Week 1 - Yoga Teacher Training

I  have started my 200-hour Yogaworks Teacher Training program with David Kim on 4 April 2016 and the first week has passed so quickly.

I chose to do the Yogaworks TT program as it offers a balance and comprehensive training to prepare the practitioner to teach skillfully with safety, integrity and compassion.   Having attended David Kim's workshop before, I wanted to learn more from him as he is a teacher who teaches with passion and enthusiasm and his precise instructions made it easy to learn and follow his teachings.

Our first class began with learning to stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) which is the blue print pose for the other poses.  We learnt how to activate and engage different parts of our body to ensure that our body is in correct alignment to ensure a good foundation.   Tadasana was done standing up, against the wall and lying down so that we can  build the 3 platforms - knees over ankles, hips over knees and shoulders over hips for the optimal alignment where there is a plum line through the center of the torso.

During the course of the week, we also learnt about the key simple actions, key pairs of counter actions and complementary actions when doing the poses like Utthita Hastasana, Prasarita Padottanasana, Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, etc.

The morning session of the class was spent on anatomy studies, followed by 2-3 hours of asana practice before we break for lunch.    After lunch, David would go through the yoga sutras to help us understand the philosophy of yoga.    We have also started to learn to chant the sutras which help us to familiarize ourselves with saying them.  

We have started to look and analyse each other bodies, learnt to do some hands-on adjustments and practice teach with a partner during the week.

It's been a hectic first week of absorbing all this new knowledge but I am grateful to David for letting us know that it is normal to feel anxiety and sometimes lost during the first two weeks of the program.  I know that I only need to stay focus in class and do the daily reading and written homework assignments to keep on track and let everything falls in place without thinking too far ahead.  David is also helping us by letting us know the areas where we should pay particular attention to for our final examination.

I am very inspired by my fellow trainees.  Two of them, Ken Yang and Claudia who are teachers are still teaching classes in the evening after the long day of spending eight hours learning in the class.   I am also very motivated by the group of trainees who are not well-versed in English who need to spend additional time to translate everything that David is teaching into Mandarin.   I really admire their dedication and courage in taking the teaching training in another language.   Ken Yang who is the owner of Simplylife Yoga who brought the Yogaworks TT program to Malaysia has earned my admiration as besides attending the program himself, he is also giving revision class to these trainees on Saturday to help them understand the teaching materials and assisting David in translating his teaching in Mandarin during class.

I hope to support my fellow trainees by posting inspirational quotes daily and sharing information which are relevant to our training on my FB page.