I have done a lot with my practice in these two years but the most recent element I have accomplished is having fun. I know that sounds weird because yes, yoga should be fun and enjoyable and don't get me wrong, it is fun and enjoyable but I have opened that element up in my teaching.
I have discovered how hard I have been on myself when it comes to teaching my yoga classes -- it has to be a perfect class and put myself down when the flow isn't right or I forget a pose. But anymore I have become more comfortable with myself as a teacher and it has since released that pressure. Now in my classes we, my students and I, are discovering new poses together and celebrating each other's accomplishments on poses that they are mastering. And it has been FUN!!!
This new found element also came in VERY handy when I taught to the local and national students. These students are from all over Indonesia and some the local villages that surround my jungle-mountain town. I was nervous at first because, most, don't speak English and my Bahasa Indonesia is very limited. However, yoga is movement and movement is universal.
To prepare for this class I focused on fun. How to make it fun and give them a pleasurable experience? I used the same theme that I used when teaching the international students, the ABCs of yoga -- doing a pose for each letter of the alphabet.
The class couldn't have gone any better! We growled in Lion pose:
Credit: http://www.yogabasics.com/YB-NEW/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/lion2.jpg
And we flapped our wings in butterfly and grew branches in tree pose but most importantly we had FUN!! And that was what made it a perfect class.
I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to become a yoga teacher and now have deepened my practice and teaching with the simple element of having fun!!
Travel . Fitness . Yoga -- enjoy yours!
