Final Reflections
I am really
grateful for the opportunity to be able to be complete the EDGE project at SUU
and receive additional experiential learning to help me build my resume for my
career. I chose to become yoga certified
and teach free yoga classes to the community for my project and I am so glad
that I did. Becoming yoga certified was
something that I had wanted to do for a long time and I felt the EDGE project
gave me the extra push I needed to dive in and commit to becoming
certified. It took me eight weekends to
complete my certification because the basic yoga certification requires two
hundred hours. I chose to drive to St.
George to become certified at Be Hot because after extensive research, I felt
that they had the best program and facility in Southern Utah.
During my
training, I would take three hot yoga classes every weekend between hours of
in-class learning. We studied yoga
poses, philosophies, meditation, various teaching practices, and taught one
another. We had homework every week that
included reading (we received 5 books and large binder of information) and
daily practice and mediation. It was
difficult to do homework for yoga and keep up on my regular college homework,
but I managed to balance everything and get it all done. I felt that my yoga training was a
transformative process for me and I felt ready to embrace yoga in my teaching
and in my everyday life.
When I finally
completed the course, I was able to become a register two-hundred hour yoga
teacher through Yoga Alliance, a globally recognized yoga accrediting
organization. Having this credential on
my resume shows that I completed a legitimate yoga school certification and
that I am part of a large community that offers classes and support for me to
continue my education. It is a really
big deal in the yoga community to be a part of Yoga Alliance.
Once I received
my Yoga Alliance credential, I felt ready to begin offering free classes to the
community. I am already part of the
dance community in Cedar City and it was fairly easy to find ways to teach
classes. I was even asked to teach
classes which I felt very fortunate to do.
I taught at LDS churches for woman and young women of all ages, I taught
at Cedar High School for the dance team, I taught at On Stage Dance Studio for
children, and I taught at SUU for college students. All of these opportunities led me to gain
greater insights on how to teach because each class I taught was completely
different and I had to be able to adjust to whoever walked in to the
class. These experiences also helped me
to hone in on my teaching and using Sanskrit to describe the poses instead of the
English translation. Sanskrit is a
vibrational language used in yoga. Each
pose has a Sanskrit name, as well as, ideas and philosophies can be said in
Sanskrit.
Overall,
teaching these free yoga classes made me more confident in myself as a teacher
which was the most valuable lesson for me.
I was also able to use my skills I gained as a dance teacher for many years,
but teaching yoga is different than teaching dance. I had to be more descriptive with my words
and demonstrate less with my body. That
was difficult for me at first but the more I practiced teaching, the better I
became. I also learned more about the
anatomy of the body and making sure that as I am teaching I am aware of all of
my student’s body alignments so no one would injure themselves. This education was fantastic for me and I am
now able to give verbal cues of how to fix certain alignment issues that will
also help me as I teach dance.
I
felt I accomplished everything that I set out to do for my EDGE project. It was hard and took a lot of extra time, but
I gained so much knowledge and experience through the whole process. I am glad I was able to do something that I
know will benefit my career for the better.
My initial outcome was to be able to share with the community the
importance of living a healthy lifestyle and how yoga can positively affect
that and I felt I did my best to communicate that message through my
teaching. I am not sure if it came to
pass, but I am hoping I was able to make a difference in those I taught and
hopefully influenced them in a positive way.
I think SUU decided to put an
experiential learning requirement in place to give their students additional
opportunity to gain more knowledge and greater skill in an area of study that
interests them. I know that the EDGE
project did that for me. I also believe
that SUU is giving us this opportunity to complete the EDGE project because it
gives us an “edge” over other graduates from other school looking for the same jobs. We are able to show employers that we have
some experience in our field along with a degree. That makes this program priceless for us
students because we could get the job over someone else who does not have the
additional experience we do provided by the EDGE project. I feel the EDGE project has been such a
wonderful experience for me, and I am grateful that I was able to return to SUU
and complete this project. It has
already benefited my life immensely, and I look forward to seeing what it will
bring for me in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment