I Didn't Think I Was Ready for Yoga Teacher Training but Signed Up Anyway and This Is What Happened - büddhi

I love yoga and yoga has loved me back.

I practiced on and off for a couple of years in college and felt like I needed it whenever I was slacking. But still, life (and my lack of ability to prioritize) kept getting in my way of a consistent practice.

Fast forward to finding myself in a job where I can do my marketing thing within the awesome environment of yoga—and then I get the question: “Do you want to join the teacher training?”

– Um…

– What?!

– Me? As a yoga teacher?

I thought that sounded crazy in a good way but mostly a scary way. I thought, “I haven’t kept up with my practice”, “I’m not ‘good’ at yoga” which I knew in my head was not a real reason since there’s no such thing as being good at yoga. But still my ego had me doubting. I mean how many yoga teachers have you had that were not skinny & flexible? I’m not saying that’s right or the way that it should be, but it’s what I’ve been exposed to in my Western experience of yoga. I kept going back-and-forth. Maybe I was getting way ahead of myself and maybe I should wait until my practice is more solid and my hamstrings are more open and…and….and…I stopped myself.

Yes, I was nervous, like really nervous. But everything I’ve struggled with in the past has somehow worked out in the end (so far so good, knock on wood). So maybe this thing would work out too?

Plus, taking a teacher training doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up teaching yoga. Maybe I’d just learn more about it and make a better connection with my practice. I would be 100% content with that.

I am so glad I got my ego to shut up and showed up at Buddhi Yoga on January 23rd, 2015. The training lasted a couple of months and even though I was sore every day for weeks and I felt like I knew far less than everyone else in the training I tried to stop comparing myself to others.

There’s nothing wrong with being a beginner, nobody was born knowing everything, if I already knew everything I wouldn’t be at a training with the goal of learning.

Through the training my confidence went up. We learned about anatomy, philosophy, and more, and I kept being reminded that the physical aspect isn’t the important part of yoga. I learned so much and when we had ‘teaching exercises’ I had the chance to teach mini sequences to the other trainees, then I gathered guinea pigs in family & friends to practice on, and concluded the training with teaching the entire group.

Turns out I loved teaching! I was surprised, it was never my intention. But now all the cliché “where do you picture yourself in X years?” questions have teaching yoga somewhere in the answer.

So was I right? Maybe it wasn’t the right time for the training. Maybe I should’ve done it when I had a more consistent practice. Or when I had more time to do more suplemental reading. Or when the training wouldn’t involve an almost-an-hour commute each way. But honestly, it is never excuses that we’re lacking. It’s spontaneity. If there’s never a perfect time, doesn’t that make all the time the perfect time?

I’m so happy I decided to ignore my many excuses and went for it. Now I couldn’t imagine a situation where I don’t work in some yoga teaching in my life.

Of course I still have so much to learn, I keep taking workshops, and reading, and going to classes, you learn something new everyday no? My home practice is still not as constant as I’d like it to be, my hamstrings still hate me whenever I go into standing splits, but I’ve been teaching a little and after every single class my yoga love is renewed and I can’t wait until I get to teach the next time.