My Story part 1

A friend asked me how I got from being an Engineer to where I am now, a yoga teacher. I thought I would write about it here… (but don’t worry Joan, we can still talk about it in Japan.)
The process actually started while I was still in university. I was studying Systems Design Engineering after having served five years in the British Army where I was fixing guns. I was lucky enough not to have been sent to the gulf during the first gulf war and instead ended up at a ski chalet in Bavaria. That might be the subject of another entry but suffice it to say that just as that got war started I was already trying to get out of the army.

When I finally did get out I set my sights on getting an education. I had the vague notion that engineering would satisfy my desire to use mathematics in a practical context, or at least let me continue to learn more mathematics while I was getting learning something practical. Leaving the army the only skill I thought I had was that of fixing guns so the idea of coming out of university with something useful was seemingly an attractive one. Even so I was dimly aware that I wasn’t born to be an engineer, at least not in the modern sense of the word where the engineer seems to be relegated to using his or her hands to move paper from one pile of paper to another.

While I was in engineering I used one of my terms to go on an exchange at an Australian university, the university of Queensland in Brisbane. It was while I was there that I started taking the dance classes the strangely led to me becoming a yoga teacher.
The classes seemed to be based on moves from the latest MTV videos so for an hour each day a bunch of us became stars, at least in our heads.

When I got back to Canada I asked the head of the university recreation department if they had any classes that were similar. They didn’t but the department head told me that if I took the aerobics instructors course that the department was offering, why then I would be able to lead my own classes.

She seemed to have missed the point that the reason I wanted to take the classes was because I wanted to learn…

Still, I did like the idea of being in front of an exercise class. My imagination filled the class with lots of young ladies.

I took the aerobics instructors course, and had a blast. Then I started teaching and absolutely did not enjoy myself at all.

Part of it was the struggle to find music that I liked that also had the required beats per minute. Part of it was seemingly conflicting views on what a “warm up” was and what it wasn’t. Part of it was that I just wasn’t having that much fun. I was glad when the term ended and I could quit.
Later on I did get into teaching spinning classes and found that a lot more enjoyable. Beats per minute weren’t so crucial. Nor was choreography. All I had to do was set the scene and let the people in my class go from there.

Somewhere around the time when I was still trying to figure out different ways to warm up a class I read about one of the latest fitness fads, power yoga.

Power yoga was described as a set sequence of poses, like tai ji, with the warm up and cool down already built in. At last, no thinking involved, I could just get on and do it. I don’t think I was thinking about teaching yoga at the time. I was just interested in learning a routine that was complete in and of itself. I also thought that at the least, I’d do yoga for a few months, learn the routine, get flexible and then get on with my life. Little did I know that it was actually going to become a part of my life.

It wasn’t until I graduated and after I moved to Calgary that I actually found a studio that taught “Power Yoga.” I visited it once, saw that they had a book on power yoga and decided to buy it and teach myself. And so for about the next year that’s what I did. I practiced at home, learning the series a little at a time. I occasionally went to classes but more often than not did my own practice at home. The practice was far from easy. Quite a few of the poses I did were quite painful and although I stayed in those poses for five breaths, those five breaths were often a lot faster than the five breaths I took in the other poses.

My body slowly began to open up. And I began to open to the idea of going to classes. My mind also opened up in other ways. I remember when I first looked through my yoga book I was shocked to see some of the positions I might have to get into. I thought at the time “No way would I do that.” Not that I do all of those poses now, but I’m getting closer and I am at least open to the idea of being able to do them.