Need clarity of mind? Yoga will take you there

A petite woman dressed in a black spaghetti top and matching leggings walks round the well-lit room. Four women lie facing her on mats.

She says,

“Be mindful of what you eat, whatever it is, why you eat it, whether you eat it while watching TV or at the table with your family, or maybe pretty quickly...”

Madhvi Dalal is instructing her yoga class, the day’s focus being mindful of eating habits.

Madhvi has been a yoga instructor for six years now; the first four were spent in Wales, UK.

Madhvi, who has a degree in pharmacy from Cardiff University in the UK, was born in Nairobi and raised in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County.  On graduation, she established an award-winning pharmacy with her husband in rural Wales, but her heart was never far away from dance, and so in between running her business, she worked with the Ballet Company of Wales as a dance choreographer and performer. She was so good, she even won a government grant through the Arts Council of Wales, for an annual dance project which she used to raise awareness on diverse issues affecting women.

In 2006, Madhvi decided to try yoga. The benefits were immense.

“I became flexible, I was much calmer and more focused,” She says.

Determined to learn more about it, she travelled to London, where she took a six months course on yoga instruction. When she returned to Wales, she applied for a UK government grant to convert the extra space at her pharmacy into a yoga room. Most of her clients at the time were elderly, or with various ailments and therefore on medication.

“I would help them with stretches to ease the discomfort they felt – I also ran a normal after-work yoga class.”

Yearning to impart what she had learned back home, she and her husband sold their business, and together with their two children came back home in 2014. In her second week back, she was running yoga classes under her brand name, YogaMad. She started with pre-natal yoga with just one client. Now Madhvi teaches two to four yoga classes a day with four to five participants.

She also works with the Africa Yoga Project, which defines itself as an organisation that educates, empowers, elevates and expands employability with youth in Africa using the transformational practice of yoga. She is also part of the Kenyan committee commemorating the International Day of Yoga. In 2016, she instructed 8,000 people at the University of Nairobi.

She also works with contemporary dance artists to raise awareness on topics such as domestic violence. This November, Madhvi will run several dance concerts together with Shangilia Kids that will touch on identity and gender issues.

An average day for her begins between 4am and 5am. She gets her daughters ready for the day, and then has her personal yoga session to get focused and ready for her work day.

What is Yoga?

It is a holistic approach to your body, mind and soul. It comes in the form of asanas which are exercises, meditation and different things that make it more holistic. 

Why are women close to your heart?

Women tend to have a career before they get married, but once they get married and have children, they don’t have a safety net to fall back on. They just carry on with that married and child path and have nothing else to focus their energy on. I try to guide them to get the confidence to follow their dreams.

How do you source your clientele?

 I am pretty lucky because here, I do not need to advertise. It has been word of mouth. And those who come don’t leave.

I prefer to have a maximum of five classes a day because I then have enough time to show my clients how to pose correctly to avoid injuries, and also so that they can feel the rewarding effects of the sessions. I normally have a full day of two to four classes with four to five people in each class. I also teach men’s yoga, pre-natal, kids and family yoga.

I have also devised a curriculum for kids’ yoga called Yoga Stars, to be included into a school’s curriculum as opposed to having it as an extra-curricular activity. The purpose of yoga for kids is to increase concentration, mindfulness and compassion.

How much do you charge for a yoga class?

I charge Sh750 for a group class. If it is one-on-one and one is not ill, Sh1,200.

What challenges do you face as a yoga instructor?

The only challenge I find here is timekeeping. If you say 9am, some think 9.15am is okay. I don’t like that because it disrupts the class and lowers concentration.

What makes yoga worthwhile?

I really feel satisfaction when my students tell me how they benefit. With pre-natal yoga, clients tell me they had an easy birth. I teach children with Down syndrome, and after some time, you can see the change in posture, mental focus, and their compassion and interest is piqued. It is very satisfying.

What is your advice to someone interested in pursuing a similar career?

If you want to pursue a career in yoga, you need proper training. You need to have in-depth knowledge of human anatomy because repetitive poses in the wrong style can easily injure.

Also, there is a required number of hours of yoga you need to perform to instruct. You also need to understand the history of yoga, the five layers of yoga. Should you decide to teach yoga, you should only take it up if you are willing to connect with your client, not just sit on a mat and shout instructions.