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This is most likely our last video blog for our Yoga Teacher Training July 2011.
video blog

Stay grounded,

S and M

24

This is a bittersweet post. M is a little in tears as she's writing it. She's listening to Patrick Watson's The Great Escape. It's a little bit of everything. A week ago we were so excited for this moment to come, but now that The Great Escape is only 2 days away, we don't want it to end.

Team Ishvara represented in the pink tank

Today we reviewed. We went over difficult questions that we didn't know the answer to. Then, we played! We played a quiz game with our questions. S and M were in team Ishvara (Higher Consciousness) , and we won!

Afterwards, we had a nearly 3 hour practice, and it kind of went overboard into the next class. We didn't have savasana, we just had a mini-OM.

Lunch in the Sun room had to be quick because we finished our practice at 2pm. We all met up at 2:45pm.

After lunch we got into partner and taught a mini-sequence. S and M paired up! Second time in a month. It was good, we gave each other good feedback.

We got home in record time, M made dinner, we're studying while listening to The Great Escape.
The Great Escape

Stay grounded,

S and M

23

Home stretch!

We did a lot of talking in the morning about what an ethical teacher is in yoga. If you're a regular classroom teacher- it's exactly the same, but with a little more give since everyone is an adult. S is planning on not touching anyone for at least 3 months after he starts teacher in order to avoid any court cases.

We talked about bringing a theme to our class. M's was all about Harry Potter, S's was all about fairy tales (think 3 little pigs).

Lunch - we went to top up our cell phone and did some interweb searching for apartments.

After lunch, we did a little activity where the some of the class kind of broke down, including S and M. We started by walking around the room and having jovial interactions with 1 classmate. We then explained our favourite food without saying what it is. We then moved on to interacting with him/her without using words. We then described a person who was easy to love to our partner, without saying who it was- this is where M started breaking down. It wasn't S she was describing, but the her Jefe (Spanish for boss). We then looked at one classmate in the eye- no fidgeting, no re-arranging, no harsh stare. It was difficult. It felt uneasy. It felt like you could look into the person's soul, and terrifying that they could look into our souls. Lastly, we moved toward the mirror and stared at ourselves. It was a real breaking moment. S welled up, M welled up, most of our class did. It was a moment of coming face to face with the individual. It was hard not to judge, but it was easy to love the reflection.

After that earth-shattering moment, we taught.

Class ended, and we went apartment hunting. One nice place, the other not so nice place. I think we've settled on one area, but we don't want to limit ourselves to gorgeousness, so we're still looking!

Stay grounded,

S and M

22

Rough Tuesday.

S and M were both exhausted and it felt like we just slept a mere 2 hours, yet, we went to bed just before 10pm- after watching the new season of Entourage- Vince is really starting to get on M's nerves, and S felt just a little bad for Ari.

We went over yesterday's Hatha or Power sequence, switched with a group that did a Power/Hatha sequence and turned in our Flow sequence to R and E (our teachers). We copied out another group's power sequence and divided it up between our group.
We then talked about sequencing for beginners. We really did see the beginners with a lot of compassion, and we don't want to hound them when they show up to our class.

Before lunch we had a 2 hour prenatal talk. It was good, enlightening, and interesting. We did about 40mins of a practice pretending we were pregnant. Now, S and M know how to modify for all the mommies in the house.

S had lunch inside because he was studying, M went out to sit on the lawn. We have a test on Friday first thing in the morning, and we're both working hard to get over 70%!

After lunch we talked about injuries. It was really insightful, and we're hopefully going to get more into modifying for injured knees, shoulders, hips...
After injuries we did our flow class. It was hard!

Homework:
Practice teach the sequence for tomorrow
Journal: How do I compensate for discomfort or stress in my body?
Journal: How can I hold presence better in my own life?
Journal: What are some ethical dilemas as a yoga teacher or yoga student?
And we got the postures we're going to teach Friday as our test.

Supernatural set

We forgot to tell you, yesterday we walked past a tv set, Supernatural. We didn't see anyone famous, that we would know who's in the show.

Stay grounded,

S and M

21

Happy Monday!

Today we rolled out of bed groggier than usual.  Sunday was full of sun and it had an apparent affect on us.  Breakfast was slow, getting lunch ready was slow, the walk to training was slow.

We arrived to no practice in the morning.  We were floored.  What no practice!  It has become a regular routine to have a 2-3 hour practice every morning before lunch, but instead we learned about the nervous system and the difference between a hatha, flow and power classes.  Hatha is a slow moving less flowy class - typically for injured, elderly and beginners.  Flow has a lot of vinyasas (flowy movements in between each pose) and some fun headstands and balances.  Power makes you sweat!  Its held in a 32 degree room and has lots of tough poses.  We then created a sequence for one of them.  S sequenced a tough power class.  M sequenced a hatha class.  Y said it was like creating a class for 70 year olds.  Before lunch we learned about Ayurveda.  S is a Pitta (fire sign - always moving) with some Kapha (earthy, grounded sign).  M is the opposite Kapha with some Pitta.  Together they are a good balance.

Lunch was the usual yogis on the grass.  It was a bit cooler but still sunnny, thankfully.  M surprised S with a load of food from Tim Horton's on top of their small lentil meal - left overs from last night.

