If you look on my info page on my Facebook profile you will see one of my favorite quotes is this:
To learn, Read.
To know, Write.
To master, Teach.
I do like that quote. And as I start to try my hand at doing private yoga lessons I am finding out how very true this quote is for me. Currently I have only two students. Well really only one, but I will count my favorite wine-maker/gardner/old house restorer as my other student since he indulges me with subjecting him to little mini-lessons as often as he can stand them.
I was told that I am not charging enough for my private lessons, and being someone who really doesn't get the whole concept of capitalism I am sure that is entirely true. But for now I think I will keep my fee at this incredibly cheap rate because, to be honest with you, I think the one who is learning the most is ME! Each time I meet with my one true private student I learn something new about yoga and how to teach it. I've learned that the poses look and feel different in each student's body. I've learned that giving clear verbal cues is not necessarily enough information for someone else's brain to figure out how to move her body. And I've also learned that reminding students to breath into and out of a pose is probably more important than where to place her hand or foot.
All of these are things I learned and discussed at great lengths in my training over the past year. But it wasn't until I starting putting this knowledge into practice did I really come to realize how important these concepts truly can be.
And finally, the greatest gift I have received from my new "side job" is the reassurance that my initial hopes and dreams can and will be fulfilled. When I first started my journey down the path of becoming a certified yoga instructor I really wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. And as the year progressed, the idea of doing private lessons emerged out of my desire to bring the gifts of yoga to people who might not otherwise explore them. As I've watched my student go from being someone who struggled in Warrior 2 to looking like a powerful Yogi with her arms stretched wide and her feet firmly planted on her mat, and I listen to her tell me about how she has stopped herself in the middle of a stressful situation to take the time to just breathe, I feel as much pride in her accomplishments as I have when one of youngsters at school finally discovers the mystery we call Reading.
As for my other private student, watching him go from being mildly interested in my obsession with yoga to actually doing some stretches almost every morning AND seeing how quickly his fingers are inching closer and closer to the floor, I have to say it does more than warm my heart to know that he too will someday call himself a "Yogi."
So, although I wouldn't exactly call myself a "master" by any stretch, I truly can say that for me, teaching is the way to become a better teacher. Who knows, maybe someday I'll even raise my rates and actually make some money at it.
Showing posts with label yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoga. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Friday, May 21, 2010
Teaching for free......
As part of my level 1 training I was required to do 8 hours of community service. Which means teach yoga for free. And we were encouraged to try to bring it to a community that doesn't already have a personal practice. Easy peezie I thought. I know plenty of people right at my school who could benefit from some form of relaxation but who would never take the time to do it for themselves. So I put out an email and got lots of eager takers. Afterall, the price was perfect.
I have to admit going into it I thought it was going to be a cake walk. I teach everyday right? So I'm used to being the center of attention. In fact, I probably went into teaching to fulfill some deep-rooted need to always be the center of attention. Or so my self-appointed therapist nameless family member would say. But teaching a roomful of kids is way different from teaching a roomful of adults. In numerous ways. The adults listen to your directions......the first time. And they don't hit, or kick, or spit or bite each other.
My first class was in the multipurpose room. Our plant foreman, Denny (who is the sweetest man and will do anything for me probably because I make oatmeal cookies for him) got the room all ready for me by vacuuming the carpet and dimming the lights low enough to make this big space actually feel warm and inviting. I got there early to cue up my ipod and do a warm-up stretch alone before my new students arrived. As they slowly started to wander in I was suddenly filled with the overwhelming sensation of wanting to go somewhere and throw up. What was I thinking???? I can't do this! I quickly glanced at my notes, took a few deep breaths and started class by telling them how and why I was here bringing yoga to them.
I think that first class was more of a learning experience for me than for them. I learned a lot about myself in that hour. I learned that I am a kinesthetic learner. Which means I process information by doing and touching and feeling. I had always suspected that was my learning style, but there's nothing like putting yourself in a completely new experience to really see that it truly is. I needed to do the yoga with them in order to be able to tell them how to do it. I needed to feel that strain in my quads or my hamstring to be able to relay that information to them. As the weeks went by I found it easier to get out of my own personal space and into theirs. And by the last class I was actually able to walk around the room and give verbal cues with out even having to get into the pose myself.
Now, 8 weeks later, I look back on that first class and can truly say that I get that message that I have preached to all of my students over the years:
Practice makes progress.
