Something that confuses people who know us, but makes total sense to me, is that our family occasionally attends the nearby Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. (There's a long, complicated explanation for this that I ended up writing an entire book about.) The short of it is that we attend a few times a month during the … Continue reading Day Four: We’ve won the lottery, my friends.
As I last wrote, I walked into the second training weekend feeling not like myself. But then again, isn't this how I walked into the first weekend? Keeping track of my crazy seems to be one of the purposes of this blog. If I'm "not feeling like myself" as much I seem to be, I … Continue reading Day Three: Riding the Waves
The first time I had an anxiety attack in class, against everything I wanted to do instead, I listened to my teacher and stayed on my yoga mat. I didn't go on with the poses like the rest of the class, I just laid there and breathed and felt everything. And I made it through. Up … Continue reading Grieving on the Mat, Part Two
Just recently, I read a description of yoga as being like a diamond, with many facets that make up the whole thing. Before starting teacher training, I'd heard about some of the facets, with the most rudimentary understandings: things like pranayama (breathing), chakras (energy inside of us), and mudras (gestures). Now that I've begun the training, … Continue reading As if I Were a Heavenly Being: Ujjayi and Learning to Move with Victorious Breath
That first Monday after the teacher training weekend was hard. It was a struggle to go from such an intense, transformative set of days to "regular" life. Child 3 woke up covered with a horrible case of poison oak, worse than what I'd had the week before that sent me to the doctor for prednisone, … Continue reading You Can’t Always Get What You Want
One of our first assignments was to have a friend take pictures of us in ten key anansas (postures/poses.) We will take the same pictures again after training. I dreaded this assignment, mostly because I prefer being behind the camera, rather than in front. I was also recovering from a nasty case of poison oak. … Continue reading Ten Postures: Before
On Sept 16th, I emailed Natalie, one of two instructors doing the training, and confirmed that I was in. The next weekend session (I had missed the first) would be Sept. 29-30. I needed to meet with Natalie to get caught up on what I'd missed in August. We met at a coffee shop one … Continue reading Preparing for the first day…
After starting yoga in 2011, when I was 32, I've gradually unfurled the vague-ish goal of going through a teacher-training program by the time I'm 40. This past summer, 2018, was the summer I turned 39. Over the years, when I pictured going through teacher-training, I pictured doing it in an exotic location, like Hawaii … Continue reading The First Post
Breath. Posture. Cue. 