No-fail Tips to Develop a Home Practice

I’ve never been good at practicing at home. As an adolescent, my ballet teacher would chide me when I came into class unable to get into the full splits. (I’ve got short hamstrings all right?! And BTW now in my advanced age of the mid20s I can only WISH my splits were as close to the ground now as they were at 13).

Anyway…

“You need to practice more at home!” she would tell me, “You have to stretch every night.” And then she would give me all sorts of helpful tips to lengthen out the backs of my legs. I would nod my head, fully intending to follow through with every word she said.  But…then I would get home and my mind would start to negotiate with me.

“I spend 15 hours a week practicing ballet at the studio!” I would eventually agree, “I don’t need to do more.”

 But we spent those 15 hours on ballet technique, and the simple stretching we did before class, wasn’t enough to get me into the splits.

As an adult yogi, I face the very same problem. I don’t know why I refuse to practice at home. I know it is good for me, and yet, and yet, starting is just so hard. I would rather vacuum under my bed, reorganize my cupboards, and possibly clean the toilet. When we do a new or challenging asana in the studio, I think, 

“Ok, this is something I should play with at home.” 

But then I get home, and I decide that there will surely be serious consequences if I don’t do my laundry immediately.

    

I admit it: self-motivation is not my strong point. That doesn’t mean it can’t become my strong point! (that last sentence spoken with all the earnest sincerity of a fresh faced yoga teacher recently returned from a journey down the self-help aisle).

I think these 2 ideas are the key to starting a regular home practice:       

1. Start small: You wake up and take three intentional breaths. BAM!  Yoga (This will, no doubt, grow to a one hour meditation habit eventually)
2.   Cheat: that’s right, put yoga into the activities you already do. I think it is totally legitimate to practice yoga when you tie your shoe. I mean, utanasana, hello! If you want to get really fancy, try lacing up in parsvattonasana. BAM! Yoga

That’s it really! Even I can handle that much.

If you’re reading this you, yes you, are awesome (even if you don’t have a home practice).

Hugs and Namastes!

Self-doubt Is a Bitch by GUEST WRITER Matthew Seckinger!!

Self-doubt is a bitch …

I went into yoga teacher training last December, with Richelle and 17 other yogis, with the ambition of some day teaching classes. I think a lot of us had that goal. There were a few hands up when the teacher asked who took the training simply to deepen their practice. But the majority of us raised ours when asked, “Who wants to teach yoga after graduating?” What I seemed to forget when signing that credit card receipt for $2,000+ was that teaching yoga was pretty much a job in public speaking. Matthew doesn’t really do public speaking. I looked at a list online that had Americans’ Top Ten Fears. Number Two was Fear Of Public Speaking. Number Six was Fear Of Death. This means that people would prefer to die than to speak in public. I don’t know if I’d take it to that extreme, but I understand. (I don’t do “LOL,” but if I did, this would be the perfect place for such an abbreviation.) I’m kind of an introvert. The thought of getting up in front of 50 people and letting them into my heart and soul is a bit frightening.

I learned what I could during those months of training. If I remember correctly, we had seven weeks of Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday, over the course of 16 weeks. I drank up as much information as I could. I loved it. I was thirsty for as much as could be thrown my way. After graduating, some of my cohort compatriots went out and started teaching right away. I took a different route. I co-lead mentored the training after mine. And then I did another. And then I did another yet. One of the things I’ve reflected on since making those commitments, I think I kept volunteering to co-lead mentor these sessions so I could claim I was too busy to teach. Let’s look back at the pattern. I finished all of my teacher training homework early. I finished my book reviews early. I had my final exam 99 percent finished almost three weeks before the due date. But then I set aside the final. I didn’t go back to it for months. I finally finished it in April. The due date was supposed to be in mid-January. So, here is this perfectionist getting all of his work done early and then holding off on finishing the final. But why? Fear. I had convinced myself that as soon as I handed in the final and got my certificate, I was going to be expected to teach. And if I was to teach, certainly I was to fail. Right? The final and the co-lead mentoring run the same trail. “I can’t teach now. If I teach now, it’s going to suck. I am going to suck.”

In the last of the teacher trainings I co-lead mentored, there was a woman who was participating who really inspired me. She’s a cancer survivor. As she was fighting for her life, she made a decision — “Once I beat this thing, I am opening a yoga studio.” And she’s done it. She set fear aside and went after her dreams. Is it going to take a cancer scare or, worse yet, a cancer battle for me to seize my opportunity? This cancer survivor offered me a job teaching at her studio. I took it. I can’t say I’ve gotten over the fear. I show up to class (it’s a new studio) and no one shows up. On Sundays, I write my sequences. I convince myself that I have written yoga gold. On Thursday mornings, I drive to Golden and pray no one shows up. Then I feel guilty about putting that energy out into the universe. If I think it, truly believe it deep in my soul, I will manifest it.

I saw a girl on The Voice the other night. Yes, hahaha. I watch The Voice. That aside, I was inspired. This girl, she is 15 or 16, finished the song — she destroyed it. It was beautiful. (Music moves me. I’m not ashamed to admit that music has moved me to tears many times.) All four judges turned around to court her to join their team. I think it was Cee Lo Green who asked, “Who do you usually sing for, young lady?” or something like that. Her response? It was something along the lines of, “I’ve never sang in front of anyone before this, but I finally realized that I have a gift and I need to share it.” The hair on the back of my neck, cliché as it is, stood up. I may have had a tear or two in the corner of my eyes. Again, I am pretty sure it was Cee Lo who then said something like, “This (life) isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing.” Wise statement. Cliché but wise.

