MYM (My Yoga Month)

April - My Yoga Month (MYM)…as I started calling it, a couple weeks before it actually began - almost as a joke - is not turning out quite as expected or as I had wanted it to.  (But, therein probably lies the lesson.)

It started with me teaching Chair Yoga at my work, which has been going beautifully!  It's only 15 minutes at a pop, but I think people are getting a lot from it, most noticeably some much-needed relaxation.

Seems like everyone in the U.S. (if not the world), is a stress-case these days (including me), even though for most of us folks working at Jackson Hewitt, the busiest time of year is now over (Tax Season).  Thank God!

Tax Season was actually.really.really.awful.  Worse than I would have thought, which is to say, in fact - BRUTAL.

That first Chair Yoga session was Tuesday April 2nd so I started MYM off well…I was reading The Science of Yoga every night, which is a great book.  http://www.amazon.com/Science-Yoga-Risks-Rewards/dp/1451641435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366162989&sr=1-1&keywords=the+science+of+yoga

In fact, it’s so informative and insightful I felt like it was making me become a better teacher with every paragraph and page I read.  I normally turn down a lot of pages as I read (even, regretfully do this on library books), to mark certain passages I want to return to, and this book - which I own so can beat up as much as I want, with no guilt - is massively dog-eared by now.

But I couldn’t get myself started on my own reinvigorated home-practice via the other yoga book I recently purchased, called Moving Toward Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga With Rodney Yee - http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Toward-Balance-Weeks-Rodney/dp/0875969216/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366159650&sr=8-1&keywords=moving+toward+balance+8+weeks+of+yoga+with+rodney+yee

My excuse was I didn’t have all the props I needed at home.  But really it was/is my own laziness, and how all the rest of life intervened, and that's ALSO no excuse but there it is.  More on that below.

MYM continued with a wonderful "Twist into Spring" workshop the first weekend of April, at MTS ("Moving Toward Stillness") yoga studio ~ http://www.movingtowardstillness.net/index.html

This is the studio where I started teaching last Fall, and shortly after I finished the 200 hours Yoga Teacher Training (YTT).  My wonderful *boss* and mentor Elaine led the workshop and I was able to just be a student, and enjoy all she had to teach, for a blissful 3 hours...I think I snored in svasana. :)

The following weekend - interspersed by more chair yoga sessions, I think they like the calming music & aromatherapy + 3 mins meditation at the end - it was a full one and 1/2 days of teacher training, down in Naples, FL at Bala Vinyasa Yoga Studio.

"The Mastery of Teaching Gentle and Basic Yoga."
http://www.bvyoga.com/Default.aspx

I had NO idea what I was getting into, having not been to this studio before, but took a chance based on the workshop description.  And it also turned out beautifully.  I had the Best.YogaWeekend.Ever. 

I learned SO much that I want to turn toward my classes, and take further....all of which will probably be side-lined for at least a little while, due to the impending change - reason why I've been so stressed out lately, and feel life has intervened with my plan to do more daily yoga - which is that...I've taken a new full-time job! 

Up in Tampa so involves an hour commute but pays A LOT better and no more crazy tax-season to endure.  Will probably have to endure lots of other crazy, but at least not that! :)  Cue the song by Meat Loaf ~ I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GNhdQRbXhc

New job starts 4/29 and here's hoping it's the right move...it FEELS right so far...

MYM will continue this coming weekend, with the first all-YTT social event since we all got together at Thanksgiving.  Hosted by yours truly, at my apartment complex pool for a cookout/pool party.  I am so looking forward to seeing all my fellow yogis, hearing about how life for them has also been great or hard, maybe wonderful, but maybe stressful or even awful, as much as or more than me.

How life has intervened with their daily yoga practice also (or not), and their future yoga plans.  And I look forward to telling them all about my upcoming job change.  Because some of them saw me miserable about job-stuff at Thanksgiving and challenged me to fix, change or accept it.  I feel I did all three.  I feel, in fact, triumphant!

MYM will conclude with an Ashtanga Yoga workshop the last weekend in April, which I am - purely - dreading.  It's at ReFlex Arts, where I got all Yoga-Teacher-Trained so that helps me be more comfortable, but we didn't do Ashtanga in our training and I've never done it before. 

This type of yoga is as strenuous as Bikram (which I have done), but maybe more so (see video hyperlink below).  Yikes!  How the HELL do they DO those crazy poses?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgtMaAZzW0

God help me but I'm trying it, and the day after is first day at my new job, Monday April 29th, the official end of MYM (even though the calendar DOES contain a day beyond that, obvs). :)

So, if I hobble into my new place of employment all sore & aching from Ashtanga - and I present badly because of it - at least I'll have a good excuse!  And I'll blame it all on Yoga - and MYM.