Tag Archives: Yoga

I Said I Do Yoga; I Did Not Say I’m a Saint

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As you know if you read The VeganAsana regularly, I’m currently wrapping up yoga teacher training.  Most of the people I spend my time with are aware that I have been going through this training.  And then there are people who don’t know much else about me other than that I do a lot of yoga (either because we only know each other online or we only know each other through the yoga community).  This means that there are a whole bunch of people who “understand me as a yogi.”  That’s  nice.  It means I can pester people about yoga and they will know why!

Saint Gertrude the Great - Also quite fond of learning but with a less than perfect temperament that she had to work on.

On the other hand, I notice that there is an assumption that, as someone who studies yoga, I should be above the negative and petty emotions of the world.  I shouldn’t be angry (or at least not without some major righteous reason). I shouldn’t be jealous or envious.  I shouldn’t be impatient.  I shouldn’t experience self-doubt, question my worth, or make statements that imply I’m engaging in self-judgment.  When I do express such emotions now, I get comments related to my yoga practice, or the raised-eyebrow  look, or general impatience.

I’m not going to say that achieving full equanimity isn’t a laudable goal, but I’m so not there.  I don’t actually know any yogis who are fully in that place.  Sure, some are great with not becoming very angry.  But, maybe that same person still has a lot of work to do on being prideful.  Perhaps another has let go of the attachments to the self that cause self-criticism and comparison, but has a hard time being patient with those who haven’t let go of such attachments.  We all have stuff to work on.  Being a yogi doesn’t mean that you have located fully that state of enlightenment that is in there somewhere, it means that you are engaged in actively working on it.  And that’s ok.

Namaste,

L

Thank you, YIOM!

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The month-long celebration of yoga blogs, YIOM, draws to a close tonight.  It’s been an amazing month of blogs that made me laugh (and almost spray liquid from my nose), caused me to reflect, filled me with awe, and generally added to my every day.  I so much appreciate the intrepid bloggers that hung in there for a full month, blogging almost daily about yoga and what it brings to their lives.  Thank you so much, my friends!

We now transition to the YIOM network.  Blogs linked by the YIOM logo have grouped together to create community, network, share, and collaborate.  A full listing of these blogs can be seen at the new YIOM site.  I’m excited to begin this new phase, and thrilled that 21 blogs have already signed up to be a part of this experience, with more sure to be added as time goes on.

Blog on, yogis, blog on!

Teaching – So Sweet

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Yep, I looked JUST like this!

I taught my “final teach” today in yoga teacher training.  It’s hard to believe that we started the program at the beginning of October, because it seems like just a few weeks ago, and here we are wrapping up.  Even having taught a couple of practice classes, I was a nervous bunny going into the class.  I knew that I “knew” my plan, and I really didn’t want to look at my notes, but I worried that I would trip myself up, be unable to recover, and then … but, it did not go that way.

After arriving and setting up the music, there were already a couple of students (and friends) there, so I got to chat a little, which was great for some grounding.  Danielle even brought some pretty flowers to celebrate!  Time went by pretty quickly, more students arrived (I think we were missing four of the original 11, but two additional got to come, so there ended up being a total of 9), and it was time to get started.  The opening segment, with a brief Aesop’s fable, connection to aparigraha, and some pranayama went well.  My chant was a little off in melody, but the crowd was game, so that was fine.  And with an om, we were off!

When the moving started, it was really time to think “on my feet.” I found that some things took longer than in practice (i.e. the warm-up) and had to be reduced here and there, and other things took less time than I had thought.  I had my first big oops right off the bat when we got to our feet to start the flows.  It actually was a blessing in disguise, because once it happened I felt freed from thinking about getting it perfect, recovered in process to make things generally work, and then moved on.  At that point, I was able to just chill about whether I was doing “good” or “bad” and just teach, looking for adjustments that could be made, trying to keep a pacing that seemed to be working for the students, closing the curtains when the creeper was looking at us like fish in an aquarium, and being my usual slightly goofy self.

Class went by very quickly – of course, I wasn’t the one in forearm plank, so….   It seemed to be almost no time and savasana was coming up.  I felt a little teary at just how wonderful it was to be a part of the practice of such lovely people (and there was probably some plain old relief in there too).  When all was done, those fabulous Yogawood friends gave me a little round of applause.  It seemed like thank you wasn’t nearly enough to express how grateful I felt at these yogis having shared this 90 minutes with me.

Wow.  This is good stuff, eh?  And, I passed, so that was pretty sweet too.  ; )

Namaste,

L