On Yoga Teacher Training
/This was written on 7/19/16.
Yoga training! I had big dreams of creating a website right off the bat and blogging everyday and giving a play by play of yoga training and write down everything I learned and then yoga training started. Yoga training is the best experience ever but it’s a massive time suck emotionally, physically, energetically, mentally, all the things.. in the best way possible. What I thought was about 12 hours a week was actually 18 plus hours contemplating the homework assignment. The basics class that we are required to take are only offered at 7:15pm M-TH and you aren’t “supposed” to take class on Asana days. (I learned I’m actually a rule follower. shocking!) They say it’s up to you what you get out of training. I wanted to get EVERYTHING I possibly could out of training. I realized getting red marks on my homework gave me anxiety and I couldn’t even read it sometimes!! I wonder if I’m just THAT bad at taking feedback or if I respected my mentor so much I wanted to do better and prove to him I was learning.
Yoga training took me through a journey of emotions and realizations. The hindu belief system is really fascinating and rather comforting. The thought of having multiple lives is fascinating. Death seems a bit less scary when there is something behind the door. The idea that we are guests in this house… that we don’t have a soul but are a soul in human body is a wild concept to wrap my brain around. That this is temporary. That we are all born perfect and screw things up along the way with what we put into our bodies. “May all beings everywhere be happy and free” including pigs and cows and ducks and goats made me question what I eat. The asana practice is just a blip of yoga. It’s just one of the 8 limbs. We actually practice asana to prepare our body to do everything else like focus and meditate and sit forever and find samadhi. Finding samadhi woah. This enlightenment. Something that we actually can find more often than not. Dharana (single pointed focus on an object) dhyana (meditation) leads to samadhi. Chakras and gemstones, the power of bhakti, the fascinating stories of hindu gods and goddesses, the ancient language of sanskrit! There is so much to learn. About a week into yoga school I realized I knew nothing and I am just dipping a toe into this yoga pond. I’d love to do a deep dive into the interesting things I learned. And it’s nice to write down why I haven’t done a deep dive just yet. It takes a lot to wrap your brain around this stuff.
I graduated (yay) and realized it’s hard to stay diligent. Hard is probably the wrong word. This is not actually hard. Being sick with terminal illness is hard. Having a loved one pass away is HARD. This requires time, dedication, passion, and diligence to carve out space to continue working and learning. We were asked to write about our sadhana—our daily practice. The meditation and homework and reading was not hard for me to do, it was the rolling out my mat every morning that was difficult. Dana kept saying wake up and RUN to your mat and stay. When I started teaching at work I quickly realized that your home practice IS what you teach from (and inspiration from other classes of course). But you have to feel the transitions and feel the poses to then teach them. Know they work, know how they feel, and practicing daily let’s you get creative.
There are a million things I learned from teacher training but here are a few big picture take aways:
Confidence and public speaking. I used to have a massive fear of public speaking. And I still get a bit nervous but luckily my boss handed over our biggest monthly meeting to host and with lots of practice and feedback I’ve managed to be “good at public speaking” (says my coworkers). Not sure the heart racing will ever go away. The first week of teacher training we were asked to teach (holy crap!) in front of a bunch of at the time strangers and in front of a teacher you HIGHLY respect and want to impress at some point. I heard this was going to happen so I made a commitment from day 1— volunteer first and raise your hand whenever they ask for volunteers. So I did and I ended up being the first person to teach sun salutations. The first time I “taught” yoga. I am beyond happy I did becuase it set the tone for me personally in my training. Throughout training teaching the class and teaching in our mentor meetings I learned quickly what it felt like LEAPING outside of your comfort zone, realizing you will not die, and gaining confidence as you do it. Yoga training was a game changer speaking in public.
This isn’t about me. My unreal mentor taught me a lot but one of the biggest things he taught me was teaching isn’t about us. We are here to offer this beautiful practice to someone else and give people what the need. It is an offering. I would say I want to impact someone this way or I want the class to go perfectly or I don’t want to mess up and miss a pose. Once you get out of the “I want” attitude beautiful things happen.
The light inside of all of us never dies. I’ve never seen a lotus flower, but the lotus flower grows in mud and muck and emerges as a beautiful and pure bright bloom. The lotus represents a spiritually enlightened quality in a person. We all have stuff. Sometimes we feel like we are heavy swimming through muddy life. But like everything, there are highs and lows. Birth and death. And no matter what we are all going through, that bright light inside of us never dies.
Yoga is a journey and yoga will always be my therapy. Some days I feel light on my feet and fly into a handstand. Other days I’m crying in pigeon. I roll out my mat and have no clue what will happen, but I know I’ll learn something and have a tiny a-ha moment. In my ten years of practicing yoga every class, meditation, training, moment has been different. And I think that’s what keeps yoga so exciting. It’s not a “workout” (as I learned the asana limb is really just to prepare our bodies for stillness) it’s a lifetime of learning.
