"All sessions today are business brainstorming. Going around the room having 15 minute hot seats with everyone. Of course Nate went right before lunch and I had to wait until after.
Linda calling Nate a sexbomb was frighteningly hilarious.
My turn came, and I was beyond nervous, supposed to be about our near future in what we want to with yoga whether its working in the industry or not. We had five minutes to explain, five minutes for James to give his personal opinion and five minutes for the class's opinion. I started by pretty much saying I had no clue what was going on with all the new studios up and coming in the area, what and where I should be going, that I have no niche and I just have no direction.
And then it got far worse than I expected. I held it together for awhile, hitting that point where i couldn't talk without that awkward crack that everyone sees as "about to break" and yet he just kept pushing the buttons harder. Finally making me cry in front of everyone, until I asked to return to my seat, where the "hot seat" just continued.
I won't go into all the self pitying details, I do have notes on it, but basically he told me I'm not meant to be a yoga teacher, but not so blatantly.
This is finishing my fourth week long intensive with him in the past 12 months. Not including the immersion or other interactions and Nates relationship with him. I feel like he has formed himself a very strong teacher and mentor in my head. And a very strong force in my yoga path. He has done the near impossible in taking me from being a COMPLETE skeptic and naysayer in Adamantine into a "how often can I take a weekday to drive to DM so I can take a 45 minute GSP so I can grow in the amazing practice" and in about a ten day span. That's beyond impressive. I am as hard headed and stubborn as they come. When I'm right, I'm right, turning me that fast almost takes brain washing skills.
I digress, every session we have is very against cross training. Yoga is all we need. And he actively pulls people away from weights and cardio and promotes how bad for you those things are. All the negative affects those things have on your body and why they hurt your yoga practice. He was a Marine, he was a personal trainer, he isn't just speaking from a lack of ability to do those things.
So we talked a little about my future, including renting space from dad for a "you-dio" to do private sessions with people, where I took a realistic approach in order to make it actually a possibility, to use the brainstorming team to help with the potential problems that I already foresee in the process. Having already flat out refused starting up my own workout program (he had previously basically told me to start my own NLXF and I think my utter refusal to do so really annoyed him). But the talk turned into that I'm limiting myself by giving reasons I can't do thing instead reasons I can. That I will never succeed if I stay that way. That I have a lot of work to do on myself before I can accomplish anything. That I shouldn't be using such extreme words like love and hate.
Then came the biggest insult I feel like I have ever experienced. After the constant ripping on anything outside yoga, he straight up tells me "You're a personal trainer, that's just what you are" and further went into that I have a foot in both the fitness and yoga world, but I'm barely a toe into yoga and fully exposed in fitness.
Everyone else got encouragement deeper into yoga teaching, even mostly in Adamantine and GSP. Even those that only practice for personal reasons and have no desire to make it a job. They got ideas in how to go further and gain better and deeper careers. Even Nate was given the advice for a potential live/work GSP and private session studio loft in the future. And I got, go be a personal trainer. It was like being slapped across the face and being kicked out of the club.
I know the emotions surprised him, I could tell, but that doesn't make it any easier or better. Those came from my personal struggles, especially lately. I work harder than most I know. And have for a long time, and I don't have the body to represent that at all. I have the body of someone who does New Years Resolutions to work out and eat right, but gives up long before Valentines Day. I've seen doctors and other health professionals, I've had personal trainers, and I personally destroy my body to see results that I never actually achieve. I need to come to grips with this. One of the first endocrinologists I saw told me I was genetically predetermined to be obese. I lost it when I was told that. Determined more than anything to prove him wrong. It's now over three years later. I'm up 25 pounds and work just as hard as I have been. I wouldn't hire me as a trainer, looking like I do.
And it's not just looks either. I have no idea what I'm doing. I workout in excess. I kill myself and drown in sweat every day. I would have no idea where to start a client or how far to realistically push them. Yes, I've thought about a personal training certificate, but as a supplement to yoga. To have credibility with the gym crowd to have as clients, and have slight better knowledge. Not to go so far into it to be an actual in the gym trainer. There's such a huge disparity between the two.
I can't start over. Not just for my own self, I know I have the time. But I never finish anything. My parents spent an insane amount on film school before I realized I wasn't cut out for it, it wasn't the industry I would even remotely enjoy being in. Well over 100grand there. Wasted. Don't think the guilt over that still isn't a near constant thing. It's what keeps me working UNI Athletics, that being my only tie to education (even though not really) so maybe I don't look as much of a failure and waste of finances. No matter how miserable or unhappy it makes me as a person for eight months of the year. It changes my personality, making me negative and pessimistic and just a bitch in my relationships, but I have no choice.
And I thought yoga was going to be it. Especially getting my 500 now. It's been a consistency in my life for 7 years now. My practice had ebb and flow, but I've never given it up. I love teaching, I love the feeling I have, I love the practice. I love the identity. And I thought the education and level certification was worth it. 10grand, all but two of it sponsored graciously. Even after my first epic failure. It's one of very few stabilities in life, I thought I was safe in continuing on.
And now this. I can't start over. I can't fail again. But I was just told I have anyway. Being told I am not meant to do the only thing I've ever felt successful doing is heart wrenching and yeah, I'll go as far as traumatizing.
I know I can ignore him, I know that's what most would tell me to do. Ignore it, what does he know, keep going. But this is his life. He makes an insane living being the best in business at this. He knows what he's talking about. His advice to everyone else was spot on. He's more than earned the respect and listening.
The class was kind about it, but completely in agreement and supportive of the personal trainer idea. Telling me they would feel "safe" in having me as a trainer. That people would feel comfortable with me. That this is the time in my life to go do "my thing".
It makes me feel like a liar in yoga, but I'd feel like a liar more in fitness. I got the "You aren't one of us" message. But I could never live in the world of trainers, I would be obliterated.
The rest of the presentations were a blur. We got to GSP and I expected the worst. Unrolling my mat before we began, James came to me and said, "Thanks for letting me put you outside your comfort zone....it's my job" It was the job part that threw me. I appreciated the first half, the acknowledgement. But it's no one job to make a girl cry in front if the class, and then continue to try to make her talk."
I'll post more on the day when I catch up with blogging but I just needed the catharsis of this today.
