This past weekend I completed my eighth weekend at Yoga Teacher Training a.k.a Yogaversity!  This weekend was dedicated fully to teaching each other and finding our voice.

I practiced teaching a little in Belize, instructing Andy through some sun salutations, but am still just getting my feet wet.

When we arrived on Saturday Mitchell told us that we would all be teaching for about 20 minutes! We would be teaching a 75 minute express class or a 60 minute beginners class.

I volunteered to teach part of a beginners class.  Most people in my life have hardly practiced yoga before but keep asking me to teach them. For that reason I really want to perfect teaching beginners so that I can practice teaching my family and friends.

The thing is…teaching a beginners class is really hard! Think about it…someone who has never stepped foot on a yoga mat before may have never even heard of downward dog.  While you can demonstrate some poses, you should also be observing your beginner students and adjusting them to correct alignment.  This means you have to be overly clear in your instructions and cues.

My group and I headed outside to start planning our 60 minute beginners class. My portion was back bends and savasana, the last 20 minutes of the class.

I decided I would do some belly back bends, a few bridge poses, and then some counter poses. We really only had about an hour to plan and prepare which was definitely nerve racking. It ended up going better than I had expected. There is still so much for me to learn but I was pretty happy with how I did.

Everyone did awesome. Yes nerves definitely got in the way for some of us (including myself) but that’s okay. This is completely new for most of us. It’s uncomfortable and takes so much courage to get up there and use our voice to clearly instruct a class. Don’t we grow the most though, when we’re taken outside of our comfort zone, when we make mistakes? A month or two ago I would have never thought I would have been able to teach a 20 minute portion of a yoga class, but here I am!

On Sunday afternoon we had the privilege of meeting Dani Shapiro. Dani is a beautiful author and Yogi. Her and Tracy have led retreats on writing and yoga which Dani referred to as “the new power couple.”  Dani had so much great wisdom to share with us about finding our own voice on this path to becoming yoga teachers.

As always, I left the weekend feeling so grateful for this experience.  I can not believe we only have two more weekends!