My hat is off to all the working moms out there. I’ve always had a suspicion that, while I could make it work if I had to, it wasn’t really for me. This first weekend of the next stage of yoga teacher training has proven that too me.

I love teaching yoga – and I love doing teacher trainings, because we get to dive into the deep end of the pool. It’s a new way of becoming a student again. But it’s draining. Two to three hours of practice a day, with additional physical work when doing practice teaching or looking at bodies, is a lot! Particularly on this four-month post-partum, anemic, sleep deprived mom. We also don’t have a whole lot of breaks during which I can pump – two (if I push it) during a 8 hour day (including commute) just doesn’t cut it. While I’m fortunate enough to be able to pump extra during the days between training weekends, and am close to keeping up with her supply, I know that this is only going to work BECAUSE I have only one day a week where I’m gone for that long, and the other two days I’m gone are at times when she wouldn’t eat as much anyway.

I can’t really say that my mind is always separated from what I’m doing in my training – it’s not too hard to generally stay focused on task and not drift off to wondering how she’s doing, except for during Savasana, that is. But it certainly is a distraction. And, though I am happy to see her when I get home, I’m sore and tired, so I wish that she didn’t require so much physicality out of me.

This first teacher training weekend focused on standing poses and backbends. With my new body, it’s certainly a whole new practice, and backbends, which used to be a place of freedom and exploration, are now tentative, cautious things. The teacher for this weekend is the same one that taught my 200-hr training, and I feel like she has changed her teaching. It may be due to the fact that we have a very wide range of students in the class, but I like the approach, even if I find it challenging and somewhat different than I’m used to. (Though, I can already see, we are likely to have a difference of opinion when it comes to the prenatal section of the class, and I’m already thinking about how I want to approach those differences.)

On that vein, there is a final project that needs to be done for the class, and I’m thinking about making it related to prenatal yoga in some fashion. The final project has sparked a fire of creativity in me – well damped by the other demands on my time though it may be.

I’m happy for these four (or eleven, depending on the week) days between training weekends, even if one day each week will be in back to back yoga classes. It feels like a chance to slow back down (ironic, coming OUT OF a yoga weekend) and reconnect with Daphne.