Yoga for all

When I startred my teacher training, I'll admit I wasn't sure where I wanted it to take me. I started thinking I could easily teach, but then I started to say it would just be for my own personal development, but as the course went along, the more I fell in love with yoga, and the more I wanted to share that passion.

Daily I work with children and adults with physical needs, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, developmental delay, stroke, Parkinson's and MS. To teach myself more I work with a boy with Autism and  girl with ADD  in the evenings as a form of respite/tutoring. Both children are10, yet very different. I have learnt a lot about learning styles, language confusion and seen how children can become frustrated when not keeping up with the standard school curriculum.

I'm a firm believer that we need to channel into the energy of kids. That movement is the essence to everyones learning. With movement we stimulate our brains and explore our surroundings. We movement with can settle the energy that can causes distraction from mental activities. In my profession, we challenge our children and adults, each and every moment. These are people who are usually sat in wheelchairs for extended periods of time. We challenge them to think, process and most of all listen. Listen to their bodies, and listen to the instructions.

I feel that the two children I'm with in the evenings, benefit from the release of endorphins to help them focus. To learn to listen to themselves, monitor themselves and see progression with what they do. With yoga I see this happening. Even when we are doing yoga they may complain things are hard and challenging but at the end I see stillness, focus and breath control. I'm trying to teach mindfulness, and hope they feel it themselves. Trying to settle nerves, rest bodies and see their own potential. I like yoga for these kids because it is not comparable to other children, or has cause and effect. Team sports can be challenging as they may not be able to co-ordinate kicking in soccer, or catch a ball 100% like in basketball. They don't have to keep up with anyone and they use their imagination to think of imagery and stories to work alongside our poses. The whole time they count their poses and are constantly reinforcing their left and right side.

I've decided, yes, I want to teach. I want to teach Vinyasa to adults in studios, but most of all I want to specialize in children's yoga. I want to show yoga can be made accessible for children using wheelchairs, non verbal children and those with limited concentration. Yoga can make them part of a community they never thought they could be.

I'm happy to say I'm putting my hand to this. I have managed to get in connection with a yoga studio ready to run special needs classes and I'm getting ready to promote, and plan for it. I recently completed a children's yoga specialized course and I have been contemplating taking the additional special needs course. However thats not in my budget this year. But I've thought about it and I've worked with children for over 10 years now and worked in the special needs sector for all of these. Kids yoga is about expression, incorporating song, drama, dance and art. I used to teach dance and drama before I went to university. I managed to take my knowledge in these areas and use it to teach classes in a special needs camp in the summer of 2004, so why not do this in yoga. I will try my hardest to believe I have the knowledge and I aim to have enough creativity to make this yoga, and ensure everyone in my classes has fun and learns something. I' ready to hit the teaching world via community outreach, schools and birthday parties, and hope people will help me share my knowledge and share my love.

Namaste.

Patience

So one thing about yoga, and doing it seriously is it requires something that is known as patience. I have a relative amount of patience, to work in my field patience is required as the children I work with need time, to learn and process and practice practice practice until they succeed in our goal. However out of the special needs world, I wouldn't call myself patient at all. I want things fast, I move fast, I eat fast and generally slow environments bore me. I have dreams of travelling, having more money and a more successful profession, and I want it all now. I finish one big project and then want the next. So the past 8 months I have learnt about the 8 limbs, about how to be un harming to myself, to not have greed and this is disturbed all through the lack of patience. That said, since my immersion I have changed a lot, things don't frustrate me as easily, I take time to just observe, chill and enjoy the moment and I've been very patient with my practice. But patience has to be learnt. You have to meditate your way through to achieve patience. Last week my mysore practice really challenged my patience and the effects of it. I will admit, I've been exploring other practices and classes and not been able to make it four times a week to mysore each morning, and its been very noticable. I went through a phase of advancing each and every day, and even though I don't move on further through the series I'm ok, because I get stuck at supta kurmasana (wrapping my legs behind my head with my arms bound behind my back.) I'm fine with taing my time with this as I know my body needs time to open up. I'm not naturally flexible and I have always been ok, with the slow progression. However last week saw a near breakthrough, a half headstand (ardh sirhasan) to then be followed by a complete fail, toppling and nearly landing on someones face when the poor girl next to me was resting. Embarrassed I was actually far from, but then in it creeped, frustration. Totally threw off my final asana's in practice, unsettled my rest and critiqued myself with constant evaluation. The Ashtanga was testing me and I failed, I was inpatient. I was greedy as I wanted to get it. I was harming as I was angry with myself for not getting it. Now I know this is the challenge, I know I have to work on it, but each day I need understand me, and understand how such things effect not just me but those I know. If I'm hard on myself, my body language changes, my health and my spirit changes which can bring down the mood of others. This is way more than a physical challenge, but a mental one too, but I have to remember to not work too hard on it, because then the impatience happens again, then the circle is created. I have to allow it to come naturally to allow it to become me!
Wish me luck

Namaste

Supta Kurmasana - The place where I start to close my practice as I'm no where near here yet. But maybe one day! (Please note as I can't do this, this is not my picture, and I found it online through a  search engine, she makes it look so easy)

Graduation

This weekend I graduated. Yes, its hard to believe but I'm certified to teach yoga. So why do things feel a little bit empty, which is weird as I had a wonderful weekend, emotional really. This weekend we got together as a class and brought together a 75 minute class with each of us teaching one section for 8 minutes. We practiced Friday, again on Saturday and taught to a group of real students, that meaning not just each other, but outsiders. Friends, family and regular Fireflow students. Everyone felt pretty nervous but for me I guess I just focused on the fact that thats it, course up. Last weekend doing something I love. For a moment I didn't want the class. I wanted to be having a regular YTT weekend again.

