YTT Day 1

Clarissa
Mar 30, 2018
3 min read

Hi everyone!

I'm currently sat writing this in a Starbucks in London near the Shakespear Globe, trying to warm up and dry off a little bit. For some reason I decided, on today of all days, that I am a hardy Northerner (Really not, but as I live in Manchester it works) and a little bit of rain isn't going to stop me from a walk I have done multiple times before, from Covent Gardens to the Globe. Apparently, it was more than a little more than a little rain... Lets just say I arrived at the Globe dripping wet, unable to see through my glasses and forming a puddle where I stood, I looked as though I had swam across the thames rather than walked over it! Everyone I passed looked at me as though I was insane, from underneath their waterproofs and umbrellas, and being the odd person I am, I found this amusing more than anything else.

Anyway, enough of my crazy antics in London, back to why I am writing today. It’s nearing the second weekend of my YTT course, so I thought I would let you know what I got up to on the first one. Remember the second Beast of the East? Well, I had to travel from Salford to Hyde in that weather, Saturday wasn’t too bad. And the Sunday, wasn’t too bad either, especially with my extra layers! (It looks like the weather dislikes me)

Day 1:

My course is pretty small, there’s only 5 of us. I don’t know how surprising it was to me, but I am the youngest person on my course. We started out with some philosophy, it was great being able to discuss the the theories behind the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with people who had also been studying it.

After a quick forecast update (One of the girls on my course was travelling over from Sheffield!) we then went on to how to open a yoga class. We learnt about the importance of grounding at the start of a yoga practice, apparently its important and not just a nice thing to do. It's important to bring you focus in wards before a yoga practice, it allows you to forget about the stresses of the day so far.

What comes next? Mobilisation. You know when you are laid in Savasana at the start of a yoga class and your teacher tells you to start wiggling your fingers and toes, or slowly moving different body parts? That is the first part of this section. Imagine going from a really relaxed state straight into sun salutations! Not fun. In this part of the class, it’s all about listening to your body, working through any tight spots and waking your body up for the asana practice coming up.

Now we are moving, we go into either sun salutations or pulse raisers, these always start off slow, building in speed to get you body warmed up. Ever wondered why sun salutations are pretty much always at the start of a class and usually get more and more challenging as the class goes along? Well, its to prep your body for the main phase.

Down to the studio now for a yoga class. We started our session in the studio with a beginners yoga class, following the structure recommended by YMCA. I love going back to a beginners class on occasion, whilst I love and thrive on the challenge of a more advanced class, I also like getting a reminder of how much I have improved. Now for the fun part, leading a grounding session. In a pair and a trio, we took it in turns to lead our own grounding phase, no prep, completely improvised. I’m not sure how the others felt, but it sounds way more daunting than it actually was, I actually enjoyed it and wanted to move onto the next part of the class. Sadly though, we were only doing the grounding, so I had to stop.

After lunch we made a start on the main phase, this meant starting to go through 52 asanas taught on my course, including modifications and advancements. This was actually really fun, I always find it so intriguing to discover what different people find easy or challenging, and how that differs to me. It was also really amusing to find out the most common and preferred

counter poses, we liked rag doll and childs pose most.

So, that’s pretty much day one, we did 3 hours of theory and 4 hours of practice. And about 1 hour looking at the snow and worrying about how the girl from Sheffield was going to get home in it!