Teaching- completing the first circle of TT

So, I did it! I taught my first class on July 1, 2009 at the 8:00am at Bikram Yoga Harvard Square. While the entire experience was a bit of a blur, I did in fact teach a class using the dialogue that I learned at TT. My class was 10 minutes short and the Spine Strengthening Series was a bit shaky (that's what happens when you cram a posture in your head and spit it out in the same day, I guess) but everyone survived and I even got a round of applause at the end of class :)

Teaching is an incredible experience and a never ending process. My studio has been incredible about transitioning into teaching from TT by planting an instructor in all of my early classes to give me feedback. It's a bit like feedback in Posture Clinic and it's incredibly helpful. While I feel like I'm doing really well with teaching, there is always room for improvement. For example, the dialogue. You would think that after spending 9 weeks immersed in Bikram Yoga I would have that dialogue down pat, wouldn't you? Well, sometimes I do and sometimes I forget things, but guess what? I just go back through the dialogue and look at the postures where I forgot stuff and refresh it. Some great advice was to take a posture a day and just say it verbatim, just to get that one in there and then go to the next one. It's really working! My classes are getting longer because I am saying more and more dialogue (and more, and more, and more) and now I'm even looking at the additional dialogue and left side dialogue and putting bits and pieces in at a time. There is constant tinkering to be done and it is amazing.

Right now I'm working at my job four days and teaching four classes a week. It's a lot, but since teaching really doesn't feel like work, I'm truly enjoying every minute of it and feeling like I'm getting everything out of every second of every day! The schedule is a bit tough with being a mom, but I'm hoping to further reduce my hours at work until I can get a studio open- which could happen in the next year or so since the Franchise agreement is now complete and we can start applying to open schools again. I won't discuss the details of the agreement on this blog, but there are some pretty hefty monetary requirements for opening a school and becoming part of the franchise, so keeping my day job can really help me achieve my long-term goal of being a Bikram Yoga studio owner.

In short- the process works! Most of us didn't think we could really teach a 90 minute Bikram Yoga class, but through our hard work and dedication to the process we all have proof that it works!

I hope everyone has enjoyed my blog, I'm not sure if I'll keep up with it or start another on teaching, but for now, Namaste and LOCK THE KNEE!