Happy 08 All!

108 minutes left of 080808!
Enjoy it while it lasts.

2nd Class Reflection

I had my second yoga class earlier this evening at Oakland Yoga Studio. It was surprising how nervous I got before class. I have taught more than 30 classes to my high school students over the last school year. But something is just a little different with adults. (I think I've said this before somewhere). Anyways, I had 3 students today... 1 returning and 2 new students. I knew all of my students before they were in class. They either came from church or from my advanced studies program.

Here is a story and two pictures to describe more about how I feel... right now and about teaching in general...

So, I had a plan - cut the nectarine in half, eat half for breakfast and half for lunch. I used a sharp knife and started to cut down the middle of the fruit. I hit the pit and continued to turn the entire nectarine around until the slit went all the way through, except for the pit. Then I grabbed one half of the nectarine in each palm and tried twisting the two halves apart. This did not work.

Next, I decided to try cutting the fruit into quarters. I cut another slit all the way through, turned over the fruit. Started twisting again. This did not loosen any fruit off the pit.

My third attempt included putting the knife blade against the pit, like a wedge, and then wiggling the knife back and forth. This did work! First I got one quarter off... then another quarter off... and then look!
Not quite what you expected, huh. Well, I didn't expect it either! But that is the way with teaching. You have a plan. You implement the plan. You modify it spur of the moment. And if you're lucky, you are successful in doing what you set out to do.

You just have to be open to the possibility that being successful, might not look like what you thought it should have when you first started planning your lesson. And you have to be open to changing the plan as you go and knowing that sometimes there needs to be wiggle room for your students to bring in their own interpretation of the lesson.

I was successful with cutting the fruit. I ate half a fruit at breakfast and half at lunch. The fruit just had a different idea of what half and half should look like. I was successful in teaching my second class. It really did go well. But my sequence was too long and I had to modify and shorten to fit the most important poses and instructions into my hour long class.

Hope to see you all next Wednesday!