YTT - weekend 1

Yes, I'm back. I got back on Sunday, but work, life, and feelings all over the place got in the way of my blogging.

What can I say really, what can I tell you that you yoga teachers don't already know?

I won't bore you with a hour-by-hour recap and all the details, most of you have already been there, but allow me to say that it was intense. As in, "it's 7pm I'm in London I could go out but I just want to veg around in my hotel room" intense.

The feelings of anxiety and inadequacy, sort of, disappeared as soon as I got to the studio where the training is taking place. Maybe because of something my teacher said: "you are where you are because where you are is where you should be". It always has more impact when someone else said it, right?

My fellow teacher trainees and I practiced, discussed, listened, absorbed, and left overwhelmed but wanting more at the same time.
Overwhelmed because there is so much to learn, so much to integrate in a class and make it work, and so much to do (homework, anyone?). Rachel is spot on in her latest post! But wanting more, more practice, more knowledge, more of everything.
Ever since I've been back, I want more of this. If truth be told, I feel that yoga is my real job, and my day job is just a supporting activity, I'm drifting away from what was once my whole life.  And it is scary and exciting at the same time.

My feelings are still all over the place as everything we did is still sinking in, so I'll keep this post short. Plus, I have to sort out my papers and notes, and squeeze in some reading before I go to bed. Current reading: Hatha Yoga Pradipika (translation of Bihar School of Yoga). Rock on!

PS: on top of that, full moon tonight. After dropping (and breaking) a small jar of china gel stuff, having on curtain fall on my face, and pouring a cup of tea not quite in the cup but more like right next to it, I'm afraid I might drop my laptop or delete the whole post by mistake. Better stop here out of safety reasons.

Freshman

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Two blog posts in two days? I'm on a blogging roll!

Thing is, I won't bother you this weekend, because this weekend, I will not be here, I will be in London, starting my yoga teacher training programme.

Why London when I live in Brussels, Belgium? Because, as much as I love Belgium, let's just say that Vinyasa flow, my main practice, is virtually non-existent. I came to Vinyasa thanks to podcasts and videos. Yes I went to live Vinyasa classes in Brussels, given by a Canadian yoga teacher who was here for her post-graduate studies. These lasted only a few months.
There are Vinyasa classes in Flanders, in Antwerp and Ghent namely, but it's not exactly next door for me (hopping on a train after work and coming back home around 11pm at best is not my idea of fun).
There are a few yoga teacher trainings in Belgium, and I'm sure they are great, but I don't think they're right for me.

I attended a workshop in October last year with Claire, and loved it. When I checked out her website and learned about her teacher training, something just clicked. It had to be. I went to her intensive training in July, and it just reinforced that feeling.
Not to mention, as I already wrote countless times, I love London and the UK, so give me any excuse to go there and I'm in :-D

And tomorrow, at 9am London time, it's starting.

Now I know most of you dear readers are already yoga teachers, you already went through the anticipation, excitement, even anxiety before the start. So you know what I'm feeling right now.
And of course, my ball-of-stress, control-freak, ego-monster self is taking over :-D

The question "will I be good enough?" is popping incessantly in my mind. Even though I DO know that "good" is a very elusive concept when it comes to yoga, even though I DO know that it doesn't matter if I can't balance in handstand for the life of me (even against a wall, for f***'s sake!), even though I DO know the studio (same place as in July), obviously the teacher, and a couple of fellow students who were there in July too, even though I DO know that I'll be able to follow language-wise (I'm not saying my English is perfect people, I'm just saying that so far I've been doing ok with podcasts/classes/blogs/intensives/books in English)...

So yes, I'm a bit overwhelmed right now, and needed to vent, but you know what? What I also DO know, is that once I get on my mat tomorrow morning, everything will be fine :-)

...

On a lighter note, I will leave you with something to do, if that's of interest to you: submit your information to be part of the Healthy Living Blogs community! Yes, healthy goes beyond healthy diet, yoga blogs are healthy living blogs too, body+mind+spirit alike :-) Some words from the founders:

Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community. Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you're interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!

• 
  

  Email subject line: MEMBERS

• 
  

  Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)

• 
  

  Blog Name

• 
  

  Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)

• 
  

  Your twitter handle, if applicable

• 
  

  Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy's sake, that is completely understandable. We'll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)

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  Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)

Sounds nice, huh?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Confession post

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I promised it in a previous post. Wrote it, black on white. Now it's time. Time to disclose stuff that you probably don't want to know but what the heck (read = twisted satya-).
Here we go:

1. In the aforementioned post, I put up this link. Ugly truth is I know exactly what I was doing. I know who Jeff Hardy is, I know who Edge is, I know what the WWE is. Because I watch the bloody shows (no pun intended... although I'm lame like that). Lovely Boyfriend and I even went to the Smackdown live show in Brussels last year, while they were touring the whole world. Yes, I'm proud to say I saw the Undertaker live. Not so much ahimsa right there, but it's fake and funny!

2. I have a weird and twisted sense of humour (see above). No really, I'm not very kind. And I like lame jokes and puns. Lovely Boyfriend often says he's lucky to have me so someone can laugh at his jokes.

3. I groan and moan and sometimes have the hardest time letting go and feeling the bliss of contentment shining through me. Yes, some people still piss me off big time. There, I said it.

4. I have an ego the size of France. You know why I hate playing games? Because I don't want to lose. I hate losing. Which is one the reasons I stick with yoga: I learn a lesson in humility every time I step on the mat, in class or at home. Because I've learned to accept that a. I can't put my foot behind my head, and it will probably never happen, b. It's ok.

5. I used to hate / despise / loathe any kind of physical activity. When I lived in Dijon I used to walk anywhere but never considered it exercise. With hindsight I realized that that's what kept me from ballooning, possibly.

6. Because I was not a healthy happy camper. I was a meat-and-potato-and-anything-with-sugar eater. And around twenty I was a binge eater. Not fun.

7. Lovely Boyfriend, amongst many other things, has nicknamed me Brainiac 5. Now, don't be afraid, I am not a green-skinned alien. But I have a brain that works like a database: read, store, spit it out when requested. I freak myself out sometimes.

I believe there are a lot of other things I could get out there, but I like the number 7, so I'll stop right there.

If there's anything embarrassing you want to share, please go ahead, this is a safe space for you, I promise :-)

EDITED TO ADD: official claim from Lovely Boyfriend: all his jokes are NOT lame, they can also be smart, intelligent, genius. (the things you have to do sometimes...)