Hello friends! I’m so excited to be writing as a COM ambassador for the first time. I hope you’re getting excited about starting your COM journey with all of us! It’s going to be an amazing experience that I’m sure you’ll never forget. And with that, there are few moments in our lives that can truly be considered milestones. Finishing high school, entering college, obtaining your first job, getting married. But for me, my biggest milestone so far in my life was reached last weekend. After 200 hours of training in six months, I officially became a certified yoga instructor.
I’ve been a yoga practitioner for quite sometime now, but I have Boston to thank for my pursuit of a teaching certification. At the beginning of my freshman year, I started to miss going to the yoga studio all the time as I did back home on Long Island; I had the blues. So, I started to explore the Boston yoga scene on the internet, eventually leading myself towards Back Bay Yoga Studio (BBY), which is right off of the Arlington T stop on the Green Line. First off, if you’re looking to begin practicing and don’t know where to start, this is the place to go. BBY offers an awesome new member special, which includes two weeks of unlimited classes for only $25. This is exactly how I got my start. I found myself going everyday, sometimes more than once, diving into the awesome facilities the studio has to offer, and learning from the city’s best and most well-known teachers. I learned so much, and I automatically rediscovered my deep passion for the practice.
My decision to go through teacher training wasn’t a hard one. I was profoundly inspired by my main teacher Ame Wren, and when I learned she was leading a training with the studio’s owner Lynne Begier, I called my dad right away, and told him I was investing the $3,000 that I barely had to my name into the training. It was the first time I found myself so incredibly excited and ready to begin a new journey.
But it wasn’t so easy.
As I mentioned, it was a 6-month long endeavor. I often found myself in the studio for more than 20 hours on the weekends. I was assigned various book reports and other extra homework on top of my work here at BU. Nonetheless, I cannot explain how worthwhile the reading and writing was. I had the pleasure to work alongside thirty wonderful people, all of whom were going after the same achievement as me. We shared unlimited tears and laughs, and I feel so lucky to have them all a part of my life!
This experience transformed the way I think, look, act- basically my whole way of life. I pay so much gratitude to every thing I learned about yoga, myself, and the world around me. I’m so eager to start teaching, of course, but I also simply look forward to growing my own practice and to continue expanding my mind and keep learning.
If you’re interested in starting yoga, please don’t hesitate to let me know! I’d love to help out and give some suggestions on where to go, who to see, what to wear, etc. Among the stress that comes with being a college student, sometimes all we need to do is sit on a mat, close our eyes, and breathe.
