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.