Day Five - Yoga teacher training

Eugene explained on Wednesday that a good yoga teacher must help her students discover and understand their bodies. In order to do this, a good teacher must first know her body well.

That's when I realised that one of the goals of teacher training is to learn my body well. And it was a timely discovery too, as it greatly helped me get through the first truly intense day of training.

Let me backtrack a little.

Since I've become more dedicated to my practice (some 18 months ago), my body awareness has significantly increased. I have felt blood circulating in my veins, bones sliding against muscle, and organs shifting. My skin sensitivity has also increased, resulting in shivers whenever a stray hair brushes my arm and immediate prickles when someone touches my skin. I have also felt a bead of sweat break from a facial pore and slowly glide down my cheek. I'm still not ticklish, but I'm definitely more awake to how my body reacts to the environment around me.

Already orbiting in the increased-sensitivity stratosphere thanks to hormones - and still feeling the effects of two days of femur-grounding poses - my body underwent additional opening exercises today. Namely, supported supta virasana (restorative) twice, which creates compression in the lumbar spine for a slight back bend, and a restorative backbend over a chair at the end of the day.

I wasn't in the chair for long. How come? Had my first spontaneous cry.

This is not surprising. Having been taken out of my every day life (and its stresses), I am now solely existing in an environment designed to help me soften the tensions in my body and bring compassion to the tensions in my mind. For the last year and a half, my body has been priming itself for these tears - for the shedding of repressed griefs and suffering. The teacher training program has created a haven for such breakthroughs.

All the stress that I've been packing into my lower back has finally cracked open. I didn't get a chance to get the tears out properly - because I had to immediately counterbalance with a forward bend to protect the vertebrae - but now that the door is open, I know that these old fears will pass.

I cannot tell you how grateful I was to feel the tears on my face, to feel sobs undulating up my esophagus. This is why I signed up for yoga teacher training - to free up the space inside me for new challenges, new projects and new feelings.

I feel as if I took a big step today. How did I celebrate? Reading my books over a nice sushi dinner. Weeding my garden. And an early bedtime, of course.