Always Be Prepared To Teach.

I taught my first back-to-back double yesterday.

My first double-teaching day was this past Thursday... I taught the 6:30am and then came back and taught the 8pm. It felt good, the the day was long... And I didn't get a chance to practice because I worked all day. But I am in the "early days" of my teaching career... And so any chance I get to spend time up on the podium is good for me. And I was prepared to teach a double that day.

Yesterday, I was not... At least mentally.

I showed up at the studio to teach the 9:30am class. I had about 16 students in the class. It went smoothly. I held Standing-Head-to-Knee pose a little longer for them. And I made sure to turn the fans on halfway through class, to get the air circulating. I was finding my own pattern. And when class was done, I changed into my own practice clothes and laid down my mat where I wanted to stand in the room to practice in the next class.

About 20 minutes later, I was picking my mat up off the floor. I wasn't going to be practicing. I was going to be teaching that class.

There was some confusion with the schedule for the studio. We recently switched to an online sign-in and schedule publishing system. The printed schedule (the old method) was slightly different from the digital schedule. And thus, neither teacher listed on the schedules showed up to teach because they each thought the other schedule was the correct one. Easy mistake.

So I ended up stepping in and teaching at the last minute. And I was grateful for the experience. All the dialogue was fresh in my mind. I had over 20 students in the class (my most so far). And the second class was better for me than the first. My confidence boosted, realizing I could teach back-to-back classes.

I very much enjoy teaching Bikram yoga.

I didn't get to practice yesterday, though. But I certainly burned calories in the class teaching. You still sweat a lot.

I plan to always have a spare set of practice clothes in my purse from now on... I never know when I may get a call and be asked to step in and teach at the last second.