Step 8: Yogoer.com

With my yoga teacher training starting on February 27th, I've been thinking about how to document that journey. I've been practicing yoga for 10 years and in 2004 I took a 30-hour weekend course that gave me a very basic certification. I used that certification to teach free yoga classes to my stressed out classmates at Darden Business School. I've been wanting to build on that training for several years in the hopes of opening a studio, running a yoga retreat, or using yoga for medicinal purposes and athletic training.

When I moved back to New York in 2007, I started looking around for a studio program that was Yoga Alliance Certified. I found them to be very expensive - far beyond my means - so I had to put that dream on hold for a bit. About a year ago, I stumbled upon Sonic Yoga in Hell's Kitchen, which runs an affordable program expressly because they feel that many of the current programs are too expensive for most people. They are also incredibly flexible with the timing of the class and off a night and weekend program for people who work full-time. After attending classes and meeting with one of the instructors, I knew the program was the right fit for me.

Now that I am registered for the training, I wanted to share my experience of becoming a Yoga Alliance certified teacher and was struggling a bit with where to do that. On this blog, I really want to focus on my 365 steps toward an extraordinary life. Some of those will absolutely be linked to the yoga teacher training, though I didn't feel that this was the best venue to record the full process of getting certified. So I went hunting for a better place.

It didn't take long before I found Yogoer.com, a site run by Erica Heinz, a freelance graphic artist, wellness blogger, and Huffington Post columnist. I will be featuring Erica and Yogoer.com in an upcoming Examiner.com piece. With all of its incredible information about yoga in New York City, Yogoer.com seemed like an ideal place for me to record my training process and connect with other yogis.

My first piece is up on Yogoer.com today and talks about some of the preparation work I'm doing for the training. You will be able to view a full set of my posts here. I will post on this blog each time I have a new post on Yogoer.com. I hope you'll join me over there as I start this new journey and check out everything that the site and its iPhone app have to offer! Ommmmm.....

My Year of Hopefulness - The Beauty of Restlessness

"The purpose of this course is to awaken the restlessness of reason, and if we have done at least that, and restlessness continues to afflict you in the days and years to come, then we together have achieved no small thing." ~ Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel's online class at Harvard, Justice, ended a few weeks ago. Over the course of the semester it became my weekly ritual every Thursday to watch the class via YouTube and then participate on the online forum. I will admit that I miss the class. Professor Sandel has a way of creating restlessness, discomfort, in his students that keeps them pondering his points and those of the philosophers he highlights long after the class ends. He inspires curiosity.

It's this inspiration that keeps teachers going. I consider some of my very best teachers, inside and outside the classroom, and everything that they did to help me get far beyond my circumstances. The best of them didn't have all the answers. They just had more questions. Beautiful, articulate questions that made me restless. Questions that still keep my restless, years and years later. It's this restlessness, and the ideas that cause it, that expand our visions. These ideas imagine what's possible rather than accepting what's probably. They push boundaries; they build dreams.

In addition to inspiring curiosity, my teachers also inspired me to aspire. Not for a title or a certain amount of money or power or influence. They inspired me to aspire to get every last drop of value out of this one life that I have. They poured a lot of grace into my dreams so when I consider what I'll do with my time, it isn't just my own days that I need to live to the fullest. Reaching and then exceeding my potential isn't just about my own sense of achievement. I live part of my dreams for them, too. For all of them. It is a responsibility that I willingly, gladly accept because grace is a terrible thing to waste.

My Year of Hopefulness - It Takes A Village, or an Army

I've been having a great time in Florida with my niece, Lorelei. I can hardly believe that she'll be 2 in January. I wrote about her on this blog the day that she was born and she has appeared a number of other times in my posts. It's fun to watch her learn and change. My sister and brother-in-law are tired pretty much all the time - Lorelei is always on the go and always curious. She's also somehow inherited insomnia from my mom and I.

While many people say that it takes a village to raise a child, I'd add that it requires a very large village, or in many cases an army. It's amazing how many things Lorelei gets into. Everything from electric outlets to cabinet doors to chairs that are a tiny bit too tall for her. She needs feeding and changing and washing and activities that teach her reading, her colors, her numbers, etc. And the list goes on. She needs an eye on her constantly.

Lorelei is lucky - she has so many people in her life who watch out for her, who love her, and take care of her. Every day, I think about how lucky she is, and how many kids are not so lucky. I think about how many kids don't have a village much less an army. Some don't have anyone at all. This is where we can all come in.

