Greetings! It is I, a most grateful and rightly tuckered out yogadork. Between a Bobby Clennell workshop on Weds (fantastic senior Iyengar teacher and author!) and commencement of the 300-hr training yesterday and today, I’m pooped! However, I shall deliver as promised: this is the very first installment of what will be a 6-month journey of yoga knowledge brain-stuffing and dorking out. I will share with you what I learn each week and welcome any and all class participation from you fellow YD-ers reading along or perhaps sidling up to your own yoga journey. Here we go, here we go!
Week 1: That’s a lotta asana!
After we all got through the welcome circle obligatory “hi my name is…”, ”I decided to further my training in the 300hr because…”, the manual hand-outs and reading of our rights (the mandatory rules and regs) we got underway with THREE FULL HOURS of standing poses! Not that it wasn’t a good time. We motored our way through a swift few rounds of sun salutations and then dug into external crowd favorites such as parsvakonasana, utthita trikonasana, virabhadrasana II, ardha chandrasana, and the less popular kids known a warrior III, warrior I, and purvottansana.
Since we had all participated in a 200hr program at some studio or another there was no need to break down sanskrit or the component parts of each pose, and instead we went straight for the bodies. ‘Posture Lab’ they call it, as we paused to observe bodies in particular poses, offering up several verbal cues and then diving into manual adjustments with partners, our “students”. Obviously, as a teacher whether you already have classes full of students or aspire to, the opportunity to practice on other fellow teachers is hands down a most invaluable experience. (yes, pun’s my middle name. actually it’s punasana).
Today was twists and forward bends. I don’t need to tell you that I’m fully expecting to feel some talkative intercostal muscles tomorrow, as well as a few more tools for my toolbox in hands on adjustments. yay.
Was it informative? Yes. Was it fun? Yep. Was it tiring as anything? Hell yes. And boy was I hungry towards the end of today. Hard to fend off the vrttis of tasty nourishment and a nice cold adult beverage.
By the time we got to hour 3.5, when our lovely teacher instructed us to relax our eyes and mouths, all I could think was man I could really relax my mouth around a sandwich right now! Needless to say we did not have much in the way of breaks during the stretch of hour-long prananyama and meditation practice into 4 hours of asana.
Lessons learned and helpful reminders first week (only 2 days):
- great hands on tricks, especially for janu sirsasana and utthita trikonasana.
- the heel of your hands and actual heels are some of your best teaching tools.
- everyone snack for themselves! because that is one area in which you will not find assistance.
Until next week!
These were only the first two days of training, and YD yoga school updates should come pretty regularly on Sundays, at the wrap of each week. Disclosure: Training is with YogaWorks, NYC (I am not being paid to say that, Paula Lynch rocks).
Thanks to everyone who’s donated any amount. I could still really use the support. If you appreciate YD please consider a donation. Thank you!
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Looking forward to following your reports. Thanks for sharing!
Congrats on beginning your training!!! and I can’t wait to read all the posts
Wow – that sounds like an extremely intense, but ultimately rewarding, experience. I’ve been tempted to take a teacher training course many times, but haven’t been able to find the financial means. I am eager to hear more about your training!
Just found this series of blogs and can’t wait to read along. I just commenced my own 200 hour YTT training – so your words of wisdom and experiences will be fun to follow!
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