Yo-Yo-Yoga

At the beginning of December I gave up the yoga class that I had been teaching since early 2012.

I came to a point that I felt like I was doing the ladies who came each week a bit of a disservice by the fact that I wasn't feeling inspired or truly engaged in the classes I was teaching. I suppose, it just started to feel a bit stale. Every Thursday night, I would almost dread the “commitment” of having to be there, and wasn't necessarily enjoying leading the practice like I once did.

I decided stepping away from the class would be a good opportunity to focus on my own practice a little more. Not to mention the fact that during Ironman training, I’m out of the house enough and was longing for more time at home with Shane and Rusty.

So, have I spent more time on my own practice? Not really, but I have spent more time with my two favourite guys, so it's been worth it.

On top of that, I've had the opportunity to sub the odd class, which has definitely helped keep me involved and in the yoga “teacher” mindset.

On Monday night I ended up subbing for Kirsten, as she has been taken OUT by the flu that is plaguing so many people in Victoria right now. She teaches two classes back to back (you can sign up through Panorama Rec if you’re interested), with the first one being a downDAWG Yoga class (essentially, flow yoga + hip hop music = downDAWG Yoga).

I am not trained or certified to teach downDAWG, but since Kirsten was in a pinch, I was her best option. By nature, I tend to teach a very gentle style class, so any sort of power class is a little out of my wheelhouse, but I've been to enough power classes, that I figured I could make it work.

So, I let the women in the class know that they wouldn't be getting a downDAWG class that night; but that we’d still use the fun music and I’d still give them a challenging yoga class where they could work up a sweat and have a good stretch. They were totally game and well, I think they were secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly) happy to be getting a slightly easier session to start the New Year.

We shook our bums to the music, blasted our cores, and then cooled it down with a good round of hip openers (among others things). It was a lot of fun, and a nice easy and welcoming atmosphere to be in.

Round two (aka. the second class of the night) was a “Yoga for Athletes” class.

This style of class is definitely more up my alley and allowed for my more natural “gentle” style to be front and center. That said, it didn't come without some new-to-me aspects.

It was a much bigger class than the first one (16 people) with over half the participants being men. Having done my yoga teacher training in a group full of women, and then teaching at women’s only gym, teaching men was new to me. It was not a bad thing, and it was actually pretty cool to see so many guys taking part in a yoga class (rather than the token 3 or 4 you often see in a studio full of women), it just took me by surprise.

Once class got going, it really made no difference that half of the participants were male and half female. Some women had good proprioception, some didn’t. Same goes for the men, some seemed to be naturals, while others not-so-much. The young guys giggled during certain poses, much like the young girls often did in my Thursday night class. In the end, the atmosphere was similar to what I was used to, but little things made it feel fresh and new.

Anyway, while Monday was a long day (that saw me eating mini-eggs for dinner), it was nice to do something a little different and to feel a bit excited about teaching again. I may have even been a little keyed up with yogic adrenaline at the end of the night. :)

Namaste Motherf*ckahs.