Our good buddy Matt is off in Bali for the next month taking on a big goal: yoga teacher training! We are going to be checking in with him a few times on his journey to see how things are going...here's how he's doing after week one.

When I said I was going to Bali for a month, people often thought I was living as a vagabond – doing yoga and taking naps in rice fields all day. Rest assured, my experience thus far has been quite different. Here’s what my days look like:

4:00 am: The roosters are awake, which means so is everyone else. The sun isn’t up yet, so I check my emails in bed or do some morning writing before my alarm goes off to tell me it’s time to get this party started.

5:02 am: The alarm goes off. I pack my bag with two pairs of Pacebreaker Shorts, two Metal Vent Teach tops, my Mat, and my notebook + manuals and head off to the studio.

6:05 am: I walk into the studio in ‘noble silence.’ None of the students are permitted to speak, make eye contact with each other, or be “outside ourselves” until after our yoga practice.

6:30 am: Morning meditation begins for 30 minutes.

7:00 am: Insert 2 hours of the most gruelling asana practice I have ever taken. They lead the class with the intention of making us remember what it is like to attend a yoga class for the first time. This means new poses, new sequences, holding poses for 5 minutes (“you should be able to stay in headstand for 10 minutes” they say), and so many chaturangas! And it isn’t a workshop where you get to stop and look at what the next sequence is (and catch your breath). No, this is straight vinyasa the whole time. Needless to say, I had tears streaming up my face as I was in wheel pose yesterday. My body is getting rocked!

9:00 am: Noble silence ends just in time to send us off to breakfast (after some withheld “good mornings” are joyously exchanged). Raw meals are the prescribed menu option while we are doing our training, and there is a great group of us who are diligently sticking to that plan. Bring on the coconut smoothies!

10:30-6 pm: Class time. Guest faculty members come in to talk about NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), yoga philosophy, alignment, teaching techniques, Ayurveda, and clean eating. We sit on bolsters on the floor during lectures and have already started teaching each other sequences and getting feedback on our approach. It’s cool to see how everything is beginning to tie together during these sessions.

6:00 pm: Food time!

7:30 pm – ???: “Still More” sessions. These are surprise sessions we don’t know much about. One has been a “get to know each other” activity with our mentors. Tomorrow’s, we have been told, is to review our morning asana practice that they are going to film so we can see what a class looks like after we’ve experienced it.
We sneak in another yoga class here if there isn’t a Still More Session in order to take advantage of the free classes at the studio we get as trainees. Hanging Restorative Yoga – don’t mind if I do!

10:30 pm: I get home to take a quick dip in the pool to cool off and calm my body down after a full day. I jump into bed – ready to do it all over again the next day.

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Rinse and repeat for the next 25 days. Napping in the rice fields seems pretty nice right about now…

Taking on yoga teacher training is a big deal - we're cheering you on, Matt! What goals are you chasing right now? Are they going the way you expected them to?

Matt is a revelation. He's an International Operations Specialist, coach and mentor, talented blogger, dance party enthusiast and overall cool cat. He's achieving a lifelong dream of attending yoga teacher training soon and has shared with us some of the wisdom of his favourite teachers. Enjoy this post and be excited, because Matt is going to start contributing regularly on the blog. Take it away, Matt!

As I get ready for my teacher training in Bali, I am reminded of the things my teachers have said to me that have deepened my practice over the years. These are the sayings I keep coming back to every time I get on my mat.

"if you can't breathe deeply, you've gone too far." - carolyn anne budgell

She walked over to me in revolved triangle and reminded me that yoga is not about the pose, it's about the breath. When I go so deep into a pose that I can't breathe deeply - like I do seated at the beginning of class - then I need to back off. The breathe is what creates the magic.

"balance comes from patience." - chris chavez

As I frantically attempted to kick up into a handstand, he placed his hand on my upper back and reminded me to chill the france out. When one attempt to kick up to handstand didn't get me up, I would quickly come down and shoot right back up again. His reminder to reset between each attempt, to add patience into my practice, helps me whenever I am in a balancing pose (be that right side up or inverted). When I slow down my mind, I slow down my movements. And all of a sudden the power and awareness I need to achieve balance comes rushing in.

"don't let quitting be your habit." - gloria latham

She says this to the room as we are on minute 72 (or what feels like that) of some arm rotations during her infamous Friday night Kundalini class. All I wanted to do in that moment was quit - to give my throbbing shoulders and tired biceps a little break. Because some days I need to back off because that's where my body is at, and other days I feel like I need to back off because my mind is telling me that I'm more weak than I actually am. Listening to that stingy voice creates a habit - one that I don't intend on keeping. So I kept rotating my arms.

"yoga is easier when you smile." - christie baumgartner

As we sit in a tall seat at the beginning of class, she shared with us that deepening our practice comes when we can smile throughout it. She continued to tell us that when we smile our face muscles actually expand our nostrils - making it easier to breathe. (Yes - you just smiled to see if it was true.) So if I want to create a deeper inhale or a fuller exhale, I don't always need to create more power with my lungs. Sometimes it just means I need to smile. And smiling releases endorphins - meaning I not only have more power because of my deeper breath, I also enjoy the pose a bit more.

What has your teacher told you that you always take to your mat?