Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London
Saturday
A change from usual today as I drove up to London for my yoga weekend. At 8:00am, the A40 flyover at Paddington is already congested - not idea why. For once I am a bit better prepared for this weekend, mainly as it is a weekend I am pretty nervous about. Four hours of posture labs each morning followed by a four hour assessed practicum each afternoon - all the standing postures.
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So the morning is spent with Camille teaching. The posture labs are aimed at being a sort of revision session for each posture. This would be fine except that many people haven't been able to prepare their initial working sheets and so have nothing to revise against. This is mainly due to now knowing this was the course procedure until quite late on.
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Course attendance is also down as there are just 8 of us today. Most people seem to be under quite a lot of pressure from the course workload. But that said, there are clearly some people who are relatively well on top of things. Romana and myself are fully prepared and one or two others have quite good notes, even if they are not complete. But most people are saying they are doing little in the way of actual yoga practice at the moment. I have had a dry cough for the last few weeks and this has certainly been enough to stop me doing anything else. But this lack of practice does meen that a day like today is really tiring.
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Camille's teaching is really focused again and I'm sure we all feel that is really good at this stage. We cover 7 postures today and have 6 more to do tomorrow. My draft posture notes certainly get loads of new points and embellishments. My main concern is the lack of practice on adjusting and modifications - something I expect to fine really hard.
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After lunch, our practicum is with Elena. We are split into two groups and have a go each at teaching the postures from this morning to each other. Elena stops us every so often in our groups to run through some detailed points, and at other times she calls the whole group together to run through a few things. This usually involves her picking someone to demonstrate a posture and then have the others critique the posture. My decision to initially test myself on the postures I find personally to be the hardest therefore backfires slightly as I then have to demo the ones I am worst at - for instance, parivrtta parvakonasana.
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Mid-session, Elena pauses for a brief digression into the dangers of overworking in yoga and the effect it can have on your immediately relationships. She and husband Rod are off to Thailand for three weeks over Christmas and there seems to be the suggestion that Rod had insisted on this in some way. I can certainly relate the the impact lost of teaching can have. Linda is out four night's a week teaching and is usually not in the best mood when she gets in - tired and with various grumbles about things - and it does have an impact.
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By mid-afternoon I am feeling pretty low. There is so much to know for each posture and we are continually being picked up on what seem like dozens of points. But by later in the afternoon I feel a bit better. My attempt to teach the entire class one posture without notes actually goes better than it might have done. Elena's format for the afternoon also encourages us to be a bit less serious and more relaxed, even thought he practicum is technically part of the continual assessment marking for the course.
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As the course finishes, I am entrusted with key duties for tomorrow but within half an hour I have lost the codes for the doors. I have to call Linda to find Camille's mobile number and then leave it with Camille to sort out for the morning. I am totally exhausted and was barely able to drag myself out of the hotel and find somewhere to eat. I am in bed by about 9:00 in what has to be the worst room I have had so far in my times up in London. I certainly won't be staying here again
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Sunday
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Awake early after quite a good night's sleep. The exhaustion of yesterday obviously needed fixing. I've time to read some of my current book - Kenny's The Great Books - then off to collect the car and drive down to Victoria. I passed a girl walking close to to the hotel who looked very worse for wear - either drink or drugs related. She said she was ok though and wobbled off in the opposite direction to me.
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It is raining quite hard as I sit in the car outside the Light Centre where our course is held, waiting for Camille to show up hopefully with the code numbers. Sarah and Bridgit both arrive as I'm waiting and sit in the car with me, before Camille arrives on her motor bike. She managed to speak to Elena only 20 mins earlier, but at least we are able to get in. Otherwise our class might have to have been held at Victoria station!
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Six more standing postures to revise today. Victoria and Rhea don't make it in, but Christina and Eve are here today - so 8 again. Today's lesson also includes much more anatomical info on the postures than we have had before and I, for one, think this is really good. Word leaks out as well that we have all passed the anatomy test from last time. Camille thinks this test should be more related to yoga postures and I would be inclined to agree. I felt I had definitely passed the anatomy test, but, at the same time, I don't feel that I really know the material as well as I'd like to. So I am going to try and keep doing some anatomy reading, maybe from one of the books specifically aimed at yoga teachers.
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People are increasingly tired as the day goes on and we are all crashed out in restorative postures when Elena arrives after lunch for our afternoon practicum. I am paired up with Romana, Christina and Claudia for the afternoon's session. Things proceed as they did yesterday but with a slightly greater emphasis on making adjustments. I am paired with Romana for the first of these little adjustment sessions. She and I generally sit next to each other on the course and get on pretty well - lots of teasing of each other but quite friendly (I hope). Then later I am paired with Christina for Warrior II. Christina always looks really great when she is doing the postures but I make one or two little adjustments and this goes ok as well. I still think this will be a really hard part of the course though.
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This afternoon's breif digression includes a chat about how long people on the course have been married. Sarah is missing the next weekend as it is her wedding in Cape town. Elena is coming up to 10 years I think, but everyone seems surprised that Linda and I have been married nearly 20 years. This surprise is mainly due to those people who saw Linda at the Yoga Show and thought she looked really young. Linda didn't believe me when I told her this later on!
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At the end of the afternoon everyone is pretty exhausted again. We now have a seven week gap till the next weekend and I am filled with good intentions of getting up to date and even a bit ahead. Elena reminds us that we ought to be well advanced in our thinking about our chosen elective and that we can send her a one-page summary so she can check it is suitable. I have already done my first draft of the slide presentation for this so it would be unfortunate if it turned out I couldn't do this topic. But they are not due till April so everyone does have a lot of time left. I might try and write the text for mine quite soon and get it out the way.
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Elena and I have arranged to meet up in the next week to go through the last points on the new syllabus document, which she wants to use on the course beginning in February. As she is away a lot till January, it would be really good to get this finished for her.
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No quiet trip home tonight where I can sleep on the coach. Instead I have a drive to Cambridge to collect Emma whose term finished last week. Luckily she has some friends on hand to help carry boxes down the three flights of stairs and we are soon sorted out and on our way home. And as we haven't had an photos on the blog for some time, I thought I would put up a couple of Emma rowing for her college team in the Fairburns 2007 event a few weeks ago.
Emma looking like she's been working hard
Emma's team competing in the Fairburns 2007 event in Cambridge. Emma is the third rower away from the cox and is about to get covered in water from the rower in front!
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