Post 3: Letting go of ego
What is ego to you? Often you hear this phrase – let go of ur ego. According to dictionary, Ego is “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance”. I was very much afraid of failure. Very much refused to admit, but through this journey i have to. So, today it happens. i held my first headstand without a wall! No doubts. No “i cant” No “what if” No “i am gonna sway again” I just said to myself, let’s leave Mr Wally (aka my wall) and try it. How much a difference it takes to let go of expectations, let go of the messy thoughts in ur head. If you struggling with something that you have been working at (not just asanas), take a step back – accept what it is now, let go, move on. Suzanne Ong RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
My first three yoga classes are completed!
I wasn’t planned to be a yoga teacher when I first register for YTT training. My initial thought is simply to have a good command of knowledge in yoga and to be able to practice yoga myself safely at home. However, the YTT changes my mind, it encourages me to think and learn yoga in a different way, from a teaching perspective. I really appreciate the YTT at the Yoga Mandala has given us a chance to experience teaching real yoga classes before we really step into the business. It also forces me to start to observe and learn from different yoga instructors how they sequence a class, what are their teacher styles and what are the most valuable things of their teaching to make student benefit from their classes. I started to practice teaching yoga with my yoga partners. It was a difficult journey in sequencing a class but also an interesting journey when you are able to observe different people’s body conditions and trying to work out with variations for them to benefit from yoga. I found it also a great way to learn yoga by becoming a yoga teacher and keep practicing yoga theories in me while teaching. My first three yoga classes were completed right before our final assessment. I had to admit that I learned and improved a lot in the process of classes preparation and classes reflections. There are lots of benefits I got from my three yoga classes and it encourages me to seek for further opportunities teaching yoga along with my yoga journey. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
Thank you, Jessica
I really appreciate it to have Jessica being my 200hr YTT yoga instructor. Firstly, a 200hr YTT theory class can be a really boring class with all the Sanskrits and plain definitions for them. Jessica made each Sanskrit more meaningful for us by giving examples and telling funny stories. Her theory class is never boring and lack of laughter. And as a result, all the theories stay in our mind with vivid stories linked to them. Secondly, her is very experienced in teaching yoga asanas. We are all amazed by Jessica in her asana class. She always has the confidence to say that, “you will be able to do the asana by simply follow my verbal instructions”. That applies to those poses that we think we are never able to achieve and those poses that we found difficult to get into. She could always give the key notes to perform each asana and we are just able to do it by simply following her instructions! I do not know how much time behind her teaching that she spent in practicing in order to have a good command of each poses. I also admire it that she could convey all her knowledge through words – accurate instructions ever! Lastly, she is very good at observation. Throughout the YTT, she discovered our body types, and explaining the advantages and weakness for each body type. It cannot be achieved without years on years experiences and observations of her students. From Jessica’s class, we are leaning more than yoga and teaching yoga. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
More about asana practice
Before my 200hr YTT, I had barely learned any inversion and hand balancing poses. There are balancing poses such as tree pose and revolved triangle poses, which I have practiced but always found difficulty in finding balance. After realizing the importance of muscle engagement and body awareness, the balancing poses are easier to achieve by engaging the correct body parts. The beauty of inversion and hand balancing poses for me is that it requires you to have the awareness over your whole body instead a single part of muscles. You have to feel where your hips are, where your foot toes are pointing to, whether your shoulder or legs are in line, etc. To achieve those poses, I found that I have to practice to have a full awareness of my body. However, it is not easy to visualize your body part while you are upside down. Videoing helped me a lot with understanding my body and analyzing my center point. It is still a long journey for me to go to be aware of my full body and control my mind. But I am feeling I am on a right way to achieve it. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
Asanas
