The cycle is complete!

I taught my first class last night. From here on out I'll keep my posting about class to a minimum, but what a milestone. I arrived two hours before class started to meet with my studio head to discuss the nitty-gritty details of teaching. After a few moments to reconnect, it was time to get down to business. We reviewed the heating, humidity, and ventilation systems in the room. We reviewed the process of checking people in. The night before, I had gone over my dialogue a bit. Yesterday I was tired and shellshocked, fighting a cold, and was of course nervous to see what would happen when I taught!

People streamed into the studio starting exactly a half hour before the class. For a studio that only has ten people in class much of the time, there were fifteen or more people there - maybe sixteen plus my studio head. Checking everyone in and keeping money straight kept me out of my head and busy before class. Many of my yoga friends happened to be there, everyone was welcoming.

Class - started five minutes late, ended five minutes late. It was amazing to get in there and go to the front of the crowded room. My studio head ran the heat in the room for me so there was one less moving part in a room full of people's moving parts. Bikram is 26 postures two breathing exercises, everything done twice. First there are standing postures and then postures on the floor interspersed periods of rest. Getting all the postures in (two sets) in 90 minutes is incredibly challenging. I didn't fret too much about the timing. However, hitting the floor at 55 minutes left me only 35 minutes to complete the floor series, which was just difficult. I ended up teaching one set of most of the poses to get the class done on time.

I really felt that I had lots of good energy to give and good encouraging things to say. I had a beginner in the class and she was excellent, listened well, and I was able to keep an eye on her and keep the class moving. I made two corrections and it didn't mess me up too much, I was able to keep things moving. I need to work on my half moon, triangle, and cobra dialogue, keeping things moving, fresh, etc. I got a little stuck in triangle and said the same thing over and over again (stretch your right hand down left hand up etc.) and my setups for these postures could have been more snappy.

All in all I am extremely pleased and it was rewarding to see them come out of the room, red faced and smiling, cheering me on - "great class!" so timing is something that I can work on easily! One down, a million more to go.