Stagger Lee
Perhaps one of the best songs ever, by (my spiritual husband) Nick Cave. Which unfortunately happened to be playing when a couple of Jehova's Wittnesses turned up on the doorstep last Sunday. I had quite an enjoyable chat with them about God and if I believed in him or not. I think I scared them off with my philosophic ramblings, which was good as I don't like to be disturbed on a Sunday when I am busy pottering about. It was either that or Nick screaming obscenities in the background. When I shut the door I realised I also looked a bit like a satanist, albeit one who was about to do some yoga - I was in black yoga gear with tattoos showing. I am so rock n' roll...
In other news I have a cold and have tweaked my back by doing supta kurmasana a bit too enthusiastically. Althogh weirdly it doesn't hurt to do supta kurmasana or drop backs, but it does hurt in utitta hasta padangustasana. Weird.
I have also been busy observing lots of beginners classes and picking up lots of teaching tips. Like don't try and teach a pose with your back to a class. Although this is hard to avoid in some i.e. how the arms should be in parvotonasana. Also you don't need to talk all the time, you should give students a few breaths in a pose so they can observe what they are doing. Most importantly to make the transition from practitioner to teacher, you need to remember beginners are beginners. Which sounds stupid, but I realised in the middle of teaching ardha baddha that teaching the full pose without variations is never a good idea for a beginner.
So I am teaching a full beginners class by myself next week, which will be fun. Although a bit scary. I went through a bit of a transition in the last week. I was on the verge of deciding not to teach as I get nervous, like really, really palm sweating voice sounding like a 12-year-old boy nervous. But then a switch flicked in my brain and this week in my teaching practice I just decided to enjoy it and where I went wrong realised this is a learning experience and I am not going to be perfect at it to start with. Classic type A perfectionist stuff ignored for a change! Maybe the yoga is working after all.