all that being said - the conference was a blast. friday night i sat at the yogaworks booth and chatted with interested parties about teacher training and why yogaworks is so great. i also got this great shirt for my time it simply said "yogaworks it's that simple." here's a picture of the booth.
all throughout the weekend i kept running into yoga friends, which was so awesome. it was great to see people and know that i had a place in this community even if i still feel pretty new to the yoga world.
saturday i got up stupid early for the weekend (6:30) and made my way to the conference. i was lucky enough to catch the elusive 1 bus that runs from cambridge down massachusetts avenue right downtown to hynes convention center which is a mere block away from the conference. i grabbed a breakfast sandwich and made my way to my first class.
i followed my little map they gave to us in our programs for the weekend and found myself in on of the sheraton's many ballrooms. a small elevated stage was set up in the front of the room and blue painters tape had been laid down forming rectangles on the carpet just large enough to fit a mat and a few props.
here's a (blurry... sorry) picture of my first class was with leslie kaminoff author of yoga anatomy. his class was mainly on the individualizing a yoga practice by focusing on each individual student's breath. another thing he really wanted more teachers to do is to allow students to make decisions throughout the class to start on whatever side they want to. so for example, you say come up into warrior I and each student should decide which foot they want to be their front foot. this means that the entire class would be on one foot or another and then all of the teacher's instructions would have to be adjusted so that it would work if you were practicing with either your right foot or left foot forward. while i agree that it would be freeing to a class to let them have free reign in their practice like that - there is a reason people come to a yoga class. for instruction. i don't mind if people adjust or modify to their own liking but i feel like in my classes, students look to other students for guidance if they don't quite understand what they are supposed to be doing... and that's a lot easier if everyone is practicing on the same side. he did bring up something that i will be carrying along with me as a teacher - to ask more questions during the class. rather than saying something like - "you should feel a stretch in your hip-flexor" simply ask or guide student's by saying something like "notice where you are feeling the sensation in this pose."
next class was backbending with natasha rizopoulos. it was so wonderful to practice with her again. while everything she said was what i remembered from the training it was so wonderful/interesting watching other people take in these thoughts for the first time. minds being blown all over the place. she worked the room much like she did during the training, holding one student in a pose and helping them with alignment while others watch. got to do one of my favorite poses urdvha danurasana (that really intense backbend in my pictures i had posted before).
then we had a nice three hour break. i ran into a few friends from the training and had lunch with them. we sat outside, ate and caught up. then off i went to lululemon to browse. ended up getting a new pair of leggings and a lightweight jacket. it was a glorious break.
my final class of the day was on chakras for emotional health with gary krafstow. and that was... interesting. i guess i was hoping for it to be a bit more linear and to come out with a better understanding of the chakras and how they can be made more balanced. rather, we talked a lot about the history and everything got a bit convoluted. then after a long discussion we did a bit of viniyoga practice... i wasn't sure what to expect going in and coming out... from that practice i am not really enticed to explore it further. granted i only got a 45 minute tasting of it but at least from that i have an idea of what it is and know that it's not something i need to be doing right now. which is useful in the grand scheme of things. xxx
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