Guess what! We reached the halfway point this past weekend. Yes, in 4 short weeks I will be Strala certified. Is this real life?
Okay, on to my weekend events!
Saturday
I think you get the drill by now with how this begins. Wake up early, drive, train, etc. Had
a lovely lunch with a few girls at Sacred Chow and went to Strala. Upon arriving I didn't know what to expect since Tara and Mike were in Boston last weekend while we worked with Sam. More leading I was guessing, but how could I be sure? Well I couldn't. So that's what I mentally prepared myself for. I don't get nervous if I know what to expect, but when I don't know then the nerves come in full force. Better to be safe than nervous! We started training off with a
short little segment on meditation. After that we worked with handstands for a little while which was super fun. We practices how to do handstands ourselves and also how to assist others while they're getting into handstands. Heidi is doing a whole inversion weekend with us in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to that :)
After our meditation and handstand time we started to practice leading again. I never want to lead going into each training day (nerves) but once we start doing it, it is honestly so fun. That's also a big reason on why I wanted to do this training, I want to become a lot more at ease when it comes to being in front of others. I couldn't think of a better way to do it than by sharing something that I love. We each got to lead the group in a little flow and then we talked about what was good, bad, etc. I need to work on being louder which is such a struggle for me! I always feel like I'm being loud enough, or even too loud, and then everyone is always telling me to speak up. I'll work on that though!
Overall, Saturday was a great training day. We went over a lot of topic and it's all so beneficial to my daily life and my yoga practices and teachings.
Sunday
Sunday at training we worked on leading once again! That's why we're there though, right!? Well we started the afternoon off with a short discussion on meditation and breathing. We practiced a few different breathing techniques and then discussed the pros and cons of each. Afterwards, the leading began once more. This time we got into groups of about 8 people and lead them through longer sequences, then gave each other advice on how we did. This was my favorite leading exercise that we've done. Leading a slightly longer sequence than we were doing previously was a lot easier for me because I could really get into it and connect my breath with the flow of the sequence. Plus I love how we could talk to each other about how we did. I still needed to be louder, but the second time around I was more aware of that and tried to take it up a notch ;)
We watched Tara lead a sequence as well and got to see how her personality shines through while she's teaching and to see how she keeps the energy up in the room. It was really beneficial to watch her lead without doing the flow because we could really get a sense of how much she really does while in classes.
Goal of this week: Practice leading!! It's tough for me to actually do that because I don't really have anyone to lead. Plus it's so different to practice here than it is to practice at Strala. Whole different atmosphere. But I'm still going to try!
I love training, Strala, the friends I'm making, NYC, basically everything about my weekends. I'm so grateful to be able to do this. I can't say that enough!
Next week we're working with Sam again and "getting to know our bodies." I'm excited to see what that actually will involve and just excited to get back to Strala and spend time with the great people that I'm blessed to have in my life.
Thanks for reading :)