yoga teacher training (sept 2011)

I tell everyone

YOGA TEACHER TRAINING IS THE THERAPY YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED

I am dead serious! When I did my level I 200-hour training I went to get a more functional body back following 18-months of physical rehabilitation following a car accident.  What I left with was a whole new empirical perspective of honesty that I lost while wallowing in self-pity following the accident. It was the best face slap for my marriage and how I dealt with others in my life in that I don’t hide my emotions like I used to.  I may get angrier faster and more often, but I let go of it faster as well so I can experience all the beauty in life with more richness.

I am starting a 4-day teaching intensive tomorrow.  It is a prenatal intensive.  I already have a prenatal/postpartum/fertility certification but I earned it in 2009.  That is a year before Yoga Alliance created their 80-hour prenatal requisite for a certification.  Doing this certificate I start tomorrow may seem redundant in some ways but it is fine.  I had to weigh the pros and cons.  Essentially I can still teach prenatal anywhere – this is only to make it legit in the YA circles as I work towards a bigger certification so I can one day instruct future instructors.  It is only other random letters after my name.

I would not be doing this program if it wasn’t offered through a studio I teach at a good deal already, thus getting discounts.  I am approaching it as best as I can with a beginner’s mind but truly I am not coming from a beginner’s standpoint.  For goodness sake I am teaching the Friday prenatal class happening in our teaching intensive space during the intensive lunch break.  I am familiar with the space and the subject I will be learning.

This is what makes going through it with a beginner’s mind a little harder.  However I am working on it.  I watched Enlighten Up with my good friend Greta (a.k.a. @middleagedjock) last week via Skype as we both did some home office work.  I have been meditating a good deal more in the last couple of weeks.  I  have been pushing my reluctant ass to drop my ego and get over myself so I am not an asshole and waste this awesome opportunity.

If you do not know yoga teacher training (YTT) you may be asking what I am wasting.  Being in these intensives really is the best therapy you never knew you needed.  No matter how seasoned you are in any discipline you will still learn about that discipline if you don’t close your mind off.  You will also learn with and from those in your cohort.  I am thankful to know at least one other prenatal yoga teacher at the studio who is taking the intensive as well.  Her an I only talk when we need one another to sub for a class – we had a few minutes last week to pump each other up about spending the next four days together learning, embracing, and punctuating where our teaching philosophies are at this time.

I am really trying not to miss out on the next 96 hours.  I am trying to be open.  I am trying to put my ego aside.  The class will be at my home studio – I am hoping that will put any nerves aside and allow me to just be, and maybe help calm others who are new to the space so they can simply experience as well.

If my tweets or facebook messages seem odd the next few days it is simply immersion in this space to be a better yogini and person.

Om Shanti Om