Category Archives: Yoga

Teacher Training Tidbits – Week 2

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Today was my second long Saturday yoga teacher training session.  I really enjoyed the class, and have continued in reporting my little bits of learning (to go along with all the big learning that is also going on) here.

Skeleton image

Image from *The Human Body and Health Revised* - 1908

  1. Sitting on the floor for a long time gets easier, but it’s not easy yet.  Today I was having an RA flare, so that added a little complexity.  But, on the up side, my sides don’t feel nearly as unhappy as last week after class.
  2. At some point, I’ve become a very visual learner.  I don’t think this used to be so true for me, but it certainly is now.  Sometimes things said just don’t really go in.  But, if I can see them, it’s much better.  External rotation was just not making good sense to me until I saw it a few times.
  3. Adult learners in a yoga teacher training (including me) are a lot like middle school kids.  We want to sit in the back of the room and when the teacher asks a question that we aren’t sure about, we all put our heads down.
  4. I LOVE hearing about how other people are working through their processes.  One of our tasks for this week was to observe ahimsa (non-harming).  Hearing all the stories of people’s experiences during the week was probably my favorite moment in the class.
  5. Things that I can do easily while moving just go right out of my head when speaking.  I can’t remember when to inhale or exhale when I start talking. I also have  no idea whose voice that is coming out of my body when I try to lead the class.  It does not even sound like me.  I am usually extremely comfortable with any sort of public speaking, but I can’t even get a sentence out in a normal vocal rhythm.  Wow.
  6. Many parts of the body seem to have about six ways that they can move.  Interesting.  Knees are pretty much only made to move two ways, but there are six possible.  Ouch.
  7. There are two basic divisions to the skeleton – axial (skull, ribs, spine) and appendicular (everything else).  The structure of bones is directly related to their purpose.  Long bones provide leverage for movement.  Flat bones give us stability and allow for muscle attachment.  Short bones are the weight bearing bones.  While this is all the case, everyone’s bones are different in many ways, including their “twist” – because bones don’t really grow in a straight line.
  8. There are basically for curves in the spine.  The thoracic spine and sacrum have a convex curve.  The lumbar spine and cervical spine have a concave curve.
  9. I remember a lot from anatomy and physiology classes.  It’s funny how much I like such things when I’m not even on the scientific spectrum of what I research.
  10. This group of students is starting to feel very comfortable to me already, which is quite cool since we were mostly strangers when we started.

So, that’s my top ten tidbits for this week.  Yay for yoga teacher training!

Namaste,

L

Home Practice is Difficult

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I have an admission to make.  I didn’t do a “real” home practice this week.  Sure, I did 10 minutes of seated meditation here and there.  I almost always do some seated stretches and standing folds at some point in the day.  And, I usually end the day with a little pre-bed asana.  But, I didn’t get to a dedicated full-on home practice.

So, what is the problem?  What is in my way?  I suspect that the things that get in my way are not unique to me, so perhaps a little reflection on what the blockages are is in order.

  • Time – Time gets in my way for home practice.  Currently, I have a vinyasa, yin, or teacher training class scheduled for every day of the week.  Then I have work Monday-Friday and every other Sunday.  Then there are family commitments.  It’s hard to find a good time to fit the practice in, and this relates directly to…
  • Prioritization – Going to class, cooking for my family, going to work – in all of these things I feel an obligation to others.  I feel like I have let someone down if they don’t get done or don’t get done well.  Guilt is a motivator for me (probably sadly) to be sure that all of those things fit into my day.  But, a home yoga practice is just for me – no one else.  So, it’s easy to push it aside and leave it for the “leftover” time.
  • Distraction – In a studio class, I can easily focus, because everyone there is doing the same thing and there aren’t competing activities going on.  At home, I can hear the laundry (that I need to switch over), the kids having that argument (that I need to solve), the whining dogs (that I should take out).  It’s insanely easy to come to the mat and then distract myself so much that I don’t really even get started.
  • Uncertainty – I’m still not sure what to do in a home practice.  When I do my home practice, I typically do a modified ashtanga practice, because it is all I can think of to do.  That’s fine, but I can pretty quickly zip through the poses I am “up to” in the primary series and have only done a very short practice.  I’m hoping that as training continues, I will feel more comfortable with my own ability to put together a practice for even myself.

These are the biggies for me.  I know I need to get past them, because it’s necessary for my own practice and for teacher training.  So, in the coming week, I vow to get’er done.

How about you?  What gets in your way for yoga practice at home?  Or, if not, what do you love about it?

Namaste,

L

Yoga and Unexpected “Ahhhhh”

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It’s Wednesday morning, but I’m writing about Monday night.  Why?  Because it was great – really great. Of course all my classes are pretty great, but this one had something special going on.  It left me feeling both completely relaxed and totally invigorated! So, after class, I jotted down some notes about what I thought was making the difference and have expanded upon them here.

The circumstances of the class didn’t necessarily bode well for me.  Evening is not my best time for yoga.  I’m a morning person (more or less) and by 7:30, I’m almost ready for bed.  I have to push myself a little harder to get out the door for a class at that time.  Helpfully, our teacher training requires that we take one Vinyasa class a week with Lisa or Beth, the two yogis leading the teacher training.  Based on my  schedule, that means either Monday night or Saturday morning, and Saturday morning is my only day to sleep in even a little, so…   All that to say – evenings are not my best active practice yoga time.  In addition to the time, I went in with some stomach issues and the remnants of a bronchial illness that keeps hanging on.  So, not in my peak physical condition – whatever that is.  It’s also a class that I’ve only attended a few times, meaning that I’m not fully comfortable with the people in the room.  And, the class was packed.  When I say packed, I am not even kidding.  There was about 2 inches (maybe) between my mat and the mats to the left and right of me.  That’s close!

With this as a starting point, I wasn’t sure how class would be.  But, it was fabulous, wonderful, stupendous.  Why?  Well, that’s a good question and I’m not sure of the answer.  Maybe it was just a fluke that my breath was easy to focus on, my mind stayed in the moment without the effort that I sometimes need to bring it back, and the poses jived with  my needs at that moment.  But, maybe it was other things.  Maybe it was the closeness of the room and the energy from all of those bodies and minds in one place and one time working toward one end.  Perhaps it was the fact that Beth, the instructor, talked about stillness and steadiness early in the class and wove that theme back through in ways that caused me to really reflect on how I was approaching the poses, and adjust my expectations to work toward those ideas – rather than trying quite so hard to “do” the poses perfectly.  It might have been the presence in the room of several fellow teacher trainees.  We haven’t been together long, but the training class is already developing a very nice, comfortable, safe group culture.  Maybe it was the selection of poses, that nicely balanced what was achievable and comfortable with what created challenge and some dissonance.  It might have been the music selection, that focused on the idea of stripping away our illusions (delusions) of wh0 we should/could be and coming back to who we are.  And, I’m completely sure that Beth’s frequent return to the idea that it didn’t matter if you “made it” into a pose – whatever; you were there and doing it and that was what mattered – made a difference in my experience.

Whatever it was, I liked it.  It really worked for me.  After the class was over, I felt fabulous.  There was no self-recrimination, even though there were plenty of poses that I couldn’t get fully into.  There was no second guessing my responses or abilities.  There was no wondering how anyone else in the room was judging my practice.  And, I had a wonderful positive energy flowing through my body.  Ahhhhh…  So, nope, I’m not sure exactly what made it so fantastic, but I’m going to keep thinking about it, because this is the experience I want to have in class, and it’s certainly the experience I want to bring to my students some day.