yes, in hospital. Because we had to do it within the constraints of lunchtime. So running out of the hospital to do yoga was not feasible. We had to find the space within the hospital.
I couldn’t remember how excited I felt or if I had any feelings at all about teaching Yoga in Beijing but I remembered the main concern was finding a space. And there were at least 10 of my coursemates who were interested in my lunchtime yoga =). In hospitals of China, it was usually crowded and rather messy. Where on earth could we find a space to hold a significant number of us for yoga lessons?
So there were only 2 possibilities, top or bottom. Rooftop or basement. Rooftop was out because it meant that we were exposed to the cold harsh weather. Then we sourced for basement.
Resourceful we were, right beside the Tuina (acupressure) department in the basement of the hospital, there was an empty room, about 700 sq feet. TADAH! That space was meant to be converted either to office or ward to hold patient’s bed. But it was left empty then, somehow….! Well, what was meant to be meant to be! And that became our lunchtime yoga studio =)))) Because that space was located beside the functional Tuina department, I still remembered how sometimes patients or nurses would walk by and peek into the room and then I would heard the comments of “哦，练瑜伽啊“（oh, doing yoga）.
I managed to teach a number of lessons weekly in that basement before our syllabus became full time internship and it was hard to gather everyone at the same time for the yoga classes.
It would still be rather cold to practice in the basement especially in winter so we would still be in our heat tech inner cold wear for practice. Our winter jackets became the blankets during Savasana. Pranayama was focused on Kapalabati and Surya Namaska was the classic body warmer within minutes. Come to think of it, we really were a batch of warriors, surviving and even thriving in the worst of any conditions and creating miracles with whatever we had. So that was me and my experience of teaching Yoga in the hospital basement and I now recall with a smile in my heart =)
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