Sunrise, Fort Lauderdale Beach

Florida sunrise, originally uploaded by NiceMarmot.

For all my complaining about the climate, etc., sometimes Fort Lauderdale can be unequivocally beautiful. This was often the scene when we got down on the beach at 7 AM for Sun Salutations and meditation.

Week 4 and Training Wrap-Up

You ask, you get--my journal/email from week 4 (July 17), adapted most especially for this marmotty space:

Well, I can't believe my teacher training is just about over. It went by so fast! I have really mixed feelings. I can't WAIT to get home, and I know some time to absorb everything I've learned, not to mention start TEACHING, is what I really need. But it's bittersweet to say goodbye to this community of wonderful friends and teachers. And I'm going to miss
taking yoga classes twice a day. Yes, folks--today contained my 43rd and 44th classes and I'm hungry for more!

This was an emotional week, some rough spots, but lots of bright ones, too. This week in clinic we taught several poses in series. I forgot a pose and when I realized it, I got really thrown off and didn't know how to start up again and...ran out of the room crying. Teaching in clinics had been going really smoothly for me before then, and I hadn't had any
emotional...stuff, going on, either. Lisa was leading clinic that day so she called a ten-minute break and kindly talked me through it. She told me among other things not to be so hard on myself and figured out I'm a Virgo. My inwardly-focused perfectionism IS that obvious. So I went back a few minutes later and knocked that series of poses out of the park, if I
do say so. It didn't hurt that before I went back to teach it, and after I did so, several of my fellow teachers-in-training came up and gave me hugs, reassurance, and positive feedback.

This last Friday, we did another Sacred Music yoga class led by Lisa. At one point, we did two sets of Bridge pose, followed by two sets of Wheel pose. I tried Wheel a long time ago, maybe two years, and didn't have the upper body strength to do it. So whenever it has come up during my teacher training, I don't try. I always tell myself "I have a weak upper body; I
can't do Wheel" and just do more sets of Bridge. The energy of this particular Sacred Music class, however, got me to truly examine that thought when it came up. And this time, I just told myself I could do it. I remembered something Jimmy had said and pictured myself having already done it. I really _wanted_ to do it, to open up my body that way. And
then: I did it, I pushed up into a full Wheel. I was so surprised and happy, I cried! (As you've probably figured out by this time--par for the course. I'd already cried in that class that day.) And then I almost shouted out "help!" because I had no idea how to get out of it once I had my body up in the air like that! I eventually flopped out of it completely ungracefully, and laughed. But I felt very powerful. Huzzah!

Tuesday, Mike arrives in the morning (early.) There will be one more yoga class, taught by Jimmy, of course, and then we'll have graduation at 12:30. Most people will hit the road, including my dear roommate Amanda, who is driving all the way back to Massachusetts over the next few days, where she'll immediately start house shopping! I want to give her a
massive shout-out--she has been a wonderful listener, a sympathetic instant friend, and she's driven me all over Fort Lauderdale to boot! Last night we had a "goodbye" dinner at this great Italian restaurant down
Ocean Drive and we compared notes--in 30 days of sharing a small hotel room, we haven't gotten sick of each other, and we haven't even gotten on each other's nerves, not even once. Quite a feat.) Mike and I will be in the hotel one more night and we'll fly home to Seattle Wednesday morning. I can't wait to escape the heat and humidity, and return to a sane land in
which one can RECYCLE and older males in Speedos and white tennis shoes are rarely seen on the sidewalks.

More importantly, I am SO excited to come back to my beloved yoga studio and TEACH A CLASS there a week from Thursday! (unless the owner has second thoughts after reading about my little breakdown up there in the second full paragraph. ;) ) I have a feeling I will teach a good class. And on the other side of the coin, as our teachers keep telling us, the training
is just beginning. Learning to teach will be an ongoing process, and I can't wait to put into practice what I've learned, and keep on learning. My students will be the best teachers!

Teaching!

Hello, my little chillens. I am back on the West Coast, which, you will note, rhymes with Best Coast. Low humidity. I'm just sayin'.

I am back at the office, too, working on an hourly basis. My boss is very, very cool, yo. He lets me take a 5-week hiatus. He lets me come back to work hourly and take time off as needed to teach yoga (or...whatev.) And work is a ten-minute walk from my beloved yoga studio, where I just taught my first of three Bikram classes between now and Aug. 15. Truly, I am blessed! Now frankly I'd like to be working at the office a little less and whipping up business cards and marketing myself to various yoga-friendly establishments a little MORE. But as the blues man says, I need some money.

