8 Reasons Advanced Teacher Training Changed My Life

I've been in such a good mood over the past few days, aside from the amazing weather we've had this past weekend, I also accomplished a HUGE milestone in my yoga life. I completed my last weekend in the advanced teacher training (ATT500), culminating in our 'final' teachings and believe it or not, a final exam (yes, even in yoga 'school' we have to study for tests).

This training has had an exceptional impact on my life, not only did it consume one weekend a month for the past year, in addition to countless hours of reading yoga philosophy (even in Jamaica on the beach, I brought the Bhagavad Gitaas my choice book to read poolside!), time away from my husband (he referred to himself as a yoga widow), the training will have a lasting impression on my life in many ways....just to name a few reasons why...

1) Beautiful cOMmunity of fellow yoga teachers whom I know I can reach out to with questions, for  inspiration, to take an amazing class when my body is craving something special as they are all phenomenal teachers.

Top L to R: Dui, Laura, Mary Catherine, Angelyn, kevin, Colby
Bottom L to R: Amanda, Alice, Carol, Lisa & Me

2) Teachers (local and afar) who came to teach us, who brought their unique perspective with an open heart and open mind willing to share all they could to help each of us become better teachers and in some small way, they each left a piece of their teaching with me, which I've melded into my teaching...which impacts each person who comes to one of my classes. This is by no means all of the teachers....but those that had a website, which was easily sharable :)

• Kevin Waldorf-Cruz ~ DC ~ Teaches and the director of teacher training at Tranquil Space 
• Kristen Leal ~ New York
• Megan Davis ~ DC ~ Teaches at Flow
• Dave Kidney ~ DC ~ Teaches at Tranquil Space
• Hari-Kirtana Das ~ DC ~ Teaches at Flow & other locations around DC
• Jane Bahneman ~ Florida
• Kimberly Wilson ~ DC ~  Founder of Tranquil Space
• Mellissa Van Orman ~ DC ~ Teaches at Tranquil Space
• Gina Sager ~ DC area ~ Mindfulness & Yoga Nidra
• Alanna Kaivalya ~ NYC
• Other advanced teachers who can find frolicking around Tranquil Space
• Susanna Montezemolo
• Siobhan Troy-Carranza
• Danielle Polen
• Anne Thiel

3) My OM evolved! I noticed it myself about 6 months ago, with a deeper understanding of my breath and the meaning and impact of chanting on the body (thanks to this training)....and a little bit of confidence and practice, my OM is confident, authentic, insightful, it's ME! (Thanks Kevin for noticing in my final teaching :))

4) Confidence Booster ~ admittedly, I started advanced teacher training a bit early in my yoga life career. I had only been teaching for a few months before I decided to dive right into the advanced training (an additional 300 hours on top of the original 200 hours = 500 hours in the end), but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to keep learning as much as I could about all aspects of yoga. My craving for understanding the philosophical concepts, the deeper anatomical cues, feel good assists, the secret to sequencing a beautiful feel-good class, oh the list goes on...and I left the 200 hour teacher training not feeling 100% confident. I wanted to ensure I had the appropriate knowledge base to teach, to know that I know (not everything yoga...but a LOT yoga). I may have transformed without this training (I'm sure I would have actually), but I believe this training transcended the transformation exponentially. I'm sure I will have many more teacher trainings in my future....but this was exactly what I needed to feel empowered to experiment, to settle into my knowledge, to teach and practice confidently.

5) Tennis Balls!! So, I have to admit, I think the whole training was entirely worth it from learning what you can do to your body with Tennis Balls!! I've probably saved $100s of unnecessary massages, or at least unnecessary neck and upper back aches, foot pain, tight hamstrings, IT band, glutes...OH the list goes on...and Megan Davis is a genius with Tennis Balls. Thanks to some lovely friends who enjoy playing Tennis  ~ You know who you are :) ~ I'm super lucky to have a bunch of them to share with students and private clients. (Maybe, when i can convince my yoga widow to take some pictures of me...I can share some of my favorite Tennis ball exercises with you on the blog)

6) Books Galore: Lets just say that over this past year (ok... years), either as part of the teacher training or on my own as I found something interesting or as gifts from others, I've accumulated yoga books galore! I would say I've read cover to cover more than half of them, some of them are only used for reference material and will likely travel with me the rest of my yoga life...and yes, this is NOT all of them (after I took the picture I found another stack of books), in addition to all of the yoga magazine's I've been collecting over time.  One day, I'll start to write reviews on all of these books...but for now, I think you get the idea.

7) This is just the beginning. With each passage of training, with each piece of knowledge gained, I realize that there is more to learn, more to embrace, deeper breadth to life, yoga, teaching, to explore and experiment on my own. I remember when I was young, my dad would often say (at those moments when I thought I was done and had accomplished something big...usually around significant graduations at school)....you will never stop learning, nor do you want to. He had a much more eloquent way of saying it...but he he was so right. And as Mary Catherine, a fellow yoga teacher,  mentioned in her blog post on our advanced teacher training.... every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Very well put!

8) Self Care. In so many ways, this one intense weekend a month has taught me how important it is to spend time with my husband, make time to relax, find time to call my family, resolve to eat healthy as often as I can.... and to give my self permission to not jump into a new adventure, to take the time to soak up everything I learned. To PRACTICE, EXPLORE, RELAX, JUST BE, EXPERIMENT, BREATHE, simply live yoga.

So, with that, I end this post on my final weekend of advanced teacher training, grateful for the beautiful, insightful weekends with teachers who exposed their hearts, were completely supportive of each other, provided open and honest feedback, their  amazing ideas and final heart-felt teachings full of vinyasa, yin, restorative and meditation. A super BIG Grateful hug to Kevin for his soft and gentle presence.

Just a little wacky yoga picture for fun:

Namaste!

P.S. I'm sure there are more than 8 reasons ATT 500 changed my life, but the post would have never ended likely....so this is a good recap. :)

P.S.S. A BIG thanks to my husband for his willingness to be a yoga widow once a month, for meeting me each ATT500 weekend for a lunch date, for not giving me too much of a hard time for spoiling myself to take a cab home afterwards, for not fully embracing yoga (challenge can sometimes be insightful), BUT for fully loving me.