TRAINING TO TEACH

Of late, this is the question I hear more than any other: “Megan, how is yoga school?” Or rather, “How is teacher training?” but Jim and I call it yoga school, so I’m going with that.

I’ll say this, more and more I learn that most things are harder from the inside, and this isn’t an exception. I try not to criticize my yoga teachers, which isn't hard since I don’t take class from anyone I don’t respect, therefore my yoga world is populated with terrific instructors, but now I extra try not to be critical of their classes.

Because, Dear Reader, teaching yoga is effing hard.

There is so much to keep track of—the environmental controls, the students’ safety, the pace of the class, the difficulty of the class in comparison to the experience level of the students who showed up, the volume of the music, and all that doesn’t even include the actual yoga postures. I said before I started the training that whether or not I end up teaching, at least I will have acquired a new skill set after this training is done, and if I put in effort to match the work, I certainly will have, because, dude, this so is not a skill set I’ve got already.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve felt this busy. Work is busy. Yoga takes up all my other time. I’m trying to keep some design commitments (failing). But really all I want is to be with Jim. It’s mushy and sappy yet true. When I decided to do the yoga school thing it was on a whim and I didn’t take into consideration the amount of time it would take—read: a lot—what with the actual training days, home practice, my regular daily Bikram classes, additional vinyasa classes, teaching practice, required readings, homework assignments, and my inability to be all right with doing things halfway. When I’m not at work or at my desk doing work stuff, I’m doing something to do with yoga, eating to fuel my yoga life and apparently to ensure that I don’t earn a hot body even with all the additional yoga, and/or icing my shoulder.

Lest you overlooked the second sentence in the paragraph above: forget not, this yoga school ain’t my only gig. I’ve also got that drug career thing. You know, the full-time job that sends me all over northern Nevada, which as it happens, is very helpful, as I use the drive time as a chance to practice teaching over music, perhaps the hardest thing ever. While teaching yoga is so much more difficult than you think—I say this as one with a decade of experience in yoga, a strongish practice, and a sponge mind constantly leaning about more yoga stuff, which is to say, I say this as one with a reasonably solid yoga foundation which could lead you to believe that I’m well prepared for this teaching endeavor—successfully teaching yoga over music is almost impossible. I’m easily distracted. So I’m grateful that my job is one with a lot of time in the car. I need all the practice I can get.

I’m constantly apologizing to my husband for how much time this yoga whatnot is taking away from us getting to be together, and I’m thisclose to making an advent-type calendar countdown for when I’ll graduate. Don’t get me wrong, Jim is totally supportive—the man proposed to me in yoga class, for heaven’s sake; he gets what this means to me—and my doing this training is making him even prouder of me, a thing which could previously have been said wasn’t possible. I just know that when I’m missing him, he misses me back. Aside from a couple days in SF with Amber and Jess, yesterday was the first day in, like, a month that I didn’t go to a yoga class. I did church and stayed at home and worked on my presentation on Dharana, the sixth anga of yoga as per Patanjali’s yoga sutras. Not class but still yoga.

However, please don’t take this update as whining.

Yes, I’m fatigued and sleep like the freaking dead at night. Yes, my body hurts and I have legitimate yoga bruises. Yes, I am not shy about saying that I’d rather spend the extra yoga time with my husband (we haven’t even been married six months yet, so give me some leeway for sap, if you please). But this training was a good idea. And I do mean this training. I’m doing my work through Pure Yoga, a darling lil’ studio in midtown Reno, and somehow luck was on my side when I picked it. I’m thrilled with how we’re learning methodology. I think the asana/theory/history balance is ideal. Our teachers know their shit. I’m confident that I’m getting great guidance and instruction.

Also, it’s fun. Getting to do this training with Cameron is a gift. He’s capable, sweet, hilarious, a terrific fella to learn with, and lives seven minutes away, so despite my full schedule we manage to get together to practice. Or at least to make sure his costume for the black light yoga class glows. I don’t want to imagine what this experience would be like without him.

It brings fun home too. Josie likes to have me show her postures and direct her into postures. She even pays attention to my safety harangues and blather about alignment. When I tell her the sanskrit names of postures she’s collapses laughing. “What’s this pose?” “Salamba Sarvangasana.” “Whaaat!?Salami and sardines!?”

Jim likes to say some aggravatingly true aphorism about how if it’s not hard it’s not worth it. This is hard. It’s adding value. So. Success.

“Megan, how is yoga school?”

See above.

Also, yesterday Josie made irresistible mini spice cupcakes with vanilla frosting, so I curse her every time I walk into the kitchen and am very glad that mine is a job that takes me from the house, ‘cause if I was staying at home, it’d take all of one day for me to balloon to the size of a beefy manatee.