What's with all the books?

Well, of course, something is up with my photo uploader, and after trying to fix it for 15 minutes, I'm losing patience, and I'll just have to make this work (sideways).

That's a lot of thick books on yoga.  With the exception of Bhagavad Gita (which is basically a long, non-rhyming poem), they average 300 pages a piece.  And there are more on the way.

What's with all the books?  Well, I have been practicing yoga for a long time, and my practice has progressed from DVDs at home to multi-level classes at the gym to studio classes to blogging about yoga to buying a few books about yoga to more classes...and the big message that I've been getting is that your yoga practice is never complete.  There is always somewhere else to go, another edge to push, an new level to reach.  I have long thought that the logical next step for me would be to become a yoga teacher.  But upon researching the lengthy coursework and reading lists, not to mention the requisite 200 HOURS of yoga classes, I always felt that it would be impossible for me to complete.  I work full-time, I have a husband who travels (a LOT), and 2 kids to raise (hello, afterschool activities!)  I thought it would be something to do "one day" when all of these things were a little less of a daily juggle.
But life is not slowing down, and I am not getting any younger (!), and suddenly I realized that there was a teacher training center just a couple of towns over.  I wouldn't need to trek into Manhattan to get this done.  My possibilities started opening up and I became inspired - so I decided to apply to the Yoga Teacher Training program.
The BIG REVEAL is that I was (finally!) accepted into the cohort for 2012-2013!  I am going back to school and I am going to become a fully-certified yoga teacher!  I am not doing this as a career move or change - I want to be very clear that I am doing this to deepen my own practice and gain an deeper, fuller understanding of yoga.  If I end up teaching a class here and there, great, but at the end of the day, I want to learn more about the discipline and practice and I think this is the way to do it.
My "Summer Reading List" is extensive - instead of sitting by the pool with 50 Shades on my Nook, I'll have Yoga textbooks and a pencil.  I have 3 more books coming (via the Pony Express, it seems, since I ordered them "Used" on Amazon), so I have plenty to keep me occupied before my coursework even begins.

Part of my
"summer reading list"...

In case you are curious, it is a 9-month program (some courses manage to cram this all into 3 months or stretch it out over 12 months - either way, the number of required hours is the same, as specified by the Yoga Alliance).  I will have class for 3 hours every single Wednesday night (September through May) with one 3-hour Friday class a month and one six-hour Sunday class a month.  Not terrible.  Manageable for a working mom (who is home from her paying job by 4:00).  What is going to take some schedule juggling is the additional requirement of taking 52 studio yoga classes during the course of the teacher training.  I will need to observe and reflectively journal on each of the 52 classes. I talked it over with Husband, I weighed it over in my mind, and I decided I was ready to give up one year of my life to further my passion!

After applying, I had to go in for an interview with the program director, who is super committed to maintaining the quality and integrity of her training program.  She's a true pioneer for small yoga studios who are surviving against the "big guns" of YogaWorks and Jivamukti in the city.  I also had to take 2 classes with 2 different instructors at the studio, just so they could see that I have good body awareness and knew enough about yoga to make sense of the coursework.  Basically, they needed to make sure I wasn't walking in off the street with 7 classes under my belt before I started training.  I have 7 YEARS under my belt - I know a sanskrit phrase or two.  I'm a biology teacher in real-life, so I think I have the body parts down pretty well, too.  It didn't matter - I made up my mind that this was the next step for me in my yoga journey, so I was happily willing to do anything they asked me to do as part of my application process.  I was eschewing all judgement and just giving it a go!

Eventually, I got my acceptance letter from the studio, just before we left for vacation, which made for a very happy start to our trip.  Now that I'm back, my mind has been going a million miles a minute, planning in advance for the schedule changes and juggles we'll be faced with this fall.  I've been ordering my books, and trying to crack them open to get a head start for September.  Overall, I'm so excited to be going "back to school", and I'm eager to share my experience with you on the blog!  I'm honored that you're willing to keep reading about the journey!

Just do it - "Energy and Persistence alter all things" - B. Franklin