Yesterday was my birthday, today I taught!

The first half of yesterday was spectacular. Aside from being a little short on sleep (the usual these days, no bigs, lots of breath keeps me vibrant) I went forth tremblingly into the day and the first thing that happened was that CHARLIE from VANCOUVER (my recent-Forrest-graduate friend and yoga co-journeyer of this summer) showed up at morning meditation with a gift of raw protein squares! He was my birthday present from the universe. He didn't even know it was my birthday. It was so nice to see a friendly face from my former life as a person who was not in the midst of a Forrest training. And it was so nice to see a friendly face who knows exactly what is going on in my life because he went through it. And it was nice to see Charlie's friendly face because he is especially always grinning and full of vitality. I cried through half of the four directions, though, which was the start of it.

During chanting, we usually get up and dance to the river song, and yesterday, everyone joined hands and ushered me to dance in the centre of the circle. So much love and light and spirit. I did plenty of leaping. Mid-song, when the tempo changes, I always have the urge to leap, so I leapt into star shapes and had a beautiful time. Practice was amazing, and deep, and there were lots of long, intense lunges and inversions, and thrilling body contortions. I think the universe gave me another birthday present of my inner thighs back. I'm just starting to notice them for I guess the first time. Ana's assistant gave me an amazing assist in bridge with half-lotus (I guess that's what you would call it) -- her birthday present, working out what has felt like a little hook that makes my legs collapse when it catches, right around the front of the hip joint. Those star-leaping moves send amazing new energy along the inner lines of my legs. Bridge with one leg up is my new favourite pose: never have I felt such depth of burning in my thighs. It's like the raggedy usual burn of poses emulsified and dispersed into millions of vibrating, cellular points of heat. I suppose that is what you might call going to a deeper layer. The assistant said to me that I have to chase my edge more -- and now I know how to do it in that pose. After practice I was wonderful, spaced-out goo. It was the first day I've really felt strong again. Strong and ready to take on anything. I am most impressed with how my shoulders are learning to wrap better, and how different my handstand felt from the last handstand I did a few days ago. The class was a restorative, and it worked.

After practice I gathered some troops and went for breakfast. I was going to go for Pho lunch, but I realized that lunch is at 9:30 now... which is breakfast for everyone else. Every time someone says good morning after morning practice I chuckle -- it's afternoon, man; I've already been up for 5 hours. It was nice. I haven't had food that wasn't homecooked and ultra healthy for two weeks, so it felt really special. Another trainee picked me a flower. Everyone wrote me warm fuzzies and collected them for me, and gave me birthday hugs.

Once back, it was practice teaching time. I was assigned the second section of the intro course, with uddiyana, wide forward bend, and wide side bend, but someone in the course got sick and I took over her spot -- the first spot -- which was the basic moves. Hard - to - teach: lots of talking, no movement, hard to keep the energy up. I started bawling mid-teaching ujjayi and basically didn't stop crying for the rest of the day. I cried all of this morning, too. Shit is hitting the fan. Lions today were incredible: I have never made such noises, and also never collapsed into heaving sobs pretty much anywhere, much less on a yoga mat. I think teaching ujjayi triggered me because there's just so little you can really use to describe it. How it sounds, yes, and what it is similar to, but what it feels like is a pretty abstract thing to describe, and I think I just felt overwhelmed by the lack of flow and inability to help my students get it. By the end of the day I realized that it was of course something that people just get when they get it, and reconnected to yoga as a personal practice guided by a teacher -- understanding that being a teacher is not about 'making' people 'get' anything, just guiding and communicating and providing tools. This is something I know, but my unconscious apparently has different ideas about things.

I taught today, and didn't burst into tears over ujjayi (if I had I was planning to crack a joke about how it was such a beautiful practice it brought me to tears). I taught accurately but boringly, as we discovered through video review. Once I got over my initial nerves, I actually felt better and calmer and more confident teaching than I had on any previous day, despite real live people from the real world being there, but I was apparently much less vibrant than any previous day. Silly rabbit, the room is not full of critics but instead full of people who want to learn yoga and expect it to make them feel better -- them's good vibes. What is that about? I think partly it's the energetic toll of crying for hours and hours, which saps my sense of self. I'm having trouble bringing my personality into the very specific language necessary for a beginner teacher teaching a beginner course to use. I usually express my personality with MY words, and improvisation and verboseness. Verbose improv does not have a lot of space on a yoga teacher's mat, especially not a beginner yoga teacher, so how do I do it? What part of the language formula is flexible here, and what is essential in its present form? It's true, I didn't feel my personality today, but where is it? How do I put it here? I feel like I don't know how, but Ana says I had it two days ago, and I wonder where it went and why.

A lot of people are grinding against the precise language formulas that Ana instructs us to use, and reacting with resentment about how she corrects them. I figure, hell, I'm in her training, she knows what she's talking about, I'm gonna do what she says. I assume that she has reasons for everything, and I don't challenge them. Is my easy willingness to follow all of Ana's coachings and languaging exactly graciousness and genuine trust, or a pattern of complacency with systems of learning that lets me be a passive self and not challenge or stir shit up?

I'm also wondering if taking on a second section in order to make my piece more challenging was bravery and desire to expand myself to become a better teacher faster, or part of a pattern of taking on more than I can handle? There's a little bit of this in it, I think: "well, I had twice the amount of work to do, so it's no wonder I wasn't as successful teaching as I'd like to have been." Did I keep myself from trying as hard as I could?

Teaching was good. It'll be better next time (I went from zero to twenty minutes of poses in 8 days, I'm sure another 7 will bump me up again). Every time we breathe into our hearts I cry. What is that about?