Ravings of a Textual Deviant

About three years ago, after much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, I declared that I wasn’t a yoga teacher. Yet.

It took almost exactly thirty days for that to change. Within a month, I was in my first teacher training. I finished up my certification as an RYT-200 in November of 2006.

The universe has now dropped another, similar, very large hint on me, and I like to think that I’m smart enough to take it before the universe decides that I am not paying enough attention, and draws back its boot.

I taught my first class of a new session last night, and in the class there was one student with fibromylagia, and one with CP. This morning, I got asked about yoga for rheumatoid arthritis…and then found out via email that a friend had just been told that she probably has fibromyalgia. No final diagnosis yet, but odds are good. I had been planning to do some research anyway, for my student, so…yeah, you know where that’s going.

It looks like I may well end up being a yoga therapist before the decade is out. I’m still looking into the certification process, and what schools are certified by Yoga Alliance (gotta get them Continuing Education Units). Conveniently enough, though, the school I’m already in is getting ready to roll out a couple of 4-day intensive yoga therapy trainings.

I believe those would also count towards the RYT-500, which is the next level up from the cert I already have.

I’m not ready for that yet. But I know better than to rule it out, either.

Looks like I will be teaching yoga to a class that’s open to the public, on Tuesday nights, through the local township school’s community education program.

Maybe I’ll see you there.

If I ever own a yoga studio, I’m going to call it “Flex in the City.”

Tonight is the last class of the current session of the yoga class I’m teaching. If you’d like to sign up for the next session, which will start in January, click here, then click on “course catalog,” and look in the mind-body section.

Hope I see you there!

I recently discovered that the yoga teacher training school I’ve been studying with has rolled out a 500-hour RYT program.

I probably won’t look into this for the near future, partly because I don’t see being able to spend three weeks in either Oregon or India any time soon. Also, at this point, it’s not my primary job, and that would be a major investment of time and money. And finally, I want to let them work out the kinks and make any changes that need to be made before I start. So, perhaps some day in the indefinite future…

Still, I am very excited about this new program, because there are a couple of new 4-day seminars on yoga therapy that I would like to take—that’s much more doable, both in terms of time and cost.
Between the new offerings and all the existing classes that I’d like to take, I am set for continuing education units for the next dozen years.

And by the time I’ve gotten through all of those, I hope that there will be yet more classes that I will want to take. Because all of us who have RYT certifications, whether 200-hour or 500-hour, are going to need those CEUs.

A few weeks ago, I found out that my usual Thursday-night yoga class had not met the minimum required enrollment. I spent a few weeks as the Thursday-night floating substitute, which was fine, but not exactly easy on the schedule. Fortunately, a new class has opened up for me, and unlike the previous one, it’s open to the public. It’s also full for the current session, which runs through December. However, it’ll be open season come January. I’ll post a reminder in a few months, in case anyone is actually reading this thing and wants to sign up.

Yesterday was my first yoga teacher training in ten months, which is the longest I’ve gone without training since I started work on my RYT. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it, until I showed up and saw some familiar faces. It was wonderful to drop back into student mode as well.

This training was two four-hour hybrid classes, YogaCore and Yoga Butt. (How I managed to end up with sore triceps and quadruceps after those classes is a complete mystery me, but I’ve never done things the normal way, so there you go.) At this point, I don’t think I’d try to teach a true hybrid class to my students, but I can easily see working one or two moves into the class that I am teaching.

Regardless, it was a wonderful training—the instructor was wonderful, it was a relatively small class, and as always, yoga teacher are a uniformly great group of people to study with.

The only thing I wanted for Chanukah this year arrived in the mail yesterday—Yoga Alliance sent my RYT-200 card.

w00t!

I have received my lovely certificate, suitable for framing, from my yoga instructor school. I need to complete one more form, photocopy the certificate, and send it off to Yoga Alliance…and then I wait for my Official RYT-200 wallet card (not-so-suitable for framing).

Last weekend I went to the final training required for my Registered Yoga Teacher - 200 Hour certification, my Level 3 retrain, in Cincinnati. (The Indianapolis training had been cancelled.) Now, it’s all over but the paperwork, which goes in the mail tomorrow.

First, I can’t say enough wonderful things about Beth, the instructor. I’d heard all kinds of wonderful things about her, and I have to say that she lived up to all of them, and then some.

I took advantage of the fact that I’d taken the class before to put my books aside, and really listen to what was going on around me. That’s a huge benefit of retraining. However, it also seemed as though it was an entirely different training, because each instructor had her own focus and personal take on the course material. In addition to feeling as though I’d really absorbed the matieral, I also finally got a good feel for what a mula bandha or “root lock” is supposed to feel like, which is something I’ve been trying to figure out for ages now. I had a very good experience during the meditation that we did on Sunday afternoon, too, right before we finished.

Best of all, there were several other women with whom I’d been in other trainings who also finished up this weekend. It felt like we were a graduating class. So, I’d like to take a moment to thank and congratulate Jenny, Jenny, Judi, Eleanor, Tammy, and Laura, my central Indiana yoga classmates. You, and everyone in each my trainings, made the experience unforgettable and life-changing. Best of luck to each and every one of you, and I hope to see you all soon…and not just when you need someone to sub your classes. We made it!