That’s what I am working on this week. I know I have a message. I just fall into self-doubt as to whether anyone wants my message. And if they do want what I can offer, do they want me to be the one delivering it? I’m finally calling bullshit on myself. I’ve gotten so much support from Shannon Paige, Nancy Kate Williams Rau, Gina Caputo and all of my yoga friends from my teacher training, other friends and from my family, all telling me that I can do this and that I can be good at this — I just need to believe in myself.

No prayers of an empty studio this Thursday morning. I will offer myself to one student, three students or 50 students who show up over these next few weeks and months.   

Self-doubt can take a hike.

Yoga Teacher Obstacle Number 1

Convincing People to Let You Teach Them

After I finished teacher training I was given this piece of paper that says I can now go out and teach yoga to others. When I was ready, I took this paper, I hopped on my bike and I stopped at various studios around town. I waved my paper in a few people's faces, introduced myself, dropped my resume, and followed up with a repetitive e-mail.

No one called back.

Hhmm, I wondered, what am I doing wrong?

“Fool,” a voice, that of the great westernized yoga professional god, sounded from the clouds, “You are disrupting the yoga teacher train of events.”  

This country has no shortage of new vinyasa yoga teachers, and studio owners want the best yoga program they can provide, so they don't hire just anyone who walks in from the street. They are much MUCH more likely to hire someone they already know, someone who participates in their classes, who fits into the studio culture and who follows a similar yoga practice. After all, studio and program directors get loads of resumes and they need some way to find the best suited individual for their space. I love this about yoga. It makes it more about community. But it also makes it a LOT harder to find a job.

For my teaching experiment, I set the goal of 10 classes per week. I've been following the yoga teacher train of events diligently at my home studio where I have practiced for the past 2 years. I've been there as a teacher-in-training since January and last month I finally got a class on the schedule.

Yahh!

But…I still need 9 more classes!

 How do I get them?

 Compromise and Patience

Compromise

Yoga teaching gigs exist outside of the traditional studio setting: gyms, recreation centers, friends and family.  The compromise is that they don't pay as well (rather, even worse) than studios, and because it's not an established yoga program, fewer students show up. The benefit though, greatly outweighing the negative, is that I get to teach a lot of beginners in a small class setting—an opportunity for me to really hone my teaching skills and share my love of yoga with someone who hasn't been exposed to it before. Awesome, right?

So I have 5 classes like that.

(I have 1 more studio class because rules are never 100 percent accurate and sometimes the yoga teacher train of events can be surpassed.)

That puts me up to 7. How to get the other 3?

Patience

I can't afford to drop into classes regularly enough to make my face recognizable at new studios all over town, but I can afford to drop e-mails every couple months, checking in to see if the sub list has an opening on it, or to make a point of saying hello if I run into yogi directors at workshops or around the valley.

This is a small town, eventually someone will recognize my name, and say yes, “We would love to have you here.”

Meanwhile, I just have more time to become a better teacher and student myself. Ah...relaxing in the process.

Hugs and Namastes!

How I Quit My Day Job

"Don’t quit your day job,” with this statement my yoga teacher training instructor broke my  heart.

Shit, I thought, beneath what I like to think of as a very serene face. I just paid $3,000 and spent every single weekend of the past three months slaving away over homework and sitting through lectures to become a yoga teacher. Within ten months I wanted to be a thin, glowing, bubble of enthusiasm with freakish strength that allowed me to balance on my hands while sprouting poetic and inspirational speeches as my students sweated in admiration.

And I was being told this dream wasn’t just within reach?

Why the hell not?

During the next hour of the lecture, this is what I gathered:

1.   Yogis don't actually make money silly goose!

 Right. Someone MIGHT have mentioned this earlier. 

2.    If you teach too many classes you will get burn-out and hate yourself, your students, yoga, and the universe.

But I LOVE yoga! I argued. Still, my teacher INSISTED burn-out happens to ANYONE, and all my naïve enthusiasm couldn’t convince her otherwise.

3.    It is entirely possible to realize that teaching complete strangers downward facing dog for years on end is not really your thing.

OK, had not really considered that one. Could be good to know…

I let the lessons from this talk simmer for 9 months, just long enough to get a few yoga classes under my belt and more importantly, to relegate the downhearted but entirely realistic lecture to a faded and distant memory.

In my forgetfulness I decided to forsake the thoughtful advice of my teachers and quit my day job in order to be a full time yoga teacher.

Which is funny...because I am still totally green and I don't really know what I'm doing (do we ever??). Further, I tend to doubt the wisdom of this move with questions such as, “If no studios hire me will I end up eating dumpster food before begging my boss to take me back?” or, “Will I successfully land teaching gigs only to get attacked by the burn-out monster in the first month?”

I’m giving myself the winter season to find the answers to these and other yoga related inquiries. I look forward to telling you what I find out and if you see me on the street, please give me a cookie.

Hugs and Namastes!