Recently, some people have asked me about how long I have been teaching and practicing yoga, so I have been reflecting on that time in my life.

It was October of 2014 when I boarded a plane to South Korea to live abroad and teach English for a year. I was just 8 weeks shy of my 25th birthday. I didn't move to South Korea totally by myself. I had a couple friends living there already and one of those friends brought me to a yoga studio. I attended general yoga classes there for a month until I enrolled in the 20th semester of the Healing Alchemy/Yoga Teacher Training course at Ayurveda Yoga Academy. Before this move I had taken a few yoga classes here and there in the Madison area. But, after joining this course, I gained unlimited access to daily yoga classes at the studio and began attending at least one, often two, classes a day.

The school where I taught English was 3-5 minutes away from the yoga studio by foot from door to door - depending on how many times the elevator had to stop. My English teaching job at that time would have periods of long breaks between classes so I would "sneak" out to take my teacher, Wonjangnim's, yoga classes. And every Saturday morning for the next 6 months we would meet for the Teacher Training course.

In spring of 2015 I graduated for the first time.

This was almost ten years ago.

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I don't know about you and the stage of life you are in at the moment but 24-year-old Amie and 34-year-old Amie feel like two very different people!

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This course and my teachers have let me learn so much about myself. Despite what it may seem like, yoga is not at all about the shapes you can or cannot make with your body. It is such an internal practice. What conversations am I having with myself when I make these shapes? Turning in was not a thing that came easily for me. The only thing I knew for certain after my first graduation was that my idea about yoga was very narrow. I was only focused on the shapes.

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The way the YTT course works is that, once you graduate, you can take the course again and again to keep studying and learning to deepen and grow your understanding of yoga.

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So I practiced and studied and taught yoga classes and another year went by. I attended the Healing Alchemy Course every Saturday morning, enjoyed bibimbap and iced lattes for lunch, taught English full time, missed out on parties, practiced more asana, delved into theory, experienced moments of laziness and distraction and another year went by. I continued to work full-time as an English teacher. I missed weddings and funerals back in Wisconsin. I kept teaching yoga classes and started taking clients for 1:1 yoga. I observed my thought patterns and questioned everything. I participated in all night breathing meditations. Felt tired and frustrated. Felt more happy and relaxed than I ever had before. I started studying and practicing Thai massage and another year went by. I engaged in screaming, crying, laughing, and dancing meditations. I attended weddings and funerals in Korea. I kept working full time and taking and teaching yoga classes and studying every Saturday morning and gained new understanding and another year went by.

I repeated this until June of 2021 when I moved back to Janesville, Wisconsin. Here, I continue to engage in these activities just in a different setting and with less access to bibimbap. 🙃

That is a very brief summary of what I have been doing since 2014. We are currently in the 35th semester of the Healing Alchemy Course so I have graduated a total of 13 times. (I missed one early on due to me following my habitual pattern of questioning all my life choices and leaving South Korea for 11 months only to return with a fire lit under my bum to be the most diligent student I could be!)

But, thanks in part to the lockdown, the course is now available online and I am due to graduate again at the end of March and start again in the 36th semester.

And, while my understanding of yoga has definitely widened, it's difficult to imagine a day when I will graduate for the last time.

Because as long as I am sharing yoga I want to share it from the people who shared it with me. Who are sharing it from the people who shared it with them.

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Repeat.

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(With a little reluctance I share with you 24-year-old Amie's reflection on her first graduation from Ayurveda Yoga. 🙈)