Yoga Monday

Please take a look at my other blog, Complexity Simplified, for today's post, "The Importance of Daily Practice." Namaste!

Let it Be

[Note: This post has been cross-posted to my other blog, Complexity Simplified, as part of the Yoga Monday series]

It is snowing. Again. I took this photo about ten minutes ago, and the flakes are still coming down. The weather service says this will continue for several more hours.

It's about 18 degrees Fahrenheit out there, and expected to drop even further, to around 8 degrees by tomorrow morning. The federal government, my area's largest employer, is closed, as are all the county offices and school districts.

Even the bus system has shut down. All of these events have transformed my neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, just three miles outside of Washington, DC, into an oasis of utter quiet. No buses trundling by on Lee Highway, a half block away from my house. No cars. No sounds outside at all, except the bluster of the wind as it rattles my windows every few moments.

I could rail against this, point out that we've had just about enough winter already, thank you very much. Or I could dismiss it, the way many of us who have been transplanted to Washington DC react to the inevitable freakout that accompanies every flake that hits the area, saying it's just a little snow and people here don't know what real snow is, not the kind of snow we had back in Idaho and Montana and North Dakota.

Or I could notice how quiet it is. I could notice how relaxed I am, how peaceful it feels in my house, how tasty that lunch was that I just made for myself. Tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich! What could be better? I could notice that the snow is clean and white and beautiful, as snow always is. I could notice that our heat is working because our power is still on. I could notice that I am grateful for this, and for all of these things.

I could also notice that it is snowing whether I want it to snow or not. I could notice that nothing I say or do or feel will change the fact that, today, it is snowing. Again. This is today's truth.

In yoga, we have a set of ethical principles, the yamas and the niyamas, which appear in the yoga sutras as guides to our practice. Among the yamas, which are the "external disciplines," we find satya, which means truthfulness. When we practice satya, we focus on that which is true, that which is--not that which we would like or wish to be, but that which actually exists.

When we apply satya to our asana practice, we are truthful with ourselves about just how far we can stretch those hamstrings or bend that back. We don't pretend that we can stretch farther than we can or bend more than we ought. If we do, we are being untrue, to ourselves, as well as to the practice.

When we apply satya to our lives, we are truthful about everything--we accept the truth of our past and our present, we accept the truth of who we are, and who we are not. And we especially accept the truth of things we cannot control, like the weather.

Among the niyamas, those "internal disciplines" that guide our yoga practice, we find santosa, which means contentment. A verse in the yoga sutras says, about santosa, "Contentment brings unsurpassed joy."

And, thus, we arrive at the essential lesson of these two yogic principles: by letting go of our attachment to the way things ought to be, and accepting the truth of the way things actually are, we will find joy.

It is snowing. Let it be.

The Journey Continues

When I started this blog, about three and a half years ago, I had just begun a 200 hour yoga teacher training program at Sun & Moon Yoga Studio in northern Virginia, and wanted a log to record and reflect on my journey towards becoming a teacher. Now, over three years later, I have taken another major step in this journey by enrolling in a second teacher training program, also at Sun & Moon, that will (hopefully) one day lead to a 500-hour certification.

In some ways, I find it hard to believe that I have already been teaching for almost three years, but it's true: my first class was offered in late March of 2011, and I have been teaching more or less continuously since then. It was only yesterday, when I attended my first teacher training session of this new program, that I began to see how much I've grown and learned in these three years of teaching -- and how much I still have to learn.

Some of my instructors in the teacher training program joke that even though they finished the 500-hour or 700-hour certification some time ago, they are currently embarked on the 5000-hour or 7000-hour training program. It's a good point, since there always seems to be more one can learn, and you're never really "done" with your training. No matter how much we teach, we will always be yoga students.

In other news, I am now offering an "All-Levels" yoga class at the Sun & Moon Arlington studio at 11am on Friday mornings. Drop-ins are welcome! You can find more info about the class here.

Namaste!

Why Yoga?

