Over the weekend, I subbed the community yoga class at Yoga Tree in Keene. When I teach, I like to arrive at least 45 minutes early to give me time to sweep the floors, light some candles, and just generally make sure things are comfortable and calm before students start arriving.
This particular afternoon, a man came up to the door. He asked if there were any schedules around - which there weren't, since Robin was still working on them - and then asked if there was a class this afternoon. He'd never done yoga before. It was 4:30, and I told him that we had a 5 p.m. community yoga class. He asked me what he needed to do yoga - and my honest reply was, "Nothing, really. We have mats here, and all you need to do is just wear some comfortable clothing that you can move in." He thanked me, and said that he'd be back in half an hour.
Sure enough, he came in and joined our little group of 7 students. We did a nice, slow-paced class, a couple of classical sun salutations, and had a good rest in savasana.
After class, he came up to me and thanked me. I asked him if he liked the class, and he replied, "No, I LOVED it. I'll be back later this week for more!"
And it really made me think - here was this guy, who had never done yoga before, who just walks into a class, no fear, no judgement, and participates. I mean, really, can it get any cooler than that?
I get people asking me all the time: what do I need to get started with yoga? And really, the answer is: nothing, except maybe a willingness to just start where you are.
To that end, I've decided to share some "How to Get Started With Yoga" ideas for you. For each of the next 14 days, I'll share a basic yoga asana (pose), along with instructions on how to get in and out of the pose safely. If you want to practice at home, these poses are the perfect foundation for a solid yoga practice.
But before you get started, here are a couple of guidelines:
1. Take it slow. Learning one pose a day is enough. Don't worry about the length of your practice - I unroll my mat every day, but some days, all I do is sit in meditation for 10 minutes. Any time that you spend connecting with your breath is time well spent.
2. You don't need anything to get started. Nope, not even a yoga mat. All you need to do is wear comfortable clothes - sweat pants and pajamas are perfectly acceptable for starting your home practice. As long as you can move without restrictions, you're good to go.
If you really really really want a yoga mat, go to Target and buy one for like $20. You don't need fancy yoga gear, clothing, props, etc.
If you're practicing at home, you can use a firm, non-slip surface. We have an oval braided rug in front of our wood stove in the living room (which is the only space in our house large enough to do yoga in the winter), and it makes a perfect makeshift yoga mat.
You can also practice outside, in the backyard, in a park, on the beach. In fact, practicing outside will help increase that sense of connection with the world around you!
3. Never, ever, ever, EVER force your body into a pose where you feel pain. Ever. Did I say never? Never. The goal of a strong yoga practice is to build ease and stillness. If you're in a pose where your breath is ragged, and you're straining every muscle in your body to hold that posture, back out. Just like any other form of physical activity, there's the potential for injury in yoga, and if you're brand new, it's so, so, so important to learn to listen to your body and don't push past any pain.
Learning to listen to our bodies is probably one of the most difficult part of any yoga practice. We live our fast-paced lives moving from one crazy task to the next at breakneck speed, and we hardly ever give ourselves time to exercise our intuition about what our bodies need at any given moment. But if you follow the guidelines of ease and stillness, and slow down long enough to ask yourself how you really feel in each posture, you'll be doing yourself a huge favor towards preventing injuries.
4. Cultivate kindness towards yourself. Always. Yeah, so, if this is the first time you've ever done yoga, you're not going to look like Kathryn Budig or David Swenson or any of those "rock star" yoga instructors you see all over Facebook and Instagram. Not right away, anyway. But you know what? That's perfectly good. Your yoga practice should be about YOU, and not someone else. Don't judge yourself based on what you see around you. I know, easier said than done, and it's another tough part of the practice for a lot of us.
If you do decide to hit up a local yoga studio for some classes, my best advice would be to park your mat right up at the front of the room. Not because you wanna suck up to the teacher or scream out for attention, but this way, you might not be as tempted to look around the room and size up what everyone else is doing. Plus, it's another way for you to exercise the "I don't care what anyone thinks of me and my practice" muscles in your brain.
