training weekend and the non-profit

had my second session of yoga teacher training this weekend...had my first quiz (i think i aced it!) and i had my first practical evaluation where we pick a pose out of a hat and teach it to our class, it was my first time teaching a group (i was surprisingly proud that i did so well!). it was a good weekend, saturday was a lot of lecture on the skeletal and muscular systems as well as some discussion on the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" which is like the Bible of yoga next to "Light on Yoga" by B.K.S. Iyengar. i found the Yoga Sutras particularly awesome...very philosophical.

yesterday was a little tough...it was definitely a physical day and i'm feeling it this morning. a lot of practice teaching in pairs and we learned a lot about adjustments and modifications for students who are not in the pose properly or who have physical limitations that prevent them from being able to do a pose properly. i learned that i am slightly pigeon-toed. i knew that my right foot turned in just slightly when i walked, but i can't do triangle pose with proper alignment because i have that slight inward rotation to my leg. i've apparently been doing it incorrectly for the last few years.

there are only eight of us in training...there are two ladies that i can't seem to understand why they're in training to begin with.

lady one: tracy. tracy is a psychologist for people who have been convicted of sexual assault among other horrible things. she's in teacher training because she feels that yoga can be beneficial for this group of people, which it can be. but....here's the but...this weekend she came in 20 minutes late to the session and disrupted all of us who were taking our quiz. she didn't complete all of the home study that was very clearly spelled out in both the program catalog and the home study review and she continues to huff and puff about not wanting to participate in the lessons during the session and she's frequently upset by the amount of home study we have.

lady two: mary. i don't know what she does for a living, if anything. she is in her mid-forties with the most ridiculous boob job i've ever seen. she wears pig tails (cute when you're 10, not when you're 45). she comes to the session in yoga clothes, like we all do, but with a ton of make up on and these obnoxious leopard design dangly earrings. she's regularly checking herself out in the mirror and excusing herself from lecture to take phone calls. she was completely astonished that i wanted to teach yoga for a living. she's the type who's taking teacher training so that she can tell her friends she's taking teacher training. i've never seen someone who appears to be in their own world as much as she does.

i was lucky enough to be in a group with both of these women on saturday when we were discussing the Yoga Sutras. we had to take a verse and translate it and teach it to the other groups. they basically told me that they would be fine with whatever i came up with. i forced them to sit and have a conversation with me about what they thought these verses meant. if i'm never in a group with these two women again, i'd be fine.

it's amazing to me the diverse group of people we have and how apparent it is that some want to be here more than others.

anyway - i had to send an e-mail to the non-profit lady this morning, letting her know that i'm not going to be able to help her as much as i had thought. here's a brief re-cap: back in march, i saw her card at the yoga journal conference and she was starting a non-profit group in milwaukee bringing yoga classes to organizations that could otherwise not afford it. i offered to help her with her marketing stuff she was too busy at the time as a professor at a few local colleges and wasn't able to give me any information on what she wanted on her marketing materials. fast forward to may - she sends me an e-mail letting me know that she's now ready to provide me with all the information i need to work on her marketing materials. i told her that i just started teacher training and that hopefully toward the middle of june after i've finished my home study for training that i would be able to work on this for her. it turns out that i wasn't able to get to it because my home study has to come first and now i just had my second session of training and i have a whole new stack of home study to do.

i sent her an e-mail this morning explaining to her that i just can't commit to this project right now and that i apologize if i've caused any delays or inconveniences, but i can't have her counting on me when i don't know if i'll be able to do it. it came down to when i was free, she was busy, and now that she's free, i'm busy. i feel like a jerk, but i guess it's better to be honest. i'm really pouring all my effort and time into this training because it's extremely important to me and this project has to take a back seat for me. i told her that i would be more than happy to offer any advice or input on anything that happens with this and to keep me posted because once i am certified, i'd love to be a part of the group and help teach. i feel like i completely backed out on her and let her down.

i guess i can take comfort in the fact that i was honest with her.