A couple weeks after moving to Rochester I started a membership at the local YMCA. I gained some weight (from my husbands amazing meals) and wanted to start getting back into shape. Part of the membership was that all classes were free. This is part of the reason I started doing yoga. At one point I had a room mate who did yoga and she once told me her whole day was out of whack if she missed her yoga class. I didn't get it at the time. Once I started going I was hooked. Okay, honestly I was hooked after the first class. This was the kind of "work out" I could get used to. There's nothing really hard about yoga or not any reason to be hard on yourself because the poses have modifications which means anyone can do them. I was finding running or anything like that was mentally draining for me because I wouldn't let go if I couldn't go that extra mile. As I was going to these classes I started noticing subtle things. Things like how my foot felt on the floor, how my back wasn't hurting when I bent over to dry off my feet or when I was rolling out of bed, and how I was noticing how much tension was in my shoulders. I told Nick I thought I should learn to be a yoga teacher. Somewhere inside me I knew this was it. This was what I'd been waiting for all my adult life. Something I was passionate about, something that connected me with other people. I'm not the sort of person though who says, "I should learn to teach yoga" and then follows through....completely, (I know, it's kind of a big downfall, but I work on it every day). I looked into teacher trainings thinking about how much money it was going to cost to fly to Puerto Rico or somewhere exotic, for a month, to learn how to teach. Not to mention I'd have to take a month off work and pay for a plane ticket. Then I would make up some excuse why it wouldn't work, blah blah blah. Nick finally got fed up of hearing me battle back and forth with myself about teaching and looked into it. He's such a good researcher and go and get the job done kinda guy. Well, he found a yoga teacher training (YTT) near us. He walked upstairs, handed me his cell phone and said, "Check this website out. The guy has a yoga teacher training in Syracuse, I think you should call him." I was pretty shocked. It almost felt like a do it now type thing, cause if you don't you won't. I called him.
Tony talked to me over the phone one time and I agreed to go to one of his yoga classes (who wouldn't, the first class was free!). I also in the mean time printed out the application for his school and filled it out. Nick had to stand duty the night of the yoga class and I switched vehicles with him because I prefer to drive the truck at night. Halfway to Syracuse I realized my yoga mat was in the car. Shoot! You won't believe all the crazy thoughts going through my head. "This is almost like an interview. You're going to see if you like this guys class and he's interviewing you about going to his school and you're going to show up unprepared!" These thoughts by the way are what yogi's call citta (pronounced chit-ah). Constant chatter of the mind. Well, my citta was certainly getting the best of me. I luckily had time to stop at Wegman's (the local grocery store for you West Coasters) and pick up a yoga mat. I knew they would have them because I'd seen them at the Wegman's near our house. Finding the damned thing took forever though. I was almost late to class. So I got there and introduced myself to Tony and parked my very smelly mat (they tend to have an awfully Strong odor when you open them for the first time) on the floor and sat down. What happened next was amazing. Tony's class was so much more than what I was getting at the Y. He had a meditation at the beginning of the class, his poses were slower and more experiential and then there was Savasana. Savasas is at end of a yoga class where you lay down and let all the things you experienced soak into your entire being allowing your body to process it all. Tony also took the time to make the ambiance of the class exactly what he wanted. The floors were clean, the candles were lined up along the long wall in front of everyone, and the music seemed to set the tone....complete calm. I knew right then this was something special. There was more to yoga than getting in a pretzel or doing the Warrior Pose. Yoga was internal and amazing. I can't really describe much more of the class because I was just so excited about it and sharing it with Nick that the details have left me :)
After the class was over Tony came and talked to me about what kind of experience I had doing yoga and genuinely wanted to know about me. I had only a couple months of yoga under my belt, not the full year he'd have liked his students to have, but he could see that I was like him when he found yoga. I had a passion for it. I had what it took to be a teacher. I handed him my application and my $25 application fee and went on my way, happy as a clam. Every time I woke up that night I checked my email on my phone to see if he'd emailed me that I was accepted into the Infinite Light Yoga Teacher Training. He did. I was so excited. This was the beginning of something amazing, a journey I was so excited to take. This journey wouldn't have been possible if my husband hadn't kicked my bum into gear and said to go out and do it. Nick even put off going to New Zealand for a year so we could pay for YTT because "it was more important than the trip" (those are the man's own words).
January rolled around and it was time for YTT to start. Nick decided to go with me my first weekend (he went skiing while I was in class, and then watched football on Sunday while I was in class). I couldn't have been happier to have him along to support me. He knew it was a big deal and something very important. The first night Tony told us all how we would start to change during YTT. Later when I was sharing this with Nick he told me it was too late I'd already been changing (in a good way). You see, the definition of yoga is union or yoke. The union of mind and body. Something I'd never had. I mean yeah, I know when my toe hurts because I've stubbed it, but I've never understood that the tension in my shoulder was because the citta in my brain was too much for my mind to process and it showed up in my body. This we call "issues in the tissues". There were so many ah ha moments in YTT I can't even list them all. I think one of the most memorable things for me was learning to meditate and how beneficial it was. I also loved all the philosophies of yoga. To me they just made sense.
While I was in YTT there were things "coming up" that I wasn't exactly sure how to answer. A friend of ours mentioned how yoga was something you had to be careful with, as was meditation because it's like a religion and can be bad for you, if you get into the wrong stuff. This really threw me for a loop. I had to really consider this for a long time. It was something I had a really difficult time coming to terms with inside myself. Was I bad because I read about Buddhist ideals (not that this has anything to do with yoga so much, but I still read about Buddhist, Taoist stuff)? Was I bad because I was reading the Yoga Sutras and they made sense to me as much as the 10 Commandments? Was I bad to listen to stories of Shiva and Krishna and interpret them as more like fables? Is it wrong that chanting OM at the end of class resonated within me and brought me peace? I don't think it was until Easter of this year when I went to church with my neighbor that I really got it and understood that what I was studying and what I was learning and practicing (yoga) were not "bad" or harmful to me or my beliefs. While I was in church Easter morning we bowed our heads to pray and my eyes went directly to that spot they go when I'm in meditation. Click! I'd been praying all this time in my own way and didn't realize it. Yoga to me is a physical expression of a prayer. My body is a temple and I'm honoring it. I'm clearing my mind in meditation and letting my thoughts be, letting God speak to me however He will. There are times when I'm in a pose, let's just say Warrior, and I think about how amazing it is I've been given this body, and I'm able to express myself through this pose. For me, I don't think God cares how you come to know Him, how you pray to Him, whether through prayer, meditation or mantra (yes I see mantra's in Sanskrit as a form of prayer), I just think He cares that you get to Him. And though yoga is not a religion, it has helped me grow in my own religion, just as it has for many others of many other faiths and religions.
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| YTT graduation ceremony August 2010 |
I'm a yogini waiting to shine my light on students. I'm ready to weave philosophies into classes and help people get into a pose for the first time and REALLY feel it. I am a yogini that hopes to someday share my passion with students and help them find what I have found through yoga.....myself.
Om Shanti
I like this story as well. I think it is awesome that Nick knows you so well and knew how to get you to follow your passion. Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteDigging the new background as well. :)