The past several weeks have been filled with calls and emails to/from my teacher (Mary Borton, E-RYT 500) as we go about preparing for the upcoming Yoga Teacher Training. Since this is Mary’s umpteenth time leading a TT, this is not as much for her as it is my own sense of what are we doing? We went through the required reading lists and the workshop outlines, content areas, and made reference to my own experience being trained as a yoga teacher.
It’s fascinating to look back at that time period of my training. As is anything good, it was hard. Arranging my life, which included a two-year-old, a four-year-old (in a not-everyday preschool), and two school-aged kids made the travel element challenging (thanks, mom, for making it possible!). It was worth it, because I never dreamed that teaching yoga would lead to the things I do now.
For many, yoga equates to asana (poses), because that’s so much of the doing we experience in a yoga class. We learn where to put our foot in Triangle or how to move a leg forward in a sun salutation. Of course, there’s also the breathing that’s emphasized as we move, so our pranayama (breathing) is practiced.
What it takes to create a yoga class, however, is more than memorizing a list of poses and then reminding people to breathe. Like so much of being human, most of it happens under the surface.
Last summer, we remodeled our home and opted for an IKEA kitchen. We were able to pick and choose our components, they came in lovely labeled boxes with instructions on assembly based on preference. You had to pay attention to which hole to screw into and which hinge matched the door. Our barn was FILLED with brown boxes of these elements. We had to stack and re-stack based on which cabinet we were wanting to build.
While it’s tempting to believe that a YTT is the hours you spend on the IKEA Kitchen Planner (an online tool where you get to drag and drop your cabinets into your Dream Kitchen arrangement), in actuality it’s like those moments in the barn where you get everything unloaded and you spend hours figuring out what goes where. Or the unwrapping of the boxes and attaching the sides of the drawer to the base of the drawer and figuring out how the hinge-roller thing gets installed based on how tall the drawer is and how many you have in this cabinet.
The pieces do fit. In fact, there’s an innumerable variety of ways to assemble the elements of an IKEA kitchen. But the process of a YTT is asking how does this and that fit together in my kitchen – or my belief system, my body, my personal ethic, and my community of people – at this moment? The teachers of your life (and this program) will give everyone the SEKTION bases, allow you to choose between BODBYN and GRIMSLOV doors, and then hand you an allen wrench.
True story: once we installed our kitchen, we had a wall full of (HEAVY) pantry cabinets and cupboards. As we finished up our remodel, our contractor added the trim around our back door. Due to poor planning on our part, once the trim was on the door, our drawers couldn’t open. Now, IKEA kitchens are a bit unique in that they are hung on your wall with a rail, not screwed individually into your wall. So, we emptied the cabinets and our contractors jacked up the entire wall of cabinetry, and SLID IT a few inches to the left. Voila, it fit.
This, my friends, is a beautiful example of the ongoing practice of yoga, especially as a teacher of yoga.
Sometimes things need to shift and move, even after you think you’re done.
You see, yoga isn’t just the poses. Yoga means to join, connect, unite, or yoke. The poses are a beautiful way of putting it into the physical realm, because we can see and feel how our body is connected when in a variety of different situations. But the true yoga is connecting all the elements of your life. How you think, feel, believe, practice, speak, eat, sleep, move, love, create, pray, watch, learn, encourage, collaborate, spend, consume, and lead.
And a YTT doesn’t teach you HOW to do that “the right way.” A YTT (a good one, at least) will point you to the ways this and that have a relationship with one another. It asks you to listen and learn from to the wisdom of history, along with the wisdom of the present (including science), the wisdom of the Divine (from whatever stream you recognize it), and the wisdom of your personal experience*.
So, if you’re interested in unpacking the stuff of life, doing a bit of heavy lifting in terms of arrangement, and love the creative process that’s involved with learning, then a YTT is perfect for you.
Just don’t do it because you love a finished product. I still need trim in my kitchen.
So, what if this sounds really, really awesome to you?
The Yoga Teacher Training at Woven Yoga will commence October 3, 2019. It’s a 9-month (11-weekend + several evenings) immersion program. If you’d like to know more or are ready to enroll:
- Come meet Mary and practice with her on September 8 at 3:30. We’ll have a meet & greet with questions about the program to follow.
- Read through some of the requirements and investments necessary to complete the program.
- Apply online and drop your deposit at the studio ($200, check or cash only).
- Clear your weekends for the immersions as complete attendance is necessary and required.
*Yes, for you hard-core Methodists out there, that’s my Yoga version of the Wesleyn Quadrilateral.
