Atma Yoga Classes

Today was the first day of yoga teacher training class.    I've been studying the last two weeks for this class.  Today was the first day of "contact" hours for my newest learning endeavor.  I really shouldn't worry so much.  We had a wonderful class.  I believe we will all be fine and compassionate and learned yoga teachers.  I enjoy the instructor, and I very much enjoyed the interactive participation of the group.  There are fourteen people, when I think to count.  Maybe there are only eleven students...we have three teacher trainers.

Atma Yoga is located in Tacoma, Washington.  And oh, what a beautiful day in Tacoma.  I fell in love with Opera Alley near our studio/teaching lounge.  Jazz club on the corner is B Square.  it is now on my list for the next night out for jazz.  No need to drive the hour to Seattle, I can get my jazz fix nearer to home.

Tacoma has beautiful murals all through the city.  I had no idea.  Tacoma seems like the best kept secret in Western Washington.  It's a sleepy little city on a Sunday...at least during our break for lunch between asana-s practices and lectures.  

Atma  is the sanskrit word for the individual soul or essence within the universal.  Or as dictionary .com says: the individual self, known after enlightenment to be identical with Brahman. 

We spoke of Atma at length in class.  Though it is not the definition given during class - I truly believe dictionary.com definition is spot on.

This is going to be a great fall.  I am looking forward to the journey...and Tacoma has grabbed my attention too.

Atma Yoga Classes

Today was the first day of yoga teacher training class.    I've been studying the last two weeks for this class.  Today was the first day of "contact" hours for my newest learning endeavor.  No need to worry so much.  We had a wonderful class.  I believe we will all be fine and compassionate and learned yoga teachers.  I enjoy the instructor, and I very much enjoyed the interactive participation of the group.  There are fourteen people, when I think to count.  Maybe there are only eleven students...we have three teacher trainers.

Atma Yoga is located in Tacoma, Washington.  And oh, what a beautiful day in Tacoma.  I fell in love with Opera Alley near our studio/teaching lounge.  Jazz club on the corner is B Square.  it is now on my list for the next night out for jazz.  No need to drive the hour to Seattle, I can get my jazz fix nearer to home.

Tacoma has beautiful murals all through the city.  I had no idea.  Tacoma seems like the best kept secret in Western Washington.  It's a sleepy little city on a Sunday...at least during our break for lunch between asana-s practices and lectures.  

Atma  is the sanskrit word for the individual soul or essence within the universal.  Or as dictionary .com says: the individual self, known after enlightenment to be identical with Brahman. 

We spoke of Atma at length in class.  Though it is not the definition given during class - I truly believe dictionary.com definition is spot on.

This is going to be a great fall.  I am looking forward to the journey...and Tacoma has grabbed my attention too.

For all of you who know it all

Can you believe she referred to us that way?  We are her class.  What just came out of her mouth?  She just called us Know-it-all's.  Was she talking to me?  Am I know-it-all-y? Why would she want to bring us down like that?  We get a Participation Award just for showing up. 

Who cares if she was right?  We are her Monday night class of All-That-And-A-Bag-of-Chips.  I can that see each of the men and women here in her Monday night class pride themselves on being limber or strong.  We know each of the poses before she can even ask us to come into them.  Monday night, hey this is the smarty-pants crowd.   Thing is, it wasn't until after she said, "For all you know-it-all's here..." that I now see the type of class we are.

Let's be clear - she encourages and promotes our knowing.  That's inherent in a good instructor.  I like this instructor in particular because she spends large portions of her class each week showing us and coaxing us into proper alignment with our yoga poses.  She spends a portion of her instruction time in allowing us to move into our asana (our pose) and feel how it is supposed to feel.

