I first met Himself on a bone-chillingly cold January night.  I can remember exactly what I was wearing.  I can remember what he was wearing as well.  I can also remember that, after a series of disastrous dates and a realisation that there is more to a relationship than both parties thinking Led Zeppelin IV is the greatest album ever written, I had made a New Year’s resolution to swear off men for the forseeable.  Maybe forever.

I hadn’t banked on Himself.

Now if you are thinking  that our eyes met across a chilly January night and we lived happily ever after, I’m going to have to disappoint you.  It didn’t happen like that at all.

We met through a mutual friend at a gig in an old punk bar in Kingston (I’ve always known the classiest places to hang out in).  He accidentally hit me in the face whilst “dancing”  and I ended up on a date with his flatmate.  Not the most auspicious of starts eh?

But I had more important things on my mind.  The timing of the entire event had been impractical to say the least as I was teaching my very first unmentored and unassisted yoga class the next day.

I had been teaching yoga for quite a while at this point.  I’d initially trained to teach Astanga Vinyasa as an apprentice to another teacher and I had been assisting and teaching supervised classes for about a year.  But this was my first on my own.  To say I was terrified would be an understatement.  As I went over my class plan for the bajillionth time I rued ever being talked into going out the previous night.  I hadn’t had much sleep and was far from bright eyed and bushy tailed.

One thing about a lifetime of Chronic Fatigue is that you become a whizz with the blusher brush.  By noon I was looking, if not feeling, perkier and I took a deep breath and a big glass of water and started the class.

It went brilliantly.  I’ll never forget that first class.  I don’t think any teacher forgets their first class.  And I’ll tell you something, dear reader, it was the only class I ever taught where I didn’t get my rights and lefts muddled up once.

I’d like to say that pre-performance nerves go over time, but I’m not sure that’s true.  I’m not a quivering wreck before every class I teach admittedly, but to this day I get butterflies in my tummy before every session.  Far from inhibiting my performance I think it makes me a better teacher.  By being so aware I immediately become more mindful, more present moment orientated and therefore more aware of my students.

As for the flatmate that didn’t work out.  He didn’t even like Led Zeppelin.  But Himself turned out to be a persistent bugger and here we are over four years later.

Although come to think of it, Himself doesn’t like Led Zeppelin much either!

What I didn’t realise back on that cold January evening was how incredibly interlinked my relationship with Himself would be with my career as a yoga teacher.

(tbc…. maybe!! )

* Happy Friday everyone and thanks everyone for your additions to “things i love thursday” yesterday! I love reading your lists too!

* So Druhv won Masterchef! Rightly deserved I think. Alex, the blonde one who seemed to cook nothing but offal, comes from around this way and is opening a restaurant in Cambridge apparently. I hope it’s not an offal restaurant.

* On this note I’ve had a couple of queries as to what on earth is Masterchef? Well I think in the States you have a similar show but I can’t remember what it’s called. Basically it is a competition for amateur chefs. They get tested on various meals and various time constraints and get cut down and down until there are just three left. And those three have various cook-offs (with Michelin starred chefs – imagine!!) until a winner is chosen. It’s terribly exciting (although it probably doesn’t sound it if you are not obsessed with cooking). I’m kind of thinking of applying. Y/N?

* Today I am guest posting about Yoga Teacher Training in the UK over at EcoYogini. I’ve read your comments so far and I think it’s so interesting the different ways there are of training across the globe. We all have to do what feels right for us and teach and practice from the heart. Anyway, a big thanks to Lisa (EcoYogini) for letting me have the opportunity of reaching a different audience and in return she will be guest posting here on Monday. Hurrah!

Awesome weekends to you all dear readers!!!

Today is my two year blogoversary, so yay for me! Way back when I made that first post I was just on the verge of giving up my corporate job to teach yoga full time. I had no idea what the future held and I certainly had no idea how many great bloggers I was going to connect with through this medium.

Life’s changed even more since then what with our move to Cambridge last year – and I have great hopes for the future!

So to celebrate the last two years, I thought I’d tell you about one of the many steps on my journey from yoga student to teacher (not that we ever stop being students of course!).

One of the hardest lessons you have to learn as a yoga teacher is to not take things personally. The first time nobody turned up to class I wept and wept. It wasn’t until the next day I realised I’d got my term dates wrong and everybody assumed we were still on vacation. Sometimes people come to class, sometimes they don’t. It’s not your fault. You don’t know what’s going on in their lives and shocking as it may seem, yoga class doesn’t always take priority.

Sometimes you will get a student who comes once, and then you never see her again. You have to learn not to beat yourself up about that too. Sometimes they just won’t like you and that’s OK, because if it wasn’t for not liking a teacher, I wouldn’t be teaching yoga myself.

I used to go to a lunchtime yoga class twice a week at the gym near my office. It was perfect – it stretched my body and relaxed my mind halfway through a stressful day. No matter how busy we were at work, or how badly my boss didn’t want me to take a lunch break, I always made sure on Tuesdays and Thursdays I got to my midday yoga class. My sanity, and thus the sanity of the rest of my department, depended on it.

This particular Thursday the regular yoga teacher was away. I was always disappointed when my regular teacher was away. It happens to all of us. There is always a strange sense of loss when a cover teacher arrives. I’ve seen it in the eyes of students when I have covered another teacher’s class for them. I see it in my own student’s eyes when I tell them I won’t be there the next week and another teacher will take the class. Much as we know intellectually that we shouldn’t be attached to one teacher and one style of teaching, emotionally it is far harder to let go.

So let’s return to that distant Thursday lunchtime. I unrolled my mat with a feeling of frustration, not knowing what was in store.

I then took what, at that time, seemed to me to be the worst yoga class of my life. There was no flow, we seemed to be up and down and up and down more times than (insert suitable metaphor here!), and before I knew it, almost apoplectic with internal rage I found myself against the wall being told to “press myself against the mirror”. I’m sorry to say that I then did the unthinkable, perhaps one of the rudest things I have ever done. I walked out of the class before it had finished.

I never do this. I’m one of those people who stay in the cinema until the bitter end even when the film is so long and boring I think I may pass away. I always finish books, even those with which I lose interest on about page twenty and when it comes to yoga classes I am the mistress of etiquette. I never arrive late and I never, ever leave early. I always stay until after Savasana and the closing meditation. Except for this one time.

To this day I can’t tell you what drove me so mad about this teacher. To be honest, I can’t remember her name or what she looked like or much else about the class, apart from having to press myself against the mirror.

Later that afternoon I bemoaned to my office mate about the uselessness of my lunchtime teacher.

“I could do better,” I said.

She smiled. She knew nothing at all about yoga but she did know me.

“I know you could,” she said. “So why don’t you?”