In Dreams, We Get What We Want. Sort of.


Wherein Our Heroine is Mindful of the Old Saying.

I am teaching my very first, all-my-ownsome Yoga class tomorrow. Hatha Yoga for beginners, 9:30 AM. My biggest fear is that nobody will come. Through substitute-teaching and having a private client once a week, I have gained confidence in my ability to program a class, adapt it for circumstance, and keep people moving and motivated. I know I have a heck of a lot to learn about Yoga and teaching and I know I will for the rest of my life, but reaching a baseline level of confidence in myself (and having teachers consistently repose their confidence in me to take care of their classes) is one of the biggest milestones of my life.

But teaching someone else's class and teaching my own are vastly different prospects. I know that when I have looked for new teachers in the past I have looked for experience, training (preferably by names I recognize and trust), and key descriptors like "humor" and "playful." (I have noted before that in my opinion the best Yoga teachers are also funny people - why do it if there is no joy in it?). But my bio contains no teacher training, even if it were up on the studio's website, which it is not as of yet. So I would probably not go to my class if I didn't know me. Would I enjoy my class if I were taking it? Interesting question, but one impossible to answer. I have no idea.

So my dream last night started out as the usual sort of anxiety nightmare - I was late, circumstances were making me even later, and I was getting severely rattled. Then I show up at the studio and it is packed. They're not there for me, of course - most of these dream-students are doing makeups for other classes - but it was gratifying to my dream self to have all of these people there, regardless of the reason. There is even a "famous" Yoga instructor there ("famous" because in my dream I recognize him from Yoga videos, but in real life I have never seen such a person in a Yoga video). So I start the class with a Sun Salutation, feet grounded, legs energized, arms rising above the head, palms facing, fingers spread with energy, hinge over into a forward bend, and all of a sudden I wobble and fall over. There is grumbling from my class - I try to joke it off and resume, and I fall over again. The floor feels squishy underneath my mat. I peel back the mat and find pillow after pillow. I cannot do the simplest balance on all of these shifting bags of feathers.

Oy. I thought I had enough to worry about for tomorrow. Better go polish that lesson plan.
Posted: Friday - January 07, 2005 at 07:50 AM         | |

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