Beautiful lightning-lit sunrise this morning. The rain stayed away though.
It was a pretty regular day in the yoga studio. L from England taught her first class which I really enjoyed. We all have to teach the same sequence, so I thought I'd be sick to death of it by the time everyone taught their classes. But everyone has put their own twist on it, so every class has had a completely different feel to it. Two more classes, an exam, and we graduate tomorrow evening! So excited!
I spent my afternoon break at Michelle and Leo's son's early learning centre. It's called New Generation and it's a private centre for children from birth to age 6. Children attend kindergarten here, then begin formal schooling when they are 6 in what we call Grade 1 in Canada. This was a beautiful facility, and the director was a lovely woman from South Africa named Alice. In Greek, she is called Kiria Aliki which means Mrs. Alice. I was "Kiria Devon" this afternoon. The 90 children who attend are separated by age and each have their own classrooms and play areas. Yearly fees are 4400 euros, and the centre closes from mid-July to the beginning of September each year. All staff are qualified early childhood educators, and the kindergarten teachers are certified teachers. Everything is beautiful, bright, and clean, with high quality books and toys. Kiria Aliki shared that they wash the children and put them in clean clothes before the children are sent home, as Greek parents don't like their children to get dirty. All children wear uniforms Monday-Thursday, and on Fridays they can wear what they like.
Main hallway
A typical classroom
Conference area and professional resources for staff
Hallway to infant room with toy storage and playground entrance at the end
Lunch room
Infant play area
Outdoor play area with fake grass (so the kids don't get dirty) and huge awning to protect them from the hot Greek sun
Every year, the school does two major productions. The costumes are out of this world (they have a costume designer and parents pay for these elaborate costumes) and a professional photographer who creates these gorgeous photo albums pictured above.
Kiria Aliki as pictured at the school Christmas concert. Amazing photographs and the most glam director I've ever seen! Wow!
Kiria Aliki and Kiria Devon
Tennis is part of the kindergarten program. That's normal, right??!!
After my fantastic afternoon at New Generation (amazing how at home I always feel in any school, anywhere), it was time for our last session with Marita. I am sure going to miss this yogi! We've learned so much from her in terms of alignment, cues, and hands on adjustments, and I love her sense of humour. The best Marita-ism of today was when we were talking about shoulder stand pose. She informed us, "I'm so in love with this position. Really. For asana study it's one of the glamorous ones." Unfortunately it's not a glamorous one for me. For some weird reason, I'm the only person in my training who can't gracefully roll herself up into shoulder stand. Everyone else just pushes off the floor with ease, and I have two legs wildly bicycling to get my bum off the ground. Today we focused on inversions, alignment cues, and how to do hands on adjustments.
J drinking in the beautiful view and sunny weather
L being Marita's model and getting adjusted in halasana (plough pose)
My turn to be the model as Marita demonstrates how to adjust someone in headstand
And it's off to bed for me. L and I both had massages tonight (three weeks of intensive yoga can do a number on your body) and we have a big day tomorrow--exam and graduation! Excited to be a certified yoga teacher, but so sad for this amazing experience to draw to a close.... One more great thing happened today though... Erin Motz, the "bad yogi", favourited my tweet about last night's blog post! Kind of a big deal!
No comments:
Post a Comment