Your Qualification Means Zilch if you Don’t Follow it with Courage

I’ve been seeing and reading a few discussions about 200 hour teacher trainings not being enough to make you a Yoga Teacher. I read one comment saying “highly undereducated people are labeled as professionals with teaching ability.” And it’s got me thinking. What is enough? The real lessons are learnt after you get the piece of paper to say you are qualified. And if all they care about is the money and time you spend on trainings, without even seeing how you teach, what does that tell you? I’m not going to become a great teacher by regurgitating what my teacher trainer says. It happens when I step foot in the door to my class, when I’m at the front of the room with all eyes on me, and I’m digging deep to speak from experience, I start finding my own style, using inspiration and motivation to grow as a teacher.

I think as teachers we put too much pressure on ourselves. To be a certain way and to say the perfect thing every time. To come up with the most creative flow with all the fancy poses. To be everything ‘they’ expect of us and more. And I’ve been there. Sometimes the doubt crushes me and I get to feeling like a fraud. But then I’m reminded that I’m doing this thing because I love it, and I’m sharing a practice with people that has the ability to enliven and empower them. I am there to guide them, ultimately they do the real work, and that means they will only ever hear what they want to and do what they are ready to.

The most important lesson to live by is that the only thing holding you back is YOU! If you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to. And that’s what gets me about people going around saying that as a teacher with 200 hours training, I’m not qualified. Purely basing their judgement on this superficial fact. You don’t know me and you certainly don’t know what I am capable of. I’m not saying I’m an expert and I know everything there is to know. But my intention is in the right direction, I’m teaching for my students and not as a means to boost my ego. Everything I do is a way to help them get what they need out of the practice. My experiences and my journey through yoga is as valuable for them as it is for me. I try to crush expectations and open their minds to new ways of thinking. But really none of that matters, because at least I’m there at the front of the room TRYING. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for a lot of people.

So when I’m reading that ‘I’m not qualified’ I can at least be thankful that none of those doubts got to me. After all, if I don’t start somewhere, I’ll never get to where I want to be. I am constantly learning and I am evolving as a human as I step more fully into my teaching role. I have been met with resistance, with the standard statement that I don’t have enough experience, but that’s a dead end I’m not willing to fall for anymore. That offers no path for grow, no way to resolve it. This experience they speak of doesn’t mean another course. It means time in the studio teaching, working hands on with students. We learn by doing and sometimes we have to do anything we can to make that happen.

And if that means starting with 200 hours, try your best to teach from the heart, and when you make a mistake, learn from it. Then resolve to grow a little bit more every time. That growth doesn’t come with the certificate, it comes with courage and confidence to put yourself out there. You got this! WE got this!! 🙂

This post was inspired by a quote I read that struck a chord with my values, that reminded me I am worthy and I am good enough to be teaching. I gain experience everyday just by stepping out with a teacher’s mentality and I will continue to do so as best I can. The teacher, Prasad Rangnekar, states:

Becoming a Yoga teacher is a matter of personal intent. When one can become a Yoga teacher is a purely personal choice, but according to me there are definitely some considerations about what makes a Yoga teacher. A Yoga teacher training course definitely (hope so) teaches you how to teach but it cannot make a teacher out of you. Only you can make a teacher out of yourself. I have had the opportunity of knowing many Yoga Teacher training graduates who have taken hundreds of hours of training under various teachers of different styles and yet have not started teaching even though they really want to teach. They have the intent, they have the desire but yet things don’t move. This happens because of one important impediment which we all are very familiar with and that is, self-doubt.

It takes something else to actually get out there and teach, it takes courage and perseverance. This courage and perseverance comes only though Sadhana. Sadhana means doing your regular practice with faith and patience. Practice does not only mean “going on the mat and doing your stretches”, it also means constantly negotiating life challenges to refine the mind and in turn generating deeper awareness of self and the world. In the scope of someone wanting to teach, Sadhana also means the practice of going out and teaching, teaching even if 2 students turn up for the class, teaching even if only one person signs up for the workshop, teaching even if students leave you and go to other teachers and teaching even if your mind tells you that you are not a good enough teacher. It is through teaching that one learns to teach and not through taking courses.

Neither a wall full of certificates, hundred types of malas around your neck nor fancy Sanskrit spiritual names from different lineages are going to give you the courage to face your self-doubt unless you are disciplined enough to do your Sadhana regularly and are ready to courageously face the challenges that this very Sadhana pulls out of your flesh.

Many students are afraid of the word “discipline” because they perceive it as a regiment. But, discipline comes from Willingness and Dedication, while Regiment comes from Authority and Compulsion. Disciplined Sadhana is the most important defense against the influence of limiting tendencies that have matured over life times.

As one gets deeper into Sadhana, two beautiful changes start happening. One, the Sadhana strengthens Faith, faith in the process, faith in the Guru and faith in the self. This Faith is one of the foundations of life as a Yoga teacher. An unshaken Faith is the answer to the ever so active self-doubt. Second, as the Sadhana deepens our journey into our-self, we realize how much there is to know, and wonder how we have been perceiving ourselves in a shallow manner for so many years of active living. This awareness dawns not as frustration but as an effortless understanding, a joke of sorts that allows us to laugh at ourselves. This major paradigm shift keeps us modest, keeps us humbly seeking the Truth within. It is this humble seeker that makes a good teacher. It is this humble seeker and disciplined sadhak in the teacher that will make the teacher inspire others, way beyond their influence in the role of a Yoga teacher.

To become a Yoga Teacher learn to be a Yoga Seeker. Without a Seeker there can be no Teacher, within or without. ❤