so i wanted to give a little peek into what was, and hopefully will be again, my weekly sunday yoga class.
after about a year of training with my yogi teacher, i taught my first class in september of 2012 to a pretty decent-sized intermediate group. susan had built up a following and most of them were kind enough to give me a chance :)
i made a playlist that looked something like this:
eyes- rogue wave
sunrise sunset- we are trees
skinny love- bon iver
the thoughts that give me the creeps- hello goodbye
vcr- xx
whole love- wilco
fidelity- regina spektor
heart it races- dr. dog
animal- miike snow
prophets- a.c. newman
tightrope- yeasayer
if there's love- citizen cope
dead sea- the lumineers
how to love- lil wayne
amazing eyes- good old war
the wooden sky- the wooden sky
*(fyi-all of my yoga class playlists are available on my spotify account)
i created a formula that would be 'my style'- a frankenstein-ian creation of all of the classes i had ever taken and loved. i would take barre, pilates, and yoga classes throughout the week and jot down notes if i liked something different that the teacher did. then i would go home and do p90x, or insanity, and incorporate moves from those programs, as well (sphinx push-ups, anyone?). when asked, i called it
ashtanga vinyasa, but i was later told that my students referred to it as 'katie's yoga bootcamp' :) i would pick one or two peak poses in the same sort of category (hip-opener, arm balance, back bend, etc...) and build a class that would prepare them for those poses. starting out slow with stretches and small balance postures, moving quickly into sun salutations and vinyasas, pausing in between the flow to focus on a pose that would give them the confidence to fly later on. i wasn't sure if this was how to teach, but it felt right. after a few weeks, my students started telling me that i not only prepared them physically, but mentally for those challenging poses, most of which they had never been able to get into :) (did i mention how much i loved my yogis?)
i tried to come up with my signature closing (you know that thing that teachers say at the end of their class and it always sounds so effortless and all encompassing when they say it? like they just summed up everything you were thinking, and everything the person next to you was thinking, and now you can go in peace and just smile for the rest of the day...?). my teacher used to say the most beautiful phrase that began with
'may all beings be happy', and immediately i would go to a place of quiet content. after my first class ended, i looked out at my students and just said the first thing that came to mind-
thank your body for what it's done for you today and thank you for allowing me to practice with you. namaste. it's really very simple, but now that i think about it, it's the core of ahimsa. be nice to yourself. thank you for being nice to me. go in light :)
