Complete 200hr yoga teacher training

all of my homework on 11/11. Another one of those auspicious dates, I think (similar to the date that I signed up for the course). I have to do a marathon make-up session for three classes that I missed. And then I will graduate on November 19!!!!

I started a 500-hour training this month. It seemed like the best next step.

Monday morning, I taught the first “open to the public” class of my 4-week Introduction to Viniyoga series. I was expecting 6 people. But when I got to the yoga studio that morning, the studio owner told me she had filled my class! 2 of my 6 people were no-shows, but there were 5 other people that the yoga studio owner had recruited for me … people I had never laid eyes on before … so I had a total of 9 people. So that was exciting.

Only 1 of my 9 students had any experience with yoga, so, on the fly, I ended up cutting out postures that I had planned to teach because I could see that those postures were going to be too hard for this group. I had planned a simple and gentle and relaxing class … but I can see that I need to continue to keep it very simple and easy.

Yesterday, working with three of my classmates as a small group, we taught a 1.5-hour yoga practice to our whole class of teachers-in-training.

My small group had had a six week lead time to prepare for this. We’d had a lot of conflict in deciding what to teach. There were moments where we certainly didn’t feel like everyone in the group was pulling his or her fair share of the load. There was a LOT of conflict.

But, at the 11th hour, our sequence gelled and we came together as a team. Really, we even got in a little huddle like football players and piled our hands on each other’s for a little rah-rah moment before we taught our sequence. (No other small group has done that, in our class. And I would not have predicted our group would have bonded enough to do something like that, a couple of weeks ago.)

What we taught came off almost flawlessly. I remembered to mirror right and left when I demo’d poses; I remembered almost everything I wanted to say. I taught Eagle pose, mirroring right and left for my “students” and balancing—try that for a first time out! And I got the most amazing compliment from two people in the class, each of whom said to me that they’d never been able to do Eagle before, but that they’d been able to get into it based on my coaching. If that didn’t make me feel awed….

In feedback, our fellow teacher-training classmates called our sequence “complex.” Our yoga teacher called it “BOLD.”

I came home very proud and happy. BOLD. I love it.

is that it makes me want to do the 500-hour training right away! It would be a push to start a 500-hour training this year (there is one that starts in November, overlapping with when I am completing the 200-hour). But the next two opportunities for 500-hour trainings in this lineage don’t start until 2011, and that feels like a long time to wait. What to do, what to do….

my student teaching practicum! I am required to teach four yoga classes “to the general public.” I went to my local yoga studio, where they are in the throes of organizing their fall schedule anyway, and explained my situation. They were completely agreeable to having me teach a class, free and open to the public, for four consecutive Mondays in October! Getting this scheduled is a load off my mind … now to find students … hee hee. And here’s hoping that the class will have a following and continue into November, and December, and on into 2010….

We’ve spent our time since February gaining a firm foundation of knowledge about our yoga lineage’s approach to the yoga postures, yoga philosophy, breathing, etc. Today, for the first time, we led our classmates through a short practice. It went well! I remembered (without using notes) most everything I had planned to say. And when I made a mistake, I was able to smoothly say, “Oh, I should have you do this, first” without floundering around. I am feeling very positive about the training. I’m in it because I love yoga and am feeling confident that I will be able to teach others.

At the moment, I am writing a paper on the Yoga Sutras and the topic is practicing nonattachment. (The relevant Sutras are 1.12 thorugh 1.15, if you are interested.) I was doing a little Googling to come up with an outside source to which I could refer, and, one click of the mouse leading to another, ended up cruising through 43 Things to check up on what’s happening here. And lo and behold, at the top of the Zeitgeist page, there appeared the goal of EMBRACE IMPERMANENCE. And I thought, Wow, that’s how to practice nonattachment!

I’ve attended my first two teacher training classes, and turned in the first two written assignments. I’m excited about learning to do the postures better, I’m excited about exploring the mind-body connection and what the Yoga Sutras say. But man, my butt is sore from sitting all day!

I thought the date 11/22 sounded poetic. So that was the date on which I mailed my registration paperwork and payment for yoga teacher training. This program begins the first week of February 2009, and I should be finished by November 19, 2009. Can’t wait!