The flow on the tip of my tongue!

So a blog post about my challenges with Sanskrit comes at the perfect time. This weekend at yoga teacher training I will be asked to teach both Opening and Closing mantra's of the primary series, and speak through the Sun Salutations with Sanskrit counting. The word nervous doesn't quite describe it.

All my life language has been a big challenge for me. I went through phases of trying Italian and French and with not much luck. It's known, us British are terribly lazy to learn second languages, but really I wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wouldn't be lazy and I would learn. But the hardest thing is after many many years of only speaking English, my pronunciation was atrocious. I was embarrassed and nervous, although keen to make an effort, but any person I would speak to who would laugh or smile, or even correct me would send me one step back. Less reluctant for me to speak out loud.

Now I'm going through it all again with Sanskrit, we read, we write, we listen, we repeat, we teach trying to say it all confidently. But to be honest I avoid it whenever possible. When I'm teaching poses, I'm usually only using the English name, admittedly because many asana's have similar sounding names, and they are so long i forget, but mainly because I'm scared my class will not know what I'm talking about. But imagine, right now I'm only saying it out loud infront of my ytt classmates, who are also learning, but the moment I will have my own class, I will fall to pieces. I think I will truly avoid, then I will never get better. So recently I have made a pact to get this down to a tee. To speak up and speak proud. I love saying the mantra's and often find myself walking around the house chanting it out loud, which beats the nursery rhyme's I pick up from work. I've been listening to different teachers online, to find if they chant in different ways I am used to. For months I had only ever had Shareen say the mantra's out loud, but I recently started at AYCT (The Ashtanga Yoga Centre of Toronto) and it was funny how shocked I was to hear just a new way to say it. No way is right or wrong, but each brings individuality to your practice. I've now even recorded it on my phone and listen to it when waiting for a bus (all in preparation for this weekend). I listen to the counts and visualize the sun salutations in my mind, and I do wonder what I look like, because I'm holding back movements. I've always thought my teacher Shareen was a great teacher, but I have really started to realize how every time she teaches she uses sanskrit and the respect I have for her effort to use it whenever possible. I've been with her so much through the teacher training, how much easier this is for me now to understand and familiarize myself with the words. Now I realize when teachers are also like me now, and focus only on the minimal sanskrit words they know. As a teacher I want to teach my students the words, the correct way, to show I understand the yoga routes and that it's more about poses, but there is history and there is passion I want to portray.

For now Namsate

Time to meditate

As part of my training we are required to do 20hours of meditation over the 9 months. I have easily gained the 50 hours of additional yoga class time, but meditation has of course been the hardest thing to integrate into my mentality and way of life. My family have always joked for years that I need to learn to meditate as I've constantly been restless and, to my shame, quite a pessimist. That said, I obviously call myself a realist. I never aim to look at the positive as to me, there's no way to then get disappointed.  I question everything and think everything through in detail, and resting my mind often comes on a Saturday night at a club with good music where I can just...dance. If I feel stressed I often focus on the next DJ coming to town and get ready to dance the night away, but this is not stress relief. This is not Santosha and contentment. This is me really having a good time out with a friend. I do need to bring contentment in my life, just to except each day as it is, and start each new day a fresh, not looking at what will be.
  Last July I was given a promotion and it scared the hell out of me. I was already hard on myself with my teaching, and soon I was to manage a large team of people, have overriding decisions with our service and deal with all the children's parents. I was nervous I would be bringing work home too often and not finding that healthy work/home balance. This is another reason I wanted so much on the yoga teacher training. A hobby and focus that had nothing to do with work. A hobby and focus just for me. To talk to people with an interest in my job and what I do, but not analyzing my decision making or teaching philosophies.

I can honestly say I don't know where I would be if I didn't have the focus yoga has given me. It is more about asana's and postures. It's about seeing things in a different way, understanding each day is its own, and to understand all walks of life and the different people that are in it.

I do bring work home often and with volunteering after work and yoga practice, integrating mediation has been hard. In general its hard to find the time and place.  I have tried waking up in the morning and doing it before anything else, but I felt it was too hard to concentrate as my stomach would rumble and I'd worry about being late for the bus etc. I have tried just before bed, by which point I'm exhausted and   feel bed time will do me the world of good. The best time of day has been just before or after dinner, not long after I finish work/volunteering. But times of the days would fluctuate as my schedule is different each and every day. By this time as well my fiance comes home, and he is very understanding to try and leave me, but the dog then goes crazy, demanding attention and that's it, concentration gone.

I think my problem is I've been trying for longer times (30 minutes) to try and increase the power of concentration and meet my hours. This past week though I have been working on 10-15 minutes and this has been much easier for me. It's the time it takes Matt to take the dog out and come back. This is going to be my aim now until April. To just be ok with 10 minutes. To not see it as failing, but an achievement that I have even given myself that time.

I'm still trying to find the right meditation for me. I'm still relying on guided ones I find online, and have fluctuated between vipassana and chakra. Right now I'm more drawn to chakra, focusing on each area and the colours. For some reason I feel lighter and grounded after listening to a series. This one being my favourite so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdyg8jt0OQU&playnext=1&list=PLF2FD8DC189134A5B&feature=results_main

With vipassana, I again get frustrated that I focus so hard and want to maintain concentration so much on any one thing, I tend to fail.

