If you haven’t noticed, keeping the blog updated has been a bit tricky as of late. There have been some fun and new things going on lately, so I thought I would leave you with this quick update.

I got to do something super awesome about a month ago – I taught my first public yoga class! This was a huge and hugely scary accomplishment for me, and I wanted to share my experience in the hopes that it will help any aspiring yoga instructors who happen upon this to feel more enthusiastic and better prepared for their own first classes. 

Tackling Stage Fright

One of the first issues that comes to my mind in regard to teaching is the dreaded stage fright. Something I may or may not have mentioned here before (Have I? Ugh, my failing memory…) is that I have a crippling fear of public speaking. This is one of the big reasons why I wanted to do teacher training in the first place. I know that I have things I want to share with people, but this is significantly more difficult when you forget how to speak English while faced with an audience. Even if it is an audience of one! I wanted to become more confident in myself, more comfortable and excited to share, and challenge myself to do something that I could hardly imagine myself capable of. And so I did it!

Preparation

A good teacher training program will help you feel ready to start teaching and your first class will feel like the next natural step. The program that I took was 4 months long, and we spent that time putting together our first classes and teaching it to one another in pairs and small groups. I remember when I first demonstrated Warrior II to a partner, I could see my front hand shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to smack it accompanied by a firm admonishment, “You stop that, hand!” While the jitters hadn’t completely dispersed by the time I taught my presentation class, they had died down to giant butterflies and profuse sweating. But at least the trembling had stopped! I felt ready (as ready as one can feel in that situation) to teach because of all the practice we had done both inside and outside of teacher training, aided by the presence of my amazing support system and the opening of my class with many a deep breath.

Have a Support System

My presentation class was composed of my fellow teacher trainees along with several members of my family and friends. The really cool thing about this particular group was, while I was busy agonizing and massively working myself up about it, one of the big things that helped to calm me down was the knowledge that I would be surrounded by people who love me. These people have been supportive and excited for me throughout the whole YTT journey, and they wanted to see me succeed. This was powerful stuff, for me, when I was truly struggling not to panic.

Pranayama (Breath Work)

The breath work we did at the beginning of class (and working to maintain long, even breaths throughout class) was also extremely helpful in soothing my nerves. Deep breathing is pretty freaking magical. Not only is it calming, taking some time during the day to take some slow and deep breaths offers all of these other amazing benefits you can expect:

• Improved sleep, energy, and immunity
• Decreased heart rate
• Decreased blood pressure
• Improved concentration,  memory, attention, and learning efficiency 
• Improved mood
• Improved sense of well-being
• Decreased feelings of depression and anxiety

Mistakes

I am sure I have many a lesson to learn throughout my yoga career, but here are some important ones learned during my first class:

1. Don’t take your child’s pose while trying to teach it. Yoga mats, I quickly discovered, are a fairly sound absorbent material and will muffle the crap out of your voice.
2. Things I felt I was doing really slowly went really quickly for students who were new to yoga. Vice versa, when I was teaching these things to more experienced students during teacher training, some of them mentioned that I was holding the poses for a bit too long. I also found that the length of time I was holding poses was difficult to gauge during my presentation class probably due to nerves. You can’t please everyone!
3. Next time I teach, I might actually try looking at my  students while teaching! There were so many different things to focus on what with remembering my sequence and the cues to go along with it that I had trouble coming out of my head to check out what the class was doing. I know that all of this this will come with practice and I’m not too hung up about it. 

Now that YTT is over, I should be able to update more which I’m looking forward to! I also can’t wait to get teaching and to continue learning and growing this new part of my life.

Hope your holiday season is going swimmingly! See you in 2015! 
xxoo