The Monday before last it was the plank pose.  I have always prided myself on how long I can hold a plank.  I have been holding it wrong.  While in plank I do not hurt, but going into the pose and coming out again, usually in a down-facing dog, my lower back would twinge.  Depending on how many times the instructor has the class going in and out of Downward Dog my lower back would change from twinge to soft pain.  I was hoping I was getting stronger.  According to my Monday Night Instructor I most likely am not getting stronger; I am just in pain.  Now my planks are at a different angle, not a let's-do-push-ups angle, and my Downward-Facing Dogs are easy in and easy out.

This week Monday Night Instructor decided our chair poses (Utkatasana) were very sad. Very sad. She walked between us and said, "For all you who know it all, let pretend you don't and start from the beginning." We were in our chair poses, varying states of sitz, feeling the burn, I'm sure. (Some yoga instructors have referred to the chair pose as the Uncomfortable pose. Maybe Uncomfortable and Utkatasana sound alike - I can't tell.  My Sanskrit is fuzzy.) I can only wonder how many others were feeling the burn from her words. Maybe it was only me.

breakingmuscle.com
"Butt-ology 101"

But it seems we all came to attention as we considered her requests to learn our anatomy and how to engage the gluteus medus rather than the gluteus maximus when standing. We considered where the neck meets the Thoracic spine - how to look up with out engaging the neck. Very interesting stuff.

We used our gluteus medus to stand - and what a change that is from using gluteus maximus. Our gluteus maximus engages our lower back.  Our gluteus medus engages our hips more than our back.  Monday Instructor trains us that as we stand again coming out of the Chair Pose we are to push our feet and knees outward - not that they move, feet stay on the ground and the knees stay over the toes - are engaging a different set of muscles to stand coming from the Chair Pose.  Totally cool stuff to feel a whole side of leg muscles instead of my back.

blissbodysoul.wordpress.com

While I have always "liked" the chair pose...this Monday I learned where all the angles are supposed to reside.  My upper body is to be at the same angle as my lower legs.   My arms are to be at the same angle as my upper body.  My head and gaze are to look up - but without engaging my neck - that was a great lesson as well.  It seems that with a little practice and mindfulness one can find the spot to tilt one's head back without  engaging the entire upper neck leading into the skull. Holding the pose just got easier.

Though I am not totally enamored of this particular yoga studio - I don't know that I will sign up for the long term here - that Monday Night Instructor is worth her weight in gold and I'm the Know-It-All to say it.

Finding my Child Pose

There is a time as yoga class starts when we each sit comfortably on our mats and the instructor talks us down from our day.  The goal and the hope is that we will be able to clear our minds and focus on the moment.  Our instructor on Tuesday wanted to remind us to show up for our practice.

Let me introduce Instructor Ann.  Instructor Ann is no more talkative than any other instructor.  What she does have though is keen insight and droll humor.  Ann makes many references during class to various life teachers and several references to Saturday Night Live skits.  Ann knows her pop culture, and she knows how to apply it for quality insight.  Ann understands her audience.

On Tuesday as Instructor Ann reminded us to be-here-now she adds, "let me refer you to Jon Kabat-Zinn and his book, Arriving at Your Own Door.  Let us each arrive here in class.  Come in to yourself.  Today let's not work ourselves into a posture, but let's allow ourselves to arrive into these postures today.  You may enjoy the book, Arriving at Your Own Door.  It is excerpts from Coming to Our Senses.  Or there's Jon's other book, Wherever You Go, There You Are.  Maybe you have heard of that one."

Ann's voice trailed off in my head.  I was considering the first half of what she had presented.The idea of arriving at my own door came alive, the vignette played out in my head instantaneously.  While Ann was chatting away about books and familiarity I was mentally looking from the inside of my own home (mental home) screen door because a little face had popped up from the outside of the door (mentally, it's all mental)  cheerily sing-song-ing, "I'm here!" How very interesting;  I had arrived.  From Ann's perspective I had my eyes closed, seated in contemplation like the rest of the class.  And if she had been watching she would have seen the sudden happy smile open across my face.  