A couple of days ago, I offered a free Introduction to Yoga class in order to provide an opportunity for all those folks whose new year's resolution list includes "Take up yoga!" As expected for the first week of January, there was a great turnout, so many people, in fact, that we ran out of props for the first time ever. I'm offering this class again on January 18 (more info here) so if you are in the area, please consider attending!

The folks who attended this special class had a wide range of experiences with yoga, including several who had never tried it, but also more than a few who had years of experience. Some were looking for a new teacher or, in a couple of cases, were just in town for the holidays and away from their regular class, so dropping in for a visit. It was an interesting mix of people and I enjoyed talking to the new folks about what brought them to the study of yoga.

It is often the case that the issue that brings us to yoga is not the one that keeps us there. In my own case, I was gradually introduced to the practice through the efforts of a couple of fitness instructors who were, themselves, taking yoga lessons and trying the moves out during the stretching sessions at the end of class. I liked those parts of their classes a lot and tried out an actual yoga class, a free "Intro to Yoga" session offered by the local hospital. I liked it a lot, too, but didn't think I had time to add another "work-out routine" to my already busy schedule.

Even though I was not yet 40, I had a lot of aches and pains, particularly in my low back, and  I finally consulted a chiropractor who advised doing what I recognized as a move that we had practiced in that intro class--a simple reclining twist. A light bulb went off. I realized that yoga was more than just another form of exercise. Here was a method that might actually make me feel better.

And, so, I sought out a teacher, which wasn't easy in those days and in that place (the late 1980s in Indianapolis) but I found her and commenced upon the more organized portion of my yoga journey. It was to be many years before my study and practice helped me to fully deal with my lower back pain, but I quickly learned that yoga made me feel better in many ways--not just physically, but emotionally and, even, spiritually. 

If you practice yoga, what brought you to the practice? If you've practiced for awhile, have your reasons changed? I would be interested in hearing your story!

Namaste.

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This post is being cross-posted to my other blog, Complexity Simplified, as the first installment of the new Yoga Monday series. Additional posts were appear on the first Monday of each month. Watch for them!

A New Beginning

I started this blog over two years ago, to chronicle my journey toward becoming a yoga teacher, a goal I achieved within a year. It was quite the journey and I had a lot to write about all through the process. I thought I would keep the blog going even after I began teaching, since I still had many thoughts about yoga to share with others. 

So, I kept posting through those early weeks and months of launching my first classes, preparing lesson plans, learning how to teach by teaching, etc. And although I thought I would keep going, since I had much to say, soon the reality of juggling a lot of new responsibilities along with the old ones left me with little time to write and even less inspiration.

It didn't seem that readers would be much interested in all the stuff I was thinking about, stuff like where can I buy high quality yoga equipment for a low price? How do I find an adequate space to rent for my classes, a space with no furniture, a quiet atmosphere and a cheap price? How do I recruit students and advertize my classes? Do I need to buy insurance and, if so, where do I find it? And while we're on that subject, do I need a business license? And where do I get one of those, anyway?

I had a lot on my mind, and it was fun to figure it out, but I really didn't think anybody would be very much interested in what I was going through to launch my new yoga teaching business. On the other hand, maybe they would be interested. And, then, just as I thought I might begin to blog about what it takes to start a yoga teaching business, I suddenly had classes to teach, sometimes as many as four or five classes a week. 

Oh, and did I mention this was my part-time job? My full-time job was supposed to be "writer," but I soon found that the writing took a back seat to a class of students waiting for me to show up and lead them through a yoga routine. Blogging is one aspect of my writing life, and it was the first to go. Before the rest of my writing life went, I finally came to my senses and cut back on my class offerings. And, miracle of miracles, my writing life came back! It's funny how clearing a space for the future, as Alexandra Stoddard says, can be the key step in bringing that future into the present.

It's now well over a year since I last posted to this blog, but I've been thinking about it a lot. When I noticed that I was composing blog posts in my head but never typing them up (since I felt the blog no longer existed) I woke up and realized that maybe I wanted to try to restart this blog.

