December 15 - Acharya (Scholar)

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What did you study this year? What did you learn? What did you teach?

This is an easy prompt, since I spent most of the year studying for the Ace personal trainer exam, which I will be taking in one short month. I studied exercise physiology, anatomy, the psychology of change and fitness progressions.

I learned that aging has not been kind to my memory. Back in high school and college I retained everything I read. Now I can barely remember breakfast. Thank goodness for my volunteer "clients" who have allowed my to practice what I studied. I remember it all much better when I apply it.

I also studied the Chakra system, to write a series of blog posts and to prepare for the Advanced Chakra workshop I taught last month. Each time I reexamine the Chakras I learn more and get a bit more insight into myself. This year I finally wrapped my head around the seventh Chakra.

I taught yoga. I taught my yoga students how to align themselves in asanas and how to breathe deep. Those are the things I studied a few years ago. What I hope I taught was self-awareness and self-acceptance. That's something I learn more about every day.

December 4 - Guru (Teacher)

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What was the most important lesson you learned about yourself in 2011? Was it a sudden epiphany or a gradual realization?

My inner guru had many lessons for me in 2011. The one that was most important was not new material. The teacher in my head has been saying it over and over for years. Which goes to show that even when the message starts inside my thick skull it still takes time to sink in.

Clarity came while I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the paddle from my electric mixer while gluten-free Black-Bottom Banana Bars baked in the oven. What came was not a recipe alteration or a better way to wash, but a realization that the reason I had time to bake banana bars on a Sunday afternoon between yoga classes and a get-together with girlfriends was something I had resisted my entire life - discipline.

I could say my lack of discipline is a reaction to a twenty year stint in regimented corporate jobs, but when I'm honest with myself I know it goes further back than that. Making commitments and sticking to them was never a strong point. I blamed my inability to learn to play an instrument on lack of talent instead of admitting that I never made time to practice. It was the same with sports. I focused my attention on the things that came easily and never pushed for those that didn't.

You should have been there earlier this year for the conversation with the dentist that finally got me flossing my teeth regularly.

I learned quite a bit about discipline during yoga teacher training, since I wrote a paper on it. I struggled then with applying it to my life. I still struggle.

When I decided to train for my first triathlon, I had to make a loose alliance with discipline. When I started I hadn't run in over ten years, I hadn't swam laps since high school and my bike saw the light of day just a few times each summer. (I'm still not sure why a brief mention of triathlons made me think they were something I should be doing.) Without a commitment to a training plan, I was going to embarrass myself.

I didn't stay committed before my second race. I embarrassed myself, although I managed not to take last place.

Now, with a few years of racing under my belt, I know how important sticking to my training plan is. I've become more disciplined about training. And discipline is starting to spill into the rest of my life.

By creating small routines for housework and sticking with them, my house stays clean. By scheduling time for regular blogging, podcasting, doing volunteer work and studio bookkeeping, I can get them all done.

But the real blessing of discipline is that by getting all of those things done when I committed to doing them, my free time is truly free. I don't have to frantically clean the house on a Sunday afternoon between yoga classes and a get-together with girlfriends. Instead I can relax, my way, in my kitchen with a mixer and mashed bananas.

In that moment of clarity at the kitchen sink, I learned that I can be disciplined. And free.

Trusting Myself, Part 1

Image via WikipediaI came home after five days at Kripalu feeling like my mind was a ping pong ball, bouncing between the mundane challenges of teaching yoga (and life in general) and the contemplation of some inner wisdom that surfaced during my stay. All week I have been torn between wanting to put some new teaching skills to work and the desire find a lonely mountaintop where I can just sit and think.

In the end, teaching won out (of course), and cold rain dampened my mountain climbing desire. I did manage to find enough quiet time to wrangle the stampeding thoughts about my trip enough to be able to share some of them.

I participated in two workshops while I was at Kripalu, Nourishing the Teacher, taught by Danny Arguetty and Anjali Budreski, and Seane Corn's Empower Flow Yoga. The former was intended to benefit my students, the latter was meant to be fun for me. But what does yoga teach us about expectations?

Yeah, a funny thing happened on the way to Kripalu ...

About a week before my trip I was planning to call and cancel. My father suffered a "cardiac event" and was going to need open-heart surgery very soon. He had an appointment with the cardiac surgeon during my planned time away, and I didn't want to be two hours from home if the surgeon deemed emergency surgery necessary. My mother pointed out that they wouldn't have waited a week if it was truly an emergency, and insisted I go.

In the days before I left, I was faced with some new issues regarding my son's SPD, a conflict popped up at the church for one day when I have classes scheduled, and I had a mountain of housework to catch up on. It wasn't until I arrived at Kripalu and found my way to the afternoon yoga class that I realized how much stress I was holding in my body.

That yoga class was the first class in six months I'd been able to take from another teacher. As I settled into the asanas I was very grateful to be able to be the student, just being on the mat without thinking three or four poses ahead. I explored all the tight spots in my body and became very aware of how much my mind was chattering. Savasana was very challenging. I think I'd forgotten how to do it!

The Nourishing the Teacher workshop started the first evening. I instantly loved Danny and Anjali. While I appreciated how knowledgeable both were, it was their openness and generous spirits that drew me in. Then they threw in some chanting and I was very, very glad I hadn't canceled.

My only problem with the workshop didn't have anything to do with the teachers and had everything to do with me. I couldn't get my head around the actual teaching part. I thoroughly enjoyed the yoga classes they offered us, including a restorative class which released a headache I'd been nursing for almost a week, but couldn't work my way back into the teacher mode. I felt like I had no creativity left, I was nervous talking in front of the other participants, and I fought back tears every time we had to do an exercise. I wanted to be perfect, and when I was critiqued it hurt deeply. I was experiencing self-doubt like I hadn't felt since the very first night of yoga teacher training.

