In the wake of being accepted on yoga teacher training (I have to differentiate so that no one thinks I've decided to jack it all in for one of the most stressful professions there is) I thought it might be a good idea to talk about how I came to this point. I did this a bit in an early blog post, but thought it was time to return to it down the line and give a little more detail.
Back in 2011, I started taking yoga classes in Forest Hill with a lovely teacher called Katrin. I can't remember why I ended up taking them there (It's nowhere near where I live or work) but I did. I can't even remember what kind of yoga it was. I just distinctly remember turning up one day in my work clothes without leggings or anything to change into, and having to do it like that. I remember being bent forward in a forward fold, my face red and struggling to breathe.
Even so, I really enjoyed it, and the savasana in particularly (a shocking surprise). I even went to a yoga and meditation day Katrin and her friend Maggie put on - the meditation was a revelation to me, I felt drunk afterwards, like I'd taken a million pills (having never taken drugs, this feeling was possibly just brand new to me).
But everything changed in October 2011 when I had a life-changing accident. I came off my bike on the way to the station, entirely my own fault, and my bike spun and hit me in the mouth. I lost and broke a bunch of my front teeth, and also suffered from severe whiplash, which meant that I couldn't turn my head more than an inch or two, or have my upper body bend forward more than a couple of inches. It was really scary. I had to have extensive physio and dental surgery, and five months later, after a very traumatic period in many ways, eventually left for a home-based freelance project with a lovely former employer, which would give me time to heal and recover mentally and physically. Thank you, David Skinner, you totally saved me :-*
I started swimming to help me recover - I remember hearing my muscles literally crackle as I swam - and thought I probably needed more too, due to my flexibility issues - so looked up my local yoga studios. For some reason, The Yoga Hutch appealed to me, and I got in touch with the owner Sarah. Considering how unwell I still was overall, this wasn't just a dodgy knee as an undertaking for Sarah, but she coped admirably with my complete lack of flexibility at the time. I went to hatha classes with her for over a year, and my ability to bend and turn amazingly came back as my back loosened, but unfortunately my lower back was still twingeing and injuring itself a lot, particularly from yoga poses, probably because I didn't understand about using core/abdominal/mula bandha strength, and eventually I had to stop and find out how to fix what was happening, rather than make it worse. I tried to go back at one point, but at the time her classes were structured differently and were full. I couldn't get back in, and so I stopped trying.
Instead I started doing Pilates on the recommendation of my physio, and completely fell for it. Within a month I could literally feel the strength in my lower back start to improve as I discovered what having a core actually meant. I took Pilates regularly for about three or four years, and loved it. I actually at one point considered whether I wanted to teach it, and I guess I still might, but there was something missing for me, though I didn't know what it was. I didn't completely stop practicing yoga though, I went to some classes at the gym (classic gym yoga - I couldn't tell you the type - not that most people even know there are types!) and also did some in my bedroom thanks to Yoga with Adriene, the saviour of so many people's practice. I remember my friend Jo asking me to come along to her qualifying class for her teacher training. I'm sure she was surprised (as was I) at how incredibly stiff I was. I had forgotten what it meant to do yoga. It was much harder than I expected or remembered, and I questioned my ability.
But Jo's class had reminded me of the fact I actually really liked yoga, and at the beginning of 2017, I heard about yoga classes that had started up in the basement of my workplace. I was intrigued, and, having missed being in that environment, and being pretty active with various sports, I decided to go along. Plus, they were only £5 for 45 mins or an hour session. I traipsed down the stairs and into Tammy's world. Tammy is a Scottish queen of yoga, and she, by accident, transformed my life and career. I had previously done hatha classes, but Tammy's vinyasa flow was faster, energetic and intense, and it was hard, and I loved it (barring her penchant for chair pose...).