Case in point: I can barely get through the full Ashtanga primary series without dropping down into child's pose about a million times. But you know what? That's okay. When I honor my body and what it needs, I am honoring the practice of yoga.
5. The best time to practice is right now. If you have 10 minutes at the start of your day, that's a great time to get started. Or if you feel like you would rather wait until the end of the day when it's easier to set things aside, that's fine, too. But the key to a good, strong practice is to make time every day, when you feel it's best for you.
So, are you ready to get started? We'll start with learning a simple meditation to get us grounded.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Graduation
Last weekend was it. My last weekend of yoga teacher training.
Graduation.
On Saturday, instead of taking the Community Yoga class, I taught it as my final teach. And who was in my group but an 8 year old girl who was there with her grandmother! My friend Margaret pointed out to me that the kids seem to be flocking to me in this yoga stuff... I take the appearance of this girl in my final teach as a good sign.
We had two more yoga classes to get through that afternoon, and I felt terrible, but I had to bag one of them and spend most of it in child's pose, cuddled over a bolster. I got through the first 30 minutes of the 75-minute practice, but since I had been awake with Colden most of the night prior, there was no way I could get through what was undoubtedly a yummy power yoga class.
Saturday night, Colden was awake most of the night. He was incredibly uncomfortable - SOMETHING was bothering him, but we had no idea what it was. (We finally figured it out yesterday, in the middle of a blizzard that dumped 2 feet of snow on us: he had ANOTHER double ear infection.)
Around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, I just dissolved into tears and decided to give up on trying to sleep. I texted Debbie to let her know that I wasn't going to make it in time for the 8:30 gentle yoga class, but that I would be there for the 10 a.m. Hatha class, where I was scheduled to assist one last time.
Before lunch, we circled up for one last time. On Sundays, after the two yoga classes, we would sit in a circle and just share what was going through our heads and going on in our lives. Margaret was first, but she asked if we could skip her initially, and come back to her last.
I shared that that day, March 9, would have been my mother's 70th birthday. With no sleep and all this going on, I felt like I was on a bit of a roller coaster.
Then we got back to Margaret. And we all started to cry as she so beautifully summed up what we were all feeling about the last six months we had spent together, practicing yoga and learning together.
She got up and came back with a small brown paper bag. Inside the bag, she had a little sack with gemstones wrapped up. She told us to each pick the one that we felt called to us, without seeing what they were.
It turns out that they were the same gemstones that we had used during her gemstone guided meditation back in January. 3 out of 5 of us chose the same gemstones at random that we had chosen for the meditation - with the exception of me and someone else. (I had chosen carnelian during the meditation, but this time around, I chose Azurite.)
Then she handed out little wrapped packages that contained gemstones that she had chosen specifically for us. My little gemstone was Merlinite - the little card that came with it told me that the metaphysical properties of Merlinite provided access to the Akashic records, to draw upon the powers of the elements, to enhance Shamanic practices, and to bring magic into one's life.
We went back to the little meditation room where we stashed our gear, and I thanked Margaret again for everything. I embraced her - really, really embraced her - and just couldn't help but start crying again. Of all the total randomness in the universe, I still can't get over what meeting Margaret and getting to know her and learn from her has brought into my life.
Very briefly, Margaret worked at the creamery where we got our raw milk and raw dairy products all summer long when we were picking up our veggies from the CSA. We enjoyed chatting with her, and meeting her dog, Arnold, who had 3 legs and was a little skitchy with us, and who Tom nicknamed "Tripod" because we could never remember his name. I mentioned to her that I was about to start a yoga teacher training one day in September, and gave her the information. Sure enough on that first day, there she was, ready to go through training with me!
