Today I started a yoga teacher training course. Ten or so years ago, I finished a yoga teacher training course. A decade of faltering poses, intermittent teaching and forgetting lessons learned. And it's nice to be back - breathing and wheezing.
Last time I was in a yoga studio in person with amazing strangers who became friends..
Today, I am in my room, on zoom, and I haven't met any of my fellow students in person.
Last time, we ate lunch together at break, round a kitchen table. Soup and cakes, which I made, once a month, Saturday and Sunday. Panic when I discovered a fellow student was coeliac. So as well as learning yoga, I learned to make gluten free cakes. Always from Cake Angels or chocolate heartache. If I was baking now, it would be vegan and from here.
This course demands lots of time for practice and for thinking. There is a wonderful reading list. I've never quite got over the thrill of a reading list, although I've seldom made it to the end of one.
As is only right, I'm starting with Yoga and You by Esther Myers. The course is with the Esther Myers Yoga Studio in Toronto, and it is the final teacher training course they plan to offer. That put an end to my dithering, and caused me to dive in.
Yoga calls us to be true to ourselves, as well as to be honest in word and deed. We need to be clear about who we are, and where we are. The body doesn't lie.
Yoga and You, Esther Myers p12
So, being honest in word and deed, I've let my yoga practice drift.
When I qualified as a teacher, I inherited the makings of a class. Some lovely students entrusted me to create a space where they could rest and practice a gentle form of yoga on Tuesday nights. I taught in a circus school, an art studio, my living room and at a beautiful retreat in France. When Covid came along, everything stopped. My practice became solitary, in my room, on zoom, and based on kundalini yoga.
Restrictions eased, but my mind and body became both stiffer and stronger. I took up weight training and became obsessed with kettle bell swings and deadlifts (100kg if you must know!). I joined yoga groups again, practicing yin yoga, kundalini yoga on the beach and have come to love gong baths. And I've found that I hanker for the discipline of learning. To start on another path, and be led by safe and caring hands.
I was in safe and caring hands in November, when, deflated with stress and illness, I joined a class taught by Nikki and it opened a door that had got a bit stuck. For the past twenty years, Nikki has supported and encouraged me in my practice. As I travelled home from her class, I thought, I need more yoga in my life. And then I opened an email from Toronto that said, for this, now or never.
So, it's now, and this is what I am going to write about here for the next wee while.
Regaining a practice and learning anew. More breathing, less wheezing.
