You love Yoga. You have been practising Yoga for some time now and you are like ‘ I want to learn properly’ ‘I want to deepen my practice and understand the philosophy behind’ The first thing that comes to mind is to take a Yoga Teacher Training Course.
Now that you are planning to take a Yoga Teacher Training, here are 8 truths about Yoga Teacher that you should know before you take a Yoga Teacher Training.
8 Truths about ‘Yoga Teachers’ that you should know
1. This is ‘practice-what you-teach’ profession
During the Yoga Teacher Training Course, you will go through a beautiful, transforming experience (of course, if you are in a good yoga school). This is a journey that begins with inner purification.
However, you can not classify your life and teaching Yoga as different entities. You gotta practice what you teach on the mat.
Read: How to be regular on the mat? There will be days when you find it difficult to follow your own teaching and there will also be days where you get confused, guilty and miserable.
However, if you practice what you teach, slowly you will see a beautiful life unravelling in front of you.
2. You will face yourself
Yes, most of the time you do not face yourself. During the intensive Yoga Teacher Training, due to intensive practice of asanas, pranayama, meditation and philosophical discussions, you will go through an inner churning.
This most often could be very uncomfortable. You may not find it peaceful. You just do not want to walk on this road.
However, the sunshine is only after that uncomfortable zone is over. Therefore trust the process, the teachers and most importantly trust the practice method.
3. You will be in a popularity contest
This is one part of modern yoga that I hate the most. It does not matter how good you are, your success in teaching Yoga depends on how many followers you have on social media and how you fill your classes.
Though Yoga is about authenticity, inner growth and expanding your awareness, often you end up just doing the opposite.
You will see mostly Yogis and Yoginis being completely outwards, always trying to boost up the social profiles in every possible social media platform.
I personally would hate to be on social media and tell the world what I am up to these days. However, the truth is you have to be there.
If you want to teach students who are genuinely interested to learn, you have to connect with more people.
Even the retreat centres, Yogas studios want you to be part of their community if you are having a big following on social media. This is strange, but an ironic truth.
4. Teaching practice is different from practice
Just because you have a good practice, you will not be a great teacher. Of course, your practice helps a lot in understanding how to teach. However, teaching is a skill that you need to build over time.
Therefore, keep the teaching practice. It is a practice that you need to keep regular in order to get better.
Therefore, I always say the best method to be a good yoga teacher is to start early. The moment you start learning, start teaching.
This does not mean you are good at teaching. It means you have started to understand the skills required for teaching.
5. Teaching Yoga is an Art
Teaching Yoga class is not just teaching some asanas and pranayama. It is a carefully crafted class. It has a beginning, a mid-layer and an end.
You need to plan the structure of the class, the sequencing of the class.
Therefore, you need to spend time understanding the sequencing of the Yoga Class.
If you have not studied in your Yoga Teacher Training, invest your time to attend workshops and classes to understand the sequencing of a Yoga Class.
6. Yoga Teacher does not know everything
Just because you’re a Yoga teacher, you do not know everything. It is completely okay to accept this fact.
When your student asks a question that you have no answer for, don’t hesitate to tell the student that you do not know.
Be honest with your students. Most often your students will be happy to see you being honest.
You do not have to live in the constant pressure of knowing everything.
7. It is a lifelong journey
The more you teach and practice you realise more to learn. It is a never-ending ocean of knowledge. You can not just think that you have learned everything after 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training.
You need to keep learning to be a better teacher, better practitioner and a better person in general. This is where teaching helps!
The more you teach, the more you learn. I firmly believe that you become a student only after you become a teacher.
8. It is not a great journey every day
Once you are a Yoga Teacher/practitioner, you will not have great – positive energy every day. You will still have bad days, bad practices, failures, frustrations etc.
However, what changes here is your perspective. Though you encounter all these, you will develop more observation and you will start responding to the situations instead of reacting to them.
These 8 truths about Yoga Teachers should be known to you if you are planning to become a Yoga Teacher.
It is a great profession because you are able to touch the lives of many. You help others to grow with positivity.
The glittering eyes of the students at the end of a Yoga Class are priceless. It is a beautiful journey, for which there is no comparison.