After 5 years of teaching and studying I had my assessment this weekend. Brandon and I dropped Daniel off at school at the other kids at my sister's house for part at the day and then they spend the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's.
Happily I got to the LA Iyengar Institute early and was able to relax and have time to stretch a little before everything started. That was when I noticed I was getting a headache. Happily I had some peppermint on me.
Our assessors arrived, and the assessor in training, was a teacher I met when I was in Ohio. It was such a wonderful experience to see a friendly face, even though I knew she was not assessing me. We went over what the next 5 hours would be and how the next day teaching would go, 6 hours total.
By now my headache still had not gone away, so in pranayama I added a headwrap to help with the headache, it helped but my head was getting worse. Then the written portion of the exam, I only needed to get 70% to pass. Not much to report other than more peppermint went on my head, I am sure the room smelled WONDERFUL by now.
In between each portion we had a break and I kept praying that the headache would take a turn for the better. Then we came to the final portion of the evening, the demonstration, about 15 mintues into it my headache turned into a full blown migraine. After every pose I am praying and trying to not throw up. But I was able to complete every pose. Until the end when I had to leave to attempt to throw up. Happily I made it back in time to finish that pose and just about die in Savasana as I prayed my thanks that I survived. I struggled downstairs to the car and prayed I would make it to the hotel.... I almost did. And that was my night.
The next day I taught nice and early, the 1st one, 9am. Surprisingly, and happily one of my fellow Yoga Space teachers came to help out. It was wonderful to have a friendly face. I was not too worried about this portion of the assessment, as Carolyn Belko has been teaching us how to do this for the last 3 years. However, in my nerves I did forget to teach a pose to the left- so I taught the pose 3 times to make up for that and teach to the left, mention how pregnant women sit in a pose, and had to constantly slow down and speed up the class to make sure that I could end on my 40 minute mark. During my class the assessor interrupted me at one point to say I was at 20 minutes, I was actually annoyed because I was doing such a decent job of ignoring them. I enjoyed my little class and I think they did too. Outside my little mishaps I felt I taught a good class.
Then the waiting game started. We were told we would get an email after everyone taught, the last person taught at 6pm. So I was thinking maybe 7-8ish???? So we rested- Brandon was really sick. We went to the Getty Museum, and I decided to make my living room blanket inspired by Van Gogh's Irises. Then we went to dinner, as I still really had not had much to each since I threw everything up the day before, and finally back to the hotel to watch the BYU game. Which... we will not mention. I finally gave up on an email and went to bed.
At 1:15 Brandon woke me, he couldn't sleep due to being sick, and told me to look at my phone. At 11:15, I received an email from my Lead Assessor, congratualating me on becoming a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher. So we celebrated the next day with Tres Leches on Temple grounds.
I am finally a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher! I am so excited to be able to put Iyengar next to my name. I guess I can laugh about that migraine and my teaching faux pas now.
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