At Friday night’s session, we just met with J, as N was caught up with errands and things at home (she just moved to a new house last week). After our regular check-in, we did teaching practice, and it was a really great session. We didn’t make it a structured yoga class, but rather, each person just got up and taught whatever pose he or she felt like teaching or wanted to practice. Someone would teach a seated twist, and then someone else would have us all stand up again so she could teach a balance pose. It was fun and different! Mimsy taught us a neat gormukhasana-to-pigeon transition that she picked up from a British yoga teacher on a cruise last month, and that was really fun. I taught ardha chandrasana, which personally is one of my biggest challenges and is also swiftly becoming one of my favorite poses. I was really impressed with my classmates’ teaching, too. Some people I see teach semi-frequently (for example, it seems I’m always in class with Nancy lately), but other people I rarely see (like Elyssa or Tonny). Everyone is making just terrific progress and doing so much better at teaching than they were even a month ago. J agreed and was really pleased with all of us. We’re all going to be awesome teachers.
At Saturday morning’s hatha yoga class, there were six or seven of us in the class who were teacher trainees, so N asked each of us if we wanted to teach a pose. Initially I said no, with the idea that I wanted to give some of the others who felt less confident a chance to teach. But then I sat there thinking to myself that this is my teacher training and I need to practice too, and I felt silly for saying no. But then, as N got the class started, she came over to me and asked if I could teach half sun salutes so she could run to the bathroom, so I still got to teach! Five rounds of half sun salutes turns out to be just enough time for a yoga teacher to run to the bathroom and back. I hadn’t taught half salutes before so I was glad I had the chance. It was also an interesting class because Tonny taught us this version of pigeon pose with the neatest transitions I’ve ever seen – clearly stuff right out of his martial arts background, and he moved so quickly and smoothly it looked impossible, but when we tried it we were all able to do it no problem. Really fun! N taught a cool transition from gormukhasana (seated cow face pose) on one side directly to the other side, so that was also cool. A lot of interesting and different transitions in our yoga practice this weekend, a lot of fun.
In other news, I’m going to start teaching a free yoga class at my home this week. I hope to teach this little class every week as a way to practice my teaching more and deliver some free yoga to my friends. Right now I think we’ve got a full house (i.e., around six people), so we’ll see how that goes and if I’m able to establish a regular group!
Rox Does Yoga 