yogi rant.

See?! I told you a new post would be coming soon! Little did you know it would be mere minutes later! So check below if you missed the first round of lack of update. Cause this one is alllll yoga.

I have amazing yoga regulars that I am really loving every time they come to class. Some because they have great ethic and am awesome practice. Others because they are just so much fun and have a catchy attitude. I've had a few classes recently that have showed massive progress. Tuesday morning was a small class of six, all of them desiring to be in the front row (already shows their attitudes) but I had to alter class once we started balances because I'm used to a class that can about half get into eagle legs and the other half falling over. This particular class went straight into full eagle arms and legs and HELD IT. I literally squealed, cause I'm just that professional ;-)

Yoga Rant Time:

Outside the studio more and more people are learning that I teach, which is awesome, because i really want to get people coming into the studio to get their feet wet and try it. But I'm beginning to find the "yoga advice for pain and injury" inquests annoying, it's like, I have learned that 80% of the people won't even try the suggestions once and the other 20% expect to be healed after stretching on their own once or twice. Kids, you aren't going to be healed after a few full blown yoga classes either and it would take promises of strippers and cake to get most of you actually into the building.

Once in class, some people are just sheerly determined to not listen to instruction. There are poses that by different instructors are taught slightly differently, but I'm sure everyone teaches to bend the front knee in warriors. And still, some are straight as a board, no matter how much I call it out. Almost always in reverse warrior, but usually one or two people in regular W1 or W2. No matter how I much I say in that one hold, bend the knee, lunge the knee towards the mirror, sink the hips, NOTHING. I might as well be teaching in Chinese. Although we have quite a few Chinese speaking clients, and they seem to grasp it quite well....so maybe I am....

End Rant:

But yet, I'm still getting compliments about teaching a great class, outside of the typical, thanks it was great as they walk out the door. Numerous take the time to tell you what they loved and its truly encouraging as a teacher that even if I feel I stuttered and tripped up left and right more than once, that I am giving them a decent flow and practice. Only intensified in pleasure when it comes after a class I am subbing, and I'm completely unsure how this group of strangers will take to my style

I guess I'll keep working on it ;-)

Starbucks is down the block...

4 new, 18 total this morning. And they were REALLY chatty before class, took awhile to settle down.

But then AFTER class, during savasana, mere seconds after leaving the room, I turned back to go in again because I forgot the juice, and it was just as loud as before class, and I'm NOT ok with that, there are people trying to relax and hang out for a few minutes in total relaxation. And I had even asked to respect other peoples quiet time.

So as I walked through to get the juice, I called out to respect others in silence as they try to relax in a slightly more serious tone. Didn't lower the noise in the slightest. Two were hardcore talkers, but I think those let others get away with smaller chatter, but at full volume.

A regular came out and talked about how annoying it was, and she was really surprised at my coming BACK in to call them out, but was clearly grateful. Although she did say that the first thing they started talking about was how awesome it was….so how mad can I really stay?

Playtime photo shoot in the studio!!!!

Yoga Teacher Confessions.

I found this awesome blog post today, and I felt like I should share. I am guilty of many on her list, (ESPECIALLY putting people in childs so I can think what to do next). But here's a few more I've come up with;

• Sometimes I wonder if a student is hunching their shoulders up to their ears in any pose (but ESPECIALLY cobra) just to piss me off because I have given 9,000 cues about relaxing the shoulders down.

• Sometimes I want to tell a student the class is full even if its not because they have shown up as I am literally locking the door to start class and now i have to spend five minutes signing them in and waiting while everyone else waits. 

• Sometimes when I am laying the cool towels on their foreheads, I drip my own sweat on their mats, and I feel zero remorse because they get savasana and I still have to work. 

 Any one out there care to share their own?

Yoga Teaching Adventures Begin!!!

So I guess it's been long enough that I'm safe in posting about my new gig. I've finally put my 200 hour training to public use!

I really couldn't have asked for it to happen any better than it did. I wasn't really feeling in tune with the ONLY yoga studio in town, so imagine my happiness when I saw a new studio opening in September, and not only that, but HOT yoga, my true love! Oh yes.

I started going, almost obsessively. The studio is just gorgeous, clean, bright, beautiful. The owner is this total light of smiling joy and happy. Plus she knows her stuff (you know how annoyed I get at instructors that think an abs class with downward facing dog intermittently is "yoga"). She's completely knowledgable and uses it, love it. And people know it, I've seen zero advertising and she's turning people away at the door at max capacity, FOR A SUNDAY NIGHT CLASS. Yeah, that's what's up.

I was trying to play it cool, get well integrated before I brought up teaching, and before I knew it, October rolls around and she brings it up herself! I didn't even have to have the awkward ask for a job moment! It's just her teaching, with another instructor taking 2 or 3 classes a week (out of 20some). So the arms were wide open for another instructor!

I started the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, probably ideal, I figured since the holiday would give me a smaller class. WRONG. 17, first class ever. Including the owner, who of course was awesome, but it's still that much more intense.

I thought I would have a heart attack that morning at the gym beforehand. Literal panic attack. But I got to my car between the gym and the studio to find Tim had left me a good luck present. not that I could even look at it without wanting to throw up. I could barely breathe. Let alone keep my mouth wet enough to practice AND talk through a 105 class for an hour. It was brutal, I kept tripping over leg versus arm versus right versus left. But I made it through and got plenty of compliments at the end.

It's been a month of teaching Mondays and Wednesdays, including a Saturday fill in. It's taking longer than I thought to get acclimated. Getting rid of dry mouth talking in that heat is hard, impossible when you factor any nerves. I still trip on right versus left a lot. And your arm has three parts. Placing your knee at your hand is very different than your elbow in plank....

But I haven't had any haters! Only compliments. A lot of them are regulars, so that's awesome, but I have at least 1-2 new people in each class, meaning new to yoga, not just new to me. So that's a struggle to teach a class that is good for someone of my level (or to be honest, probably better than me) but yet good for someone who literally can't get from there hands and knees to standing in under a solid 60 seconds.

My first was for sure my biggest. Gone all the way down to 6. But I feel more comfortable every time. It's not even a public speaking thing. It's trying to remember the sequence I created, hoping its hard enough and takes up the full class. I'm getting better at adding stuff on the fly dependent on how I think it's going, but it still needs work. I have heard that my classes are more challenging though, so that's good in my mind. The more practice I get before the New Years Resolution crowd, the better.

I gotta say though, a perk of teaching, you get to call your own shots. We were starting a balance series last week, and I was like, geeze my neck hurts, I want to stretch it out. *lightbulb* "Ok, before we go into our balancing sequence, we're going to come to mountain and do neck rolls." That's right, because I CAN!

Because I am the yoga instructor. :-)