I'm A Teacher!

Ugh.

I know. I haven't written much lately. My first week back in Toronto has been incredibly busy. I haven't even had a chance to do up my summary video blog from the last week of teacher training. But I will early this week. I promise. And in the mean time, I can tell you all about the first class I taught this past week... On Thursday morning.

I was assigned the 6:30am class to teach on Thursday. I showed up about 6am. My studio director was there and gave me the tour of how things work. She also informed me of all the perks of being a teacher (no paying for classes and I get to use a mat for free!)... And she also showed me how to sign everyone in.

This was all the easy stuff. And I was very nervous about going in and teaching the class itself. But she assured me she had faith in me and that I could do it.

I started class about two minutes late, just to give students enough time to get into the room. (People arrive just before the class starts, first thing in the morning.) I walked in, pushed the light dimmers up and said...

"Good morning everyone! My name is The Missus. I am your yoga teacher."

No one was new, so I quickly demonstrated Pranayama breathing. And then got them going. I evidently rushed them through both sets of Pranayama, because I was done with that at the 8-minute mark... Which is where you should be, but only IF you started the class exactly on time. I was two minutes late starting. So I actually got them through both sets of breathing in 6 minutes.

"At least we are on time," I thought to myself. I then went into the rest of the Standing Series, with dialogue... But not verbatim and not in the exact order of words. I did, however, say every posture in Sanskrit as well as the English version. And got them on the floor at about 48 minutes into class.

Not bad.

Because I knew I was ahead of schedule, I did give NICE, LONG Savasanas in between each of the poses. And I only mixed up the whole "right ear on the towel, look to the left/left ear on the towel, look to the right" bit a few times. Class ended two minutes before it was scheduled to, which was a great thing and largely due to the fact that I was wearing a wrist watch as I taught.

At the end of class, I said, "You've worked your body 90 minutes just so you can take advantage of this final Savasana. Please stay for a few minutes. If anyone is American, Happy Thanksgiving. I will be outside if you have any questions. Namaste,"

And I was DONE! Yay!

My studio director came out a minute later and assured me I had done well. She said she felt comfortable leaving me there by myself in the future. She only had a few tips for me...

• Don't rush Pranayama.
• Change up the dialogue for Eagle. (I said the same exact thing 4 times).
• Be less "cheerleadery".
• Don't mix up my "rights and lefts".
• When I do mix them up, don't say "Sorry".
• Don't sit on the podium the entire time during the Floor series. Stand up and give energy.

These are all easy things to fix. Class number two is this Thursday, again at 6:30am. It will be followed later that evening with the 8pm class.

Teaching is fun!!

Sequined Uggs?

Granted, they're not as ugly as the "ChUggs"...

But Oprah Winfrey's "Favorite Things" list this year included sequined Uggs...

Or, "SqUggs," as I like to call them.

Really? I have to ask... Would you wear them?

I would not. I like Uggs. (Shh! Don't tell anyone!) But I don't own any now. I threw them out last year and switched purely to Hunters with Welly Socks in them. (I need something waterproofed. And Uggs with waterproofing didn't cut it.)

To me, Uggs are for mildly chilly weather. I wore fake Uggs in San Diego during Teacher Training. I bought them at Old Navy for $34. And they were perfect for the time there. But I threw them out when I was packing to come back home. They were just too trashed to bring back. And I knew I wouldn't be able to wear them up here.

If it didn't snow and get slushy in Toronto in the Winter, just remain cold, I would totally wear regular Uggs. But the SqUggs?

Them's just too fancy and "trying too hard" to be cool.

The Hotel In San Diego

So...

I spent the past nine weeks living in a hotel for Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. Hotel living isn't easy. There are comforts that you want and can't really get access to. Such as...

• Inconsistency in room assignment
• A bath tub
• Fridge space
• Reliable Internet connection
• Toilet paper when you need it
• Clean sheets
• Proper disposal of trash
• A toilet that doesn't break
• Clean towels
• Horrible Customer Service

These are all issues I had while staying at the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego for my two-month training. But before I go into the specifics around the issues, let me tell you what was good about the hotel...

Location: It kicked ass. Easy to get to. Near the subway. Near a mall.

That's about it. Now for the "difficulty" with the hotel...

