Great Meeting

I had lunch with our studio owner. She has amazing plans. What a great businesswoman. I am glad to be included in that yoga community. I am laying low a couple of days here. Tonight I am doing Yin with John at home. I have to cover a few classes so had to research and choreograph a class. It is relaxing yoga and hopefully he likes it. Boy that man is stiff. His scapula do not even move. I think Yin will really help him.

I have been busy at work and haven't done much homework this week plus with the redecorating I got behind. Tomorrow I intend to get caught up a little.

First FYB Class

Today I taught my first choreographed FYB yoga class with blankets, straps, and blocks at my a.m. hot yoga class. Usually I teach a half Bikram class, but Marit give them some variety. They absolutely loved this class. They all came out and were very pleased so I said I can give them a different class each week. They really do like variety and they enjoyed the props a lot. Everyone used the modifications with props at some point in the practice. I was able to adjust people and they all liked the help. It is a small class with a wide variety of levels, but the advanced people were challenged. I did not bring music but will next time.
I also had a great idea over the weekend. For my flow audition to be a flow sub, I am using the music from the Beatles Love CD and will call it The Beatles Love Flow Yoga. It will be pretty intermediate. I can’t wait to teach it. I think the intermediate flow people will love it at my studio. Most are in my age group and will love the Beatles music. Most might not be that familiar with that CD but it is from the Cirque De Soleil show that I saw in February. I love Cirque and found it very inspiring. The music was amazing. If they like that I will do the Cirque De Soleil Zumanity class. LOL We have the cd at home. I am sure the men would love a class like that.

Busy Weekend!

Incredibly busy weekend. I was subbing at the front desk on Friday. The teacher did not show up so I taught class. I taught on Saturday and Sunday and practiced both days. Today I am burned out and am staying away from the studio. I am doing the am class tomorrow and will work on choreography a little tonight and try to relax a little. I did take on a lot of classes this next month and that will be taxing but I feel the experience is worth it right now. I will just have to give myself room to breath when I can. Tonight will be one of those nights. We had a lot of other activities at my house this past weekend with kids and redecorating the bedroom, so I did do a lot. I even got some cleaning done. Cleaning got way behind when I was at teacher training. Actually it just doesn’t get done at all. Yesterday my daughter came home so I had to make dinner too. She is very resentful about my teaching yoga. So is my mom. And frankly, I just don’t understand it. I am so supportive of my daughter and always encourage her. Of course, from my mom that is exactly what I would expect but I mean let up already right? I am 50 and don’t need her opinion on everything I do. Sometimes I just get tired of that kind of bs. I put up with enough on my job.Luckily John wants me to be happy and do what I like. So really that is all that matters. We are planning our trip to Maui when we get married. There are several yoga studios I want to visit when I am there. In between relaxing on the beach!

IT IS HOT IN HERE!

Another sweaty night at yoga last night. Dar was teasing me that I wasn’t working hard. OMG. I was nauseous and dizzy the whole class and drenched. Even my hair was drenched to the bottom. I drank a lot of water before class too. Tonight I am supposed to teach at six, even though Dar put her name in but Alex told me I can teach the class. I don’t know if I am capable of taking a class again. I will do a light walk and practice FYB with John when I get back tonight. He skipped the last two nights.
I picked up Yoga as Medicine at Barnes and Nobles and started reading that. I did finish the Eric Schiffman home study reading assignment and am starting the Yoga Sutra reading assignment. I am reading part 2 on practice. The Yoga Medicine book is really good though. I started reading it and think it is a good pre-reading book for the Yoga Therapy I will be taking. It seems I am reading so much more on this and keep finding new articles about it and am really glad I am starting at the beginning of what I think will be a huge trend.
For now though, I really want to work at being the best teacher I can be. The Eric Schiffman reading gave me a lot of good ideas on teaching cues for energy and breathing and I can’t wait to incorporate them in my Bikram class. I think the students will really like it. Tonight should be a big hot class. A lot of people were dropping like flies though last night.Alex also wanted a sub for his Yin class. I really love that class. I have taken it a few times, but was able to take the fundamental poses at home and do them for a nice relaxing practice with music on. He is going to hold a mini-clinic on adjustments and philosophy for those interested in subbing for his classes so I am going since he is such an amazing teacher. Even if I don’t get to teach I will learn something from him. I always do.

