Yoga Teacher Training: Final Thoughts
I wrapped up my Yoga Teacher Training course back in February (you can read my recap of the first 2 weeks of the course) and while I initially expected to write this recap right after the course ended, life had other ideas. As you may know from following my Instagram stories, my back took a turn for the worse the last 2 weeks of the course. That eventually led to not being able to walk, traveling to Bangkok to get an MRI, and ultimately ended with the hard decision to receive a minimally invasive endoscopic discectomy to remove a portion of my herniated disc between L4/L5. Luckily that surgery was a great choice and I’ve been pain free for the past 5 weeks since I got the surgery.
I have now left Thailand and am in Mexico (more on that here) with a yoga studio within walking distance that offers Vinyasa, Rocket, Ashtanga, Mysore, Aerial, Yin, and others. Since I’m finally healed enough to get back into a regular yoga practice and in this new beautiful space - it is bringing up memories of my month spent at teacher training. My final thoughts are centered around a couple of items: a personal / daily yoga practice and confidence.
Current AirBnB balcony view where I plan to get back to a daily practice
Personal / Daily Yoga Practice
A daily yoga practice is something that I’ve always been envious of others having - even when I have all the time in the world I can’t seem to motivate myself to practice daily. During teacher training we were doing yoga 4-6 hours / day, 6 days a week and that aggressive routine started to shift my outlook on both a personal practice and a daily one. I’ve learned that a personal practice is much easier with a deeper knowledge of yoga and how it impacts the body: if I want to focus on hips, or shoulders, or backbends, or core - I have the base knowledge of poses that focus on those areas and how to link them together. The linking together is key - it’s what makes yoga feel like art to me. Anyone can lookup “10 Yoga Poses to Open Your Hips” and get a laundry list of poses that do that thing - but how you sequence them and flow from one to the next? That can be real poetry. As for a daily practice…as a lifelong perfectionist I can easily fall out of practice if I have a single bad day - I get discouraged that I’m bad at yoga and it’s just too hard. Teacher training has taught me two things that have changed my thinking.
First, if you show up every single day, it isn’t an activity you focus on but rather just another thing that you do, and that takes the pressure off of perfection.
Secondly, and I believe this is tightly linked to the first, is the concept of non-attachment (Aparigraha, the 5th yama in the 8 limbs of yoga) - and THIS is where I really started to understand the linkage between physical yoga (asanas) and all of the non-physical aspects of yoga. Non-attachment is simply an excellent way to view your body - it doesn’t really matter if you’re tall or skinny or fat or have big ears or are good at yoga or bad at yoga. None of those things define who you are - so they don’t matter. It’s also an excellent way to view your mind - it doesn’t really matter if you’re angry or happy or anxious or upset or ecstatic. None of those things define who you are - so they don’t matter.
While my back injury / surgery has kept me from both a personal and daily practice for the past couple of months, I’m now ready to get back into a daily practice and see how that continues to calm my mind and allows me to continue practicing being less perfect.
Confidence
I was one of the oldest practitioners during yoga teacher training and that turned out to be a real joy for a few reasons. It was eye opening to realize how much of a full-fledged adult I am, fun to be able to mentor and inspire others who are earlier in their journey of life, and grounding to realize the natural confidence I have in new things I try. Teacher training has a big focus on teaching - and teaching requires talking! Starting on day 1 we had all different types of speaking exercises in front of the class and as someone who has spent the past decade in a corporate career where most of my job involves talking…it came naturally to me, but for many others it didn’t.
It was a fascinating experience to watch people who I respected and had wonderful private conversations with…fall apart in a public speaking capacity. Fascinating because I could see so clearly that they were competent, and funny, and interesting, and smart - but they couldn’t see it in themselves (yet.) I’ve always wanted to perceive myself as confident and calm, but I have my own struggles with imposter syndrome. Teacher training was wonderful because it allowed me to start seeing myself in that way because others saw me in that way - more than a few people told me they looked up to me because I was confident (even if I didn’t really feel it) and a calming energy, some would ask for my advice on how they could be that way too. It was a bit of a shock to me, but after hearing it from enough people I started to believe it. Throughout the weeks it was really rewarding to watch people grow from barely being able to speak a sentence in front of the class to teaching an entire 45-minute yoga class without notes. One of the ladies asked me to be in the front row of her first teaching class so she could “look at me and feel relaxed” - it was one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever received.
Even writing this makes me feel boastful, but it’s not and I’m not. I’m allowed to be competent at things and discuss them in that way. Anyways, I’m rambling now, but I think my main takeaway is that we should all be confident but humble in what we are doing. Will we ever be the best? Probably not. Will we always have room to grow? Definitely. Finally - what’s the point of not being confident? There really isn’t one when you think about it.
I’m looking forward to getting back to yoga and hopeful that Puerto Escondido will be able to provide me that.