How it all began

Last spring at about this time I was doing yoga a few mornings a week with Rodney Yee, Ali McGraw and Patricia Walden . . . Well, my well-worn favourite yoga videos. Instead of keeping my attention focussed on my present pose, I was daydreaming about becoming a yoga instructor. Out of the blue, The Partner said one evening that he had been thinking about the Summer Intensive Yoga Teacher training course, offered at Yoga Passage in July. I was shocked. Had he read my mind? I took it as a sign. We talked for two months about how to afford it and make it possible. Should I do it? Couldn't we both do it together? How could we?

I got a great idea of how to earn part of the money. Most of my great ideas go through a short cycle: inspiration--talk--fizzle. I wanted to change that so I sent a pitch to the CBC radio program Outfront to do the story of me taking the course. They sent me a polite reply that "Our producers feel that this piece is missing the kind of 'unique perspective' that we are looking for." By then I had convinced myself that I had to become a yoga teacher. I had to follow through on the teacher training no matter the personal and financial costs. Here is the pitch:

Yoga Mama

My name is Carmen Letourneau and I live in a small Southern Alberta town. I spend my days home schooling my two daughters and caring for my toddler son. I teach piano three afternoons a week and try to find time to run, write for the local paper, and do yoga. My life is safe and fulfilling, although sometimes I feel harried and tired. I am in great demand as a piano teacher and I am good at it, having been a piano teacher for more than half my life. Teaching is as natural for me as smiling or talking.

I have had many dreams of greatness that have fallen by the wayside. Once I was a dancer. Once I wanted to be a great pianist. Now I struggle to find time at the piano when my eighteen-month old son isn’t crawling on me, or when the dishes piled in the sink don’t distract me from such selfish pursuits.

My greatest moments these days are when I can spend a few minutes doing yoga in the morning, centering my mind and stretching out my tight . . .well, everything.

I need yoga like I need to breathe or drink water. I need it to fight a sore back and a tendency to worry and over-analyze. I need it to calm me and energize me.

I discovered yoga ten years ago in a Modern Dance class at university. I could barely touch my toes. My body was sore and stiff from hours of piano practise—years of piano practise. Yoga was the antidote and the cure.

Because of my remoteness (and before that my poverty), I mostly practise yoga alone. Sometimes I can convince my law-student husband to return to his neglected body and practise beside me. The sound of both of us breathing together is harmonious and helps us remember the goodness of life. There is calm energy and joy in an awareness of the present. I have also known the power of a good teacher and a regular class. I know that with another person I practise more consistently and more intensely. I don’t push myself too far, but I find that my limits expand when I am in a class situation with a good teacher. For many years I have wanted to be that inspiring teacher and to share the power of yoga with others.

Finally the time seems right. I am trying to lay aside the doubts about my abilities, the worries about how I will afford it, and whether leaving the children with my mother will kill her. In July 2006 I will be a participant in the Summer Intensive Teacher Training program at Yoga Passage in Calgary. I will meditate and practise and learn about the human body, forty hours a week for four weeks. I want to do it passionately. I want to leave with an International Yoga Teacher certificate in my shoulder bag. But more than that, I want to see what will happen to my body and my mind as I practise yoga more intensely than I have ever done before. I think I will never be the same again.