I have to go and pretend to be a yoga teacher now Mum.

OMG!

It's been 6 WHOLE MONTHS since I've updated this blog. Well, I've actually been writing bits and pieces and have like 5 half finished drafts sitting behind here waiting to be published. I am now, yes, right now on a Thursday morning in mid-May, sitting in a coffee shop in Mittagong, NSW, Australia drinking a Chai Latte and rereading some of the drafts as I try not to fall asleep from boredom. They were quite boring and I attribute the "boringness" of them to lots of turmoil in my life and not really wanting to put any flair into my writing.  So, it's official, I have my writing mojo back and will give you a Cliff's Notes version of what's been happening on and off the mat. So, here is a quick recap of what's happened.

AN INURY: 

I had a bulging disc between L3 and L4.

One week before I was due to teach my very own PAID yoga class at a newly opened local gym, I managed to injure myself. Badly. I slipped a disc in my back. Well technically had a "bulging disc" between my L3 and L4 vertebrae for the second time in my life! (The first was the result of a Mountain Biking Injury when I was a lifty for the Summer Season in Whistler, Canada…job #32) Apparently slipped discs never really go away so for my first few months of teaching, I taught with a slipped disc.  In between I was getting acupuncture, going to the osteo, chiro, physio and anything else that ended in "o". I was taking Chinese herbs alongside Valium at night just so I could sleep! Hey man, I'm all for alternative therapies, but sometimes a chick just needs some hardcore painkillers.

As such, I spent my first few months in a bit of a haze, frustrated at not being able to demonstrate the poses properly. I had some very creative ways of explaining sequences, sometimes getting a student to demo it for me, and relied heavily on verbal cues to instruct. Challenging to say the least! Teaching with an injury is shit. There's no two ways about it.

David and Goliath cartoon. Legen-dary. 

A BOY: 
I met a boy. Well, reconnected with a guy I met 15 years ago who "happened" to be travelling down this way for a conference and we sort of got together/I had 5 wines and suddenly found him attractive. Also, because, well, I'm not getting any younger, clock is ticking and all that and well, you get it right?  So, after 4 months of "dating" over the phone and doing the long distance thing, he decided to quit his job and move 2,500km to live with me.  SO, that lasted 2 months and I am now just finishing the hideous crying randomly all the time, breaking the 12 month lease (I've never committed to anything for 12 months in my LIFE, what was I thinking?!), packing, crying, putting ALL of my furniture back into storage, a bit more crying and moving back with my parents' for the 14th time!  On the upside, the removalist asked me for my number so I guess that's a plus. He could smell a rebound chick from a mile away! (SIDENOTE: I didn't give him my number. I've sworn off men indefinitely.)

That's me on the left doing stupid, pouty face.

A MUSICAL:
The first thing I did when I arrived at this new country town, Bowral, with a population of like 12,000 after moving from Brisbane, a medium-sized Australian capital city with a population of about 2 million, was NOT look for a job, but was to audition for a musical!  Cue my parents' shaking their heads at my logic and wondering if I was ever EVER going to grow up! #peterpansyndrome So yes, I auditioned for Chicago - The Musical, which is like my third favourite musical and got in as "Pop", a Cell Block Tango girl. SO, I got to meet other crazy theatre types and thus make instant friends. Work could come later. Rehearsals took up much more time than I anticipated and as such, I had zero creative drive left to write my blog :-(  Meanwhile, that's all over after 3 weekends of runs and I slipped into a bit of post-show depression, which is standard after coming down from all the adrenalin and stuff. Yoga has helped me through it though :-)

Next stop…horse yoga! Watch this space.

A HORSE:
It was my birthday a few months ago (turned 25... again) and well, basically, my friend bought me a horse. Yep, I'll say it again…my beautiful friend Michelle, BOUGHT ME A FREAKING HORSE FOR MY BIRTHDAY! Best. Present. Ever.  His name is Nitro and he is a 10 year old ex racehorse and I luff him.  I try and drive the 3 hours to Newcastle to visit him as much as possible. And, as I've become a recent convert to Natural Horsemanship, a form which allows horses to be as close to their natural state as possible and includes lots of groundwork and mimicry of their wild behaviours etc, I will next endeavour to embark on a bit of horse yoga. Oh yes, that's a thing.

A FEW TOO MANY JOBS

This is what the boot of my car ALWAYS looks like! 

