This month, our scheduled teacher training weekend was complicated by the Haverford Music Festival. The yoga center is a Havertown local business so N and J wanted to participate in the festival (which could attract new yoga students), but we couldn’t reschedule our TT weekend either, so we crammed it all in: teacher training 6-11 PM on Friday and 9:00-10:30 AM on Saturday morning, then some of us helped to set up our table at the festival, and we all took shifts working at the table during the day. It was a good weekend, but a very full one.
On Friday night, we had our usual monthly check-in, then a lecture on yoga and emotions. We did some activities on this topic, and I got to work in a pair first with Sarah and then with Tonny, which was interesting and fun. After that we learned about the four primitive urges or fountains (which I’ll discuss in a future post), and then we had teaching practice (also a future post). A long night.
On Saturday morning we gathered to watch a video of a lecture by Swami Rama at the Himalayan Institute. The topic of the lecture was finding inner peace in a troubled world, and Swami Rama talked about the four primitive urges/fountains in the video, so it coordinated well with our lecture the night before. While Swami Rama seems to respect women highly, he also seems to think that a woman’s main job is to raise the children – which he acknowledges as the most important job in the world, but still. I may change my mind when I have a child, but I think working outside the home is important for women as well. Overall, though, the video was informative, and Swami Rama was definitely an interesting and charismatic guy – there are more videos of him on youtube that I’d like to check out sometime when I get a chance.
After the video, we were off to the festival. We helped set up by carrying boxes and tables and chairs from the studio over to our designated spot on the street, then we all took one-hour shifts to staff the table all day. We talked to people about yoga, handed out copies of the current yoga class schedule and passes for a free class, got people to enter a raffle for a free ten-class card, and I even sold a lavender neck pillow. It was fun and different to talk to people about yoga, and handing out the free class passes felt like I was giving out candy because people were so excited.
Our homework this month is to write up an intermediate level sequence of postures, which shouldn’t be a problem at all. Otherwise, no other homework except preparing for our presentations next month. My topic is yoga and sex – not in a Tantric way or a creepy way, but in a helpful practical way. I ordered two books online a few weeks ago and started reading one this morning – I’m halfway through the second chapter and so far, while the writing isn’t spectacular, the content is really good, matches up with what I think, and confirms what I’d been suspecting. I’m really excited to read further and look at the specific poses they discuss. So, dear readers, you can look forward to lots of information this month about how yoga can improve your sex life!
Rox Does Yoga 