This Fall, I had the opportunity to volunteer teach at one of the best high schools in New York. When I told a friend of mine about the choice I had to make to do that assignment or work on my own program in East Harlem, she said, "Christa, those kids in that high school are fine. They don't need you. They have plenty of advantages. Whether or not you're there won't matter to them. It will matter to those kids in East Harlem. Go where you're needed."

Every day, we have a chance to be a part of a child's village, and it's most important for us to begin building a village for kids who don't have one at all. This might be the greatest challenge of our time. We can be that village, that army, with a small donation of time or money or concern. If we have any interest at all in the future of our planet, in the future of our own children, we have to stand up for other kids who need us.

My Year of Hopefulness - Sonic Yoga

It seems that I just cannot resist the pull of being a student again. Some people can't wait to get out of school and spread their wings. The moment I graduate, I'm trying to figure how to continue to be a student. Call it an addiction. Weez, my sister, tells me that my end goal in life is to figure out how to be a professional student. She, as usual, is right.

In 2004, I took a weekend course through Yoga Fit that gave me a very basic teacher certification. This was before Yoga Alliance became the true gold standard. I have taught free classes to friends and colleagues though now, after many years of practice, I have decided that I want to be more dedicated to my practice and to join the community of fully-certified teachers. For the practice that has given me so much, it is now my turn to provide the comfort of yoga to others through teaching. I've been trying out a lot of different studios in New York - we are blessed with many! - and doing research on different teacher training programs. While they have been amazing finds, none of them felt quite right to me until today when I stepped into Sonic Yoga in Hell's Kitchen.

The gracious and masterful Johanna quickly put me at ease, put the entire packed classroom at ease. I knew I found my home. Sonic Yoga is not fancy; it's homey, comfortable, and filled with so much positive energy and warmth. People laugh in class; it's one of the few places in New York where you are encouraged to not put on a show, but to just be exactly as you are.

Today's lesson was about surrender, letting go of the stories we tell ourselves, freeing ourselves from situations in life that just aren't working for us. Johanna asked us to continue to repeat one of the following three mantra throughout our class - "I surrender", "I don't know", or "not my will". She asked us not to choose the one that felt the best to us, but rather to choose the one that bothered us the most. "I don't know". Those words haunt me. At one point during the class, they made my eyes tear up. I'm tearing up now just thinking about this. My life is on very uncertain ground right now. While I know what I want and have an idea how to get there, I am having to give up a lot of the stories that have sustained me in order to make the change.

I am now in the process of turning away from things in my life that just don't fit. And I don't care what anyone says - the process of good-bye is hard. Even when we know we need to let something go for our own good, it still hurts. There are dreams that have to be put to rest. There are people who aren't good for us. There are situations that we must remove ourselves from. I'm now in the process of deciding what dreams, people, and situations those are. And while I have my eye fixed on the horizon of the new life I am so excited about, it means surrendering some aspects of my life now that I love. There are no certainties in life; there are many things that we don't know, that we can't know. We must learn to be comfortable with not knowing.

Throughout the 90 minute class, I would repeat to myself "I don't know". I kept reminding myself that I can do this; I can surrender, even if it hurts. Keep a stuff upper lip and just muscle through. And then Johanna said, "you don't like those words, do you?" "No," I thought, "I don't." And then as if inside my head, Johanna said, "that's okay. Acknowledge how hard this is, how much it bothers you. And then keep going." So I did the only thing I was certain I could do. I could keep going through the asanas. I could keep moving, even with tear-filled eyes, even with a heavy heart, even while saying good-bye, I could keep moving toward my beautiful life ahead.

My Year of Hopefulness - Vermonty

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." ~ Henry B. Adams

While Mr. Adams meant for this post to be about professional teachers, I'm learning that we are all always teachers, just as we are all always students. Every moment that we're living, we're teaching. What we teach to others says an awful lot about who we are and the significance of our lives. Just as we get what we give, we learn what we teach. What we teach is our contribution to humanity, and this is not something to be taken lightly.

What I try to be mindful of in every moment is that every action we take, every word we say has true lasting effects that we will never know. That applies to every stranger we meet, as well as everyone in our personal and professional lives. That means every personal interaction, as well as every anonymous interaction. There is no excuse for leaving out please, thank you, and a smile. There is no excuse for not doing what we say we will do. Being polite, courteous, gracious, and follow-through will get us farther in this world than anything else.