So, this morning I taught my first yoga class since I've been back. I walked down to the studio and was a skoch late since I started talking to a guy who was out on the sidewalk practicing his golf swing. He's just visiting but I gave him information about the studio. His golf club back in Texas has Yoga for Golfers classes-ding ding ding!

The first challenge was getting the studio open. Since it's a small studio they don't keep it open all day, and I arrive a half-hour before to open it up and start up the heat. They just changed the code on the key safe so I spent ten minutes trying to get that open. Turns out I'd heard Camille wrong when she said the code. It was a V not a B! That was really the hardest part.

I taught the Bikram sequence, but the studio owner told me to teach the poses as I see fit, from the heart. Which is good. I felt very confident going into it. It was a small class--4 people--no beginners and all had been coming for at least two months. They were awesome! And even reminded me when I started to skip Standing Separate Leg Forehead to Knee. I, however, felt weak in the voice, and just couldn't find my words! Lots and lots for me to work on. I wasn't really NERVOUS except when I stumbled. Annoyingly, what came out of my mouth was often what I'd heard Camille say in her class yesterday, which is not what I authentically want to say. I'm going to study by saying the cues out loud, and I might even record myself and make myself a CD to listen to in the car, so I can really internalize the Barkan cues. They're there, they're just hiding in my brain, short-wired by the pressure of being up in front of the class. I couldn't help playing a little bit, and did a variation on Tuladandasana (Balancing Staff Pose,) second set. I also paced back and forth a LOT and never stood to the side or in front of the class. Sigh.

No feedback from the two women students, I got a smile and a "thank you, that was a good class" from the two men.

The second hardest part was walking home and thinking of all the things I COULD have said, how I'd like to plan and direct the energy of the class better with my voice. It's all uphill from here! Overall, I'm not being too self-critical. I know my training will continue to come out, and my students are great teachers. (When I was taking too much time getting them into the pose, it was pretty obvious, for example.)

I had a comment recently asking why I went all the way to Florida to train to be a yoga teacher. Good question! There are, of course, wonderful training programs here in Seattle, and other places closer to me. But I love hot yoga, it's what I love to practice, it healed my spine, it's what I have personally experienced and so that's what I wanted to teach initially. There are NOT a lot of hot yoga teacher training programs--the main one, of course, being Bikram's 9-week program in LA. I decided that wasn't a good choice for me. (I can go into why if anyone's interested.) I looked into one other, in Portland, CorePower, but their schedule is really oriented to those who live in Portland, and I just got a good feeling from the Barkan Method website and a previous graduate of the program. And, as you can hopefully see from previous posts, it was an incredible program! Definitely the right place for me. Oh, I miss it--I miss LEARNING and I miss practicing twice a day. (Don't miss South Fla, obv.)

Down the road, I plan to get more training, in Barkan Method Level II, which is Vinyasa, and possibly prenatal yoga. And I'll see where it goes from there. I hope I'll have lots more entries in the coming weeks as I find places to teach. I work every day on cultivating a positive intention for teaching yoga, and let that be my starting point.

Halfway through Week 3!

Sorry I have been so remiss about updating! Just now I have my hotel room and my roommate's laptop all to myself. Later this afternoon we're going to move to another room, higher up. Right now we're on the second floor and it's damp and many insect friends come to visit us. I'm sure there's mold in the room--having put my head into a fellow teacher-in-training's room on the ninth floor, I just know that this air is not healthy. That's what came into my head, like I'm an air-quality detector: "THIS AIR IS HEALTHY; THE AIR IN MY ROOM IS NOT."

But I digress from the point!

Second week just flew by and since the third week is half-done, I guess this week is, too! We have taught lots more poses, in a mock teaching situation with three "students" and critiques from our teacher (usually Jimmy but occasionally Lisa.) Everyone seems to be loosening up with this now, letting their authentic selves out, and getting more energy into their teaching. I am more comfortable doing this now, it's fun.

My own practices has had ups and downs--I pulled a back muscle so I was and still am taking it easy. But before that, I finally straightened one of my legs in Standing Head to Knee--a first for me! I was so excited, and of course I haven't been able to accomplish it since. When I did it, I wasn't TRYING to do it, I was just focusing on practicing the pose. So the advancement came effortlessly. That's the trick--effortless effort. Sort of a koan!

