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Hatha Yoga Teachers Training
Retreat |
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From
Sweden to South America |
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Yoga Teacher's Training is Fulfilling Our Dreams |
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by
Marianne Woods Cirone, M.S., R.Y.T. |
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(A
version of this article appeared in the March/April 2002 issue of
YogaChicago.) |
Last
fall, forty-eight anxious recipients from six countries and twenty-four
U.S. states opened identical boxes containing study materials of binders,
assignments, outlines, books and tapes.
A psychotherapist in Sweden, a hotel operator in the Yukon, a
stay-at-home mom in suburban Chicago, a Catholic nun in Ohio, an eye
doctor from Atlanta and a missile designer from the Washington, D.C. area
a hotel operator in the Yukon were among the recipients opening these
boxes. Within, some hoped,
were keys to dreams including creating new careers, enhancing health,
serving others, and attaining inner peace and possibly even enlightenment.
What contents could hold all these promises?
Simply, these boxes contained our first shipment from the Hatha
Yoga Teacher’s Training Program Home Study Course (HYTT-HSC) taught by
the Temple of Kriya Yoga.
Four
months and many hours of study and travel later, this diverse group of
students came together at the Resurrection Center in Woodstock, Illinois,
for our first teacher’s training retreat.
The bearded David Lipschutz, Director of the HYTT-HSC, warmly
greeted students at the door. Soon,
Kim Schwartz, Educational Director, and William Hunt and Carol Moritz,
Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of the Temple’s in-house
teacher’s training program, joined us.
The retreat began on a Thursday evening, with a buffet style
vegetarian meal and an introductory discussion held in a large carpeted
room where the asana (posture) training was held.
The evening ended early in order to let everyone get a good
night’s rest and prepare for the work ahead in the next three days.
Each morning began at 6:00 a.m. with a meditation session, which
David led. Students encircled
David in the darkened chapel on folded blankets and chairs with sleepy
eyes and blankets around shoulders. David
began with a discussion of meditation, followed at 6:30 by a silent
practice using several different techniques. Students commented on the
philosophical and meditative aspects of the course as “enriching”,
“challenging” and “balancing” to their lives.
Paulette Schroeder, a Franciscan Sister from Ohio said, “I felt
at home [with the meditation] since my faith tradition has given me much
along these lines, but doing meditation with extra pointers and new
techniques, as well as being with very interested people was a real gift
to me.” As the sun began to
peer through the stained glass windows of the chapel, the group adjourned
to our asana training room to spend thirty minutes in personal asana
practice as a warm-up.
Kim Schwartz then took the lead in conducting the asana training
sessions, assisted by David, William and Carol.
Before Kim moved to New Mexico, he served as a trainer of teachers
for the Temple’s in-house program.
Kim then developed the detailed asana instructions and tapes for
the home study course and now flies into Chicago to lead the asana portion
of the retreats. In order to
receive certification, the HYTT-HSC program requires student attendance at
two retreats. In addition,
the program offers two optional but very highly recommended retreats
focusing on teaching skills, which David says the majority of students
elect to attend.
Over
the course of the weekend, in two-hour segments we practiced and analyzed
many categories of asana, beginning with those that help to stabilize and
open the hips and shoulders as the primary building blocks.
From there we went on to standing poses, forward bends, inversions
and thankfully, at day’s end, the restorative poses and more meditation
techniques. Kim led us
through detailed explanations of each pose, and the instructors helped us
to correct our poses. After
studying the course’s detailed information for four months, the asana
instruction with Kim brought many questions and lots of light bulb
moments, the most common seeming to be, “so that’s what deepen the
groins means!”
When
Kim found an interesting question with a pose, we were called to quickly
run over (as what Kim called jokingly “the cardiovascular portion of the
program”) to observe and get his in-depth analysis of a pose.
He emphasized the importance of proper alignment so that the prana,
or life energy, is allowed to move through the body in the most balanced
way. By the end of each
session, most of the students had worked up a sweat and were thankful to
be wearing tank tops or shorts.
Advisors
to the students who were either staff or alumni of the Temple’s programs
popped into the sessions throughout the weekend.
