Day 22 of the Goa Ashtanga
Vinyasa training and this is the hardest day so far for me. They say that it
can take 21 days for old habits to be overridden by new routine and after that
its plain sailing, I think I must be the exception to the rule! I felt every
emotion I could possibly feel today, success, happiness, contentment,
frustration, anger, tiredness, fear, failure just to name a few. It's getting
to crunch time, with only 3 days left of the course and I'm realising that I
need to put everything I possibly have into the mix to ensue I leave this
course and Goa happy with the work I've done and more importantly, I get my
certificate.
OK so let's get personal. I
have a habit of only giving what is absolutely necessary to get what needs to
be done completed. Often this means I end up doing things last minute and for a
long time I believed that working under pressure got the best out of me, I
still believe this to a certain extent however I do also believe that there has
to be a better way to get the best out of myself which doesn't include a litre
of coffee, late nights AKA no sleep at all and stress right up to my Ajna (bit
of a yoga joke there! For those not in the know check out my "
Breaking Life Long Habits" post it's also known as Agnya). They say you can't
teach an old dog new tricks and as such my habits have not changed (not that
I'm comparing myself to a dog). I've so far been doing the minimum requirement
to get through the course and relied heavily on my previous knowledge, having
already done a teacher training and also my general awesomeness (sorry about
the ego but I need it right now) to get me through. This means doing the work
in the lectures, the homework that has been given and not much more that. As
such as of yesterday I couldn't with confidence say I knew of by heart the full
Ashtanga primary series.
Now as usual I do have an
excuse for this..... Within this course we also get to learn The Rocket, for
those that aren't in the know, The Rocket is a modified version of the Ashtanga
primary series which had been put together by a guy called Larry Shultz. It's
fast passed, creative and hard going with lots of handstands, Pinchas
Mayurasana's and "Mula bhanda check-ups" AKA another way to make every
muscle in your body quiver and shake, screaming for the exit. It’s basically a
yoga "workout" although I shouldn't really put "workout" in
the same sentence as yoga, but it is what it is! So getting back to the point
what has happened is all this Rocket knowledge has pushed out whatever
knowledge I had already just learned. I love that on some level I do
actually believe this, it’s like telling your teacher your dog ate
your homework, it just isn't good enough.
In yesterday mornings practice
I got found out as I didn't know, on a number of occasions which pose came next
in the sequence. At this point I'd like to add in a
partially angry disclaimer: that there were others in the class who
also made mistakes during the practice and didn't know which postures
they should have been in, however they were not pointed out and only I and 2
other people have been pulled up on it. End of angry disclaimer. In the
end though this isn't really the point, nor is this a yogic attitude! As a
result I and 2 others have been asked to do extra work to show that we know the
full primary series of by heart which consists of writing the full list of
poses out 3 times and also showing how I remembered it.
I've basically been sent to do lines.
Well what can I say, not much,
as they are absolutely right, I don't know the sequence and if I'm
going to teach it I dam well need to, so I can't really be angry about that,
you need to do what you need to do so get on it. I got this done today and so
I'll let you know what the feedback is, it had to be handed in after our
lunch break today in which I was still finishing it 30 minutes before
the end of the break (note: we had been giving this task yesterday, old habits
die dam hard). So my ego is a bit bruised and I feel like I've been
exposed but, I'm a tough cookie so that's OK. Until I get pulled up again.
So as a teacher you are
required to adjust your students to ensure they are safely in the
postures, but also working as effectively as they possibly can within the
target areas of the body. Having taught yoga classes before I have a
good knowledge of target areas within postures and so far in the
classes I have taught I've been able to do this successfully. Everyone in the
class has to adjust in either one of our morning or evening sessions so the
tutors are able to assess us doing so. I wasn't feeling to well a day or so ago
(Delhi managed to find my belly, I'll save that story for another day) so asked
if I could adjust instead of just sitting the class out. This was however
before we had been given any lectures on adjusting and what they were expecting
from us, so I guess the tutors where expecting something slight different to
what I had done, so as expected they asked me to do it again. That's
fine I say to myself, I now have the learning's and the tools the
second time round so why not use them. This morning was the second
opportunity I had to adjust the class, the pace is a lot faster than what
I'm used to in a traditional Hatha class but that's fine a posture is a posture
and the target areas will always be there. I wait for
my opportunity and get in there lining up peoples hips, adjusting
shoulders, chests, getting them to use the breath to lengthen and
twist further in other postures also remembering to use my own Ujjayi
breath to help them. I was on fire, or so I thought.
