Roxy Yoga

it all began with the big blue bus February 6, 2009

For some strange reason I decided to take public transportation to my first day of yoga teacher training. It’s not like there would have been a traffic problem at 6am. I got up at 5am, walked to this dark corner and watched a few buses drive past me as I ran back and forth across the street wondering what side to catch the bus on. I finally get one to stop and ask the driver, “Does this bus go to Venice Beach?”
“Naw, I don’t know what bus does. Try the Big Blue Bus. Ask that lady over there.”
The lady ‘over there’ who happened to be waiting at the stop at the absurdly early hour told me I have to go to UCLA to catch the big blue bus, a few blocks away. I get to a bus stop and wait and wait and wait in the rain with no umbrella, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt. I met some very friendly UCLA students and one even shared her umbrella with me. I was 20 minutes late my first day! Doh!

As soon as I walked in and heard Shiva talking, I knew I was in the right place. She was so excited and comedic first thing in the morning. Much more so than her usual banter that I experience at Yoga Journal. It was a breath of fresh air to walk into on a rainy, not-so-perfect morning. Then she secured herself as my favorite teacher ever when she got us into a dance party right away. At 8am!

I appreciated that her tank top kept shifting with the yoga practice, almost showing a little too much busty goodness (just like mine typically does) and she kept having to adjust herself. She laughed about it with the class.

She made a point of mentioning that this was not to be a bootcamp experience. Not to diminish people who offer than kind of class. I was so grateful to hear that, more so than I thought I would be. It made me realize just how much I was not looking for the same bootcamp experience I had last year.

THE RAIN! I still didn’t have my rain gear and it was pouring on my way home. It was just silly.

We had theory and practice today, and will have more tomorrow. Her training manual is quite extensive and I’ve been reading a lot in my down time, which they give us a good amount of. She is really concerned about making us better teachers rather than just having us practice something so much our bodies know it. She takes the time to show us the typical beginner’s things we all do. I feel like this will be a much different experience than bootcamp was.