Yoga Training: Home Sweet Home #yogastory

Yoga Teacher Training

It’s been nearly a week now since I went to my last day of evolation’s August hot yoga teacher training in Missoula, Montana. (Since we are doing an extended training, we will continue in the fall.)

About three weeks before the training I had no intention of attending the training.

Pause on life?

I’m sure there are people out there who register and plan for something like a teacher training for months ahead of time, and I do recommend this. But I, friends, was not one of those people. I’m a mother of two kids, teach full time at the local university, teach online for a different university, take classes toward my doctorate, and help my husband run our small business. Yoga has been my sanctuary for years and years, but why in the world would I want to attend a teacher training? I surely have no time to teach yoga, and what the heck was I going to do with my kids for two weeks straight?

I had always known that I might want to teach yoga, but had assumed it would have to be in at least ten years (that’s my imaginary marker for a time when things will be “calm”.) In varied, secretive spurts I had researched teacher training options and while I was always swept away by fantasies of meditation classes in grass-roofed huts followed by hours of yoga on white, sandy beaches, and elegant meals in the jungle, it was a pretty short-lived romance; my reality buzzer came around much too quickly. Four to eight weeks? How much money? I need a new passport? How could I just press “pause” on my life for that long?

Home sweet home

But then, evolation came here – to my home studio. The weekend before it began, I was still hemming and hawing, thinking of about 100 reasons I should not do it. But I slowly came around because, jeez, it’s right here, and boy, I can sleep in my own bed at night, and gosh, my own town IS pretty fabulous.

And lo and behold, come Monday morning there I was, sitting with an amazing small group of people, about to begin a journey that would change my life.

PS: Sometimes I’m a drama queen, but I really do mean it changed my life.

Amy Parks is a poet, yogi and writing teacher in Missoula, Montana. She has practiced Iyengar, Hatha, and Ashtanga yoga for the past 15 years and is a certified evolation yoga teacher.