Day 23-Craig Villani

I LOVED it! :) Absolutely loved it. It was a hard class. One of the hardest I've done. It started 20 minutes late and finished 40 minutes late, so it was 2 hours 20 minutes and it was HOT. But I loved every minute of it, although some of those minutes were PAINFUL!

It was nice going back to the Balham studio, which was local for me in the past, and it is a gorgeous space. I took a spot in the second row right by the stage, as I figured I'd be in his line of vision, and I wanted corrections. He actually didn't do TOO much correcting of the class (although he did some). I loved his explanations. He gave thorough details about each posture, and I got a new perspective from him. It's great to shake up your practice sometimes with a new teacher. I have some amazing teachers, but regardless I appreciate the opportunity to be taught by someone from HQ that was new and a novelty to me, and I felt like I learnt a lot.

I particularly loved the time he took at the start to cover details such as going into and coming out of postures. He explained the importance of decompressing by stretching, and got us to practise before we started class. I know this will stick in my mind in classes to come.

He also led a great meditation session in savasana. His experience comes across well, and I think most of the class were entranced by him. He also had everyone laughing, and made the class fun. He holds the postures for LONG though. I had to come out of second part of Awkward as it just carried on and on, and my legs were burning already in the first set!

A friend who'd already been to a class he did in NYC told me it would be long, hard and good. She was spot on. I think I got a little taste of what teacher training might be like. I'm even more scared now than I was before! Two classes a day of that..? Awesome as it was, that would be a CHALLENGE! I know even more now that I need to build up my strength and stamina to be able to cope before I go to TT. As I was falling asleep last night I had a crazy thought that to prepare myself, at some point maybe I should do double classes for 5 days a week, plus one on Saturday for a few weeks, to see if I can do it. I'm not sure if it would even be possible to fit that around work, but maybe I will try for at least one or two weeks?

I'm on such a high now. A friend text me last night about going together to today's 11am, and I replied saying I'd have to see if I was ok to go in the morning. I was tired after the class, and thought I might need a few more hours break, and that I might go to an afternoon class. But I was wide awake at 7am and sent her a message asking if she was up and wanted to go to the 9am! (She hasn't responded yet :) I've got so much energy today. I hope it lasts through class and that yesterday doesn't catch up on me!