I have to admit going into it I thought it was going to be a cake walk. I teach everyday right? So I'm used to being the center of attention. In fact, I probably went into teaching to fulfill some deep-rooted need to always be the center of attention. Or so my self-appointed therapist nameless family member would say. But teaching a roomful of kids is way different from teaching a roomful of adults. In numerous ways. The adults listen to your directions......the first time. And they don't hit, or kick, or spit or bite each other.
My first class was in the multipurpose room. Our plant foreman, Denny (who is the sweetest man and will do anything for me probably because I make oatmeal cookies for him) got the room all ready for me by vacuuming the carpet and dimming the lights low enough to make this big space actually feel warm and inviting. I got there early to cue up my ipod and do a warm-up stretch alone before my new students arrived. As they slowly started to wander in I was suddenly filled with the overwhelming sensation of wanting to go somewhere and throw up. What was I thinking???? I can't do this! I quickly glanced at my notes, took a few deep breaths and started class by telling them how and why I was here bringing yoga to them.
I think that first class was more of a learning experience for me than for them. I learned a lot about myself in that hour. I learned that I am a kinesthetic learner. Which means I process information by doing and touching and feeling. I had always suspected that was my learning style, but there's nothing like putting yourself in a completely new experience to really see that it truly is. I needed to do the yoga with them in order to be able to tell them how to do it. I needed to feel that strain in my quads or my hamstring to be able to relay that information to them. As the weeks went by I found it easier to get out of my own personal space and into theirs. And by the last class I was actually able to walk around the room and give verbal cues with out even having to get into the pose myself.
Now, 8 weeks later, I look back on that first class and can truly say that I get that message that I have preached to all of my students over the years:
Practice makes progress.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Chakras. What are they and why should I care?
The simple definition: a vortex of energy in your body. But I have come to learn that nothing about the many philosophical ideas intertwined into yoga are ever simple. I first learned about Chakras from my first yoga teacher, Amy. I was quickly drawn to her calm, peaceful demeanor at a time when my life was anything but calm. We were working on a series of standing poses and she commented that they were good for balancing your "root chakra". I didn't know what that meant at the time, but was intuitive enough to know that there had to be some connection between my preference for standing poses and my chaotic personal life at the time. So I did what I always do when I'm curious about something; I googled it. And what I learned was mind-boggling.
The word "chakra" is Sanskrit for wheel. There are seven basic chakras, or energy centers along your spinal column. Each of these centers correlates to a major nerve bundle that branches out from the spine and is connected to various glands in your body's endocrine system. It is believed that you can have an excess or a deficiency of energy in these centers, which can affect both your physical as well as your mental well-being. What does this have to do with yoga you ask? It is believed that a regular practice of yoga that includes forward, backward, and side bends keep the spinal column active and can keep these nerve bundles from getting blocked.
So what are the seven chakras?
First Chakra: Your root center. It determines your relationship with the material world, controlling how you deal with money, your body, your family. In other words: the things that ground you. Excessive characteristics can be sluggishness, resistance to change, overeating, material fixation, workaholism, excessive spending, and just being a control-freak. Deficient characteristics can include anxiety, anorexia, flightiness, restlessness, and resistance to structure. Balanced characteristics include groundedness, being comfortable in your own body, a sense of safety and security, and having the ability to be in the present moment.
Second Chakra: Your navel center. It relates to creativity and pleasure. Excessive characteristics can be sexual addictions, excessive mood swings, obsessive attachments, and poor boundaries with others. Deficient characteristics can include rigidity in your body, beliefs or behavior, lack of desire, avoidance of pleasure, and emotional numbness or insensitivity. Balanced characteristics include the ability to embrace change, healthy boundaries, passion, and a healthy ability to enjoy pleasure.
Third Chakra: Your solar plexus center. It is the one that governs your intuition, your gut instinct. Excessive characteristics can be dominating, controlling, competitive, arrogant, stubborn, compulsively driven. Deficient characteristics can include lack of energy, submissiveness, blaming, and lack of confidence. Balanced characteristics include a positive sense of self, confidence, warm and energetic, and able to take risks.
Fourth Chakra: Your heart center. This is the bridge between the 3 lower, more earthly chakras and the 3 higher, more spiritual ones. Excessive characteristics can be jealousy, codependency, and being a pleaser or a martyr. Deficient characteristics can include being antisocial or withdrawn, critical or intolerant, feeling lonely and isolated, and lack of empathy. Balanced characteristics include being compassionate, empathetic, accepting, caring, peaceful and centered.