Margaret stayed with us for a while when she was going through some transitions and needed a place to crash, and Colden instantly fell in love with her. We went to the Wild Center with her, and she and Colden acted like a couple of kids together. I loved talking with her, finding out that we are both on the same wavelength about so many things. We looked after Arnold when she went to Montreal, and Colden decided that he didn't want to give Arnold back.
So, back to graduation...
After lunch, we settled in to watch the rest of a fascinating video about anatomy and yoga. Really, I loved this video, and I'll write more on it later, but Sunday afternoon, it gave me a chance to rest my head and close my eyes for a few minutes as I listened.
Then we had our two last yoga classes, led by two of the ladies in class. And that was it. We were done.
Debbie handed out our certificates, and we posed for pictures. She had planned on taking us all out for dinner afterwards, and I thought I was going to beg off because I was just so tired. Exhausted, I didn't think I could keep my head up!
But I walked up the road to the restaurant with everyone else, and found myself drawn into a conversation with a few of the past graduates of the teacher training. It was such a great time, I wound up staying for the entire evening.
Finally, when I was getting too tired and too dizzy to hold my head up, I called it a night, said goodbye to everyone, and went home.
I cried most of the way home. It was such an overwhelming, gratifying, beautiful experience.
All we had done for the last six months was practice yoga together. We read books together. We exchanged ideas with each other. And finally, at long last, I felt as if I had stumbled into my tribe. This was where I belonged - with these amazing, incredible, thoughtful, brilliant women.
What's next? I have absolutely no idea. I've started teaching a Tuesday evening De-stress Yoga class, and I love it. I want to add more classes, as soon as I can figure out what I'm going to do about my increasingly stressful day job. I'm teaching workshops about how to make your own Mala beads, and Yoga for Stress Reduction. I'm teaching yoga to the kids at Colden's old preschool every Monday morning. I want to take teacher trainings in Yoga For Round Bodies.
For now, though, it's 10:27 p.m., even though my body still thinks it's only 9:30 p.m., and that means I need to get to sleep early so I can get Colden to school on time tomorrow...
I leave you with one of my favorite contemporary songs for my yoga practice, Everyone I Know by singer/songwriter Mat Kearny. Namaste.
Graduation.
On Saturday, instead of taking the Community Yoga class, I taught it as my final teach. And who was in my group but an 8 year old girl who was there with her grandmother! My friend Margaret pointed out to me that the kids seem to be flocking to me in this yoga stuff... I take the appearance of this girl in my final teach as a good sign.
We had two more yoga classes to get through that afternoon, and I felt terrible, but I had to bag one of them and spend most of it in child's pose, cuddled over a bolster. I got through the first 30 minutes of the 75-minute practice, but since I had been awake with Colden most of the night prior, there was no way I could get through what was undoubtedly a yummy power yoga class.
Saturday night, Colden was awake most of the night. He was incredibly uncomfortable - SOMETHING was bothering him, but we had no idea what it was. (We finally figured it out yesterday, in the middle of a blizzard that dumped 2 feet of snow on us: he had ANOTHER double ear infection.)
Around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, I just dissolved into tears and decided to give up on trying to sleep. I texted Debbie to let her know that I wasn't going to make it in time for the 8:30 gentle yoga class, but that I would be there for the 10 a.m. Hatha class, where I was scheduled to assist one last time.
Before lunch, we circled up for one last time. On Sundays, after the two yoga classes, we would sit in a circle and just share what was going through our heads and going on in our lives. Margaret was first, but she asked if we could skip her initially, and come back to her last.
I shared that that day, March 9, would have been my mother's 70th birthday. With no sleep and all this going on, I felt like I was on a bit of a roller coaster.
Then we got back to Margaret. And we all started to cry as she so beautifully summed up what we were all feeling about the last six months we had spent together, practicing yoga and learning together.
She got up and came back with a small brown paper bag. Inside the bag, she had a little sack with gemstones wrapped up. She told us to each pick the one that we felt called to us, without seeing what they were.
