Week Two.

Today we started the second week of our first month in this correspondence course. This week, we are going to be counting 1-8, focusing on inhalations and exhalations.

The first two days I'm counting to eight both on inhales and exhales.

I found myself not being as deep in my meditation as I was last week. I felt like my brain was really active, counting each inhale and exhale. While I feel aware, I don't feel as relaxed as I was during my sits last week.

After I sat I did a thirty minute yin/restorative practice, as my hips are kind of funky and tight and really needed a good stretch.

Today my sitting consisted of fifteen minutes on a greyhound bus. This proved to be incredibly challenging, as it was noisy, a kid behind me was kicking my seat, and I am so incredibly exhausted. I taught sooooo many classes this week and was all over southwestern Ontario and today all I felt like doing was passing out. Currently, I feel like doing the same but I am so overstimulated I can't even take a nap!

Despite the distractions, I felt I was doing a great job noticing my mind wandering, mental formations coming on, and coming back to my breath, noticing the mind wandering again, coming back to my breath, etc. That's what being mindful is all about so I'll take it.

Sadly I did not get to asana practice today. I am so exhausted the thought of standing up at the moment overwhelms me. Please allow me a day of rest/day to catch up on all the re-reading I meant to do this week and I shall get back to sitting and practicing on Monday.

In between my 6h30 am and 10 am classes today I sat for about fifteen minutes. I drew awareness to the nostrils as I inhaled and exhaled. I am fidning it easier for me to draw attention to the nostrils as oppossed to the belly. I'm also finding it easier to sit and be still by myself - I guess I am getting more comfortable. Times seems to pass by more quickly too.

I knew I wouldn't have time to attend an asana yoga class today, so after I was done sitting, I turned on my iPod and practiced a shortened version of the Moksha series, throwing in a lot of flows and sun salutations. I was listening to MC Yogi and couldn't help but want to dance through each and every posture. I am currently in such a joyous mood today that I really just wanted to celebrate... for no reason!

I'm away teaching in Waterloo until Friday and today I did walking meditation from the cafe I had lunch at back to the studio. It ended up being about twenty minutes long. The only mental formations I had was wondering what people were thinking of me as they drove past in their cars. I decided that I didn't care. I have a meditation MP3 on my iPod - a 60 minute long CD of rain and thunderstorms and I put that on to drown out the noise of oncoming cars.

My asana practice went well today too - 90 minutes of a non Moksha vinyasa flow in reduced heat. I dound myself less agitated during class and really was able to focus my breath and body awareness and stay out of my brain. The class didn't even feel like it was 90 minutes long. I think it really helped to break the two up... today anyway. Time will tell. But I feel a lot better today about both practices. When I taught tonight I think I was more centred and more in the room as well, which is always a good thing!

Meditayshun: ur doin it wrong.

I've decided after today's practice of fifteen minutes of sitting and yoga classes that I am going to separate the two. I really enjoy sitting. I really enjoy asana. But when I sit before I practice, I seem to get this overwhelming feeling of anger which carries itself into my yoga practice, and I can't handle it. Maybe it's because I am in the heat for too long. I found today's practice just too hard to get through and more often than not found myself holding my breath during postures which is something I rarely do I was literall gasping for air and I know I looked pissed off.

I don't understand why I've been having such a difficult time focusing when I had little difficulty in vipasana meditation during MYTT. I started reading Larry Rosenberg's book today and he suggested being in a quiet place when first starting to sit. So perhaps I should just stay at home to sit for now, as maybe the distractions of the fifteen minutes before a yoga class starts are irritating me more than my conscious mind is going to admit. Or my ego. Hahaha. I'm really liking this book though and am glad I picked it up. I really think it should be required reading as it makes everything else just so easy to understand.

In my teaching I'm finding myself incorporating more breath awareness into the posture, focusing on encouraging my students to stay present and aware. Longer holds on postures too, as well as teaching them to stop anticipating and letting go of expectations of the postures and that their practice changes every day, staying in the body and out of the brain, etc.

Day two of sitting/asana practice.

I attended a yoga class really early at 6h30 this morning! It was the only time I would be able to fit sitting and asana in, as I taught two classes after that, and am out this evening.

When I was sitting this morning I noticed how tired I was and grew resentful that I was up so early. As much as I try not to get into this particular mindset, sometimes I allow myself to believe that this is "one other thing to do". I think majority of the resentfulness had to do with me getting up at 5h50 when my alarm went off, after only having about a total of eight hours of sleep the past two nights. I was very tired, and a tad grumpy.

I was relieved when the teacher walked into the room and class began, but found my khapa dosha ass eagerly awaiting savasana the second I stood up on my mat and started practice. I noticed that, and laughed at myself, and somewhere within the standing series bitterness and resentment (to what, I have no clue) moved in, and internally, I was screaming. My brain refused to shut off no matter how many times I tried to label my breath and focus on that. Nightclub mind in sitting and asana today, for sure.

And so it begins

So today starts the correspondence portion of our Mindfulness Yoga Teacher Training. Our training consisted of two really intense weekends of meditation, lecture and asana practice. The next six months we'll be journaling our daily meditation practices, asana practices, and whatever else the lovely Frank Jude Boccio gives us for our correspondence course. This month in addition to our journaling, we have an essay to write as well, which I will probably publish here too :) I'm looking forward to this journey and developing new practices and mindful ways of living. I'm also looking forward to incorporating more mindfulness into my yoga classes, so it's going to be interesting to see how I grow and develop as a teacher!

So this week, we're to focus on labeling our inhales and exhales as we sit: belly rising, belly falling for three days, and then drawing awareness to the nostrils: in breath, out breath.

This morning I sat for fifteen minutes before attending an hour long yoga class. It was interesting sitting and meditating in a hot room; but I also didn't find myself very distracted by things that might normally distract me during a meditation: my foot falling asleep, students unrolling mats and getting themselves situated in the practice room, sweat dripping down my face and back. I was really intently focusing on labeling the inhales and exhales. I think now its almost comical and I'm wondering if I even really relaxed into meditation since I was focusing so hard on those two words! Towards the end of the fifteen minutes, I wasn't doing much labeling of breathing, but was focused on my breath and how it changed from deep to shallow inhales. I started to anticipate the class a little bit and was wondering when it was going to start. Each time I caught myself doing that I went back to labeling the rising and falling. Good times.