day 11 yoga teacher training - tulum mexico

Today the focus of our yoga asana sessions were on inversions. Ahhh so much to say on such a topic.

We as a group had a lot to say, a lot to question, a lot to ponder. I shared with the group my once upon a time headstand practice. The times I would practice sirsasana b, take my knees to upper arms, and lift up into crow pose.

Those days are behind me for now. Probably over the last year I've really modified my practice of inversions, specifically headstand and shoulderstand.

As a teacher I think that we can get into these poses a lot earlier than we are ready. It's really easy to flip into headstand with the wall as a prop. And really easy to swing our hips and legs into shoulderstand.

I still love these poses. And I'll continue to teach and share them. But with many more options and variations than before.

This is what we spent a lot of time doing today. Discussing the different things to take into account as we begin to pratice and/or teach these poses. We looked at ways of making each pose accessible for most everybody. Think legs up the wall instead of shoulderstand and dolphin pose for headstand. Plus lots more options in between.

It was a rich discussion. I'm hearing that the students are really enjoying the time spent learning about the poses in these ways and they love to have the tools and knowledge to make them accessible for all students.

The cool thing is that after teaching these poses loadddds of times. I still love to talk about them and teach them in this capacity. I so love being a part of yoga teacher training. It's great on so mnay levels.

This topic took us into lunch. After lunch we spend some time reviewing concepts for the upcoming tests for Friday. We also went back into some subtle anatomy lecture/discussion on prana, the nadis (specifically ida,pingala, and sushumna), and kundalina.

This was all a perfect transition for Sarah to come in and teacher her session on chakras (more subtle anatomy). She did two hours to lecture/dicussion/exercises then an hour of asana as it related to the three chakras she covered.

And guess what?? I went and got a massage! A massage! With Antonia. Whom I now absolutely adore. I even had the traditional mayan belly massage (root keene I believe). She was so very wonderful. I have to say I was a bit scared going in but she totally worked me over and left me in a pool of post massage delight. These massages are a must for me while I'm here doing this work. So thank-full to be able to do so!