Fifth Chakra: Your throat center. This is how you communicate and express yourself. Excessive characteristics can be talking too much or inappropriately, gossiping, stuttering, excessive loudness. Deficient characteristics can include fear of speaking, excessive shyness, difficulty putting things into words, speaking with a small or weak voice. Balanced characteristics include clear communication with others, good communication with self, being a good listener, having a full, resonant voice.
Sixth Chakra: Your "third eye" center. This governs our ability to separate reality from delusion. Excessive characteristics can be excessive fantasizing, obsessions, difficulty concentrating, and lack of direction. Deficient characteristics can include difficulty visualizing, lack of imagination, excessive skepticism, and an inability to see alternatives. Balanced characteristics include having a creative imagination, ability to visualize, strong intuition, and a guiding vision for life.
Seventh Chakra: Your crown center. This is considered to be the seat of enlightenment and the ultimate goal of any spiritual practice. Excessive characteristics can be spiritual addiction, over-intellectualization, living "in your head". Deficient characteristics can include spiritual cynicism, a closed mind, a rigid belief system. Balanced characteristics include open-mindedness and the ability to assimilate and analyze information.
After reading through all of that information I quickly recognized myself in many of these characteristics, both excessive and deficient. Do I strive to be that perfectly balanced individual? Sure, don't we all? But in reality I know in my heart that perfection doesn't really exist. So what do I do and how do I do it? I try everyday to be tuned in to what I am feeling by listening to that internal voice in my head. And then I allow that inner wisdom to guide me both on and off my yoga mat. But more about that in another post......
The word "chakra" is Sanskrit for wheel. There are seven basic chakras, or energy centers along your spinal column. Each of these centers correlates to a major nerve bundle that branches out from the spine and is connected to various glands in your body's endocrine system. It is believed that you can have an excess or a deficiency of energy in these centers, which can affect both your physical as well as your mental well-being. What does this have to do with yoga you ask? It is believed that a regular practice of yoga that includes forward, backward, and side bends keep the spinal column active and can keep these nerve bundles from getting blocked.
So what are the seven chakras?
First Chakra: Your root center. It determines your relationship with the material world, controlling how you deal with money, your body, your family. In other words: the things that ground you. Excessive characteristics can be sluggishness, resistance to change, overeating, material fixation, workaholism, excessive spending, and just being a control-freak. Deficient characteristics can include anxiety, anorexia, flightiness, restlessness, and resistance to structure. Balanced characteristics include groundedness, being comfortable in your own body, a sense of safety and security, and having the ability to be in the present moment.
Second Chakra: Your navel center. It relates to creativity and pleasure. Excessive characteristics can be sexual addictions, excessive mood swings, obsessive attachments, and poor boundaries with others. Deficient characteristics can include rigidity in your body, beliefs or behavior, lack of desire, avoidance of pleasure, and emotional numbness or insensitivity. Balanced characteristics include the ability to embrace change, healthy boundaries, passion, and a healthy ability to enjoy pleasure.
Third Chakra: Your solar plexus center. It is the one that governs your intuition, your gut instinct. Excessive characteristics can be dominating, controlling, competitive, arrogant, stubborn, compulsively driven. Deficient characteristics can include lack of energy, submissiveness, blaming, and lack of confidence. Balanced characteristics include a positive sense of self, confidence, warm and energetic, and able to take risks.
Fourth Chakra: Your heart center. This is the bridge between the 3 lower, more earthly chakras and the 3 higher, more spiritual ones. Excessive characteristics can be jealousy, codependency, and being a pleaser or a martyr. Deficient characteristics can include being antisocial or withdrawn, critical or intolerant, feeling lonely and isolated, and lack of empathy. Balanced characteristics include being compassionate, empathetic, accepting, caring, peaceful and centered.
Fifth Chakra: Your throat center. This is how you communicate and express yourself. Excessive characteristics can be talking too much or inappropriately, gossiping, stuttering, excessive loudness. Deficient characteristics can include fear of speaking, excessive shyness, difficulty putting things into words, speaking with a small or weak voice. Balanced characteristics include clear communication with others, good communication with self, being a good listener, having a full, resonant voice.
Sixth Chakra: Your "third eye" center. This governs our ability to separate reality from delusion. Excessive characteristics can be excessive fantasizing, obsessions, difficulty concentrating, and lack of direction. Deficient characteristics can include difficulty visualizing, lack of imagination, excessive skepticism, and an inability to see alternatives. Balanced characteristics include having a creative imagination, ability to visualize, strong intuition, and a guiding vision for life.
