Week 3 YTT Yoga Koh
This may not come as a surprise, but it was shockingly hard to spend all day learning and then to have the creative energy to write at night. Hiking it was relatively easy to write blogs because I had all day to think and be with myself. For yoga training, my brain was used up by the end of the day.
With two weeks down, we all fell into a routine – I’d typically be the first in the studio while Anne would typically be the last as she walked in right at 6:59 am just before the class began. Half of the classes continued to be taught in French, and it is refreshing to take a class in another language. For me, my body’s intelligence takes over vs me thinking through each posture. It also provided me a chance to apply all of my learnings to my personal practice.
Week 3 of yoga training synopsis here we go: If the prior week was a focus on the physical, this week’s focus was more on the esoteric. It also brought about a change of weather as it rained for the first time since being in France.
On Monday, we learned about ancient yogi mantras and even spent an hour and a half chanting them. It is an experience that forced me out of my comfort sone, especially since the language is Sanskrit and difficult for me to pronounce. Despite this, it was a special feeling to do it as a group because I felt so connected to the rest of the room.
On Tuesday, Aurelie taught us pranayama techniques (think breathing exercises) and we each then took turns leading the rest of class through the techniques. An example of pranayama is alternate nostril breathing, which means you inhale through the right nostril, exhale through the left, inhale through the left, and exhale through the right before repeating this for as long as the exercise lasts, typically around 6-10 minutes during our training. These exercises are excellent ways to become grounded.
On Wednesday, we did a fun inversion called ‘feathered peacock’ pose and also shoulder stands (which I don’t like).
On Thursday,
we learned about chakras, which according to yogi philosophy are the seven energy centers within our bodies that control different aspects our personality. There is entire books written about chakras, so I’ll just speak of the 3rd one, the Manipura chakra, located near the naval. This chakra is the fire energy and when balanced, a person is a go-getter, radiates the energy of “aliveness”, and is risk-taker. Each chakra represents different personality traits, and it is said we are all born with a leading chakra that defines a large part of who we are. I believe mine is the Manipura.
We also learned our partner for our final teaching assessment, which is required to be certified. My partner, Marine, and I would be co-teaching a 90 minute class the following week. My responsibility would be the first 45 minutes of class. We’d also drew the first slot of teaching, so we’d be going at 7:30 am while the other pair would be teaching at 10:30. Community members were invited and this would the first time we’d all taught in front of people outside of our teaching cohort – exciting stuff.
The rest of the week was chill with loads of opportunity for us to prepare and practice our part of the class we’d be teaching. On Saturday tho,
We capped off the week with a barbecue on Saturday. But prior to barbecuing, we had the opportunity to do some aerial stuff. The owners of the property have a background of performing and putting on aerial shows and their barn is set up to do full rehearsals for shows. Abbigail gave us lessons on rope and trapeze work.
An excellent week at YTT.