I've loved every single weekend I've been at Fireflow for teacher training. It's been busy. We learnt, anatomy, sanskrit, adjustments, asana's, ayurveda, chakra's, Ashtanga, vinyasa, restorative, yin, mediation, more adjustments, more teaching, and yoga text. So much was crammed into what seemed such little time, but it was a total of 250 hours, which is more than the average teaching course.

Coming to the end, I wouldn't say has brought on sadness, but does have me feeling like I still want more. More learning, more practice, more fun with my friends and the company of my teacher. I guess I feel very blessed to have had this experience over the last 8 months, and hope that my new life in this community will keep me feeling as humble and calm as I have over this time.

I guess my new posts will be about me as a teacher, yet still a learner and still hoping you want to read more.

Namaste

Learning in just 200 hours?

As graduation from my yoga teacher training approaches I'm nervous. Mainly because that means official studying is over but the learning will not. I graduated from university nearly 5 years ago and each and everyday I continue to learn. I learn from those I meet and work with, and take upon my own self study, but maybe as I was younger I never felt nervous. Its typical for the newly grad to be naive as to what to expect, so is that why I feel nervous about graduating now, into something completely new to me. Because not only will I be learning in my full time job, but I will be continue to try and learn as much as I can in my new role as yoga instructor. I'm also starting to admit I'm nervous because each and every weekend I have been at yoga teacher training I've been happy, energized and looked forward to upcoming schedule. I've had near melt downs over test's in sanskrit and chakra's as I have over every exam in my life, as I want to do my ultimate best. I've struggled to read the complex text of yoga sutra's but been engrossed in the explanations and insight my teacher gives. I've questioned myself and the theory, and criticized my teaching each time I do. I wonder if I will ever be respected as I respect my teachers, but the past 8 months I've been really different, I've been really happy.
  As graduation approaches I'm considering who will be my students, and always looking at courses to add to my hours. I recently attended the yoga conference with excitement as I attended the six hour chair yoga workshop, perfect for me in my already career within the disability sector. I was reluctant at first as the cost was so much, but I am glad I did it. There was a lot of people there in this particular workshop, so it is evident that this is a field really needed. I loved the lecturer Annete Wertman, she was honest, fun and imaginative. She specialized in geriatrics and I respected the insight and quotes she gave on this population. She admitted she had to teach herself how to teach this population, and really I can see it's common sense, but I do like to understand that I am on the right track with how we would teach something.
  That being a positive experience of the day, I did find a negative. Mostly in the other attendees in the workshop. We were given the task to split off into groups and rephrase common sentences/ phrases Annette had heard teachers say in classes she had attended. Being teachers I should imagine you will pick up on any thing like this. I myself find myself now thinking how I would say things differently or do things differently. Example of phrases she gave were: "Feel like your heart is melting" "Get rid of all the garbage in your body out of your feet" Really for any of my yogi friends reading this I'm sure your laughed or smirked, but people do say things like this. But working in groups I found the other participants were unwilling to co-operate in doing the task. They laughed and said it's probably teachers from a 200 hour course. Now... I stuck up for us 200 hour students. That's not fair. Firstly, there are other options for studying such as 500 hours, but here in Toronto I can gurentee over 75% of those people learnt from a 200 hour courses. Traditionally there was never a teaching course, you were blessed by the teacher who created the type of yoga, such as Shri K Pattabhi Jois. The women were all much older than me, and I sensed some real arrogance around them. I'm a student in a 200 hour and know that the example of sentences were ridiculous  but I do believe they were said. I said to everyone, teaching is based on the person and their experiences and how they learnt. Through my course, our teacher has been honest with us, she has told things we should avoid saying/ doing, and always justified and given reasons why. I'm also a teacher, and already know to think before you say, so you can't point the finger at me and say its because I only received 200 hours. Anyone knows you never learn anything until you have experienced it. You learn from the things you do, you evaluate,  modify and make better. You can't judge things said on a whim. So these women in my workshop had more years of experience for a reason, but were they the perfect teacher after 200, 500 or 100 hours in class.... my guess no! They have built their own knowledge, taught themselves and learnt from those they meet. My teacher has given so much, she has brought me knowledge, inspiration, passion and understanding of myself and my practice, but soon I'm on my own and I know it. I know I have to do it, and just really hope people give me a chance,  judging me for the teacher I am am, not for the hours on my certificate.
  To begin 200 hours does sound like a lot, but given the chance I would sign up 500 hours right now. But I would be going through exactly the same apprehension near to graduation also. I would have to create my own clientele,  resume and business. Who cares how strong my practice is based on that in my logged hours, but I hope people care how strong the teaching is. I may not be the most advanced practitioner  but I hope I can present, motivate and guide people to the best of their abilities. I've continued to sign up for courses, as the essence of teaching yoga is being realistic about the student I am. I will share my experience, quote from those in which I learn and hope that I'll never loose sight that everyone will have their own style, their preferred practice and understanding  but know we are reaching out to people in a very special way, by bringing them the wealthy experience of yoga.

Namaste