Check-In

Assisted yesterday at the early-morning Intro. Finally achieved adequate sleep beforehand. Led Sun Salutes A at the beginning. Afterward was (gently, constructively) informed by the teacher that they teach them slightly differently at Samarya. (I had remembered them wrong.) To the yoga newbie, it is probably not a huge deal, but considering I've been teaching them "my" way once a week the past year, this will require a huge brain change. (I've been combining two moves into one inhale, when the first should be an exhale, and the next its own inhale...) My ability to make this change clearly and *effectively* in my pregnant mommy brain is... doubtful. But actually it makes more logical sense the Samarya way.

Taught yesterday afternoon at the office, in the newly finished GIGANTIC space. I emphasized shoulders (always appreciated by office workers, in my experience,) and ended Savasana by chanting. The new room has excellent reverberating acoustics! Need to get more blocks and straps to bring along, and always wish I were teaching in a studio with a giant stack of blankets and bolsters. (Wow, that is SO NOT a hot yoga thing, with the props...)

This morning took class from Tracy at 8 Limbs Phinney Ridge, while Cameron did his scream-run act in the childcare room next door. YAY for us both! I really like Tracy's classes. When she asked us to do one more backbend of our choice, I chose Wheel Pose/Upward Bow Pose (Chakrasana/Urdhva Danurasana.) I wasn't sure I could do it unassisted at six months pregnant, after all the shoulder and bicep work we'd just done in that class, but I did! And ooo did it feel good. Oddly enough, Tracy offered to take a picture of me in the pose "to show your baby later." So I had to do it a second time-- a little shakier, but achieved lift-off. :)

This afternoon I'll lead the warm-up sequence at Samarya Center's prenatal class. It will be the first time I've taught pregnant ladies. Besides "teaching" my pregnant self, that is.

I think that's enough yoga for one forty-eight hour period! Or at least enough yoga blah blah for one post...

In which I confirm, once again, that I am in the right line of work.

Started giving adjustments in this morning's Intro to Ashtanga class. I felt so radiant and energized and grateful when I left! And I didn't teach the yoga or do any yoga poses myself... just soaked up the yoga vibe! Yoga just SMELLS awesome.

Walked around Green Lake, after waiting around for a sock vendor (Super Jock'n'Jill) to open. Then they gave me free shoelaces. Just because I asked. Had so much fun playing with my son on the playground, and we got to watch a FRONT LOADER TRACTOR scoop GRAVEL and dump it in a TRAILER being pulled by ANOTHER TRACTOR!!! The best entertainment at two years old is totally free. Last night we spent twenty minutes watching a forklift unload a truck at the hardware store. He was riveted.

Tonight taught my last Tuesday night hot yoga double downtown. Perhaps best that this was the last of the doubles...afterward I tried to put my shoes on before my pants, and then came close to flushing the toilet before using it. Clearly a bit befuddled... but I got through with plenty of Zico! It was a big class, and thus extremely humid. I love watching people walk into the studio all stressy and come out so relaxed.

I like taking walks (before) the rain. But no pina coladas.

Due to the fact that it's winter in Seattle, and the fact I'm a combination of very busy and sort of lazy, I hadn't gone for a real walk in almost a month. A "real walk" for me is over a mile. So Thursday after observing that early yoga class and picking up my Bubba from the husband's office, I thought hey! We're out! So I decided to walk around Green Lake, stroller-style, before The Rains descended.

Overall the walk was a good idea--I had so much energy all day! And it felt good, mostly. Plus exercise is good. One does need something beyond yoga once in a while. But at first, my hips/pelvis were killing me. And then I stopped for a pee and that pain went away and then my belly started hurting... but not in a bad way, really. I think I will try to go for a long walk every other day.

Tonight I assisted at the prenatal class again and there were three babies. I decided to do some of the poses, and ahhhh. That was nice.

BTW it turns out The Rains really freaking descended. It poured all day yesterday, starting in the morning, all night last night, I believe, and then all day today, except a 1-2 hour break in the afternoon. I know I live in Seattle, and it is absurd for me to note how much it rains, but. Dude. Let up already.

What's the O for? O my god it's early!

Today was the first day of the Intro to Ashtanga series in which I am observing and assisting at the Samarya Center. The class is twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for six weeks, at 7 AM. That's 0700 hours. Early!

Again, the class is a pleasure. More lecture than movement in this very first class, which is wise for those new to yoga. Logistically it will be challenging until I get in a groove of getting in bed at 9:30 or 10:00 and getting up each morning at 6:00. However, Tuesday evenings I teach a double and don't get out of the second class until 8:00 pm, and usually don't leave the studio until 8:15. Tonight I was wiped out afterward, moved about my business leaving the studio at the pace of a snail, and had a snafu at the parking garage kiosk, so I wasn't on the road until 8:40. Now the shower, the dinner (finally...) You see where this is going. And it ain't no 9:30 pm (look at the post time!) It is going somewhere very tired....So now I am feeling grateful that next week is the last time (for months, anyway) that I will teach these back-to-back Tuesday night classes!

My two hot yoga classes this evening went well, but the second one (90 min) felt really hot and I got tired. I kept walking to the end of the room to check the clock, forgetting why I'd gone to that end of the room, and then wandering back and wondering what time it was. Again: probably better I'm leaving the double behind for now. I will miss my students in the 6:30, though, and will miss the pace of the 90-min series. In case you wonder if your teacher misses you in class if you usually come to a particular day and time... I do! (Jamie, this means you... hope you're OK!)

Before the first class I taught tonight, a student said, "I really need this tonight... I need you!" Pretty sweet.