In today's lecture instead of
going through and practicing teaching the primary series, myself and 2 others were
asked to go through adjusting with the teaching assistance as it was thought we
needed more help with this. At this point I'm thinking WTF! So I'm already
tired from still having Delhi belly, my hayfever has chosen today to flare
up again just when I thought I had it under control, my ego is
still bruised from the lines I've had to write and now my confidence
and previous happiness has just been let’s say "Delhi bellied", my
new Indian motto has now become "Sometimes runny shit happens!".
As I sit and listen to the support teachers tell us how this is going to
work I try to hard to ward of the tears. I'm not one for crying usually, I'm
way to proud for that and plus crying gives me a headache. I look straight into
the eyes of the support teachers who can see my disappointment and
almost despair at this situation, as I try to keep my chin up, but all I
can do is nod and smile agreeing to the structure of how we go through the
"adjusting detention" as one of the other students called it. It's at
this point I want to break down, it’s at this point I want to get angry. I want
to know exactly what I've done wrong as I've had so much positive feedback from
other students I adjusted. So many of my defenses are down
or weakened it’s hard to pick up the resolve to keep going as
everything else then starts to surface. That fact that I've been away from home
for almost a month and won’t be back until 2014, the fact that I'm actually
quite sick of the infestation of ants in my bathroom, sick of sleeping with a
mosquito net, sick of the frogs, centipedes, cockroaches in my hut
and the coconuts falling on my roof in the middle of the night scaring me out
of my sleep. All of this rising up at once and I finally fully understand what
they mean when they say "intense". This is definitely an
intense course in more ways than one.
Anyway to cut a long story
short I managed to stave of the tears by focusing on one thing and one thing
only, which is my ultimate intention, which is the be the best teacher I can
possibly be. My biggest yoga related inspiration is my "Yoga Mum" who
until I went traveling had been my regular yoga teacher/ guru for 6 years. She
is everything I believe a teacher should be and more,
and considering she has such a large following of students who a lot
of them have been practicing with her for over 10 years I'm clearly
not the only one thinking it! So I suck it up and get on with it because at the
end of the day life is a lesson and you never stop learning. My perception
of my adjustments this morning was obviously not taken in the same
way by the tutors, which means there is more work to be done, a lot of the the
time your ego can keep you blinded by what is actually happening and in front
of you and in my case it's fear.
Fear had and still does
sometimes rule over me, it's something I have to continually work
through but often this can be really hard. My biggest problem this morning in
adjusting is hesitation, I'm not committing enough. Simply because I'm
adjusting my peers, students at the same level as me with the same knowledge as
me and as a result there is a voice in my head telling me to be careful, don't
adjust incorrectly and don't piss people off. We
are experienced practitioners, we know how we like our poses and
we know how to get in and out of them. So really and truly there isn't really
any adjusting to be done but simply fine tuning right? Wrong.
Everyone can be adjusted and if they don't need it they can certainly get a
reminded about where they need to be concentrating at that moment. No one keeps
their breath strong throughout the whole practice, no one at this level is able
to maintain core strength through the whole practice, this is something that
will drop in and out to begin with until we start to practice in our sleep, and
all of these elements come together without even thinking about it. Until then
adjusters will be there to remind and poke about until we get it right.
So I sit here tonight having
not even showered yet after the practice or had dinner, needing to get this all
of my chest and wanting to convey one key message. When you feel like
all the chips are down, when you've given it your all and your still not
getting the results you expected or wanted, check yourself
before wreak yourself. OK so they weren't all my words but
they sound better!
We wrap ourselves so much in
the highs the lows the emotions that make us feel good as well as those that
don't feel good without first taking a measured and direct view of
ourselves and what is actually going on. I can't speak for the other guys that
were also called into "adjustment detention" but for me I know that
the 3 F's are the ones pulling the strings with the
main puppeteer being my ego. In so many areas of my life I allow fear
to rule, frustration to weave its way in or the feeling of failure to dampen
the day, when in reality these are just constructs of my own mind to
keep me boxed up and restrained from reaching my full
potential.
I would love to be able to say
that this is the last day I will ever let them take hold,
as awesome as I am, I am only human! I will however be making regular
"Triple F Check-ins" to make sure I try to make more of an effort to
not let them overwhelm and take hold because let’s face it no one
likes feeling bad so why should we.
Namaste one and all and
remember to love yourself not your ego! x