It turns out that they were the same gemstones that we had used during her gemstone guided meditation back in January. 3 out of 5 of us chose the same gemstones at random that we had chosen for the meditation - with the exception of me and someone else. (I had chosen carnelian during the meditation, but this time around, I chose Azurite.)
Then she handed out little wrapped packages that contained gemstones that she had chosen specifically for us. My little gemstone was Merlinite - the little card that came with it told me that the metaphysical properties of Merlinite provided access to the Akashic records, to draw upon the powers of the elements, to enhance Shamanic practices, and to bring magic into one's life.
We went back to the little meditation room where we stashed our gear, and I thanked Margaret again for everything. I embraced her - really, really embraced her - and just couldn't help but start crying again. Of all the total randomness in the universe, I still can't get over what meeting Margaret and getting to know her and learn from her has brought into my life.
Very briefly, Margaret worked at the creamery where we got our raw milk and raw dairy products all summer long when we were picking up our veggies from the CSA. We enjoyed chatting with her, and meeting her dog, Arnold, who had 3 legs and was a little skitchy with us, and who Tom nicknamed "Tripod" because we could never remember his name. I mentioned to her that I was about to start a yoga teacher training one day in September, and gave her the information. Sure enough on that first day, there she was, ready to go through training with me!
Margaret stayed with us for a while when she was going through some transitions and needed a place to crash, and Colden instantly fell in love with her. We went to the Wild Center with her, and she and Colden acted like a couple of kids together. I loved talking with her, finding out that we are both on the same wavelength about so many things. We looked after Arnold when she went to Montreal, and Colden decided that he didn't want to give Arnold back.
 | |
| Arnold the dog, AKA Tripod, assisting me with work |
So, back to graduation...
After lunch, we settled in to watch the rest of a fascinating video about anatomy and yoga. Really, I loved this video, and I'll write more on it later, but Sunday afternoon, it gave me a chance to rest my head and close my eyes for a few minutes as I listened.
Then we had our two last yoga classes, led by two of the ladies in class. And that was it. We were done.
Debbie handed out our certificates, and we posed for pictures. She had planned on taking us all out for dinner afterwards, and I thought I was going to beg off because I was just so tired. Exhausted, I didn't think I could keep my head up!
But I walked up the road to the restaurant with everyone else, and found myself drawn into a conversation with a few of the past graduates of the teacher training. It was such a great time, I wound up staying for the entire evening.
Finally, when I was getting too tired and too dizzy to hold my head up, I called it a night, said goodbye to everyone, and went home.
I cried most of the way home. It was such an overwhelming, gratifying, beautiful experience.
All we had done for the last six months was practice yoga together. We read books together. We exchanged ideas with each other. And finally, at long last, I felt as if I had stumbled into my tribe. This was where I belonged - with these amazing, incredible, thoughtful, brilliant women.
What's next? I have absolutely no idea. I've started teaching a Tuesday evening De-stress Yoga class, and I love it. I want to add more classes, as soon as I can figure out what I'm going to do about my increasingly stressful day job. I'm teaching workshops about how to make your own Mala beads, and Yoga for Stress Reduction. I'm teaching yoga to the kids at Colden's old preschool every Monday morning. I want to take teacher trainings in Yoga For Round Bodies.
For now, though, it's 10:27 p.m., even though my body still thinks it's only 9:30 p.m., and that means I need to get to sleep early so I can get Colden to school on time tomorrow...
I leave you with one of my favorite contemporary songs for my yoga practice, Everyone I Know by singer/songwriter Mat Kearny. Namaste.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Stronger
Yesterday was yoga teacher training, my last workshop day. We have one full weekend left in March - the 8th and the 9th - where we will do our 2 classes in the morning, and then basically spend the rest of the time teaching each other our final 75 minute Hatha classes that we've been preparing.
