As I sit here in contemplation over the last few trainings I have conducted with family and friends, I am starting to feel more confident in taking the role of a yoga instructor as a future employment.
It has become a certainty that this is what I would like to do in my future.
There are a couple of reasons for this, one pair of student(my brother and sister-in law) whom I have been teaching for the past three months have started to see improvement in not only in their breathing techniques, which in turn made way for less snoring in the bedroom and therefore better rest, but also improved postures. Do let me explain how such improvements in their students make one more confident in their teaching… My brother has… a lack for a better term, ‘a hunched back’ and therefore is a hunchback. His thoracic spine has a curvature more convex than normal which make certain postures more difficult and less possible to attain. My sister-in-law after having gone through a caesarean operation three years ago, have a weak core centre and therefore tends to walk like duck or tends to ‘waddle’. Both wanted to get rid of their ‘abnormalities’ and had different end goals to their yoga practice. There was something else they both wanted from the practice, to be able to use breathing techniques to cope with the stresses of having two toddlers running around their home constantly wanting attention.
And soon we started on our yoga journey, one attempting to work and stumble through her instructions while instructing two students who seem very much to want to learn more about yoga practice.
We would meet every weekend, for 90 minutes without fail and concentrated on similar sequences working the core and opening up the upper body and back. They listened to every instruction given to them with no complaints except for the core work which they looked forward to (not really!).
They started to see improvements in the opening of their shoulders and stability in their plank pose. And in time, their elder toddler started to join in the class and it started to be a family routine. The younger toddler would just watch like we were putting up a show in the zoo and she was the spectator, occasionally laughing when someone can hold their poses for too long. She tends to laugh at most things to be fair.
As I start to see the improvements in them, I start to see improvements in myself, having to able to change up the sequence as and when the need arose. I was looking to do more research into correcting my brother’s thoracic spine and what can be done to ease the tension in the lumbar my sister-in-law had.
It was enriching to say the least, looking forward again to see them this weekend for another sequence. Maybe this time, the young toddler would be tempted to join in as well?