Wednesday

So my regular class schedule now is Tuesday at 6:00 am and Saturday at 4:00 pm. Real prime time there, but my nice little am class has expanded and the people there have a nice energy going for them. The Saturday class should be busier in the winter, but it is the Saturday am and Sunday am and Sunday pm that are weekend prime time. Alex asked for some coverage for his Sunday pm class for the next month so I offered myself. Hope I get some of his classes. He also is looking for his Thursday at 6, at which I work the front desk, so I hope I get some of those too. The more people I can convert to the Joan way, the better feedback Marit will get and she will give me more classes. Alex is also looking for some substitutions for his Yin class and I expressed interest in that. No one else there teaches it and it is supereasy and I do it at home all the time, so maybe Marit will let me do that. I won’t even try to get his flow classes. Marit wants me to do an audition class, which is my project for teacher training, and I am not ready yet and we have a billion flow teachers so that is fine. Some day I will get to teach flow there.
Last night I did a Bikram class and was totally wiped out. I have a lot of stressful bs going on at work right now and that class is the only thing and the only place where I can totally burn it out. It was so hot in there last night, I almost didn’t make it. I like those kinds of classes. I sweat buckets and was dizzy and nauseous through the whole thing. I was wringing sweat out from my towel. I almost puked. Can’t wait to go back tonight for more.

MORE YOGA

Yesterday I went to Alex’s Intermediate Flow instead of Bikram. Sometimes I love his flow, but yesterday was not so great. He did some partner warm ups and my partner had really sweaty hands. I felt bad for her because she was so embarrassed, but the sweat smelled really bad so I had to leave class half way through and wash my hands and arms. It really grossed me out. I liked some of the class but the flow didn’t flow well for me yesterday.
I am teaching my own FYB class to John at home and yesterday was day 2. I have to build him up so slow so he is only doing about 7 poses and then in a couple of weeks I will add more. Plus I can do it with him and adjust him and teach him proper breathing so it is good FYB practice since he is such a beginner and is so tentative and fearful. He was doing workouts for about a year and got results and then just quit, so I need him doing something and hope yoga will help him. I will go slow since he is so whiney though about every ache and pain. He is so stiff and has hamstrings made of lead.
I taught the six am hot yoga class today and had a great class. There were some beginners in their and some of my experts but that class has a great energy. I don’t do adjustments very often because Marit doesn’t want that a lot with beginners unless they are doing something really wrong or harmful. Most of the time they are just trying to hard to be like the front row people and that is normal. It is a small class. Today there were nine people but they are pretty much morning people and bring a good energy. I let them hold the poses really long and they seem to like that.
Tonight I am going to Dar’s Bikram class after work. Dar was gone all summer and is still my favorite Bikram teacher there because I always learn something from her. Always. Every class.

MY FIRST ENTRY

This is my first journal entry out of yoga teacher training. It took me a week to get something going.
Teacher training was an intense and amazing experience. It took me a week to get back to "normal". I feel a renewed sense of myself however. I really had a lot of doubts about training and wondered if I would be a good teacher. But I am glad I did it. I don't get any satisfaction in my real career and now I feel there are options. I don't have to do something I hate forever.
I really want to give to students even some small iota of what I have received from my regular yoga practice.

We did practice a lot of yoga during training and I did improve my practice. Since I have been back, it is back to Bikrams for the most part but I will be tailoring my own classes for at home from what I learned at teacher training. Which was a whole lot. I learned that it isn't important to always push oneselves and people come to yoga with different needs than what I have, so when I walk in the door to class, I have to throw out the expectations from my own practice.

I learn so much from the students though. I taught four classes post training and I felt I had a lot more to give and the understanding and learning I got from yoga was worthwhile. I gained a lot of understanding and am anxious to continue on the path, wherever it leads.