Admittedly, I wasn't feeling 100% when I got down to the studio in Schroon Lake yesterday morning. I was PMSing, and my left hip was still so sore that I couldn't do a swan dive down into a forward bend without catching my breath and using my hands to sort of slide my torso down.
Everything else aside, I thought, what if I approached this first Hatha flow class without the idea that it was hard? What if I just tried to approach it with no judgements, no notions of difficulty or anything like that.
And, well, it wasn't easy - mainly because my hip was just burning - but it certainly wasn't hard.
And to my surprise, I felt STRONG. Like, really strong. Despite the hip and the PMS and everything else, I really felt my muscles working. I felt my energy drawing down through my center, I felt calm.
I noticed last night as I was drying off after a bath that I actually have little muscles on my upper arms. (I guess thousands of Chaturangas, even with yer knees bent, will do that to you.) I don't think I've ever had muscles on my upper arms.
I feel mentally stronger, too. I notice the symptoms of the anxiety for what they are, and I rarely (if ever) get carried away by them anymore. On the days when I feel like things are bad or I'm feeling sad, I can just sit with it and not fight it and not let it overwhelm me.
14 months of daily yoga practice have, indeed, made me just a little bit stronger...
Admittedly, I wasn't feeling 100% when I got down to the studio in Schroon Lake yesterday morning. I was PMSing, and my left hip was still so sore that I couldn't do a swan dive down into a forward bend without catching my breath and using my hands to sort of slide my torso down.
Everything else aside, I thought, what if I approached this first Hatha flow class without the idea that it was hard? What if I just tried to approach it with no judgements, no notions of difficulty or anything like that.
And, well, it wasn't easy - mainly because my hip was just burning - but it certainly wasn't hard.
And to my surprise, I felt STRONG. Like, really strong. Despite the hip and the PMS and everything else, I really felt my muscles working. I felt my energy drawing down through my center, I felt calm.
I noticed last night as I was drying off after a bath that I actually have little muscles on my upper arms. (I guess thousands of Chaturangas, even with yer knees bent, will do that to you.) I don't think I've ever had muscles on my upper arms.
I feel mentally stronger, too. I notice the symptoms of the anxiety for what they are, and I rarely (if ever) get carried away by them anymore. On the days when I feel like things are bad or I'm feeling sad, I can just sit with it and not fight it and not let it overwhelm me.
14 months of daily yoga practice have, indeed, made me just a little bit stronger...
Saturday, February 22, 2014
It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
Without a doubt, one of the all-time best scenes from a movie, ever. That scene in The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini that he might want to think of a different word to use for all these improbable/unlikely events that plague them during their kidnapping of Princess Buttercup...
But I digress.
One of the results of my yoga practice, as I stated in an earlier blog, is that I'm starting to re-think the way Americans live their lives. Actually, I've always questioned the way Americans live their lives, since my first job at the South Orange Shop-Rite as a cashier back in 1991. But this is the first time that I'm starting to think that maybe I'm right in my suspicions that there just might be a better way...
I was talking to a friend the other day about some troubling news they had received about their job. He was concerned that recent changes in the company for which he works might lead to him being laid off, and, as he put, the loss of the "lifestyle" that he had grown accustomed to enjoying.
Now, this lifestyle isn't lavish, by any means. Comfortable, yes - a nice car, a good school for his kids, a nice house.
But along with all those things he has this underlying fear of what would happen if he loses his job. He automatically assumes that the loss of his job means the loss of everything else that he now enjoys. He thinks that if he loses his job, it means that the first thing he has to do is start grocery shopping at the local discount supermarket. (You know the one I mean - where they were caught selling imported Chinese horsemeat labeled as beef a few years ago.)
So, I started thinking about this. Thinking about my yoga practice, about staying in the moment, because life DOES change in a second. And why can't we just enjoy things when they are pleasant without worrying about what will happen in the future?
