Yoga Teacher Training Student Diaries. Wednesday during Immersion Week – by Stephanie Nieuwjaer
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Morning
6.45 am. My alarm buzzer goes off! I don’t want to get up, I feel tired, my body is sore…
We are half way through the immersion week of the yoga teacher training and my body is tired, my wrists and my shoulders are bothering me a little from hours of practice. I slept like a baby though and by 9.30 pm I was in bed last night.
I go through my morning routine: breakfast, quick shower, prepare a few snacks to fuel me for the day, prepare my change of yoga clothes and off I go on my bike to Lumi. The sun is rising, birds are chirping, it’s nippy but the streets are still quiet and this exhilarating feeling starts again: I’m happy, tired, but happy and grateful! I feel grateful to live this amazing adventure of yoga teacher training at Lumi. I am going to meet the other trainees and Ari and Elina in a few minutes, and already I feel it’s my whole world these days. I’m living in a “bubble of happiness” as I like to describe it! I have not had this feeling for a long time. Ari and Elina make you feel welcome, part of their Lumi family and that feels so good!
I get there at 7:50am and get ready for meditation. We at 8am sharp and today it’s led by one of my co-trainees. Meditation is kind of new to me: I had tried it by myself but that’s a totally new experience, meditating in a circle with my fellow trainees, my friends. You can feel the energy of the other yogis around you and it really helps. I am starting to get so much benefit from it, after 20 minutes of meditation I feel peaceful, rested and ready for whatever is on the schedule today.
At first I was wondering how we were going to spend 10 hours a day doing yoga, talking about yoga but the programme is so well designed that the day flies by. After meditation, we typically move to gratitude: what a great way to start the day – voicing what you are grateful for!
Today, Brooke Hamblet, a Baptiste certified teacher, is joining us all the way from the US to teach us about anatomy. I am very interested in that specific area of the training and I am not disappointed! She is so knowledgeable about anatomy but more importantly about the relation between yoga and its impact on the body.
We continue with a class focused on the psoas: any idea what the psoas are or where they are in the body? I don’t! I’ve heard the term before but how do you work on psoas? That’s a mystery for me but soon revealed through a brilliant class… and it’s tough! What a better way to understand the theory we studied this morning than practicing and using those muscles. A world of possibilities opens to me. I am left so sweaty by the end of her class that I crave for a shower but no time for this quite yet, we go back to our study room to give our feedback on the class. Everyone is impressed!
Lunchtime
12 pm. At last we have time for a quick shower, always a great moment for me at midday! I feel refreshed and it’s time for lunch. One hour lunch break, we go out in groups to grab something to eat, and then carry on with our homework. Yes! You read me correctly: homework for lunch!!! It’s actually very clever, it’s a good way to get to know our classmates. We usually have to exchange on a particular subject and that certainly fuels our daily lunches. Everything is so condensed that we soon get the impression we’ve known each other for years.
Afternoon
I‘m glad they’re taking our digestion time into account as I’m definitely not ready to go into downward facing dog right after lunch! So we move to the history of yoga… I know it may sound boring but it is so interesting in fact! Discovering that this practice we fell in love with in the last 15 years dates back to thousands of years, at least some aspects of it. Everyone is attentively listening and questions spring here and there, we want to know more.
Quick break and we get on with teaching each other or teaching the whole group. I know, that sounds scary! When I started the teacher training, I had only a vague idea of what I wanted to achieve but I was certain that I wouldn’t know how to teach before years: firstly
I am far too shy to get up and teach a group and secondly I don’t know how to teach (and honestly I probably wouldn’t be so good at it!). Amazingly enough we started teaching from the first weekend of the training. We are not doing great at the beginning but we are getting out there, standing in front of everyone and guess what? Nobody died! Ah ah ah! And something even more amazing, everyone, me included, loves it, being out there, standing in front of other yogis, sharing our love. After just 6 days in the teacher training, I can teach!
Evening
It’s nearly 6 pm! I have learned so much today, about yoga, anatomy, history and more importantly about myself. Of course I’m happy to go back home to my family but at the same time there is a tiny bit of me that is sad to part with my new friends… see you tomorrow at 8 am! I can’t wait.
