Category Archives: Yoga Teacher Training

So Many Thank Yous

  By | ,
11 Comments

Today, we had our “graduation” ceremony for yoga teacher training (200 hour program). It was wonderful and a little sad to be done, and I have many people to thank for helping me get through this process.

So, let me begin!

Derek – for keeping things together at home, feeding the troops on Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon, listening to me fret and jabber about yoga, giving me the “gift” of teacher training in the first place, only looking bored about 25% of the time that I talked about yoga, and buying me my first Yogawood gift certificate 2 years ago.

Abbigael – for accompanying me to class, being my home cheerleader during the process, and being proud of me (out loud, to her friends, at 16).

Emmeline – for helping out around the house when I wasn’t home (even making a dinner or two) and coloring a mandala for me.

Ben and Nate – for saying “cool” when I told them the story of Ganesh, the myth of Hanuman, and all about arm balances.

Jacob and Devin – for asking me about yoga when they were around and telling me it was great that I was doing training.

Micki and Erik (and Maiga, Kati, Lee, and Vicki) – for being my yoga teacher role models and keeping me on my mat during my own classes.

Maria and Erica – for listening to my never-ending yoga teacher training stories without a hint of annoyance.

Beth and Lisa – for being my rocking, kickass, impressive, inspiring, supportive, hysterical, knowledgeable, and kind YTT instructors.

Yvonne, Christie, Katie, Leslie, Jessica, Mike, and Carrie – for being such a great group of peers, keeping me both entertained and challenged, and never reminding me that I was the old lady of the group (by at least a decade).

Luna, Indy, and Charlie – for covering my yoga pants, mat, towel, assignments, and books in hair, and always being here when I was feeling overwhelmed.

All of the folks I practice with at Yogawood – who are so supportive and such good yoga buds.

Everyone who came to my practice and final teaches – for giving me the opportunity to work on my yoga teaching skills and being so kind when I flubbed it up.

And the readers of this blog – who followed my trials and tribulations during the whole process, made comments, laughed at my jokes, and gave me a little extra oomph to get through the day!

Thank you all so much. I could not have done it without you.

Lorin

Pranayama-ing through the Week

  By | , ,
Leave a comment

Art by Matt Willey

It’s a hard season in The VeganAsana world.  The end of the semester means piles of grading.  The end of the academic year means huge huge piles of recontracting documents, a commencement speech to write, and many banquets and ceremonies to attend or speak at.  The end of YTT means figuring out what I’m doing next.  The end of the fiscal year means working through copious huge budget issues.  So, yeah, it’s a little rocky.

This week, I’ve noticed myself getting through a lot of things with pranayama.  Of course, on Tuesday and Wednesday (sadly the only days this week I was able to go to a vinyasa class 🙁 ) I was doing pranayama as part of those classes.  We did some dirga pranayama and a lot of ujjayi.  But, I’ve also “caught” myself doing gentle dirga or quiet ujjayi during meetings where things were getting a little intense, while rushing from one obligation to another, prior to speaking publicly, in interactions that are a little tense, and even sitting in my office looking at the giant “to do” stack.

The focus for May at Yogawood, where I did my training and had the super privilege of teaching this week is:

When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady.  But when the
breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life.
Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.
~Hatha Yoga Pradipika

This quote can be thought about in a number of ways.  You could go with a relatively literal but spiritual understanding:  we each have a set number of breaths allotted to us in a lifetime, to breath more calmly and slowly means a longer life and allows us more time to work through our karma.  You could go with a very physiological explanation; calming the breath engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us to return to a state of calm after a period of stress.  Thus, through using pranayama we spend more time physically in calm, which may be better on the body and extend the life.  You could also just ignore the long life part and focus on the idea of a calm mind, which still sounds like a really good plan for life.

Or there is option D – all of the above.  I believe that calming of the breath and of the mind may well function in all of these ways and more.  It allows us to be more calm in our interactions with others, lowering our own stress and the stress of those around us, which chains out into a more healthy environment for everyone.  It helps us to more “rationally” evaluate our choices, possibly leading to better and more healthy choices.  It reduces the physical sensations of stress, which the body can experience in ways including relatively minor issues like a little indigestion and relatively major ways like triggering of autoimmune or other disease.  I could go on.

The key here is that the utility isn’t just on the mat.  In fact, it is more off the mat than on, because we spend only a small proportion of our lives on the mat.  Pranayama can be practiced throughout our daily lives, in ways that can be helpful to us and not disruptive to anyone else (you don’t want to be that person whose ujjayi breath sounds like someone in the midst of a prolonged asthma attack).  So, go for it. Breathe today.

Namaste,

L

Endings and Beginnings

  By | , ,
1 Comment

Tomorrow marks several endings in my life, and simultaneously several beginnings.

It is, most obviously, the last day of April. April is always a very busy time in the life of an academic and seeing it come to an end is both a relief and a terror. It means that the flood of dinners, lunches, receptions, speeches, etc. will slow. But, it also means that May is arriving. Thus, commencement is just around the corner (my speech isn’t done), grades will soon need to be logged (haven’t started those papers yet), exams are next week (bahaha) and it’s time to start planning for AY12. On the other hand, family vacation is at the end of May, and Mother’s Day usually involves bagels and chocolate (not together), so that’s cool.

A second ending is the month-long blogging celebration known as YIOM.  For YIOM,  a group of intrepid bloggers committed to writing 3-7 yoga posts per week for one month.  I tried for one every day, but that didn’t always work out (I missed the 21st and the 26th).  It’s been a great experience reading and writing for YIOM and I could say that I’m sad that April is over and thus it is done.  BUT, we’ve turned YIOM (yogis inspiring oneness month) into YIOM (yoga inspired online movement) Network and now we’re rolling right into May and beyond with it.  So, that is the end of one blog project while beginning a whole new adventure.

Finally, tomorrow is my final exam in my 200-hour yoga teacher training program.  Assuming that I pass (please, let’s assume that for now), I’ll be finished with a training that stretched from the beginning of October to the end of April.  It was exhilarating, difficult, fun, heavy, mind-expanding, community creating, humbling, and confidence building.  I’ve grown used to being with my training peeps every week and I’ll miss that time together.  But… this means the start of my time as a real-live-certified yoga instructor.  I don’t know how that will unfold, but I’m looking forward to seeing it happen.

So go the samsaras of everyday life.  As stated by Semisonic, and maybe Seneca, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
(sorry about the stupid ad!)