His fears may be completely unfounded. He may not lose his job. But he may. And if he does, what's the worst that will happen? He's smart. He's resourceful. He's been laid off before, and he and his spouse survived. Things change, he may have to give up that lifestyle that he's grown so fond of, but that's life. Things change.
And then the other question I started thinking about was, why do we all feel it necessary to play this game, anyway?
You know the game I'm talking about: take out enormous loans to go to college so you can try to find a job to pay back your loans so you can take out more loans to buy a house and a car so you can take out more loans to send your kids to college and spend your whole life working at a job you don't really enjoy and stress yourself out to the point of sickness but hey at least you had a nice house and a nice car and not much else.
There has GOT to be a better way.
I've never been fond of the "work your life away and play on the weekends" kind of lifestyle that we have in the United States. There is far too little time to play and rest, and an eight (or nine or ten) hour workday means that most of us sacrifice habits that are good for us in order to earn money to do all those things I mentioned in the run-on sentence above.
We have no time to socialize with friends and family. I read FB updates from my friends with kids who spend so much time commuting to work, working, and then commuting home that they barely see their children during the week. That can't be healthy for parent OR child.
Then we have so little time at home to do the things that need to be done like cleaning and cooking and just relaxing that we buy pre-packaged overly processed foods that aren't very good for our health.
Isn't it about time that someone starts a revolution?
Did you know that the original yogis, thousands of years ago, were believed to be the rebels? The nonconformists? They were the ones who questioned the status quo of the time. When someone is referred to as a "spiritual warrior", they are actually being described as "one who is brave".
So I would say to my friend, if you're reading this, slow down. Breathe. The things that you think are so important right now may not be as important as you think they are. And for the things that you discover are truly important, well, your life will change so that you can make room for those things when you lose everything else.
Be a rebel. Be brave. Do yoga, on and off the mat.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Yoga Has Ruined My Life
And it's true. Yoga has completely ruined my life.
First off, I don't think I could ever work in a "regular" office, ever again. I hate fluorescent lighting, and unless we were doing something that involves saving the rainforests, endangered species, providing education to kids, feeding the hungry, or doing something otherwise necessary for humanity, I don't think I could align my spiritual principles to answering phones for some mega-corporation that's only out to make a buck.
I just don't believe it's healthy for any human being to be stuck in front of a computer or electronic device for 8 hours a day. I mean, for what?
Second of all, my clothes.
My clothes!
I don't want to be uncomfortable anymore in my clothes. I can remember days of squeezing myself into clothes that looked appropriate for office/professional life, and then speeding home to take them off and get into something that let me breathe. I felt stiff and sore wearing dress shirts and slacks every day. Not to mention the damn shoes - ugh!
It doesn't mean that now I want to walk around in sweatpants or pajamas all day, but I'm choosing clothes that are bright, comfortable, loose-fitting, and let me move - you know, just in case I want to drop down and do some spontaneous sun salutations or something.
I'm ruined.
I'm no longer content to walk through the aisles of the grocery store and just accept what's being thrown at me. I'm avoiding the aisles of brightly colored packages of processed foods, and just sticking to the vegetables and fruit from the produce section, boring bags of grains and legumes from the bulk foods section, and maybe the occasional can or two of organic beans (just in case I need something quick and don't have any soaked or beans already cooked).
I'm questioning EVERYTHING.
Why do some religions teach that you can't get directly to God? Why do some religions teach that people are inherently bad or sinful? Why do people spend so much time watching t.v. or playing video games?
I wonder about the "establishment" - work 8 hours a day, spend 2 hours a day in the car commuting to and from your job, rely on convenience food and television and People magazine to numb your mind to the reality that your life is slipping away without really being lived...
Yoga has ruined me.
Yoga has given me the experience of feeling like I'm part of something - part of a community of like-minded people who just want the best of the human experience.
Yoga has made me more mindful.
Yoga has made me happier with what I have - no more binge-shopping or spending money on crap that I don't really need. I'm no longer a good, mindless consumer. But I'm spending more money than I used to - at locally-owned businesses and at the CSA and farmer's markets.
