October 8th, 2014 | Uncategorized
During my last few months in America, I worked hard to become a certified vinyasa yoga instructor. I definitely didn’t think my efforts would come in handy so quickly, however, during my stay in Ireland.
Just about everyone here is aware yoga is a passion of mine… I don’t attempt to hide it, as I’m usually doing all kinds of poses for no reason throughout a given day without even thinking about it. A few brave staff members at SCL thought it’d be cool to have a ‘team yoga day’, with me as the instructor. It was fun to plan out a beginner’s practice and take myself back to when I started. Remembering all of the poses that were once difficult for me gave me a sense of accomplishment but also greatly humbled me because I realize there is so much progress yet to be made. As with anything in life, I’ll forever be a learner when it comes to yoga.
I knew most of the staff were new to it, so I set the intention of our first class with a reminder that one does not need to be flexible to do yoga, and there is no such thing as being good or bad at it. I know most of the staff come from competitive backgrounds in sport, and I feared some of them would not have fun if they weren’t “successful” in practicing the sequence. It turned out everyone came with a great sense of humor about trying something new, and there was really nothing to worry about at all! They all seemed to have a lot of fun with it, and hopefully got a little relaxation out of it too. Now there is talk about having team yoga at least every other week, and I may even be teaching it to some of the kids at our Shehoops sessions!
I thought when I moved here my focus would be put back into basketball, but SCL has recognized yoga as something I really care about and now given me an opportunity to keep it at the forefront of my activities and make it something we can all do together, and I couldn’t be more grateful. After all, yoga changes life too. :p
