Bikram Yoga Chadds Ford
Yoga for You
See Jane teach!
Jane Clark is in her final week of teacher training. She is our first ‘home-grown’ teacher. We can hardly wait to see her! Jane will teach her first Bikram yoga class at BYCF on Tuesday, November 20th at 4:30pm. Please join us in welcoming her home to Chadds Ford!
Here, Jane describes her eighth week of Teacher Training.
Week Eight was kind of like sleep walking.
At this point I just do the yoga, without much thought or effort. (Not to say that my practice is anything wonderful: It is more that we are all so conditioned to just go through the movements without much thought. The yoga has become second nature.) Bikram, Rajashree, Emmy Cleaves, Jim Kallett and four guest lecturers were all here this past week so we had all kinds of lectures on how to teach, Hindu philosophy, benefits and common mistakes for each posture, nutrition, yoga therapy and how to open a yoga studio. This was of course combined with a good share of sleepless nights, Bollywood movies and the Mahabharata.
I am starting to feel like I have hit a saturation point. We have learned so much in such a short time and I really feel ready to get started on the next phase: teaching! It has definitely been harder to pay attention, harder to give it my all in yoga, and harder to just accept the ‘process’ this week. A lot of people are mentally preparing for the return home and it feels like the staff has been harder on us than usual: the more we pull away from the yoga bubble, the harder they try to suck us back in.
Being here in LA has given me a lot of time to think about my life. Before I decided to come to teacher training I felt very unsettled. I have had a job since I was 13 years old. I was never financially well off, but I have always been financially independent. When Brooks and I got married, I gave up my business, moved to the suburbs and strangely became a housewife (mainly because employment for architects has been very sparse over the past few years). Although Brooks has very happily supported me, I can’t say that I was happy being supported: it was just not natural to me. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was going to do professionally in the long term. This search became a barrier in many areas of my life. I felt like I needed to figure out the ‘job’ before i could do anything else.
Now, with the training almost under my belt, I have started to look forward to many parts of my life, not just the opportunity to teach Bikram yoga. I am looking forward to just being at home with Brooks and Lily and appreciating my free time. I am looking forward to the prospect of starting a family, which seemed stressful without a potential career path in front of me. I am really looking forward to spending the holidays with my family and friends. And I am ready to meet the big 4 – 0! Forty looks to be the dawn of a new age, one in which I am completely happy with my life, my body and at peace with my thoughts and feelings. I guess there’s nothing like being away to make you appreciate what you have.
I can’t wait to come home!
Bikram Yoga Chadds Ford 