YTT Week 1 ~ Finding ease and balance...

I knew I had signed up for an intensive program and, well, last week was just that ~ Intense. From daily practices of yoga, hours sitting on floor for our human body anatomy (fascinating invention) and yogic philosophy (metaphysics meets psychology) classes, lengthy homework to make sure we digest the wisdom as we go along, long hours at night and weekend observing classes (to get a sense of the different personalities and style so we can find our own voice as a teacher) and adjusting our fellow students (for our eyes to understand what the body is saying and for our hands learn to become "adjustment fairies"). Did I mention the 5 hours of Karma Yoga, selfless service, we have to squeeze in by the end of the program too? 
While absolutely loving it, my brain had to juggle with all this new notions to grasp but the key lesson had nothing to do with Gluteus Maximus or  Yoga Sutras, but rather with finding balance and ease within the chaos going on in my mind: "Oh my G, how am I going to accomplish all that in less than a month?!?". The beauty of yoga is that it comes with the tools to face whatever life throws at you in the form, among others, of yamas and niyamas, universal principals aspiring yogis should live by. The 2 main ones I tried to practice last week were Tapas - Discipline, or remembering that the fruits from this experience would be equal to the efforts put in, so now is the time to stop worrying and step it up a notch; as well as Santosha - Contentment, as I noticed my self-criticism coming up every time I couldn't do or didn't know something: "It is your second YTT after all", did my monkey-mind keep reminding me... "Yes it is", I would hear myself say, "but Yoga is deep beyond measure and one remains a student forever, You included. Thanks for sharing Monkey mind, moving on, I have a sequence to rehearse..."

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