Julie, teacher of Mom & Baby yoga

Today must be my lucky day. In the middle it seemed like a crazy, frantic, too much to do kind of day, and then I went to meet the owner of Elevation Pilates & Yoga about teaching a Mom & Baby yoga class. I guess I expected something more formal than, how about Thursdays at noon? But there you go. This is the same locale where I substitute taught for my friend Heather two weeks ago and happened to meet the owner. Oh yeah, and the owner has a 4-1/2 month old baby and is my guaranteed student!

Yesterday I taught a practice Mom & (Crawling) Baby yoga class with my fav pre/postnatal teacher Jane observing. Adding babies to the mix of a yoga class is definitely an adventure. I was blessed to have two students & their babies and I was blessed to have ONLY two students. I have to acknowledge my spontaneity ... I only planned this class on Saturday and managed to get two students I didn't know and a busy teacher to observe.

Jane had marvelous feedback - good stuff and constructive stuff. I learned that vinyasa is not for new moms and it's really good to acknowledge that whatever the babies do or need is just fine. I'm really glad my new class - starting Thursday 9/14 from noon - 1:30PM - will be babies that don't crawl yet.

Tonight I subbed a7:30PM hatha flow class at Elevation. The clock read 7:35 when my first and only student strolled in the door. "Am I late?" she asked, breathing quickly.

"No, you're just fine." I said a silent thank you to the dieties in charge and remembered one of my teachers saying that if you only have one student, teach it like a private session. So I did. For the first class ever, I didn't use an index card with a strict sequence. I asked my student what she wanted to do, which meshed beautifully with what I wanted to teach - easy vinyasa and a good restorative finish. I loved being able to lavish attention on one student without feeling divided. I love that this week I taught two yoga classes to people I'd never met before and overall they went really well. I have a long way to go before teaching becomes routine, and I relish the journey.