I have been extremely busy this summer – which I know sounds absurd since 2020 has been the most bonkers year of our lives. Besides the hiking and having fun playing Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza with my boys … I spent this summer fulfilling a long ago forgotten dream. I completed 200 hr Yoga Teacher Training and I am now a certified yoga teacher. Hi, I’m Stef Layton, RYT-200 (meaning registered with Yoga Alliance).
not gonna happen
I started practicing yoga right after my oldest son was born 17yrs ago. Hubs thought it’d be a great idea to get out of the house and get moving. My sister-in-law watched Jake as we headed up to the local gym for Hatha Yoga Classes.
The experience was amazing. I’m sure I loved it because I was a competitive gymnast as a child and then high school cheerleader. My body recognized many poses and I greatly enjoyed the experience.
Over the years I dabbled in classes at the YMCA wondering – could I ever teach a yoga class? I knew majority of the poses, or at least I was so prideful to think I knew them and I was doing them correctly. But every time I looked into Yoga Teacher Training – the cost, the time, the dedication … it was impossible. Hubs’ work schedule was unreliable. Trips to China and Brazil popped up out of the blue – and I was too busy learning to be flexible with his schedule to bother to learn how to teach others to be flexible on a yoga mat.
Homeschooling both boys with a spouse usually out of town and living in a new city with zero family-help lead me to put yoga teacher training in the back of my mind. So far in the back of my mind I wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of it. Rather than think “Not Right Now” I thought “Not Gonna Happen”. Teacher Training became this hazy fantasy a younger me should have acted upon right after high school. Definitely not a possibility for a middle aged homeschooling mom!
chubby old lady down!
Fast forward a decade. Everyone is eventually going to ask you, “what good came out of Covid-19” or “how did you spend your time during quarantine” ?? A dream found me in rehab and demanded I do something with it.
Once the quarantine dropped in Colorado I took my oldest son, 17, to my first Taekwondo Class at the Rec Center. I figured it would be a good way to loose Quarantine Weight (it’s a thing), and get my social butterfly out of the house because he was fading from lack of interaction. Our 1st class was with the brown belts and my boy did amazing impressing the teacher with his kicks. Unfortunately, I did something crazy and “sprained” my calf / knee in the middle of the mat in front of everyone. All of the brown belts turned and looked at me while I clutched my knee pretending I was okay. Their expressions were clear, Chubby old lady down!
Hubs had just torn his meniscus a month earlier on a skateboard so I immediately made my way to his physical therapist. I wasn’t capable of putting my left heal to the ground – hobbling around on my toes. I wasn’t going back to Taekwondo, ever. I spent 2 days each week getting needles in my back, hip, hamstring, and calf.
One of my rehab exercises was a yoga move! Thankfully, I responded quickly to treatments and rehab so my appointments went from 2 each week to 1 each week of July and then every other week in August.
Back in late June I was scrolling through my social media feed with ice on my knee and I ran across a sponsored ad, “Online Yoga Teacher Training, Yoga Alliance Approved Studio”. I laughed – click bait! Never – never ever ever never not in a million years would Yoga Alliance approve online training. It had to be a scam. So I clicked on the ad. Everything seemed to line up with legit teacher, legit studio, legit certification and more than 75% of the price for regular “in person” yoga teacher training … how could this possibly be real?!
I felt like there was a whiff of early morning coffee in the air and I was going to hunt it down! To my GREAT surprise everything checked out. I immediately registered for the class and finally started my yoga teacher training on June 25, 2020.
coming awake – coming alive.
I treated the classes like a job and worked morning, afternoon, and evening. I couldn’t stop reading, drawing, writing, and getting on my mat doing all of the poses. I was a starved woman now invited to a buffet. I felt alive! I could not relate to some posts in the private FB Group where women were “burnt out” on the info, woman didn’t have time for their 50 Hours of Personal Practice. That was not my case. I couldn’t put any of it down. I would not allow this opportunity to pass me by again. I had been too afraid to dream this would ever happen for me.
As a highly functioning ACTIVATOR – finishing projects has been my Achilles heal. I have started hundreds of projects and left them all completely unfinished. Yet, my family found me on my mat every single time they walked into a room. Any room! I absolutely loved the philosophy section. I loved the anatomy section. I loved rehabbing my knee while doing 50 hours of personal practice. The training was a joy to my heart.
Ascent Yoga
As I was deciding how, where, and when I’d be offering yoga – in – the – park classes, I had to decide on a “name” for a FB Page. I couldn’t stop thinking about feeling renewed. Feeling like this was my second chance. I settled on the phoenix. A phoenix is a mythological bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. A phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.
The baby boy who had me going to my first yoga class, now a high school senior, created my logo.
It’s perfect. Everything started falling into place when a 300 hr Yoga Teacher Training invitation arrived in my inbox. Before my 200 hr certification arrived, I signed up for the next one! Not allowing the opportunity to pass me by. I realize there is so much more to learn and I am hungry for it.
flexible off the mat
As I was preparing for my first outdoor socially distanced class … smoke filled the skies. Wildfires raced across the Rocky Mountains burning hundreds of thousands of acres. The weather in the front range was hot, but the air quality: unsafe. My heart ached as I felt all of this hard work for the last 3 months flat line. Many yoga studios were closing, and definitely not hiring new yoga teachers. State mask mandate required masks to be worn inside gyms. Indoor yoga classes were fading. What was this new yogi to do ?
Homeschool PE Classes
Yoga is not just a pretty pose, although our social media obsession has definitely lead us to believe that’s all yoga is … a handstand. It’s so much more!! I’m currently trying to practice “non-attachment”. To my desires, to my stuff, to my plans. And now to my yoga-in-the-park classes before the beautiful mountains.
Our first “Colorado friends” – the ones we met through Classical Conversations who invited us to church and we spent weekly meals with during quarantine and helped me finish my final project, a free yoga class … Their 17yr old daughter has enjoyed yoga with me so I suggested offering time and some creative projects to give her a Homeschool High School PE credit. Which of course sparked an idea – with Google Classroom and online learning now more popular than ever … why not offer all homeschool high school students – anywhere – a PE credit? My love for teaching, homeschool community, heart health learning, online knowledge, and yoga practicing all wrapped into a beautiful new thing: Homeschool High School Online Personal Fitness & Health Class. With weekly online zoom yoga classes and at-home assignments students will study: cardiovascular exercise and care, safe exercising, injury prevention, fitness skills, goal setting, nutrition and diet, and stress management.
So when someone asks me, what good came out of Covid? I learned there are seasons for dreams to come true, but never be afraid to dream !! This joyful thankful heart grew. A high functioning Activator finally became a Finisher! I started a small business. I learned to fly.
* if you are interested in Homeschool High School Personal Fitness Class check out more information! PF&H Info.