My day starts again at 5:00. I'm totally into this schedule. I spent a little time preparing for the day and some time for my practice. Got ready and walked through the sand on my way to La Luna. It looked like it was going to be a special sunrise. Hmmmm.
I got the Villa where we are meeting for our sessions. It's outdoors surrounded by a pool and the prettiest tropical vegetation. Light the incense, greet yogis, prepare my mat. Everyone always arrives on time for all of our sessions. Actually people are usually a few minutes early, even at 6:30 a.m.
We find our spots on the mat and I tell everyone we're going to go out and spend a few minutes watching the sun rise. We walk onto the beach, all stand in awe at what we witness. The beauty. It was pretty moving. I ask everyone to come to a circle, I see teary eyes, and ask that we say what we're thankful for in that moment.
What I hear makes my heart smile. Students are thankful for the breath, family, friends, teachers, gift of vision, nature, the people in the circle and so on. It was a tender moment. Luckily two of the students got their cameras and we did get the pic above, minus the two photographers. Arent' they cute? Will have to get more group shots.
Todays material is forward folds. We have 9 of them (12 if you could all the prasarita options). We take nearly 6 hours between practicing them in a class, breaking them down, and teaching them. Time flies when you're havin' fun!
We break for lunch. I ask students to wear their bathing suits under their yoga clothes when they return. Hmmmmm.
We spend time on sequencing. And the concept of "pose, neutralizing, and counter pose". Always so interesting. We talked about what we base sequences on (such as style of yoga, level of student, time of day, themes, and so on).
Did a wonderful exercise where we progress to a challenging pose. A assigned three poses to three groups. The three poses were full wheel, pigeon pose, and headstand. Students had to deconstruct each one. Listing main actions of the poses, an easier pose to build upon, which muscles were being stretched/strengthened, choose neutralizing pose, and a counterpose. Everyone seemed to like this and saw the value of it. But it's not so easy!
Students now have a new founds appreciation of their yoga teachers. They now see that much more goes into planning and teaching a yoga class. It's not as easy as it looks!
I lead the students through 60 minutes of yin yoga. It helps them feel better in their bodies and helps to relax. Feel like it was a perfect time for this.
We put the bathing suits to use and spend our last session which is Sanskrit review in the pool. Yes, in the pool! We made it more fun and playful. Can be a pretty daunting thing. We all decide that all language classes need to take place in pools. So much more fun!
That concludes our day together. I taught 10 hours today. Tracy left today and Shelli gets in tonight. She'll teach some tomorrow. Yay, yoga BFF Shelli! And I'm getting another massage tomorrow. Double yay!!
PS - I forgot to mention a super exercise we did yesterday. Students had to bring a voice recorder with them. They planned out a 10 minute sequence then had to take their class back. Super helpful tool to see what we are saying and how we are saying it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment