Teacher Training Practicum

 
In 2011, I took the 200-hr Yoga Alliance-certified Teacher Training with Kimberly Dahlmann at Yoga East. She's been my teacher for 12 years now, and I've taught consistently at Yoga East for more than 5 years. Even with all my teaching experience, as it is with yoga, there is always more to learn. So I opted to take part in her first teacher training (and will do it again this coming year as an alumni). What an amazing experience to grow close with all those wonderful yogis!

A requirement of the teacher training was that you complete 25 some hours of a practicum. Most of the trainees offered a free class to the community. One of the other Yoga East teachers wrote an excellent book on the Vajrasanas (maybe I'll describe those someday, until then, reference Chip Walker's 'Baring Our Soles'). Well, me, I felt I needed to do something different too, something significant, because I already taught in the classroom 2-3 times a week. 

Kimberly recommeded some ideas to me and nothing came to fruition. I procrastinated forever and finally decided I'd enjoy making a couple yoga youtube videos. Oh, that should be fun & easy! Well, not so. Rather than having someone tape me, I set up a tripod and went for it solo. I was motivated and excited; wrote some pretty interesting scripts; and then tried to put my scripts to the silent videos. Let me tell you, video-editing is no small task. And after watching them over and over, trying to sync up my words to my movements (much harder than syncing breath and movement), I became completely annoyed and disheartened by hearing my voice and watching myself on screen. It was a project I couldn't seem to finish and left me slightly unsatisfied.

But, I needed to finish SOMEthing! So here it is, one year later-- four posts of a blog that I hope to maintain beyond my practicum hours. The next 2 posts include 2 out of the 4 videos I attempted. Then you will find a loooong entry describing my approach to teaching a private client recovering from spinal surgery. 

In the future, I hope to include philosophical and technical tidbits passed down from those who have treaded this path before me, and more intimately, to offer musings on my own practice. I've never blogged before, but I see people do it and it interests me. I used to keep journals, still have them all, and I like the idea of recording some of my written and pictoral history. I hope it becomes something I look back on fondly when I'm old.

Truly, this is for you yogis that know me and know yoga. I am blessed to have such a wonderful community of friends who understand that this is a 'Life Practice' in two senses of the word. One, we work towards living a yogic lifestyle daily and two, we maintain it for our entire life.

supta kurmasana (took me 12 years to get my arms back their and clutch my fingers like that, the curse of the short arms)!

Most pics of me on this blog are credited to Erika Peace, who has a pretty sweet blog herself... http://peacelifehappiness.blogspot.com/