Yesterday, the blog had its one thousandth visitor. I suppose I should give something away…
OK.
I’m going to give away teaching at the gym. After 20 years, I’ve had enough. There’s a few things tied up in this, so I’ll elaborate.
- 1. I’ve been acting as Regional Manager (of a small government department) for the past month, I’m trying to finish my PhD thesis by 31 December, I’m a mum, a partner. I also like to have time for my own exercise and yoga practice… I’m busy. Practising choreography for classes takes as much time – sometimes longer- than teaching the class itself.
- 2. Teaching fill-ins. It doesn’t matter if I say: I can’t. They/I guilt-trip me into doing so.
- 3. Cliques -there are the instructor cliques, and then there a few of us oddities who stand on the outside. I hate cliques… and funny, but those of us who work fulltime, aren’t in any clique. Why is that? WHY?
- 4. My daughter, with whom I teach Body Attack, is leaving for university next month. The highlight of my teaching career has been teaching with my daughter. What more is there than that?
- 5. Because I am teaching so much, I am not getting to classes that I want to do for myself -especially Pump. This really PISSES ME OFF.
- 6. Yesterday, I was given a permanent promotion in my real job. I have staff to manage and more meetings to go to. I want to keep doing my job well. I can’t do this when I am required to constantly give out more than I have to give…!
These are the reasons against me teaching.
However, there is the also real reason I teach: my participants.
The people who come to my classes, who start in the back corner, work their way up to the front row, and sometimes, even become instructors. They mean a lot to me.
On Thursday night, I breathed to some of my participants that I might be leaving, and some of them begged me not to leave. What do I do?
Even though there are so many things stacked against me, and I have so little time, I am finding it hard to stop teaching. It’s like I can’t let go. I want to let go, I want to say: no more. But there is some stupid little part of me that says: keep going.
Why? There is nothing in it for me, except a free gym membership, which I can easily afford.
Why is it so hard to give up?
Why?
AnthroYogini 
Congratulations on the growth of your blog!! 🙂
Teaching is incredibly rewarding and as I’m sure you know, a wonderful learning tool for the teacher.
Perhaps it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Perhaps you can place enough value on your own time, happiness and needs to be really clear with the gym – you will teach xx number of classes a week and no more. Where xx = whatever number you think you can handle after you’ve looked at the other demands on your time and created a balance that works for you.
If they don’t like it, teach somewhere else. I have a friend in Tamworth who runs her own yoga classes in a little space she found. You could do the same if you wanted to…
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity
I just told Rhiannon that I was going to quit. She was fine with it. She wants the money for her savings for uni… so I’m feeling better about this decision all the time.
I guess I’ve done the ‘I’m teaching X number of classes’ with them several times. I got a lot of flack from one of the cliques over that! I had to really stand my ground and say that I’m not teaching on weekends, and that didn’t go down well.
They don’t get that people who work fulltime don’t want their weekends clogged up with more work commitments.
Yes, I could teach yoga somewhere else, but with the PhD thing, I’m not wanting to teach anything extra at the moment. I just want *me* time!