Now is the Time for Yoga

"Now is the time for you": that was one of my first learnings on Friday night. As they quite rightly pointed out, 40 of us didn't accidentally sign up for 200+ hours of yoga teacher training (note I am foreshadowing here for my story below :)) .

A very funny thing happened in class yesterday: a story I wanted to share. So, we started the class with a 20 minute sequence, and then moved into a lesson about the 8 limbs of yoga. Particularly the yamas and niyamas. A girl in the class put up her hand because she didn't have the books and the binder of materials. The teacher, wanting the class to keeping moving at a good pace, asked her to look on with a neighbour and go talk to the coordinator at the break. The girl went to stand up and talk to the coordinator, but the teacher insisted she sit back down and look on with a neighbour. I didn't really think much of this at the time.

After the lunch break, the teacher notified us that the girl who was concerned about not having the materials had actually gone into the wrong room, and thought she was participating in a beginner hatha yoga class....

I don't know how to precisely explain it, but this is one of those amusing human situations that I can never get enough of. You know, looking back, it seems obvious that this girl knew something was wrong and needed to leave, but the teacher wanted the class to flow and maybe she didn't know that yoga class normally doesn't involve textbooks and binders of materials, and discussions of abstentions/restraints (yamas) and observances (niyamas).

Unless something spectacularly interesting happens today, this will go down as my favourite part of the first weekend of teacher training!