What I want to achieve through asana practice? This is a question we all should questioning ourselves before our yoga practice. I had been practicing yoga for a few different reasons before attending my YTT training. I have been practiced yoga for weight loss, for flexibility, for relaxation, for therapy, for alignment, for strength…and eventually, lost with a question, how should I practice yoga in order to achieve my expectation? To become a yoga teacher and to design for yoga class helped me get my answer. Firstly, everyone could practice and benefit from practicing yoga. Depends on individual’s body condition, it is impossible for most of people to perform each yoga asanas perfectly. We could definitely choose variations and assisted props to make asana easier and benefit from the pose at the same time. It is like singing, you could enjoy it no matter whether you could sing as good as a singer. Amazingly, though our body type is in nature, but we still cam improve our body condition gradually by practicing yoga. Secondly, it is important to analyze the muscle engagement for each asana. Analyzing muscle engagement for an asana is not only for knowledge but also help you to category an asana, help you with the adjustment and choice of variations. By accumulating the knowledges, we could design our own yoga sequences that tailored for our own needs. Ultimately, by practicing asana, you shall achieve a full body awareness. It is amazing the first time I realized the importance of body awareness when I succeeded in performing a Teddy Bear pose after many times of failures. I couldn’t held my body weight on both my triceps initially. Until I finally get to feel the engagement of my core muscles to pull my legs into my chest, I barely feel the weight on my arms. Be aware of the muscles that are supposed to engaged or stretched and be aware of the body parts that are supposed to be positioned is very important part in asana practice. By trying to feel my body and gaining body awareness, I found that those poses that were initially difficult for me become simpler and easier. Not only that, with muscle engagement and body awareness, each asana has its meanings for me that I am no longer memorizing an asana by its shape but to memorize it by checking whether I am engaging the same body part. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
Transformation Since YTT
I have seen amazing transformation of myself since my 200hr YTT course. Starting from asanas, I am learning asanas in a completely different way. Instead of imitating asanas from yoga instructors, I started to understand an asana by its Sanskrit and instructions, thinking about the entry and exit of each asana, as well as feeling the body parts that I am supposed to engage. Extending that from class to my life, my life changed dramatically as well. I changed my habit of staying up late and waking up late, but to go sleep early and wake up early to enjoy the peacefulness in the early morning. I can be more focus in everything, such as doing programming at work, performing weight training at gym, as well as for my own asana/pranayama practices. I become calmer. Yoga stops me from worrying about my future which is of uncertainty, stops me from anxious about plenty of work which I must be faced with, stops me from judging people which helps me to discovered good characteristics of people. I am more generous, willing to give and share instead if holding everything for myself…There are more and more aspects for me to practice and improve. As for now, I have already realized that yoga is changing my life. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
More than Asanas
In our first class, Jessica asked us what we would like to achieve by the end of 200hr YTT. I replied that I want to perform one handstand and deepen my knowledge in yoga. The yoga theory classes have indeed deepened my knowledge in yoga and have me realized that yoga is more than asanas. Asana (postures) is only one of eight limbs of yoga. It is also about yama (morals), about niyama (observances), about pranayama (breathing), about pratyahara (sense withdrawal), about dharana (focus), about dhyana (meditation) and about samadhi (enlightenment)…It is all about life and it is reflected in all aspects of our life. Yoga is not only present in our daily life during 1 or 2-hour yoga asana practice. We are supposed to practice yoga throughout the day and our lifetime. Whenever we think, we talk, we walk…yoga is always with us. We can always practice 8 limbs of yoga throughout our daily life, which is even more challenging than a handstand asana. That is when I realized that my 200hr YTT is only a start of my yoga journey and it is going to be lifetime journey. Ma Jiameng RYT200 YTT February 2019 Weekend
Post 2: A Proper alignment?
Honestly, alignment is a topic that I have always been interested in. I want to learn how to adjust someone so that they getting into a ‘proper alignment’ in asanas. However, today I learnt there is no such thing as ‘proper alignment’. Everybody is different. Every Body is different too =P. Jessica has said this over a few lessons already but it’s only today that I starting to understand it better. “it’s not so much about how you look from the outside, it’s more about how you feel” A reminder to self to be more mindful about how others are feeling in the asanas rather than trying to get them to reach a certain alignment. If they are not hurting their joints/ muscles, they are fine. If they already engaging their muscles but doesn’t look like it, they are fine. This also makes me reflect, how we often want to ‘change’ someone or someone’s thinking just from our perception of the person without thinking how the person is already feeling. Suzanne Ong RYT200 YTT Feburary 2019 Weekend
❻2016.5.16
时间过得真的很狂野 感觉我的一切都在进行二倍速的倒计时 2月份的ryt200周末班要毕业了 感谢老师们这么用心的用照片记录我们的点点滴滴 希望我们在瑜伽老师的路上 不忘初心 坚守如初 我们的故事未完 待续…… 祝周末班的我们顺利毕业 不长肉
❺2019.5.2
培训接近了尾声 很庆幸自己2月份报名了ryt200 遇见了Nicole老师和茸儿小c老师 我总是感到安全和充满爱 和这些了不起的瑜伽士一起练习 穿着舒服的瑜伽服运动鞋 和相处舒服的人在一起向着共同的目标走 感觉真的很好 最放松，喜欢现在的状态，有一个还满意的体重 ryt200周末班思文
