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teacher training
By heather | February 4, 2010
I’ve been teaching yoga for nine years now.
When I first started practicing yoga I was a fairly hardcore group fitness instructor, teaching 9 classes a week on average. Step, kickboxing, boot camps – as long as I could sweat and exhaust my students I did it. Yoga bored me, because it was hard for me and I wasn’t in charge of the workout.
I don’t even remember what convinced me to start teaching yoga, probably because I wasn’t in charge of the workout. Or maybe it was taking a class with a not-great teacher, throughout my life and career some of the biggest changes I’ve made have been a result of someone else doing something and suspecting (oh all right, KNOWING) I could do it better. (Confidence has never been a problem for me.)
My only qualification to teach yoga back then was a fitness yoga weekend certification. I look back now at how little I knew and think about what a danger I was to myself and others, especially special needs students. A few years later, injured and on the verge of giving up yoga altogether, I attended an Anusara workshop and my teaching style was forever changed. All of a sudden I could see myself doing yoga for the rest of my life. Every workshop and training I’ve attended since then has focused on that style.
A few weeks ago, I took a hot yoga class that was team taught by the studio owner and a trainee. The trainee was terrible, mostly because her lack of confidence and self-deprecating comments distracted me from the zone I usually get into when I take a class. It wasn’t that she was new, but that she pointed out her errors during the class while giggling nervously, and afterward kept talking about it.
My experience teaching is that when you screw up, 80% of the class doesn’t realize it, 19% only suspect, and 1% know. That one percent is usually another teacher. Confidence makes all the difference.
The difference between this trainee and me is that she was a RYT-200, an official Registered Yoga Teacher. (For those unfamiliar, the 200 hour training is a regulated curriculum overseen by Yoga Alliance.) I had experience, but she had the education. She was official, I wasn’t. It suddenly became very important to me to find a teacher training program.
I had never been particularly interested in pursuing a RYT before that moment, partially because I had been holding out hope that I could somehow overcome distance, financial, and family commitments to train at an Anusara studio 3 hours away. Which is truly ridiculous, not only because teaching at a gym requires absolutely no yoga training beyond that first weekend workshop, but because realistically with two kids under 3 and a full-time job it was never going to happen.
Last weekend I started a teacher training program at a local studio training in multi-style – hot yoga, vinyasa, and Iyengar. Just reading the first book assigned has shown me how much I don’t know about everything from history to breathwork to meditation. I will spend the next six weeks learning Sanskrit pose names, observing other teachers, reading and writing about yoga, and practicing, practicing, practicing.
At the end I will emerge as an official yoga teacher. On the surface everything will look the same – I’ll still go to work, and parent, and teach yoga at the gym. I suspect underneath I will have a whole new perspective.
Topics: yoga | 4 Comments »
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February 5th, 2010 at 4:18 am
I had been teaching for about 3 years before doing my TT (I wanted to do it after 2 but couldn’t afford it).
What I experienced was not at all what I expected, and everything I dreamed LOL.
What I came away with is a more solid self-practice, a bullet-proof guideline to sequencing and more confidence as a teacher, especially the confidence to do adjustments.
What a journey! I wish you luck!
LaGitane’s last blog post..Restorative Flow
February 8th, 2010 at 9:57 am
wow, what parallels! I was encouraged recently to consider the teacher training at a local studio in Sept…. and have mixed feelings. All summer I ‘teach’ a yoga in the park class, cuz no official teachers in halifax were willing and a bunch of us wanted to practice in the park. so in a sense i am ‘teaching’.
I also would love to get anusara training, except it’s provinces away…. like mid-country (canada). so… it will most likely never happen.
you’ve given me much to think about- thank you! Blessings on your Journey!
EcoYogini’s last blog post..EcoYogini the Frozen Sailor
February 9th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Great post! I’ve been a certified teacher for two years. When I did my teacher training, I did it for myself. I wanted to do the immersion program and live a yogic lifestyle for a month and it was simply amazing. I never thought I would be teaching! But, I am in love with it. Good luck with your TT! It sounds like a lot of fun and a great experience!
February 21st, 2010 at 11:04 am
Interesting — I’ve wondered how yoga teachers become teachers. I’m a big fan of Iyengar, often because of the teachers, and learned that they go through incredibly rigorous certifications… made me wonder if that is why I liked it so much, that they really knew what they were doing?? I am always resolving to make more time for yoga in my life!
Holly’s last blog post..Bacchus, Sunday night.