So, here we go! I've started by changing the blog description. See that box over to the right labeled 'Welcome'? It now has new words in it. And I've been having a great time today making a list of all the topics I would love to write about here. And now, look, I've actually written the first new post!

Join me as I continue to write about my life in yoga. Something tells me I still have a lot to say.

Namaste  

Lazy Days of Summer? Not!

It's hard to believe, but my first session of classes is drawing to a close tomorrow. After completing my certification requirements about three weeks ago, my teaching activities really took off. 

I have been teaching at least two classes a week, sometimes three or four per week, sometimes even more than once per day. Yesterday, for example, I did yoga four times. Four times! If you had told me, a year ago, that I would even be able to do that, much less want to do it, I would have said you were crazy.

A couple of weeks ago, I even got up at 4am to teach a 6am class in a nearby town. I amazed even myself (I am nowhere near a morning person) with that one. Even more incredible, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to take on more of those 6am classes in August, all for the chance to teach more yoga.

So, even though the song claims that these summer days are "lazy, hazy and crazy," they haven't been particularly lazy for me. Crazy? Yes, probably, but I'm not complaining! I'm teaching yoga and I'm loving it -- pure and simple. 

Namaste

I Made It!

 

The above image is probably self-explanatory, but in case you need an explanation: I've completed all my training requirements, passed the exam with flying colors, and am now officially a yoga teacher! 

I've submitted my credentials to Yoga Alliance (YA) and once my materials work their way through the YA office, I'll be listed in the YA Directory of yoga teachers at what they call the RYT-200 level, which means "Registered Yoga Teacher with 200 hours of training."

Needless to say, I am very happy. And all I have to add for now is this: WOOT!

Oh, and Namaste.  :)

Just About There....

I'm almost finished! I've completed my individual project, finished my required observation hours, attended all the training sessions and am working diligently on the take-home final, which I hope to turn in early next week. 

I decided that the most appropriate way to celebrate becoming a certified yoga instructor is to teach yoga! So, that's what I'm doing and am offering a short series of classes during the month of July. I've created a flier (see below!), set up my new yoga website and am already registering students.

Although this blog was set up to chronicle my journey toward becoming a certified yoga instructor, I don't seem to want to stop now that I'm nearly there. There's so much more to write about, so I intend to continue posting for awhile. Maybe for a long while!

Namaste

The End is Near!

Erich Schiffman. Photo: Christie Zepeda

In the last month, our yoga teacher training group events have included two weekend intensives, each of which ran from Friday evening through Sunday evening, plus one other amazing weekend workshop with master teacher Erich Schiffmann. 

Our final weekend intensive included a team-taught class that our group offered to the public, a very rewarding and exciting experience. I was so proud of each of my fellow teacher trainees -- and so proud of us and what we had accomplished in these last ten months.

On top of these group activities, I gave a Kirtan demo to my fellow teacher trainees, spent an average of ten hours a week observing experienced teachers, began to write up my project, which was the organization and launch of the Kirtan circle at the Sun & Moon studio, and started to get my handouts and books in order in preparation for the written final exam.

So, needless to say (!) I have been a little busy and have not had much time for blogging. The end of this 200-hour training has arrived so quickly, it seems, and it's hard to believe that we are almost done. Once I complete the final exam, which could be as early as the first of July, I will be a certified yoga instructor, which is even harder to believe.

And now, I'm heading back to the books. I have a paper to finish writing, a few more chapters to read in the yoga sutra book, a bit of anatomy to study, some sanskrit to practice, and on and on. I am beginning to realize, if I didn't know it before (and I did!) that yoga practice and study is a lifelong process that doesn't end when one finishes the 200-hour training.

Post-Kirtan joy! Photo: Ruth Ann Lowery

Nevertheless, I will be very happy to pass through these final checkpoints and will be very grateful when my certification is completed. It has been a lot of work, but never tedious - the work was challenging, but joyful, difficult, but gratifying, sometimes bewildering, but blessedly also enlightening. Oh, and it's been a lot of fun, too!


