Day Ten: 400hr Yoga Teacher Training

Group Class was soo much better this morning. My body was ready for it and my mind was slightly better too. I honestly wonder if the workout before the practice makes that big a difference. I can see my progress in the past ten days with my backbendd today. My camel was far deeper than normal. But overall far more relaxed.

The session was on teaching workshops. Starting with overall ideas and techniques for a successful workshop, but then we divided out into groups to discuss ideas for our own personal workshops. Ended up being the odd one out, and stuck with the two most set path yogis. One Olympic diver and one professional dancer. Great. I have no idea my niche. I flat out said I have no idea for my future, and the only thing from my past I had was film school. And no matter how many times I said that I want nothing to do with that, that's the only ideas they came up with for the whole session. Not only unhelpful but annoying.

Back in big group the rest of session, we picked up a few of people's ideas and discussed them. Including Nates "IT guy" yoga with a "Reboot your life" idea. Matthew has great one liners for classes. And about giving a message and "dropping yoga bombs".

Afternoon is all about going through a sample backbend workshop and how to successfully run it with tips and tricks and techniques. Then in the same group as before creating more details on a specific workshop.

The weekend off GSP was amazing. I went through the entire practice without a second thought. In 90degree pigeon I got "Good job baby" and then a "Really good Clare" got one of my handstands. And after, "I'm proud of you, you're really getting this." Yay me!!! My one down moment was my wrists burning in wheel, yet my backbend in it was superstring, so I don't even care! :-)

Tonight's guest speaker session killed me. It was on listening. Ok, fine, yoga is kinda fruity like that. But....we learned nothing. It was all in, make sure you listen. Ok?!?! She quoted Stephen Covey and I knew we were doomed. She did a ton of group exercises but didn't explain ANY of them well enough so every time we were really confused, and by the last exercise, people weren't listening at all and couldn't even follow through. It was kinda ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.

Day Nine: Another breath of fresh air.

We had our first group class taught by James. I am spoiled by GSP, group class just couldn't hold my attention. Although it wasn't helped by my brand new mat being slippery and my body just really not wanting to move. I was so locked up that my toes didn't touch in plow. Crazy for me. My palms and feet were just sliding all over the place. Although he used the metronome, and I gotta say I really liked it. Even though I wasn't focusing hard on the count, my body seemed to just naturally stay with it. One thing my body did NOT just go with, was James calling for a crane somersault. Uh. No.

But that was it for the day. All the people that weren't in for the 300 week were there all day again. Can't say it was a bad Sunday. Morning class, hit the gym, made some brunch, watched a movie, marked through Adamantine, went for a walk, had dinner with Tim, dad, Chris and Nate at Jethros. Absolutely nothing productive. And that is a-ok.

Day Eight: ALMOST a vacation day in the 400.

Because of all the new people coming in for just the 400hr, the ones that just went through the 300 only had to attend the morning session this Saturday, and then have the rest of the day off.

Nate and I were lucky enough to hit up the Farmers Market before class which was awesome, unless you count that we got a loaf of apple bread that was totally polished off within 24 hours. But it was delicious.

And we also fit in brunch with my lovely and awesome family (minus mom, but she's cool too ;-) ). The boys (Tim, dad, and Chris) were all going down to KC for the weekend to attend two of the Red Sox games and decided they missed me enough to come down a little early and feed us breakfast foods and hear all about it. After one long week with a long week ahead of me, being around people that I can be at complete ease with, was exactly what I needed. As was the few bites of Tim's pumpkin pancakes ;-)

Our one session of the day was Advanced Sequencing. I figured it would be teaching us how to sequence a class that we teach outside of Adamantine. Wrong. Not even close. Basically he described how he formatted Adamantine (balance within the limbs) and compared it to other ways you could format a class around, such as the meridian system or the chakras. He went through the Chakra system, which I actually thought was really cool. I was pretty fascinated in it, and I followed the concept well enough that I would love to teach a class following it sometime. Working through all the chakras within the class.

This was the same time that I wrote this less than upbeat and perky post....

And the rest of the day was full of rest and relaxation with some furry felines. 

Day Seven: End of 300, Start of 400.

GSP was middle ground this morning. My awkward flailing arms couldnt decide which wau to go, making it mediocre. And when it was my turn to assist, I only got to two in my portion. 

"We aren't trying to change our personality, but whittle away the negative aspects" - Janes thought on the process, something I thought was perfectly worded.

The afternoon session was on Uddiyana Bandha and Nauli Kriya. Not quite breath work, but related. Involves sucking in the stomach and sealing it basically, and the latter being to move it in a circular pattern. It's an advanced practice, but fun to try. Although there's a very fine line between doing it without consequences and then becoming extremely nauseous. 

That being said, this practice led a vast majority of our class into a very awkward TMI talk about their pooping habits. UN-necessary. 

