The Yoga Teacher

A few weeks ago I read a novel by Alexandra Gray titled The Yoga Teacher. I was drawn to the book because the main character chucks her well-paying day job to run off to an ashram in California to take in one of those intensive teacher training programs. She dreams of teaching though at the end of her training the cold reality of eating and paying bills gives her a long breath pause or two.

She rather quickly builds a private clientele and a reputation as a wonderful teacher that lands her cushy gigs teaching obscenely wealthy older ladies, a rock star's wife and a internationally known actress - not the typical scenario of most aspiring yoga teachers - but her basic dilemma about ethics over giving people what they want is a common theme, I think, among teachers.

One thing struck me.

After completing her training, the instructor advises all the students to "... start teaching. Don't wait until you are perfect. Just grab some people and get to it."

Which is where I am. I am not perfect. I don't have a smooth delivery. I forget things. My sequences don't sing auras. They lurch here and there and I can see instantly when they aren't working though I don't always know what damage control to apply in the moment.

And I am not me in the role yet. Sometimes I am Jill or Catherine, and I fall back on my teacher persona from back in the middle school English teacher days of yore. I haven't gelled as much as I am just congealing haphazardly.

Building a teaching practice is not the stuff of fiction. There are no former models, aristocratic ladies who lunch or famous actresses in my teaching future. I have a few students. Four in total who are registered and a couple of curious who've dropped in but haven't returned.

Yesterday's Flow class had one student. She was making up a class she'd missed earlier in the week. My registered duo were no shows. It was disappointing, but once I started class, I let that go fairly easily and fell into the instruction.

Jill says that it takes time and as I am not a patient person, this is probably one of the multitude of tests the universe has sent me over the course of my life. Lessons that have mostly been for naught as patience doesn't stick to me like carbs do.

To help me out - and herself too because it's hard to build a studio on your own back alone - Jill has given me one of the noon drop in's. My goal is to form a bridge between the drop in and my Saturday class. To this end, I am scheming up a sequence I can down-size to drop in size and stretch out for the Flow class. People want to feel as though they have "exercised" which is only part of what yoga is, but it is the part that matters the most to the most people.

If you are in teacher training or a newly minted yoga teacher, I recommend Gray's The Yoga Teacher. You will nod, smile and thoroughly relate.

Teaching My First Yoga Class

My "desk" at The Yoga Room

I started filling in at The Yoga Room before I finished my 200 hour teacher training. Mainly I covered the Drop-In class at noon, which was 45 minutes and based on the Ashtanga standing series. Nothing to brain twisting. If you know Primary, you to could lead the noon drop in.

The challenge was leading students through with instruction. Remembering to cue.

There are a lot of cues. Down Dog alone has two platforms and has cues from fingers to the soles of the feet and back again.

I taught the Hatha class when Jill was away on holiday in July but teaching is a work in progress. Which is funny because I am a teacher by trade and temperment.

For twenty years, I taught English and its variant courses in middle and high school. I was good at it, which means something in a profession where it is easier to be mediorce than not.

I like planning classes. I love executing plans.

But yoga reminds me - so far - that I learned to teach as much as I was born to do it.

I'm sure that doesn't make sense to many, but I believe that the essential qualities of a teacher are gifted by the cosmic forces and it's up to the individual to hone and perfect them. All the natural ability in the world will not make you good teacher let alone a great one.

Five years into my teaching career was about the point where I could claim competency beyond the average teacher and at ten years - I made it look like magic.

My classes in the fall sessions are Hatha Flow and Restorative. This morning was Flow and I used a sequence I cribbed from the Yoga Works teacher training manual. Tweeked it a tad at the beginning and end, had to dump a few postures to allow for the full ten minutes of Savasana at the end (never scrimp here, I was told) but it seemed to go well. Had more "flow" than the first time I used it when I was subbing a Hatha class.

I am still working on pace. Pace is key. Finding the outer limit of a class's endurance, adequate reminders about the breath and able to teach a pose without getting lost.

Wanting to "teach" the poses and still moving the class along is work. I haven't found my sweet spot or even anything close, but it's not the painful stutter that it was the first few times I stood up in front of a group to teach - this is something. In fact, this is good.

Restorative is up for Monday and I am writing my sequence using Kristen Rentz's Yoga Nap. A relaxation course at the Glenrose Cardiac Rehab in Edmonton, which I attended Friday, reminded me about the breath - specifically breathing exercises. Restorative's prime directive is teaching the body to relax, which is not something people generally think they need to learn to do, so a few simple breathing exercises might be a good way to start a class. Set a tone.

I've missed all this planning and research that goes along with teaching much more than I realized it seems. It is good to put my teacher hat back on.