Last night I taught my first public class through Indigo, the studio where I am doing Yoga Teacher Training. When we first started YTT, I honestly could not imagine myself teaching. It seemed completely overwhelming and nerve-racking. All those eyes, looking at you,waiting for you to tell them what to do, trusting you to make them feel better and not hurt them, watching, waiting… It seemed so intimidating.
And then we did our first adjustments to our fellow students – how could I get comfortable touching people I don’t even know??? And then we taught our first Sun Salutation to 5 other classmates. I couldn’t even remember how to do a Sun Saluation. Mind. Blank. Then we took turns teaching ONE asana at a time to a group of beginner students. I think my first pose was side plank. Super easy asana, but Shannon had to give me little cues to get me started. All that is to say, it was hard to imagine myself standing up in front of 15 people teaching a sequence of several asanas.
But I did it.
And it was awesome.
The class went really well! I followed the template that I posted yesterday. Overall the sequence flowed fairly well. I left out a couple of asanas in the interests of time. I had 3 friends who attended the class, and I’m going to follow up with them today to see what they thought of the pacing, the volume of my voice, the clarity of my instructions, and the difficulty (or easiness!) of the class. Immediately after the class a few students said thank you and that they thought it was a good class. Hopefully they really felt that way!
I’m so glad that I entered this YTT program. I have learned so much, and it’s helped me to see that I am capable of more than I thought. I haven’t reach my peak yet at 38. ;P
I think I promised a list of recommended reading from the Dubuque Yoga Conference, so here is that list. Man, I wish I had more time to read!!!
- Max Strom (from 1-day intensive)
- Exponential Times (Max Strom’s Facebook page where he posts articles/resources).
- Ghandi The Man
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- Sadie Nardini – Anatomy resources
- www.AnatomyTrains.com
- Yoga Anatomy
- www.paulgrilley.com
- www.alignmentyoga.com
- Chakras
- Eastern Body Western Mind (about chakras)
- www.dryogamomma.com
- Max Strom – On Forgiveness
- Autobiography of the Dalai Lama (there are 2 of them)
- The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
And that’s it for this morning! Thank you for reading today. If you read any of these books, or check out any of these resources, let me know what you think. Have a great day!
Reblogged this on bookpino.