Meditation is often the biggest point of conversation I start with my YTT teacher and friends. I am intrigued to know what works for people and their experiences and they have been a great help with suggestions. Our only guy on the course has a very strong meditation practice and I'm intrigued by his healthy attitude to life and his general demeanour. Last week he guided us slightly at the end of a vinyasa class and he was able to create a great atmosphere and focus. We asked him to make a c.d for us all, but I guess we need to find it on our own first.
Lets hope that soon it will come!

Ashtanga and me

As you know I have tried yoga in different capacities through different studios and teachers. So why did I choose Ashtanga yoga. A common phrase you may here Ashtangi’s use is it chose me.

Today we are a hard driven culture and our schedules are very busy. We are hard on ourselves and set ourselves often hard goals. We measure ourselves and compare ourselves to others. Often when you tell people you do yoga, people grimace and say “it’s not for me”  “I don’t like yogi’s” or “isn’t it boring”.  Let me tell you its not just about stretching.

People believe a hard session at the gym, leaving you feeling sore is the sign of a good workout. Or you could be a huge cardio junky and obsessed with knowing the amount of calories you burn and feel your heart race. But if you try to explain to people, you can get this from yoga, they often don’t believe you. I’m a person who is a cardio junky. Cycling, running and swimming are all activities I have taken on, and when training for the marathon I saw pounds falling off me.  I had my family and friends  telling me how unhealthy I looked as I wasn’t replenishing my body the with correct food to keep me fueled. But I was obsessed with exercise. I took on personal training at the gym to help develop my strength as I constantly felt weak. The eating part was the hardest for me as I was a salad junky, ate little protein and avoided carbs, all I cared about was exercise  The harder I trained the more I lost my appetite, and the more I forced myself to eat or even drink the energy drinks my body needed. Now I still do these workouts, but not as much as my yoga practice is up to 3-4 times weekly. That said I still have to consider fuelling myself with nutritious food to give me the strength and energy to practice well.  Which I’m glad to say has got better.

  As I said, I had always been doing yoga and I had tried, power yoga, hatha yoga and Bikram. Power yoga has a catchy name to meet those qualities I had explained above, and fits well into the gym scene. Practices are fast paced and develop strength and flexibility in one. Is there a difference between power yoga and vinyasa? That I’m not so sure. I think the name just may attract a different audience. That said I had been going to a  ‘power’ practice on Friday nights with a teacher (Daniel Uy) who was fun and could push his students with also making them see the best in themselves. He gave good variations for newbies and advance and never appeared to be standing there to show off his sills as a practitioner.  I could see he went around to everyone. He was the one who had me thinking about yoga teacher training. He was the one who I could believe was there for the love of teaching. He planned a weekend retreat once, and I was gutted I was unable to make it as I work on Saturdays. His classes held a pretty similar format each week and I liked that I could see progression in the poses he put in. One thing now that I find hard with vinyasa classes is you can wait weeks on end before you come across poses you like or are nearly there with. He then started to introduce an Ashtanga style class once a month. Unfortunately the class was only an hour so we couldn’t even call it a half primary, however it was strict and hard. I realized most of his vinyasa practice was built on the series, but as a person really hard on myself and a high achiever their were absolutely no short cuts in Ashtanga. Another thing I liked about Daniel is that he would share stories about his practice and talk highly of his teachers. I have since learnt you will always have your teacher. You will find who you want to be your teacher and guide you the most. I take advice from all the teachers in which I work but I know I may question some suggestions and get it confirmed with my teacher Shareen.

  I started to look online more about Ashtanga and found the AYCT (Ashtanga Centre of Toronto) I learnt about Mysore and got intrigued, but scared at the thought of it. I could see the dedication you needed, and once again the marathon training had started so I wasn’t sure if I could commit to the amount you need to in Ashtanga. It is not something I wanted to do by half.

 I then came around to find the Fireflow teacher training. When I signed up I wasn’t 100% what would be involved, but that first weekend, hearing our first half would be based on Ashtanga yoga I was so happy. I was happy to learn about where vinyasa has stemmed from and how why, bunhda’s, and breathing are so essential for any practice. Half way through our training vinyasa classes seem easy to compose and confident to explain.

 What I have learnt is that I have come on this course, thinking I could teach at the end of it, but have learnt this is a journey about myself. I am learning more about myself, as I get inpatient with my practice, and at times lazy. To stay dedicated is hard, it is a discipline, to look at where you are now but not where you could be.

 My teacher said something last night, that really does some up why I have  chosen this. You will never be perfect at it, if you are you are not working towards anything. There is always something there to improve on, each and every one of us. This has always been my mentality in everything. School, fitness, and knowledge. At school if I ever was graded an A+ I was never actually satisfied as I was never given anything to work on. For me I always want to get better and there is always room to get better, and yes Ashtanga will give me that for the rest of my life.

Namaste