How I Became a Yoga Teacher… a Metalhead’s Story
What are the first things that come to your mind when you think about a person who practices yoga?
Do you think about hippies? Someone who wears tie dye and burns incense? Someone who prays and believes in God? A person who is super smiley and happy all. the. time? Probably someone who may err on the liberal side, right?
If you answered yes to all of those questions then you would be correct.
Before I started my yoga practice those were the exact thoughts that popped into my head when I thought about who a yogi was, and who they ought to be. It’s no secret that there is a very large population of yogi’s who fit that exact description. They’re amazing people and I love them all!
However if you answered no to all of those questions then you are also correct.
Then there’s me. I practice yoga. I am also a 200- Hour Certified Yoga Teacher. HOWEVER… I am not a hippie. I hate incense. I do not pray to or believe in God. I pretty much invented the resting b*tch face. I’m not always happy all the time. And, while staying as far away from politics in this article as possible, I am not exactly liberal.
I’m a self proclaimed metalhead. I listen to Slipknot and Metallica in my car on my way to teach my yoga classes, and I blast it just as loud during my car rides home after class. I started a metal band with my best friend Lisa when we were 14 years old. I played bass guitar and classical guitar. I’ve been to countless metal shows and met a lot of my favorite musicians in person. Lisa and I have even gone as far as to reach out to the Howard Stern show in order to meet Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. We made it on the air, too!
I’ve always considered myself to be unconventional. I am a lover of horror movies. My first memory of my childhood was when my father showed me Halloween when I was three years old. I’m a huge NFL football fan. I take my fantasy football leagues very seriously. I have a very dark sense of humor. I was raised on George Carlin stand-ups and “In Living Color”. Remember during one of Chris Rock’s stand-ups when he said “You’ll never find someone who likes ‘Seinfeld’ and the Wu-Tang Clan”? Well here I am, Chris!
I drink, I curse like a sailor, I post questionable memes on Facebook on a regular basis, and I am not sorry for any of that.
So imagine my internal conflict, the struggle within (Metallica reference coming at ya) when I contemplated starting a yoga practice of my own. Everyone will think I’ve gone insane! The horror!
Well, truth be told, they would have been right to think that. Going insane is exactly what brought me to yoga in the first place.
It was during the winter of 2018… when after going through one of the hardest times of my entire life (more on that in another article) that I made my way down to my basement, rolled out a mat, and decided to give yoga a try. I had just recently been fired from my long time job. I was at the beginning of a serious financial cleanup, and I was at the peak of the most painful physical ailments I had ever endured (and it didn’t seem like it was going away any time soon). I was broken, beat, and scarred (quote Metallica), and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My mental stability at that time was non-existent. I was in too much physical pain for almost all forms of physical activity. I needed to do something that would not only be gentle on me physically but would help me get out of my own head.
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you this… but as I sat down there in my basement trying to convince myself that starting yoga was a good idea, an unlikely person came to mind. Someone who had inspired me to start yoga. This woman I am referring to is Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I sh*t you not!
She appeared on an episode of either Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight that I happened to catch one day, right after she came out of prison. She talked about how yoga really helped her get through her prison sentence and manage her extremely high anxiety levels she experienced during that time. I can’t quite remember what poses she was demonstrating, but I remember thinking to myself “If this woman can do this, so can I!” I admired the physical strength she gained from her consistent practice. I also took note on her unusually very calm demeanor. Anyone who’s seen her show knows she’s famous for her explosive temper.
Funny enough, Teresa and I had that in common. My famous redheaded temper was another aspect of my personality that wasn’t very “yoga-like”. So much so that one of my high school teachers once referred to me and my explosive temper as “80 lbs. of dynamite”. He wasn’t wrong…
So I plugged in my Firestick, searched for yoga videos, and turned on one of those 30 Day Yoga Challenges. Started with Day 1, respectively, and off I went.
As you’d expect on Day 1, I was learning the foundation poses of yoga. It was on that day that I realized I had a LONG road ahead of me. Not just a long road of the yoga journey itself, but a long road to becoming stronger mentally and physically. In fact, when the video asked me to come up with my very first mantra it was this:
“Look strong, be strong”
I encountered the same struggles that most people face when they first start yoga. I had ZERO flexibility, and zero upper body strength. I was rather disappointed in myself considering I used to be a figure skater back in the day. How I had let myself go since then. Now I was incredibly frail, thin, and unhealthy. I had put my body through a lot, for a lot of years, before finding my way to a yoga mat. Years of nights with only 3–4 hours of sleep. Years of binge drinking every night after a long day of commuting in and out of Manhattan for work. Years of waking up hung over only to pound down massive amounts of coffee just to get through the day. Years of barely eating. Years of crippling anxiety and being in “fight or flight” mode 24/7. And years of my body turning on me and putting me through nearly debilitating physical pain.
