Being in Gratitude, as a teacher.

No posts for almost a year and then two in a day :) Well, like I said when you sit down to write and there's so much to give, it flow naturally without you having to think about what the topic of this particular post should be.

It's sunday night and as i sit here amazingly sore from my weekend workshop at Pure Asia Square, I am conscious that I need to prepare for my upcoming Monday class. My weekly yoga classes are a little bit more streamlined now : there's a tracking system that makes people accountable for signing up and showing up for class : and makes me accountable for having a class plan in place. The last two years by yoga classes were more or less  let's see who attends and what they need and I'll think of a sequence depending on the needs of the class.

But now, I've been asked to teach a vinyasa class - so the style is fixed - but what's not fixed is what i can with it! I've said this many times before, I'm a vinyasa baby : using your breath to guide you to an asana and out of it m esmerizes me - more so when i'm practicing by myself ! So my monday classes are a mix of fun flows, crazy core stuff, slow yoga asanas  sprinkled here and there - i still struggle with my music though - I'm getting better - but I'm so sporadic, sometimes I'm in the mood for loud for popular numbers from spotify, sometimes I want to go back to my yoga sessions from my bali trips and sometime I want nothing but peaceful indian ragas : but I obviously have to curb crazy self to not freak out my students - although one day I did do a bollywood playlist and told the class that I was in the mood for it - so they'll have to bear with my hindi music for the day !

The class however, is lovely. And I realise the immense fulfillment one feels when you do something you absolutely love and I often wonder if this is how I would feel if i were to teach yoga full-time and give up my 9-5 job. But then wouldn't yoga then become my 9-5? How will that feel? I feel like anytime money enters the equation it takes away the magic of things - or maybe that's my irrational fear. For now however, since I'm only teaching at work to colleagues for fun, I don't have to worry about these things, I love assuming the seat of a teacher and it comes very naturally to me - but only after i sit down and greet the class - until then my mind is still racing with "tasks I need to complete" from a day's work - but as I close the doors to the studio and sit down cross legged on my mat in front of my students, it all comes back to me. And only what's most important stays with me as the rest filters out for those 60 mins.

I teach a tough class, because i myself like a challenging session, I definitely need to get better at adjustments and cue-ing, but then you're always a student in these matters or actually in life. I am immensely grateful that I can in some way share what has brought me so much happiness, joy and most importantly peace. Yoga has taught met o love to let go of hate, to forgive, to accept forgiveness, to laugh wholeheartedly, but also to embrace my fears and cry with immense sorrow, knowing that this too shall pass. If I could in some way give back for all that I have received, I would think of myself as extremely lucky and my life as one worthy of living.

As always, my favorite part is when I turn down the lights and start my shavasana soundtrack - not exactly very yogi-like, but that's exactly what comes naturally to me at the end of the class. That soundtrack makes me smile, always. To feel the class drift away to restfulness awaiting a brand new beginning the end of that shavasana, a new birth almost, I send a prayer for each of them and sit down again in sukhasana until i bring them back gently in the world of the living.

A recent addition has been my yin class for my own team : most folks who've never done any yoga before and need some relaxing and stress release. Yin, has to be my absolute favorite yoga practice - it leave me feeling clean and at peace, as though someone has washed everything off of me, and there is nothing but the sound of my breath that stays with me. I love it and again, I've had the privelege of being taught by some absolutely awesome yin yoga teachers (sending a silent namaste to Anton Jager) and it's so beautiful to spread that gorgeous practice around and share the beauty associated with it - my next challenge is to interlace yin with a little bit of pranayama for this group of students.

As I end this post, I remember my class one week back, when i was very disturbed with something at work, and had spent the day feeling absolutely useless and searching for my self-worth in external people and situations and circumstances.  I had to teach two classes that monday - one at lunchtime since I was substituting for a colleague and my usual vinaysa yoga class at 6 pm and it don't say this lightly - but those two classes kept me going. At the end of my vinyasa class, I shared that with my students thanking them for their presence since I needed it the most today, I needed their energies and maybe in a way some reassurance that there still exists a sphere where maybe I can be who I am, and excel at it and do good to people and be grateful and feel their gratitude.

That's what a happy life eventually comes down to : gratitude and loads of it.

~ namaste.