Namaste

PS: Big thanks to my fellow yogis, Ruth Ann and Christie! Both are fabulous photographers and graciously shared numerous photos, including these two, which they took during our weekend intensives.

April is YIOM

I've just learned that April has been designated as YIOM, or Yogis Inspiring Oneness Month, a project designed to encourage quality blog posts about yoga. The blog posts can be tracked on Twitter using the #YIOM hashtag.

The idea is to help elevate awareness of yoga beyond its popular image as only a fitness regimen. Yoga is, of course, a good fitness regimen, but it is so much more as Lorin, aka @TheVeganAsana on Twitter, who created the YIOM event has said.

And the project is very timely, since April is also the month I have decided to devote to practicing my newborn teaching skills. As such, yoga is very much on my mind these days. Today I hosted my first group of students at my home for a free yoga class. I decided to not charge for lessons or classes until I have more teaching experience, so had already designated April as "free yoga month." I am happy to add the YIOM definition for the month of April, and to let the project inspire me to write more blog posts!

This was actually my second yoga teaching experience, but unlike the first one where I found myself deviating strongly from my planned routine, I actually stuck to my notes this time. I had three students, all with different issues, so I found I couldn't tailor the poses for a particular issue the way I did when I was giving a private lesson.

Just as with my first student, though, I found that I absolutely, totally loved the experience of leading people through a yoga practice. I especially loved teaching the students who had little or no experience with yoga, and it was extremely gratifying to hear exclamations of "Oh! I see!" after I had brought their attention to a specific body part or position. I could literally hear the enhanced awareness of their bodies settling in, and it was a wonderful sound.

We did a full, normal yoga class, complete with Savasana and Namaste at the end, and I also loved watching them relax into Savasana, letting go of the stress and worries of the day as the thunder from an April rain shower rumbled overhead outside. I taught them that "Namaste" means "The divine in me bows to the divine in you," and as I bowed to them, I really meant it: I felt great gratitude for these divine souls who had allowed me to share my practice with them today. 

And, yes, we were sweating a bit by the end of class, and I'm sure their hips and thighs are going to feel the effects of Warrior II and side angle bend tomorrow, so they definitely got a work-out. But I also know that they received one of the most important gifts of a yoga practice: the ability and opportunity to let go, if only for a few minutes as in Savasana, and just be. 

Namaste

And So It Begins

Last week, I taught my first yoga lesson outside of the practice runs we've done in our training program. I have a number of friends who have expressed an interest in yoga and who have either stressful jobs, an athletic lifestyle that includes long-distance running and biking, or both. In other words, people who really need yoga!

I asked one of my friends who fit both categories if she would be willing to be my first guinea pig. I prepared my lesson plan and practiced it a couple of times before arriving at her house, loaded down with equipment. 

We got started and by the second pose, I had completely deviated from my notes. I didn't really plan to stray from my plans, but after asking about her physical situation, I realized she would benefit more from poses other than the ones I had planned to focus on.

So, I threw my notes aside and just went with the flow. And it was great! I very much enjoyed being able to give personal, individualized attention but I also enjoyed creating a space where she was able to learn and get what she needed that day.

I enjoyed last week's session so much that I'm planning to try it again, with other friends or even small groups. I guess I always expected there to be a sharp demarcation between being a teacher-trainee and being a teacher, but I feel like I've somehow passed over that imagined boundary and started teaching without even really planning to.

Tonight I am attending a practice teaching session with other fellow teacher trainees, some of whom have also begun trying out their new teaching skills on friends and neighbors. I'm eager to hear what their experience was like and to share my own as we walk together along the path toward becoming full-fledged yoga teachers.

