Friday, June 27, 2008

Friday Morning

The first day of our Teacher Training was really incredible. We have a really great group. There are 19 people in the group- 3 people who were not in out Immersion (Brent from Arizona/Vancouver, Darren from San Antonio, and Jerry from Louisianna) and it is really great to have them in the group. The fit right in and add great new energy which is not always the case when you add new people to a mix after 100-hours and more of study and group bonding.

The first day is a lot of "Context" and setting the stage for the more experiential work that will follow. We spent the morning with some "getting to know you" stuff, reviewing Anusara Yoga Philosophy and Anusara Yoga Methodology. I spent sometime reviewing the Video Assessment Form that we use on the Certification Committee because I am using that as a guide for the "Anusara Yoga Standard". It is a tricky thing because there are so many things that you can do in a class that are still "Good Teaching" and "Effective Teaching" but are not on that list. There are just as many things that are necessary to get the job of teaching Ansuara Yoga done that, if evaluated for certification on a video would not pass, but oh well. And there is the whole tendency of preparing so much to pass a video that you are not preparing to teach a class itself but still it is good to know that the basics of the standard and the expectations for passing the test, so to speak. And if you do all the things on the video assessment form regularly and get used to evaluating your class along those lines, you are going to be teaching good, solid classes. My point is that it is not the whole ball of wax.

Teacher Training Level One is about learning the basics of what I call "the recipe." It is like making a good pound cake. No chocolate chips, no icing, not a marbled variety. Just a good basic pound cake. I happen to love pound cake so this is not a criticism. I shared with the group today that I have taken Level One teacher training wit John about 5 times and that while everyone gets excited for Level Two and "more advanced" things, the truth of the matter is that people never fail their videos for Level Two problems. They fail them for basic Level One problems like their pound cake was not sweet enough or it had no leavening agent. (Think observation and verbal adjustments or not keeping a heart theme alive.) And fail is to strong a word, but for the sake of making a point I am using it anyway.

We spent a lot of time talking about Intrinsic Goodness and with how to create heart-based themes. And the group praticed presenting themes in partners and small groups. We talked about how to go from Univeral to Personal and from PEersonal to Universal and the encessity of really establishing very clearly a few words that you are going to use to bring the themalive. Verbs, adjectives and so on.

Well, ther ismore to share but I ahve to get in the shower since I ahve a long drive up to Nroth Austin in rush hour. More to come.

1 comment:

mandy said...

This is TT numero quatro for me. I'm just glad that you took it 5 times with John as I was begining to feel really slow....na just kidding. I knew from the start that one teacher training was just the beginning of the many teacher trainings that I will go through. BTW I am considering the Level 2 training in Boston. Could you give me a little insight on the difference between level 1 and 2. It's seems like Level 1 should be called level 1-4. I just want to take another training TT with John this year and that's what his offering.

Also the recipe approach is fantastic. I haven't even heard John present it in that way.(I think that this stuff is quite natural for him, I on the otherhand do real well with formulas) It was quite remarkable to hear people saying yesterday....aww this ain't so bad. I've never ever heard people have sighs of relief when starting to learn how to teach heart themes. Your on to something Christina you sure are.