I wanted to post this to Facebook but it wouldn’t go so I’m putting it here.

The title just about says all that I mean to ramble on about here. The yoga teacher training is a good way to look at your life. It’s a time to reflect on the yamas and niyamas (see sidebar for quick explanations) and to see what our life alignment is like. At least, that’s how I see it. If your internal alignment is off and you don’t even know how to find it, your external poses won’t be of much value.

So our group is starting to heat up. Kat and I are helping keep the structure together, to support the container that people are doing their work in. It’s hot for us too.

Co-teaching is a pose as well. Many yoga teachers rarely get a chance to co-lead a class or a workshop for a variety of reasons including that working with someone else mean you’re working with another person and people have stuff! In my co-leader, Kat, I’ve found someone I can be totally myself around and I can let her be as she is and we share our knowledge and our space and I think if I had to be in space ship with anyone where I’d have to spend years with someone, she’d be in it. Oh wait, I am on a space ship called Earth and she is in it and so are you and all of the other people…I’m hearing a voice from Kids in the Hall or some show say this :)

Anyhow, the teacher training is in full-swing. If you ever want to take a look at your life and you don’t even want to be a yoga teacher, I think a yoga teacher training would be a good way to do it.

And so it goes. We begin again. Tonight the yoga teacher training program at Rama Lotus begins again, well this one is beginning for the first time really. The yoga teacher training has become such a big part of my life and involves all aspects of it, even my daughter’s schedule is impacted as approximately every other weekend there’s some YTT going on.

I welcome the YTT in my life and love being a part of the team that delivers it. I maintain that it doesn’t really matter who your teacher is, if you’re put in front of the teachings of yoga and there’s space for you to explore, you’ll get it. And every year, people get it.

A community is born tonight that will be together until next spring. It’s probably the program that has the biggest “community” feel of any I’ve had outside of a retreat centre setting. It’s a whole new group and yet there will be similarities to other groups in the past. There will be varying degrees of wanting to be in the room, there will be different backgrounds and intentions for taking the course. There will be people who will feel at home, others who will be triggered, and those people will likely trade places during the weeks of the course.

The people who tend to come to a yoga teacher training are a special sort. They are in a place of readiness and commitment. They don’t accidentally walk into a teacher training. There’s some purpose behind it – they’re usually up to something. And that’s inspiring to be in. We get to start with the first yoga sutra of Patanjali by experiencing it – “now is the time for yoga.”

Today was an unusual day. Unusual in that it was non-stop and on totally from morning until night. It’s not usually like that as a yoga teacher. Usually there are gaps, breaks in the day. Today was not one of those days. It was all YTT and then tonight I led my usual classes. That meant I really had to prepare so I didn’t wind up totally wiped out at the end of the teacher training and still had some mojo for the evening classes, which started minutes after the training wrapped up. The class right after that chanted om 15 minutes after the first one ended.

I made sure I ate – people saw me in the hall – and I made sure to breathe during the day so I wasn’t spent by the evening. It takes something to do that, and I’m pleased to say I did it. Last week I was not so successful at it. As soon as I saw Louise and saw that there was an opportunity to not lead that class, I took it. This week I planned to teach it and set myself up properly.

We talked a lot today about being yoga teachers and what some of the challenges are and how to face them. They’re some of the same challenges that show up in other parts of our lives. So getting good at teaching yoga can definitely have a positive impact in other areas of our lives.

Tomorrow is graduation.

My pile is done. I marked half of the Yoga Teacher Training second progress tests. It was fun. It’s a sign that the course is just about over. Here’s me on the phone with Kat Mills, getting down to business. It’s just about over. It will be a big deal for everyone. Good and sad. Happy to be back to our old lives, sad to miss the people we’ve been in daily practice with. Our Sangha. Our Group. Over.

I heard just a minute of Krishna Das talking about how we all act like we’re separate and the people who know remind us that we’re actually all One Being. That gives me comfort when I get into thinking of us all splintered and separate.

