Hi, I am Swati Dalvi and I am an Ayush level 3 certified instructor for yoga, meditation and Pranayam. I am also trained in Ashtanga yoga and I am lucky to have been guided by wisest of gurus.  To add more to my credentials, I am also a color therapist, certified sound healer and a certified Nutritionist who is fascinated with the magical healing powers of food and nutrition.  Although I have been practicing yoga for over ten years but before I fell in love with yoga. I worked in the Animation Industry for 9 years as a CG Compositing artist in some of the very entertaining and colorful feature films and TV shows. These 9 years also marks the slow beginning of my journey towards yoga.  Work-wise, I was good at what I did and was getting better every day but my personal life was a cocktail of emotional and physical pain. Working in the creative industry and as an artist, helped me find some solace; although temporarily but my work with colors and composition helped me stay disconnected from my emotional pain even while I was going through a very rough patch in my life.  As the days passed me by, I soon entered a phase, where I realized the emotional pain was getting a bit too hot to handle and would often break out as anxiety attack. Every new day greeted me with more difficulties to endure, even the love for my work I have always had; started dwindling and the relief it offered started wearing off too quickly.  I realized my work was being severely affected due to my emotional and physical pain. And before the push comes to shove; I chose to quit my job gracefully to address this big elephant in the room—my wellbeing. It was a tough choice to make in the times when I was in the prime of my carrier where every odd are stacked in my favour. But as they say,’ every dark cloud has a silver lining’. I knew the golden rays of well-being and an opportunity awaits me right behind this dark situation.  I enrolled for yog level 3 teachers training certification. And wow! I couldn't even sit without support for more than 10 minutes—courtesy, spondylitis. Also, I couldn't lift my arms until my shoulders. All these years of neglect had turned my body into a house of pain but I was in no mood to give up without a fight.  Every day I had tough time on my yoga mat, which often leads me to stop a while before I chose to begin again. And every time I chose to return to my yoga mat; my threshold of pain was further put forth and then diminished. My yog practice healed me a little every time.  Slowly, I started healing through yog. But life has its own plans to surprise you. Soon after my TTC I met with an accident. I had a ligament injury. Again that was a new chapter. This took me few years to heal physically and mentally.  But this incident gave me time to think over and cure my depression through yog. And this strength had come from practice of yog. I have been survived only because of yog.  Considering the fact that yog helps to improve and cure psyche. Which I had experience during my yog journey.  My life which reeked of emotional and physical pain had started rolling on a sunny road to recovery. Being able to control my body and mind gave me the strength to plough forth with confidence. I am thankful to my gurus who guided me to the light of recovery and self-realization and helped me become a version of myself; I am utterly in love with.  Checkout below link⬇️ https://youtu.be/YAXxgasr4O4 #healling #yogajourney #yoga #transformarion #yogapractice #dailyyoga

I started practicing Yoga to deal with my pain. The pain that I never expected will ever touch me, it was grief actually that caused a lot of pain; but its the pain that I remember. My grandfather was a fantastic man- a Sanskrit scholar, a Mathematician and really pleasing, loving and smiling soul. I inherited the tooth riding up on my left side from him. I never got braces done to correct it since I was so proud that I was the only person in my whole family who had it. We were like a team me and him with the same tooth. I had some very fond memories like how he rode once for my birthday, how he used to teach me Maths and how he used to perform his 2 hour long ritual of daily Puja. As we grow old, in the way the world is organised currently, when we finish our education and we stay out to work. We don't get to come home and reconnect with family or our roots unless we choose to disconnect with the "city routine". The need for this re-connection happens only around when we have kids and we see them struggling with the identities in the city life. That's when we decide to reconnect. Unfortunately that realization came to me much later. I got so busy in my life and its nuances that I didn't realise my grandfather was growing old. We spoke a few time on the phone , I saw his pics with my brother (who visited him), my father who used to visit him very often . But I kept procrastinating. "Next trip, pakka!!", used to be my answer since he stayed with one of my uncles', 500kms further ahead, and not in my father's house. My son was young at that time and travelling used to be something I used to avoid as much as possible. In my head my grandfather would always be there for that next trip. I will plan it when my son grows a little older, i used to think. In my head he wasn't going anywhere. He was MY grandfather . He was a super hero who could always tackle things, nothing would happen to him. He was over 95 and the thought that his time might be coming closer never crossed my head. He was permanent, rock solid at least in my head. And then one day he went away and it shattered me to the core. I couldn't focus on my work, I couldn't even get out of bed, didn't feel like going out or talking to anybody. i couldn't cope with it. After many many months of this, I happened to visit the gym in the afternoon and I saw one of the member practicing yoga with a teacher. They were doing the headstand and it suddenly flashed in my head how my grandfather used to practice Yoga and Pranayam everyday. That was the first Yoga class I enrolled for and then everything changed. The digital space you're in right now reading this was manifested from that pain and the process of finding peace. Once I found it I wanted to share it many more people. I wanted everyone to feel and experience the peace and calm I feel when I practice and that has been the driving force behind cityogini. Cityogini is not me, its a digital spirit that tries and make the experience of yoga easy to embrace. She's the collective knowledge of our teachers and our students who show up on the mat everyday to practice no matter what the pain.

I had spent 4 decades of my life, managing to bunk or get away without ever doing the compulsory handstand in school and almost all other sports sessions. I had never ever set foot inside a gym. My only exposure to staying fit was regular walks or a swim or some yoga classes, all of which was “regular” for nothing more than a few weeks! It resulted in me hesitating to join a group class as I was too embarrassed at my own lack of flexibility. After mulling over it for long, and constantly hearing my neighbours praise this fabulous yoga teacher, I I finally decided to join Ruchi’s class. So, did it help? I still can’t touch my toes without bending my knees! 😌 So, what have I gained? I learnt to let my body guide me, I learnt to let go & be alright if I was taking and still continue to take much longer with some asanas. In the beginning, I used to cringe when we reached the Chaturanga asana. Actually, it was not even Chaturanga for me, I couldn’t manage just knees, chin, chest! But, with small changes that Ruchi would suggest like “your gaze should be ahead, not down”, I learnt to get comfortable with it and most importantly accept my own pace. Letting go & allowing my body to guide me led to letting go of so many other things, thus creating this sea change in the mind! Even now, there are so many asanas where I need improvement. That’s another thing I learnt – it’s not about making mistakes, it’s about needing improvement. But, no matter what, at the end at the end of each class, I feel really fabulous! There are days when one feels really stressed about work that’s on-going or nervous about an important session coming up that day. My only way to cope with that is that no matter what, I can’t afford to miss my yoga class. And so the recent Facebook post by City Yogini is the mantra I follow. .......... Not surprising that as I began to write down my list of things to be grateful for during this lock down, this yoga class found 3 slots on my long list. I am grateful to my teacher for doing this on-line, grateful that we are blessed with access to technology that enabled this and above all grateful that my better half who now saves on travel time to work can now finally join me on this wonderful yoga journey!