Catching up

Soooooooo.......

A friend of mine pointed out that I haven't updated my blog for about a million years. (Oh yeah, that's something about me, I love to exaggerate.) My excuses were that I had been finishing my teacher training (yoga of course) and then when that was done we found out that we had to teach 8 classes and 2 private sessions plus complete a 100 question test by September 9th. I had planned on beginning a 100 hour mentorship with one of the Ashtanga teachers at our studio and found that I had to complete all of this before I can go on. The rest of the students have a year. So this past week I actually got 4 of my classes done. One of them was teaching a Primary series class to a bunch of the teachers from our studio. Talk about nerve wracking. While I was trying to meditate and center myself before class the hatha class that was in the other room comes banging in with chairs and all these props that they had to put away in the room where we were practicing. The good and gracious yogi in me helped them, but the bad yogi in me said why are you distracting my quiet centering time - you would freak if I did that to you! But I mad the bad yogi be silent and soon the good yogi took over as the students began to filter into the room.

Let's say I made the best of it. I gave some adjustments, I got the sequence correct, got a lot of the sanskrit correct, but counting to 5 at the same pace for 2 hours is much harder than I thought, especially when you are nervous. I got a lot of support and positive feed back from everyone in the class except for my current and future mentor who had to rush off and I haven't heard from since. I'm trying desperately not to be attached to whatever he has to say or thought about the practice, but part of me feels like if he were compassionate he would know that I care what he says more than anyone else. I couldn't make it to class yesterday or today because I had food poisoning and I called him once (or twice) and e-mailed him and asked him to call or e-mail me. I've gotten feedback from everyone else in the class.

It's funny. Last Friday I was having a really hard time in class. I was angry or something and in samokonasana I just put my head down on my towel and started to cry a little bit. I got it together and was able to go on and even felt a little better. I sort of wanted to do drop backs, but for some reason the teacher didn't seem to feel I was there that day. In fact after back bends he had me sit in virasana. I thought he meant supta and he said, no, just virasana and gave me a block to sit on. I told him that I could do it without the block and he asked if it hurt and I said yes and he said then use the block. He said - everyone knows that you're very good at creating more pain for yourself. You don't have to prove that. And I felt like he was being very compassionate and understanding and I started to get tears in my eyes and I just wanted him to walk away so I didn't say anything else.

But having gotten half of my classes taught feels like a huge load has been lifted. I have a couple of possibilities for my private sessions and at least 3 more classes lined up, more likely 4, so I should be good to go. I did learn that I know more than I think I know in some areas and less in others which isn't so odd. A lot of people told me that I seemed "natural" which I suppose is a complement - it sounded nice. And then the food poisoning or whatever. I cannot eat greasy, complex foods anymore. I kind of like that. It means that all of this Ashtanga work of purifying my body has done something. Speaking of which - I'm off to get an Acai smoothie with my hubby. Yummmmmmmmm.