You play like you practice

That's something I heard Magic Johnson say on tv when he was trying to coach the Lakers. I feel I have to mention here that: 

  1.  I'm a Celtics fan  
  2.  Magic Johnson is a human with faults, not someone I idolize...but damn he could play.

He was baffled by a new generation of players that were full of talent but, sort of bottled up their best as a way of "saving it for the game". In Magic's mind, and in his life, you could never expect to just "turn it on" when the horn blew no matter how much talent you had. 

You had to respect and cultivate your abilities through practice.

And every time I think of what Magic was saying about his players, I think of my own practice and how it relates to my teaching: I believe you teach how you practice.

Do you have fun when you practice?

Are you disciplined?

Do you respect the practice?

Are you kind to yourself?

If you teach, how do the answers to those questions translate to youR classes?

Do you have fun teaching- do you respect the craft?

Are you kind to your students, acknowledging their limits and teaching what is in front of you?

Do you teach your practice or someone else's?

There is no magic switch you can flick when it is time to teach, you instinctually pull from what your body knows, and your body only knows what it practices.  

Why I Teach

1

I think I’m supposed to say, “I wanted to share my love of yoga with everyone” but that wouldn’t be true. I love to teach yoga as much as I love to practice it. It’s selfish but my teaching helps my practice as much as my practice helps my teaching and I care as much about my practice as my job of teacher. I’ll think I know a pose inside and out, something I’ve been doing and teaching for years and then, a student will ask me a question about it that I can’t answer right away and I’m forced to understand the pose even more and find a better way to explain it.  

There was a point in my first few years of teaching that I felt I had made a really big mistake. I wasn’t intellectually satisfied and I was starting to get bored. Luckily around that same time I started to teach workshops and make them an open forum for questions. My first workshop I think I got about thirty questions and had maybe two answers. But I took everyone’s email down, looked for the answers and wrote to each student. That was when I really started to become a teacher.

2

It’s not an easy job and I like the challenge. When I first began practicing, I remember thinking to myself, “(s)he’s just walking around the room and calling out poses, hell that’s easier than my job…”.  My style of teaching is more active than my first few teachers but that’s not what makes it challenging. There’s choreography, good sequencing and, memorization all delivered with enthusiasm while paying attention to as much as you can in any given student without forgetting there are ten-60 other students in the room. There’s explaining weird things clearly and succinctly without leaving people in a pose while you’re yapping away. There’s making things interesting for experienced people while keeping things simple for beginners. There’s history, there’s philosophy, there’s a dead language, it’s awesome.

3

I started teaching before I had a formal teacher training (formal teacher training is kind of new). Now there is so much out there I think anyone who loves to practice should take a good teacher training just to learn more about yoga and just to see if there is a chance you love to teach. Teaching and practicing are two completely different things. You might not decide to teach (and if you don’t love teaching you shouldn’t) but at worst, your practice and knowledge of the practice will have expanded for the better ten fold. There are a lot of yoga teachers out there right now but there is ALWAYS room for someone who is really good at their job.



Why I eat what I eat

1

I think I’m trying to make up for lost time. Like an awful lot of young women, I struggled with eating disorders, especially as a dancer. I think I spent the summer when I was 14 eating ice cream and potato chips and then throwing up. And we didn’t have a healthy diet at home. I feel like now, not only do I need to eat really well to stay healthy, but also to try to make up for all the years of horrible eating (if that’s even possible.)

2

I’m not vegan but…I try to make the majority of what I eat be green and animal-product free. What I do is try to make sure that at a minimum, five days out of any week, I’m vegan. It’s different days in any given week and even that can be hard. Luckily I love to cook. My favorite bread to bake is a simple Tuscan loaf that is just different flours, water and, yeast. And even if I don’t have time to make everything from scratch, the gods gave us Trader Joe’s with all those frozen vegetable medleys and veggie burgers – just sauté a bag of something and throw in some broccoli or spinach, chop up some tomatoes and a veggie burger, add some veganaise and I have a “Big Bowl of Dinner”. But am I going to have turkey on Thanksgiving this year? Yes. Do I make my pesto  (with grated cheese? Yup. Once and I while do I eat a piece of fish or break down and roast a chicken? Mhmm, yup I do (I try keep that last one to no more than once a month).

3

Our current food system is broken. We absolutely torture animals and it’s unforgivable. We’ve fished our oceans to death. Industry lobbyists have more control and influence over what information gets to the public than scientists and don’t get me started on our healthcare system. But I’m still not 100% vegan…it’s something I struggle with and that I’m still trying to figure out. For now I try to eat real food and make sure I’m truly enjoying what I eat.


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