Hi there yogis!

As you can probably tell from my last (and first!) post, I started teacher training yesterday.  We did not do very much, since it was only the first day, but I am now even happier that I signed up.  I won’t go into the details of the class, but there were a few things that really stuck out to me…

There were 17  people in the class of all ages, shapes, and backgrounds.  We started out by (not surprisingly) going around the room and saying why we were there.  You know – not a single person answered, “I hate my job and want to teach yoga instead”.  That would be the simple answer, wouldn’t it?  On the surface, it may even be somewhat true. Yoga certainly seems less stressful than my 9-5.  There were only two real answers, spoken in 17 different ways:

• I need to do this for myself because of the way I feel when I am practicing and it helps me cope with the stresses of my “real” life
• I love the way I feel when practicing and want to make others feel that wonderful as well

Isn’t it amazing how one discipline can draw so many unique followers who all have similar amazing experiences of it? The quality of yoga that allows it to transcend age, race, religion, background is fascinating to me.  How many things on this earth are so universal that so many different types of people fall in love with them?  Other than cheese, of course.

I must admit, despite my excitement about the course (both the immersion in yogic theory/practice and the fact that I can legitimately teach yoga afterwards), I heard “practice teaching” and got an immediate knot in my stomach.

Yes, I knew that this was happening.

Yes I understand that it is a requirement and thus, I cannot wiggle my way out of it.

I will still freak out. (And if you bother me about it, I will bird of paradise you right in the face.)

I did this with my mock bid defense at work, too.  This is a terrifying session in which you receive some fake drug trial information a week before your mock bid defense, and you have to prepare a presentation on why the fake pharmaceutical company (aka your peers and bosses) should pick you (my company) to run their drug trial.  Nausea-inducing terror.  No joke.  And I am considerably less experienced at teaching yoga right now than I am trying to convince people that my company is the bomb.  The yoga practice teaching hours have to be done in front of our teacher as well…

Mild sigh of relief,  Krista Basis is an amazing teacher.  With just a simple exercise where everyone gave a little bit, she instilled at least the first little nugget of confidence that I might actually be able to do this.  Even if I cannot, I will still have the practice to fall back on and calm my nerves.

Namaste.