I realised that this type of more energetic work was what suited me. I got better and better at it, and for the first time I felt like this was something for me. I started going to her second class, where she mixed flow with yin (which I'd never done before) and I completely fell for that too. It was the mix of fast and slow, the stuff for your brain as well as your body, and I knew what I'd been missing - the balance, the strength, the intensity and the relaxation too. During this time, I was struggling a lot mentally, and the yoga kept me going as I battled life stuff. It wasn't my saviour (thank you, Sertraline) but it was the only thing I clung onto. Everything else fell away - my gym, my swimming, my cycling, all my other exercise - and as my mental health declined I ended up putting on a sum total of five stone in eighteen months, thanks primarily to binge eating. I was out of control, and yoga was the only consistent thing. So I held onto it hard, while I struggled, and I thank it for doing that for me.
A few months into vinyasa flow, I started thinking that maybe I would like to teach yoga too. I initially dismissed it, because I felt it ridiculous that someone who's only gone back to class a few months before could decide they wanted to be a yoga teacher, but it kept pinging back into my head, and eventually I succumbed and started reading up about it seriously. I worked hard and read lots and eventually approached Tammy to see what she thought, and to my surprise she was supportive. At this point I was still hankering after The Yoga Hutch, having realised that although I loved Tammy's classes, something was still missing, or I needed more of it in my life, and in May 2017 I got in touch with Sarah and asked if I could come back, and she said yes!
For some reason I decided that the perfect class (having done the more chilled out hatha with her before) to go back to would be an ashtanga class. I think this is largely because I'd been doing vinyasa flow for six months, and was loving the faster, more challenging and intense style. But nothing prepared me for ashtanga. That first led class... I didn't know which way to turn, I sweated more than I had in years, I felt like I was flinging myself all over the place and I felt like an idiot. But, glutton for punishment that I am, I enjoyed it and I wanted more, and so I started going to her led classes, and soon, mysore-style self-practice ashtanga. From there, despite my lack of flexibility, trouble focusing, general exhaustion at all times of the day and night, it felt like I flew, and I began to start thinking that maybe I would actually be able to do this teaching thing. A wicking headband from Sweaty Betty and a sticky Liforme mat also helped with the sweating and the sliding, neither of which were helping me practice consistently.
I came to realise that ashtanga (and yin, and yoga nidra, but that's another story) was my 'thing', and that although I loved each type in its own way, I was an ashtangi, even though I was inflexible, fat, unable to do headstands and all that jazz. It was me. It was a bit of a revelation and one I intend to carry through into helping people of all shapes and sizes access whatever classes they like. I learn so much every week still, and Sarah tells me I am flying with improvements (though also to be aware a plateau is coming...) And it's only been 10 months.
Around this time, I left the job that had seen me fall away from a consistent routine, and mess up my health with an eating disorder revival, and saw my general confidence and happiness massively increase as I took on new roles and refocused my energies. I got a referral for treatment, which I'm still working towards, and started slowly going back to other forms of exercise (though I'm not there yet).
During this time I'd been busy compiling options for teacher training, and once I had made my decision (I put all my eggs in one basket and only applied to one school, to Yogacampus) I asked both Sarah and Tammy if they would give me references. I was so scared of what they would say, but it's silly really, because it's not very yogic to either think like that or for them to be unsupportive (unless I was really crap, which thankfully I am not always), and they both supported me (embarrassingly, I was too scared to ask Sarah, so her daughter asked on my behalf, and Sarah said I would have to ask her in person!) and wrote me lovely references. As did Jo, my excellent friend, who I have known for 21 years and who has supported and guided me to this point.
During this period of contemplation I completed about 18 workshops, in order both to boost my teaching application but also to gain a ton of knowledge, which I very much needed, and which has informed my own practice and how I talk to people who are interested in yogic practice. Sarah told me to read about the yamas and niyamas and to stop worrying so much about learning the names of the poses, and as usual, she was right. All of this has helped me become a much more thoughtful practitioner and will hopefully help me learn about how to teach well too.
In January 2018, I sent off my teacher training application to Yogacampus, and sat nervously for a month. I then received an interview invitation in February, which I talk about in another upcoming post, and in March went for an interview with them. A few days after the interview, I received an email accepting me onto the course - which starts in just a couple of weeks. I can't quite comprehend how I got from there to here, and there have been many significant battles along the road, some of which I'm still fighting, but I can only think that this is hopefully the start of something wonderful.