big week

last week was a doozie. i taught both my first yoga class ever (with 8 other teacher trainees) as well as my first yoga class all by myself.

the former was totally planned, and i taught 2 classical sun salutations, the first with a breakdown of bhujagasana (cobra pose) and the second with a breakdown of chaturanga dandasana (four-limbed staff pose). it went well, and i had a blast teaching.

the latter experience was completely unexpected. my instructor and the owner of the studio, joy, was ill this week, as was the other tuesday night instructor. i received an email from joy late monday afternoon which started with, "you'll probably wet your pants when you read this but i wouldn't ask unless i felt you could handle it" and went on to inquire if i could sub for the tuesday all levels class, the class i normally take. i was both deeply honored that joy felt i was ready and profoundly terrified of putting together my first yoga class and teaching it in ~24 hours. i mustered up the courage and took the plunge. i took one of the lesson plans from our trainee classes and modified it a bit to make it more challenging, as that class is usually filled with more intermediate-level students. dave graciously attended (although i'm not sure if that made me more or less nervous). i knew four of the five other students pretty well, and the fifth was a graduate of the program that i'm in now. everyone was so kind and patient with my intermittent stumbling and fumbling. they even laughed at my jokes, which was also nice. it was an ok class, although i couldn't help but go over all of my mistakes over and over in my brain for a couple of days. on friday, joy told me she received really good feedback about it. the most i can say right now is that at least i will never have to teach (and get all worked up about) my first class.

oh, and that i can't wait to do it again.