Years later, others will still be thinking about what we said and did and how we treated them. I'd prefer they think well of me than ill of me. And sometimes that requires swallowing my pride a little bit, and not saying exactly what I think all of the time. Publilius Syrus got it right when he said, "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." I've learned that lesson many times over, the hard way. A little filter is good.

I'm not saying that this is easy to always remember or do. I try to get it as right as I can as often as I can. Sometimes I fall short and in the aftermath I feel a bit badly. I just double-down my efforts and try to do better going forward. At the same time that I accepted that we're all lifelong teachers and students, I also gave up the pursuit of perfection - both realizations have helped enormously.

When I got into my apartment building elevator a few weeks ago, a man I've never met before stepped in after me. I had just gotten home from a rough day, and I wasn't feeling particularly cheery. I could have looked down at my feet, lost in my own sad thoughts. Instead I looked up and smiled at the man in the elevator.

He smiled and asked me, "are you from Vermont?" I laughed.

"No, I'm not," I said, "but I spent a summer there doing a theatre internship when I was in college."

"Oh," he said. "Are they nice there in Vermont?"

"Very," I said.

"You just look like a very nice person. And I always associate being very nice with being from Vermont. You look very Vermonty."

"Well, thank you," I giggled.

"See - that's what I mean," he said. "So polite, those people from Vermont."

He hopped off the elevator and bid me good night. A small interaction considering all of the interactions I had that day. I don't know his name. He doesn't know mine. I may never see him again. But weeks later, I'm still thinking of him. I smiled to myself. Vermonty - that's a last impression I can live with.

My Year of Hopefulness - Doing What We've Never Done

All week I've been trying to write curriculum for my after-school pilot program. I'm not a trained teacher. I've tutored and I've volunteered in classrooms. Mostly, I've just been up there at the wipe board (apparently the blackboards and chalk of my youth are long-since gone) winging it.

Rather than writing curriculum, I've been staring at a very blank white screen on my laptop, complete with blinking cursor. And that little tiny voice, the one I just dread, decides to show up at the most inopportune time to make me feel even worse. "Who are you to be writing curriculum?" it says. "You don't know how to do that." And as much as I want to turn down that volume, the voice grows louder, adding more doubts, more concerns, and more insecurity to my already frazzled mind. I have no idea what I'm doing. There's no denying that.

At 11:00 last night, I closed down my laptop without having written a single word. "The voice was right," I thought. "Who do I think I am? An untrained "teacher" writing curriculum. I can't do this." I did what I often do when I'm frustrated with my writing. I read. The latest issue of Yoga Journal just arrived in my mailbox so I cracked it open and began reading from page one.

There is a belief in yoga, and I believe in Buddhism as well, that the Universe will provide us with the exact teaching we need exactly when we need it. Kaitlin Quistgaard, the Editor of Yoga Journal, wrote this month's editorial note about how to show up for life and begin something we want to do even if we aren't sure how to do it. "It seemed like a life lesson designed to show me the value of doing my part, even if I don't know what to do," she says of a recent incident she had. This sounds like valuable ammunition against that little voice that was doubting me. I keep reading.

A few pages later, I come across an article by Julia Butterfly Hill who talks about finding your purpose and growing with it. Hmmm...sounds like another good one. The whole article is one beautiful quote after another. "Who am I supposed to be in my life?...what do you want your legacy to be?...We approach everything backward...we live in a production-driven society rather than a purpose-driven society." And here's my favorite line that I'm considering having made into a t-shirt: "We don't have to know how to do something before we begin it." Though I'm a product developer, paid to produce, I am much more concerned with living my life with purpose than with things.

So that's it - that's all I needed to know to silence the little voice nagging at me. It's true - I don't know how to write a curriculum. I don't know what material will resonate with the kids I want to teach. I don't know how to actually do anything related to this project. I do know that I am a fast learner, and that I was born not knowing much of anything except how to breath, (and even that breathing isn't something we do consciously!) I do know that I want to live in a world where every child has the opportunity to learn anything and everything that interests them. I want them all to grow up happy, healthy, safe, and excited about the possibilities that lay before them. I want them all to have a chance at a good and decent life. And that's more than enough purpose to keep going.

The photo above can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Teachers

"It's lovely to know that the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." ~ Frank McCourt

Daily Good wrote a beautiful tribute to Frank McCourt today. Mr. McCourt passed away last week after having written a set of prize-winning books regarding his childhood in Ireland and his career teaching in New York City public schools. I love those books; I began reading them when I first moved to New York 11 years ago. Having gone to public school myself, his stories brought back some fun memories from my own childhood and gave me a new perspective on teaching and writing.