500 hours of teacher training and two years of teaching, down the drain.

On the final morning I declined to do the last practice teach and instead cried through the classes presented by others. As the emotions welled up and spilled out, I settled back into myself. When the last workshop session ended I regrouped and joined the Kripalu vigorous vinyasa class because Danny was teaching it. I had a great practice and really felt present. Later that afternoon I took a gentle yoga class which left me feeling very peaceful.

Nourishing the Teacher lived up to it's name, not because I came away feeling like a better teacher, but because it truly nourished me, the scared and overwhelmed yogini, when I needed it most. I am very grateful to Danny and Anjali for creating space where I could be nurtured and retreat. And I trust that my experience was as it was meant to be, with no disappointment or regret.

That evening Seane Corn's workshop started, the one that was supposed to be fun for me. And that is a whole other story...

Related articles

• Yoga Your Way - The Kripalu Tradition (timesunion.com)
• Valerie Reiss: 10 Things I Learned at Yoga Teacher Training (huffingtonpost.com)

Drawing Class, Day 1

I have always dabbled in artsy things. I loved art class in middle school, but gave it up for "academics" in high school because "smart kids" took calculus. I never considered myself good at art, but I remember the middle school art teacher being disappointed when I told her I'd dropped art from my schedule. I can still picture a pen and ink drawing I did of a plant in art class. I can't remember a single thing about calculus, despite tackling the subject twice more in college. Lesson learned.

So, to fulfill my artsy need as I made my way into the career world, I dabbled. I've tried drawing, sculpting, cross stitch, knitting, macramé, beading, sewing, more drawing, writing, more knitting, decorating...and you get the picture. I'm not good at any of them. I just liked to get creative sometimes. It was a nice balance for the left-brained world of accounting.

Yoga also helped me find some left brain-right brain balance. When I started teaching I found the act of creating a class very fulfilling. When I left accounting and started teaching full time, I felt like an artist. Now, after a year, I feel like a burnout.

Some days I just don't feel very creative. Some days I listen to myself teach and I am sure I'm the most boring yoga teacher ever. On those days my mind, instead of coming up with clever new sequences or adding a word that freshens the instruction of one asana, is busy babbling on about what a lousy yoga teacher I am. Hello, left brain. I guess doing yoga studio bookkeeping once a week isn't enough for you.

My teaching has felt really stale lately, and the negative self-talk is out of control. My left brain has been so busy being a critic that it can't keep track of my lefts and rights. If I don't keep those straight, my students end up looking like they're playing Twister instead of doing yoga. I needed a creative jump-start.

One of my yoga students, Anne, is a recently retired art teacher. She's beginning the next phase of her life by teaching classes and workshops for adults. She offered a six-week drawing class. Last week, on an impulse, I signed up. Yesterday was the first class.

After we talked for a few minutes, Anne told us to open our sketch pads and draw a person. I panicked. I don't draw people. I draw flowers. I draw trees. People are scary. They have too many parts that need to be in the right places. I spent the entire time (10 minutes - an eternity!) thinking that I had made a big mistake, that I wasn't as good as the other people in the room, and that I was never going to be able to face Anne again after this. Why, oh why, couldn't the first drawing be a daisy?

I'm sure you'd love me to tell you that the person I drew ended up looking great. But, honestly, it's pretty awful.

The class got better after that. We did some exercises designed to help us use the right side of our brain, focusing on lines and negative space instead of what we think the picture should look like. By the end of class, my left brain had mostly shut up.

We got homework. I sat and did some this morning. And I don't hate what I made. But really matters is that, while I was drawing, I started thinking that I should blog about it. So after the drawing I started writing. And while I was writing this I started thinking about yoga. Ah, the juices are flowing.

I thought about scanning that first drawing of the person to share it with you, but I really value the people who will take a few minutes out of their day to read this blog and just couldn't put you through that. Instead, here's a daisy...

Being Present

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I'm one of those people who multi-tasks. When my hands are set to one job, my mind gets busy on other things. Back when I was an accountant (last month) I would routinely put numbers into spreadsheets while listening to an audiobook, occasionally adding something to my shopping list. I was never totally focused on anything, and I didn't need to be to get everything done.

It took me years of yoga classes before I stopped multi-tasking on my mat. My body would be in an asana, but my mind would be critiquing my position or checking out the lady next to me or working on some problem. I'd be trying to figure out how to get my kids to the places they needed to be later or worrying about what time my husband would be home for dinner.

My breakthrough finally came at a time when stress had driven me into a deep depression and, after not having time for yoga, I returned to my practice seeking some relief from the stress. Desperate to escape my life for awhile, I started paying more attention when my teacher told me to quiet my mind. My mind still chatters every now and then, but even just moments of stillness have made a huge difference in my stress level.

When I started teaching yoga, my mind started chattering again. When I practiced on my own, I went over the poses in my head, memorizing how to instruct them. When I took a class, I was more focused on learning from the teacher's example, listening for nice phrases and good instructions to mimic when I taught. My practice fell apart, because I wasn't doing yoga for myself anymore. After awhile, teaching came easier and I found my way back to my own practice.

Lately I have noticed that, while teaching, I have to stay present to what I am doing with the class. As long as I am totally focused, the class flows effortlessly. It's as if some higher power is speaking through me, and I am just delivering his message. If my mind wanders, I lose my connection with the divine guru and I start to stumble over words, lose track of my lefts and rights, and can't think of what to do next. So I try to stay present. That means no worrying about what the kids are doing, no thinking about the next tweet or Facebook status update, no planning ahead to the next class. Just like I do in my own practice, if my mind starts to chatter, I have to take a deep breath and let it go.