A virtual path - from the unseen to the seen

My journey into the virtual world of teaching yoga online….

I would never have thought I would / could be teaching regularly online - yet here I am, twice a week. 

I've been blown away by the response - it really shows the power of Dru. At first I did it for my local class and many of them are coming along - a couple to both classes each week - they are all so supportive. Folks who have been to some of my pop up classes and workshops are attending - one person from a workshop I ran at a yoga festival last year, people I used to work with in different sectors, folks' daughters, friends of others on facebook, people I went to school with, folks mum’s - I've (re)connected with folks far and wide. I’ve been truly astounded at the number of people getting in touch and coming along.

The journey….
I’ve been trying to work up to creating online content for ages - my friend Ros and I are running an online course around the chakras and I found I reached a real block when it came to making the videos. 

A year ago, I started filming at the beach thinking I would add voice over later - I set my standards really high - looking at others online and comparing myself - finding myself not good enough. 

Last November, I went back to my life coach, the wonderful Saskia; to focus on bringing abundance, flow and creativity back into my worklife. She encouraged me to keep a gratitude journal, to write about my not enough monsters and to make a vlog about why I was finding it so hard to film myself - you have to understand - I burst into tears when Laura first showed me my draft website 2 years ago - not because I didn’t like it - it was gorgeous - but because there were pictures of me on it and I couldn’t handle that. I managed the first 2 of Saskia’s tasks but never the 3rd - the vlog. I'm still writing the gratitude journal - it has powerful magic.

My 14 year old nephew has his own youtube channel and has no issues making content - I went to him for advice - he’s been great - making me laugh, pointing out that I hold my head to one side and I fiddle with my feet, but he’s always really supportive.

Finally lockdown arrived - the end of my live classes and workshops in the village hall for a while - to begin with I felt quite overwhelmed - we had a lot going on at the time - we were meant to be finishing our house renovation and moving. I took a couple of weeks to sit with the idea - everyone was heading online…. earlier this year I had been to some great training with Business Gateway Argyll & Bute about making online content, Dru Professional Network then ran an online workshop for their teachers thinking about taking their classes online. And finally, I attended a course with Om Line Training about making youtube content - a fabulous piece of advice from Lucy was to stop comparing ourselves to others, to just get on with it, start somewhere and stop worrying about it being perfect! Oh and some good friends volunteered to be on the end of Zoom while I tried out the tech, picked their brains and generally attempted to find some confidence.

My patient husband has been great - we’re living in quite small temporary accommodation and in order to teach, I have to rearrange the entire downstairs - he goes off to hide outside or upstairs depending on the time of day. And he has to put up with me having total meltdowns when I can’t get the tech to work beforehand - last minute stress… He helped me make a video about it…and now I even have a YouTube channel.

It takes more organisation and time to teach online, I find I have to change how I teach too - can folks see me properly - can they hear me ok - one week I turned into a dalek which totally spoiled the vibe of the relaxation - exterminate, exterminate.. the joys of broadband in rural Argyll - allegedly I’m on fibre here… I’ve felt like a beginner teacher again - trying new ways, trying to engage folks who have been coming to my ‘in person’ classes for a long time whilst explain things fully for new folks. I don’t get any live 'at the time'  feedback - gone are the chats about how did you find that, what worked for you and folks' chance to ask questions. Fortunately people are really good about dropping me messages with feedback - that really helps keep my energy up - at first I was nervous about that - was I just feeding my ego by looking for positive reinforcement that the class was ok? but actually, I genuinely find it helps my motivation and does help me understand what works, what could be improved and most importantly helps me to feel connected to my students.

During lockdown, the main focus for my online classes has really been about feeling grounded and at a slower pace. There are already 1,000s of great online classes which are much more 'active' or in the physical layer - I don't see the point of trying to repeat the choice that is already there. 
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However, it’s taken me a while to be comfortable sharing the more ethereal aspects of yoga, as for me it is very personal (and I'm actually quite shy) but I have made a commitment to myself that folks will accept this and come to my classes because that is what they are looking for - I'm trying to learn to not have to try and please everyone.

Big girl brave pants.....

This week there were 15 people (eek) at each class and we experimented with exploring the sun sequence in a gentle way as it was the dark moon - supporting our inner flame to shine light on our shadow and use the dark moon to release stuff which no longer serves into the transformational fire before the new moon today - (preparing to potentially ease out of lockdown into a new world) - and all that....I even managed to find my big girl brave pants and chant the mantra at the end of the sequence for everyone.

I'm never very sure what newcomers make of me wittering on and chanting .... Anyway - the other day I received this feedback from one of the newcomers which made me cry and I want to share it.

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed last night's class.

It was very different from my usual yoga class, which is a lot more brisk and sweaty.
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I really enjoyed the more contemplative style, and the way you described using the core
and movement rolling from the tailbone made a lot of sense to me.

​I'm looking forward to next week!

​Thanks for reading and thank you to the wonderful Dru community and all you amazing people who share space to practice yoga with me. I'm so grateful xo