In my head this cheery little face was still waiting outside my screen door.  "I'm here!"  I wanted to laugh out loud.  Because there I was, just outside my own screen door like a little girl come over to play on a summer day.  "I'm here!"  I said to myself a third time.  So I finally answered, "Get in here.  It's time to play!"  The screen door creaks open and flings shut.  Time for the opening stretch.

It was a play date yoga class on Tuesday.

Child's Pose 

Robert P. Hedden

(used without permission)

https://www.facebook.com/public/Robert-Hedden

Gotta Do It

It seems that I just gotta do it. It's that mental monkey being let loose as action. Just gotta do it. Yoga. Yep, it's that simple. That's all I'm really talking about. I'm one of those people that needs to be doing something. Physical exertion is the sweetness of living. Or sweat-ness, depending on your point of view.

Yoga for me is exertion without sweat. I'm not a fan of hot yoga. I get light-headed too easy to add heat into the mix. I just like how good I feel after stretching every muscle available and massaging all the internal organs that get massaged during yoga.

I've been practicing yoga on and off since I was 19 years old. Last January, over a year ago, I made a personal promise to myself to get a yoga teacher certificate. Just for giggles. Just to say I did. Here I am fifteen months later, missed my own deadline, still thinking this is what I want to do. I want that satisfaction of having reached the goal of earning a piece of paper.

I am 6 days into a 30 day challenge I have imposed on myself to simply attend a yoga class every day. I have 21 days left of this 30 day challenge. It's a step in the right direction. What I have learned in the first week:

1. There are VERY few yoga studios that offer Friday evening yoga classes. This means attending a yoga session every day for 30 days is damn near impossible - Fridays are just not offered. I have adjusted my goal. Mostly because I signed up for a killer six week deal. The adjusted challenge is now to attend a yoga session everyday except Fridays for six weeks.

2. I learned that it's a good thing that I did not jump into 200 hour certificated training. This simpler challenge is a great tune up for me to be in enough shape to sign up for a teacher course. If I had signed up straight into certificated training like I thought I wanted to I would be wondering today if I was "good enough" for it. By challenging myself to just attend, just go to class, I think I have set myself up for success.

3. I hurt. I hurt different every day. It's that good hurt that lets me know my muscles are working. I don't know if I will hurt when I get to the fourth week still. I'll let you know.

4. Each class is completely different. Each instructor brings style with her. It is a good thing to be open. Be willing.

5. Hip flexures are a favorite theme for these instructors. After only two days of concentrating on hip flexure I find myself wondering if I will be sitting in full lotus in six weeks. Do I want to?

6. Shoulders and neck is also a favorite topic. My back is already starting to show definition. Okay, that's my imagination, never mind. My shoulders ache. It's a good ache.

7. I wanted to do two classes on Saturday to make up for not having the one Friday class. I learned that I may be a masochist and I need to just stand down.

Six weeks of classes is not exactly going to be a cake walk. I have a two hour commute every week day as it is. Classes are 75 minutes. I don't get home at night until 7:30 p.m.. When I get back from my son's wedding in May I will have to assess which teacher training site will fit my style best. This year - this year - this year.

Why Would I Do This?

Why would I do this? Why would I want to get certified as a yoga instructor? There's money involved, for goodness sake. And I'm a penny pincher (hear them screaming in pain?). There's time and effort involved. I would be pushing myself beyond my current capabilities. I don't know that I have time available with the way I live my life right now. Going to classes, studying, taking more classes and my own personal yoga practice is going to take over my life. What am I thinking?

I mean, I love yoga, but...

The idea started to form last fall during Football Season. I was telling my friends about how the yoga classes at work are free and how much I enjoy participating. Somehow and between cocktails they each agreed I should coach them through a couple of yoga sessions. They felt I could just use the same asanas, poses, we use at work. That Monday all three showed up at my door to be talked through an hour of yoga. Wow, it worked. We spent an hour talking about body alignment as we bent and straightened back up, and did it again. I was super gentle as two of my friends had never done yoga before. My third friend was, and is, ready to get to the next level. I was able to find ways to let her go deeper without changing the poses. The night was a real win-win situation.