After lunch we had to practice teach our sequence we created in groups this morning.  S was stuffed from lunch and didn't enjoy his power class.  It was great teaching, but his belly just wasn't in it.  M taught a slow hatha class.  We both had comments on our language.  We tend to use: 'we want you to'...or 'just come into'... instead of saying 'step your foot forward'...or'move you leg back'.  We need to get rid of our garbly gook language we acquired from teaching kids and be more direct!  Easier said than done.  Overall, I think we're in pretty good standing for our teaching.

At the end of class we learned about the format for our teaching exam.  We each get postures and will teach them at different points throughout the class on Friday, after our final written exam which will be held when we first arrive that day.  Its going to be one heck of a day!  But we'll get through.

We're a little worn down from it all.  And we're working on finding an apartment for September too!  Wish us happy apartment hunting.

Homework:  

Change our sequences into a flow sequence

Study for the written exam!

Stay grounded,
S and M

20

Weekend!

On Saturday morning, we slept in a short 1/2 hour and before leaving to class, we talked with A and H from London. They're coming to visit a week on Friday, and we can't wait!
We slowly made our way to class.

We talked about our sequence and teaching from the day before. We got some feedback as a whole group about our sequencing and postures, as well as our dialogue.

Iyengar at 90ish in Padmasana

We had a really "restorative" practice... including bolsters. We also went into Padmasana. Both S and M have really tight hips, it was enlightening actually. We had both done Padmasana on a whim, but realized that we were both compensating to get into it- and probably aggravating our knees.

After practice we got into groups of two to teach. S and M got some really good feedback and worked well with our chosen partners.

At the end, we sang happy birthday to two yogi classmates, and went outside to see the beautiful R. She came all the way from Victoria to spend the weekend with us.

S, C, R, R, M

In the afternoon, we made our way to Spanish Banks, to practice yoga with 300+ other yogis with the amazing Chris Chavez. Ozlem, his wife, remembered we were from the London workshop, and we had to remind Chris, but as soon as we did, it was a light bulb moment. We also saw our YYoga teacher there, R, who's always a joy!

These one letter names are getting a little confusing, but let's try. R from Victoria was there, so was R and C - our Vancouver friends, R our YYoga teacher, as well as S and M.

For S and M it was a moment of gratitude to see Chris and Ozlem again. They really are like a beacon of light to our sailing ship, and we aspire to be like them both, if not just half of what they have become. They both truly are great spirits!

We went to La Patate Belle afterwards to have a poutine and the skytrain home. We realized buses in Richmond don't come too often, so instead of a one hour walk home, we took a cab!

Today, we're going to the beach to have a little bbq lunch, and then who knows!

Stay grounded,

S, Chris, M

S and M

19

Hi all.  Today we had a tough morning getting up.  Almost 3 hours of practice yesterday made us a little weary.

The walk was chilly and we decided to share a coffee from Tim Horton's when we arrived at the studio.  Its a few stores over.  Oh and M found her water bottle that she left in the sun room yesterday.  She was delighted.

Today we started module three in class.  We went over cool down poses.  These are usually seating poses that counter act the peak pose (or the super adventure pose - that was for E) that you work up to in your sequence.  We also talked about class timing and the need to have Savasana (corpse pose - lying flat on your back) for at least 5 minutes at the end of class.  Today, we felt like we needed full day Savasana.  But no luck.

Practice was more of a workshop today, AND a photo shoot!  H from head office was in to document our fabulous poses for promotions.  M was in the front row and H was in her face at all times.  H also concentrated on Little D.  S chose the middle row and didn't get the same 1:1 attention.  But he's cool with that, after all its a female dominated practice.  M held a fabulous bird of paradise until E came over and distracted her.  Jeeze, teachers!  The practice was also a cry-fest.  We did hip and shoulder openers using bound poses and tears were abundant.  C who was next to S broke down completely after shoulder-stand.  She didn't know why she was crying, nor how to stop!  It happens to us all at one point or another.

Bird of Paradise from behind

The afternoon led us into asana lab for seated postures - lots of focus on shoulders down the  back, and inner thighs out (people tended to roll their butts under rather than show their junk off).  Then came practice teaching.  We divided into groups of 4 and created a sequence to Ustrasana - Camel.  M got the super group.  S was happy with most in his group.  He had been jonesing to work with Little D since M kept raving about her.  She was right to do so.  Little D rocked the house.  After creating the sequence, we had to split it into four parts and each person then got to teach one of those parts.  S and M taught the peak poses unbeknownst to each other until just now.  It was a pretty good session.  We have to work on staging the postures and timing, but everything else is fitting into place.

Now its a fibre-fest dinner, as we pigged out a little with pizza and chips last night.  Gotta keep regular!

Homework:
Sutras 30 - 40
Sequence cool downs for Bakasana, Pincha Myurasana, and Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana
Journal entry on how to bring the theme of gratification into a yoga class

Stay Grounded

S and M

PS. S and M were fooling around and S tweaked M's knee - they had both forgotten that she hurt it last weekend.  M cried for a bit.  S drew a bath and helped her soak it.  Hopefully its not sore tomorrow - send positive vibes her way please!