I have this idea that it doesn’t matter who the teacher is, if you put yoga in front of people, it’ll teach itself. I still think that’s true. Just create the space and set the context and let them go to it, and off they go. And of course, the teacher will have something to do with it, but probably very little, at least the way I’ve been taught.

This yoga teacher training groups looks a lot like how people looked living at the ashram where we did yoga everyday. I think that’s a good thing. We’ve created a space where the heat is on and the purification can happen. I was saying to a regular student of my drop in classes the other day that the way the yoga teacher training is taught is a lot more traditional and more like how people just practised yoga, without plans to be a yoga teacher. The YTT does what “plain yoga” was supposed to do but at the end of it you get a certificate.

All of the past YTTs I’ve been involved with were like this as well, but this one more so I think because it’s many days in a row and the pressure has built up without the usual distractions of life. It’s like trying to bake something in the oven and turning it on and leaving it on, rather than turning it on for a minute and then turning it off for a day and then on again.

Some people in the course are hitting a wall. Possibly going through stuff they haven’t gone through before. Some people are having memories of things that were buried. Others are tired. Plus, it is hot in the room in this August weather even with the tiny a/c going and the fans on. There’s a strong sense of community there and people are well aware that the community is breaking up in a few days, when all sutras will have been presented, all final exams submitted, all practice teaches done, all topics covered.

Yoga works on your life, not just on your posture. So it’s no wonder that yoga teachers get asked everything from what to do about tightness in a hamstring to how to deal with a partner at home who doesn’t “get it.” How to deal with family members not spoken to, to what to eat before class. How to deal with co-workers who gossip as well as what to do once it’s clear the job you’re doing isn’t a fit anymore. The answer’s always the same, so it doesn’t matter that the questions go wide, which is bring awareness to it. Of course there’s more, but basically that’s the deal. Bring awareness to the situation. Do what increases your energy, do what takes you in the direction you said you want to go.

In the meantime, as the energy hits the obstacles, things sometimes melt down. As old patterns have awareness on them they start to shrivel and whither or sometimes they get strong and want to take over to survive. It’s so curious, and predictable by now…

The yoga teacher training has been awesome. We’re just about half-way through. The first test is tomorrow morning and then we break for a month. When they come back, the students will begin lots of practice teaching.

I feel so protective of this group. There’s something so special about being with a group of people who are committed to showing up and who do keep showing up. It’s easy to teach but it’s also way deeper and more fun to teach. Having this group all condensed and having the fire turned on has been awesome to witness and to be a part of. I’m way more relaxed myself this week than I was at the beginning, when Kat and I were just getting started and working things out. (Our teacher line up changed at the last minute and we had some course design issues to work out.) But at the same time, I’m more protective and on guard, let’s say. I want to make sure this group is safe and nurtured and that the space is consistent and honoured. They’re doing a great job of honouring their own space. I’ve had a few challenges from the outside though, (students wanting to join at the last minute, room requests over lunchtime, other teachers wanting to address the group), and it’s been interesting to notice my own reaction about it all.

I’m not being very wishy-washy, which is how I’ve experienced myself in the past, like “we can make this work,” whatever it is. I’m keeping more boundaries, not just with this group, but with myself as well I suppose. In a healthy way. Of course anything will work. But given that, what’s best in this situation and is that available, are the kinds of question I’m asking myself.

My mentor told me recently that the kind of teacher I am is the kind that helps people find their own way, not the kind that gets people to copy them. She reminded me that my dharma is to be a teacher, and that it seems that no matter what, I’m going to be a teacher, so just go ahead and be teacher already. And that to be a teacher who helps people find their own way is special and it’s not shiny or sparkly necessarily, but it’s lasting and gives people an opportunity to experience themselves. Anyways, I’m starting to see what she means by watching this group and it’s pretty neat.