We drove for what seemed like hours past strip malls and housing tracks (who knew that there was a whole little city beyond those guarded gates) until we came to the gym where we would spend the next 2 days. As I walked into the gymnasium and headed toward the aerobics room I saw a sign with bold writing that said: NO COMBAT BOOTS ALLOWED INSIDE! and I knew this facility was going to be different from any of the others that I had been to so far.
The focus of this training was to learn about the Chakra System and apply yoga to it, and to tap into the surface of meditation and yoga. Both of these topics are something that I have done some research on my own with, so I was very excited for this training. Unfortunately, because I was coming off of 2 nights of very little sleep with a 16-hour field trip to Sacramento sandwiched in-between, I was present in body only. Our trainer started our session with a 90 minute yoga class that included several balancing poses, and I quickly came to realize that there is a direct correlation between sleep deprivation and your sense of balance. Being left-handed my dominant side of my body is my left side, and most instructors tend to cue you to begin balancing poses on your RIGHT side. Thus creating immediate frustration for a lefty who is functioning on less than her required 8 hours of sleep. It took me several rounds of poses to figure this out but when I finally did I was able to give myself a much needed pep-talk that got me through it.
At the lunch break we decided to go for a walk in search of some healthy food to compliment our healthy workout. Did I mention that we were on a Marine Corp base? Apparently healthy food is a rare commodity around here. There was a McDonald's, Johnny Rockets, and too many pizza parlors to even name, but nothing with fresh fruits and veggies was anywhere to be seen. We finally settled on oatmeal with blueberries at the Coffee Bean and vowed to bring our own lunches tomorrow. As we walked around the base I was amazed at how incredibly young all of these Marine's were. Babies, they were just babies. Some of them I am sure were even younger than my son. And with it being Mother's Day weekend I couldn't help but feel for their mothers. I know I would have a hard time giving my only child to the armed forces.
After our lunch break we worked through pose break-down of all the new poses. This is where the trainer goes through each pose and talks about things such as alignment and anatomy. Even with a good night's sleep this portion of the class can be very dry. So trust me when I say I was struggling just to keep my eyes open. Finally she came to the part where we were to go over some of the required reading we had to do on the Chakras and meditation. She put in a CD of chakra guided meditation that I am sure is really good but I have no idea what was even on it. I heard the soft voice on the CD begin to talk about the root chakra and then I was out. The next thing I knew it was 45 minutes later and my instructor was gently ringing the chimes.
I guess I'll have to go through that CD on my own.
On Sunday we got into small groups to team teach 2 flow series: one on balancing poses (yuck!) and the other on deep stretching poses that are used in what is called "mountain 3" in YogaFit. At first I was feeling very anxious about once again teaching others how to do yoga. It's one thing to do it with my kids at school or even with the other teachers at my school. In that situation I'm the only one who knows anything about yoga so I could be totally making it up and no one would even know. But here, with a group of people who are yogis too? That's a recipe for major anxiety for me. But this time I was able to calm myself down with some deep breathing and even visualizing myself going through the poses. And you know what? I had a major breakthrough. I was able to just let the teaching come from somewhere deep inside of me and it all came together. Maybe I might be able to do this thing afterall.........
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