practice, practice, practice

In March, our training will have its first Functional Intigration (FI) practicum. This means we will be working with strangers who probably have no idea what we are doing ( unlike our classmates who have been our 'toys' to practise with until this point.) All of the local folk ( me for one) are requested to provide 3 brave souls to be test subjects.
Our instruction David B-Z has suggested we review all of our FI dvds from the training. A recent grad that visited our training, Christine, said that's what she did. Have I done this yet? No. Well only about 20 mins. Time to knuckle down. Even learning that is easy requires some attention.

I'm still here

I've been busy with family lately - paying attention to what is most important for me at the moment.
Time to start getting ready for our practicums. Our teacher, David, sent us a lovely letter talking about them and with tips to get ready.
A few of my classmates are already teaching, some don't intend to teach and a bunch are like me - trying to figure out how to reach out to folks who are ready to be students but don't know it yet. Hmmmmm.

The training continues

We're near the start of our 4th year! Yeah. Lots of side discussions about teaching, both ATMs and FIs and where to find students. I did end up having a class in later winter at a local senior center. It was very informative for me about the mechanics of preparing a lesson and also about how to get across the information that I wanted my students to understand.
Several of my classmates are starting blogs - I've been timid to share mine - you just have to come across it at this point.

Well, no luck teaching an ATM class yet. I jumped thru a bunch of hoops to get on a list of classes for a local senior center, taught a (Poorly attended - tho the center advertised it nicely) intro class but no one signed up to take the class.

I'm now trying at another senior center - oh the advantages of living near the state line. Not as many hoops to jump thru and the center coordinator seemed inclined to put me on the calendar. Time will tell.

I also dropped off a guild brochure at a local health club. Still waiting to hear on that one. It has just been a few days.

We've been in a long break for training but I'll go back at the end of the month.

Just got an email saying my table has shipped. It would have been nice to have it for my Christmas visit with my parents but at least it should be here before our next session.

Learning to teach

Today is the day of my ATM practicum - along with the rest of my study group. We're all pretty convinced that THEY want us to suceed but does that mean that we will. We picked a confusing ( to us anyways) lesson to teach and have had lots of questions about just what does that mean - we're using a transcripted lesson. More later on how it went.

Getting ready to teach

In our May session we chose which lesson we'll be evaluated on for our teaching practicum in August. A lot of wrangling and anxiety there. I'm hoping it will be as straightforward as most stuff has been. My group is doing a lesson from Feldenkrais's esalin series.
I've also made a contact, but not followed up, about teaching at a local senior center. Finding an audience may be the hardest part of teaching. I live in a rural area - gyms and yoga centers are NOT on every corner, not even in every zip code in the county.

Changes

One of the biggest changes I've noticed in myself over the past year and a half of training is how I walk. Now let me begin this by saying I was/am fortunate to have come into the FPTP without major body issues. Other than being bucked/thrown from my horse, I've never really had any physical trauma nor do I have any debilitating diseases.
It is a bit difficult to describe this change. Sometimes I feel it is as if my hips have taken on a life of their own and are moving independently of my intention. Other times I just feel very limber. After having thought about it for awhile, I've decided that what is really happening is I'm using my old level of effort with my new, easier body. Okay, let me try to say that again. The long explanation is that as a result of the FPTP, I've learned to put less effort into holding my torso immobile but I haven't changed the amount of effort I push away from the ground with. What once was enough just to propel me forward, now seems like too much push and makes me feel all wiggly when I walk. This is a good thing I think, now just to stop wasting so much effort pushing with my feet.