Yoga and Pilates

Since I got back from teaching on the retreat in Turkey last year I've been trying to work out where I'm going with my career. As some of you know, teaching a retreat in the sunshine on the beach had been the height of my ambition. After it happened, as early as the plane trip home I felt deflated and directionless.

I've carried on teaching, I've carried on reading, I've carried on going to yoga training days. Don't get me wrong, I love my job with a passion, I'm just looking for something else.

I had two directions. I could either go back into academia and write my PhD or I could pursue the health and fitness avenue.

I mulled it over, I drank a lot of cups of tea and then I realised that right now I'm not ready to face academia again. If one could write one's PhD without the politics of academia (and Cambridge University is like an Agatha Christie novel there is so much lying, gossiping and backbiting) it would be wonderful. But one can't.

So to cut a long story short I have decided to pursue the health and fitness route further. I am already a qualified yoga instructor and yoga therapist and Level 3 on the Register of Exercise Professionals, so the world is my oyster in terms of where I can go from here. Because I already teach and have my Anatomy and Physiology Diploma (which I'm going to do the Refresher for), I can branch out without having to do the hours and hours of supervised teaching and anatomy exams.

So I have decided to train to teach Pilates as well. Personally I think yoga and pilates work well together (not in the same class obviously, I mean from a teaching perspective). As my yoga practice and my teaching become slower, deeper, working on subtle energies, so I feel I need a more dynamic and anatomical challenge. It's also another string to my bow workwise/clientwise.

I will do the eight week intensive once we move to Cambridge next year. In the meantime I have to do at least 30 hours with a Pilates instructor.

Now, I did a lot of Pilates in the past, but haven't had a teacher for a couple of years since my old teacher went back to Australia. So I went to my first class with my new teacher yesterday. Oh My God I'd forgotten how hard Pilates is! I ache and ache!

But it's a new challenge, a new step on the career ladder, another step in getting my body back to full health and another step for Project Fitness.