Beware: yoga could ruin you, too.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The Compassion Project
David's work has resulted in a book, and now he's taking his experiences on the road, working on another book as well as organizing a cross-country tour of the United States, looking to visit cities where there is compassion-based work going on.
You can read all about David's work on his blog, The Compassion Project, and become a part of the conversation from anywhere through his Compassion Network on Ning.
If you want to donate to help David cover the costs of his compassion tour, you can also donate - any amount - on his GoFundMe page.
The work David is doing is so important. I feel like understanding the nature of compassion is essential to the human experience. There are so many different ways to feel and experience compassion, all of them important and profound. So take a few minutes to read David's blog and learn more about the project, and if you know of any cities where compassion-based work is being done that would make a good place for David to visit on his compassion tour, contact him through one of the links above!
Monday, February 17, 2014
What Kind of Yoga Teacher Are You?
I'm not talking about Bikram or Hatha or Vinyasa or Viniyoga or Anusara or Kripalu or Ashtanga or Iyenger or any of the dozens of styles of yoga asana practice out there. I'm talking about what do you bring of yourself to your students when you teach?
One of the problems I see now that I've nearly completed my own teacher training course is that there are an awful lot of "become a yoga teacher in two weeks" courses out there.
No matter what they want you to believe, you simply cannot become a yoga teacher in two weeks. Hell, I've been studying intensely to become a yoga teacher over the last 5+ months, and one of the most important things that I've learned is that...I've got a hell of a lot more to learn about being a yoga teacher!
The most basic of foundations for becoming a yoga teacher is the practice of asana. That's what all 200-hour teacher trainings teach. But even then, I feel like there is so much to learn!
In the yoga teacher training I've been doing, we've been learning a lot about asana. We've written hundreds of index cards with details on how to talk students in and out of the poses, safely.
But we've also spent a great deal of time talking about the other seven limbs of yoga - because there's waaaaaaaay more to yoga than just the asanas, or poses, or postures.
There's the yamas and the niyamas; there's the practice of pranayama (breath control, which I talked about before); there's the practice of meditation, which is intimidating for a lot of students; there are the great ancient texts like Patanjali's yoga sutras and the Bhagavad Gita and all the Vedic texts. There's kirtan, the yoga of sound. There are things like karma yoga, and the chakras, the subtle energy systems in the body, the koshas; mudras, or hand gestures, that are used to enhance the practice of asana and meditation...
Do you see what I'm trying to get at here? That's a lot of material to be covered, and I can't see how someone can absorb it all in a 2-week "teacher training".
One of the things I've particularly enjoyed about this teacher training is that we only meet twice a month - once for a full weekend, and then again for one weekend day. In between sessions, I get the opportunity to really digest what I've learned, to find ways to integrate it into my daily life as well as my asana practice. I've had time to really sit with the material and think about it, write about it, analyze, explore it... And this is how I will bring it into my classes when I start leading yoga classes.
Unless you're going to take the time and really find a way to integrate the yoga teachings into your life, you may as well end up like this gal, who forked out a ton of money for a teacher training, and then discovered that the yoga life was not for her.
Lots of people probably find yoga relaxing and energizing. But that doesn't mean that they should be teachers.
Because next we come to the whole question of whether or not you are truly a teacher. Some people are natural teachers - it's just what comes easy for them. Being passionate about sharing what you know and being able to impart that information is a skill that not everyone has a talent for, let's face it. I've had some truly astoundingly bad teachers in my life (like the organic chemistry professor in college who left the entire class scratching their heads at how she came to her final numbers when working oxidation/reduction equations, because she decided to just do the calculations "in her head" and didn't think it was worth sharing with the rest of the class), and I've had some amazingly inspiring experiences under the guidance of a teacher (like my current yoga teacher at The Yoga Tree, who has a profound gift for sharing her extensive knowledge of yoga practice and philosophy).