During all of these extra-curricular activities, I was working 2 casual jobs AND teaching 7 classes of yoga a week.  (I quickly learnt that making a living as a yoga teacher was not a viable option to keep me in the lifestyle in which I am accustomed to, hence the necessity to pick up a couple of "normal" jobs in the process).  SO, thus, in conclusion, I didn't have even a spare nanosecond to answer emails let alone update my blog.

BUT, I'm back and now the blog will take an exciting twist.  Well, as about exciting as a yoga blog can get.  I'm going to talk about my various yoga TEACHING experiences, most of which have just been a comedy of errors, as well as do the odd review of yoga studios I visit along the way.  I have now cut back to 3 classes a week, which is far more sensible and manageable. After saying yes to any teaching opportunity, which apparently is very common with noobies, I suddenly hit a wall and my body, whilst still grappling with my back injury, began to protest.  Finally, practising ahimsa paid off.  (Click here for a pretty good explanation of ahimsa). I am now in more of a routine and no longer living in my car and planning yoga sessions in my head whilst at my other jobs!  The other night on the way to a class that was a 50 minute drive away, I was starving, so I quickly made myself some porridge when I was at home for 3 minutes between jobs and ate it while I was driving at 110km down the highway. Idiot!

As I've been wearing so many hats over the past 6 months, I would often ring people, mainly my Mum, on the way to or from my yoga classes and almost always finish the conversation with, "Righto, I have to go and pretend to be a yoga teacher now!"

Hopefully one day, I will have enough faith in my ability to leave out the "pretend to be" part!

Have you ever had a major injury as a result of practising yoga?

I am currently halfway through reading The Science of Yoga, By William J. Broad.  This is a very interesting and thought-provoking read, especially as I am up to Chapter 5: Risk of Injury.  I am still gobsmacked at the types of injuries it has detailed as Broad states: "few practitioners anticipate strokes and dislocations, dead nerves and ruptured lungs." Yeouch!

It got me thinking of my own injuries I've had as a result of yoga. Only one major one comes to mind which, as I learnt in Teacher Training, probably puts me in good stead as a teacher apparently. Anyhoo, it was at a yoga class in Whistler, Canada, when I was living there and we had gone from Ardho Mukha Svanasana (Downward facing dog) to three-legged dog to flipping the dog. Yoga Journal here explains it much better! Also, I just found in Yoga Magazine here, that it's also called "Wild Thing"...cool! How did I not know this?!

Anyway, as I was reaching my upper hand to the front of the room stretching as far as I could, the teacher came around to do some adjustments.  She took my upper hand and pulled my hand even further towards the front as I myself, rotated and stretched even more.  Suddenly, I felt a sharp twinge right in the centre of my spine. Holy s&*t, I thought to myself, that did not feel right. I slowly and very cautiously, made my way back to down dog and felt almost winded like someone had punched me in the stomach, combined with someone else stabbing me with a knife in the back. I quickly came to my hands and knees and tried to regulate my breathing, but the shooting pain down my back was practically debilitating.  I lowered further down to Balasaana (Child's pose) and after a couple of minutes, resumed the class, albeit half-heartedly. At the end of class, I very tenderly got up from Savasana and quickly skulked out. Needless to say, I didn't go back, but promptly took myself to the doctor where she diagnosed me with a partially slipped disc (also called a Bulging Disc - See pic) between my L4 and L5 (Lumbar vertebrae) and advised me to rest flat on my back for at least 2 weeks. Grrrrrrrr, I thought to myself, how could this have happened?

In addition to the inconvenience it had caused, oh, did I mention that a couple of weeks earlier I had just recovered form a dislocated shoulder as a result of a mountain biking fall? No? Well yes. Isn't it always the way? It's like when you kick your little toe on the couch or something as you walk past and for the rest of that week, you keep accidentally kicking the SAME TOE! So yeah, I was bedridden for at least a week, hardly able to move and stuck on the other side of world with very few friends and only my thoughts to keep me company. It was pretty rough.  I kept replaying that yoga class over and over in my head to think what I could have done differently. But alas, it was done.

Little did I know that 5 years later in my teacher training, this experience would actually put me in good stead. I am know acutely aware of teachers adjusting me and conversely of adjusting my students in the future. I have learnt to speak up if it doesn't feel good and always check in on my students as to how they are feeling. I think this is definitely a trait of yoga students as I had demonstrated in that class in Canada. You want to be good for the teacher and you put your trust in them to help you.  But if something goes wrong, we are often too scared to listen to our bodies and speak up.

Don't risk an inury. It's not worth it!