it's time to take the time to create

yoga training session #2
last week we had our second session, and it was 2 hours of just plain awesome-ness. first, i must mention that another student has joined us and it's been really interesting to see how different our styles are. she's very focused on yoga for athletes, using variations of asanas (poses) to help them stretch out their tight muscles. even though we have the same mentor, we are developing our own views and approaches to our practice and it's been lovely bouncing ideas off of eachother, and my teacher as well...

our homework for this class was to create our first sun salutation and after practicing on joey several times, i felt much more comfortable instructing my teacher and fellow student. i have to be honest, not to deter anyone from taking my future classes, but i dont feel like i'm very pleasant to listen to. it's funny how i'm learning so much about myself during this process, but i've found that i'm very reluctant to say things like "smile with your heart" or "feel the light inside of you"... i know that everyone has their own style and i have taken quite a few classes where the teacher speaks like this and i think it's wonderful, but i find myself sort of 'cutting to the chase' with my instructions. i asked my teacher if that was bad and she just said "thats you!" which made me a little more confident...

after we each went through our own sun salutations, we jumped around like monkeys. (seriously, we all got down into a squatting position and bounced around the room to 'loosen up". have i mentioned how much i love this?). then we talked about setting up the rest of our sequence and my teacher filled me in on a little secret which i will now share with you... did you know you can set up an entire sequence using this amazing site? yea, me neither! it's a nice go-to if you're feeling stumped or if you have your entire sequence mapped out except you cant figure out how to get everyone from a low lunge to plow gracefully...

my homework for our next session is to further develop my sequence and practice teaching that to someone (aka joey). i'm a huge fan of arm balances as a peak pose, but i'd love to hear more suggestions! let me know what you think...

oh! and my teacher is getting ready to instruct yoga at a local prison AND in a submarine. yea. awesome. AND she was asked to do an instructional video which she suggested we join her for. what? best. day. ever.