Finding Your Voice

In the slew of chaos and hunting for answers at Teacher Training, there is one thing that everyone here is searching for. Not just the students, not only the teachers and assistants, but all of us involved in the discovery of self are looking to be heard. 

This hunt spans the masses, from Dr. Peddy - the Anatomy teacher who makes his point and educates us with his stand-up Emergency Room comedy routine (he totally missed his calling btw) - to our Posture Clinic teachers, who try to make their impression by getting us to really listen and put their feedback into practice on our dialogue. Then there's the pissed off roommates (thankfully, I don't have to partake in that drama since I have my own room, but I hear enough to know what's up), who just want what's fair and peaceful in their living space. And of course, there's the students who want to master their dialogue and find their voice in the accuracy and tone of their posture deliveries.

Today I found my voice while delivering Eagle Pose, Garurasana. Susan Antonaccio, an instructor  of mine back home, told me that Eagle was her favorite posture to memorize at Training. When I first started studying it on the plane ride out here, I could not understand why. It seemed the most challenging of anything I had looked at, not to mention, the emotional strain I associated with that trip did not help in easing my anxiety about learning 23 other postures at the time, most of which (I now know) are even more complex.

My three previous posture deliveries before Eagle, all reconfirmed that I did not really want to teach yoga. After all, I'm a business woman at heart and my pauses, jumbling of the words and uncertainty under the pressure of saying the poses in front of a live audience were wearing my nerves thin. But not today. My performance today was a game changer; academy award winning! The Bitch is Back! Let's face it, you need attitude, nerve and balls to get up in front of a group of 40+ and make them do crazy things in the heat. Why else would they listen to you? Trust me, you would not want to take class with a pussycat teacher. It just doesn't work. Command the presence of your students and they will work for you and most importantly, they will work even harder for themselves, inside and outside the yoga studio.

I can relate this topic to so many other experiences I've had so far at Training, some of which you've already read about. In the end, finding your voice simply boils down to finding and owning your Truth and tuning out the unnecessary noise and static around you. The nonsense can be deafening and drown out your own voice, but only if you let it. 

How will you make yourself heard this weekend?