5 Discoveries Of Becoming A Yoga Teacher

Being a student of Yoga for over 15 years, having experienced a huge variety of styles, teachers and studios, I often had many preconceived notions about being a yoga teacher.

I then completed my 200hr Yoga Teacher Training, started teaching immediately, and soon began to make many surprising discoveries. From my own personal feelings towards teaching, to mutual discussions with fellow teachers, there is a plethora of findings I could share. Here are just a few key points I find to be the most fascinating and interesting:

1) TEACHING BEGINNER STUDENTS IS A BREEZE, RIGHT?

I always imagined teaching Beginners to be much easier than Intermediate or Advanced yoga students. For starters, you’re teaching the basics of Asanas which you personally have been practicing for much longer. Boy was I wrong! From carefully constructed cueing instructions, constantly correcting alignment, breaking down and modifying Asanas; to holding the students attention for at least 60mins, ensuring your demonstrations are thorough and challenging enough so they’ll want to return but not overdoing it, this is no easy feat. The beauty of teaching beginners however is it really teaches you a lot of compassion, patience and humility. We were all beginners once and the fact that I have the opportunity to teach anyone what I am so passionate about, is incredibly rewarding.

2) EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED….

As someone who often prides herself in being highly organized, I assumed with enough planning I would always teach a ‘smooth and successful’ class. The truth is, no amount of planning can prepare you for the unexpected. Like having no-one show up to your class, teaching a student who speaks very little English, or having a class full of complete beginners when you created a sequence that is more suited to intermediates. Perhaps a student injures themselves in your class (perish the thought). Teaching requires an incredible amount of flexibility and creativity, to deal with the often last minute changes and fluctuations.

3) COMPLETING A TEACHER TRAINING COURSE WILL NOT NECESSARILY ADVANCE YOUR PRACTICE SIGNIFICANTLY…AND THAT’S OK

It’s true that you learn an immense amount about your physical and mental body during a Teacher Training course. No amount of training, however intense, will then guarantee you to kick up into the perfect Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana). It takes continuous practice well after the course has finished, to progress to another level. And even when you think you’ve nailed one pose, there’s always another variation to move to. It’s the journey you take toward the Handstand itself that is important, not the final destination.

4) YOU BECOME INCREDIBLY AWARE OF EVERY ‘BODY’

The human body is a phenomenal machine, capable of far greater movement than we often realize or even appreciate. We can be quick to judge other people for how they can or cannot move their body, and easily forget that it’s the journey our bodies take in life that determines this. Since embarking on a teacher-training course, I not only learnt a significant amount about my own body but also focused a huge amount of time on others. This has taught me to embrace the beauty of every ‘body’ I come across, and empathetic of each individual’s limitations

5) YOGA TEACHING IS CHALLENGING.

From spending hours creating sequences, practicing said sequences to ensure they flow well, planning music playlists (if it’s your “thang” to use tunes), traveling all over the City to clients & studios, working ‘unsociable’ hours, keeping a teaching reflections log, promoting your profile to find work, continuous study of yoga/anatomy/philosophy material (books, online blogs, educational videos, to name but a few), taking workshops to expand learning and experience, finding time for your own personal practice; Yoga Teaching can definitely be challenging at the best of times. Would I change this to go back to a 9-5 job? Not in a million years