Seventh Chakra: Your crown center. This is considered to be the seat of enlightenment and the ultimate goal of any spiritual practice. Excessive characteristics can be spiritual addiction, over-intellectualization, living "in your head". Deficient characteristics can include spiritual cynicism, a closed mind, a rigid belief system. Balanced characteristics include open-mindedness and the ability to assimilate and analyze information.
After reading through all of that information I quickly recognized myself in many of these characteristics, both excessive and deficient. Do I strive to be that perfectly balanced individual? Sure, don't we all? But in reality I know in my heart that perfection doesn't really exist. So what do I do and how do I do it? I try everyday to be tuned in to what I am feeling by listening to that internal voice in my head. And then I allow that inner wisdom to guide me both on and off my yoga mat. But more about that in another post......
Thursday, May 13, 2010
What Am I Going To Do With This?
I have been asked that question a bazillion times since I started my training and up until recently my answer was always the same: "I have no idea." Of course the seed was planted from a reactive place inside of me that day in 2008 when I received my first pink slip. I say first because I got one again the next year, and this year as well. Actually I have already accepted the fact that I will get one again next year too.
Every training that I've gone to so far has been a great opportunity for me to meet new people and talk about how they are fitting yoga into their daily lives beyond their personal practice. And here is what I have discovered so far:
Most of them are already teaching and are getting paid to do so. Am I? Well sort of. I am teaching a weekly class to some of the teachers at my school (more about THAT in another post) but they don't pay me. As part of my Level 1 training I am required to do 8 hours of "community service", which means teach for free somewhere. We are encouraged to try to bring yoga to a community of people who have never done it before. That was easy. Almost all of my collegues are so bogged down with planning lessons and grading papers that they certainly don't have time to do anything for themselves. I have 2 more hours to go to fulfill my 8-hour requirement. So will I start to charge them after that? Probably not. They'd probably stop coming! Maybe at the beginning of next year.....
Another thing I discovered while "networking" with my new yogi friends was that a lot of them are currently teaching in a 24-Hour Fitness gym. Do I see myself doing that? No way. I can just see me walking around some cold impersonal room with one of those headsets on. I don't think so!!!
A few of them are teaching in a small yoga studio somewhere to those O.C. housewives. Nothing against women who all look like Barbie, but I already work in a community like that. And again it would be working for someone else. Don't think I wanna do that either.
So what do I want to do? There's that nagging question again. One yogi I met named Kay told me about how she simply made a flyer and passed it around her neighborhood advertising a sunset class that she teaches in her backyard. That sounds cool. I could do that. Now I just need a backyard. Actually that's where the title of my blog came from: OM to Home. My dream is to bring yoga to others in the privacy of their own home, backyard, or maybe even a beach.
So that's my answer to that burning question: I will become a private yoga instructor. And who knows, maybe even get paid!
Every training that I've gone to so far has been a great opportunity for me to meet new people and talk about how they are fitting yoga into their daily lives beyond their personal practice. And here is what I have discovered so far:
Most of them are already teaching and are getting paid to do so. Am I? Well sort of. I am teaching a weekly class to some of the teachers at my school (more about THAT in another post) but they don't pay me. As part of my Level 1 training I am required to do 8 hours of "community service", which means teach for free somewhere. We are encouraged to try to bring yoga to a community of people who have never done it before. That was easy. Almost all of my collegues are so bogged down with planning lessons and grading papers that they certainly don't have time to do anything for themselves. I have 2 more hours to go to fulfill my 8-hour requirement. So will I start to charge them after that? Probably not. They'd probably stop coming! Maybe at the beginning of next year.....
Another thing I discovered while "networking" with my new yogi friends was that a lot of them are currently teaching in a 24-Hour Fitness gym. Do I see myself doing that? No way. I can just see me walking around some cold impersonal room with one of those headsets on. I don't think so!!!
A few of them are teaching in a small yoga studio somewhere to those O.C. housewives. Nothing against women who all look like Barbie, but I already work in a community like that. And again it would be working for someone else. Don't think I wanna do that either.
So what do I want to do? There's that nagging question again. One yogi I met named Kay told me about how she simply made a flyer and passed it around her neighborhood advertising a sunset class that she teaches in her backyard. That sounds cool. I could do that. Now I just need a backyard. Actually that's where the title of my blog came from: OM to Home. My dream is to bring yoga to others in the privacy of their own home, backyard, or maybe even a beach.
So that's my answer to that burning question: I will become a private yoga instructor. And who knows, maybe even get paid!
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