Yoga Teacher Training: Week 8

First, some thoughts: The yoga studio is becoming my second home. I’m there 4-5 times a week, so I see more and more familiar smiles and have tried out new classes. It’s nice to be part of this little community. 

I loved our Tuesday night session on the yogi lifestyle. We talked about the yamas and niyamas again and how they apply in our lives. It was part girl talk, part discussion. We learn so much about each other – maybe even more than we want to know – and about ourselves.

I had to stick out my tongue during the ayurvedic science lecture. … I was waiting for our teacher to say how I was deficient in this or that, but he actually said I have a healthy tongue, though it’s apparently evident that I am a Vata dosha because of my nervous movements. Maybe it’s my general state of being or perhaps it was the slight nervousness of spotting people in our inversion workshop later that day. I was fearful of not being able to hold someone’s legs up and having the person suffer an injury. It was all “borrowing trouble from the future.” I was indeed able to hold someone’s legs in both handstand and forearm balance. (Someone closer to my size, of course.)  Most people seemed to know what they were doing. I only spotted two people, so I was able to work on my own practice. Angie spotted me in pincha mayurasana and I did it away from the wall! After the workshop I even answered some questions from a woman who is thinking about signing up for yoga-teacher training. It felt amazing to inspire someone to (maybe) sign up! Our arms were pretty much jelly after the workshop, but we still discussed and attempted more arm balances in our final two hours. I went home with rather tight muscles that night.

The first part of Sunday was all about juicing and how to do it. It’s something I’ve been interested in, but I haven’t made the commitment to buy a juicer. I would consider a cleanse for maybe a day, but I don’t know about any longer than that. We took home from recipes and lots of knowledge about how to cleanse safely if we choose to. Again I went home thinking that I seriously need to take a look at my diet and treat my body better. That night I signed up for a FarmBox subscription from a farm in Willcox so I can start eating organic vegetables. I also want to stay away from processed foods as much as possible, though I’ll try not to beat myself up about it if I give in every once in a while. It’s all about Brahmacharya (moderation), right?

The latter part of Sunday was for review and more teaching practice. I led the class from Hero to Half Hero to Lord of the Fish pose. I also was supposed to teach Revolved Half Moon but instead led them to Half Moon – all because I wasn’t actually doing the pose and mixed up my right and left. Oops! In a regular class the students would have never known, but I need more practice in leading without doing the poses. I felt a lot better about how I did as a teacher, though I didn’t really get any specific feedback. I’ll take that as a job well done. J

That leaves four more weeks of yoga-teacher training!