Day Two Teacher Training: Talk Less, Say More

I started on my mat at 10:30am. Not an unbearable time by any means. I actually had a great morning, work up with my puppy and my boyfriend. Had a little family breakfast. Picked up my new yogini friend Tara, and headed to class.

And then we started our practice with Gaby. Gaby looks like a nice girl. She has a sweet smile and a hug to greet you with. She has an awesome yoga voice. She doesn't annoy you with fake soothing, she's genuine in every word she says.

She was out to kill yesterday. I have LITERALLY never sweated so much in my life. I had to walk out at one point, just to breathe some not hot air. I took that as an opportunity to look in the mirror (p.s. never look in the mirror in the middle of a hot yoga class, you will not be happy with what is looking back at you). I looked like a drowned rat.

You see friends, I set mat up right in front of the heater, a mistake I will never make again. It was sweltering. I sweat buckets. And you know what, so did everyone in the room. I was a little miserable. In my head I complained (Fred, if you're reading this, don't kill me).

Then I surrendered, I was so exhausted I just stopped being able to resist. It's something I'm not particularly good at, but it's part of my mantra and I'm working on it. And when I surrendered, when I stopped fighting the heat and the pain and fatigue, I got strong. It wasn't so hard anymore. I went back and finished the last 20 minutes, still sweating my asana off, but feeling pretty kick ass.

Then after sweating for 90 minutes I got to start the real deal- I had 4 hours of teacher training ahead of me.

No one will be surprised by my next admission. I talk too much. In general, in specific, just always, I talk way too much. It's like a genetic disease, everyone in my family talks. Or perhaps it's a gift. Certainly it's lead to a career path that allows me to speak exorbitant amounts in front of a captured captive group of defendants audience.

I learned on day two of training that my propensity for verbosity isn't always a blessing. One of our tasks was to teach portions of a class to each other. This is something I feel super comfortable doing, I taught yoga for almost 2 years in college to 6th grade boys in and I teach spin every week now. On top of that I was an elementary school teacher for a year. I spend all day talking in court! On the record! In front of scary people that I'm trying to impress!

And therein lies the lesson: I talk too much. Pablo taught our teacher training yesterday, and as he came around to observe us, he gave me some much needed correction. I needed to use fewer words to explain more information.

"When someone only has three breaths in a pose you can't be saying all that crazy shit," he explained, "get to the point, just tell them where they're going." Harsh? Yea. Correct? Hell yea.

So it's a lesson I'm taking off the mat and into the world with me. Less filler words, less mindless jabbering, more meaning.

Namaste,
Rachel