And so it begins...

Hello! Welcome! What a week! All the exclamation marks! :)

Last Sunday, March 12th, I graduated from Yoga Teacher Training at Black Swan Yoga. When I signed up for this adventure I always knew that I was interested in teaching, but I had no idea how or when it would start. But boy did it start!

This past week I taught four classes - one in a studio, four in my home space - and grossed almost as much as I set for my weekly goal - with no private sessions at that. I had a private session booked but she needed to reschedule because her client went into labor. Midwives so flakey ;) I kid, I kid! When babies are coming, babies are coming, and everything gets rescheduled. And she was kind enough to let me know that night before that the mom might start labor at any moment. But that's what's going to happen. Appointments are going to be booked, classes are going to be scheduled and then people won't come, people will cancel. This is the nature of the beast that is a business.

And speaking of people not coming, that was my first class. Nobody came. Crickets. Figuratively and literally, as I live in the country. I could blame Spring Break and SXSW and in fact, I will. Yes, starting when folks are out of town or downtown at one of the biggest events for the year in Austin is a difficult week to start. But, now there’s nowhere to go but up?

I teach an afternoon class during the week that is geared towards the neighborhoods since we live in the country. I would be surprised if an unknown face came down the dirt road for a Tuesday/Thursday 5pm class. However, it would be a pleasant and most welcome surprise and really the outside space here is a wonder!

So my Thursday class I had three students. There was my dedicated yogi and two of my mother-in-law’s friends that were visiting from out of town. They weren’t aware that they would be here during yoga time so they didn’t have comfortable pants for movement with them. But they did great in jeans! And even the woman who said, “I’ll just watch,” did everything and left me a wonderful Yelp review. :)

The first Yoga & Tacos yesterday was a great hit! There were five yogis - would have been seven but a couple was running late - and we ate 23 breakfast tacos. I had bought bubbly and orange juice for mimosas for celebration but with all the excitement I completely forgot. So this Saturday we’ll have mimosas!

And today I taught my first studio class and seven people showed up! And what chaos ensued! I had a great flow ready to go and I was going to walk around and adjust while cueing through all the perfect poses, just all the things were going to be oh so fabulous. In reality, I’m pretty sure we only did all the things on the right side. Upswing, I made a joke about how when you graduate Yoga Teacher Training your rights become your lefts and your feet become your hands and everyone laughed. And the only way to get better is to do it! I know this! I will make mistakes and do weird and awkward things, people will hate my teaching. But I will also get better. And I want to be better, I need to be better. But there is only so much cueing I can do into my mirror in the morning, or as I go to sleep at night - which I really don’t need to do. I need to sleep at night, not think of, “hips high to the sky; walk, skip, or jump your feet to the top of your mat; inhale, half lift” I could literally go on and on.

So we’re off and running and I’m excited. I’m on Facebook, Yelp, Nextdoor, and Google Maps. I have a website, with pictures of me doing yoga, so it must be real. Now, I just need to make time to do some yoga.

Image: independentman