Something that they teach you in yoga that I never learned anywhere else before: learning to be kind to myself. Forgiving myself for my past and how badly I treated myself. Remembering that whatever path I was on before starting my practice happened for a reason and to just come as I am in my practice. To be grateful for and to love my body for all that it was allowing me to do so early in my practice. To be thankful that I was still alive. That I was on the road to healing every aspect of my life. And it was working!
Gradually, I started to view the termination from my job as a blessing in disguise. I took full advantage of it, and used that brief hiatus to focus on myself and get my sh*t together. I spent a lot of the time hiding out in my basement every day for those first 30 days of the yoga challenge focusing on myself and my yoga. In other words, aside from my posts on social media, I’d more or less gone off the grid. I’d developed a better and more restful sleeping pattern, cut back on the booze, and even adopted a completely plant based diet. Yes, you read that right. The formerly hard partying metalhead had gone vegan. I’m still a metalhead though, I promise!
By the time summer 2018 arrived I felt like a very much improved version of my old self. Ready to slowly re-introduce myself back into the world. I found myself a job closer to home on Long Island (no kidding, my job is 10 minutes from my house), and continued with my daily yoga practice.
It was during that same summer that I received a message in my Facebook messenger inbox that changed my life. It was from the admin of a Facebook group I had recently joined called the Yoga Goddess Collective. And that admin’s name was Crystal Gray. She asked me something that I never thought anyone would ever approach me with… ever:
“Have you ever thought about becoming a certified yoga teacher?”
Ummmmmmm nope?!?!, was my first initial thought. Me?!?! Teach ANYTHING? And that thing being YOGA?
Regardless of the fact that I had quickly excelled in my own personal asana (pose) practice, I was still a beginner in the yoga universe. My friends and family were still wrapping their heads around my newfound yoga lifestyle. I was sure they would think I had completely flipped my lid if I risked it all became an actual yoga teacher.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not spiritual, I’m a bit rough around the edges, I’m a die hard metalhead, and frankly I’m a bit of a weirdo. Who am I to become a yoga teacher? And most importantly, who in the world would want me to be their teacher? What would other yoga teachers think of me? Would I be accepted? Could I actually do this?
Here’s another thing that you learn while practicing yoga: to always be your authentic self. As long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, be exactly who you are. This is something that Crystal stressed in the Yoga Goddess Collective and to me personally. That in yoga it is safe for me to be me. And that someone like me CAN become a yoga teacher, and the people who resonate with me will want to learn from me.
I made a decision to do something I hadn’t been able to do with any human being for most of my life. I decided to trust Crystal, her judgement, and what her intuition told her about me. I decided to sign up for Yoga Teacher Training.
7 months and lots of hard work later, I did it. I became a 200-Hour Certified Yoga Teacher! Not only did I learn so much about yoga and teaching yoga, I learned so much about myself. I learned that I have a voice that people actually want to hear, and that I can be a leader. I can help people to improve their lives with yoga just as I did for myself.
Additionally, there are things I learned throughout my teacher training journey that I did not expect. I learned to put my trust and faith in people again. That there were people out there who wanted to help me to succeed. There were people out there who wanted to show their support, whether it was commenting on my social media posts related to my training or coming to my Beginner Series classes I hosted in my yard as my “final exam” during my course. I’ve been truly grateful and amazed that considering the fact that I am not your “typical yogi” there are people out there who can relate to me and want to learn from me.
My future is so bright now. So is my present. Currently, I am teaching an early morning and an evening beginner class at a yoga studio in Babylon (Long Island), an open level class at a gym in Melville, small group classes in my home operating under Caitlin Red Yoga, and I recently started up my own private yoga business Private Yoga on Long Island where I teach private lessons in customer’s homes. I use my past experience with anxiety, stress and overwhelm and how I overcame it through a daily yoga practice as my inspiration for how I plan and sequence my classes. My true passion is to reach those who are currently experiencing anxiety and stress, particularly relating to being overworked and over-stressed at work and during their commutes.
Yoga has given me the tools to take control of my life when it was spinning out of control. It has helped me to alleviate and manage all of the mental and physical pain I had been living with for close to a decade. Had I let my old beliefs about who I was as a person determine whether or not I could practice or teach yoga, I would have never been able to be in a position to help others who are suffering or who have suffered as I have suffered. Practicing yoga and becoming a yoga teacher has helped me to improve the quality of my life while celebrating who I am as a person: a yoga teacher and a Maggot for life! (thanks Slipknot!)
If you or a loved one are looking to develop a yoga practice to improve your overall quality of life, please visit my website Private Yoga on Long Island for more information. I’ve also started a Facebook group that you may join for more interaction with me! Yoga Wellness For Overworked and Overstressed Corporate Employees.
Namaste!