• Inconsistency in room assignment: We were put in the shittiest of the shitty part of the hotel. Oh.. Wait. Excuse me. SOME of us were put in the shittiest of the shitty part of the hotel. Others were only put in the semi-shitty part. The "semi-shitty" part had "moisture" issues experienced by some yogis (i.e. mold). Those of us in the shittiest part of the "motel" (because where we were staying was NOT 'hotel" quality) put up with a moldy smell (no actual mold) and one person (not me) found a rat in their room. (I actually never found a single bug, so I can only report about the vermin critter from the person whose room it was in who told me. To the hotel's credit, they did move him to a different room.)
• A bath tub: There was a teeny-tiny border around my shower that one could certainly attempt to bathe in... But yogis need access to a bathtub. We have to soak. Our muscles badly needed it. And our area of the hotel didn't have it.
• Fridge space: I was fortunate. I had a single room. So I got the tiny fridge all to myself. But most people were in shared rooms, and had to share the same size fridge between the two of them. I could barely fit my needs into the fridge each week. I can't imagine how tough it was for those who had to share the small thing.
• Reliable Internet connection: The hotel gave us a "discounted" rate of $5 a day for Internet. I need the Internet. DAILY. So that wasn't gonna cut it. I opted to subscribe to an AT&T Wi-Fi account for $20 a month instead. The connection was always reliable, but it was way cheaper than paying the $5 a day price to access the same connection. The cancellation fee for the annual contract for the AT&T Wi-Fi account was only $20. So my total cost for Internet - $60. Way better than the $300 it would have cost me to do $5 a day.
• Toilet paper when you need it: OHMYGOD! Housekeeping would NEVER give you spare toilet paper rolls. And I didn't want them having to clean my room every day (I went every other), so I had to start taking the toilet paper roll off the post just to get them to replace it when they did clean. Even if you had just a thin layer of toilet paper left on the roll, they wouldn't replace it. So I was hoarding toilet paper like crazy. I even stole some off the housekeeper's cart when she wasn't looking. GIRLS NEED LOTS OF TOILET PAPER!
• Clean sheets: I think my sheets were changed maybe five times the entire time I was there. How do I know? Well, I only sleep on one side of the bed. The other side of the bed was where I ate. And I am a messy eater. Crumbs and a pizza sauce stain remained for a good two weeks on my bed at one point.
• Proper disposal of trash: Every Saturday, after I did my grocery shopping, I would have a bit of trash. Not much... But more than would fit in the small room trash bin they gave us. So I would put my trash in plastic bags next to my can on Sunday mornings. I would also breakdown Zico bulk boxes and cereal boxes, indicating they could be trashed. Housekeeping would often leave everything that wasn't in the trash bin. So I started throwing the trash in the garbage can near my building... But a worker passing by once asked me not to do that. He told me to just leave it in my room for housekeeping to get. It was a vicious cycle.
• A toilet that doesn't break: Nothing like having your toilet break on you regularly while you've picked up a habit of drinking three liters of water in yoga class. At LEAST twice a week, I would have to call housekeeping to send someone to fix my toilet. At one point, I wanted to ask them, "Can you please just leave the plunger? I'll do it myself."
• Clean towels: Just like with the toilet paper... Towels - even when you left them on the floor - wouldn't get replaced when you needed them to be. I would often see the towels I had left of the floor to replaced (which is a method they asked us to use to indicate when we wanted towels changed) folded exactly up back on the rack. One time though, one of my fellow yogis had to call housekeeping THREE TIMES before they brought her clean towels. They're not very responsive.
• Horrible Customer Service: There are just far too many things I could say about the number of times someone would call or go to the front desk for assistance with something, and get the response from the CSR on the phone or there say, "That's not my job." Oh, and my favorite part was when my Mum sent me Halloween cards a week before Halloween from Arizona, and they didn't call me to tell me about them till 12 DAYS afterwards.

I would never stay there if I had a choice. But in terms of teacher training, staying there was certainly manageable. And, again, the location was good.

A Yogini's Gotta Look Good, Right?

Oh dear.

Being at Teacher Training (TT) is so dangerous for your pocketbook. Money just flies out the door, let me tell you. And the one thing I have seen it fly out the door for people with has been yoga wear. Or as we like to call it at TT, "yoga kit."

At TT, various yoga vendors sneak onto hotel grounds and set up shop in hotel rooms. The reason they do this is because they are not contracted to set-up an open booth and sell to us. So everything is done super-duper top secret... Always word-of-mouth...

Twitter:

OMG! Phat Buddha sell in room XXXX! Here till Sunday. You guys gotta check them out. Spread the word!

Facebook:

"Hey Missus! Do you know when Onzie is coming back to town?"

"Hey girl! They're going to have a booth at the comp. But Phat Buddha is in town. Room XXXX."

In the Lecture Tent:

"Yoga Bela is here! They're in the Regency Tower. Look at all this stuff they had! Love the prints! Room XXXX."

"Is Shakti going to be coming too?"

"Nope. They are offering free shipping here though."

"Ooh! Did you hear that Mika will be here next weekend?"

"Also, don't forget about the Bikram TT night at Lululemon in Lajolla on Sunday! You can get your 15% teaching discount early."

It is insane. I only purchased a few things from on-site clothing distributors... A pair of capris from the Bikram Boutique. And two pairs of Phat Buddha side string shorts. But last night, at the Lululemon Night, I went crazy. I picked up:

• 2 pairs of teaching capris
• 2 teaching tanks
• 1 practice tank
• 1 pair of practice shorts
• 1 new yoga mat bag

My "teaching yoga kit" will be different than my "practice yoga kit." My teaching stuff will be nicer. And much less revealing. But when I practice? Shorts shorts and very open tanks.... Because it gets very hot.

I didn't spend as much as some people did. So I don't feel guilty. Plus, most of my current practice clothes aren't going to be coming back with me. They are just too worn out and smelly.

Time to start fresh!

Things I Can't Wait For...

I have about a week and a half till I go back home to Toronto. And I can not wait. Going back home means...

• I will have a reason to wear something other than Lululemon yoga pants and tees.
• I will have access to shoes other than flipflops and my Ugg-like boots I bought from Old Navy.
• I will have a kitchen again! I am so over hotel-room cooking.
• On that note, I am craving vegetables and fruit. And meat. These things are hard to keep/cook in your hotel room when you don't have much fridge space and nothing to cook on.
• I will be able to take a bath finally. I shower at least twice a day here... But I miss baths. And when you have two yoga classes a day, you want to soak to relax your muscles. First thing I am doing as soon as I get home is taking a long bath.
• I can go back to my job. I miss making decisions. I miss the people there. And I miss earning money.

Other than getting to see my husband again (which I get to do next week when he comes out here to San Diego), the thing I am most looking forward to is returning to a yoga practice that is therapeutic. For a good number of us here, our yoga practice has been rough lately. Your muscles don't have enough time to recover between classes. We're achey. Joints hurt. And we're all retaining water like crazy because of how much we are drinking.

Only 8 days of yoga left. And 11 days till I go home.