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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Yoga in French

Today I led my first ever class in French. I agreed to teach it a while ago and have practised a little bit by increasing my vocabulary of body parts. I didn't know chin and wrist, for instance. And I don't remember them now, but I did write them down, so when I go to teach the class again next week, I'll have those words available. I will.

It made me nervous to teach in French and in fact had me in a bit of a mood for days beforehand. What if I can't get the words out? What if they don't understand me? What if I'm a fraud and I really don't know any French and all those years of school French never amounted to anything?

It turns out it was a lot of fun. Part of what was fun too was that I didn't understand everything the guys were saying to me. They'd make a big joke and laugh their heads off and I smiled and they knew I didn't know that they'd just said. They could have been making fun of me. And I didn't care! (I don't think that's what they were doing.)

But it freed me up to try something challenging like that and I'm glad I did it. It made me want to practise some more and teach more classes in French. I'm doing it again next week for the same group of police. But who knows after that? And they were a bit resistant at the beginning, I'll be honest. I was so into being nervous myself that I didn't let their resistance bother me! And afterwards they were very receptive and told me how much they thought they weren't going to like it and how much they did.

One guy even asked me if I'd heard of PX90 and raved about how the moves we did today were a lot like what's in the PX90 videos! I think it's great if yoga gets into mainstream culture and then filters through. It's great! Here's a PX90 commercial so you know what he was talking about.

3 comments:

Nikki said...

Hi Jamine,

I am an American currently living in France. I found an english spoken yoga class here, but I am wanting to increase my french language skills by listening to a yoga class in french. (I am still learning french so I do not have the courage to actually sit in on a french yoga class yet) Do you have a video of your french yoga class that I can purchase online or simply watch online? Or maybe you can refer me to a website that has yoga classes in french? This may be out of your realm, but it never hurts to ask.

Thank you,
Nikki

Unknown said...

Bonjour Nikki,

What a great way to learn french! I do not have a DVD in french and I can't think of any to recommend. I'll post some if I find any that stand out. I think you should just go to class anyhow - you could learn by watching too :)

Bonne chance!
Jamine

Donna said...

I'm a kids yoga instuctor and have written a yoga book with a French section to help Second Language and Immersion teachers bring yoga into their classrooms.
It's called Once Upon a Pose and you can find it at http://www.yogainmyschool.com/book

Do you know of any other resources available for yoga in French?