The Samarya Center and Why It Rocks

When I'm in my Samarya teaching groove (as opposed to my hot yoga teaching groove), I have a hard time verbalizing my frame of mind, but I think of it vaguely as being less rigid and more loosy-goosy. I love hot yoga, but us high-achieving perfectionistic types, we like our hard-and-fast rules of alignment and this is RIGHT and this is WRONG. Hot yoga plays right into this. For my particular set of thought patterns, the attention to alignment in hot yoga (especially the endless working toward an "ideal") tends to strengthen threads of my personality that do not need to be strengthened---themes that at best hinder my growth and at worst are downright self-destructive. That sounds a bit dramatic, now that I've written it out. It's not all that terrible, just a gradual effect I've noticed over time, especially when contrasted with the way I think while under the influence of Samarya.

Samarya Center's core teaching is:

The student is perfect and whole exactly as they are.

For example, you do not "fix" the student, and you do not "correct" their pose, although of course you might make an adjustment if it looks they're persisting in doing something that's causing pain or could cause injury. But for the most parts, adjustments at Samarya are AAAAH!-djustments. They are meant to feel good.

While in the Samarya community (note: Samarya is Sanskrit for community!) I've heard alignment questions frequently answered with something along the lines of: "I don't know, how does it feel when you do the pose that way?" At first, this really threw me. (NOTE: I only went to two classes at Samarya before going to teacher training. I could smell what they were cooking, and it is good.) Confronted with this new approach to alignment, my black-and-white rule-loving side was freaking out and floundering for the side of the pool, sputtering "but but but I need to know when I'm wrong so I can properly engage in silent, violent fits of self-criticism and blame at the appropriate times!" After the first several days of Samarya training, naturally I started looking at this and questioning the validity of said fits...

Cut to about six weeks after the Samarya training intensive, back in Fort Lauderdale for my annual two-day visit with Jimmy Barkan. Now I love Jimmy, but in the middle of a class full of trainees, we're in Standing Bow (which is similar to Dancer) and he breaks class to ask, "OK, what's wrong with Lindsay?" And I almost had to clap a hand over my mouth not to blurt out, "Nothing! She's perfect and whole exactly as she is!" Of course what he's going for is what could be "better" about her "alignment," and he has a huge heart, and absolutely wants nothing but the best for this woman and all his teacher trainees, but Samarya has made me more sensitive to what, for lack of a better term, we called "languaging" in training.

In case you're wondering why I'm getting up early and observing and assisting all these classes: Getting the 200-hr YA-approved training in at Samarya means I can loosen or cut ties with my hot yoga mothership, and that's OK for several reasons, chief among them that my heart doesn't really lie in figuring out what's "wrong" with a yoga practitioner's pose.

I'm not going to turn my back completely on hot yoga, though. Still love it. I've been trying to teach more original-sequence and/or Vinyasa classes lately, and inwardly belly-aching that I'm still mostly teaching hot, which is the same sequence every class. And that can get boring. But I recently had the thought: I don't teach yoga just for my personal fulfillment or to keep my mind challenged and occupied. I serve others. It was basically my whole motivation for going after this vocation in the first place. If doing that means teaching more hot yoga for now, I'll take it! And from the limited feedback I've been getting, many students are receiving some benefit in my classes, so who am I to quibble with that?

Finally (Actually) Started Practicum

So, Friday I started observing classes at the Samarya Center for my teacher training practicum, with a prenatal class. It was a small class, about six people. It's actually a pre/post-natal class, so there was one mom with a newborn babe (who slept in a carseat the whole time), three or four pregnant women, and two women who were not nor probably ever will be pregnant but for various reasons were interested in a prenatal or "gentle" class. Remind me to post later on the two schools of thought on prenatal yoga and how "gentle" or "vigorous" it should be...

Anyway, it was a nice class, and similar to what I'm used to since the teacher (like me) trained in prenatal yoga with Anne Phyfe of 8 Limbs. She (the Samarya teacher) did a beautiful job of teaching to all three "populations" in the class.

Sunday I attended my first monthly practicum meeting, attended by four or five other teacher trainees (the rest all hail from the more recent training intensive) and led by the awesome practicum coordinator. In this meeting, I realized that contrary to my endless stressy thoughts, many parts of this practicum are going to be fairly easy for me--like giving adjustments and teaching, as long as I can achieve my goal of NOT saying too much. This is partially because I've been teaching (the hot yoga) for three and a half years now, so I'm not as nervous, and partially because of my awesome Thursday-night class, where I've been practicing the hands-on adjustments, and coming up with my own sequences, etc. For brand new yoga teachers, the problem is saying ENOUGH and getting the words out and being present. My chief challenge in the training intensive last spring was SHUTTING UP, seriously. (If you know me personally, of course this makes sense.)

The hard part of this practicum will be the logistical part--showing up, fulfilling all the on-site requirements, since I have a toddler at home. But really, that's sort of an easy hard part, versus what a truly newly-minted teacher has to confront. (When I was toward the end of hot yoga teacher training, doing a practice teaching session, I flubbed something and, showing that poise and grace synonymous with the name Nice Marmot, ran from the room crying.) And while I'm still stressing a bit about logistics, the practicum coordinator told me at the end of the meeting, basically, "hey, if you can't get it all done, we'll work it out and it's not the end of the world if you need to take a break and finish your practicum next year." Did I mention the Samarya Center is awesome?

One more thought about observing yoga classes--I'm usually either taking a yoga class, or teaching a yoga class. Observing a class being taught is something different. I had to keep reminding my brain what to do--observe and report. And I again reflected on a point that, when it hit me while observing in the training intensive last spring, hit with such force that I wept: watching people practice yoga is extremely intimate. They are not dancing--nothing about it is performance. It is not for me, the observer. It's not even (hopefully) for the teacher. It is watching these people Be In Their Bodies.