Random Thoughts
Postcards from a yoga tourist...
Postcard Round 2... Power Vinyasa
A highly subjective ramble about what I think yoga is...
A teacher training class assignment -- going into even more detail about what yoga is...
After teaching my first adult ed class...
My previous forays into teaching consisted of single-class subbing and a six-month stint at a gym, where I very rarely saw the same faces more than two or three times, and never those same faces together in the same clas. Both experiences lead to feeling disjointed and unconnected wtih students. The aspect of continuity is missing, of teaching something based on what I'd taught before.
My result adult school class was different.
The infrastrcture wasn't ideal -- the intersession is only six weeks long.Of course no props were provided so I had to carry a huge bag of extra blocks, blankets, mats and belts (you can only suggest people buy real props, you can't MAKE them).
The room itself contained some bizarre elements including a barre that was disconnected to the wall, windows with heaters all along one side of the room, no long flat walls that were safe to lean students against. Three times when I got there the door was locked, three times the temperature was low enough that I had to beg them to put us in another room, and the night of the last class I got there and two guys were installing blinds and would not leave; I once again had to beg for another room. Luckily, the custodians were nice about it.
But in spite of all this, I found the experience much more rewarding, inspiring and educational than my other teaching experiences.
Thing one: getting to know the students
Here's a no brainer: it's much easier to teach students when you know both what their physical abilities are and what their personalities are.
This class was about half rank beginners and half near-beginners. They all had really tight hammies and round shoulders, except for one woman who turned out to be extremely flexible.
It took me a while to figure it out, because a) she had lazy muscles and b) a lot of trouble following verbal directions -- and
"Lazy" is a judgmental word... uh oh, gotta do some real work, back to this later...