We've gotten together several times since then. Not always all three of us, we seem to rotate. One thing that has emerged in time, as the girls get stronger and I try to stay a step ahead, is that we are all dealing with some sort of daily pain. One buddy has a new hip and she is afraid of irritating that area even while she is so pleased to be rediscovering her pliability. Another buddy has osteoarthritis - and her relief from these painful symptoms through yoga has sparked her whole life.

The point here is, none of us are young, nubile, athletic women. None of us are skinny. We hurt. Life is leaving footprints on us. Life wears combat boots apparently. I am finding that if I'm going to lead yoga sessions, I like leading sessions for an older adult. There is nothing to prove in older, mature people. We aren't necessarily worried about being the most limber one in the room. We are however hoping no one sees how red our face is when we do that slight back-bend at the top of the sun salutation.

At my job I am surrounded by people in various stages of decline. I work in a hospital. Four years ago the same patient that walked up to my intake window and flirted with me is the same patient that wheels himself to my now back office (he's kept track of me) to tell me what new medications he is on and how much harder it is to get around than it was just a few years ago. These are the people I think about. If he would join me in yoga, chair yoga, I would be so pleased to see him moving easier than he does now.

I will be retiring from this job in another ten to twenty years. What will I do with myself when I retire? If I'm going to volunteer somewhere I think I would like to volunteer helping the older adult keep and improve on whatever mobility that person still has. If I were a certified yoga instructor that certification would lend some credibility to my teaching ability. People want to be trained and instructed by someone with credibility. By the time I retire I would have ten to twenty years of credibility. I think that's pretty credible.

I see the young people, those in their twenties and early thirties, during yoga class as they go deeper into a pose. They are pushing themselves to be as limber as a yogi. I get that. I understand. I was one of them. I am not one of them any more. I am holding my own.

My Yoga Challenge

A Yoga Instructor has been made available to the employees where I work. He shows up twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and holds class for an hour to stretch us out and get our blood pumping again. Then we float back to our respective departments and offices - disapearing in the catacombs of drudgery and repetitive deadlines.

This yoga is not a mandatory program. Only a few of us show up on any given Tuesday or Thursday. The most that have shown up is eight. Three to four participants is pretty regular. The gentleman gets paid the same regardless of the number of participants. He received a grant in fact - for one year - to come hold classes for the employees. It's a pretty sweet deal for a freelance yoga instructor/personal trainer. For a year he has had a full-on regular gig.

I like it, of course, because I get free yoga instruction. It has been great. There were several classes in a row in November and December that I was the only one to show up. Where else can one get one-on-one training, for free, like I did? I dunno. I am not complaining.

(This is not me...might as well be, but it's not. Wish I knew where I got this photo.)

I have been practising yoga on and off since my first year in college at San Fransisco State. To take care of Physical Education requirements for graduation (that they probably don't even require any longer) I took a semester of yoga and fell in love with being able to move in mysterious and wonderful ways that made me feel good for days, positively days, afterward.

Yoga still has that affect on me. It has been thirty-four years since I was introduced to yoga. I still love it. I can still touch my toes. I can balance on one leg - and I can pick which leg. Taking classes this last year I could feel my shoulders respond to the exertion. I still have muscles.

So here I am, some fifty something years old and I am feeling as good, if not better, than I did in my forties. I am getting exercise twice a week (gosh, that's all it takes?) and now I find myself signing on for more yoga instruction on the weekends, and on week nights. I thought about it a lot (but without the over think). The decision is made. I am signing up to be a yoga instructor. And from what I have seen, I will not be the oldest person getting certified to teach yoga.

My challenge this year is to find a yoga studio that I am willing to pay the $3000+ to to become certified. I've been to a couple studios this year. I need to put these experiences into words.

Coming soon** Review of Studio #1 and the Compelling Reasons I want to be an instructor**