Tag Archive | Teacher education

Feast from crumbs

Jan10

Today in Teacher Training we started talking a bit about the sutras.  These are the practical instructions for how yoga (all eight limbs of yoga, rather than just the asanas, or postures) should be practiced.  Right off the bat, this appealed to me.  I was pretty sure that this book with all the Sanskrit in it was going to be all philosophy with no real practical application, as much of philosophy is.

I am going to digress for a second here to give you a little bit of historical information about me – I hate philsophy.  So very much.  I had to take it in college and I am actually pretty surprised I did not fail.  I had to write every paper with my finger constantly on the delete key because of how often I wrote variations on “Who the eff cares?!?!?”  I think (hope) I ended up deleting all of those…

Aaaaanyway, the discussion began with the assistant talking about how her sutra book was her constant companion. Anytime she needs guidance or is feeling down, she opens the book and reads whatever it opens to.  Like people say happens with the Bible, the passage she happens upon somehow always has some implication for her life. Oddly enough, the same kind of thing happened to me with one of our assigned sutras tonight.  One of them discusses the belief that the way we see the world colors our entire perception of the world.  Duh, you say.  Of course our own personal thoughts and beliefs affect how we see the world.

However, we do not always think about the fact that we can change our perception of the world at any time.  You think nothing is going your way?  You have no luck with relationships?   You feel gross today because your butt looks fat in those pants and your shirt clings in all the wrong places and you are bloated and your hair is greasy and you have 16 pimples on your face and you have a black eye and your camel spit on your white shirt you on your way to work and then you fell in a pile of hippopotamus poop.  Ew. I know it is hard (and in some cases nearly impossible) to change one’s own perception of things, but it is the only way for anyone to truly be happy.  Just let go of your judgments and make the best of what you have.  It can’t help but seem at least a fraction better.  With the short amount of time we have on this earth, wouldn’t you want to make it as pleasant as possible?  Kris Allen (or the dudes who write his songs) said it well -  Our hearts are hungry for a food that won’t come / And we could make a feast from these crumbs.

Love yourself, love your neighbors, namaste.

It begins

Jan4

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.