The Courage to Teach

Yesterday, I began the apprenticeship portion of yoga teacher training by sitting in, along with several of my fellow teacher-trainees, on a beginner-level yoga class. I sat up along the wall, by the door, scribbling copious notes into my notebook, relieved that I had two fellow trainees to sit there with me. I took a lot of notes and tried to be inconspicuous and I was further relieved when the students in the class began, one by one, to close their eyes and turn inward to follow their own process. Very quickly it seemed that they forgot we were even there--which was just fine with me!

I had been quite nervous about apprenticing, counting down the days until we started, and the uneasiness surprised me very much. There have been a number of things about this training program that have generated a case of the jitters for me, but coming into a class of beginners to be introduced as one who was actually deliberating seeking to teach yoga really threw me for a loop. 

Why would this particular part of the training program be so nerve-wracking? I asked myself this question a number of times. After all, I was a teacher for over two decades (in one of my previous lives, and about a subject that is very different from yoga: chemistry!) so I can envision myself as a teacher. I assumed, at first, that the nervousness was about the usual sense of not being quite as athletically-accomplished as I used to think a yoga teacher must be.

This is part of it, and the thought of having to demonstrate a pose in front of a group can easily account for at least some of the fear. I also remember, though, that there was a great deal of fear involved in teaching chemistry--and not only for the students, many of whom are afraid of the subject, worried about their grades, fearful of the math they often felt they didn't understand, and on and on. Fear runs both ways in the classroom: teachers are often quite fearful and this fear can amplify the student's fears. 

I was no different than most teachers and always felt nervous and, yes, afraid on the first day of class. I never got over the first-day jitters when I was teaching chemistry, even though I was very confident about my knowledge of the material. Those first-day jitters became every-day jitters whenever I taught one of the large lecture courses. It's scary to walk to the front of a room filled with two, three or four hundred people, especially people who mostly don't want to be there and who sometimes see you as a barrier between themselves and where they want to be (like medical school!)

So, thinking about being a yoga teacher has reminded me of what it means to be a teacher, period, and I realize that I am continuing a process begun long ago when I first began exploring what Parker Palmer calls the "inner landscape of a teacher's life." This is a phrase from Parker's wonderful book The Courage to Teach, and I benefited greatly both from the book and from Parker himself as he led me and hundreds of other teachers through workshops and retreats designed to help us find the courage to teach and keep teaching.

Now, as I look through this book, which I have not opened for at least ten years, I see so many things that seem they might have at least a little to do with how a Chemistry professor could start in the lab and lecture hall and end up on a yoga mat. Parker says, "Teaching holds a mirror to the soul," and "Knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject." Ideas like these encouraged me to consider the possibility that knowing myself better, such as through the practice of yoga, was good not only for me but for my students. It's probably no accident that I began the study of yoga about the time I first encountered Parker and his ideas.

Parker's ideas were always quite unique among those I engaged with in academia and I was thrilled to recently learn that he is continuing his work at the Center for Courage and Renewal. The programs at the center are mostly aimed at classroom teachers for academic subjects, since there is so little support in the academy for the idea that "knowing oneself" can have anything to do with good teaching. Most yoga teachers would never question this truth, but until I opened up Parker's book this week, I had managed to suppress the memory that it was, and is, a completely foreign idea in most universities and colleges.

Parker writes a lot, and eloquently, about the academic bias that says "objective facts are regarded as pure, while subjective feelings are suspect and sullied." This is true in all academic subjects, but is nearly an article of faith in the physical sciences, which was my subject. As Parker has observed, in this type of culture, the self is not the source within but, somehow, dangerous and truth-obscuring. In this culture, subjective feelings are not a potential source of guidance but obstacles to be overcome. In this culture, the truth is "out there," while "in here" all we can hope to find are our muddled, confused thoughts--which, of course, we need a teacher to help us sort through.

So, I think I will read some more of Parker's book, remembering just how much courage it took to teach science for so many decades, and just how it was that I tried to stay true to the principle of "know thyself" that he taught to us--and, what a privilege it is going to be to be a teacher again. 

Namaste