Photo Credit: Fred

I had my teacher training demo last weekend, and I taught a class with about five people the night before. I passed my demo with flying colors! Rah!

It went really well. Friday night I was shy, tentative, worried about getting the instructions right. Saturday morning I was bolder, more creative, able to let go when I started tensing up, and use the energy rather than be reduced to the shakes.

I’ve noticed that I am absorbing the wisdom of simplicity. Sometimes I can get so deep with the thing that I lose the thread that makes it intelligible to other people. I am learning to come back to basics when I feel myself spinning off into an abstract conceptual universe. In other words I sometimes need an editor. In teaching, you have to edit yourself, and I know from writing that this is tough.

You don’t want to get all up in your face and clog your mojo, you want energy flowing freely and cleanly, to be yourself, to not second guess things. It is just a little half-step back, during a pause, when you take a breath and ask yourself, “First principles. What is the essence of the pose?” Or if you’re writing, and going a bit off, “What’s the story?” It always starts from the ground up.

In my first class, I was a bit tight, standing too far back. I didn’t let it flow, I was too concerned about saying everything correctly. One of my students, a friend of a friend, was a yoga teacher. Not intimidating at all! But he was great, afterward he told me not to worry and to be myself, that people will come because of my personality, not for perfect instruction.

The next morning I was able to remember this, and when I got worried or nervous, just allowed myself a couple of breaths, smiled and laid off a bit, and looked down at my students’ foundation to know what to say next.

Which is what I love about yoga. It is real, it is a physical embodiment of principles that work for literally everything. Foundation. Ground down and lift from there, etc. The routine, the limited system is very comforting (something about freedom within confinement, feeling held, yes?)

My writing mind is engaged with the challenge of saying these things over and over (essentially), but differently, to keep students listening, each one feeling it differently in their body when you put it precisely this way, or that way.

At school I had to pee all morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I was that invested and excited about something. I had to go back to dance recitals as a kid to locate a similar feeling. (Writing is different, it’s more of a wave of euphoria when I get something real down, then a rush of dread when I think people might actually read it). This is more about performance, something I really haven’t done much in adulthood. But it’s also not about me. It’s for the students, and this short-circuits my modesty and appeals to my desire to serve others, a higher purpose. And I still get the rush of it. I am so pleased. Yoga, and learning to teach, has brought me more into and out of myself.

Read on…for more woo woo stuff.