Happy Monday everyone!! I can’t believe this is the last week of January. We just got what I am considering our first real snow (that has actually stuck to the ground) on Friday evening. Very late in the season, but this is my first winter in Philadelphia. I have enjoyed the fact that it has not been too cold this winter and it is warmer than Chicago, but honestly I do kind of miss the snow. I like the snow except for driving in it. I think I need to move to a place that has snow and sunny days in winter. The number of cloudy and gloomy days this winter has been depressing. Anyway, they are calling for more snow today and tomorrow, like 4-8 inches tonight and tomorrow, so we will see what happens. I am just glad I take the train to work these days 🙂
So backing up to the beginning of this past weekend. Another teacher training weekend. Friday evening each of us chose a namaskara (sun or moon salutation, for those unfamiliar) to teach to the whole group. Up to this point we have done a lot of practice teaching for specific poses with partners, but not to the whole group. Teaching/speaking to a bunch of people is definitely not my strong point. I always get super nervous and red in the face, but that is part of what I want to conquer in this teacher training. I knew it would be out of my comfort zone, but with any yoga teacher training, you have to remember that everyone is nervous and everyone is there for you. Yoga is such a great community! So for now, I just don’t worry about it. I say what comes to mind for the poses and I know more alignment cues will come with time or through observing the class. I thought I did pretty well considering I did not prepare for it. After everyone went, we discussed improvements as well as what people did well at. Then we made another sequence together. Friday nights go by fast since it is only 3 hours and when you spend an hour or so practicing, you only have 2 left.
On Saturday we began the same way as Friday. A few people chose different namaskaras. I stayed with the lunging namaskara. I honestly did not have time to look at it beforehand, but I improved immensely and my teacher said that I did a great job, so I was very proud of myself. I am definitely feeling more confident teaching and I think that is really important. However I know I need to work on looking around the room more and not having my head in my notes. When I teach my own sequence to the class, I will definitely have to run through it a few times so I know what is coming next. I need to work on when to say inhale and exhale, since I know I don’t always follow teacher’s cues for that myself.
After our practice, we discussed The Bhagavad Gita and then we spent almost 4 hours doing an adjustment workshop where some other yoga teachers joined us. It was great to get the perspective of adjustments from other yoga teachers. When you work on adjustments in many poses, you definitely see similar adjustments as you go through a practice. I was happy to be the demo for the tree pose as that is one of my favorite poses. My partner and I were quite tired half way through the workshop. The last hour seemed to go by slowly, but once we got to seated poses, I was so happy!! We had been standing for so much of the day. There were some really great adjustments at the end but my body was already so sore.
I got home with the intention of foam rolling, but that didn’t happen. I basically went straight to bed and left foam rolling for Sunday morning.
On Sunday in teacher training, we went through an hour long practice which was really tough, but good. Then we discussed sequencing more and came up with a sequence together and broke up into partners practicing a section of the sequence. This was really eye opening to me, knowing how I need to kind of fill in the blanks and transitions to poses and when to say right hand up or down, etc. It got me thinking a lot about what to write in my own sequence, which was helpful.
I then got a ride home which was awesome since I basically got home when I would be heading on the train from the city. That gave me some extra time to look back at my draft of a sequence and start adding in the details. I still have a lot to work on, but my goal this week is to spend time each night with a section of it and hopefully I will be ready to teach it in a month. EEEKKK!!
Thank you Katie for hosting!!
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