week one.

i have been needing and wanting to write an update about the first weekend of the teacher training program ever since saturday. sadly between lack of time and pure exhaustion - it has been delayed... until now.

today is the first day i woke up and didn't feel a majority of my muscles giving me feedback in response to this weekend's practice. i have done yoga for a while now, but never for more than 1-2 hours at a time. day one (a seven hour day in total) we spent two doing a fairly strong practice. our teacher, natasha rizopoulos, is from the ashtanga school of yoga, which is an intensive branch that focuses on practicing a flow in order to generate heat within the body and sweat toxins out of your body. and boy did i. i think i sweat as much as i do when i go to a power prana class which is in a room heated to 98 degrees. then after this practice we break and then do some talking then back to our mats/the wall to breakdown a few asanas that we are focusing on that particular day. this translates to standing, spending about 40 minutes to an hour on any given asana. such as tadasana (mountain pose). this is the basis for all other neutrally rotated standing positions and is usually one that all beginner yogis practice. (feet together, hips centered, shoulders spread and relaxed with your hands hanging down at your sides). this pose took up about an hour of time with us finding the absolute correct posturing. it was intense, and amazing.

there are some things that still worry me.

first off, the class consists of 40 other people. usually these classes have around 25. that brings me a bit of anxiety, not only because we have to stretch quite carefully so as to not smack our neighbor in the face; but also i generally do better with smaller groups. i also had hoped that i would be able to get a bit more one on one time with the teacher. though i suppose you get what you put into a course like this, so it's on me to get the experience i want out of this course regardless of the class size.

secondly, it seems like everyone else in the class knows a good majority of the sanskrit names for the asanas. i know maybe two. while i am taking this class to learn... it's a bit daunting to seemingly be so far behind already. i have some flashcards in my future, methinks...

there's more i want to write but sadly it's already wednesday and i still have homework that must be finished for saturday's class so off i go to educate myself!


xxx