Monday March 8th, 2010

The exercise:

Your prompt today: certified.

Mine:

Yesterday Kat had her final practicum for her Yoga Teacher Training program. It was basically a final exam – she taught a small class (some fellow students as well as a few ‘outsiders’, me being one of them) while one of her instructors observed her. She taught us for an hour and then we got kicked out while the instructor went over how she did.

I knew that Kat had done really great but that was still a very long twenty minutes while I waited for her to come out of the room. But when she did I just needed to see her smile and glowing face to know that she had passed with flying colors.

That was a pretty incredible seven months she just went through: of giving up every other weekend to learn, of doing homework during the week while still teaching high school French, of practising and practising and practising.

But she did it, and did it so well. I couldn’t be more proud.

Congrats Kat.

Let the next stage of this adventure begin.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Woohoo! Well done Kat! I've been one of the guinea pigs for a friend who did that for Pilates, so I know what you mean about the wait afterwards while they find out how they did. I hope you enjoyed your hour of yoga instruction :) I am impressed with that level of dedication too, it's never easy to make that much time in your life. She's also lucky that you're supportive!

Certified

I have blue belt in Kickboxing. It's the first belt, and it took a year or so before I was allowed to entering the grading to obtain it. The classes didn't seem too tough, and I was enjoying it enough to be going twice a week; the instructors were encouraging and had moved me into their by-invite-only class, meaning that I showed some kind of aptitude.
So the practice class for the grading came as a little bit of a shock. It was the first time they'd stared at me so intently, watching what I was doing and demanding that I get it right. I was so terrified of being told I wasn't ready and couldn't grade that my head was dropping because I was trying so hard to remember to do each move right -- and your head has to stay up, looking where you'd be hitting on your opponent in a fight.
I grew accustomed to the bark of "Head up!" that hour.

They didn't fail me though, so I was able to pass onto the actual grading itself, which was gruelling and tiring -- and only 40% as long as the top belts would be spending there. We spent an hour going through the moves and sparring; the orange belts spent our hour and a further hour and a half, and back then, it seemed like an impossible task. I was wishing there was a clock to check progress for the last fifteen minutes, and I'd actually given up hope of the hour ending. Then suddenly we were told to stop and put our gloves down -- we'd passed!

Greg said...

Heh, no sooner had I left your page than I stumbled across this
this. I hope Kat likes it!

--g

summerfield said...

congratulations to kat! one smart cookie your girl.

my story is rather long, so i created a link for the whole story.

---
Certified

"The guests keep pouring in and the house, an exquisite Tudor-style semi-detached on McLean’s Avenue, bursts with loud conversations and merry laughter above the undiscernible classical music playing from the stereo in the living room. Friends and relatives not seen for years, friends and relatives not seen in months, as well as friends and relatives who live around the neighborhood, have all come for the Stuart's annual Christmas soiree."

To read the rest, click here.

Marc said...

Greg - cheers, I'll be sure to pass on your congrats to her. And show her that comic (which I definitely appreciated).

That sounds brutal. I'm very impressed you passed though, and now know to be nicer to you for fear of getting kicked in the head :P

Summerfield - thank you, I'll pass that on to Kat. And yes she is, I'm very lucky :)

I very much like the start and will have to check out the rest! Soiree is a great word too, just for the record.