The Journey (Part 4 of 4)
The Outcome – The power of yes.
When I returned from Tim’s teacher training school I was pumped and raring to go. I had learned lots, gained confidence and was still high from the two week experience learning how to teach – I felt really good. However there were still some asanas that I was not confident enough to assist in so I was reticent about trying. I should have just dived in but I again thought to much about it and sort of let it eat away at my confidence again. To be honest I think I revered the tradition too much or think that I should be this fit super human being in order to lead by example. Or I’m thinking what is this person thinking about my assisting capabilities but I’m learning; all the while I’m learning. I’m in my head all the time, my mind is constantly processing something. This is one of the benefits of my Ashtanga practice for me, the calming of my mind – but I digress.
I took Tim’s teacher training in June of 2017 and in March of 2018 I took David Swenson’s teacher training school in Honolulu. This was a seven day course just about teaching no philosophy, a little Sanskrit, some stories, but mostly just teaching. It was a more business like approach and more focused on showing us how to assist and adjust students – get out there and teach – share this yoga experience.
David Swenson is also one of the first Americans to learn Ashtanga yoga. He was first introduced to it by David Williams and Nancy Gilgof when they brought Pattabhi Jois to California in 1979.
It was about ten months in that I knew yoga was beneficial for my MS. I assume that must be at the root of me wanting to teach and as I continued my practice this became more and more evident. I figured that the only way for me to get the message out to the MS community was to teach it to them.
So when Rachel said she would help me in this endeavour I was ecstatic. Weather this continues and I end up teaching more or weather I never teach again it’s been a highlight in my life. If I were Rachel I probably would have said no. I would have said that Ashtanga is steeped in tradition, teachers usually pick whom they want to teach, you can’t do all the asanas, blah, blah, blah….. there are loads of reasons to say no, but she said yes.
About two years ago I started discussing with the local MS chapter to teach yoga and when I first started this discussion it became a budget constraint to do this. I was not charging for this but it was difficult to find a donated space to teach. So I thought this opportunity would not happen.
About a year later Rachel asked me how it was going with trying to teach MS students. I told her that it wasn’t going to happen due to budget constraints – but that was last year. She suggested I should try again which I did. This time a donated space became available and I was about to start a twice weekly class with MS students in April. But we all know what happened.
Whether this ever comes to fruition I don’t know but one thing I do know is that this whole experience of learning to teach with Rachel, Tim, and David was an experience I will never forget. I did things I could never have imagined a few years back – did not think I was even capable of the effort required to make it through those teacher training intensives. Not only did I make it through but I loved it. Maybe that’s why I made it through because of that very simple thing – there’s a lesson there somewhere.
A while back I told Rachel I wanted to stop assisting for a while. This was due to I was having an occasional electrical type shock in my knee that caused it to pop forward (could be MS?). It is kinda like when as kids someone came behind you and bumped the back of your knee with their knee. It felt like that only much quicker and totally uncontrollable. It does not happen often but when it does happen I’ve hit the floor rather quickly and without any notice at all. There are a few asanas that if that happened while I was assisting I could potentially hurt someone. I thought it wise to stop for a while.
Throughout this whole learning process I have had a consistent mantra about my teaching journey: Learn, help, and cause no harm.
I’m very thankful to Rachel as she believed in me and said yes. That simple gesture, that positive life force, sent me on a journey that was such a bright light that taught me a lot about the true nature of yoga and the power of yes.
I’m impressed about everything I’ve learned and what I learned about myself. If I don’t teach again I will never regret the journey as it was truly a highlight and a special time….
…..that I hope continues.
Ahimsa
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Epilogue or Epi-blog
It may be self defeating for me to expose myself in this way on this teaching journey. Who would want me to teach them after reading about my internal thought processes. I thought lots about mentioning my mistakes and how my weird mind works. But I wanted to be truthful about what happened and what was going on in my head.
I’m not perfect and I have finally realized that I don’t have to be. This is my biggest lesson throughout this whole learning to teach process. It took a while to finally sink in.
And when we get to the other side of this human tragedy I hope to see you out there practicing…. I just might be the person helping you – I think you’d be just as happy about that, as I would be.