Deep inhale . . . deeeeeep exhale! As of Wednesday, November 18 at 9:30 p.m., I successfully completed my yoga teacher training! Thank you for supporting my efforts, reading my blog, cheering me on, sending me inspirational emails, not rolling your eyes when I spoke about how to achieve a super-terrific downward facing dog, and just being supportive!

My final was on Wednesday night and I felt fantastic all day! I was confident of the sequences that we've been learning and felt that I had already "arrived". That was, until I started driving to the studio to take the final, of course! My breath grew shallow with each mile I drove, and by the time I got to the studio, I was practically hyperventillating. (An exaggeration, but I want you to get the picture of how much of a basket-case I had become!)

I walked into the studio greeted by 43 other just-as-nervous teachers in training. As I tried to appear calm, cool, and collected, I took a sip of my vitamin water while gasping for air and choked on it! (NOT an exaggeration - this really happened!) I coughed and choked and tryed to regain my composure. After 5 minutes of continuous coughing if finally got it back, and we all met up in one of the two studios at the South Boulder CorePower. We divided up into 2 groups and were assigned a partner.

I conducted a full class to my partner, Nicole, in a room full of 11 other people doing the same thing. I was not as distracted as I thought I'd be, and got right into the flow. Five different CorePower teachers came around and watched us, writing feedback in our notebooks as we taught the sequence. After I got through the entire flow (about 45 minutes worth of teaching) I got to read my feedback and get verbal feedback from Nicole. It was all really positive and I felt really good about it! I was handed my certificate and I just couldn't believe it was all over. After Nicole taught her class to me, we all gathered back in the main studio and recalled what a fast 8 weeks it had been. Lots of people made plans to stay in touch and keep practicing on one another. It was a bitter-sweet ending to an amazing 2 months. Wow. Still can't believe it.

Wondering what my next move is going to be? Stay tuned . . . you'll be hearing from me!

Love and Namaste (the teacher and light in me honors the teacher and light in you),

Cindy

Bringing Yoga to Life

How can it be that I am already in my final week of yoga teacher training? I remember our instructor telling us in the first week to take it all in because it would go fast, but I didn't realize just HOW fast! This coming Wednesday, we will be taking our "final" where we teach a level 1 class all the way through, and then, we are sent off into the world to teach!

Our group is becoming a bit melancholy about the fact that we are coming to the end of our training. Despite the fact that there are 44 of us, we've had the opportunity to see glimpses into one another's lives - hearing each other voice fears and frustrations, celebrating successes, listening to one another practice-teach, and just hanging out during the breaks and getting a deeper perspective into each other's lives.

It's kind of funny to think back how anxious I was the day before the first session - being afraid of not connecting with anyone, wondering if I could get through the entire eight weeks without crashing, and wondering what kind of person I would become in the process. As I look through my notes now and see all of the topics we've covered, from postures, to the flow sequence and cues, to anatomy, the cadaver lab, adjustments and alignment, chakras, Sanskrit and so much more, I feel like a changed person.

I've stepped onto a new path of change - one that I hope will allow me to be more open to people, less judgemental, more loving, less critical. I've definitely come to the realization that yoga has become such a wonderful "cocoon" in my life - a place that I can go to strengthen my mind, body, and spirit in an effort to bring it to my daily life. This is the challenge - to take what I've learned and bring it to life. That is the next step.

Running from the Wall

It's hard for me to believe, but we've just completed week 5 of teacher training. The time is flying by! Last Monday, after Saturday's cadaver lab and Sunday's alignment/adjustment workshop, I was physically and mentally drained. I came home on Sunday night exhausted, and woke up Monday morning not extremely excited about trudging off to my morning yoga class. When I did get to the studio, the instructor asked how teacher training was going and when I explained my exhaustion, she asked, "oh, so have you hit the wall?" The wall. The "all-yoga-all-the-time" wall. I guess I didn't really think about this, but I know that some of the other teachers in training have been talking about having difficulty making it to the studio and keeping up with the homework. There is so much information that is thrown at you, but up to now, I feel that it has been pretty manageable - on one hand because I love it so much, and on the other, because I know that I only have 8 weeks to dedicate to my training before they dub me a certified trainer.

It seemed as if "the hair of the dog" (taking yet another yoga class that Monday morning) seemed to do the trick for me and I was back on track. To add to my recovery time, our Wednesday night class was cancelled due to the snow storm. This allowed me to get some additional practice time in (thank you, Tom!) and let everything from the last week really sink in.

This past weekend, we finished going through the remainder of the C1 class series and had some additional instruction in Sanskrit. A few of my fellow teachers-in-training and I met a little earlier on Sunday so that we could practice-teach on one another. Our final is on the 18th where we will teach an entire class, so everyone is starting to get a little nervous.

I am looking forward to allowing everything to crystallize for me in the next couple of weeks. I feel comfortable teaching the class so far, and I'm actually looking forward to the final. Weird. That feeling might change as we get closer, but like any public speaking task, you must put in the practice time in order to be confident about the delivery.

The other night, I woke up to find myself talking through supine twist and actually doing the pose! So, to say that I am doing yoga in my sleep is a literal statement. Crazy. Thanks to everyone for your support and putting up with all of my yoga-ness. Namaste!