The three F's Frustration, Fear and Failure.

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