I attended the Prairie Love Yoga Festival this past weekend for the first time. Because of my schedule I only purchased two “one-class” passes as I had a workshop for my advanced teacher training on Saturday as well, but I certainly left with a whole lot of inspiring, motivating, juicy goodness – even without being there the whole weekend. Read on to find out what lessons I took away from this glorious experience.
1. “What isn't true will fall away” – Ally Maz
She is my new hero! I went to Ally’s talk called “Confessions of a Yogi in Business” on Saturday and left vibrating on a whole other level of inspired. She speaks the truth - her truth - and you can’t help but feel motivated to do the same. She said a few times in her workshop that “what isn’t true will fall away” which I really needed to hear. I have recently found myself fighting against some changes in my life. Change can be scary for a control freak like myself – lets be honest. But if I think about what Ally said, I can see the things that are changing – falling away – are not in line with what I am feeling is my truth right now. So I will embrace this change because what will be left after the rest falls away is the truth – my truth – and I am a-ok with that!
Me & Ally and some of the gorgeous scenery at the festival
2. “Teach to who you want to come back” – Ally Maz
Ok – I promise this is not just a regurgitation of quotes from Ally, but this was a big one for me. As a Yoga teacher, I often find myself thinking at the end of the class – did everyone enjoy it, was it accessible for everyone, did it make sense to everyone, was it too “woo woo” for some people. Now, I know you cannot please everyone and I learned that early on in my Yoga career. However, when someone doesn’t return to my class, I often still take it personally, even if that student was maybe not best suited for the style of class I was teaching. I want to teach from my heart (see point # 1), and I want to teach people who connect with that – so if the person who was talking through the class because they didn’t “get it”, or was playing on their phone during savasana because they don’t know what the point of laying down for five minutes is, doesn’t return – it’s ok. It’s nice to have high numbers in your classes but if you’re not teaching from your soul because your trying to reach the most amount of people, then what’s the point??
3. There is no such thing as Yoga Music
Singing along with a group of Yogi’s to “Sweet Caroline” while holding a one legged balancing posture, or clapping along to Queen while in Utkatasana, really drove this point home for me during the “Get the Funk out” class I attended on Sunday. I think that at some point in my life I was told “we don’t play music with lyrics in Yoga because we don’t want to take people out of their experience”. So as I made my playlists for classes I would google “yoga music” or just download something from Deva Premal. Now I really do enjoy some of that music, but I was using it because I thought I should, not because I necessarily wanted to move my body and practice to it. So, after leaving the festival I had a strong urge to reassess my playlists and choose the music that I want to practice to (umm see point #1 AND #2). And if the group wants to break into song – I will encourage it, because BONUS Lesson – Yoga should be FUN and make you feel good. Period.
PS... I picked up two more opportunities to bare my soul on the mat this week! I'm subbing the Yin Flow class at Yoga Centre Winnipeg Friday Sept. 18th @5:30pm & leading the in-store Lululemon Polo Park class Sunday morning @ 9:00am - hope to see ya there :)