Day 233: A good sign.

Yesterday was a looooong and busy day. Actually this week has been very busy. My own yoga sessions have been short due to my best friend in the universe visiting from out of town and staying with me. I also had a “new to me” class yesterday teaching Chair Yoga at an assisted living complex. I was nervous going into the class (I always am with new classes) but I think it went really well. The women were so much fun. At the end of the class they all clapped. Really! It was so funny and weird. I think this must have been an age thing? I have certainly never had anyone under 50 years old clap at my classes before.

I also taught my first 7:45pm to 9:00pm Restorative Yoga class at Hemma Yoga. I have taught a few earlier Saturday Restorative sessions there but this was the latest class I have taught yet. I am a morning person and was a little concerned about how teaching at that time would feel.I did feel quite tired heading into the class and was grateful it was a slow and gentle class. I also had to break it to the students that their AMAZING WONDERFUL teacher Jennifer Piercy (who is one of MY TEACHERS) was no longer teaching the class. They seemed to take it well and remained open minded and positive. I know whenever I have been a regular in a class and the teacher I like moves onto to other things the transition is a little weird.

However, once again the students were really lovely and had such positive energy. I left the studio feeling energized rather than drained. I am feeling very much like my decision to teach yoga was the right choice for me. I love sharing what yoga has given me in my life and constantly feel gratitude for the students in the room who are willing to share their experiences and practice with me. I feel very blessed.

Day 232: Be careful of the burnout

The days are getting busier for me. More teaching opportunities are coming up for yoga and I still work at my other job too (design, marketing stuff). With this finding time for my own yoga practice is becoming more difficult. I was warned about this by other yoga teacher’s. They mentioned how easy it is to get burned out if you don’t take time for your own practice. So I am making sure to book in time to keep exploring my own yoga.. and I am thinking of maybe taking a few longer workshop style classes in the next few months to keeps some new ideas and perspectives coming in.

I have also decided not to take any more yoga gigs for a few weeks so I can see how this  current load feels. I am on average teaching about seven classes a week if I include the classes I am subbing too. I want to stay with what I have for the moment taking to time adjust to this new schedule. My brain feels a little overfull from planning classes and I worry this is making my teaching a little unfocused.

Did you know that many yoga teachers, who sit in front of  a class saying how wonderful yoga is.. have often struggled with yoga causing them more stress and burnout in their lives? Isn’t that sort of of weird? I suppose most people in life go through this and perhaps yoga teachers are just hyper aware of the sensation. I just thought it was interesting because I have rarely gotten that feeling from any teachers at yoga classes I have attended and I have attended a lot of them .

Day 231: Bickering, love, yoga fights…

My husband drives me crazy. He is a yoga teacher.. sort of.. he doesn’t teach often but did  do a very in depth yoga teacher training in the Netherlands before immigrating to Canada. His schooling was four years long which his teacher considered the “bare minimum” for anyone wishing to teach yoga. His primary teacher was Rob Obermeyer… Rob’s  yoga lineage was mostly with Harish Johari. My husband has strong beliefs about yoga and what it’s purpose is… and his beliefs are, how shall I say this.. not very marketable. But his heart is good and I agree with a lot of what he says despite our non stop arguing about yoga. Every time I talk about how yoga is great for depression, or anxiety, or stress, or.. WHATEVER.. he responds with something annoying like “That may be the case but that is not the goal of yoga. Yoga is not about doing or getting anything“.. In his mind yoga is not about healing, getting something, doing something.. It is non doing, non getting… It is about undoing and even letting go of the idea that there is an individual that needs to be doing or healing.

Hubby is also very inspired by Tony Parsons and the concepts of Advaita or non dualism. Do you know how hard it is to be a relationship, which is inherently a dualism situation, with a non dualist?  Have I mentioned that my hubby drives me crazy?

Still despite my bickering and arguing with him about all of this, I notice that in subtle ways his teaching style creeps into mine. We talk so much about it I suppose that is a natural conclusion. I like working with opposites. Yin and Yang, left and right brain, full and empty, male and female.. I like dualism… but I have noticed lately that when I am at the end of what feels like a really good class to me, I slip into non dual teaching. I drop the “you and I”. I start talking about “the head” and “the belly” which is a distinct way of speaking in the lineage of yoga my husband was taught. Concepts of opposites drop away.. The damn Advaita sneaks in there and it feels lovely and natural. Maybe they know what they are talking about after all.

Day 230: I think we finally found a space!

A huge part of my interest in yoga is teaching populations who might not get access to yoga normally. This includes people suffering from mental health issues, street people, people with PTSD, people dealing with poverty or abuse in their lives, and/or people working through illness. Despite my passion in this area actually finding the path towards teaching this population has been harder than I expected.

After doing a bit of research I ended up contacting what I heard was a great organization (AVI). An opportunity to teach yoga once a week through their wellness program was suggested. WONDERFUL. I met the facilitator and the group and things seemed to be moving forward.The people interested in taking the class were bright and funny and the woman organizing everything was incredible.Then we started looking for a place to actually do the class and things seemed to fall flat. I mentioned it to a couple friends who teach yoga around Victoria and they were an AMAZING amount of help. They immediately got on the horn and started contacting people on my behalf and even offered some donations of equipment for future classes. After weeks of struggle things have started to click into place. Yay to great organizations doing great things.. and to Jaime and Michael Taylor from Yoga in Mind for being not only incredible yoga teachers but also wonderful people with BIG hearts.

Day 229: Quiet day, quiet practice, quiet class…

Quiet day, quiet practice…. My energy was low after a full week of subbing and doing all kinds of admin type yoga business stuff. It was nice to have a quiet class and my own quiet practice. I have been having a really hard time with sitting meditation lately so getting a  Yin Yoga session in there was “sort of” like meditating.. but with just enough moving and body sensation to keep my mind from frantically thinking about everything I seem to believe it needs to think about.