Emotionally I've been doing well. Last week I was really missing my husband and so last weekend he flew across the whole damned country to visit me for two days! It was so nice to see him. We didn't do much--didn't even get down to the beach, it was raining almost all day on Sunday!--but we had a great time, and now I can make it to the end (he's flying out for graduation, too--FF miles!) without being too much of a mopey pants.

I got my hair cut Saturday. It had been one month since my last cut and my gigantic brown fro was driving me NUTS. It's now pretty short--different than the way Genius Jessica cuts it, but pretty good. And most importantly: SHORT.

I will definitely keep practicing at my beloved studio when I get back, but I have dreams of converting half our garage into a practice space. I would move out the crap, put down a carpet remnant, get rid of cobwebs, probably paint and spray some canned insulation into key insect party areas, and most importantly buy a gigantic space heater. I have heard, and firmly believe myself, that as a teacher I need an independent practice. Teaching takes a lot out of you; a solo practice can "fill the well."

Yesterday we had a half-day off. I laid around, watched several episodes of "Monk," and ate over half of a pint of Ben & JErry's Phish Food ice cream. And didn't drink much water. So this morning I had to rest out the last 90% of class. I was dizzy and just didn't have any "juice" in the tank! So I have vowed not to have refined sugar the rest of my training. I knew it was a bad thing for my practice. I just had a salad, some cold cereal, and blueberries for lunch. I will now sign off so I can have a little something more, and start on a liter of electrolyte-enhanced water before our afternoon clinics. It's Standing Separate Leg Forehead to Knee this afternoon, or should I say Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirsasana!

Hope you are well!

Halfway through Week 3!

Sorry I have been so remiss about updating! Just now I have my hotel room and my roommate's laptop all to myself. Later this afternoon we're going to move to another room, higher up. Right now we're on the second floor and it's damp and many insect friends come to visit us. I'm sure there's mold in the room--having put my head into a fellow teacher-in-training's room on the ninth floor, I just know that this air is not healthy. That's what came into my head, like I'm an air-quality detector: "THIS AIR IS HEALTHY; THE AIR IN MY ROOM IS NOT."

But I digress from the point!

Second week just flew by and since the third week is half-done, I guess this week is, too! We have taught lots more poses, in a mock teaching situation with three "students" and critiques from our teacher (usually Jimmy but occasionally Lisa.) Everyone seems to be loosening up with this now, letting their authentic selves out, and getting more energy into their teaching. I am more comfortable doing this now, it's fun.

My own practices has had ups and downs--I pulled a back muscle so I was and still am taking it easy. But before that, I finally straightened one of my legs in Standing Head to Knee--a first for me! I was so excited, and of course I haven't been able to accomplish it since. When I did it, I wasn't TRYING to do it, I was just focusing on practicing the pose. So the advancement came effortlessly. That's the trick--effortless effort. Sort of a koan!

Emotionally I've been doing well. Last week I was really missing my husband and so last weekend he flew across the whole damned country to visit me for two days! It was so nice to see him. We didn't do much--didn't even get down to the beach, it was raining almost all day on Sunday!--but we had a great time, and now I can make it to the end (he's flying out for graduation, too--FF miles!) without being too much of a mopey pants.

I got my hair cut Saturday. It had been one month since my last cut and my gigantic brown fro was driving me NUTS. It's now pretty short--different than the way Genius Jessica cuts it, but pretty good. And most importantly: SHORT.

I will definitely keep practicing at my beloved studio when I get back, but I have dreams of converting half our garage into a practice space. I would move out the crap, put down a carpet remnant, get rid of cobwebs, probably paint and spray some canned insulation into key insect party areas, and most importantly buy a gigantic space heater. I have heard, and firmly believe myself, that as a teacher I need an independent practice. Teaching takes a lot out of you; a solo practice can "fill the well."

Yesterday we had a half-day off. I laid around, watched several episodes of "Monk," and ate over half of a pint of Ben & JErry's Phish Food ice cream. And didn't drink much water. So this morning I had to rest out the last 90% of class. I was dizzy and just didn't have any "juice" in the tank! So I have vowed not to have refined sugar the rest of my training. I knew it was a bad thing for my practice. I just had a salad, some cold cereal, and blueberries for lunch. I will now sign off so I can have a little something more, and start on a liter of electrolyte-enhanced water before our afternoon clinics. It's Standing Separate Leg Forehead to Knee this afternoon, or should I say Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirsasana!

Hope you are well!