Now years later, I volunteer with Junior Achievement of New York, teaching in New York City public schools. I should revisit his second book, Teacher Man, to refresh my memory and learn from his. His book would also be useful as I prepare to pitch a pilot project that I’d like to launch in a New York public school in January. That’s the beauty of writing out our stories and lessons learned – they invariably help someone else down the line. Mr. McCourt is a wonderful example to illustrate that it's never too late to tell your story; he published his first book, Angela's Ashes, when he was 66. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Daily Good post got me thinking about all of the incredible teachers I’ve been fortunate to have all my life. Though I went to public school in a rural town in upstate New York, I had teachers who believed in me and inspired me every day. It is a rare gift, and I never took it for granted. I’ve been thinking lately that I should break out my stacks of stationery and write them all letters to thank them for giving their lives to help people like me.

I went on to attend two wonderful universities, also with a slate of brilliant and inspiring teachers. Through my life I’ve had a few constants – my mom and my cell phone number immediately come to mind. And I always had the benefit of excellent teachers.

Teachers don’t get enough credit or praise. Their hours are long and yet some people discount teaching as a profession because many have their summers off. In truth, they put in a whole lot of extra time over the 9 months when school is in session, much more time than a lot of people in corporate jobs.

When I worked at Rollins College, Doc Rodgers, one of the theatre professors would joke that he was heading off to class to “shape young minds”. And while he always said it in jest, it’s absolutely true. Teachers take this responsibility of shaping young minds very seriously, and we should, too, by supporting them and thanking them for all that they've done and will continue to do on our behalf. Our futures depend on them.

The photo above is Frank McCourt in his New York City classroom.

My Year of Hopefulness - How-to with Howcast

Sunday morning is my favorite time of the week. I feel rested from Saturday, likely had a great time out with friends on Saturday evening, and I relax on Sunday morning doing anything that makes me happy. Usually it's getting my coffee and reading the New York Times. Throw in a great feature story on CBS Sunday Morning, and I'm smiling from ear to ear all day. Sundays are a gift I treasure.

In this morning's New York Times, I read about Howcast, a new company with a noble, elegant mission: "Howcast shows consumers engaging, useful how-to videos and guides wherever, whenever they need to learn how." Its sole goal is to help people help themselves with just about anything. The range of content is immense: some are very serious, even life-saving, informative clips (how to treat someone for shock) while others are flat-out hilarious (how to fight off a vampire). The platform is easy to use and has a clean design. The videos are short and succinct. Best of all, community members can add how-to videos of their own, so if you have an expertise that you want to share with the world, now you have a clever platform to do it.

Some of my favorites from this morning's hunt through Howcast:
How to Survive a Bear Attack - I was laughing out loud
Fantastic collection of Yoga poses - their sports and fitness collection is extensive, from how to dribble a soccer ball to how to roast the ultimate marshmallow
Websites an resources on how to learn a foreign language
How to get your home ready for a dog

The search function is robust; I found the info I needed quickly. The load times of the videos were much shorter than I expected and the resolution is high. There are also wikiguides on topics should you choose to read the information rather than watch a video. And while other sites require account creation with a username and password, Howcast can sync with a Facebook account, allowing users to participate immediately to comment, vote, and favorite videos. Whether you're looking for useful, timely info or a source of smart entertainment, Howcast provides it anywhere you are, exactly when you need it. DIY really is the new luxury and Howcast helps you get it.

Follow them on Twitter @howcast.

Marshmallows and spaghetti

I began teaching today - my first class in what I hope will be a long series of workshops geared toward igniting creativity and infusing work with fun. We started with Peter Skillman's game to build the tallest free-standing structure with spaghetti, string, and tape that supports the weight of a marshmallow. And with this seemingly simple activity, the laughter began, and the eyes lit up.

One of the participants said at the start of the activity, "I'm at a complete loss of what to do." It was the greatest way to start our discussion. Innovation, along with creativity and design, begins with this simple statement. We are confronted with a problem, and the only thing we have to help us move forward is our own imagination. This is where the fun begins.

The best thing I fond about beginning with a game, and laughter, is that it opens people up. We flew through the two subsequent powerpoint presentations and got to the good stuff - the questions and exchange of ideas on how to further fold new thinking into an old company. The group taught me as much, if no more than, I had taught them. It's the best thing about being a teacher - with the right questions it puts you in the position of being a student as well.