In addition to lending moral support, the advisors receive and
review the student’s individual assignments and tests, and offer
guidance via telephone and email. Tamara
Miller-Haeuser and I enjoyed sharing lunch with our advisor Pat Gloor who
went through both the hatha yoga and meditation programs at the Temple.
Another advisor and home study alumnus, Christi Bonello, drove in
from rural Pennsylvania to meet her advisees.
“When I attended my first yoga teacher’s training retreat, I
had never even taken a yoga class before because there weren’t
any within a reasonable drive,” she stated.
Now she has brought yoga to her town and her classes are
flourishing.
This
retreat served students from the fifth class of the home study course,
according to David. David explained that over the past thirty years, under
the leadership of Goswami Kriyananda, the Chicago-based Temple has trained
over 500 teachers through the in-house teaching programs.
The home study program started in 1999, and has graduated 63
teachers so far with the sixth class starting this spring.
Ranging in age from the teens to the seventies, the students have
been a diverse group, with a variety of backgrounds and interests.
In addition to the retreats, the course uses instructional audio
tapes of asanas and lectures by Goswami Kriyananda and others as well as
written material developed in-house at the Temple.
In addition, this material is supplemented by books and videotapes
on anatomy, breathing and asana and an online discussion site where
students can ask questions and receive information from the instructors.
Despite
the diversity of the group in demographics and the fact that relatively
few had met prior to that weekend, the students and teachers mingled
freely and seemed to make a genuine connection.
Nissa Bauer of Portland, Oregon commented, “It was so nourishing
to my soul to be around other people on the same page as I am and to be in
that progressive environment.” Susan
Bayliss, a nurse from Baton Rouge, Louisiana stated, “The fellowship of
the students was the most rewarding factor…it was like finding brothers
and sisters that were separated from you at birth. ”
Mary Bogle, of Loma Linda, California said, “the positive
atmosphere was refreshing.”
During
breaks from our sessions, some students enjoyed winter walks around the
lake and beautiful grounds of the retreat center, while others ventured to
see the town square in Woodstock where the movie “Groundhog Day” was
filmed. During downtime conversations, students shared their dreams to
teach yoga, to open yoga studios and to leave unfulfilling jobs, among
other life-changing ambitions. Many
commented on the blessing the HYTT-HSC has been for them in terms of being
able to meet personal, financial and professional commitments and still
target their dreams. Students shared stories of a wide array of
commitments such as working at jobs, running businesses and retreat
centers, teaching classes and raising children, some as single parents.
Nissa Bauer, mother of a two-year said, “The home study has allowed me
to continue with my “day job” and that will make the financial
transition to yoga teacher much easier and more feasible.
Plus, with the flexible structure, I don’t have to compromise
time with my daughter and that is very important to me.”
As
the weekend drew to a close, the students summarized their experiences
with the retreat. Lisa Bettis,
an information systems executive from central Illinois and mother of two
commented on her increased sense of confidence from the retreat.
“The experience was one of transformation,” she said, “I
walked in the door scared to death that I was too old, large and stiff to
really belong with what I envisioned would be a group of “pretzel
babes”, but I left feeling motivated and confident—and I felt that I
did fit right in”. Lisa
added that the flexibility of this program is allowing her to achieve a
goal that she didn’t think was possible with her commitments at home and
work.
Mary
Bogle added, “As a result
of the HYTT program, I have been teaching six yoga classes a week and my
confidence has increased as a teacher in general…as a grad student, I
never feel quite good enough and I’ve finally gotten as if I possibly
am.” Susan Bayliss, who had
expressed nervousness about teaching her first yoga class the day after
the retreat later said that so many students offered their advice and best
wishes that she went into her first class feeling like “twenty other
people were rooting for me.”
Despite
the increased confidence, by Sunday many of students felt awed by the
amount of information offered and the level of expertise and
professionalism of Kim and the other teachers.
The instructors, however, provided a reassuring philosophical
outlook. “Only teach what
you have made yours, what you have embodied in your own practice,” they
suggested, “your students will come to YOU because they are attracted to
what YOU have to offer”. As
the retreat ended, the students and staff hugged and promised to stay in
touch. The students returned
home to continue their studies, their practices, and their journeys to
fulfilling their dreams.
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