11 Ways Yoga Teachers Sell Themselves Short: Don't Spend Another Dime on Yoga Teacher Training or Continuing Ed Until You Read This!
May 10, 2018
Before you enroll in another yoga training or professional development program, make sure you’ve checked off all these boxes:
1. Confirm that your teacher is available and happy to offer you personal guidance and one-on-one support during the length of the training, whether in person or by distance.
2. Check out your teachers’ teachers, know whom they’ve studied with. Consider it a red flag if the faculty of your training does NOT willingly and openly share the history and background of their own learning.
3. Make sure that your teachers are also continuing students of yoga themselves, and that they are committed to their own ongoing and active development as a teacher.
4. Join a program that promotes an ongoing, supportive, and respectful community gathered around yoga practice and study, not just the business of teaching yoga.
5. Find a teacher who lives their yoga, who has plumbed the depths of their own experience through internal practices like meditation and brings that experience into their teaching.
6. Verify that your teacher is also a community leader, someone who guides with the highest integrity and is committed upholding yogic ideals of compassion, honesty and authenticity in every area of their lives.
7. Consider if your program will empower you with the tools to go deeper on your own, rather than leaving you feeling like you need more and more training. Speak with other students to find out their experience of putting the skills they received into practice.
8. Feel confident that your teacher is a professional, has clear communication skills, and responds to your requests in a timely, respectful and generous manner (even if it is through an assistant). You deserve to study with someone who is reliable, responsive, and will be there for you.
9. Make sure that whoever you study with acknowledges you personally, makes an effort to learn your name and who cares who you are as a person, not just nameless student among hundreds.
10. Verify that your program will continue to support you in your process of integrating and assimilating what you’ve received even after the training ends, until it becomes your own.
11. Know that your teacher offers their work in the spirit of offering and service, as a way of sharing their best and contributing to the goodness to the world.
If you’re nodding your head in agreement and we’re on the same page here, then you owe it to yourself to check out our online community of yoga teachers dedicated to sharpening their skills, growing their practice and deepening their knowledge in authentic, meaningful and powerful ways.
Nothing thrills me more than helping yoga teachers feel inspired and empowered about what they do. I’d love to learn more about your yoga background and welcome you to our group!