Day 228: Some of the best and brightest in this town…

I am taking this opportunity to plug two amazing local yoga teachers, Eila & Liila from Yoga Together. They teach Akhanda Yoga which is a well rounded practice that I enjoy immensely. I practiced with Eila and Liila for about a year before I became pregnant with my second child. During my pregnancy I attended regular prenatal classes with Eila. (she was also my doula and an absolute rock for me during the birth of my daughter).

They don’t teach a lot of classes these days but if your schedule permits and you live in Victoria I highly recommend giving their Akhanda Yoga classes a try. It is a holistic practice which includes asana, pranayama, mantra, meditation and even some subtly woven in pieces of yoga philosophy. All of this is taught in a way that is calming and natural. It is a lovely way to dive a little deeper beyond the purely “physical” part of a yoga practice.

Day 227: Oh me and Iyengar yoga…

About once every six months I write on here about how much I love/hate Iyengar yoga.. and I do.. really. Today I will write a list of my latest impressions of this type of yoga that I can’t seem to get enough of.. despite not being sure if I actually like it or not.

Why I LOVE Iyengar Yoga

• The amazingly detailed descriptions of how to get in and out of postures
• Did I mention detail? I love the depth of their descriptions of alignment
• No nonsense approach that is a relief from some of the fluffy ”Love and Light” tones some yoga classes get (including my own sometimes)
• The sense that each teacher has really spent a lot of time and effort learning this system. I believe the longer training period to become a certified Iyengar teacher really shows

Why I HATE Iyengar Yoga

•  The constant feeling that there is a perfect way to be/do/look in each pose, despite the variety of different body structure/bone structure in the class
• The whole rigid and straight elbow and knee cues. It just feels wrong in my body
• The focus on the end result rather than the enjoyment of the journey
• The “jump” into postures. It doesn’t feel like a natural flow of the body but more like some stage trick or turn or the century calisthenics move

Day 226: Students ready to go.. but we can’t find a space

One of my strong teaching interests in yoga is  ”Trauma Sensitive Yoga“. It is a huge part of where my passions lie with yoga. Yoga was fundamental in shifting my perspective on my life after I suffered from trauma. It helped me more than I can describe and is one of the key reasons I decided I wanted to teach yoga, not just be a student. I have been trying to get a class like this up and running in my city.

I met with a local organization that I believed could benefit from this sort of thing and we agreed to run a trial class through their wellness program. Both me and the person working at the organization started making calls, looking for a space to rent. We have been honest. We have said this is for a Hep C Support group, possibly to be opened up to other similar organizations in this city. So far only one person has returned our calls. This particular space has three very long and steep flights of stairs so it isn’t ideal for this clientele. Once again I feel like this part of my teaching interest is proving to be a challenge. I didn’t really think teaching this population would prove to be so difficult to organize.

What I find interesting is the lack of return calls to our request. Is it a coincidence? Are the places we are calling just really busy? Or does the thought of this sort of class being offered in their space make them uncomfortable? It is hard to know what is going on when the answer is just “no answer”. I am not sure what to make of it..

Oh well. Hey Universe! If you are listening! I need a space that doesn’t cost a fortune to rent. Tuesday’s 10:30 am – 11:30 am, 5-10 students, downtown Victoria a necessity. Nice group of people… space must be “stigma free” please.

Day 225: Restorative class

I often incorporate restorative postures into my classes but I don’t often get a chance to teach a full restorative class. I have had an opportunity to sub a few ninety minute restorative classes the last few weeks which has been interesting. In many ways it is similar to Yin Yoga (which I teach often)  but in other ways it is quite different. The long held postures set a mood but energetically the purpose feels completely different. Yin seems to be more about riding an edge of sensation where restorative is more about rest. Both styles encourage gentle release but somehow it happens in a very different way. I notice after Yin Yoga students tend to more “spaced out”. For some reason this doesn’t seem to be the case after restorative yoga. I personally attract more to Yin Yoga, probably because I have more experience with the energetic feeling of it from my past experience with martial arts. I am enjoying teaching the restorative yoga but it is still a little new feeling and I find myself a bit at loss about what to say. Thankfully long periods of not saying anything are common in this type of yoga so I suspect my silence doesn’t seem too out of place.  I do feel a lack knowledge about this kind of yoga though. I would like to take a few more restorative classes myself.. and read the book Relax and Renew by Judtih Lasater.

Day 224: Annoying yoga. Annoying yoga teachers.

I had sort of a blah practice today. I don’t really know why or what went wrong. I was into it when I started and then the whole thing sort of fell flat. Sort of like when you are served a delicious meal in a restaurant, and then half way through you find someone else’s hair in your food…the whole meal just becomes unappetizing. You push the plate away. Ya, that was my yoga today.

Sometimes yoga annoys me. Sometimes yoga teachers annoy me. Sometime my own yoga teaching annoys me.  With my bummer mood I decided I would look up “annoying yoga”. I don’t know why.. entertainment perhaps? Misery loves company? I found this link.. It totally cheered me up. I do some of these things when I teach too. Like stay on my mat too much and say “beautiful”. Yup. Yoga can be annoying sometimes.

Here some more fun annoying yoga links:

• Why yoga can be so irritating although you should go anyway
• How annoying is yoga
• Most annoying yoga teachers hippie town
• Most Annoying People in a Yoga Class
• Oh and one the kings of  ”making fun of the yoga world” Yoga Dawg ; )

Thankfully the only constant in the universe is change, May tomorrow’s practice be better!