Wellington Yoga Classes 02/07/2012 - 08/07/2012

Open Circle Yoga, St Andrews Church Hall, Wednesday 12pm-1pm =ON=

Purebalance Yoga, Plimmerton, Sautday, 9am-10:15am =ON=

Open Circle Yoga, Ngaio Town Hall, Sunday 1:30pm-2:25pm =ON=

Hi all. well I'll admit that while my new class was very well supported at the start, it has quickly dropped off, but this was totally to be expected. My view is that it will now slowly start to build up again, but I do need to let people in the Ngaio community know the class exists (strangely enough). It is an interesting experience being the so called "owner" of a new class, and being totally responsible for either it's success or failure.

As a very dedicated practitioner of Yoga (well, something I call Yoga anyway) one assumes a natural progression into being a teacher. Although I actually love teaching, and would find it hard to imagine doing Yoga without teaching being a part of it, I very much see it as a branch of my practice rather than the trunk.

The hardest part about being a teacher is the fact that you put yourself out there for the evaluation and judgement of others, yet that is not why I chose to do yoga. Ironically, I chose to do it for the very reason I was not subject to anyone elses opinion (other than my own). I remember doing the Yoga Performance I called "Equipoise" (funnily enough a well known body-builder did a double take when I told him the name as Equipoise is also the name of a certain performance enhancing substance). When I accepted the challenge to create a routine I decided it would be 100% true to the nature of my practice, not just as a final product but also in the way I created it. This means I did not seek input from anyone else, I just followed my intuition. I chose the music; I developed the choreography; I decided how and when I would train. I took some time to understand and accept what I had committed to, and then I used Yogic principles to guide everything that led me up to the moment I stepped on stage and did my yogic dance. When that time came, I did not really care what anyone else thought, because I was happy with it, and everything I'd done to create it, and that was all that really mattered.

For me, teaching is the same. I understand there are marketing realities to being a teacher. You need to let people know you are there and what you are doing, but I guess that if teaching is a branch of my practice, then marketing of the classes is yet another branch that comes off of the teaching one. These things are all a necessary part of growing within the environment and society within which we live, and they all have their place. The fact that I have no real financial pressure to teach is an interesting place to be. The motivation to grow the "marketing branch" of my Yoga tree is not very strong, but I do want to see the class succeed, if only for the simple reason I believe so much in what I'm doing.

In the end, my inner truth is that these branches can be cut off, or simply die when their time has come, it is the trunk that needs to survive, in order for new branches to grow.

Whether the new class becomes established or not, will be 100% my responsibility, but it ultimately will have no impact on my practice or commitment to My Yoga, and I only say this, because this knowledge is the greatest source of my strength: What I share is not the same thing as what I am. What I am is a Yogi.

I am aware of the saying "You are what you repeatedly do" so maybe yes, maybe I am more than my trunk, I am my branches too, but branches back :-)