You can learn, to some degree, how to be a teacher. But if it's not in your blood, if it doesn't come naturally to you, you can actually do a lot more harm than good when teaching yoga. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to get students safely in AND out of a yoga pose. You want to minimize any risk of injury, and make sure that you stress that to your class. Remember, it's not YOUR journey - it's theirs.
So, as I'm nearing the end of my own teacher training and I start to plan out things like workshops and classes and think about ways to offer what I've learned to a whole new batch of yogis, I'm asking myself the question, every single day:
What kind of yoga teacher am I?
One of the problems I see now that I've nearly completed my own teacher training course is that there are an awful lot of "become a yoga teacher in two weeks" courses out there.
No matter what they want you to believe, you simply cannot become a yoga teacher in two weeks. Hell, I've been studying intensely to become a yoga teacher over the last 5+ months, and one of the most important things that I've learned is that...I've got a hell of a lot more to learn about being a yoga teacher!
The most basic of foundations for becoming a yoga teacher is the practice of asana. That's what all 200-hour teacher trainings teach. But even then, I feel like there is so much to learn!
In the yoga teacher training I've been doing, we've been learning a lot about asana. We've written hundreds of index cards with details on how to talk students in and out of the poses, safely.
But we've also spent a great deal of time talking about the other seven limbs of yoga - because there's waaaaaaaay more to yoga than just the asanas, or poses, or postures.
There's the yamas and the niyamas; there's the practice of pranayama (breath control, which I talked about before); there's the practice of meditation, which is intimidating for a lot of students; there are the great ancient texts like Patanjali's yoga sutras and the Bhagavad Gita and all the Vedic texts. There's kirtan, the yoga of sound. There are things like karma yoga, and the chakras, the subtle energy systems in the body, the koshas; mudras, or hand gestures, that are used to enhance the practice of asana and meditation...
Do you see what I'm trying to get at here? That's a lot of material to be covered, and I can't see how someone can absorb it all in a 2-week "teacher training".
One of the things I've particularly enjoyed about this teacher training is that we only meet twice a month - once for a full weekend, and then again for one weekend day. In between sessions, I get the opportunity to really digest what I've learned, to find ways to integrate it into my daily life as well as my asana practice. I've had time to really sit with the material and think about it, write about it, analyze, explore it... And this is how I will bring it into my classes when I start leading yoga classes.
Unless you're going to take the time and really find a way to integrate the yoga teachings into your life, you may as well end up like this gal, who forked out a ton of money for a teacher training, and then discovered that the yoga life was not for her.
Lots of people probably find yoga relaxing and energizing. But that doesn't mean that they should be teachers.
Because next we come to the whole question of whether or not you are truly a teacher. Some people are natural teachers - it's just what comes easy for them. Being passionate about sharing what you know and being able to impart that information is a skill that not everyone has a talent for, let's face it. I've had some truly astoundingly bad teachers in my life (like the organic chemistry professor in college who left the entire class scratching their heads at how she came to her final numbers when working oxidation/reduction equations, because she decided to just do the calculations "in her head" and didn't think it was worth sharing with the rest of the class), and I've had some amazingly inspiring experiences under the guidance of a teacher (like my current yoga teacher at The Yoga Tree, who has a profound gift for sharing her extensive knowledge of yoga practice and philosophy).
You can learn, to some degree, how to be a teacher. But if it's not in your blood, if it doesn't come naturally to you, you can actually do a lot more harm than good when teaching yoga. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to get students safely in AND out of a yoga pose. You want to minimize any risk of injury, and make sure that you stress that to your class. Remember, it's not YOUR journey - it's theirs.
So, as I'm nearing the end of my own teacher training and I start to plan out things like workshops and classes and think about ways to offer what I've learned to a whole new batch of yogis, I'm asking myself the question, every single day:
What kind of yoga teacher am I?
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