Last session of the 300hr yoga teacher training was all on business aspects. Aka, going around the room and telling everyone about our proposed yoga future. During my turn, I learned that Pauline pays her brand new instructors $25-30 a class. And they don't have the studio maintenance to do that I do. Or be there an hour early. I'm getting screwed. This is the first time James actually bring up the idea of a more varied business model for me, aka build my own NLXF. And I flat out said no. It wouldn't work successfully, and even if it would, and even if it makes me bad at business, I'm not fighting their business. Not after all they've helped me with. No. 

But that was it for the 300, we got our certificates, said out goodbyes, and that was that.

The 400hr started later that evening. 7 of us stayed from the 300, and 7 more new people came in. It was kinda funny, we completely stayed on one half of the room with the newbies on the other half. 

Sarah from my 200 came and joined us, and a lot of GSPers that Nate knew. LD is in Cedar Rapids, owns a dance company and is a really good guy. Another Sarah owns a dance studio in DM, an older lady, a girl from Portland who went to the Olympic Diving finals, an older Asian woman named Jane who had my eyeballs completely out of their sockets when she told the class that her son is the CEO of Pinterest. And how could we forget Ann, Nates favoritest in the world. Ok maybe not. They work at the same studio and she goes to GSP (I'm actually the only one besides Angie in the 400 that doesn't attend GSP). He tried to not taint my view of her before we met, but holy cow it OOZES out of her. Just not my type of person. I like my friends real and not whipping themselves into humility to look amazing. If she thanked James a single more time for sharing his knowledge with us.... I mean yes, somehow he deserves credit, but we ARE paying him a rather large chunk of change for him to teach us this stuff. He doesn't need to be publically worshiped every two hours. My story was by far the least interesting of the whole class. 

Besides getting to know eachother, James just went over the week's plan. warning us about the Hot Seat on Wednesday so we would have time to think and stew about what we have to share and ask about our business futures.

Non Yoga (ok, mostly kitty) of the 300/400 Yoga Training Weeks

Capturing some yoga moments from the 300hr Training...

Day Six of 300hr Yoga Teacher Training

Callie was a fabulous assister in GSP. Super strong, which is crazy to guess just looking at her, but having to assist Mathew, I guess it makes sense. 

I found a few assisters giving me verbal cues that I just couldn't hear at all. It's like, I know I'm near deaf, but a lot of people have worse hearing than I, make sure you can be heard!!

Got the cue to check breath after wide forward fold, kinda weird since that is such an easy one to breathe in. And another to not speed the transitions, although I know I am getting better at that one. 

I moved the blocks down to a lower level in splits! Holla. Wheel is looking good and I got three passes at handstand, each better than the time before. Choreography is clearly getting tighter, didn't mess up at all.

"What is this?"

"Protein, bro"- coming from the blondest most cheerleader looking girl on the planet

Working on our assisting in the shoulder roll sequencing, James told me to "Go squish Tiffany"

It always scares people when they go to assist you in a pose, and your back cracks all the way up. 

Complimentary practices talks with James are always interesting, and by interesting I mean trying to let it all roll off my back as he says yoga is all you need and that cardio and weight lifting not only doesn't help, but deteriorates the body. 

But a new addition to that "talk" is that foam rolling is encouraged. So we got to play with foam rollers working out tight spots if the body. So that was kinda fun. Until you got to the IT band, then it was just a whole lot of ouchees. It's a good workshop. An easy one. One I can see as being a good kick start to teaching workshops at the studio. Easily cut down to an hour, and easily assisted by a cohort.

We did one exercise in Rolfing. I remember this hurting like a BITCH last year. This year, it just felt awesome on my forearms. More! More!

Last part of the day was learning the seated sequence assists. At this point I realize that James has pretty much given up on trying to figure out my lower body. Which is super disheartening, it's like he just keeps taking poses out and telling me not to do them because of my lower leg "issues".  It's like, ok, so I'm just never going to so them? Cause this is showing me that you don't think you want to keep me around long term, and in my head, why try on my own to work for YOUR style if you don't want to put even the slight bit of effort into me. 

But as a class we got him to let us skip dinner so we could go straight into the practical assisting. This way we get done a lot earlier AND it's not like we can eat anyway, knowing that we have to come straight back into physical practice. So that was a nice perk.

He said the handstand partners were supposed to stay together, so I was worried I'd be stuck with Mathew again, but Jane had lost her partner, so I lucked out with her. Really good. She's tentative, but strong in her assists. She's grown so much since our 200 training. It's awesome to see. 

This round through wasn't shabby for me either, getting into full 90 degree pigeons, and getting the blocks on the lowest position in splits. 

A Premature Day 12

I know I am a full week behind blogging, but then yesterday happened. I'll continue on to day six soon, but for now, I'd rather just get the emotions of day twelve out there, and move them away......

"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.