Yoga Teacher Training – Making The Decision

Well I am officially less than one week away from the first day of my yoga teacher training!  I will start this Saturday at Yogapata in Wilton, Connecticut.  I don’t think it will feel real until I’m there on Day One.

photo

This decision has been a long time coming.  I started practicing Yoga about two and a half years ago while living in Boston.  I fell in love after my first class, and continued a steady practice ever since.  There are so many reasons why I love yoga and the impact it’s had on my life is pretty incredible.  For this reason I’ve always contemplated attending teacher training in order to share this with other people.

c50447debbe6265a997d7a364fb01ef7

My contemplation would often be met with hesitation.  I would think “you’re just bored” or “why would you be a good yoga teacher” or “just because you love yoga doesn’t mean you should be a teacher” and so on for about a year.  This past summer I realized that any big decision is going to be met with these types of questions.  I finally decided, yes I am going to do this.

e8d228732b3492b02a348f5ddf2fa3b9

I figured I am not getting any younger, right?  If this is something I have been thinking about for this long then why the heck not?!  What do I have to lose (besides a lot of money I guess)?  But all kidding aside you will never know if something is right for you unless you try it.  So I did my research and due diligence and found a place that I think it going to be perfect for me.  I can’t wait to share my journey!

c56cbc132160bfa37ab45eff36f58d50

Things to Think About When Choosing a Yoga Teacher Training:

Location:  Close or far?  Destination or at home?  I thought about going to some exotic place at first. Then I thought about going to Boston to my favorite studio.  I finally decided that if I could find a training close to home, then it would make experience more manageable.  I didn’t want to burn myself out by driving two hours every weekend.  I also felt that staying close to home would help integrate teacher training in to my everyday life.

Length:  There are intensive programs, usually a month, or extended programs over the course of several months.  I contemplated doing a month intensive to get it done quickly.  After really thinking about it and asking some advice I decided an extended program would be better for me.  This will be a completely new experience for me and I want time to be able to digest it.

Teachers:  I really wanted to take my teacher training with teachers who I knew well.  This is what prompted me to check out Boston.  Once I realized I didn’t want to travel for the training I made sure to try out a few different studios in Connecticut.  I have been at my studio for a few months now where I will take the training.  I know that they are amazing teachers, have taught hundreds of other yoga teachers, and I enjoy their style.  Sold!

Size:  I guess this is like any other type of class or schooling.  If you learn well in bigger groups then that is great.  If you prefer a smaller class size then find that for yoga teacher training.  I am glad that my training will be a pretty small group (not exactly sure yet but will report back!)

 

21 Day Sugar Detox Day 4 and a Treadmill Workout

Four days down, 17 to go!  To be honest the 21 Day Sugar Detox hasn’t been too, too bad so far.  Because I already eat a primal diet during the week, there wasn’t too drastic of a change for me.  The biggest changes this week have been removing cottage cheese, berries, chocolate, and ketchup from my diet.

Day 2 and 4 have been the harder days.  I feel like my energy level is low and I’ve been a little hungry during the day at work.  I think one of the hardest parts has been changing my habits because I stay pretty consistent during the week (I eat my lunch and snack at the same times every day).  Oh, and I really miss GUM!  It’s such a small thing but I always pop gum in after I eat or if I get a little hungry.  It’s probably a good thing that I am breaking this habit!

My meals all week have consisted of:

  • Morning Snack: Cinilla Nut Mix from the 21 Day Sugar Detox book
  • Lunch: Mexi Meatloaf from the 21 Day Sugar Detox book
  • Afternoon Snack: I’ve switched between green apple, avocado, or a banana coconut shake
  • Dinner: Leftover Balsamic Braised Beef or my Omelet

picstitch

 

This was me while cooking dinner after the gym.  I was too hungry to wait so had a few carrots! 🙂

Plans for the weekend:

So I think the weekdays are going to be pretty much a breeze for me.  It’s not too different from how I eat already.  What IS going to be hard are the three weekends during these 21 days.  Although I follow a primal diet I pretty much follow the 80/20 rule and indulge a bit on the weekend.  Not having sweet potato fries, or cheese, or wine, or beer….ahh this will definitely challenge me! I am looking forward to making some more recipes though!

My workout tonight:

Because I completely failed at getting up and running this morning (I pressed snooze 7 times!) I decided to go to the gym tonight.  In order to keep the gym fun, fresh, and something to look forward to I like to switch things up.  I did a new Treadmill interval run tonight that I kind of just came up with on the spot. Sometimes I do exercises on the best non slip yoga mat I recently bought.

This is a 20 minute run that gets you to about 1.9 miles.  If you run at 6 for an extra minute on either side you will easily hit 2 miles!  I was so winded for some reason during this run, but it was well worth it!

TreadmillBUtoSprint

 

This is the first time I tried out PicMonkey!  It’s a really cool site that allows you to make awesome pictures with text, etc.  I’ve always seen Tina from Carrots n Cake use them so asked her for the tip!

Has anyone else been feeling sluggish this week?  Especially those on the 21 DSD?

 

My 2014 Intentions

Well we are officially one week in to 2014!  This year, I took a little time to think about my upcoming year and what goals, resolutions, intentions, or whatever you’d like to label them.  I’ve done the resolutions list or the bucket list and found that I was just throwing things out there that I would maybe accomplish.

intentions1

So this year I decided to make “intentions.”  Just like in Yoga, many times your teacher with tell you to guide your practice with an intention.  An intention can be as simple as one word (think open, grateful, accepting).  In fact in my first year practicing yoga I remember learning about the concept to pick a word to inspire your year.

In 2012 it was Discover.

In 2013 it was Patience.

In 2014 it will still be Patience and Chance. (I guess I’m still working on this patience thing)

intentions2

I chose Patience again because I’m still practicing this concept.  Because I consider myself a dreamer, I constantly find myself dreaming of my future, or my next step in life.  I really need to start practicing being patient with where I am and realizing life is a journey and NOT a destination!

patience

I chose Chance because I am starting off my year taking a big Chance.  I have decided to sign up for Yoga Teacher Training!  One of my favorite quotes I have found recently is this…

TakeaChance

Besides choosing my two words I also made intentions separated into 4 facets of my life.

Health

  • Complete the 21 Day Sugar Detox in January and experiment more with removing/adding things to my diet to see what effects they may have.

Professional

  • Continue to blog at least three times a week.  Don’t have high expectations for gaining followers, have fun!

Personal

  • Be open to new experiences.  Take them all in. If it’s for me, it will be.

Relationships

  • Realize that each of us are very different and will continue to change.  Still love with all I have no matter how dissimilar or similar we are.
1 … 38 39 40 … 60
Blog at WordPress.com.